"No one hurls invective at an empty room. Still, let it out."

The younger man's eyes shot to the Chi-Rho. "At that?"

"Why not? Every union has its quarrels. And God, since we are made in His image, is man enough to hear you out."

"Then I would ask . . ."

"Let it out, Sochet."

"Why?"

"Don't whine. Yell. You're that angry, aren't you?

Yell!"

"Why?" The force of it pulled Padrec around to the Chi-Rho panel, pointed like a weapon at his betrayer.

"Why? If you are there and you hear me, I want an answer. 1-thev . . ."

His fists beat against his thighs with rising fury. "Never since the Apostles were there children so sure of you, so 295.

ready to your hand. They believed. You placid, omni- scient butcher, they believed Do you know what thai costs?

Any tonsured eunuch can bend his knees and babble aves, but they did miracles in your name. They turned the other cheek, gave their substance to those who hated them.

They were so ready to fight for you. And they were betrayed, that's the word for it. Betrayed by those who pray to you and act in your name.

"You hear me, God? You stir yourself now off your smug rock of ages and . . . and t-teli me ... what good can come of this, what divine plan? My God . . ." Padrec swayed forward, trembling, toward the symbol. "My God, you sicken me. We were better treated by Contani whores."

Meganius winced at the taut back. "With men and fools, a Tittle patience."

"I'm not a fool," Padrec snarled at him. "Don't tell me that, old man. I was there. You saw how they sold us at the end, sold us all through it."

"I did. But Marchudd and Ambrosius have at least the purity of their motives. They know what they are and what they do and that they dealt with a fool."

"And you knew this would happen?"

"Not the end of it, no," Meganius denied. "Only the ultimate purpose. The Church must grow in Britain and Ireland if it is to grow at all. We may be the thorn in Rome's rump, but we have a genius for faith, no matter how troubled. And nothing and no one could have filled your expectations, Sochet, or those of your wife. Mar- chudd's motives were at least cut to a world he knows.

Yours ..."

Meganius lifted his hands and let them fall with the impossibility. "And now God sickens you, eludes you in His design. Why not use the original words: 'Why hast Thou forsaken me'?"

The force of Padrec's anger seemed to stumble on something. "What?"

"Surely you remember them?"

"No . . ." Padrec crumpled to his knees, collapsed in on himself, face buried in his hands. "He didn't say that."

"Sochet, what is it?"

"He never said that. ! was there."

"What do you mean?"

296 "! was there, Meganius. I heard him. Saw him. He believed to the end. He never said that."

Padrec was weeping now. Meganius martyred his old

knees to kneel beside the miserable priest, holding him.

,i, - , "-, , , ' . " "

Let tt come, boy. 1 here s no shame. Let it come.

Padrec swiped at his tear-blurred vision. "Have you ever seen a crucifixion?"

"Once A long time ago."

"AH these years, babbling by rote of Golgotha ... no one should die like that. You know what happens to a man when they hang him up like that? No, listen. Remem- ber. None should speak of Christ's agony without seeing it. The hands are too weak to support the hanging body, so the nails are hammered through the wrists. Very quickly the man grows faint, dizzy. He finds it hard to breathe, then impossible. The heart fails. I used Eo think the crunfragtum, the breaking of the legs, was a pointless cru- elty. It was a mercy. There used to be a sedile tor the man to ease his weight. When the legs were finally broken, the man could not support his weight, and so his heart failed the quicker and ended his suffering."

Padrec was calmer now but still insistent. "RhiwaHon wasn't that expert. They just-just nailed Drust's wrists and his feet and left him hanging. Oh, they gave him the irony of the spear in the side. And before he died, he tried to help me." His voice broke again. "Hanging there, he tried to h-help me pray. He went on that stinking cross, Meganius, because he believed where I didn't, couldn't.

EvenJesu doubted then, but Drust didn't. What god would allow this? Play him so false, ask his belief, and have it given, purer than any psalm, and then . . ."

It was too much. Padrec clung to Meganius while the ugly, wracking sounds tore from the pit of his stomach.

"W-what kind of god, Cai?"

"Was nae Father-God, but thee, Padrec."

Malgon hovered in the chapel entrance, still, his voice with no accusation, only truth. "Was thee told us to believe."

Padrec looked up at him, haggard. "Yes." He rose wearily. "Yes, 1 did, didn't I? Will I ever earn your for- giveness for that?"

"Thee was sold as well, fhain brother." Malgon beck- oned. "Come home."

297.

"You can't go now," Meganius implored.

"He's right, Cai. It was me."

"You can't go like this, not apostate. You need time to think, meditate."

"On what?" Padrec asked desolately.

"Don't Just shake your head at me, Father Patncius.

Will you accept the responsibility, the fact that you are God's priest and always will be?"

"Priest?" There was a mocking weariness in the sound.

"1 don't even have the faith to pray before sleep. But it was me."

"Oh, God in heaven, is there no end to your vanity even in guilt? Can't you be as human as your own Christ and forgive yourself?"

"When 1 think of faith, it's not Christ, but Drust hanging there."

If it's his crisis, it's mine as well, Meganius thought. What do I tell him when only lime will make him know it? One of us has to believe in him.