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13: Grandfather Abbot
As I stood gaping and wishing I hadn't come, he made an absent gesture. "Now that you're here, I suppose I have a few things to explain." He looked at me staring at him and barked. "Sit down, why don't you?"
I spread my feet a bit and folded my arms over my chest. "If you raise your voice to me again, I'm going to cold-cock you and walk out, never to be seen again. Why don't you sit down, you wretched old creep?"
He started to go into one of his rages. His fists flew down, and he rose on the balls of his feet, and lighting sparked in his eyes. He had often frightened me when he got like that, to the point that I nearly wet my pants as a teenager, but now he seemed an impotent elderly man. He caught himself, and sat down. I remained standing for a bit. So we stayed in the library like that in silence, while he rubbed his sparse hair with gnarled hands and seemed not to know what to say. Seeing him that way weakened some of my own anger, and I sat down opposite him. We looked at each other over a deeply glossy, dark-brown wooden table that stretched a long way. Its far end was covered with books and transfers, those plastic things that look like paper.
"We lost the battle years ago with the other side of the Upholder clan," he said.
It took him a while to process that much. He was normally a fairly reticent individual. I could understand now what it must have cost him to speak at length and rescue me from the clutches of Chief Blue and Chief Brown when they were trying to railroad me over the Timony matter in the stairwell. I understood now that there was much more to the affair than I'd ever realized. "Was the emasked witness at my trial Balesso?" I asked.
He shrugged. "It might have been, very likely. I would be one of the last persons to be told. Balesso is only part of our problem at this point." He gathered his thoughts a moment, and then continued. "I was sworn to total silence, on pain of losing my life and my family's." He held his head in his hands, resting his elbows on the table as he spoke. He seemed to need to wind up to deliver each sentence. "You might have been king one day, but that is now forever gone since the elections have gone to the Upholder side.
"We were allowed to keep our estate in the city, but I was sent to the Temple, and they assigned me to be Abbot in the Granistons. That suited me, beause I was never outgoing or political, and it seemed like a quiet, safe place to spend my life.
"Your father—my son—had to try and create a bloody revolt."
It was my turn to hold my hands over my head. "Oh no..." I had thought he died of a heart attack.
"He attacked the palace inside with a few of his agents. They were captured and then executed like dogs in the palace yard. It's something no history book will ever relate. They held a trial and took your mother away about a year later, and she was given poison at the prison hospital."
"No..." I was near tears. My heart was very heavy with all the treachery and deceit. It was as if my life had been a lie.
He continued: "You are my only grandchild. I felt I had failed my son, in that he did something so stupid and surprising, and I didn't know him well enough to anticipate it."
"Maybe he had the right amount of guts," I said, "just not the brains."
"Probably true," the Abbot said. My grandfather. Ick.
"Let me guess," I said. "Timony knew something about all that."
"Oh yes," the Abbot said.
"Of course," I said. What else?
"His parents were involved. They were Eastgardens. They were in the Granistons for the same reason your parents were. It was that or the firing squad."
"The Upholders did that to us?" I said angrily.
He raised a hand. "Easy. I didn't see it coming in my son, but I see it coming in you. For God's sake, leave it alone. It's ancient history. Timony didn't get it, and wound up dying as he tried to save the world."
"By warning me."
"If he'd had more time, he would have spilled all the beans to you on that tower stairwell. It was too long a story to blurt out all at once. He just wanted to save the Popess, who was one of us."
"An Eastgarden?"
"An Upholder."
"But—."
"It's complicated, Farr. Don't let it eat you up. She was an Upholder with Eastgarden connections. When you warned her with your sandbox—trust me, I watched the police films very closely—she touched your forehead in blessing. She knew who you were, Farr. She knew they were plotting against her life. I don't think any of us expected the end to come when and where it did."
"Timony knew."
"I believed Timony. That's why we had the undercover female Swat Guards all around her."
"You mean the two who brought me here?"
He nodded, just a grave declination of the head.
"What did Timony know that you and the others didn't?"
"Good question, and worthy of the next Lord Eastgarden."
"You mean, we're allowed to return to this place?" I was just mouthing words. I had not been able to process a tenth of what we were talking about.
He nodded again. "Yes. I am still Abbot at the Granistons, but I am moving here temporarily until I have done the paperwork and signed this all over to you, house, title, and all. I want no part of it."
"But why are they relenting now?" I asked, thinking the worst of King Lee.
"They have their reasons," he said. "First of all, they want you close by so they can better handle you. If you were to challenge Lee in the next election, they'd figure out a way for you to have a tragic accident or something. They aren't going to let go, my boy, I hope you understand that. But there is another reason. They are worried about Balesso and his faction. The Free Domers don't particularly like the Royals. They resent the concentration of power and population. As long as the Free Domers maintain their absurd individualism, they can easily be divided and conquered. The monarchy has been playing that game for centuries, even using the church."
