Joby gaped, and shook his head. "Is it true?"

"I believe it." Father Crombie nodded. He pointed to the kingly statue high above the crucifix. "That one up there is of God's Son after He had risen from death."

"That's Geezez up there too?" Joby asked in surprise.

"I told you," Benjamin muttered.

"But . . . Father Morgan said it was just a dead bishop!" Joby exclaimed.

"Did he!" Father Crombie said in obvious amazement.

Joby was more confused than ever. Surely Merlin would not have lied. Had Father Morgan not been Merlin? Why had he winked then, when he said he was just a priest?

"But . . . if Geezez didn't stay dead, why don't you get rid of that one then?" Joby asked, pointing to the crucifix. "Why not just keep the good statue?"

"We keep them both, Joby, because neither has any meaning without the other. You probably don't understand what it's like to be hopeless. I hope you never do. But there are people who lose everything they ever wanted, even the power to hope for it. They long for another chance, but they think it's just too late. Well, can you think of any time when it's more too late than after someone's dead?"

Joby shook his head.

"Yet that is precisely when God helped His Son," Father Crombie said. "You see? God waited until anyone could see it was far too late to help His Son at all. Then God helped Him anyway. That is hope, even for the hopeless." Father Crombie nodded at the crucifix. "That's why we keep this horrible statue hanging there, Joby. God's Son lived for everyone, but He died so the hopeless would know it's never too late for God to help them. You may be glad to know that yourself someday."

Joby could barely manage his swirling thoughts. Only moments before, his mission had finally seemed clear. Now everything was mixed up again.

"So you see, Joby, the devil lost that fight-not Jesus."

"Hey, Mom! Dad!" Benjamin called, seeing his parents in one of the big doorways at the back of the church. "We're almost done!"

Benjamin's parents waved to Father Crombie, who smiled and waved back before turning to Joby again. "The important thing is this, Joby: what God and His enemy both want is your heart. It's your heart that's most important, not the rules, whatever Father Morgan might have said."

Sitting quietly beside Benjamin as they drove home, Joby could not get Father Crombie's last words out of his mind: It's your heart that's most important. Father Crombie's advice seemed the same as Arthur's, but Father Morgan's seemed a lot like Merlin's. How could Merlin and Arthur disagree? All the way home, Joby's head hurt from trying to untangle it, and strangely, so did his heart.

"It was a bishop, you know-it-all little prig!" Lucifer shouted, dashing the bowl of water from his desk. "You're the one who doesn't know what he's talking about!"

In fact, the bishop in question had been a particular favorite of Lucifer's, with whom-or on whom, more precisely-he still dined occasionally. "God's risen Son, indeed!" Lucifer muttered in disgust. That moribund lump of funerary sculpture was to the Creator's risen Son what the pretentious bishop who'd posed for it was to God! But wise Father Crombie knew so much better!

Sadly, anything Lucifer could have done to prevent the meeting might have tipped his hand too badly; and he was wise enough to know that the entire war mustn't be jeopardized even for such an important battle. He'd been stunned when Joby's father had allowed the boy to go. He had thought that variable sown up securely, but no; love had intervened! God seemed to have built an endless series of these absurd gags into the universe, and right now Lucifer was less amused than ever!

Someone in Joby's family, or Benjamin's, could have died, of course. That certainly would have forestalled their little expedition to see Father Crombie. But Lucifer didn't have the boy's measure well enough yet to know which way such a jolt would launch him. Father Crombie, on the other hand, could have had a heart attack without much impact on Joby at all, but that was too much to ask of the cosmos on its own, and, irksomely, the decrepit old meddler was too well protected for Lucifer to have arranged it himself. More angels hovered day and night around that old nuisance than Dante himself could have invented names for. There were back doors, however, even through defenses like Crombie's, and a whole week was plenty of time.

"We'll see how you love life in some God-forsaken little outpost far, far away from your beloved seminary," Lucifer snarled. "Laugh at the devil then, Crombie!"

4.

( The Roundtable ) "Ugh!" Laura exclaimed softly, lifting her bare knee from the poor crushed snail very carefully, lest the dead leaves crackle and give her away. Fourth-grade boys kept secrets about as neatly as they kept their rooms, and no one had thought to look behind them for spies as they'd raced out to this wide clearing among the trees for their top secret trials. Once she found out what it was that boys could do so much better than girls, she meant to prove she could do it better than any of them.

