Charles Orsino squirmed in the chair. "Uncle--" he pleaded.
"Yes," F. W. Taylor chuckled, "Old Amadeo and his colleagues were called
criminals. They were called bootleggers when they got liquor to people
without worrying about the public debt or excise taxes. They were called
smugglers when they sold cheap butter in the south and cheap margerine
in the north. They were called counterfeiters when they sold cheap
cigarettes and transportation tickets. They were called high-jackers
when they wrested goods from the normal inflation-ridden chain of
middlemen and delivered them at a reasonable price to the consumers.
"They were criminals. Bankers were pillars of society.
"Yet these bankers who dominated society, who were considered the voice
of eternal truth when they spoke, who thought it was insanity to
challenge their beliefs, started somewhere and perhaps they were the
best thing for their day and age that could be worked out...."
* * * * *
Father Ambrosius gnawed at a bit of salt herring, wiped his hands, dug
through the litter in his chest and found a goose quill and a page of
parchment. He scrubbed vigorously with a vinegar-soaked sponge, at the
writing on the parchment and was pleased to see that it came off nicely,
leaving him a clean surface to scribble his sermon notes on. He cut the
quill and slit it while waiting for the parchment to dry, wondering idly
what he had erased. (It happened to be the last surviving copy of
Tacitus' _Annals_, VII. i-v.)
To work then. The sermon was to be preached on Sexagesima Sunday, a
prelude to the solemn season of Lent. Father Ambrosius' mind wandered in
search of a text. Lent ... salt herring ... penitence ... the capital
sins ... avarice ... usury ... delinquent pew rent ... fat-headed young
Sir Baldwin in his tumbledown castle on the hill ... salt herring now
and _per saeculae saeculorum_ unless Sir Baldwin paid up his delinquent
pew rent.
At the moment, Sir Baldwin came swaggering into the cell. Father
Ambrosius rose courteously and said, with some insincerity: "_Pax
vobiscum._"
"Eh?" asked Sir Baldwin, his silly blue eyes popping as he looked over
his shoulder. "Oh, you meant me, padre. It don't do a bit of good to
chatter at me in Latin, you know. The king's Norman is what I speak. I
mean to say, if it's good enough for his majesty Richard, it's good
enough for me, what? Now, what can I do for you, padre?"
Father Ambrosius reminded him faintly: "You came to see me, Sir
Baldwin."
"Eh? Oh. So I did. I was huntin' stag, padre, and I lost him after
chasin' the whole morning, and what I want to know is, who's the right
saint chap to ask for help in a pickle like that? I mean to say, I
wanted to show the chaps some good sport and we started this beast and
he got clean away. Don't misunderstand me, padre, they were good chaps
and they didn't rot me about it, but that kind of talk gets about and
doesn't do one a bit of good, what? So you tell me like a good fellow
who's the right saint chap to put the matter in the best light for me?"
Father Ambrosius repressed an urge to grind his teeth, took thought and
said: "St. Hubert, I believe, is interested in the stag hunt."
"Right-oh, padre! St. Hubert it is. Hubert, Hubert. I shan't forget it
because I've a cousin named Hubert. Haven't seen him for years, poor old
chap. He had the fistula--lived on slops and couldn't sit his horse for
a day's huntin'. Poor old chap. Well, I'm off--no, there's another thing
I wanted. Suppose this Sunday you preach a howlin' strong sermon against
usury, what? That chap in the village, the goldsmith fellow, has the
infernal gall to tell me I've got to give him Fallowfield! Forty acres,
and he has the infernal gall to tell me they aren't mine any more. Be a
good chap, padre, and sort of glare at him from the pulpit a few times
to show him who you mean, what?"
"Usury _is_ a sin," Father Ambrosius said cautiously, "but how does
Fallowfield enter into it?"
Sir Baldwin twiddled the drooping ends of his limp, blond mustache with
a trace of embarrassment. "Fact is, I told the chap when I borrowed the
twenty marks that Fallowfield would stand as security. I ask you, padre,
is it my fault that my tenants are a pack of lazy, thieving Saxon swine
and I couldn't raise the money?"
