The Heretics of St. Possenti

by Rolf Nelson

  While some of the locals filed through the voting booth line, others milled around socializing (mostly weather, crop prices, and sports), helping themselves to the spaghetti feed (the Jefferson’s meatballs were a hit), and opining on the election outcomes. The monks stayed in groups of at least two—more often three or four—and mostly listened quietly or asked what they hoped were topical and interested questions of the men and what appeared to be married couples. They made a conscious effort to avoid compromising circumstances with any of the single females present.

  When one grumpy younger man cynically tried to goad Thomas by asking, “I thought your sort wasn’t concerned with us commoners. Aren’t you s’posed to be worried about the soul and all that, not this worldly mess?” Thomas’s reply was calm and prepared.

  “We live in this worldly mess, too. And when it takes an interest in us, we have no choice but to take an interest back. We are poor and need to expand so that we can help those in need. When a worldly power says we may not, unless we cross their palms with silver we do not have, what else can we do? I have dealt with the political beast before. If we pay the Danegeld, the Dane will simply come back to demand more. We do not seek to control others, merely be left alone to tend to the flock.”

  When a young lady asked, bold as brass, “They don’t look much like I imagined monks to look. They are much younger and cuter than the pictures I’ve seen. Are they really, you know, just off the market forever?” Cranberry laughed and assured her that they really were genuine monks, but the vows of chastity applied only while living at the monastery. Most were not necessarily committed to the monastic life for life, and some were even married and would return to their spouse in due course. But he assured her that they would remain true to the vows they’d taken while at the abbey. Once their time there was over, they’d be free to marry though they’d likely not be interested in just— how to phrase it delicately?— “frivolous indulgences of the flesh.”

  An older woman, who introduced herself as the director of the Baptist church choir, said she’d always loved Gregorian chants and wondered if the brothers would ever be interested in visiting one Sunday and inspiring the congregation? The abbot nodded and said they might. Perhaps a small public demonstration that evening, given that the acoustics of the grange hall were good, after the polls closed, would be something of interest? It was, he was assured.

  At 7:00 PM the polls officially closed, and the choir director, Brother Bill, led the semi-centuria of monks into the grange for a brief performance of the packed hall.

  “Apologies in advance for anything less than what you hoped to hear,” Bill prefaced his introduction. “We are a very new abbey and order and have been very busy with many things other than singing, so our repertoire is somewhat limited, and we brothers were not selected for our musical prowess. You should count yourselves blessed for those who have taken a vow of silence,” he joked. “But I trust God will find the honest effort worthy.” With a simple wave of his arms to start the beat, the brothers delivered a respectable rendition of A Mighty Fortress Is Our God, which many locals knew and sung or hummed along with; Riu, Riu, Chiu; and an upbeat number in Latin, with a solid beat of their own creation, Canticle 22. It sounded like a cross between a traditional Gregorian chant and a cadence. Bill thought it best not to translate it for anyone, so he explained that it was about celebrating the little things in life, however humble and insignificant they might appear to be. When one would-be troublemaker in the audience asked if they happened to know the Battle Hymn of the Republic, Bill replied that they did. Being vets, it was one of the first they had learned and practiced just to see where people’s skill levels were at, but he didn’t think it was appropriate for the circumstances.

  But, being encouraged by a small but vocal contingent, Bill asked if there were any objections to just a quick verse or three. Hearing none, he led the assembled brethren in the first three verses. Given the deeper male voices than people were used to hearing, performed by men who had seen battle and death, singing at a slower-than-typical, solemn tempo, and the unusual acoustics of the room, the song produced an eerie, unsettling feeling. When they stopped, the crowd was silent. It had come across as different, much more intense, than any they had heard before. It was as if God were in the hall with them, looking at them and making a personal promise to let his heroes crush Heaven’s enemies beneath the weight of burnished steel and righteous heel.

  It sent a shiver down more than one back.

  There was no question any more that the brothers were honest to God monks.

  One woman started clapping, and the rest joined in for a solid minute before Abbot Cranberry waved them to silence. “Thank you for your attendance and support. And thank you, Brother Bill and company. You—” he faced the crowd of voters “—have been most kind. I look forward to more visits, but not so often that we wear out our welcome.”

  Word reached them later Thursday than their precinct had voted 1,117 to 282 in support of Rodger Sellers for commissioner, helping give him a margin of victory of almost three hundred for the whole county.

  Church attendance was up that week in town.

  Construction on the church portion of the new abbey started in earnest soon after.

  Returning Glass

  Better is the poor man, that walketh in his simplicity, than a rich man that is perverse in his lips, and unwise.

  —Proverbs 19:1

  Brother Hollis sat under the extended roof of the “gatehouse” and worked steadily with hammer and chisel to dress field stones from a large stack into more closely fitting pieces for the wall. Most of the gravel in the lot was from the rock being cut to shape by men at the gate; each shift, a rock or two found a place in the wall. When he saw the truck slowing down on the main road as it approached, he removed his goggles and hearing protection.

  The truck pulled up to the half-built stone gate and parked in the small, mostly snow-covered, and otherwise empty gravel lot beside the main road. The driver rolled down his window.

