An Exaltation of Stars (1973) Anthology

by Terry Carr (Ed. )

  Then was read to the prisoner the Third Article of the Charge.

  Article III: The man going by the name Brother Francis is

  charged with claiming to have begun life miraculously, without father or mother, in the body of a boy about thirteen years of age.

  In response to the reading of this Charge, the prisoner declared that he had claimed no miracle but merely described what had happened to the best of his knowledge: that his conscious life had indeed commenced at that apparent age, with no memory of an earlier existence.

  The Lord Bishop of Nupal said: But this would be a miracle, astonishing as a virgin birth. No childhood?

  His Grace reminded Bishop Sortees that cases of lost memory were not unknown, a malady of the mind that was very possibly a punishment for secret sins, and thus no miracle was necessarily involved.

  The man called Brother Francis said: I think this may be, Your Grace. God may have taken my memory, but perhaps to strengthen me as a messenger, or for other reasons that I cannot know. I do know that I woke as if from a void: I was; and my Companion guided me.

  Bishop Sortees said: I am amazed. I should have taken time to read the record of the Preparatory Interrogations. You woke, Brother Francis, knowing the speech of men?

  The Earl of Cornal remarked it had been agreed that the prisoner was not to be addressed as “Brother” since he had demonstrated no right to the title, as would be stated in the Fourth Article. Bishop Sortees apologized for his error, reminding the Earl that he had come uninstructed to the Court in the place of the Bishop of Ulsta, who was ill. Then he repeated his question to the prisoner.

  The prisoner said: I must have done so, Father, since my Companion spoke to me and I understood him.

  The Lord Bishop asked: And no childhood, my son? No childhood?

  The prisoner said: I cannot remember any, Father.

  The Earl asked: Well, what kind of voice has your Companion?

  The prisoner said he knew that voice with the hearing of his mind.

  Earl Robson said: Oh, again, again! Metaphysics!

  His Grace the Archbishop then spoke of delusions wherein the deluded may be innocent of evil intent; and the Bishop of Nupal declared that he thought the prisoner spoke with no evil intent but rather like one impelled by a dream; and His Grace warned against premature judgments before completion of the reading of the Articles.

  ‘The Earl of Cornal said: But I ask myself, Your Grace, what motive the accused can have had for claiming this miraculous or seemingly miraculous thing, other than a wish to dazzle his befuddled followers.

  His Grace said: Let us continue.

  Then was read to the prisoner the Fourth Article of the Charge.

  Article IV: The man going by the name Brother Francis

  is charged with unlawfully assuming that title, being not a member of any religious body recognized by the Holy Murcan Church, and with wearing a robe simulating that of a lay brother of the Ordo Sancti Silvani.

  In response to this charge the prisoner stated that when he woke to life it was with the knowledge of the Companion call-

  ing him, and by the name Brother Francis; that the Companion had always called him by this name and no other, and that he could not remember responding to any other name. As for the robe, he declared it had been made for him by a woman of his company who knew nothing of religious orders. He also respectfully inquired whether there was an actual law of Church or State that forbade a man to call himself Brother or allow himself to be so addressed if he was not a member of a religious order.

  The Earl of Comal said: Verily the Devil is a lawyer. Everyone knows the title is proper only to a monk. Statute or no statute, can this fellow require us to overlook the tradition of the ages to suit his whim? And how should a woman make a monk’s robe not knowing what she did?

  His Grace said: My lord of Cornal, we must not assume too much. This may even be a case of true ignorance on both counts. The prisoner’s robe, I remind you, did not carry the symbol of the Wheel, nor the symbol of crossed shovels that defines a lay brother’s status. And to the prisoner His Grace said: We must warn you, however, that by accepting “Brother” as a title you have caused in some persons a mistaken notion that you spoke with the authority of the Church. This was at least a deception, whether or not by intent.

  The prisoner said: Your Grace, I admit my error in this. I told those who joined me that I was no churchman; I ought to have told them not to address me in a way that could cause misunderstanding.

  Earl Robson said: Your Grace, I think he buys a great sin with a small penance.

  His Grace said: My son, you have spoken with humility, yet I feel a defiance in you still. Are you defiant, at heart?

  After long silence, during which His Grace desired that the accused be not interrupted but given time to reflect and consult his conscience, the man calling himself Brother Francis replied: No, Your Grace, I do not think I am.

  Bishop Sortees of Nupal asked: In accepting the title “Brother” were you perhaps intending to implement that an-

  dent wish for the brotherhood of man which our Savior Abraham declared in the words: “Let us be born again together”—could this be?

  The prisoner said: Those are words that I treasure, Father, but I can say no more than I have said. I woke, and my Companion called me by that name.

  Then was read to the prisoner the Fifth Article of the Charge.

  Article V: The man going by the name Brother Francis is

  charged with speaking against the sacrament of marriage, has lived in open sin with a common harlot, and has inspired the women of his company with such a concupiscent hysteria that they believe him to be a god.

  Questioned as to this, the prisoner replied that he had once said, to those friends who marched with him to the meadow of Gilba, that he did not suppose marriage was the only good way men and women might live together. He said he did not think this amounted to speaking against a sacrament. As for the remainder of the charge, he said it was absurd.

