Counting Up, Counting Down

by Harry Turtledove

  At the mention of that name, the tapman sat down heavily beside Kassianos, as if his legs no longer wanted to support him. The priest heard him drop the bludgeon among the dried rushes on the floor. “The—Patriarch?” the fellow said hoarsely.

  “The very same.” Kassianos’ eyes twinkled. Most of the time, being nomophylax was nothing but drudgery. Sometimes, as now, it was fun. “Suppose you tell me about the lecherous monks you have here. Your Laskara thought I was of the same stripe as they, and tried to sell herself to me.”

  “Aye, we have a monastery here, dedicated to the holy Tralitzes, Phos bless his memory.” The tapman drew the good god’s sun-circle over his heart. Kassianos had never heard of the local saint, but that hardly signified: every little town had some patron to commemorate. The tapman went on, “But the monks, lecherous? No, holy sir—they’re good men, pious men, every one.”

  He sounded sincere, and too shaken to be lying so well. “Do they then conform to the rules set down by the holy Pakhomios, in whose memory all monks serve?” Kassianos asked.

  “Holy sir, I’m no monk. Far as I know, they do, but I dunno what all these rules and things is.” The fellow was sweating, and not from the fireplace’s being near.

  “Very well, then, hear the seventh chapter of Pakhomios’ Rule, the chapter entitled ‘On Women’: ’To ensure the preservation of the contemplative life, no brother shall be permitted to entertain women.’ “

  “I dunno about any of that,” the tapman insisted. With a sudden access of boldness, he went on, “And it’s not me you should ought to be going after if you’ve got somewhat against our monks. You take that up with the abbot—Menas, his name is.”

  “I shall,” Kassianos promised. “Believe me, I shall.”

  The holy Tralitzes’ monastery lay a couple of miles outside Develtos. Monks working in the snowy fields and gardens looked up from their labors as Kassianos rode toward Phos’ temple, the largest building of the monastery complex. It was further distinguished from the others by a spire topped with a gilded globe.

  An elderly monk came out of the temple, bowed courteously to Kassianos. “Phos with you, holy sir,” he said. “I am Pleuses, porter of the monastery. How may I serve you?”

  Kassianos dismounted, returned the bow. “And with you, brother Pleuses. I have come to see your abbot—Menas is his name, is it not? I am Kassianos, nomophylax to Tarasios. Would you announce me to the holy abbot?”

  Pleuses’ eyes widened. He bowed once more. “Certainly, holy sir. Menas will surely be honored to entertain such a distinguished guest.” He shouted for a younger brother to take charge of Kassianos’ mule, then, bowing a third time, said, “Will you come with me?”

  The abbot’s residence lay beyond the dormitory that housed the rest of the monks. “Wait here a moment, will you?” Pleuses said at the doorway. He went in and, as promised, quickly returned. “He will see you now.”

  Kassianos was expecting a leering voluptuary. The sight of Menas came as something of a shock. He was a thin, pleasant-faced man of about forty-five, with laugh lines crinkling the corners of his eyes. Among the codices and scrolls on bookshelves behind him were many, both religious and secular, that Kassianos also esteemed.

  The abbot rose, bowed, hurried up to clasp Kassianos’ hand. “Phos bless you, holy sir, and welcome, welcome. Will you take wine?”

  “Thank you, Father Abbot.”

  Menas poured with his own hands. While he was doing so, he asked, “May I be permitted to wonder why such an illustrious cleric has chosen to honor our humble monastery with his presence?”

  Kassianos’ eyes flicked to Pleuses. Menas followed his glance, and dismissed the porter with a few murmured words. The abbot was no fool, Kassianos thought. Well, abbots were not chosen to be fools. The two men performed the usual Videssian ritual over wine, then Menas returned to his own seat and waved Kassianos to the other, more comfortable, chair in the room. The abbot’s question still hung in the air.

  “Father Abbot,” Kassianos began, more carefully than he had intended before meeting Menas, “I came to Develtos by chance a few days ago, compelled by the blizzard to take shelter here. In Branes’ tavern, a chance remark led me to believe the monks practiced illegal, immoral cohabitation with women, contrary to the strictures of the seventh chapter of the holy Pakhomios’ Rule.”

