I

"So this is the child."

The Abbess knelt down so that she could look the young boy in the face. She stared into his blue eyes, deep and slatey blue like the ocean. He stared back, though not at her, through her, as though she were not there. He was lost. The child's head had been shaved; nicked and bruised in places where the barber had been not too careful with the blade. There was a hideous scar on his forehead, a burn. She touched it with her index finger and the child flinched for a moment, but stood immobile, passive. It was a brand, in the shape of a skull. The Abbess' eyes filled with tears, and she stood up, hastily wiping her face with her long, white sleeve. The child did not frown, did not smile, did not look up, only stared blankly ahead.

"Tell me everything you know," said the Abbess to the woman and the man accompanying the boy. The Abbess sat with the couple and their young charge on a stone bench in the Abbey garden. The man was gangly and thin, dressed in worn, simple clothes, clean shaven, with silver brown hair and a tan face crowded with wrinkles, holding a smoking pipe in calloused hands folded awkwardly on his lap. He frowned and nodded at the woman, his wife. She was heavy set, her face bright red and tear-streaked, bright blue eyes and strawberry blond hair, dressed, like her husband, modestly and simply.

"We found him," she choked back a sob, "in the aftermath of the Vernal Day of Mercy Massacre. You've certainly heard . . ."

"Many of the sisters of my order were among the workers who tended to the bodies of the victims. God have mercy on their souls."

"Then you know of the horror . . ."

The Abbess rested her hand on the woman's fist, clenched tightly around a handkerchief in her lap.

The woman looked the Abbess in the eyes, "This child was the only one. The only survivor. We found him among the tombs, at the bottom of an open grave, where the revelers . . ."

"How did he get there?"

"He was wearing something, some infernal talisman. Henri," she turned toward her husband, "Do you have it?"

Henri put the end of the pipe into his mouth and reached into a pocket. He pulled a filthy strap of leather out and held it up in the sunlight. Dangling from one end was a rusty, iron pendant. A grinning skull and crossbones. The Abbess mouth dropped open as she studied it.

"It looks like . . ."

"The scar on his forehead," hissed the woman.

The Abbess gasped. Henri scowled and stuffed the pendant back into his pocket. "Vile, cursed thing," he growled.

"The poor child was feverish, half naked, half starved. Look at the scars and bruises on his arms. There are more like that on his ribs, his legs. It's been three days now. He hasn't spoken a word since we found him. Except at night. He cries out horribly in his sleep, and then he wakes up screaming. He can't be consoled."

"To whom does he belong?" asked the Abbess, regaining her composure only gradually.

"Do you know why the Leveler Cultists have children? Not for the love of life! Only for blood and torture. Blood and torture!" The woman burst into tears again, beside herself.

"Élise," said Henri, placing one arm around her, "Calm, calm."

"Do you realize what you have done?" said the Abbess, putting her arm around Élise, "You have saved him from all that. You have done a very good thing. An immeasurably good thing. Élise! Remember, ‘shouldst thou labor thine entire life and save but a single soul, infinite mercy be returned unto thee'! The Compassionate One is smiling right now! I can feel the light of the divine presence even now."

The Abbess knelt down again, and looked into those vacant, slatey blue eyes. "Child? Can you hear me? Perhaps you can't respond, but you can hear with your heart, child, I know you can. Know that you are safe now. Know that no one can hurt you any more. Know it deep inside, in your heart. You are claimed by the Infinite Light of Mercy and Compassion. No harm can come upon you any more. Can you hear?"

He didn't stir, didn't whisper, didn't so much as blink.

"We were hoping you could help, Mother," said Henri.

The Abbess closed her eyes, clasping her hands in supplication, and muttering a prayer under her breath. Then she slowly rose to her seat and locked eyes with Élise. "There's nothing I can do for him," she said.

"Nothing?" gasped Élise.

"Nothing more than what you yourselves can do for him. The child's parents are certainly dead, likely at their own hands. They meant to take this young one to hell with them, but God had some greater purpose for him. It is no coincidence that you and Henri found him, you who have prayed all your lives for a child of your own. The Progenitor of Mercy was saving you for this child, and he for you."

Élise wrapped her arms around the boy and turned him to face her. She studied his face, stroking his dark reddish eyebrows tenderly. "What is your name, I wonder?" she said, "How I wish you could speak!"

There was no answer.

"You look like a ‘Joseph' to me," she said, "Joseph delivered."

Élise and Henri brought Joseph to the Abbey every week for service. At the end of every service they brought him forward for the laying on of hands and the blessed unction. Each time she saw him, the Abbess noticed him a bit plumper, with more color in his cheeks, less listless. Still he never looked anyone — not even Henri and Élise — in the eyes. He never said a word. The bruises and scars slowly faded, but the hideous brand on his forehead remained, gruesome reminder of an ordeal beyond description.

Each week after service the Abbess would take him by the hand and walk quietly with him in the garden, show him the bright snap dragons and violets and morning glories. She would take him to the fountain where they sat in the sunlight next to the rose bushes and she would sing mercy songs to him. Then he would go home with Élise and Henri until the next week.

This continued for three months. And finally one day the Abbess said, "Joseph, I believe you can understand me, so I will begin the catechism with you." And each week after that, on their walks together she would tell Joseph about the Infinite Light of Compassion, about the One Who Feels the Pain of the World, the One Who Breathes Mercy into the Human Soul. She would ask him all the questions in the catechism, though he never answered. Yet she would wait patiently for his answer, and then when there was none she would sigh and say, "I know if you could, you would answer, Joseph." And then she would answer for him and continue the catechism. And so on they went until they had almost completed all seven lessons.