  “Bless you, friend. What may we do for you?” Brother Hollis asked politely, brushing rock dust from his jacket.

  “I’m Sean, and this is my son, Jake,” said the older man, introducing himself.

  The monk nodded acknowledgement. “Brother Hollis.”

  “I’m here to retrieve something and apologize for trespassing, sir,” said Jake.

  “Not many ‘sirs’ here, but I appreciate the sentiment. Do you know who you are to see?”

  “Not really. It was about three years ago. A friend and I came here to spy, and we got caught.”

  “Oh, yes. I wasn’t here then, but I heard about it. Certainly you may enter. Drive up, or walk?”

  Jake looked at his dad, who shrugged indifferently.

  “Nice weather. We can walk, sir.”

  “I’ll call ahead and let them know you are heading in.”

  The two exited the pickup, briefly touch-checked pockets to make sure they had keys, gloves, and the normal things they always carried, ducked under the massive-looking but carefully-balanced bar across the road, and started up the road to the abbey.

  The narrow roadway had been significantly altered since Jake’s last visit twelve seasons ago. The course had been reworked into a winding path rather than straight. Where it had once been nearly smooth and even with the ordinary ground level, it was now raised and there were deep drainage ditches snaking through the still snow-covered fields on each side. Small hills and contours had been sculpted into the landscape that the older man found intriguing for some unclear reason. But the road itself was cleared of snow and easy to walk on, even if it was slightly uneven. The two went in silence, listening to the sounds of nature as they did when hunting and hearing the occasional snatch of hymn on the light breeze.

  “Cant’s wrong,” said Jake, revealing some of what he’d learned by osmosis from listening to his father’s working conversation. “Road should be regraded.” His father raised an eyebrow questioningl
y. “It is off-camber. The slope of the road surface side-to-side in a corner. For drainage and to provide a better normal force for a moving vehicle. You should bank into a corner, right? This road banks out.”

  What had bothered the older man clicked. “Normally, but I think it is supposed to be like that.”

  “No, that’s silly. You’d tip over or slide off if you went around the curve at more than a crawl.”

  “Exactly. And given how carefully they did everything, and as hard as they packed the roadway, I think they meant this road to be difficult. The curves and hillocks and trees and deep drainage, and… Look. Why would they put in a bridge right up ahead there? A culvert would be more suitable.” He pointed up ahead to a fifteen-foot span across a minuscule waterway eight feet below, with four-foot abutments on each end. Sean smiled as he watched his son trying to figure it out. “Think defensive fortifications and perimeter.” He’d been studying military history recently, including fortifications and defenses, as much out of general interest as it was a small part of his day job as a civil engineer and a combat engineer for the National Guard. Sean wanted to get his son as fascinated as he was; it wasn’t as easy as he’d hoped, or as hard as he’d feared.

  “But if you do the crown wrong, and you try to retreat fast, you’d slide off… Oh, I see. If the monks are defending, then any attackers have to go slowly, or they’ll end up in the ditch and roll.” Suddenly, Jake saw what his father had seen: anyone trying to go down the road would be driving through an ambush heaven.

  It was one of the best-disguised defensive approaches Sean had ever seen, and the closer he looked as he walked the more impressed he became. It all looked much more natural than the normal crude and obvious manmade earth-moving he had seen around the world, and less regular and predictable than first-world armies made. It was subtle. But then, the monks were nearly all combat vets, with many infantry and combat engineering types among them. If landscaping needs to be done in any case… there is no reason not for it to be functional in an eschatological sort of way. The fact that some of it was planted with rows of pastoral-looking vines and berry bushes made the defensive nature less obvious. The rows of trees and vines made for magnificent potential firing lanes and concealment. To a casual observer it would seem a farm. Even to his trained eye the underlying purpose was hidden in plain sight until he looked for it, hard.

  Neither Sean nor Jake, however, noticed any of the many small bunkers, covered and concealed fighting positions, caches of ammo, supplies, and communications which had been scattered across the abbey property, inspired by the fuel and generator they had found early on. The monks did not truly expect to need any of this; it was a matter of peace of mind—knowing that if anyone ever did take an unhealthy interest in them, the offending party would not be happy with the outcome.

  Defensive engineering and physical survivability had become a standard part of the Abbey of St. Possenti, a real-world counterpart of the psychic toughness that was intrinsic to their training. That they could teach and learn many different construction-related skills in building their defenses was a bonus that just made creating them more interesting.

  Rounding the last turn, they saw the abbey, also much altered since Jake’s early recon.

  “Wow. Back then it was just the arena without all those extra parts, the house, and a couple of sheds,” said Jake quietly, observing closely. “The fields hadn’t been worked in years, of course. Orchards, coops, those fences on that side—all are new. All that rock and whatever is going on over there is new.” Monks were moving about in a number of groups—work parties, exercise groups, voice lessons and hymn instruction on the risers next to the arena where they could hear a good echo, construction, pruning in the more mature orchards, a group praying on the hillside. It was all very different and busier. The pair kept walking down the lane.