  “That is not so,” Menas said quietly. “We follow the Rule in all its particulars.”

  “I am glad to hear you say that,” Kassianos nodded. “But I must tell you that my enquiries since I came here made me think otherwise. And, Father Abbot, they make me believe this not only of your flock but of yourself.”

  “Having once said that I adhere to Pakhomios’ Rule, I do not suppose that mere repetition will persuade you I speak truly,” Menas said after a moment’s thought. He grinned wryly; shaven head and gray-streaked beard or no, it made him look very young. “And, having now once said something you do not believe, I cannot hope you will accept my oath.” He spread his hands. “You see my difficulty.”

  “I do.” Kassianos nodded again. He thought better of Menas for not gabbling oaths that, as the abbot pointed out, had to be thought untrustworthy. He had not expected or wanted to think better of Menas. He had wanted to get on with the business of reforming the monastery. Things did not seem as simple as he’d thought. Well, as nomophylax he’d had that happen to him often enough.

  “I will follow any suggestion you may have on resolving this difficulty,” Menas said, as if reading his thoughts.

  “Very well, then: I know a decoction under whose influence you will speak truth. Are you willing to drink it down and then answer my questions?”

  “So long as you are asking about these alleged misdeeds, certainly.”

  Menas showed no hesitation. If he was an actor, he was a good one, Kassianos thought. But no one could dissemble under the influence of this potion, no matter how he schooled himself beforehand.

  “I shall compound the drug this evening and return to administer it tomorrow morning,” the nomophylax said. Menas nodded agreement. Kassianos wondered how brash he would be once his lascivious secrets were laid bare.

  The abbot peered curiously at the small glass flask. He held it to his nose, sniffed. “Not a prize vintage,” he observed with a chuckle. He tossed the drug down, screwed up his face at the taste.

  Kassianos admired his effrontery, if nothing else. He waited for a few minutes, watched the abbot’s expression go from its usual amused alertness to a fixed, vacant stare. The nomophylax rose, passed a hand in front of Menas’ face. Menas’ eyes did not follow the motion. Kassianos nodded to himself. Sure enough, the decoction had taken hold.

  “Can you hear me?” he asked.

  “Aye.” Menas’ voice was distant, abstracted.

  “Tell me, then, of all the violations of the holy Pakhomios’ Rule that have occurred among the monks of this monastery over the past half a year.”

  Menas immediately began to obey: the drug robbed him of his own will and left him perfectly receptive to Kassianos’ question. The nomophylax settled back in his chair and listened as Menas spoke of this monk’s quarrel with that one, of the time when three brothers got drunk together, of the monk who missed evening prayers four days running, of the one who had refused to pull weeds until he was disciplined, of the one who had sworn at an old man in Develtos, of the monk who had stolen a book but tried to put the blame on another, and on and on, all the petty squabbles to which monasteries, being made up of men, were prone.

  Kassianos kept pen poised over parchment, ready to note down every transgression of chapter seven of the Rule. Menas talked and talked and talked. The pen stayed poised. Kassianos wrote nothing, for the abbot gave him nothing to write.

  Menas, at length, ran dry. Kassianos scowled, ran a hand over his smooth pate. “Do you recall nothing more?” he demanded harshly.

  “Nothing, holy sir.” Menas’ voice was calm; it would not have changed had Kassianos held his hand to the
flame flickering in the lamp on the table beside him. The nomophylax knew he was deeply under the influence of the potion. He also knew the monks of the monastery of the holy Tralitzes had illicit congress with a great many women of Develtos. His inquiries in the town had left him as certain of that as he was of Phos’ eventual victory over Skotos.

  Kassianos hesitated before asking his next question. But, having failed with a general inquiry, he saw no choice but to probe specifically at the rot he knew existed: “Tell me of every occasion when the monks of this monastery have transgressed against the seventh chapter of the holy Pakhomios’ Rule, the chapter which forbids the brethren to entertain women.”

  Menas was silent. Kassianos wondered if the abbot could somehow be struggling against the decoction. He shook his head—he knew perfectly well it was irresistible. “Why do you not speak?” the nomophylax snapped.

