The Eagles' Brood

XVI

It took me almost half an hour to find Titus and instruct him on what I wanted him to do with Donuil, so that as I approached my father's office I found myself thinking that he would, by this time, have had a chance to simmer down and be more objective about whatever it had been that infuriated him. I was wrong. He was still black-faced and grim.

"Where have you been?" he snapped as I stepped across his threshold. I blinked at him in surprise.

"Pardon me. I have been making arrangements for the suitable quartering of my prisoner."

"What quartering? He should be in a cell. We have more to be concerned with than the comfort of an alien raider."

I decided not to pursue that one. "What's the matter, Father? I've never seen you so upset."

"Upset? I am not upset! I am disturbed and uneasy and running short of patience with fools, but I am not upset!"

"Oh! Very well, then, what's worrying and disturbing you?" I had not bothered to close the door behind me as I entered, mainly because his temper had taken me so much by surprise. Normally the most imperturbable of men, my father was by nature cool and judicious, although in his infrequent fits of anger he could be implacable. He walked past me and closed the door himself. I turned to watch him as he did so, noting the effort he made to calm himself before turning back to me.

"Sit down, Caius. This has nothing to do with you. I need your advice. You are far more equable than I am in these matters." I felt my eyebrows rising. What, in God's name, could have affected him this way? I was glad to know it had nothing to do with me, for that left Cassandra free of his anger, too, and I felt a surge of relief. I sat down and watched him cross back in front of me to stand behind his big, wooden armchair. He leaned forward slightly and gripped the arms with his hands. "Priests!" he said, almost spitting the word out. "Tell me about priests, Caius."

I was bemused.. "What can I tell you, Father? I know almost nothing about them. They live to preach the word of God to men."

"Yes, but what are they? What kind of beings?"

"What do you mean, beings, Father? They are priests! Men!"

He cut me off abruptly, with a hard slash of the edge of his hand. "No! No, Caius, that will not do. I will not accept that. They are not men. Not as you and I think of men. That crippled bastard Remus—the one you were unable to find after the affair of the beaten girl—was he a man? I think not!"

By this time I was totally mystified, and I held up my hands with what I hoped was a disarming smile on my face. "Whoa, Father, you're not making sense. I have no idea what you're talking about. Please! Start at the beginning and tell me what's been going on that I have been so ignorant of."

He moved around and sat in his chair, where he scrubbed his face with the palms of his hands as though washing it. That done, he blinked hugely, stretching the skin around his eyes as though struggling to remain awake. "You're right, Caius, you're right, I'm being irrational. Forgive me. This thing sprang out on me full grown. I should have been aware of it much sooner, but I chose to ignore the signals."

I waited, leaving him to collect his thoughts, and eventually his agitated features began to relax and a contemplative look came into his eyes. And still I waited, although it was becoming clear that he was immersed in his thoughts so deeply that he had momentarily forgotten I was there. Eventually, I cleared my throat quietly and spoke. "The priests, Father?"

"What? Oh yes, the priests. They deal in power, Cay. They deal in power."

"Of course they do," I agreed. "The power of God."

He threw me a glance filled with what was almost pity. "God has little to do with it, Caius. Power is power. It exists of and for itself. And the power to sway men's minds is the greatest and most lethal power of all. Why do you think these people exist at all?" I shook my head slightly and he went on. "You don't know? Let me ask another question, then. When did you last meet someone who had spoken directly with God? Not to Him, but with Him?"

"Never." I heard the incredulity in my own voice.

"Why not?"

"Because God doesn't speak to men directly."

My father slammed his clenched fist on the table in triumph. "That's right, Caius! Never directly! Only through priests. And whether the god is called Baal or Moloch or Jupiter or Helios, he has his priests to make clear his will to men. We may be talking of false gods and false priests, but there has never been a god without priests. The priests accept the sacrifices on the god's behalf, and they shape the minds of worshippers the way they wish them to be shaped. I've never really been aware of it before, but I always think of priests with their hands out, either demanding sacrifice or pointing in accusation."