One afternoon the Abbess walked with Joseph in the garden of the Abbey and she recited as she had so many times before:

Though earthly comparisons are ever inadequate to describe the Source of Compassion, we can say it is like the Sun in its life-giving power, in that it shines upon all, deserving as well as undeserving. And the believer should be like a glass, magnifying its light through our own lives, becoming conduits that shine the light upon all we should meet. We should not darken the glass of our lives by judging who should benefit from the Light of Compassion, but magnify the light of the Source alike on deserving and undeserving, just as we, undeserving, have received it.

She asked the question, "To what can we compare the life of the true believer?" and then waited for Joseph to answer. She took a deep breath to answer for him, when she heard something like the rustling of a leaf. She stopped suddenly, and looked down at Joseph. He was looking up at her, gazing straight up into her face, his eyes filled with tears and the lips of his mouth moving silently.

She cried, "Joseph!" and picked him up and clutched him against her chest, and he whispered into her ear, "Undeserving!"

She fell to her knees, still holding him tight against her, and they wept together for a long time. She said, "No! No! No! You are not undeserving. You are deserving of the full Light of Compassion! Oh, Source of Mercy!"

And that was when he first began to speak.

In the years that followed, Henri and Élise raised Joseph as their own. His hair grew out into thick reddish locks. His wounds and bruises all healed away and disappeared, except for a shadow of the dreadful skull-like scar on his forehead. He slowly grew to be more like the other children, if quieter than most. He liked to listen to the jokes his classmates told and he even laughed along with them, though he never told any jokes of his own. His adopted parents still worried that he was too serious and spent far too much time alone. But the Abbess always reassured them, "You have a beautiful son, one in whom the Light of Mercy will shine all the brighter for what he has suffered."

Each week they brought him to the Holy Service and each week he visited with the Abbess afterwards in the garden. Slowly and painfully he found words to describe the horrors. The Abbess sometimes found herself turning pale and chilly as stories of "thick red wine" and "the hole in the basement," of "the bad, bad knife and the rusty chain teeth" and "my other daddies and mommies" fell in fragments from his child's lips. She was always there to comfort Joseph, remind him that he was saved and safe now. But as the truth of this child's existence unfolded to her, inwardly she found herself questioning the truth and reality of the Light, found herself waking in the middle of the night, stifling in the darkness, struggling with doubt. She shared her doubts with her Mother Superior, and always was reminded of how the good was growing and the evil losing its grasp on him. The Light of Compassion still shone, more now than ever, through her, the Mother Superior reminded her. And in moments of lonely despair the Abbess told herself, "The snake healer must suck poison into her own mouth to save the life of one who is bitten. I must feel the pain of this too if he is to heal." And so she ignored the doubt and continued on hoping.

One day Joseph asked the Abbess, "Can the Devil be saved?"

She stared in amazement. "Joseph, I declare! You ask the oddest questions!"

"Does the Light shine on everyone or not?" he insisted.

"Without question, Compassion ‘shines upon all, deserving and undeserving,' but . . . ," she shook her head.

"Then can it shine upon the Devil too?" he persisted.

"Well," she sputtered, "the Devil is the Devil because he blots out the light, he refuses to let it shine in him, and he leads others to do the same."

"Does that mean there are some that the Light cannot save?" Joseph asked, his eyes burning intensely.

"How can you ask such a thing? Of course the Light can save all . . ."

"Then the Devil can be saved," he said.

"Why no, he cannot!"

The Abbess stared at Joseph and Joseph stared back with a fury that surprised her. His lower lip began to tremble and tears welled up in his eyes.

"Then you're saying maybe there are some the Light can't save!" he said in a quavering voice.

She stopped for a moment, watching a shadow creep over his face, the meaning of his question slowly dawning on her.

"What am I saying!" she cried, "You are right, child, you are right! Yes, even the Devil can be saved. How foolish I am to doubt it! Come to me!" She sighed as she put her arms around him. "Child, in all my life I have never met a soul who worried about the welfare of the Devil. You astonish me."

"Then I'll save him," he said, "One of these days, I'll find a way."

"Be careful, Joseph. Careful, Dream Child. It may be possible, but don't be so sure you should be the one to try it," she whispered.

"I will do it," he said.

"If anyone can do it," she thought to herself, "perhaps you can."

II

Joseph was thirteen years old when the first news came of revolution in distant lands, in a faraway republic. At first it didn't mean anything to anyone, beyond providing yet another topic of idle conversation at the town marketplace and in the taverns. "An odd form of government, a republic," said Pierre Lestock, the town clerk, "Nice idea, in theory, but ignores the divine order of things. Putting the cart of the people before the horse of government, if you ask me. It was destined to fall." Jean Maridot, a prosperous farmer, shook his head, "What's come after the republic is worse. Much, much worse by far." And Madeleine, his wife, folded her arms and sighed, "It just goes to show how lucky we are. May the Light ever shine on the King!" And that was followed by raised steins of ale and a chorus of toasts, "May the Light ever shine!"

As he had every Day of Mercy since his Rising Up Ceremony at the age of ten, Joseph spent the eve of the Winter Day of Mercy of that year at the Abbey preparing beds and working in the scullery.

"Joseph," said the Abbess, "you'll need to set up two dozen extra beds in the courtyard."

"We've never set up beds in the courtyard before, Mother," Joseph answered.

"We've never had so many homeless seeking shelter at the Abbey before, child," the Abbess said matter-of-factly. "As it is we'll have to turn away quite a few. They'll try to camp out in the square around the fountain, and I'd just as soon let them, but the Constable won't allow it."

"Why won't he allow it?"

"‘Violation of the Sanitary Ordinance' and ‘Disturbs the Peace,'" she sighed.

"Where will they go?"

