The Spell-Bound Scholar

by Christopher Stasheff

  "Aye. though it seemed they would not. that first year— for the winter was hard and the wolves became hungry. They were glad they had made the hut stronger. Meryl and Cloth-ilde, though they feared they had not made it strong enough."

  "Were they not hungry themselves'?"

  "Most assuredly so. and Famine lurked at their doorstep."

  Clothilde's garden had yielded a goodly crop of tubers and vegetables that could be stored for the winter, but she had planted for one. not two. They set snares for hares, but those remained empty—the foxes and ferrets had accounted for the

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  small game. They sought the squirrels' hordes, but a handful of nuts goes only so far. They began to eat as lightly as they could, and even then, Clothilde later confessed she had taken less than her share, that Meryl and the babe might eat. It was a lean Christmas and a gaunt Epiphany, and by Lent they were so hungry that they could not see clearly. The babe wasted away until it had scarce strength enough to cry.

  Then, weakened, Meryl fell ill. Her cough grew worse and worse, and though Clothilde tended her with hot cloths and every herb she knew, the lass waned daily, slipping down toward death. When she began to murmur her beloved's name, Clothilde lost her temper.

  "Do not dare to seek him!" she railed at the lass. "Do not dare! What has he ever done for you, except to leave you with child, and alone? Yet I have given you care with mine every minute! How dare you leave me for the shade of him? How dare you leave your babe without a mother?" And on she railed, louder and louder, growing weaker but feverish in her own right and, when she had done railing against Meryl's lack of faith, began on God's. "How can you be a good God," quoth she, "if you will let a blameless babe die of cold and hunger, and a lass whose only fault was to love in folly? Nay, you must needs be a most cruel God indeed, for even your deer and hares do starve, and your lilies of the field lie dead beneath the snow! Let me die if you will, I can see the justice in that, for I am a sour and bitter woman, but this sweet child has never lusted for anyone's hurt, though she had cause, good cause indeed! You are the God of the hawk and the wolf, of the owl and the vulture, and no God of loving creatures!"

  She would have gone on, but a strong voice cried outside the hut, "Who doth speak against the Lord?"

  Clothilde froze, for to her mind, any man might sooner seek to reive them of what little life they had left than to aid them. She pulled herself to the knothole in the door and looked.

  She saw a friar standing in the clearing, frowning about him, then calling, "Was it you in the hut who did rail against God? Nay, if it was you, have the courage to admit to what you said!"

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  He wore but a simple friar's robe, said Clothilde later, and sandals only, yet his feet were not reddened with the chill, nor did he shiver with the cold, though it was bitter. Clothilde considered, watching him, then resolved that there was small enough harm he could do them, for quick death would have been more merciful than slow—and he might have carried food. She unbarred the door and showed herself, crying, " Tis I have spoken 'gainst God! And can you truly tell me I should not?"

  He turned and saw her, and his face was stern. 'That I can. Wherefore should you think to rail 'gainst your Maker?"

  "Why, for that I've a child in here sick of the cold and starving, and a smaller child who will die without her! Is that not cause?"

  " 'Tis a cause that many have known down through the ages," the monk returned, "and their souls have been tried full sore. Naetheless, those of them that clung to the love of the Lord even to death, they bask in His eternal light and live with joy in Him."

  Clothilde would have given him a right sharp rejoinder, but the words stuck in her throat as her knees gave way, dark spots filled her vision and swelled into night, and the weakness of hunger claimed her, for she had spent her last strength in railing against God and His monk.

  When she woke, the fire was higher and much warmer, and she lay on her own pile of bracken, warmed by the monk's robe. Looking up, she saw him naked save for girded loins, and she assures us there was no beauty in his body, for it was gaunt and scarred from wrist to wrist across his shoulders and breastbone, yet still with the strength of leather. He held the babe in his arm, soothing it. Clothilde stirred herself and said curtly, "Naught will comfort her save food."