The parish priest bristled unnoticeably. He was pure Saxon himself. "I
shall do what I can," he said. "And Sir Baldwin, before you go--"
The young man stopped in the doorway and turned.
"Before you go, may I ask when we'll see your pew rent, to say nothing
of the tithe?"
Sir Baldwin dismissed it with an airish wave of the hand. "I thought I
just told you, padre. I haven't a farthing to my name and here's this
chap in the village telling me to clear out of Fallowfield that I got
from my father and his father before him. So how the devil--excuse
me--can I pay rent and tithes and Peters pence and all the other things
you priest chaps expect from a man, what?" He held up his gauntleted
hand as Father Ambrosius started to speak. "No, padre, not another word
about it. I know you'd love to tell me I won't go to heaven if I act
this way. I don't doubt you're learned and all that, but I can still
tell you a thing or two, what? The fact is, I _will_ go to Heaven. You
see, padre, God's a gentleman and he wouldn't bar another gentleman over
a trifle of money trouble that could happen to any gentleman, now would
he?"
The fatuous beam was more than Father Ambrosius could bear; his eyes
fell.
"Right-oh," Sir Baldwin chirped. "And that saint chap's name was St.
Hubert. I didn't forget, see? Not quite the fool some people think I
am." And he was gone, whistling a recheat.
Father Ambrosius sat down again and glared at the parchment. Preach a
sermon on usury for that popinjay. Well, usury _was_ a sin. Christians
were supposed to lend to one another in need and not count the cost or
the days. But who had ever heard of Sir Baldwin ever lending anything?
Of course, he was lord of the manor and protected you against invasion,
but there didn't seem to be any invasions anymore....
Wearily, the parish priest dipped his pen and scratched on the
parchment: RON. XIII ii, viii, XV i. "Whosoever resisteth the power
resisteth the ordinance of God ... owe no man any thing ... we that are
strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak...." A triple-plated
text, which, reinforced by a brow of thunder from the pulpit should make
the village goldsmith think twice before pressing his demand on Sir
Baldwin. Usury _was_ a sin.
There was a different knock on the door frame.
The goldsmith, a leather-aproned fellow named John, stood there twisting
his cap in his big, burn scarred hands.
"Yes, my son? Come in." But he scowled at the fellow involuntarily. He
should know better than to succumb to the capital sin of avarice. "Well,
what is it?"
"Father," the fellow said, "I've come to give you this." He passed a
soft leather purse to the priest. It clinked.
Father Ambrosius emptied it on his desk and stirred the broad silver
coins wonderingly with his finger. Five marks and eleven silver pennies.
No more salt herring until Lent! Silver forwarded to his bishop in an
amount that would do credit to the parish! A gilding job for the image
of the Blessed Virgin! Perhaps glass panes in one or two of the church
windows!
And then he stiffened and swept the money back into the purse. "You got
this by sin," he said flatly. "The sin of avarice worked in your heart
and you practiced the sin of usury on your fellow Christians. Don't give
this money to the Church; give it back to your victims."
"Father," the fellow said, nearly blubbering, "excuse me but you don't
understand! They come to me and come to me. They say it's all right with
them, that they're hiring the money the way you'd hire a horse. Doesn't
that make sense? Do you think I _wanted_ to become a moneylender? No! I
was an honest goldsmith and an honest goldsmith can't help himself. All
the money in the village drifts somehow into his hands. One leaves a
mark with you for safekeeping and pays you a penny the year to guard it.
Another brings you silver coins to make into a basin, and you get to
keep whatever coins are left over. And then others come to you and say
'Let me have soandso's mark to use for a year and then I'll pay it back
and with it another mark'. Father, they beg me! They say they'll be
ruined if I don't lend to them, their old parents will die if they can't
fee the leech, or their dead will roast forever unless they can pay for
masses and what's a man to _do_?"
"Sin no more," the priest answered simply. It was no problem.