"Well, they'll have no choice but to squat on some farmer's land, maybe Lejeune's or Maridot's or Brunot's. And if they get caught, who knows. There's not enough room for them at the courthouse, the geol's already full of vagrants. And the forest certainly isn't safe." She pulled a stack of blankets off the highest shelf of the Abbey storage room and handed them to Joseph.

"Why are there so many more homeless this Day of Mercy than the last one?"

"Because last autumn there was a bad harvest, and many of the poorer farmers were forced to sell their lands to the rich farmers. Now they work for the rich farmers. But because of the bad harvest, food is expensive this year and they can't afford to eat and pay their rents at the same time. So they sleep here at the Abbey."

"Oh."

"Now get busy, Joseph. Hurry, hurry! We have to open the front gate in half an hour."

After Joseph finished the beds he hurried to the kitchen, where Sister Marie Guisot put him to work slicing beets and rutabagas.

Sister Agnes Claire complained, "There are homeless here every night, but the devout only think to help us four nights a year, on the Days of Mercy."

"I'd help more often," said Joseph, "if Mama and Papa gave me more time off from the farm."

Élise, who was carrying pitchers of water in from the cistern blushed and said, "Joseph, we'll let you come more often if you wish!"

Then the front gate was opened and suddenly the sisters were bustling about, pulling bread out of the oven and lining up bowls full of food. Others rushed out of the kitchen to help people find their beds and calm crying children. A man argued with one of the sisters about the lottery system they would use to decide which of the surplus would not be able to stay in the Abbey that night. "It should be first come first served!" he shouted. The Abbess took him aside into her office for a few minutes, where his raised voice still carried through the door, and then she escorted him firmly to the gate. There was no more arguing.

"All of you will be allowed to stay for dinner before the lottery," announced the Abbess in a loud voice, "But then some of you will have to leave. I apologize, but there just isn't room for everyone to spend the night."

During dinner Joseph noticed a particularly unkempt group occupying a table in the corner of the dining hall, three men and a woman. "More water!" shouted one of the men, "And more bread!"

Heads turned.

"Joseph, can you take care of that?" pleaded Sister Marie.

Joseph ran to the kitchen and grabbed a pitcher full of water. He hurried to the counter next to the oven, and found only cutting boards covered with crumbs.

As he carried the water pitcher back to the table, he overheard a snatch of conversation, "The rotter and his bleeding wife think they're a bloody king and queen, getting fat off the land you once owned. And you're what? Less than a peasant. Equality's coming to get ‘em. Eh, Jacques? Eh? Equality's coming." The talker poked the man sitting next to him with his elbow.

"Here's your water," said Joseph, "but we're out of bread, sorry."

"Fuck! Out of bread? Ah, fuck ‘em!" shouted the talker.

Joseph suddenly recognized the man sitting beside him. It was Jacques Guillot. His parents had occasionally driven to market with him and his wife. Now Joseph could barely recognize him, his face was so dirty, his hair matted, his clothes tattered. Joseph recognized the woman sitting across from him as his wife, Anne. His face lit up with a smile of recognition. He opened his mouth to say, "Monsieur, Madame Guillot!" when the man turned abruptly away. "Gimme more beets," he growled, motioning impatiently toward a bowl at the end of the table.

The talker reached out to snatch the water pitcher and Joseph noticed something hanging out of the end of his frayed sleeve, a dirty iron pendant dangling from a worn leather bracelet. Joseph stared and went deathly pale. He turned and walked away, slipping out of the dining hall without being noticed.

At midnight, after making the rounds of the Abbey and saying her nightly vespers in the chapel, the Abbess returned to her chamber. She found Joseph there, shivering in a cold sweat, sitting on her bed with his back against the wall, his knees pulled up tight against his chest and his arms wrapped around his calves.

"Light of Mercy!" she cried, "What is it? Joseph?"

"S - s - s . . . ," he hissed.

"What is it?"

"S - s - skull," he spat.

"Oh merciful God," she cried.

The Constable knew about the attempts to poison the town water supply on the past three Vernal Days of Mercy. He knew that the countryside, especially the northwestern woods, was increasingly infested with ruffians. And he knew that while leading citizens like Maridot, Lejeune, and Brunot had blocked efforts to raise taxes to build a town wall or hire more deputies, they themselves had been hiring mercenaries to patrol their own lands.

After the Winter Day of Mercy, when the Abbess complained to him that one of her parishioners had seen evidence of the "Leveler Cult" and that he must look into it immediately, the Constable had said only, "Mother, I know there are Levelers growing in number like rats in the sewers. What can I do about it? My few men are busy protecting the merchant caravans and arresting disorderly vagrants."

The following eve of the Vernal Day of Mercy, as the Abbess opened the front gates of the Abbey to welcome in the homeless, she heard shouting in the town square. She thought nothing of it; another one of the increasingly frequent fights, she thought. But as the sisters seated people in the dining hall the bell at the front gate rang furiously. The abbess hurried back to open the gate and found François Bonhomme, a deputy, out of breath and his face flushed. "Are there souls here tonight who will help put out a fire?"

"A fire?" she gasped.

"The Town Hall is burning!" he replied. He pointed to the north, toward the Old Quarter, where houses were huddled densely together on Tower Hill. The crest of the hill was illuminated, as during the Festival of Light, but this time the streets strangely empty, no gayly dressed torch bearers. The illumination was cast by angry flames clawing at the night sky from the other side of the hill. As the news spread through the Abbey, devout men performing service that night and homeless men alike hurried out into the night, following the deputy up the street toward the town square where fire brigades where being formed.

"Should I go?" asked Joseph.

"I need a strong young man to help me here," replied the Abbess, patting him on the shoulder.

The meal in the dining hall was more quiet than usual, with perhaps two hundred women and children and a few dozen men, mostly aged. As women volunteers and sisters carried pots of food, loaves of bread and water pitchers to the head of each table, the Abbess rose to the lectern on the eastern end of the hall. "Let us pray," she said.