Sweeping the long auburn hair out of her eyes, Laura crouched forward to see more clearly through the clump of foliage in which she was hidden. The boys had stopped roughhousing to listen as Joby gave some kind of speech she couldn't quite hear. Then they all threw their arms up with a loud whoop and holler. Laura's face scrunched in consternation. She couldn't tell what was happening. She'd have to get closer.

Before Laura could even look around for some better hiding place, she was alarmed to see Joby running across the meadow directly toward her. Had they seen her? She crouched down even farther as Joby trotted right up to her hiding place, but instead of calling her out and making her leave, he just draped a red bandanna across the thin screen of branches between them, and sprinted back to rejoin the others across the field. There was hardly time to sort relief from confusion before all the boys were charging toward the scarf! Making herself as small as she could, she watched in growing panic as the hollering pack raced toward her, Joby and Benjamin in front with Bobby Lehan just ahead of Duane at the rear. At the last minute, Benjamin pulled ahead of Joby and crashed into the thicket, making Laura cower and scrunch her eyes shut, but Ben still didn't notice her. He just grabbed the scarf amidst much hooting and groaning from the other boys, as Joby slapped him cheerfully on the back. Then they hung the scarf on the bush once more, and everyone trotted away to do it again.

Running? Laura thought, indignant with relief. That's all it took to be a knight? She could run! A lot faster than Duane Westerlund! Scooting quickly back behind a safer bush as they prepared to launch their second race, she watched in less and less impressed silence as Joby won the next race, and Kyle Evans the third.

When they'd finished racing, they all went back to the field's far end where Joby handed his watch to Peter Blackwell, pushed the red bandanna into his back pocket, and lit out for a large pine tree at the edge of the clearing. After waving his arms at Peter, he jumped to grab the lowest branch and dangled for a moment, struggling to kick his legs up around the thick arm of the tree. Then he was aloft, shimmying higher, hoisting himself from branch to branch, up and up until it made Laura nervous to watch. Even the boys had grown quiet by the time he reached the very top, which swayed frighteningly as he tied the bandanna to a small branch there. Then he came down, seeming almost to free-fall from one handhold to the next before jumping easily to the ground.

Peter called out something that brought noisy shouts of approval from the other boys, but, to her mounting frustration, Laura still couldn't tell what he'd said. The shouting increased as Benjamin walked to the tree and climbed quickly up to touch the bandanna before descending almost as recklessly as Joby had. Another unintelligible announcement from Peter Blackwell brought a second round of excited shouts.

As other boys took their largely more timid turns at climbing to touch the bandanna, Laura realized how she could get closer. Very near them, a large oak tree hung well out over the clearing. From up inside it she'd be able to see and hear everything. The problem was how to get there without being noticed. This difficulty was soon resolved, however, when Joby tied the red bandanna to his arm, and ran from the field while the others just stood listening to Peter count quite loudly. Laura still wasn't sure what they were doing when, with a wild shout, everyone charged into the trees after Joby.

Since they'd left their shirts in a pile right beneath her oak tree, Laura was sure they'd come back, and when they did, she'd be hidden practically straight above them. Climbing trees wasn't something she'd ever done really, but it hadn't looked too hard.

After listening to make sure they were really gone, she crawled from hiding, ran to the oak tree, and grabbed an easily reachable branch. A moment later, having skinned one knee a little on the tree's rough bark, she was up.

"I'd make just as good a knight as Duane Westerlund," she muttered contemptuously.

One more hoist up, a short crawl, and she was at the base of the long branch that hung out over the clearing.

It hadn't looked this high from below. For the first time, she hesitated. How on earth, she wondered, had they climbed clear to the top of that pine tree without having heart attacks? Well, she thought crossly, if they can, I can! She clung to the branch and began to wriggle on her belly away from the tree trunk. Halfway out it began to bounce and sway unpleasantly. She stopped to fend off a wave of panic before inching forward again. When she'd gone as far as she dared, she lay still for a moment, then sat up very carefully to straddle the branch. She looked down. Her position was good. Her confidence was not.

That's when she noticed the ants. A thick dark trail of the little crawlers moved along the branch like miniature rush hour traffic, passing right beneath her! Or they had until she'd blocked their path with her body. Now they scattered everywhere in agitation; down her legs, up her arms. Yuck! No improvement in view or acoustics was worth this! Conceding defeat, she started turning around.