  “Because I know of no occasion when the monks of this monastery have transgressed against the seventh chapter of the holy Pakhomios’ Rule, the chapter which forbids the brethren to entertain women.”

  The rotelike repetition of his words and the tone of the abbot’s voice convinced Kassianos that Menas was still drugged. So did the reason he gave for staying quiet before. If someone under this potion had nothing to say in response to a question, he would keep right on saying nothing until jogged by a new one. Which, depressingly, was just what Menas had done.

  Kassianos sighed. He neither liked nor approved of paradoxes. Knowing that because of the decoction he was only being redundant, he nevertheless asked, “Do you swear by Phos you have told me the truth?”

  “I swear by Phos I have told you the truth,” Menas replied.

  The nomophylax ground his teeth. If Menas swore under the drug that the monks of the monastery of the holy Tralitzes were obeying Pakhomios’ Rule, then they were, and that was all there was to it. So act as though you believe it, Kassianos told himself. He could not.

  He was tempted to walk out of Menas’ study and let the abbot try to deal with the monastery’s affairs while still in the grip of the potion. He had played that sort of practical joke while a student at the Sorcerers’ Collegium. Regretfully, he decided it was beneath the dignity of the Patriarch’s nomophylax. He sat and waited until he was sure Menas had come around.

  “Remarkable,” the abbot said when he was himself again. “I felt quite beside myself. Had we been guilty of any transgressions of the sort you were seeking, I would not have been able to keep them from you.”

  “That, Father Abbot, was the idea,” Kassianos said tightly. He knew he should have been more courteous, but could not manage it, not with the feeling something was wrong still gnawing at him, But, not having anything on which to focus his suspicions, he could only rise abruptly and go out into the cold for the ride to Develtos.

  He kept asking questions when he got back into town. The answers he got set him stewing all over again. They were not given under the influence of his decoction, but they were detailed and consistent from one person to the next. They all painted the monks of the monastery of the holy Tralitzes as the lechers he had already been led to believe them.

  How, then, had Menas truthfully asserted that he and his flock followed Pakhomios’ Rule?

  The question nagged at Kassianos like the beginnings of a toothache for the rest of the day. By this time, the snowstorm had long since blown itself out; he could have gone on to Opsikion. It never occurred to him. After taking his evening meal in Branes’ taproom, he went up to the cubicle he had rented over it.

  There he sat and thought and fumed. Maybe Menas had found an antidote to his potion. But if he had, it was one that had eluded all the savants at the Sorcerers’ Collegium for all the centuries of Videssos’ history. That was possible, but not likely. Was it likelier than a deliberate campaign of slander against the abbot’s monks? The nomophylax could not be sure, but he thought both ideas most improbable. And they were the best ones he had.

  He pounded a fist against his knee. “What can Menas be up to, anyway?” he said out loud. Then he blinked, surprised at himself. “Why don’t I find out?”

  Normally, he would have dismissed the thought with the same automatic discipline he used to suppress the longing of his flesh for women. Spying sorcerously on a man who had proved himself innocent under drugged interrogation went against every instinct Kassianos had. On the other hand, so did believing Menas.

  If the abbot is blameless, Kassianos told himself, I’ll perform an act of penance to make up for the sin I commit in spying on him like this. Having salved his conscience, the nomophylax set about preparing the spell he would need.

  The law of similarity was useless to him here, but the law of contagion applied: once in contact, always in contact. Kassianos scraped a bit of skin from the palm of his right hand with a small sharp knife—because that hand had clasped Menas’, it still held an affinity for the abbot.

  As Kassianos’ incantation built, a cloud of smoke grew in his cubicle. It was no ordinary cloud, though, for it formed a rectangle with edges so precise they might have been defined by an invisible picture frame. The analogy pleased Kassianos, for when he spoke a final word of command, the smoke would indeed yield a picture of what Menas was about.

  He spoke the word. The trapped smoke before him roiled, grew still. Colors began seeping into it, here and there. The first thing the nomophylax clearly made out was the roaring fire in one corner of his magical image. He frowned; the blaze was bigger than any the hearth in the abbot’s dwelling could contain.