As the Abbess uttered the first words of her prayer, "O Source of All Comfort," suddenly there was a crash, a shout from the main entrance of the hall, and the sound of frenzied footsteps. She opened her eyes and raised her head to see a crowd of people rushing in through doors that had been slammed open. Some of the mob wore the rough-woven, simple tunics of serfs. Others wore the breeches and brown shirts designating them as landless laborers. Many wore bright red sashes, wrapped crudely around their waists or festooning the wide-brimmed, cloth hats that ordinarily designated penal or hereditary servitude. Levelers. They brandished poles, shovels, rakes, sickles.

The Abbess remained frozen where she stood. "How dare you!" she shouted.

A tall, unwashed man in a wide-brimmed hat, tunic, and a particularly long red sash belt strode forward wielding a sickle, while other Levelers rushed to secure the other doors leading out of the hall. "We've just come to join in your celebration," he snarled. Joseph, sitting with Élise and Henri at the table just next to the podium where the Abbess stood, jerked his head up in recognition at the jarring sound of the man's voice, panic growing in his eyes. As the man lifted his hand to scratch his forehead, his sleeve slid back revealing a small leather bracelet with a rusty, iron trinket. Joseph gasped.

The man strode forward toward Joseph's table, grabbed a pitcher of water, raised it to his face and drank. "Bah! You're holding out on us, sister. You're saving the wine for yourself, aren't you? We need wine for a real celebration."

Joseph sat petrified, visibly pale and clammy. He moaned involuntarily and began to slide off his bench. The man turned toward the sound of the moan, and saw Joseph sitting there staring at him.

He stared back at Joseph. "What's this?" the man mused, reaching down to roughly push aside the boy's dark, reddish bangs. He studied the ash-colored scar in the shape of a skull on the boy's forehead. "Well, well," he laughed, "You're one of us."

Joseph shook his head.

"Aren't you, boy?"

Joseph jerked away, trying to duck under the table, but the man grabbed the back of his shirt and yanked him up, as he started to cry, "No, no!"

"This is your lucky day," the man said, raising his sickle, "A lucky day to be a Leveler."

The Abbess had watched in growing horror until this moment. She rushed forward screaming, "Leave him alone!"

The man turned abruptly to face her. He let go of Joseph and snatched the front of her clean, white robe and shook her like a rag doll. She grasped at his outstretched right arm, trying to wrest away the handle of his sickle. He shoved her away with his left hand, knocking her off balance, and swung the sickle down full force.

The last thing the Abbess ever saw was Joseph scrambling under the table as the dining hall burst into pandemonium.

III

It had been a little over two weeks since the Terror, since Father Dominique Lumière had heard from Brother Alphonse the first news of buildings set on fire, isolated farm houses attacked and their inhabitants murdered, and hostages in churches massacred by suicidal madmen. In the days following, there had been more reports of grisly death by poisoning. Not many wells had been contaminated, but the entire kingdom was now in a panic. No one dared drink well water; there had been reports of riots and a massive flight of city dwellers into the countryside.

Refugees from the nearby city of Clairveaux had destroyed the calm at Father Lumière's abbey. The brothers and sisters had done their best to accommodate the frightened men, women, and children who flocked to their gates. But following the arrival of the displaced there had almost been a small riot within the walls of the abbey itself, as terrorized former city-dwellers demanded that the homeless farm laborers who slept at the abbey be turned out or even imprisoned by the authorities.

"It will be the poor who bear the brunt of this," Father Lumière had thought, when he first learned that Levelers had been behind the uprisings. "Vagrants" had been lynched by enraged mobs in Clairveaux. The Duke of Clairveaux had sworn to redouble his efforts to imprison and punish runaway serfs. Clairveaux's troops had already rounded up a group of "outlaws" hiding in the southern woods; there had been summary executions and public hangings. There would be more before it was all over. Ironically, there would perhaps never be earthly justice for the actual perpetrators of the horror, who were mostly dead at their own hands. The Cultists believed suicide a sure path to heaven.

Now before him in his office sat a Sister Marie Guisot, who had traveled three days on foot to see him. Her shoes and the fringes of her dress were still covered with mud from the journey. She looked pale and bone weary, deep lines in her face, gray hair, her eyes vacant and stricken. She had the same look of grief sickness he had seen in the face of Alphonse when the brother had first approached him in the Abbey garden with news of the Terror.

"You are the only one who can help," she said.

"I will do what I can, sister. Tell me what it is."

"There is a child in prison. It makes me heartsick to think of it, after all he has been through!" She recounted the story through a steady flow of tears, though her voice never wavered. She told how a young boy had been rescued by two peasants after the Massacre of the Vernal Day of Mercy eight years ago, how he had been a child of Levelers and destined for death but how instead this peasant couple had rescued him for life. They had renamed him Joseph "Delivered" and raised him as their own child, bringing him to the weekly worship at the abbey and raising him to love the Light of Mercy. And now the Horror they had labored all these years to save him from reached out again to grasp at him. The boy had seen his adopted parents and the Abbess cut down before his eyes. By a miracle he had been saved a second time from oblivion; yet now, by an unbelievably cruel twist of fate, the Duc de Clairveaux had him shut up in one of his dungeons, where he awaited hanging along with a number of the scoundrels responsible for the enormity that bereft him of his only true family.

The Abbot listened in complete silence. "Why was the boy imprisoned?" he asked.

Sister Marie Guisot pointed at her own forehead with an outstretched finger, "A scar on the boy's face. As a child he was branded by the fiends. The Duke's men at arms took it as a sign that he was one of them. That and the fact that the boy survived."

"How did he survive, Sister?" the Abbot asked.

