Fra Angelico chuckled.

  “I would like to be amused along with you.”

  “Oh, I think you won’t be amused. You see, there are those who have the ear of the Holy Father who believe that we are missing an opportunity.”

  Lukasz already saw what was taking shape. There were reasons he didn’t stay in Rome himself.

  “They believe that instead of being sympathetic to the Gifted Ones, we should take the lead in purging Christianity of these traffickers with devils.”

  Lukasz looked down at his feet. “And the Holy Father listens to them?”

  “The Holy Father listens to everyone,” said Fra Angelico. “Even me.”

  Lukasz nodded, wondering if he could deal with whatever Fra Angelico had to tell.

  “I proposed to the Holy Father that there was no evidence at all of any trafficking with the devil. I proposed that the Protestants of England are finding what they look for, whether it’s there or not. I suggested that putting to the torture sinless people with gifts from God would not in the long run benefit the Church, because everyone would hate us again for the Inquisition once they realized that these people are not witches or wizards or demons from hell.”

  “I imagine he loves to hear the way you phrase things,” said Lukasz.

  “There were two Cardinals present, arguing for persecuting the witches.”

  “How even-handed, two against one.”

  Fra Angelico said nothing.

  “All right, with you there, the Cardinals were outnumbered.”

  “It was Truth that outnumbered them, as it always does,” said Fra Angelico. “I said that if we want to kill innocent people there is no shortage of the innocent in any land. They said that none are innocent, no not one, to which I speculated on when the Inquisition would be called to examine them, which made them livid. They raged, they shouted, and Swiss Guards rushed into the room and the Holy Father asked them to escort the Cardinals back to their chambers.”

  Lukasz chuckled. “Two more men who hate you with their entire soul.”

  “They are both very old, Lukasz. They won’t have many more years of hatred for me. I intend to outlive them, you see, outlive them and all their evil ideas.”

  “Did the Holy Father share your view of their ideas as evil?”

  “I believe he did,” said Fra Angelico, “though you know that my ability to guess what other people think is very limited.”

  “Less limited than any other man I know. But yes, I would gladly hear your unreliable speculations about the Pope’s thoughts.”

  “His first words were about you, and the letter you sent that reached him in the winter.”

  “He read it?” asked Lukasz.

  “Here’s my evidence. He held the folded letter in his hand, and did not open it, and quoted the entire thing to me.”

  Tears came to Lukasz’s eyes. The Pope had read and memorized his letter.

  “I will not bore you with the rest of our conversation,” said Fra Angelico.

  Which Lukasz took to mean, I am forbidden by the Holy Spirit to tell you any more about my conversation with the Holy Father. Fra Angelico never wavered, once such a decision was made.

  “I will tell you his instruction to me, if you like.”

  Lukasz smiled. This is why Fra Angelico was here.

  “The Holy Father is Christ’s vicar to all the world—even to people in places where laws and false clergy believe that they, and not the Pope, rule the people’s faith.”

  “Nobody rules anybody’s faith,” said Lukasz mildly. “If it is faith, it is held in a free heart which has chosen to follow the Redeemer.”

  “It is hard to find people who hold that opinion, inside and outside the Church.”

  Lukasz nodded. “I sometimes fear that my opinion is shared by so few that I will be labeled a heretic.”

  “Not while I am alive,” said Fra Angelico.

  “What was the Holy Father’s decision?”

  “He hopes that you will continue ministering to the people with Gifts and strive to protect them from the Protestants of England.”

  “I wish more of the Povo Jeitoso could make their way to Iberia.”

  “The Pope has heard your wish, and here is his hope: That you will go to a land filled with people faithful to Mother Church, who are persecuted and oppressed, and who even now are being purged of all the known … Jeitosos?”

  “Jeitoso. It means ‘one who has a way with things.’”

  “What the Americans call ‘knacks,’” said Fra Angelico. “Or so I’m told.”