I frowned at him. "What are you saying, Father?"

"I am saying that priests—all priests—are power-mongers. They deal in exploitation, and they exploit the minds of men."

I shook my head in disagreement. "No, that may have been true in olden times, Father, but it's hardly true today. I cannot think of Bishop Alaric as an exploiter."

"No more can I, nor was he. But he may have been the single exception that proves the rule. I have met no other like him, ever." He stopped talking for a space, obviously thinking about Alaric and what he had just said. When he resumed, his voice was more controlled—no less angry, but tightly reined. "There is a new breed of priests abroad in the world today, Caius, and they are multiplying like maggots. They call themselves Christian, but I think they have little in common with the Christian faith I hold. According to their dictates, men like old Bishop Alaric were heretics and unbelievers, misguided sinners who led their flocks astray, to use the shepherd image they are so fond of."

I heard the scorn in my voice. "That is ridiculous! Bishop Alaric was the most devout and holy man I ever knew!"

"Aye, he was. No doubt of it." My father's agreement with me was heartfelt. "But the savage-eyed zealots who rule the roost in Rome now say Alaric was a sinner. He and all his ilk. Followers of Pelagius!"

"What?" I was astounded. "But that would mean half the bishops in Britain!"

"More than half." I was floundering by this time, trying in vain to make sense out of what I was hearing. My father's voice was flat and emotionless as he went on, "Apparently, things have progressed quickly over the past few years among the Christians in Rome. We here in Britain have had little contact with the Church hierarchy since Honorius told us to look after our own affairs eighteen years ago. Since the revolt of the Burgundians in Gaul a few years after that, and the wholesale slaughter of priests then, there has been almost no contact between our bishops here and those in Rome. Burgundians eat Christian priests, it seems. And things have changed."

I felt myself frowning. "What things? How?"

My father grunted deep in his throat. "I'll give you three names: Paul, the Saint of Tarsus; Pelagius, the lawyer of Britain; Augustine, the Bishop of Hippo. That is all you need. Three men, and among the three of them they have bred what may be the biggest power struggle in human history, eclipsing the politics of all the Emperors combined."

"Pelagius?" I was surprised. "I don't see the connection. Pelagius is no priest. He's a lawyer, as you said, and a friend of yours. I've heard you talk of him often."

My father's headshake was brief. "Hardly a friend. But I met him once and spent some time with him. He impressed me greatly."

"I know," I said. "I read Uncle Varrus's account of the conversation you and he had when you came back to Britain twenty years ago, Pelagius and Augustine were at odds with each other even then, according to that account."

"That's right. They were. And the conflict continued. Augustine, it seems, denounced Pelagius to the Bishop of Rome—-who now calls himself the Pope, incidentally, claiming primacy over all other bishops—and demanded his excommunication for heresy. The case went back and forth for several years, but Augustine won. Pelagius was excommunicated and all of his teachings, theories and beliefs were declared to be heretical... I remember that conversation I had with Varrus, but I did not know he had written it down. I'd like to read it. Do you still have it?"

I nodded, my mind skipping immediately to where the book in question lay safely stored. "Of course. I'll bring it to you this evening. It's in one of his codexes in the Armoury. But when did all of this happen, Father? When did the excommunication take place? And what has all of this to do with Paul of Tarsus?"

"Nothing—and everything. Paul's teachings are being used as a means to an end, and we'll discuss that later. What is important to us now, here in the Colony—to you, to me, to all of us—is that Pelagius is outlawed, declared a heretic and all his teachings categorized as heresy. That means that all of us who follow his beliefs are barred from salvation. Almost the entire population of this island we live on!"

I shook my head. "I am a soldier, Father, not a theologian. I cannot see what is so sinful or awful in Pelagius's theories."

