Leading my horse, with a mystified Sedenko muttering behind us, I made for the lane. If anyone knew of the hermit Philander Groot it would surely be the priest. I found the lane. There were cart tracks in the snow, between tall hedges.

Sedenko continued to sing behind me. I think he was pleased with himself for being able to track me. I could hardly bear the sound of his voice, it was so sweet, so happy.

I turned a corner in the lane and there was the stone church with its spire and its graveyard. I tethered my horse to the fence which surrounded the graveyard and opened the wicket gate, bidding Sedenko to stay where he was and watch our mounts.

The doors of the church opened easily and I found myself in an unpretentious building, evidently Catholic but by no means reeking of incense and Mary-worship. The priest was at his altar, arranging the furniture there.

"Father Christoffel?"

He was fat and bore the scars of some earlier disease. His mouth was self-indulgent, like the mouth of a lazy, expensive wh.o.r.e, but his eyes were steady. Here was a man likely to commit sins of the flesh in abundance, but sins of the intellect would be few.

"I am Captain Ulrich von Bek," I said, doffing my helmet and pulling off my gloves. "I am upon a mission which is secret, but there are religious aspects to it."

He looked hard at me, c.o.c.king his little fat head to one side. "Yes?"

"I am looking for a man whom I heard to be dwelling in these parts."

"Hm?"

"A certain hermit. Perhaps you know him?"

"His name, captain?"

"Philander Groot."

"Groot? Yes?"

"I wish to speak to him. I hoped you would know of his whereabouts."

"Groot hides from himself and from G.o.d," said the priest. "And so he also hides from us."

"But you know his whereabouts?"

The priest lifted heavy brows. "You could say so. Why is a soldier looking for him?"

"I seek something."

"Something he possesses?"

"Probably not."

"Of military importance?"

"No, Father."

"You are interested in his philosophy?"

"I am not familiar with it. I have little curiosity where philosophy is concerned."

"Then what do you want from Groot?"

"I have a story for him, I think. I've been led to understand that he would wish to listen to me."

"Who told you of Groot?"

This was not a man to whom I wished to lie, "The Wildgrave."

"Our Wildgrave," said the priest in some surprise. Then his face began to frown. "Oh, no. Of course. The other one."

"I suspect so," I replied.

"Do you serve Lucifer, too? Groot, for all his failings, is adamant. He will speak to none who do."

"I could be said to serve the world," I told the priest. "My Quest, some have suggested, is for the Grail."

The priest showed some surprise. His lips silently repeated my last two words. He peered into my face with those bright, intelligent eyes.

"You are sinless, then?"

I shook my head. "There are few sins unknown to me. I am a murderer, a thief, a despotter of women."

"An ordinary soldier."

"Just so."

"So you have no hope of ever finding the Grail?"

"I have every hope."

The priest rubbed at the stubble on his jowls. He became thoughtful, glancing at me from time to time as he considered what had pa.s.sed between us. Then he shook his head and turned his back on me, attending to the altar-furniture again.

I heard him murmur: "An ordinary soldier." He even seemed amused, though there was no mockery in him. Eventually he looked back at me.

"If you possessed the Grail, what would you hope from it?"

"A Cure," said I, "for the World's Pain."

"You care so much for the World?"

"I care for myself, Father."

He smiled at this. "Fear is a disease few of us know how to fight."

"It is also a drug," I said, "to which many are addicted."

"The World is in a sorry state, Sir Warrior."

"Aye."

"And any man who continues to hope that it can still be helped has my goodwill, my blessing even. Yet Philander Groot. . ."

"You think him evil?"

"There is no evil at all, I would say, in Philander Groot. That is why I am so angry with him. He refuses to accept G.o.d."

"He is an atheist?"

"Worse. He believes. But he refuses to accept his Creator."

I found this description sympathetic.

"And so," continued the priest, "he shall be refused Heaven and unjustly be swallowed up by h.e.l.l. I despair of him. He is a fool."