  "Why, that have I given her," the monk returned, "and have more for you. Do you hold the babe awhile." And he laid it on her breast. Then he put aside the cup from which the babe had drunk and gave Clothilde broth from the pot he had set steaming over the fire. She knew she must eat sparingly, yet drank greedily, as much as he would give her. The

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  flavor, though, was new to her. " Tis meat!"

  The monk nodded. "I carry salt beef with me, and jour-neybread. That last is softened now, enough that you may partake of it." And he spooned a small biscuit into her mouth.

  She ate of it thankfully, then asked, "What of the child?"

  "The mother? I have given her a small amount of medicine and she sleeps with greater peace than she has in a fortnight, I warrant."

  Panic clutched Clothilde's breast, that the 'medicine' might have sent Meryl down into the depths she sought; but a racking cough sounded from behind the monk, and she relaxed. "Can you do no more for her?"

  "Not if you do not tell me of her illness."

  " 'Tis only a cough, but it has worsened and worsened in spite of all my herbs."

  The monk nodded. "So I had feared. Her lungs are filled with fluid and she has hard work to breathe even a little."

  "Can you not save her!"

  "I shall attempt it." The monk turned in the firelight and laid his hand over Meryl's forehead.

  Then, as Clothilde told it, a most sweet change came about that was so amazing she thought it a miracle—for in minutes, Meryl's breathing deepened, becoming more even, and color returned to her face. She coughed again and again, but each time more lightly, till at last she coughed no more but only slept the deep and dreamless sleep of exhaustion.

  The monk took his hand away; it trembled, and his face was pale.

  "Why," whispered Clothilde, "what witchcraft's this?"

  "No witchcraft, but the gift of God," the monk answered, though his voice was strained with weariness.

  "Gift! To whom?"

  "To this child, through me. I have had this talent for as long as I remember, though it took me years to come to use it for people's welfare instead of their hurt."

  "You are a witch!" Clothilde breathed, eyes wide.

  "I was born as what you term a witch," the monk agreed, "yet my soul was heated in the forge and put against the anvil, whereupon I came to see that I might yet worship God

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  and serve my fellow mortals. I have looked inside this woman's body, see you, yet 'twas not with the eyes in my face, but with some other sense that shows me the inside of each muscle and vein, and the ugly monsters, too small for gross vision, that swim through her blood and cluster in her lungs. I have taught her body to fashion other creatures to fight them—watchdogs 'gainst wolves, if you will—and to make more and more of them. 'Twas the heat of their battle caused her fever, and I have given aid and comfort to the watchdogs, sealing their triumph over the wolves."

  ''Where have you learned this?" Clothilde whispered.

  4 'From an older monk than I, somewhat, but most from the doing of it, and the knowledge God has given me as I have striven to aid the sick. Then I taught her body how to take the fluid from her lungs, turning some of it to air, and the rest to small bits and pieces, wafted throughout her body by her blood."

  A lust kindled within Clothilde—or a hunger for knowledge; she said it might be likened to either. "You must teach me the way of it! For she and the child may fall ill again!"

  The monk turned to look at her and she swore his eyes pierced through her flesh so that they saw her soul naked. Then he touched her hand, feather-
light, but it burned, and she knew fear and outrage, for she felt that he read every most secret thought she had ever hidden. But he took his hand away and shook his head. "I have read only your intentions toward other folk, woman, naught more. There is bitterness and lust for revenge in you, but I think it may pass."

  Looking within herself, Clothilde was astonished to discover that his saying was true; revenge mattered less to her now than the welfare of Meryl and the babe. She wondered if she had spewed all her poison at God, or if the monk had somehow cast a spell on her—though she cared not which at that moment. She only knew that the villagers and the hurts they had given no longer seemed quite so vital as they had. "Must I swear that I will never use the knowledge you give me to hurt another person?"

  "You must give me your word for it, aye."