  “The Americans are as bad as the English,” said Lukasz.

  “You are underinformed, my friend. New England is full of purifying Protestants, who have driven out or driven into hiding most of their ‘Jeitosos.’ But where do the ones who are driven out go?”

  “Not England, I’m reasonably sure.”

  “They go west. There is word, I am told, of a place called Crystal City, where a great magician takes them in and protects them.”

  “A great magician?”

  “So I am told. He is called a Maker.”

  “Only God is Creator,” said Lukasz.

  “Amen,” said Fra Angelico. “I report to you what I have heard. What matters is this: There is a place in the world where the Povo Jeitoso can go and find safety, at least for now.”

  “Besides here in Portugal?”

  “My dear friend, you know that the Portuguese are as frightened of the Gifted as anybody else. How long will this be a refuge?”

  Lukasz bowed his head. He worried and prayed about this many times a day.

  “Lukasz, the Holy Father told me that he would not be disappointed to learn that you had moved your ministry to that most oppressed island.”

  “Ireland,” said Lukasz

  “I believe you already know English,” said Fra Angelico.

  “As well as I know Portuguese,” said Lukasz, “but not as well as I know Latin.”

  “Ireland will be dangerous for you. Catholic priests are anathema there, and are invariably killed. The Father hopes that you will be willing to travel incognito as long as you can, lest the heretics defeat your mission before it begins.”

  Lukasz nodded. “I will do this thing. If it is my last mission, so be it. I pray that the Holy Mother will plead for my mission. And Santiago—”

  “Pray all you wish when I’m gone. For you need a boost in your authority, to give you precedence over any of our clergy who think they should be in charge of your mission.”

  Lukasz could not imagine any advance in his station that would not hinder rather than help him. Bishop? Cardinal? Although without a bishopric of his own, he would be as much of a mendicant as Angelico. But if he was granted a bishopric, he would have to find a vicar to govern it in his absence.

  “He isn’t going to burden you with a frivolous ordination,” said Fra Angelico, “but instead, he gave me this authority for you.”

  He pulled out a paper from his small bag. Papers. Three of them, sealed by the Holy Father.

  Angelico handed him the one addressed to him. Lukasz pulled it open gently, so that the seal was lifted off the paper unbroken. The purport of the letter was instantly clear. “He makes me an inquisitor?”

  “With authority in Ireland and England, as you need. All clergy are to respect your office and obey you. No one in all the Church outranks you on this mission except the Holy Father himself.”

  “But … an Inquisition in a land where the Church is heretical?”

  “In the past, Inquisitions have purified the Church by removing faithless deceivers who posed a danger to the Church.”

  “Tortured and wrung confessions from people that I believe were sometimes, perhaps usually, innocent,” said Lukasz.

  “The Holy Father said, ‘Who better to entrust with this deadly power but one who has long opposed the Inquisition as an episode of shame in Iberia?’”

  “I have never spoken to him of … my views.”

  “You have never spoken of them to me, either,” said Fra Angelico. “But I have seen what I have seen, and so have others. You openly associate with Conversos, as if you trusted their conversion from Jewry to Christianity.”

  “Because I do, unless they give me reason to doubt them, which none has ever done.”

  “These things reach the Holy Father’s ears, from those who hate you, hoping the information will lead to your downfall.”

  Lukasz brandished the letter of appointment. “Is this meant to be my downfall?”

  “When he hears stories from your enemies, the Holy Father wisely consults your friends. I told him that your enemies were absolutely right about your beliefs, but that I thought they proved you to be a better Christian than any of them.”

  “So he entrusts an inquisitorial mission to an opponent of inquisitions,” said Lukasz.

  “Your inquisition,” said Fra Angelico, “is to examine Povo Jeitoso and determine whether or not they are heretics or witches. Everyone expects that the auto-da-fé will always find guilt, so when you return verdict after verdict of innocence, as the Holy Father expects you will, then the faithful Irish will not join with the English in denouncing such people as witches.”