"You think I am any different? But I can see the fault for which he was condemned. He dared to stand up against Augustine of Hippo. Pelagius is a humanist, Caius. He believes in the dignity of man, in personal responsibility, in freedom of choice and freedom of will! He stands condemned out of his own mouth, because his teachings undermine the priests themselves. Give a man the right to talk to God on his own terms, to bear God in his own heart and deal with Him injustice on his own behalf, and you negate the need for priests! That's why Pelagius is excommunicate!

"Bishop Alaric and his people have taught the way of Christ to us in Britain. They preach love and infinite mercy, and that nothing—no sin—is unforgivable. But now the men of God in Rome have ruled that Pelagius is unforgivable. They have damned him for daring to differ with their views. That is politics, Caius; there is no love of God involved here. In their lust for power over men, these bishops have condemned much of the populace of the entire world to eternal damnation, unless the world repents and does things the way these bishops want them to be done. That involves changing their beliefs! It may not sound like much when said aloud like that, but when I start to think of what's involved here, it frightens me to the depths of my soul." His voice tailed off into silence.

"But can they do this, Father? Are these bishops that powerful?"

"Who is to gainsay them? They call themselves the Fathers of the Church. They speak, they claim, with the full authority of God Himself and of His Holy Saints."

"Including Paul of Tarsus?"

"Including Paul of Tarsus."

"There's more to this than meets the eye, Father—my eye, at least. What is so important about Paul?"

"Women." My father spoke the word with hard emphasis. "Of all evangelists, Paul is the misogynist, the woman hater. Now, it seems there is a move afoot—not just afoot, but far advanced—to lend far greater credence to his words than in the past."

"How can that be done? What do you mean?"

He drew in a sharp breath. "It has become the style among the churchmen in Rome, it seems, to denigrate women in general. It's a fashion that has been growing since the pederasts and homosexuals achieved their vaunted equality under the Caesars, and it grew even more strongly after some of the Roman women of the great families began speculating in company stocks and in real estate development. But it has grown beyond belief recently. Women are being perceived nowadays in Rome, mainly through the machinations of these churchmen, as the Devil's spawn and servants, dedicated to the damnation of men."

I had never heard my father speak so eloquently or forcefully about a non-military subject. I was astounded. "You must be joking, Father! You are, aren't you?"

He looked directly at me. "No, Cay, I am not. The current mode among the new breed of churchmen is to condemn women, more and more virulently."

"But why?"

"How would I know that? Because they are convenient, I suppose. The Church in Rome has been predominantly a male hierarchy since the earliest times. Women have never prospered in the Church. Perhaps the Elders now seek to crystallize their hegemony. I don't know the underlying reasons, Caius, but that is the way it is." He paused, piercing me with his eyes. "You don't really believe what I am telling you, do you?"

I had to shake my head, for in truth I could not bring myself to believe that he was right. That he was serious and believed himself to have the right of it, I had no doubt, but my sanity demanded that he be mistaken.

"Shake your head all you like, Caius, but disabuse yourself. It is the truth. These things are happening, and they have come to Camulod. That disgraceful debacle in the dining hall last night was proof of it."

"What debacle? What are you talking about?"

"How can you not know? We almost had a riot here last night over this question. How could you be unaware of it?"

"I was away last night. I returned this morning, met with you and have been on the run ever since. What is going on?"

"Good God, Cay! You have to stay more aware of what's going on. I spent three hours this afternoon talking with priests of both factions—our British ones and their Roman ones—Pelagian and orthodox, as these zealots would have it! They have, among diem, issued me—and all of us—with an ultimatum: salvation or damnation, on the terms of the Church in Rome, without any recourse to trial. That is what's going on!"

I was bewildered and admitted it. "I'm sorry, Father. I had no idea. Have we a choice?"

He snapped open his mouth to shout at me, I could see it in his face, and then subsided, looking down at the table top in front of him.