  Clothilde stared into his eyes, and the rage and lust for

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  vengeance burned up in her again—but only briefly; she found it within her to forgo them, for the hurts she'd borne seemed small against the delight of this newfound knowledge. She nodded. "I swear by Almighty God—■ ■

  The monk put out a hand to stop her. "I did not ask for an oath."

  Again, Clothilde stared into his eyes, reflecting that, considering what he had heard her saying against God, he was wise not to trust an oath in His Name—though she would have meant the words she would have sworn; she found it within her to forgive even God, now.

  Gwen stared.

  Mother Superior smiled, amused. "Aye. There is no limit to our self-conceit, is there?"

  Yet Clothilde did as the monk asked and said only, "I give you my most solemn word that I shall never use this knowledge to harm people, save in defense of me or mine. Nay, I may even seek to aid folk that I know not."

  "Well enough, then." The monk sat down, swept a patch of the earthen floor smooth with his hand, took a twig from the firesticks, and began to draw scant pictures that would make his words more clear. Clothilde watched, listened, and marvelled within as he explained to her how different substances may join to make new ones or divide to make pure ones, and how the blood doth flow and what 'tis made of, and of the host of small creatures, too tiny for the eye to see but perceptible by the mind, that dwell within the body. All the rest of that day did he teach, and she learned fiercely, asking a hundred questions and more. All through the night he taught, pausing now and again to feed her, Meryl, and the babe from the pot that seemed never to grow empty, though he himself ate not at all. When the sun rose, he sighed and took back his robe, belted it around himself again, and took up his staff.

  "You will not leave me!" Clothilde cried. "There is so much more to know!"

  "You know enough now to puzzle out the remainder/' the

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  monk assured her, "and I must leave you, for you shall thrive without me. 'Twould take years to teach you all I know, good woman, and I cannot tarry so long."

  Clothilde stared, amazed almost as much by the magnitude of the knowledge he indicated as by someone actually calling her a good woman.

  "There are many other souls in need of my aid in this Isle of Gramarye," the monk explained, "and where I am needed to heal, there must I go—for there is a power in this universe, one called Entropy, that doth continually seek to make things go awry, pushing ever toward that final Chaos that is the undoing of us all and brings grief and misery to all souls. Illness is one aspect of it, for in illness the body's natural order is upset, and Disorder seeks to claim the whole of the mortal clay. Therefore must we strive to preserve Order within it, that human suffering may be eased."

  Clothilde frowned, trying to understand. "Do you tell me that, if I wish to fight illness and stave off death, I, too, must have Order within me?"

  "Within, and without." The monk touched her shoulder. "I charge you with the forming of such Order, and will give you the first rules upon which it will rest."

  Clothilde gasped and clutched at his hand, for it felt as though lightning lanced through her, probing downward into her heart and upward into her brain. But she could not touch his hand; her own hovered an inch from his, and his eyes held hers.

  CHAPTER

  -11-

  Then the current ceased, he took his hand away, and, looking within herself, Clothilde found that all bitterness and hatred were gone. She remembered the slights and injuries the villagers had given her, but they seemed remote now, almost as things that had happened to another person, and brought no renewal of hurt with them.

  The monk asked her, "Do you wish these rules?"

  "Aye," she whispered, "with all mine heart." And she bent her knees, seeking to kneel to him—but he upheld her, protesting, "I am only a man, sister in Christ; you must not kneel to me. I am only a man who tries to be good and to do good but does not always succeed."

  "You have done a world of good to me and mine," Clothilde whispered.

  "Then do for others as I have done for you. That is the first of the rules of Order for healing: that you will use this knowledge only to aid folk, save in defense of yourself or those in your care—and you will find that, even then, you can betimes turn attack by giving aid."

  "I shall," Clothilde breathed.

  "This is well enough, but I shall require more of you— that you will use this knowledge to aid any who are ill who may come your way, and will never turn away from a person who is sick."