"The conspirators had agreed to murder everyone in the abbey that night and then to commit suicide themselves. They had almost finished when some refused to join in the suicide. There was a fight. Most of the conspirators had already killed themselves; only a few of the committed ones remained. They were overpowered and murdered by the dissenters. The leader meant to save Joseph for last, but after the mutiny the leader was dead and those who remained had no more taste for blood. Joseph was spared until the Duke's men arrived, only to be imprisoned with the conspirators. We have tried to explain the error to them."

"You wish me to speak with the Duke," the Abbot said.

"He won't grant me an audience, and his men insist he's the only one who can release the boy."

"I'll speak with him," the Abbot sighed.

"Thank you, Father," Sister Marie Guisot stood up.

"You may stay here at the Abbey until we've resolved this situation," he said, rising to walk her to the door, "We can always use another pair of compassionate, helping hands."

She smiled gratefully. "Thank you, Father."

That night, Father Dominique Lumière called Brother Alphonse into his office.

"An innocent boy's life hangs in the balance," he told Alphonse.

"You think the Duke cares about the boy? Or about justice?"

"What can I do, Alphonse?"

"For you to ask him a favor now, this will cost you," said Brother Alphonse.

The Abbot took a deep breath. In the candlelight he looked like nothing more than a weak, old man. "If Providence has saved this child until now, it would be inexcusable for us to fail in our part. Sometimes it is in the little things that the Light of Compassion shines forth most purely," he whispered.

That night under the full moon Father Dominique Lumière uttered a prayer as he and Brother Alphonse set out on foot for Clairveaux.

Joseph never knew that for years the Abbot had openly criticized the Duke for levying heavy poll taxes against the landless poor, and then reducing them to serfdom for inability to pay their debts; for imprisoning or hanging those who sought to escape serfdom; and for spending the treasury of the Duchy on an ever larger army of mercenary soldiers who terrorized the peasants and answered only to him. Nor was Joseph ever told that the price of his own freedom was the resignation of Father Lumière from the post of abbot and the appointment of a new abbot who pleased the Duke.

Father Lumière felt some consolation that, after his release, Joseph's first questions were, "But what about those who spared my life? Aren't they to be released too? How otherwise will they continue their journey toward the Light?"

"This boy might be the one to carry on for me after I am gone, and if so the sacrifice was worth it," the old man told himself.

It was decided that, as Joseph had no parents any more, and as the Abbess was dead his abbey in disarray since the massacre, he should live at Father Lumière's abbey, the Abbey of Rayons. In his new home Joseph kept very quiet and stayed mostly to himself. Father Lumière spied him from time to time alone in the garden weeping, but the boy would wipe his tears with his sleeve and run away if he ever noticed he was being watched. He locked himself in his room for hours at a time, and sometimes Sister Marguerite had to threaten to break the door down in order to get him to come out for his meals.

The brothers and sisters ran a school for orphans at the abbey and as the years passed, Joseph proved himself to be an above-average pupil. Not only was he very clever, but he applied himself with tremendous concentration. Yet it was not his cleverness about things nor his focus that astonished his teachers most, but his determination to penetrate the hidden causes and meanings of things.

"It is true that Mercy is the moving force behind all creation?" he once asked Brother Aloitius.

"Why of course," replied the brother teacher.

"Then what mercy is there in a storm?" he asked.

"Well, of course there is mercy in the rain that causes the plants to grow, and perhaps even mercy in the lightning, which gives fire that we depend on to cook our food and warm ourselves," replied the brother.

"No, I don't mean that," said Joseph, "I don't mean rain or lightning or thunder or wind, or any of the pieces of a storm. I mean whatever it is about a storm that sends a shiver down our backs and makes the dogs bark when one is coming; what makes the air go deathly still and the sky turn green and time seem to stop just before one breaks. I mean the stormness of the storm. What is the mercy in it?"

"I'm not sure I know what you mean," said Brother Aloitius.

That is what his teachers often said to him, though Joseph would only purse his lips and glance upward as if to say, "Then I will just have to think about this some more."

The great scandal at Rayons, the one scandal about which no one dared speak too loudly lest the wrong ears be listening, was the fact that the wisest and most learned and most revered member of the abbey was not permitted by the current abbot to teach nor to speak in public. Sometimes there was a moment in the classroom when a brother or sister would forget herself and let slip, "If only Father Dominique were here to answer that question."

In one such moment, Joseph asked, "Well then, why don't we just ask him?"

Sister Irène ignored him, as if she hadn't heard. Joseph only pursed his lips and a shadow crossed his face.

Father Dominique lived all by himself in the wing of the abbey where the library was located. He was permitted unrestricted access to every book in the library, and spent his days studying in a small cell on the second floor. He took his meals alone in his room and burned candles until very late every night, preferring his writing to sleep. His only human contact was on Sunday, when he went for a walk in the garden with Sister Marguerite and then he wrote a short letter to Brother Alphonse, who had transferred to the Abbey of Clairveaux. The letters were short and business-like, telling Alphonse about the latest progress on this or that manuscript and commenting on "the weather."

One night Father Dominique was startled by a gentle tapping at his door, so soft he at first assumed it must be someone knocking on a different door further down the hall. When the tapping continued, he groaned and got up to answer. He found Joseph waiting in the hall with his head bowed and his shoulders hunched together, as if to make himself as small as possible.

"May I come in?" Joseph whispered.

Father Dominique motioned him in and closed the door silently behind him.

"Sit down," said Father Dominique. There were no other chairs in the room other than the one Father Dominique sat at his desk on, so he pointed toward the bed.

Joseph sat down on the very edge of the bed, as if afraid to break it. Father Dominique smiled.

"My name is Joseph," said Joseph.

"I know who you are," nodded Father Dominique.