  “I imagine that some of the Irish will help protect them.”

  “By traveling to Ireland and asking for the help of the faithful, you will put them all in danger of death,” said Fra Angelico. “They are Irish, so this circumstance will only make them more determined to help you and keep you and the Jeitoso safe.”

  “You know the Irish?” asked Lukasz.

  “I was born in the land of Saint Padraic.”

  “And do you speak Irish?”

  “My mother fled the country before I had time to learn the local language. Your Poland is a faithful Catholic land, even though it has no legal existence as a nation. That will not always be the case, just as the oppression of the Irish Church will not last forever.”

  “Is this account of your childhood true?”

  “As much as possible,” said Fra Angelico.

  “The better I know you,” said Lukasz, “the less I know.”

  “Such a paradox,” said Fra Angelico. “Such a mystery.”

  “Please tell the Holy Father that I accept this burden.”

  “I will not be going anywhere near Rome in the near future. He will know you accept the mission when he hears that someone in Bretagne helped you slip into Ireland unobserved. He does not need me to tell him who you are and what you do.”

  “How will I find the faithful in Ireland, if they risk death just to know that I’m there?”

  “The English have imposed on the Irish a church called ‘The Church of Ireland,’ which is merely a part of the heretic Church of England. For almost two centuries the Irish ignored this heretic church. Forced to pay tithes to the Church of Ireland, the people have long hated every false bishop and false priest that lives from those tithes.”

  “This saddens me, of course,” said Lukasz.

  “Recently, instead of trying to convert stubborn Irishmen to their heretic church, the ministers of the Church of Ireland have started persecuting the witches and sorcerers of Ireland.”

  “So I heard, from Jeitoso Irish who have made their way to me,” said Lukasz.

  “The Irish have ignored all such nonsense about witches in the past,” said Fra Angelico, “but under the constant haranguing of the English ministers, many Irish have begun to denounce so-called ‘witches’ and turn them over to the Church of Ireland for punishment.”

  “The real Church of Ireland is the Roman Catholic Church,” said Father Lukasz.

  “You spent time in England as a young priest?” asked Fra Angelico.

  “I was sent covertly into England, having memorized a long list of reliable households that had a hiding place and a few good meals for priests who came and gave Mass, baptized babies, and prayed for the souls of those who suffer,” said Father Lukasz.

  “Don’t be modest. You speak English like a native.”

  “I haven’t spoken it in years,” said Lukasz. “But yes, if I ever sounded foreign I would have been arrested.”

  “Good,” said Fra Angelico. “Now, when you learn it again, you can acquire the Irish lilt, for no one speaks that heretical language more sweetly than the Irish.”

  “I look forward to my trip to Ireland,” said Father Lukasz, “where I will find many loyal Catholics to shelter me while I … minister to the Povo Jeitoso.”

  “Is that what you will do, now that your assignment in Portugal is completed?” asked Fra Angelico.

  “I may attempt to establish a liaison with the Bishop of Dublin or some other heretic luminary,” said Lukasz. “I may suggest to him that the Irish people are likely to be far less rebellious if the so-called witches among them are not killed, but instead are given passage to America, where witches go about without anyone trying to call them back to Christ.”

  “What a lovely idea,” said Fra Angelico. “You would be blessing the people with Jeitos, promoting peace between the Irish and their English overlords, helping the exiles find their way safely to their promised land, and helping the Holy Father avoid the painful dilemma of either seeming to agree with the English hatred of witches, or seeming to sponsor these satanic creatures with other-worldly power.”

  “Do you think, then, that the Holy Father would approve of my taking such a costly journey upon myself?” said Lukasz, holding up his letter of appointment.

  “I am sure that you will find that the angels of heaven will bless you and help you meet your needs,” said Fra Angelico. “Not ravens, but human friends will feed you and speed you on your way.”