  The Earl of Cornal asked: Do you deny then that you lived in carnal intimacy, while going about under the name Brother Francis, with one Beata Firmin, a common prostitute?

  The prisoner said: Beata Firmin was caught up in the life of a prostitute at an earlier time; she had abandoned it before joining our company. If it has a bearing on my trial for heresy, I do not deny that I loved her, but my Companion has commanded me to live chastely for the sake of my mission. Often Beata slept in my tent, but we had no carnal knowledge of each other.

  Earl Robson said: More fool you, she’s a handsome woman.

  The man calling himself Brother Francis said: Well, my lord, you cannot accuse me both of fornication and of the avoidance of it.

  Earl Robson said: Nay then, nay, we must cease jesting. I remind you that you are on trial for criminal actions as well as for heresy.

  The prisoner said: I cannot conceive how my friendship for Beata Firmin can be described as a criminal action.

  Bishop Sortees said: My lord, surely any criminal actions, to be judged by this Court, must bear a relation to the charge of heresy.

  The Earl said: Your Reverence, I think the relation can be shown. And to the prisoner he said: You are aware that the woman Beata Firmin believes you to be a god?

  The prisoner said: I have been separated from her for ten months. Ten months ago I am certain she had no such delusion.

  The Earl said: Why, man, she speaks of nothing but you and your divinity. She rants, she drivels, she bites her lips to make them red and pleasing against the dream of your return, she sits in her cell with a pillow under her smock and croons to it, saying she is with child by the Divine Brother and the child’s dear name shall be Jesus. Is the Companion with you now?

  The prisoner replied: My Lord Robson, if your prison has brought Beata Firmin to this state, I will pray God to forgive you in Hell, since it is beyond my human power to forgive.

  His Grace said: Finish the reading of the Articles.
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br />   The Earl said: It seems I have been cursed by a witch.

  His Grace said to him: My lord, my lord, no more jesting. Finish the reading, Clerk.

  But Earl Robson of Cornal said: Your Grace, as God is my witness I am not jesting. The moment after this prisoner cursed me I was taken with a violent pain in my right hand.

  Bishop Sortees said: But he did not curse your lordship. He said he would pray for your forgiveness by the Almighty, and had I spoken as you did, I declare to you I would feel need of such forgiveness myself.

  His Grace asked: Do you wish an adjournment, my lord of Cornal, or may we continue with the reading of the Articles?

  The Earl of Cornal said: I ask no adjournment, Your Grace. I will bear it. But I wish this fellow to know, I say to him in open court, if he slips off our griddle here in the Court of the Ecclesia, I’ll fetch him down with a charge of witchcraft under secular law, and it shall go hard with him.

  Then was read to the prisoner the Sixth Article of the Charge.

  Article VI: The man going by the name Brother Francis is

  charged with professing to heal the sick by miraculous means.

  In response to this the prisoner said that he professed nothing except his message; that some persons might have found healing in his presence, at times when the Companion was with him, and that if God had truly healed them it must have been done by his Companion rather than by himself.

  The Earl of Cornal said: And your Companion, we understand, politely declines to be questioned by this Court?

  The prisoner said: My Companion is not here.

  The Earl said: A pity, a pity. I should admire to ask his opinion concerning the pain in my hand.

  The man known as Brother Francis did not answer. Then was read to him the Seventh Article of the Charge.

  Article VII: The man going by the name Brother Francis is charged with wantonly leading a band of his followers to a place of peril between the savage invading host of Moha and the defenders of the Empire.

  His Grace the Archbishop said: Since the fact itself is not in dispute, I will only ask how you explain this action.

  The prisoner said: We hoped to illuminate the nature of war.

  His Grace said: You must know the Church is deeply opposed to war. Why did you not work through the Church?

  The prisoner said: That month, Your Grace, Masses were being said for the victory of the Imperial arms.

  His Grace replied: Naturally. Since the Holy City is located within the Empire, an attack on Katskil is an attack on Holy Church; therefore the rights of the case are not in question. I11 any event, your followers were merely swept aside, as you must have known they would be. Why this empty gesture? You placed your people between fire and fire without a shield. Had the Guard not intervened and dispersed them, many lives might have been lost.

  The prisoner said: I hear that many of my company were arrested, some questioned under torture, none released except by death.

  His Grace explained that this was a political and military problem, not within the competence of the Ecclesiastical Court. The prisoner then stood silent a long time, and appeared like one listening, and there was whispering among the members of the Ecclesia privileged to attend as spectators, which His Grace the Judge was obliged to silence, the prisoner seeming unaware of this. At length the prisoner said: Your Grace, we sought to illuminate the nature of war. But I understand now that the greatest evil is not war itself but the love of war. However, Your Grace, is it not a fact that the armies did not meet that day?

  His Grace said: What reasoning is this? They met later, and at that very place; Did you not hear in prison about the battle of Gilba?—I am told that Mohan forces still Hold the highlands north of the lake. So what price your intervention? And the armies met at Brakabin Meadows in the following spring, another disaster. There is a witness to be called who was wounded at Brakabin. You shall see for yourself, sir, how effectively your dangerous dream has prevented war. Well?