"I won't waste much of your time," said Joseph, "But I was wondering . . . One of the sisters, Sister Géraldine, told me you've written many books. Is that true?"

Father Dominique nodded.

"Then why," continued Joseph, "can I not find any in the library? Not one?"

Father Dominique stared at Joseph for a long time. Joseph sat very still, staring at his feet. After clearing his throat awkwardly, Father Dominique finally replied, "Why would you want to read any book I have ever written?"

"Because you are the only teacher in this abbey that I have not been allowed to learn from. Because everything every one of my teachers knows, they learned from you. Because none of my teachers know enough and because I want to learn more!" Joseph's voice had been slowly rising, and when he cried "more!" he suddenly caught himself and went silent.

Father Dominique studied Joseph's face, his intense, rain-colored eyes and his edgy frown. The Father sighed a deep wintry sigh.

Once upon a time Dominique Lumière had been able to say whatever he thought whenever he thought it without worrying who would hear. He had almost forgotten what this freedom was like, and it felt good to speak in this way now. "My books are not in the library because the Duke of Clairveaux considers them dangerous. Because our abbot, while considering himself a well-meaning man, is a coward who has achieved his rank through moral surrender."

Joseph sat, staring intently back at Father Dominique, tears brimming in his eyes. "I want to read your books."

"I do not suppose," replied Father Dominique deliberately, "there is anything I can say to you that will dissuade you from this foolishness."

Joseph shook his head.

"Then you shall read my books," the former Abbot replied.

At the age of sixteen Joseph presented himself to begin training for the ministry. The Abbot of Rayons was less than enthusiastic. Father Dominique heard from Marguerite how the Abbot made little effort to conceal his feelings that an orphan, and one with as questionable a background as this one, was poor material for the ministry. He called Joseph "willful and emotionally unbalanced."

Father Dominique smiled to hear the Abbot's words from Marguerite. "It means Joseph is a young man with integrity and spirituality, one who won't be controlled by the likes of the Abbot or the Duke."

Despite the Abbot's disdain for him, Joseph had been so determined in the pursuit of his education and so scrupulous in his preparation for candidacy that there were no formal grounds on which he could be denied.

At least none that the Abbot knew about. For almost a year before beginning his training, Joseph had been secretly meeting with Father Dominique late at night and smuggling books into his cell under his tunic. He had found a loose stone in the wall, near the floor under his window, behind which there was a space large enough to hide the books (wrapped in cloth to protect them against moisture). He devoured the books, barely able to put them down. As he had always been solitary, no one found it out of the ordinary that he took every opportunity, once classes were over, meals had been eaten, and chores were done, to retire to the privacy of his room for hours on end.

In the books he drank deeply from a well of mysticism he had only barely tapped with his other teachers. He laughed out loud once to read a passage from Hidden Mercies that had an unexpectedly familiar ring:

There is a mercy we understand only barely with our minds, that is only revealed in precisely that which eludes us, that which overwhelms and transcends us by its enormity: the mercy in the sunness of the sun, in the oceanness of the ocean, in the stormness of the storm.

The mystery of Father Dominique's words soothed deeply hidden pain he had never found the words to define, pain that still haunted him at night.

But he also found in the books a kind of clarity that snapped the world into new focus, that made him see and understand things plainly only now. In The Final Triumph of Mercy he found the key to the whole vector of his life:

There is no just bloodshed or unjust bloodshed, only bloodshed. No just war or unjust war, no holy war, only war. There is no retribution for injustice, only more injustice piled upon injustice until the world stifles under our notions of right. Our only peace and justice is Mercy: unmitigated, exorbitant, unconditional Mercy. Our only healing is the Way that, rather than to take life, journeys through death, the other side of which we shall find the Ultimate Mercy.

Joseph knew only too well "the way that journeys through death," but suddenly Father Dominique's words transformed the terror of it into determination. He knew the meaning of his life now.

Joseph brought this growing knowledge with him to his ministerial training. As Joseph wrote, answered questions and argued, his teachers recognized the ideas. And as word of Joseph's unfolding reached the Abbot of Rayons, the Abbot grew increasingly agitated and perplexed with the young man.

In the years since the Terror, a distant storm had been growing. A revolution in a faraway republic had led to war between the republic and its neighbors. The brothers and sisters at Rayons talked about it over their meals or during their chores. "Surely nations can find some way to resolve their differences without war," said Sister Irène at dinner. "We are fortunate, to live in a kingdom that is strong and to have a king who is wise," said Brother Aloitius.

Then came word of unprecedented battles, the fall of ancient principalities, and finally the collapse of the Empire and the murder of the Emperor. The Abbot of Rayons announced over the pulpit: "The balance of power between nations has been disrupted and sacred tradition has been trampled under foot by a merciless despot and his armies. Let us pray for our King and his close advisors, among whom is our patron the Duke of Clairveaux. May the Light of Mercy ever shine on them and on us."

Envoys were sent to negotiate with the new power rising just across the borders. "The Duke is cautiously optimistic," declared the Abbot. But in the year after Joseph took the Oath of Infinite Mercy and was admitted to the priesthood, open preparations were finally being made for war.

"It is my sad duty to inform you," the Abbot told his congregation one morning, "that despite our King's best efforts to secure peace, we are at war." There was unbelievable news of the invaders massacring thousands, imprisoning virtually the entire populace in makeshift camps. The Abbot called this "a just war to defend our lives and our ancient traditions," and urged members of the abbey to enlist freely in the army of the Duke under the flag of the King, in order to "drive the merciless, murdering rogues out of our borders and send them back to the hell they came from."

Previous wars had been long, drawn-out affairs, consisting of mostly indecisive battles followed either by victory that was hard won or defeat that was seldom total. But the end came quickly in the new war.