Suddenly, there was shouting from the woods nearby. Before she could react, Joby burst into the clearing, leaves tangled in his hair, his shirt torn in back, followed close behind by Benjamin and Kyle, then all the others. Joby ran straight to the trunk of her tree, slammed his hands against it, and shouted, "Safe!" He started laughing between gasps for breath. "You guys are the lousiest bunch of boar hunters I ever saw!"

"We had you!" Benjamin exclaimed. "Grabbin' your shirt should count!"

"I said, I'd make it to the creek and back," Joby insisted happily, beginning to catch his breath. "And that's what I did."

"You were lucky!" Kyle insisted.

"It's not against the rules to be lucky." Joby smiled.

Laura didn't know what to do! There were ants all over her, she was half-turned around in the most awkward position imaginable, and she didn't dare move. Some mean trick of perception made the ground seem terribly far away, while the boys seemed close enough to reach up and touch her. If she did anything now, they'd notice.

Soon the whole pack of them had gathered below her, teasing and congratulating one another for moves they'd made or failed to pull off during their hunt, in which Joby had evidently been the prey. To Laura's relief, it seemed they were going to go have another hunt, which would give her the chance to get out of this tree. This time the red bandanna was tied around Benjamin's arm, but just as he was going to leave, several of the boys said they needed to rest first, and the whole group collapsed agreeably onto the ground beneath her. That's when she was bitten. The ant's tiny jaws were a searing needle in her armpit.

"Oh!" she gasped.

The word was out of her mouth before she could catch it. Everyone looked up. A few of them stood.

"Laura Bayer!" shouted Johnny Mayhew in disbelief.

"Laura?" said Joby. "What are you doing up there?"

"She's spyin' on us! That's what she's doin'!" shouted Duane Westerlund. He picked up a pebble and hucked it at her as if chasing a squirrel or a blue jay away from their picnic.

Flinching back from Duane's little missile, Laura lost her balance. Clutching at the empty air, she felt more surprise than fear. No one made a sound, and there was no time to think before she hit the ground with a sickening jolt, as if from some great distance. She knew something was wrong, but her brain seemed stuck and far away. Her glasses were gone. She wondered if she'd broken them and if she'd get in trouble for it. Had she told her mother she'd be home late? Did she have homework to do? All these thoughts passed ridiculously through her mind in an instant.

"Laura!" Joby cried. Suddenly unfrozen, he and several others ran to look down at her in horror. "Laura, don't move!"

She tried to sit up, and her left arm and shoulder were instantly lanced with a horrible fire. Hearing herself scream, she imagined white-hot sword blades slicing up her arm and racing for her head. She fell back onto the ground as if someone had pulled her plug. The boys above her looked sick. Some of them turned and ran away. Her vision shrank in, as if she were falling down a long dark tunnel away from Joby's stricken face. There was just time to hear someone moan, "She's turning gray!" and Peter Blackwell yell, "Duane, you butt! You've killed her!" Then the tunnel closed.

Joby walked slowly down the long shiny hallway with a bouquet of flowers in each hand. He was nicely dressed, his hair carefully combed. They said Laura was healing well, but even after two days, he was scared to see her arm again.

His parents had offered to come up with him, but he had left them in the lobby. After hearing what had happened, his mother had tried to forbid Joby from ever climbing trees again. His father had told her that it wasn't fair to make Joby stifle himself every time someone got hurt, which had only made his mother even more upset, and Joby just didn't want them seeing Laura, and starting it up all over again.

It still made Joby shudder to remember how Laura had turned all pasty and passed out after the fall. He had thought she might really be dead. They'd been a long way from the nearest building, and her arm had looked so terrible bent back beside her like she had a second elbow. Bones and blood had erupted through her skin when she'd tried to sit up. Some of the guys had thrown up. After telling Benjamin and Kyle to run for help, he'd stayed beside her, petting her hair, afraid to touch anything else, telling her and himself that it would be okay. It had seemed to take forever for the emergency people to come in their big truck with Ben and Kyle in the front seat.

She had regained consciousness then, and Joby still couldn't believe how brave she'd been. When one of the emergency guys had mentioned "giving her a hand," she'd actually joked about needing a new one. She'd only screamed once, when they put a big plastic splint on her arm. Joby couldn't imagine making jokes if it had been him. He figured he'd have screamed pretty much the whole time.

They said she was going to have to stay at the hospital until Monday, because there'd been dirt deep in her arm, and they were worried about infection. Joby was the first person to see her besides her folks, and he wondered what to expect as he found her room, and knocked softly on the door.