  Now Clothilde frowned, and 'twas she who sought as she gazed into his eyes, wondering at his reasons for asking that promise of her. At last, "I shall live by those rules," Clothilde promised, "and shall do all I may to raise an Order in living by it."

  "Stout heart!" The monk smiled at last, a full and brilliant

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  smile, then of a sudden frowned and looked aside. "I feel another's pain—great pain, and I must go to heal it as quickly as I may. I shall come again if I can, to give your Order a name. Godspeed to your work!''

  "Where do you go?"

  "Wheresoever I am needed. Farewell!"

  The door closed behind him, and Clothilde pushed herself up from her pallet, tottered to the portal, and wrenched it open—but he was nowhere to be seen, nor was there sign of him in the falling snow.

  " 'Twas a miracle," one of the nuns whispered.

  "It may have been." But Mother Superior's tones were cautious. "Still, he may have been only a monk like any other. We have learned that the friars at the monastery are ever searching for new knowledge of the uses of these strange powers with which some folk are born ..."

  Gwen thought of telling them that very few outside the planet of Gramarye were born with psi powers, but decided against it.

  "... and he may have been one such monk, abroad on a mission for the Abbot. Surely we have found that there is naught miraculous in the cure he worked, for we have learned the manner of it ourselves; and the pot that never emptied may simply have been a large one, and the portions small."

  "Yet there was the scar," one of the older ones noted.

  "Aye—the mark of burning from wrist to wrist, up his arms and across his chest." Mother Superior nodded. "He may have been cruelly hurted when young, and known from his own pain the need for forgiveness of which he spoke."

  "Or . . . ?" Gwen knew Mother Superior was only trying to provide a rational explanation for something her nuns saw as miraculous—and Mother didn't answer her question. She sat back and waited, and an older nun reminded Gwen, "The saintly Father Vidicon was burned in such a manner by lightning, which wrought his death."

  Gwen lifted her head in surprise. Father Vidicon had taken hold of two high-voltage wires, knowing the electricity would kill him. In this culture, they would think of that as lightning.

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  She was about to point out that the burn would have been interior with no scars except those on his hands, but decided against it. People need their illusions. "You do, then, believe your convent was begun by a visitation of th
e sainted Father Vidicon himself?"

  M Tis possible," Mother Superior allowed, "though there is no good reason to believe it, save our own desire."

  Most of the nuns bowed their heads, and the few who didn't fought down smiles, but their eyes were lively.

  Privately, Gwen agreed with what Mother Superior had said, though obviously did not want to believe—that the monk had been only a man, though obviously a highly skilled esper. "Do you know this monk's semblance? Is there any image of him?"

  "Aye, for Meryl witnessed this conversation, nodding in and out of sleep, and was skilled with the brush." The Mother Superior rose. "An you will come to our chapel, I shall show you his portrait."

  To Gwen, it seemed an odd place for a picture of the founder, but she dutifully rose with the rest of the nuns. Mother Superior bowed her head and said a short prayer before she dismissed her charges and took Gwen out through the cloister to the chapel.

  "Another bite! Another! Aye, there's a man! Chew that beef! Gulp it down! Well done! Only two more bites, now! Masticate! Macerate! Chew, engorge! Finish it all!"

  "Geoffrey," said Cordelia, "I think he might prove able to eat the whole steak even without such enthusiastic encouragement."

  "Aye, but it is so much fun to watch him force it." Geoffrey grinned as Gregory closed his eyes and compelled himself to swallow the last bite. "Well done, my lad! How do you feel?"

  "Absolutely bloated," Gregory said in a thick voice.

  "Well, we cannot have that. Here, I have fetched a pillow. Lie down, my lad, and let Cordelia's mind work on your muscle cells."

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  Gregory lay down with a sigh of resignation. "What shall you do, sister?"

  4 'Yes, what shall I do?" Cordelia asked, puzzled.

  "Speed up his digestion, sister, and direct the protein to flow into his muscle fibers—first, his left biceps."