I continued speaking. "I mean, what are we to do? It sounds as though the battle lines between these two schools of thought are clearly drawn. Are we in a position to debate them?"

He sighed, a long-drawn and distressing sound. "I don't know, Cay. I simply do not know. The only thing I do know with any certainty is that this whole question has sprung up suddenly, although it has been fermenting for years. I believe it is the biggest and the most vexatious question any of us will face in our lifetime, or in the lifetimes of our children. How are we to proceed from this day on in the way we live our lives and worship our God?" He was silent again for a short space, and then continued, "I wish my father were still alive. His was a mind fashioned for abstractions like this. Mine is not. How can I take this question to the Council? It would tie all of us up in argument for years. If we accept the dictates of the Pope in Rome and the Bishop of Hippo, we must—and I have to emphasize the imperative—we must abandon completely all of the rules we have been taught to live by until now. That involves the certain condemnation of Bishop Alaric and his kind, who adopted the teachings of Pelagius in good faith. But on a far- more subtle level, it involves the surrender of our will to the dictates of the men in Rome, and that is what Pelagius was against from the beginning. His contention and his fear were that the so-called men of God were taking unto themselves the attributes of God. They were taking the teachings of the Christ Himself and interpreting them to suit their own requirements. And Pelagius was right, Cay! He was right! And they have proved him right by excommunicating him. They have condemned him to eternity without salvation. The Christ whose faith they follow would never condone such extreme punishment. Yet these men, who live in Rome in luxury, I'm told, have taken to themselves the power to tell all others how to live, and to condemn them to perdition if they do not obey." He stopped, and drew another deep breath.

"Pelagius was simple in his teachings. There is nothing anti-Christ in him. He teaches us that we must choose between the laws of God and the ways of licentiousness. He says it rests in us to choose to follow the Christ or to spurn him. He tells us we are made in God's image, with the innate ability to aspire to joining God's heavenly host. That innate ability is at the centre of this controversy. Our will is free, as was the will of him we call Satan. The temptations we face are the same as Lucifer's. But Pelagius gives us hope in ourselves, and dignity, and a sense of worth."

I was fascinated by this new view of my father. I listened, spellbound, as he went on.

"The followers of Augustine of Hippo, on the other hand, deny us that sense of worth. We are born in sin, they say, already doomed to our fate, unless we subjugate ourselves to their ways, begging their intercession with the Divine to give us grace." He was waxing angry again, outrage swelling in his face. He slammed his hand down on the table top and drew himself to his full height. "Do you have anything of great importance to look to now?"

I shrugged my shoulders. "No, nothing that will not wait until tomorrow."

"Good. Let's get out of here and go for a ride. I want to shout and rave and vent my bile, and there's no profit to be gained by doing it where I can be overheard. Do you mind?"

"Not at all, lead on."

While we walked to the stables in silence and saddled our horses, I thought about all my father had said and about the conflict that had so suddenly consumed him. I knew it was important then, but I had no idea that the past hour and the hour to come were to affect me so strongly that they would influence the evolution of an entire country in the course of coming years.

On leaving the fort we took the new road to the villa, but left it at the bottom of the hill and struck south towards the forest's edge. We rode in silence, each of us with his own thoughts, until the silence of the forest cloaked us and all sounds from Camulod were long lost behind us. We rode through a series of dense thickets, which had kept us both busy trying to stay in the saddle, and emerged from the last of them to find ourselves in a beautiful, gladed area with wide expanses of open grassland, from which sprang magnificent beech trees. The thought occurred to me that this must be a holy place to the Druids, and that brought the question of excommunication back into my mind. Most of my Druid friends were not Christian, so they had no worries about salvation or eternal life. Some of them, however, had become converted to Christianity in recent years and yet lived a life that was little altered from their traditional ways. This new direction from Rome, I felt, could be ominous to these people, whose conversion had come directly from the compatibility of the humanity of Pelagius's beliefs and the mellow benignity of the Druidic ways. Some of these men might have been in the fort the previous night, and I wondered if they had been affected by what my father had described as a riot. Finally, when I had gone over everything my father had said for about the tenth time, I could stand his silence no longer.