  “I know you don’t see the future, my dear friend,” said Father Lukasz, “but still, I seek your guidance. How long do you think I should take to wrap up my affairs in Lisbon before taking ship to Ireland?”

  For the first time in all this conversation, Fra Angelico turned toward Father Lukasz, rested a hand on his shoulder, and looked him in the eye. “Oh, my friend, when I got here I was surprised to discover that you had not already gone.”

  Father Lukasz responded to Fra Angelico’s warm and loving smile. Lukasz understood his instructions from the Pope. He was to go to Ireland, help to support good Irish Catholics who happened to have knacks, and enter into a secret agreement with the Church of Ireland to punish witches only with exile. Meanwhile, the Vatican would supply him with funds to help finance the exiles and get them safely across the Atlantic Ocean.

  In all of this, he was to pretend that he chose this work only out of love for the Savior and his Irish disciples, and no one commanded him to do it, because it would not be good if rumors were to spread about the Pope once again sending Jesuit spies into the British Isles to stir up rebellion, treason, and papistry among the subjugated people of Ireland.

  But at great need, he had his letter of appointment as Inquisitor of the British Isles to prove that he was not just a wandering priest causing trouble.

  More troublesome was the idea of somehow winning the trust of the people with knacks. Why should they look for anything but woe from the Inquisition?

  If the mission had been easy and simple, it would not have been such an honor for him to be sent.

  The Pope would open the doors that were within his earthly power to open. God himself would need to make the rest of his journey prosperous and clear. Expect miracles, Fra Angelico had once said to him. Greatest gifts come to those who need them and have the faith to expect them.

  By the time Lukasz got to the door that led into the house, he turned and saw that Fra Angelico was already gone. How he had gotten over the wall, and how he would get back over, was the mendicant’s business, not Lukasz’s.

  The housekeeper asked, “Should I lay another place for the visitor?”

  “He has already moved on,” said Lukasz.

  “Unfed? Are we so inhospitable in this house?”

  “To eat at our ample table would feel like failure to the mendicant. He will search out a meal among the poor, and leave his blessing with them when they pray over the food.”

  The housekeeper raised her eyebrows. “The miracle of loaves and fishes?”

  “I haven’t heard such a story from a reliable source,” said Lukasz, “but knowing the dear mendicant, I would not be surprised if, from time to time, a poor family’s meal turned to a feast after his prayer.”

  The housekeeper smiled. Lukasz knew that she treasured the idea of miracles in these modern times. “Godspeed the mendicant,” said the housekeeper.

  “God already does,” said Lukasz, “but your prayer will help him on his way.”

  9

  Blight

  ALVIN WALKED INTO the potato field with Kweeva Maloney, watching as she bent down and showed him plants whose leaves were turning brown. “It’s not just my own plot, it’s all the neighbors’, too.”

  Alvin reached down and broke off the stem of the potato plant. He sniffed it, examined it, stroked it—none of which had anything to do with his real study of the plant. Instead, he had his doodlebug scooting through the stems and leaves of the living plant, and on down into the ground, where the tubers grew.

  “Mrs. Maloney,” said Alvin, “I don’t think you understand how terrible this plague is. Please dig up some of the potatoes.”

  “No, it’s too early! We need them to reach full grown before we harvest!”

  “There will be no harvest in this field, Mrs. Maloney,” said Alvin. “Dig up the root.”

  She did not go back for a spade. Instead, she knelt in the dirt and plunged her hands into the loamy soil. In a moment, she pulled out a spud that was covered with bluish, purplish mold.

  Alvin took the potato from her hand, and using his own knack, he caused it to split right in half, though he pretended to exert some force to break it. What with the gathering talk of witches, he didn’t need to have rumors of his powers spreading beyond the fact that sometimes he could heal folks. That brought him entry into many houses, but kept the witch-hunters from the Church of Ireland from going in search of him.