"How?"
"The reality of power is one thing, and religious values are another. The church, the Temple, is about power on the one hand, and religious control on the other. Sometimes they have to preach one thing and do another as when factions murder each other's Popesses."
"I had a feeling something like that was happening," I said. "So the new Popess is in Balesso's pocket, meaning he has the Temple under control, and now he is free to work on the Palace side."
"And how is he going to do that?" I asked.
"I would presume by all means necessary, including uniting the Free Domers into a powerful faction."
"It's already happening," I said. "The Confederation."
"Yes. And I don't think it can be stopped."
We fell silent a while, thinking our thoughts. I thought of how I had until today been a wandering Triber, a fake monk living from moment to moment, and now I was about to become one of the great Lords of Royal Mars. That seemed fine, but I thought with infinite sadness of the fate of Sudie and Timony, and the human ugliness that cheapened things all around.
"I believe the church has made you a higher man," my grandfather said quietly. "By your distress, I am pleased to see that you attach more importance to clean living than high office."
I nodded. "I can understand why you would withdraw from such a world."
"It's not about withdrawing," he said, pouring us each a cup of steaming coffee. "It was, for some years, but now I have a better perspective. It's about being above it all and trying to help people...the common man, who looks to us with faith and hope. I cannot ride it out with my books in the library, hoping it will go away. I owe something to Timony and Sudie, for one thing."
"You did a lot for me, more than I appreciated. Thank you," I said sincerely. If he weren't such a cold, distant humbug, I would have hugged him.
He appeared to know that and seemed relieve I didn't. We remained silent for a few minutes, sipping our coffees and nibbling cookies.
"There is a lot yet that doesn't make sense," I said.
"I should say so," he said. "I can help you take the next step, if you are ready."
I shrugged. "What could that be?"
"I can tell you what it can't be. You will never rise beyond Lord Eastgarden. You will never be king. Make up your mind now and free yourself of any such aspirations. The Upholders have mechanisms in place to kill you and remove you from this title and all its possessions. You have everything to lose and nothing to gain. Think of it this way. Even if by some miracle you could defeat all those other contenders and pretenders, what joy would there be, always looking over your shoulder to see who is about to stick a knife in your back, as has been the fate of tyrants since the beginning of time. Far better you quietly support the system, do what good you can, support the church and its good works, and enjoy life to the fullest."
I could see the reason in that. "I can't bring Timony back," I said, "but something should be done for Sudie."
He shrugged lightly. "What do you request?"
"If nothing else, surgery to install a new tongue, maybe some teeth."
He shrugged again. "I can petition the Royal Hospital here in King City, or the Queen's Hospital in Buenos Ares. They can grow organics in test tubes, tongues, penises, whatever a person has missing."
"Why wasn't this done already?" I asked sharply.
"Because the world isn't perfect. Because we didn't know. Because you weren't in charge yet. A lot of reasons."
"I'd like it done as soon as possible without upsetting either Sam or Sudie. She is half out of her mind and requires delicate handling. Sam is strong and must be enlisted first to make him understand. If he wants, we can move them to a more secure location with a perimeter, so they don't lose their freedom but gain the security they need."
My grandfather said quietly: "Technically she is a Lady and as such can keep a staff. We could work it that way, using Palace budget. Let's work that out. I have something else to discuss with you."
"Very well. What is it?"
He poured himself another cup of coffee and looked as though he needed it.
"Farr, there are things much more important than who rules in King City or in the Holy City. Do you love the Gods?"
I snorted. "Sure."
"Do you believe in them?"
I looked at him.
"The truth," he said.
I thought about all the thinking I'd done over the years, and framed my reply carefully. I was prepared to back everything up from Directions and Scripture. "I believe," I said, "that there is what is. The truth. Veritas. It is entirely independent of what we know (science) or believe (faith). That is a fact always lost on fanatics, who put faith above reason. It may also be lost on those who think the world is limited to what they know, which is the other side of the coin from those who think the world is limited to what they believe."
He smiled for the first time, wanly, like the Holy Sun briefly peering out on a cloudy day. "Your years of philosophical studies have made you in to a talking book."
"I am trying to frame my answer as well as I can, with what you taught me," I snapped.
"I know." He actually laughed. "I am delighted."
"You ridicule me."
"No, I am laughing because I know I don’t have a prayer, pardon the pun, of countering this terrific argument you are building in response to a simple question."
"It's not a yes or no."
"Very well."
"So as I was saying, the Truth is what it is, no matter how hard we want to believe in anything. We may believe in the truth, or we may believe in something else, but our faith doesn't change anything. That is the fatal weakness of faith, that it cannot stand alone because it cannot tell truth from falsehood."