"Father?" He turned to me. "What happened last night? You said there was almost a riot. What caused it? Who was involved?"

"Priests caused it, Christian priests fighting with Christian priests. I wasn't there. I ate in my quarters with Titus and Flavius. We were disturbed at our meal by a messenger sent to us by your friend Ludo. The common dining hall was crowded, as it always is at that time of night, and an argument broke out when a group of priests who had just * arrived that afternoon refused to be seated at the same table as two of your Druid friends. Popilius, the senior centurion, was in the hall. He offered to reseat them at another table at which some other priests were already seated. They refused to sit with these people, either, and one of them started shouting about damnation and anathema. Popilius tried to shut him up, but one word led to another and these two groups of priests actually came to blows! Can you imagine?

"Well, by the time poor Popilius had gathered his wits enough to call up the guard, the whole place had degenerated into an armed camp. Can't blame Popilius. He simply did not anticipate violence from churchmen, especially among themselves. It got out of hand too quickly for him. But that Ludo's a bright one. As soon as he saw which way the wind was blowing, he sent word to me. By the time I got there, the guard had all of them under restraint."

"So what did you do?"

"Confined the lot of them under guard for the night."

"In the cells?" I was aghast at the thought, but my father dismissed my concern brusquely.

"Where should I have put them? In my own quarters?"

"Good God! I can't imagine priests coming to blows with each other."

"I couldn't either, until I saw it. But I told you I spent three hours with those people today. I have no trouble imagining it now. It was the first such occurrence, to the best of my knowledge, but I fear it will not be the last. Not by any measure."

My father reined in his horse, so that I had to do the same to mine, and when he spoke next, his voice was low and vibrant with urgency. "Caius, hear this. This new band of priests, seven of them in number, provoked the entire disgraceful debacle deliberately. Today they turned the rough edges of their tongues and their intolerance on me. On me! They came into my fort—and it is mine, for all intents and purposes — demanded my hospitality, abused it flagrantly and arrogantly, and treated me like a criminal for having dared to lock them up, and like an excommunicate heathen for daring to differ with their opinions and beliefs. They told me that I should clean out Camulod; get rid of all the women in the fort; and close the doors of Camulod to all priests who will not swear to the apostasy of Pelagius and his teachings. And that I should accept the error of my ways with humility and beg their pardon for my sins!" His voice was shaking now with outrage. "And!" he went on, "And once I had applied for and received their forgiveness, and had been reaccorded the right to salvation, I should begin a series of... inquiries into the beliefs of each of our colonists, doing all in my power to ensure that they conform to the new doctrines! All in my power, you understand, includes expelling people from the Colony."

I was hearing far more than I had bargained for.

"What was your reaction to all of this?"

"My reaction? I had to sit on my reaction. I cannot remember ever having felt so powerless in my life. I could have taken them and flogged the flesh from their bones, Cay, but it would not have made one jot of difference to their attitude. I had no power to change them. These men are convinced that they are right, and that the rest of the world is wrong. There is no giving in them, no compromise, no gentleness, no humanity. They are zealots. Fanatics. They are a new breed of priests altogether, and they frighten me, not for myself but for the world they seek to rule and change and conquer. And they call themselves Christian." He sighed, noisily, a mixture of anger and indignation.

"Four hundred years have wrought a lot of changes in the Word of the Christ. Do you remember the story of Jesus on the mountainside, when he preached the blessedness of the humble, the peacemakers, the seekers after justice? Well, that story and its sentiments sit strangely with the way these men of God behave today. The Son of the Carpenter is being lost sight of, Caius. His words are being reinterpreted and "improved upon." Jesus, the Christus, talked of love and of peace. Now there are factions warring within his Church, condemning each other with sheer hatred and intolerance. Love is out of favour."