  A monk left the ranch house and walked briskly down the drive toward them. Jake recognized him when they drew close. It took a moment, but then Mickey Finnegan recognized the young man. “Well, what do you know! You hadn’t forgotten! Most excellent! You’ve grown, too. A head a least. Jake, right?” Jake nodded. “And you must be Jake’s father.” Mickey held out his hand and shook their hands vigorously with his own calloused grip.

  “Yes. Sean. Sean Strom.”

  “Glad to meet you. Brother Finnegan. Mickey to my friends. So. It’s been a while. Come up to the house and tell me about it. I think some bread may have just come out of the oven if you are hungry. It might take me a minute to find the binoculars, but no worries on that. Find them I will. Walk with me.” He turned and walked with his normal rapid stride, and they picked up their pace to match his easily. “What brings you out here now, after all this time?”

  “Well, sir, I–”

  “Brother, really.”

  “Okay, if you say so, Brother Finnegan. I’d thought about what you said. I thought about it a lot. I told Dad a couple of days after we got caught–”

  “Really? But did not come for all this time?”

  Sean nodded. “Yes, indeed. He was very embarrassed by it. He thought his stalking skills were much better than they apparently were and was a little freaked out that a squad of men could sneak up on him like that. He was caught cold, and he knew it. But he ’fessed up.”

  “The Wilsons came out that same week,” said Mickey.

  “Yeah, I talked to Cade about that. But then I got deployed. I’m in the National Guard, and my unit was activated. So I wasn’t around to come out with him. Once I came back, we were both busy for a while, and it wasn’t until Jake reminded me earlier this week that we had the time.”

  “Any particular reason for the reminder? And have you been going to Church regularly?”

  “Sometimes, Brother Finnegan. But with school, college applications, sports, hunting, and a girlfriend, time is tight. At least once a month, though.”

  “It’s a start. But you need to prioritize and get the important things done first.”

  “Yes, Brother. I’ll try to do better. Which is why I came. I wanted to get this taken care of before life got really busy. I got accepted to the Air Force Academy. I wasn’t sure if you’d still be here or if you’d remember if I waited too long.”

  “Congratulations! Outstanding! I think we have a graduate of Colorado Springs as a brother here.”

  “Really? But I thought you only had ground soldiers with problems.”

  “Not trying to dissuade you, but he was a pilot. His AI shadow squadron was shot down with him by a new generation of Russian AA over western Pakistan. Spent a month and a half as a prisoner before he could escape and another month on the run before getting picked up.”

  “Oh.” Jake walked in silence a moment. “I suppose that is an occupational hazard out there. I’m aiming to be in the space program though. Hope to be able to go faster than light one day. Not a lot of chance to get shot down in deep space.”

  “Only God knows. But faster than light or not, honesty, diligence, faith, and all the other virtues are the steps that the height and light of Western civilization are built upon, and without them all is lost. So you telling your father promptly and coming back here—better late than never!—were definitely the right things to do.” Mickey looked at Jake’s father. “You have done well to raise such a good young man. Very well.”

  “Thanks. Didn’t do it alone, but we’re proud of him so far. As long as he doesn’t let his head get too big at becoming an officer.”

  Finnegan led them up the stairs and into the house, warmed by the cheery light from the fireplace. “Understood. And agreed. But humility we have to spare here if he’d like to learn it more deeply. Please wait here, and I’ll pop upstairs and find the binoculars for you. Then you can tell me a bit more about your life and the things going on in the neighborhood, and I can give you the two-bit tour of our growing abbey.”

  Raid

  And Jesus answering, said to them: Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God
the things that are God’s….

  —Mark 12:17

  Agent Reno Horiuchi of the Internal Revenue Service was perplexed and annoyed. The raid was almost ready to execute. They had most of the personnel, equipment, and schedule all lined up and ready to move in week. He’d been examining what little data there was for longer than that, and it looked like a solid case to investigate.

  Now, out of the blue, he received an email to talk to some local deputy about “potentially relevant inside information.” He knew what a scam looked like, and what could a country hick know about tax evasion that he didn’t already? But directives were directives, so he followed up on it.

  When he had called ahead, Deputy Angelo Gonzales was out on a call but would be happy to meet him at a small town not far away. It was a beautiful day for a drive, so he figured he might as well go and maybe scope out some local intelligence on his own: odd religious compounds usually generated a lot of rumors and suspicions.

  * * *

  When he pulled in and parked his unmarked and tinted-window sedan in front of Rodger Sellers’s store, the SUV with lights and a county sheriff’s decal was already there waiting for him, with an average-looking deputy leaning casually against it. Without waiting to be identified, the slightly older Gonzales nodded to him and said, “You’d be Agent Horiuchi. Deputy Gonzales. What can I help you with?” Angelo’s demeanor was friendly, but Reno didn’t like being so casually identified as a government agent.

  “I don’t need help. I was directed to talk with you.”

  “Yes. Of course. I’m sure no high-speed low-drag federal agent really ever needs help, but they may be able to use some local knowledge. So what can I help you with?” The tone was still friendly, not at all sarcastic, but the words implied a lot. Agent Reno Horiuchi didn’t like Gonzales already.