"And reason?" he asked soberly, biting into a pastry.
"Reason is not a finished dogma, but a process of thought. As science it is a specifically ordered method of thinking. It is a journey, not a destination. We can reach milestones, like knowing gravity is a force, but we cannot contain the entire thing we study. Reason builds a model of the universe, but as the model becomes more perfect, it also becomes more like the original, so that we start losing as much understanding as we gain."
"And this has what to do with my question?"
"Neither reason nor faith can completely answer our most compelling questions, either separately or taken together. My answer to you as a man of faith is, yes I honor the Gods whether it is literally the Godpods who put us on Mars, or something beyond our comprehension that they represent. As a man of reason, I can tell you that I am agnostic about the whole Gods business, and that is because by definition the supernatural does not overlap with the study of natural things that science is."
He nodded. "That's good enough for me." He sipped coffee. "Now, Farr, what did Sam Gorepoint say to you in its entirety? I wonder if he told Timony as much, or more."
I tried to recall the things Sam said. "He was a priest, or did Trini tell me that? He got into trouble for killing a man who tried to mug him, and he was exiled down to the Tribers. He found a strange coin in a mine up here, which I think is under the Holy City someplace."
"Ah, yes. Did you get the idea anywhere along the line that he understood exactly what this six or seven point coin thing represents?"
"No. Do you know what it is all about?"
"Not entirely. I think he was on his way."
"That's what I think too," my grandfather the Abbot said. "Pity he did not have longer to pursue his questions. He was a brilliant and good young man, like yourself."
"What is down there in those mines under the Holy City?"
"Not the Godpods," he said. Before I could react to his cynicism, he said: "Timony came to me with an incredible story. See, there is still much chance or Fate or whatever you want to call it in the universe. Sam is a priest who took his education, did his decade of abstinence, and then made the mistake of thinking the grass is greer on the other side, so he quit the Temple and tried to make it in the public sector. He married, had children, failed in business, lost his wife and children, and ended up as a roughneck in the mines below us. He acquired skills, did well, almost succeeded, and then killed a man in a bar brawl, and was sent packing."
"I know that much."
"He found an artifact down there, which he showed Timony, whom Fate compelled him to meet. Timony was on a quest of his own, and started pursuing this dangerous course. Timony thought he could restore his family. I made him promise never to tell you about your true background. Now here's the part you don't know. Timony was smarter than all of us, and he might have made a good king one day, although the deck is totally stacked against the Eastgardens. Timony came to me with information and a scheme to restore the family, and I sent him, at his request to the highest authority in the land."
"Which was the old Popess," I said in surprise.
"Yes. She understood there was a plot against her, involving the Balessos and probably some elements of the Upholder clan, so she gave Timony the most valuable artifact the church possesses."
"Which was?"
"A key. Something she did not want the Balesso faction of either Temple or Palace to ever have. Something so powerful it can change the face of Mars forever, and something dangerous in the hands of people like Balesso. She shared with Timony a truth that is generally only passed down among the Popesses or the occasional Popes."
"So she kept it from the current Popess?" I asked. "Wouldn't that cause an uproar?"
My grandfather made a wry face. "Only if they knew about it."
"You mean—?"
"Yes, only you and I know." He reached into his breast pocket and removed an object wrapped in silk. He opened the wrapping before me on the table, and I saw there a coin-like object much like Sam's, only in better condition. "It's very old," he said. "Try not to touch it with your skin, but with the silk."
I gasped. "She was holding that the night she died."
"Yes. The Popess always carries this at ceremonies. The Temple possesses a few copies, but they know one is missing. The Balesso Popess and her people are looking very hard for this thing. It's only a matter of time before they get to me."
I didn't touch it at all, but turned it this way and that with a pencil tip. On one side was that same map of Mars, with—I counted carefully—six points. I noted: "The sixth point has a shadow on one side. That must be the seventh, hidden point." I turned it over. There he was again, that man with the wig, but this was a far better copy of the object than Sam's. The back contained an array of tiny square cutouts overlaid on the wig-man's features. "I'll bet these conform to the points on the front," I said.
"They appear to," he said. "Holy City experts have been looking at that for centuries. They have never been allowed to write or speak about it, but it has been examined and then always returned to the private altar of the current Holiness."
"And now I am holding it?" I asked incredulously.
"She came to me the day before she died. She did not dare summon me, for fear of tipping the Balesso faction off. She delivered it to me for safe keeping as a Holy Abbot. She didn't know whom to trust, and I was her best bet, being a family member besides."
"Then she already knew something when she saw my warning in the sand." I remembered her touch on my forehead.
He acknowledged with the faintest flicker of the eyelids.
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