One morning before dawn, Father Dominique Lumière was roused by a sudden, loud knocking at his door. It was Joseph.

"Father," he said, "The Duke's forces have been routed. They are retreating to Clairveaux. It is a matter of hours before the enemy passes through Rayons. We should leave while we can."

"Leave?" asked Father Dominique, "Where to?"

"The Abbot and a large group are following the remnants of the Duke's army to Clairveaux," said Joseph.

"Where there will likely be a siege. Are reinforcements coming to assist the Duke?"

"None. Well, we don't know. The Duc de Sillons and the Duc de Lacroix have withdrawn to the capital. There's not much else left."

"Then Clairveaux is a bad place," said Father Dominique.

"Agreed," replied Joseph, "That is why I and a handful of others are heading to the southeastern woods, out of the path of the enemy. You must come with us."

"What about the rest?"

"Most are staying," replied Joseph.

"Then I will stay," said Father Dominique.

"You can't!" cried Joseph, "They kill anyone who stands up to them, and force the rest into their death camps. You won't be safe!"

"Joseph, I'm too old to run. And even if I weren't, since the Abbot has scurried away like a rat after his master, who will be an abbot to those who are left, those who cannot run?"

"No!" cried Joseph.

"Don't argue with me."

"Then I'm staying."

"You can't. God has saved your life for a reason. You will not throw it away now." The old man's face was suddenly red, his eyes glistening.

"God has taken away from me everyone and everything that has ever been anything to me. I will not let him do it again. I would rather die!" The boy's voice trembled as he shouted.

They stood squared off, eyes locked in stalemate.

Father Dominique finally said, "Joseph, at my age, I go to bed at night not knowing if God will wake me up in the morning. I'm too weak. I will die in the wilderness. If I stay I can do some good before I die. But ideas go on! Teachings can live on! That is why you must go."

Joseph clung to Father Dominique, weeping. Father Dominique continued, "I have always believed there was a reason why I gave up everything to free you from prison. There must be someone to hold the way of radical mercy close to his heart and carry it to the next generation."

The young man and the old man clung to each other and the two of them wept pitifully. Finally, Joseph turned away, ashen and frail. Father Dominique watched him walk down the hall one last time.

"Joseph, listen to the mercy in the storm!" he said.

IV

There were six others who fled the Abbey of Rayons with Joseph: Sister Anne, Brother Cyr, Brother Émil, Sister Jeanne, Sister Lucile, and Brother Marcus. They hid in an abandoned cabin.

"How long will it be, do you think, before it is safe to go back?" asked Lucile.

"It may never be," whispered Marcus.

"How can it be that a kingdom that has stood for two thousand years could be destroyed in weeks? The most ancient of kingdoms!" lamented Cyr.

"The Kingdom has not fallen yet," said Anne.

"The King is drawing the enemy to the capital, where it will be easier to cut them off and destroy them," said Émil.

"He will return," said Jeanne.

"The King has no power," said Joseph, "because the Dukes have stripped him of it. They crush the poor under their fat heels in order to please the rich landowners and build up private armies of thieves. Those who might have protected the kingdom are wasted while the mercenaries flee like rats."

"Joseph!" cried Jeanne.

"Be quiet!" shouted Émil.

"This discussion solves nothing," said Cyr.

"We should wait," said Marcus, "Wait and see what happens."

The following morning, Joseph said, "We should go back to the Abbey and see what's happened."

Marcus agreed, but said, "Just two of us should go, the rest stay here in case something happens."

Marcus and Joseph returned that night. As they approached the Abbey the air grew acrid. In the moonlight they saw wisps of smoke rising up from blackened ruins. The southern wall of the main building had collapsed. They saw not a living soul, only piles of ashy rubble and refuse. They knelt in a ditch beside the main road and wept. Finally they turned back.

"It's gone," they told the others.

Over the following week, refugees continued to filter through the southern woods. Some of them stumbled on the cabin just as Joseph and the others had, bringing news that was ever more alarming, of the rapid collapse of Clairveaux, of massacres, of horrible camps. Joseph always asked if they had heard any news of the fate of the Abbey of Rayons or of Father Lumière. Finally a peasant with a thick northern accent arrived, telling of the fall of the capital and the beheading of the king. She told it coldly and matter-of-factly, crying only when she described how she had been forced to abandon her husband and children in order to evade the soldiers.

"There is no more kingdom," she reported, "The leaders are all being massacred, the dukes, the abbots and abbesses, anyone with learning. The Drouinistes have occupied the whole country. They have organized tracking parties to hunt down those who are trying to escape, to kill us or round us up into their camps."

"How can they do this?" asked Anne.

"People are afraid," she said, "Those who collaborate are rewarded and those who refuse to obey are murdered. The Drouinistes say they will fill us with discipline, it is for our own good. They say we should be glad they have cleansed us of corruption."

"They are demons!" said Jeanne.

"There's a tracking party not far from here," she said, "They are moving south. If you don't leave immediately, you will be caught."

"I won't leave until I've gotten word of Father Dominique," Joseph said.

"We can't stay," said Anne.

"How many are there in these tracking parties?" asked Marcus.

The peasant rolled her eyes, "Perhaps as many as two hundred in the main party."

"See!" said Anne.

"But," the peasant continued, "they split into small groups of four or five to cover more territory."

"If there are only four at a time, we can resist them," said Jeanne.

"To what end?" said Anne, "If one group goes missing, the others will follow in force."

"I won't leave," said Joseph.

A fierce discussion ensued. After it was over, Émil, Cyr, and Anne joined the peasant woman and fled.

"How will we resist them when they arrive?" asked Lucile.

Jeanne said, "In the shed outside there are tools: an ax, a couple of hoes, a scythe."

"I won't kill," said Joseph.