  The prisoner said: Your Grace, we never had great hope of preventing the continuation of this war; only, as I have said, to illuminate the nature of war. In any case, I did as my Companion directed me, and I would do the same again.

  Earl Robson said: But maybe with fewer followers?

  The man called Brother Francis replied: Maybe with a million followers. Or with two or three. I would do the same again.

  His Grace then gently asked the prisoner whether he had been listening a moment past to his Companion, and the prisoner replied: I cannot answer that, Your Grace, because I am not certain.

  ‘The Bishop of Nupal said: Your Grace, I have read of some in Old Time who went up unarmed against the machineries of war. Certain priests and others burned their own bodies in protest at evils they found intolerable. It is folly perhaps; but so far I can find no sin in this man.

  His Grace said: It is true this Article deals with a social and military issue. However, the wisdom of the Court has included it among the charges of heresy, and so we must consider it.

  Earl Robson said: Does it not seem, Your Grace, that this prisoner has set himself up to judge between the nations as only God can judge? The issues of the battlefield, surely, are decided by God and God alone, not by fanatic preachers.

  His Grace said: This will be weighed, my lord of Cornal. Does your hand still pain you?

  The Earl replied: There is only one more Article to read. After that, if Your Grace thinks best, we might adjourn till tomorrow.

  Then was read to the prisoner the Eighth Article of the Charge.

  Article VIII: The man going by the name Brother Francis is charged with deluding his followers by talk of a coming heaven on earth described as a City of Light, in contravention of Holy Doctrine as set forth in the Book of Abraham, Chapter Five, Section Seven: THOU SHALT CHERISH NO TREASURE ON EARTH OR IN THE THOUGHT OF EARTH, WHICH IS SOON TO PERISH AND PASS AWAY.

  In reply to this, the prisoner said that he had never described the City of Light as a heaven on earth, or ever intentionally deluded anyone in any way.

  His Grace asked him: What then is the City of Light?

  The man called Brother Francis said: In the City of Light no violence is done to the body of earth or to the human body or spirit. The light of the City is the light of understanding and love, the two inseparable.

  His Grace asked: It is a dream of earth and not of Heaven?

  The man called Brother Francis said: It is not a dream of Heaven on earth, for in the City of Light men may strive for perfection, I suppose, but they do not reject the good that is attainable.

  His Grace said: And for this dream of earth you have endured imprisonment and physical persuasion, and may suffer worse: was this not for the sake of persuading others to share your dream, and leave their appropriate labors, and follow you?

  The man called Brother Francis replied: I do not urge or persuade. I tell the vision as I see it, and I think those who followed me were sharing it for at least a part of my journey.

  His Grace said: As far as the meadow at Gilba, where the armies might have rolled over them. My son, there have been visionaries before who perverted the just course of life. Do you not see the result when men turn aside from their necessary labors after a moon-blink, an ignis fatnus? Who shall plow and sow, and tend the fields, and mind the harvest? You must have been taught, perhaps in the childhood you do not remember, how God has placed us on this miserable earth for a time of trial, so that souls deserving of Heaven may be winnowed out from the unworthy, and how then the earth shall pass away and be as a drop of water in the firmament. Do you not see, my son, that no other explanation of our presence here is possible, since we must believe that God is all-loving and all-powerful? Why do we concern ourselves with heresy at all, if not to protect our people from straying into disaster? To dazzle the credulous with your vision of a City of Light on earth is to betray them, to hide from them this truth that God’s revelation through Abraham has made clear to us. And whether your heart’s intent is evil
or benevolent, the result is the same as though the Devil himself had stood at your shoulder and charmed the gullible with your voice.

  The man called Brother Francis replied: Yet there is a City of Light. I said to those who followed arid heard me: There is a battle of Armageddon, where good and evil confront each other for a decision, not for all time but for the time that you know; and there is a City of Light on earth, built by your labor not for all time but for the time that you know. Every day, every night the battle of Armageddon is to be fought, and won or lost: see that you find courage. Every night, every day something is given to the building of the City of Light or taken from it: see that your share is given, and with goodwill. The battle is within you; the city is for all your kind, not for all time but for the time that you know.

  At this hour the session of examination and judgment was adjourned until morning of the following day.

  His Grace the Archbishop of Orange being present, the Court was opened on the 10th day of October, at or about the hour of Tierce, for the second day of the final judgment and examination in the case of the prisoner charged with heresy who calls himself Brother Francis.

  Present as before were the Most Reverend Jeffrey Sortees Lord Bishop of Nupal, and the Rt. Hon. Tomas Robson Earl of Cornal, who attended this session with his right hand covered by a bandage. His Grace the Archbishop graciously inquired whether his lordship was still in pain; the Earl replied he would willingly bear it rather than delay the trial, adding that all those present yesterday must bear in mind that they were witnesses to what had occurred.

  The prisoner being then brought to the dock and chained, His Grace announced that one Jermyn Graz, itinerant cobbler of no known address, had urged his right to testify before the Court, and that this request had been granted. Master Graz came forward and was sworn.