"Come in."

She didn't sound dead.

He pushed the door open to find her propped up in bed, watching a TV hung from the ceiling. There was a tube stuck in her left hand and another embedded in her cast, but other than that, she looked okay. When she saw who it was, her hazel eyes went wide behind the blue-framed glasses that had miraculously survived her fall, and she smiled brightly. Relief washed through Joby. He had wondered if she might be mad at him.

"Joby!"

"Hi, Laura." He walked to her bedside, and handed her the small bunch of iris and freesia his mother had picked out. "These are from me." Then he set the large bouquet of roses and carnations on the covers beside her. "And these are from Duane. . . . He's real sorry, Laura."

She looked uncertainly from Joby's bouquet to Duane's and asked, "Why doesn't he come say so himself?"

Joby shrugged. "He's scared. He knows you prob'ly hate him now."

She snorted, and set the roses on her bedside table, then stuck her nose in Joby's flowers, took a deep breath, and smiled again. "I don't hate Duane," she sighed. Then she grinned. "I heard Peter call him a butt."

Both of them laughed.

"A lot of people think he's kind of a jerk right now," Joby said.

"That's too bad," she said, sounding like she meant it. "Tell him to come see me, Joby. Will you? He probably won't believe I don't hate him 'til I tell him so myself, and he probably won't come see me unless you tell him to."

Joby stared at her. She sounded . . . older. And something about her request made him feel proud, though he wasn't sure why.

"I'll tell him," he said. "But I don't think he'll come."

"He will if you tell him to."

The pride in him swelled some more. He looked at her cast.

"Does it hurt a lot?"

"Yeah. Sometimes. But not too bad."

"What were you doing up there, Laura?"

She looked embarrassed and glanced away. "Like Duane said. Spying."

"Why?" Joby asked.

" 'Cause I wanted to see what I had to do to be a knight," she answered, still not looking at him.

Joby's shoulders slumped. If girls could be knights, no boy would want to be one. He knew that. . . . but . . . she'd practically died trying to get in.

"I'll try," he said. The words just came out on their own. But as soon as he heard them he knew he couldn't take them back.

"Try what?" Laura asked.

"To make them let you in," he said, sure he was announcing the Roundtable's death sentence.

First she smiled, then she looked down unhappily. "I can't climb that pine tree, Joby. . . . I won't pass the tests."

"I couldn't make jokes if my arm was broke," he replied. "Far as I can see, that'll work as good as climbin' any tree. . . . I don't think they'll listen . . . but I'll try."

She beamed at him. "They'll listen to you, Joby."

Joby looked down, not wanting her to see that he wasn't so sure.

"And if they don't, it's okay," she added. "I don't want to be in unless they want me. It's just nice of you to try . . . and . . . and your flowers are much nicer than Duane's."

That clinched it. Joby would have to try.

As they rode back to St. Albee's the next morning, Joby tried his idea out on Benjamin. After visiting Laura, he'd gone home and scoured his book on Arthur for anything that might help him make his case to the other knights. The solution, when he'd seen it, was so obvious it had made him laugh.

"So that's my idea," he concluded. "Whadaya think?"

"I think it's awesome." Benjamin grinned. "After what happened, they'd be jerks to say no. It's perfect!"

"Good," Joby said. "That's what I thought too. I just hope it's okay with Laura."

"Hey, she'll be in," Benjamin said. "She'll get to come to the meetings."

The weekend had dawned threatening rain, and Joby wasn't as excited about going to St. Albee's as he had been before. The Roundtable had come to occupy nearly all the space inside him that churches and grails had claimed the week before. Still, they had promised Father Crombie.

At the seminary, they asked a man leaving the grounds where Father Crombie's office was. He gave them a strange look, then said, "Go into that building, and ask for Father Richter. He can tell you."

When they got to Father Richter's office, they found a new priest behind a desk, who turned out not to be Father Richter, but called Father Richter on his desk phone. A moment later the office's other door was opened by a middle-aged priest with thick glasses and thinning gray hair, who smiled, and said, "I'm Father Richter. You must be Benjamin and Joby! Please, come in." Joby followed Benjamin toward the inner office, wondering why the other priest had called Richter on the phone when he could have just opened the door and talked to him.

"Where's Father Crombie?" Benjamin asked when they were inside.

"The bishop has assigned Father Crombie to another post," Father Richter told them. "I will be replacing him here."

"But . . . he told us to come see him today," Joby said.