The fellow was getting angry. "Very well for you to sit there and say
so, father. But what do you think paid for the masses you said for the
repose of Goodie Howat's soul? And how did Tom the Thatcher buy his
wagon so he could sell his beer in Glastonbury at a better price? And
how did Farmer Major hire the men from Wealing to get in his hay before
the great storm could ruin it? And a hundred things more. I tell you,
this parish would be a worse place without John Goldsmith and he doesn't
propose to be pointed at any longer as a black sinner! I didn't want to
fall into usury but I did, and _when_ I did, I found out that those who
hoist their noses highest at the moneylender when they pass him in the
road are the same ones who beg the hardest when they come to his shop
for a loan!"
The priest was stunned by the outburst. John seemed honest, the facts
were the facts--can good come out of evil? And there were stories that
His Holiness the Pope himself had certain dealings with the
Longobards--benchers, or bankers or whatever they called themselves....
"I must think on this, my son," he said. "Perhaps I was over hasty.
Perhaps in the days of St. Paul usury was another thing entirely.
Perhaps what you practice is not _really_ usury but merely something
that resembles it. You may leave this silver with me."
When John left, Father Ambrosius squeezed his eyes tight shut and
pressed the knuckles of both hands to his forehead. Things _did_ change.
Under the dispensation of the Old Testament, men had more wives than
one. That was sinful now, but surely Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were in
heaven? Paul wrote his epistles to little islands of Christians
surrounded by seas of pagans. Surely in those days it was necessary for
Christians to be bound closely together against the common enemy,
whereas in these modern times, the ties could be safely relaxed a
trifle? How could sinning have paid for the repose of Goodie Howat's
soul, got a better price for brewer Thatcher's ale and saved the village
hay crop? The Devil was tricky, but not _that_ tricky, surely. A few
more such tricks and the parish would resemble the paradise terrestrial!
Father Ambrosius dashed from his study to the altar of the little stone
church and began furiously to turn the pages of the huge metal-bound
lectern Bible.
"_For the love of money is the root of all evil--_"
It burst on Father Ambrosius with a great light that the words of Paul
were in reference not to _John Goldsmith's_ love of money but to _Sir
Baldwin's_ love of money.
He dashed back to his study and his pen began to squeak over the
parchment, obliterating the last dim trace of Tacitus' _Annals_, VIII
i.v. The sermon would be a scorcher, all right, but it wouldn't scorch
John Goldsmith. It would scorch Sir Baldwin for ruthlessly and against
the laws of God and man refusing to turn Fallowfield over to the
moneylender. There would be growls of approval in the church that
Sunday, and many black looks directed against Sir Baldwin for his
attempt to bilk the parish's friend and benefactor, the moneylender.
* * * * *
"And that," F. W. Taylor concluded, chuckling, "is how power passes from
one pair of hands to another, and how public acceptance of the change
follows on its heels. A strange thing--people always think that each
exchange of power is the last that will ever take place."
He seemed to be finished.
"Uncle," Orsino said, "somebody tried to kill me."
Taylor stared at him for a long minute, speechless. "What happened?" he
finally asked.
"I went formal to the theater, with five bodyguards. The chief guard,
name of Halloran, took a shot at me. One of my boys got in the way. He
was killed."
Taylor's fingers began to play a tattoo on his annunciator board. Faces
leaped into existence on its various screens as he fired orders.
"Charles Orsino's chief bodyguard for tonight--Halloran. Trace him. The
works. He tried to kill Orsino."
He clicked off the board switches and turned grimly to Orsino. "Now
you," he said. "What have _you_ been up to?"
"Just doing my job, uncle," Orsino said uneasily.
"Still bagman at the 101st?"
"Yes."
"Fooling with any women?"
"Nothing special, uncle. Nothing intense."
"Disciplined or downgraded anybody lately?"
"Certainly not. The precinct runs like a watch. I'll match their morale
against any outfit east of the Mississippi. Why are you taking this so
heavy?"
"Because you're the third. The other two--your cousin Thomas McGurn and
your uncle Robert Orsino--didn't have guards to get in the way. One
other question."
"Yes, uncle."
"My boy, _why_ didn't you tell me about this when you first came in?"