"It was your idea to stay! Are you crazy?" said Jeanne.

"It is us or them," said Lucile.

"It is not us or them, it is war or peace. If we join in the killing we join the side of war," said Joseph.

"He's crazy," said Jeanne.

"So do you plan to fight or not?" demanded Lucile.

"I will stop them from killing us, but I will not kill," said Joseph.

Lucile took the scythe and Jeanne the ax. Joseph removed the handle from one of the hoes, and kept it as a staff. Marcus did the same. They knelt and prayed, each for different things. Joseph prayed for mercy.

Five Drouinistes and three dogs came over a hill from the north. The dogs rushed down the hill toward them, snarling and baring their teeth. Joseph raised his hand toward one dog lunging at him and hissed, "Be afraid!" and the dog turned and ran. Marcus shouted, "Flee!" and another dog fled. Lucile shouted, "Die!" and the last dog fell to the ground in mid-leap. "A curse on you demons!" screamed Jeanne at the men up the hill.

This enraged the Drouinistes, who drew their swords and charged down the tree-covered slope. Jeanne swung her ax hard and buried it in the face of one. Another aimed his sword at her heart but thrust it through her side instead. A tall, swarthy man lunged at Lucile and Lucile savagely swung her scythe and beheaded him. Joseph drubbed the head of one with his staff, knocking him to his haunches. The last one sliced through Marcus' shoulder with his sword, releasing a shower of blood.

The assassin staggered a bit as he pulled his sword out of Marcus' chest. Joseph precipitated forward, striking him in the face with his staff and knocking him out. The other pulled his sword out of Jeanne and lunged forward thrusting it into Lucile's throat.

Only Joseph and Lucile's murderer were left standing. The Drouiniste slashed at Joseph with his sword and Joseph stumbled backwards, dropping his staff and falling onto his backside.

"Mercy, give me sanctuary!" Joseph gasped.

The Drouiniste laughed at him. He lashed at Joseph with the sword, but missed. He swung again and missed again. He thrashed again and again. Joseph looked at the sword, and there was a cracking sound as the blade snapped in two and fell to the ground.

Slowly Joseph stood up glaring at his attacker. "You can't harm me anymore," he growled, "Now be afraid."

The man ran away, back over the crest of the hill.

Joseph saw Marcus lying in a pool of blood. He knelt down beside him and gently laid his hands on his chest and kissed him on the forehead. Marcus began to breathe. Then Joseph lay down beside him, exhausted, looking up at the clear blue sky and the leaves in the tree above dancing so gently in the breeze.

"Get up, Joseph," he told himself, "You must get up. You have work to do."

Joseph and Marcus sat on a rock at a mountain pass on the border of the Kingdom watching the sun rise.

"My guilt is overwhelming," said Joseph, "I abandoned Father Dominique, the man who saved me from prison and saved my life. His last request was that I carry radical mercy close to my heart, and yet I have committed acts of violence."

"You never killed," said Marcus.

"Lucile and Jeanne are probably dead because of me," said Joseph.

Marcus shook his head, "No. If Lucile and Jeanne are alive, it is because of you. You healed their wounds the best you could. You left all our rations behind for them. Have faith that they will survive."

"I left them vulnerable and unconscious," said Joseph.

"You had no choice but to flee. You tied up the Drouinistes you had knocked unconscious, you healed our wounds. When you could not revive any of us, you carried me away on your back. Do you regret that you saved me?" Marcus reached out and took him by the hand.

"My motivation in saving you was selfish," said Joseph.

"How was it selfish?" asked Marcus, but Joseph sat in silence, staring at the sunrise.

"There is more violence in my heart. I have intent to use violence again," said Joseph.

"What? Do you mean the fact that you confiscated these nets and clubs from the Drouinistes? They use the clubs to subdue people and the nets to capture them and carry them back to their labor camps. You took them so if we were cornered again, you could restrain our attackers without killing them. You feel guilt about this? You broke the swords — the killing weapons — and threw them over a cliff. You took the less effective weapons not because you love violence, but because you abhor it."

"What are we doing, Marcus? Where are we going? I cannot leave without finding Father Dominique, without knowing what has happened to him." There were fresh tears in his eyes.

Marcus replied, "Father Dominique made his choice."

"What do you think has become of him?" Joseph asked.

Marcus paused in thought for a moment before answering. "Likely he was taken prisoner. He is doing what he can to comfort the other prisoners, giving them courage to survive."

Joseph answered, "Perhaps he got tired of keeping the truth to himself. Perhaps he stood up to the Drouinistes and told them what he thought of them. And now he is dead because they have killed him."

"I don't believe that," said Marcus, "He is wiser than to throw his life away like that. And he did not want you to throw your life away either. But if we wait until the Drouinistes discover the location of this pass, we will never escape and we will be throwing our lives away."

"If I leave him behind now, without finding out if he is alive or dead, without finding out if I can save him somehow, I don't know how I can ever ask God for mercy again."

"God is Mercy," said Marcus.

Joseph opened his rucksack. He reached in and pulled out a small, cloth-bound volume. He ran his hand gently over the cover, tracing the golden lettering of the title with his finger, The Ultimate Triumph of Mercy. There were other books in the sack as well. He replaced the book, buckled the sack, and slipped its straps over his shoulders, pulling the pack onto his back. He stood up and turned to look back west one last time. Marcus stood up with him. Then they turned toward the rising sun and walked down from the mountain pass into the tree-covered valley below.

V

Joseph wrote in his journal:

You hope that there will be some ultimate answer at the end of the road. But there never is. Only more questions.

Last night, in the depths of despair, I almost gave in. But before leaping into the abyss I saw a blinding light, and a voice singing to me from the light: ‘Go forth, the Final Triumph of Mercy is at hand!'