  Of itself, of course, that meant nothing. Menas could have any number of legitimate reasons for not being in his own quarters. Kassianos waited for more of the picture to emerge.

  Blue . . . Surely that was the abbot’s robe. But it lay on the floor, crumpled and forgotten. Where was Menas, and why had he thrown aside his vestments?

  Within moments, Kassianos had his answer. He felt a hot flush rise, not just to his cheeks, but to the very crown of his shaven head. He turned away from the image he had conjured up, yet still he saw body conjoined with body, saw that the man straining atop his eager partner was the abbot Menas.

  Kassianos spoke another word, felt his sorcery dissolve. His face remained hot, now with fury rather than embarrassment. So Menas thought he could play him for a fool, eh? He imagined the abbot telling his paramour how he had fooled the fellow from the capital, and both of them laughing as they coupled. That thought only made the nomophylax’s rage burn hotter.

  Then he caught himself wishing he had not turned his back quite so soon. He had not thought be could be any angrier, but found he was wrong. Before, his anger’s flame had extended only to Menas and his still unknown lover. Now it reached out and burned him, too.

  Kassianos stamped grimly through the snow toward the monastery of the holy Tralitzes. He had left his mule behind on purpose, accepting the walk as the beginning of the penance he would pay for failing to root out the corruption in the monastery at the first try. His footprints left an emphatic trail behind him.

  The pale, fitful sun gleamed off the gilded dome topping Phos’ temple ahead. Kassianos turned aside before he was halfway there. Scanning the landscape ahead with a hunter’s alertness, he spotted a blue-robe strolling toward a small wooden house several hundred yards to one side of the monastery. He was not sure whether hunter’s instinct or sorcerer’s told him it was Menas, but he knew.

  The nomophylax’s breath burst from him in an outraged steaming cloud. “Phos grant us mercy! Not content with making a mockery of his vows, the sinner goes to show off his stamina,” Kassianos exclaimed, though there was no one to hear him.

  The abbot disappeared into the little house. Some men might have hesitated before disturbing the occupants of a trysting-place, but not Kassianos. He strode resolutely up to pound on the door, crying, “Menas, you are a disgrace to the robes you wear! Open at once!”

  “Oh, dear,” Menas said as Kassianos withered him with a glare. “You do take this seriousl
y, don’t you?” Now the abbot did not look amused, as he had so often back in his study. He looked frightened. So did the woman around whose shoulder he flung a protective arm.

  The night before, her features slack with pleasure, she had seemed only a symbol of Menas’ depravity. Now Kassianos had to confront her as a person. She was, he realized slowly, not a whore after all. Perhaps ten years younger than the abbot, she had an open, pretty face, and wore an embroidered linen blouse over a heavy wool skirt: peasant garb, not a courtesan’s jewels and clinging silks.

  Even without what his magic had let him witness, the way her hand reached up and clutched for Menas’ would have told Kassianos everything he needed to know. It told him other things as well, things he had not thought to learn. It had never occurred to him that the cleric’s illicit lover might feel all the same things for her man as another woman would for a proper partner.

  Because the woman confused him, Kassianos swung his attention back to Menas. “Should I not take your perjury seriously?” he said heavily. “It only adds to the burden of your other sins.”

  “Perjury? I gave you my oath on Phos, holy sir, under the influence of your own drug, that I truly obey my vows. I do; I am not forsworn.”

  Kassianos’ eyes narrowed. “No? You dare say that, in the company you keep? Hear once again, then, wretch, the seventh chapter of the holy Pakhomios’ Rule. As you know, it is entitled ‘On Women.’ I hope you will trust my memory as I quote it: ‘To ensure the preservation of the contemplative life, no brother shall be permitted to entertain women.’ Standing where you are, with the person whose house this must be, how can you tell me you are no oathbreaker?”

  To the amazement of the nomophylax, Menas’—companion—burst into laughter. Kassianos stared, thunderstruck. The woman said, “As you guessed, holy sir, this house was my husband’s till he died six years ago, and belongs to me now. And so my dear Menas cannot entertain me here. I entertain him, or at least I hope I shall.” She smiled smokily up at the worried abbot, stroked his bearded cheek.