"So you said nothing to them when they railed at you?"

He threw me a look that spoke loudly, and I saw Picus the Legate as well as Picus my father in his eyes. "No, I didn't mean that. But I said nothing rash, nothing in anger. I told them that I would consider their words, think about them, and give them an answer soon. And in the meantime, I sent them back to the cells under guard, with strict instructions that they not be allowed to speak to anyone until I have reached my decision."

"And?"

"And what?"

"Have you reached a decision?"

"Yes, I have reached a decision." He kicked his heels into his mount's flanks and we began to move forward again. "But only within the past few moments, in talking it over with you." His voice died away, and I saw no profit in commenting upon the worth of my contribution to the discussion to date. We rode side by side in silence for a spell and then he started talking again.

"One of them told me about a new lifestyle being followed in the Church today. It is called monasticism. It involves a complete withdrawal from public life. Its adherents live in monasteries—enclosed communities of men only, who dedicate themselves entirely to penitence. These people mortify their own flesh, Cay. They abase themselves constantly before their God, who is a contradiction in terms: a Christian God as stern and unyielding as they are. Worldly pleasure of any kind is anathema to them. Women are instruments of die Devil himself, used by Satan to ensnare all men and draw them from the path of salvation. What do you think of that?"

I had to smile. "Aunt Luceiia will be impressed."

He barked his abrupt laugh, his sense of humour reasserting itself briefly. "Aye, she will. I tell you, Caius, the arrogance of these men astounds me. From where I look at it, everything they are doing flies in the face of the gentle, humane Christ that I was taught to worship and revere."

"Aye." I cleared my throat. "So what have you decided, Father?"

He looked at me sidelong, angling his mount closer to mine.

"I believe that the decision I made years ago to follow the ideas of Pelagius was the correct decision. These zealots make Pelagianism sound like Onanism. I see it as the only sane and decent way a responsible, proud man can live his life...with free will and the integrity of his personal belief. If I am wrong, then I will bear the consequences when I die. In the meantime, I shall live my life according to the dictates of my conscience, and I will suffer no person under my jurisdiction to be maligned, harassed or victimized for his— or her!—beliefs.

"These seven priests will leave our lands tomorrow under escort. I will not threaten them. If they come back, they will be made to leave again. And again, until they grow old and tired." He sighed. "I have lived more than fifty years to be told l am condemned as a heretic. And I am told this by a ragged, unwashed man who offends my nostrils and my sensibilities... I choose to live the way I have always lived—perhaps as a heretic, perhaps not. But I can at least stand the smell of myself. If it is mortally sinful to bathe, to laugh, to enjoy life in moderation and to honour women, then I fear I must continue to live in what is seen as sin. I am too old to change."

I felt a surge of pride and love for this man who had sired me.

"These priests are misguided. But they are also dangerous. There is a massive struggle going on for dominance in this world, Caius. These people are the proselytes of the power-mongers. If the newly named Pope comes here from Rome in person to convince me I am wrong, I will listen to him, but he must bring more reasonable arguments than his minions bring. Let's go home. I have some priests to talk to."

It never crossed my mind, then or at any other time, that my father might be wrong. My grandfather and Publius Varrus had lived their lives as they did, models of probity both, in natural nobility and dignity, and they had trained my father. And so it came about that when the boy who was to be my charge came under my influence, I taught him in the old ways of Ancient Rome, Republican Rome, and in the ways of old Bishop Alaric and Pelagius, and in the ways of my father's and his father's Camulod, which was not the way of new Rome. The boy I taught learned cleanliness, simple Godliness, discipline and the life of a warrior. He learned to enjoy the goodness of life, to enjoy and appreciate the goodness and the strength of woman, and to take for granted the inherent nobility and goodness of man.