"But an honest foo!, by the sound of him."

"There is none I know more honest, Captain von Bek, than Philander Groot. Many seek him, for he is said to have magical powers. He lives under the protection of a mountain kingdom which in its turn is also protected by powerful forces. To reach that kingdom you must journey to the far peaks and find the Hermit Pa.s.s, which leads into the valley where Groot dwells."

"The pa.s.s is named for him?"

"Not at all. It was always fashionable with hermits." There was a sardonic note to the priest's remark. "But Groot is no ordinary hermit. It is said that he spent his boyhood as the apprentice to a Speculator. Perhaps they are unknown in your part of the world. Speculators professionally spend their time watching for signs of the Coming of the Anti-Christ and Armageddon. The living can be good, particularly in troublesome times. But Groot, from what he has told me, became tired of the Future and for a while studied the Past. Now, he says, he cares only for an Eternal Present."

"Would that I could reject Past and Future," said I with some feeling.

"Oh, and then we should be able to reject Conscience and Consequence, eh?" said the priest. "But I have had this argument with my friend Groot and I will not bore you with it. Should you meet him, he will be able to present bis position far more fluently than I."

I took the map-case from my pouch and drew forth several of the maps. "Is Hermit Pa.s.s marked here?" After much opening and closing I was able to withdraw the appropriate map (it showed both Ammendorfs) and display it to the priest. With a fat finger he indicated a road which led into the great mountains I had already seen. "Northwest," he said. "And may G.o.d, or whoever rules in Mittelmarch, go with you."

I left the church and rejoined Sedenko. "We will provision here," I told him, "and continue our journey in the afternoon."

"I saw what seems a good inn as we came through the town," he said.

"We'll dine there before we set off."

I had been at once cheered and disturbed by my encounter with Father Christoffel. I wanted to leave Ammendorf behind me as soon as possible and be upon my journey.

"Was your confession heard, captain?" innocently asked the young Kazak as I got into my saddle.

I shrugged.

Sedenko continued: "Perhaps I should also seek the priest's blessing. After all, it is some time . . ."

I became angry with him, knowing what I knew. I almost hated him at that moment for his ignorance of his own unfair fate. "That priest is next to an agnostic," I said. "He cannot unburden himself, let alone you or me. Come, Sedenko, we must be on our way." I paused, deciding that it was as well if I told him a little more of my story.

"I seek nothing less than the Holy Grail," I said.

"What's that, captain?"

Whistling, his breath clouding the sharp air, he fell in behind me.

I explained to him as much as! could. He listened to me with half an ear, as if I told a fabulous story which had not much to do with either of us. His very carelessness made me all the more gloomy.

Chapter VIII.

As WE RODE out of Ammendorf my bitterness against a Deity who could consign such as Sedenko so easily to h.e.l.l continued to grow. There seemed no justice in the world at all, no possibility of creating justice, no being to whom one could appeal. Why should I be concerned about redemption in such a world? What would I escape, if I escaped h.e.l.l?

Sedenko had earlier attempted to interrupt my brood-ings, but for some while had said hardly a word, cheerfully accepting my silence and respecting my reluctance to answer his very ordinary questions. The day grew colder as night came nearer, yet I made no preparations for camp. I was tired. Ammendorfs good wine and food were sustaining me against weather and lack of sleep, and I told myself that Sedenko was young enough to lose another night's rest. Only the condition of the horses concerned me, but, they seemed fresh enough, for we did not push them hard. Movement was all that I desired. We pa.s.sed through rocky hills and over snowy moorland, through woods and across streams, heading steadily towards the high peaks and Hermit Pa.s.s.

As night fell, I dismounted, leading my horse. Sedenko did not question me, but followed my example.

It had been some years since 1 had lost my Faith, save in my own capacity to survive a world at War, but evidently in the back of my mind there had always been some sense that through G.o.d one might find salvation. Now, as I journeyed in quest of the Holy Grail (or something identified as the Holy Grail), I not only questioned the possibility that salvation existed; I questioned whether G.o.d's salvation was worth the earning. Again I began to see the struggle between G.o.d and Lucifer as nothing more than a squabble between petty princelings over who should possess power in a tiny, unimportant territory. The fate of the tenants of that territory did not much seem to matter to them; and even the rewards of those tenants1 loyalty seemed thin enough to me. For my own part, I believed that I deserved any fate, no matter how cruel, for I had used my intelligence in the service of my self-deceit. The same could not be said of Sedenko, who was merely a child of his tunes and his circ.u.mstances. I had received positive proof of the existence of G.o.d and the Devil and my Faith in them was weaker now than it had ever been.

My cloak would not keep out the bite of winter's night. I heard my teeth chattering in my skull. My heart seemed as if it were turning to ice. Even Sedenko was shivering, and he was used to far worse cold than this.

We were climbing higher into the foothills of the mountains. Their peaks were now tall enough to block off half the sky and the snow became deeper and deeper until it threatened to spill over into our boots. Towards dawn I began to realise that if we did not have heat and food soon we should probably perish, whereupon we should both go straight to h.e.l.l. The prospect reminded me of the reason I had accepted Lucifer's bargain.

Although it was difficult to see through the murk, I selected a place where an outcrop of rock had left the ground relatively clear of deep snow and told Sedenko to prepare a fire.

As he gathered wood, the dawn began to come up, red and cold. I watched him while he moved about in the nearby spinney below, bending and straightening, shaking snow from the sticks he found, and for some reason was reminded of the parable of Abraham and his son. Why should one serve a G.o.d who demanded such insane loyalty, who demanded that one deny the very humanity He was said to have created?

I watched as Sedenko prepared the fire for us and The War Hound and the World's Pain 115 selected food from our bag of provisions. He seemed cheerful merely to be in my company. He was excited, expecting great and interesting adventures. If he died on the morrow, he would probably look wonderingly at h.e.l.l itself and find it interesting.

And then it came to me that perhaps Lucifer had lied to me, that He had lied to all who served Him. Perhaps none of us were d.a.m.ned at all, but could somehow wrest our destinies free of His influence as He had attempted to wrest His own destiny free of G.o.d's. Why should we be controlled by such beings?

And the answer came to me, as it always did when I followed that logic: because they can destroy us at will.

I could almost sympathise with those the Wildgrave had warned me against; those who saw me as aiding in Lucifer's betrayal of His own creatures. They had seen Lucifer as representing if nothing else a defiance of an unjust G.o.d. A pact between G.o.d and Lucifer would find them without protection, sacrificed because Lucifer had found it expedient to change His mind.

But would G.o.d let Lucifer change His mind? Even Lucifer had no clue to that. And I, if I succeeded in discovering the Cure for the World's Pain, might not be finding a remedy at all. What if, when it was put to the lips of mankind, the Holy Grail was discovered to contain a deadly poison? Perhaps, after all, the only Cure for pain was the absolute oblivion of death, without Heaven or h.e.l.l.

My heavy sighs caused Sedenko to look up from where he was warming his hands against the fire. "What did the priest tell you, master? You have been distressed ever since you met him."

I shook my head. It had not been the priest, of course, who had disturbed me. And I could not explain to Sedenko that I knew him destined for h.e.l.l, that the G.o.d he claimed to serve had rejected him and had not even given him a sign of that rejection.

"Did he refuse you grace?" Sedenko continued.

"My state of mind has little to do with my encounter in the church," I said. "I received information from the priest. He has told me where I might look for a certain hermit, that is all."

"And you still do not know the purpose of your journey?"

11*

"I know it, I think, as well as I ever shall. Make us our breakfast, young Kazak. And sing us one of those sonorous songs of yours, if you can."