Captain Fletcher was dimly aware that someone was in the outer office talking to Lieutenant Sanders, but he was engrossed in a report from the recently returned North American expedition and did not really pay attention until Sanders came in.
"Father Robert is here to see Colonel Fletcher, sir," he said in a low voice. He glanced over his shoulder, where Fletcher could now see the young priest, gazing into his office and shifting from one foot to the other. Clearly, Sanders would have liked a little more privacy in which to prepare Fletcher, but that would have required moving the rest of his palomino body through the door and then shutting it, a lengthy and conspicuous bit of business.
"Colonel Fletcher?" Fletcher echoed.
"Possibly even Colonel Sir Philip Fletcher, M.S., M.A., of the Crown Expeditionary Society, the Royal Explorers' Club, etc. He seems pretty troubled."
Fletcher nodded and sighed. He had noticed, and had pointed out to Sanders, that Father Robert, when stressed, took great care with people's titles. Use of Fletcher's highest official rank would be an index of how badly he wanted whatever he wanted. "Certainly," he said aloud. "Send him in."
Sanders backed out and waved in Father Robert Moncey, chaplain of the Ufham cavalry base. "Father," Fletcher greeted him. "Have a– Hm. Make yourself comfortable."
There was no chair before Fletcher's desk, but rather an eight-foot-long mat. There was a chair in the corner, but it was little used. Most of the people who sat before Fletcher were his students, who could no more use a chair than could Fletcher. Their hoofprints left the mat rather dusty, but Fr. Robert, after a brief glance at the chair, just said, "Thank you" and sat down crosslegged.
He looked anxiously at Fletcher. At the moment, "the colonel" bore no signs of rank. He was a vigorous old man with white hair and beard, presently in one of the ruddy brown T-shirts that served the Dedicated Cavalry as fatigues, because a haulage class was coming up. Below the T-shirt was the body of a dun horse, fawn with dark brown legs, tail, and spinal stripe. Traces of the brown lingered in Fletcher's beard. Despite being seated, Fletcher was about a foot taller than Fr. Robert. It would have been worse if they had been standing.
Fletcher saw a young man of slim build, with the dark hair and olive skin of North Africa that many Grand Normans had. He wore a regular Standard Cavalry duty uniform, with chaplain insignia. As further clarification of his standing, he wore a pin on the jacket in the form of the fleur-de-lis cross of the Avignese Catholic Church. He shifted uneasily where he sat.
"Thank you for seeing me, Colonel," he said. Noting Fletcher's fleeting smile, he asked, "Is 'colonel' correct?"
"Certainly. I'm just used to 'captain.' After all, at the moment, I only have seven people in my command. 'Captain' is even a bit inflated for a training position, but it's traditional."
"Well, you are training elite troops," Fr. Robert offered back. "How do you wish to be addressed, sir?"
"Captain," said Fletcher firmly. "Now, what can I do for you?"
"I want your advice about a situation that has just come up. Do you know Cavalryman Hugo Frank?"
"The name is a bit familiar. Dedicated Cavalry?"
"Yes."
Fletcher consulted his computer, then said, "Oh, that Hugo. Class of '92, before I took this position. He was trained by my predecessor, Captain Lombardo, old Grancavolo. But I do know him slightly. See him and his lady around town. They board somewhere on the east side when they're in the home zone. What's up?"
"Well, Mr. Frank and Mme. d'Ivry came to see me, to– Oh, there they are." He nodded toward the window behind Fletcher. Fletcher turned—this involved turning his gaze and head, twisting his human waist, then leaning a bit on one flank—and looked. His window was framed by a couple of young trees and looked out on a dirt path between the office and the Dedicated Cavalry mess hall. Mr. Frank and Mme. d'Ivry were walking slowly down it, looking thoughtful, even grave.
Frank was a dark bay with white socks, the left rear almost up to his hip. In equestrian jargon, he was "an easy keeper" or, put another way, "had been on a good pasture." That is, he was fat. Not hugely so, but Fletcher could see that his dress jacket, cut broad to start with, had been let out once and needed to be let out again. Fletcher was sure that the straps on the dress blanket had no more buckle holes to give. He was about twenty years Fletcher's junior, but that left him in his mid-fifties. His hair was graying and his beard was gray.
But it was his dress jacket and dress blanket, the one red with white piping, the other royal blue with the royal arms on each flank. Rather hot for the weather, too. Frank had his blue dress stetson in one hand, gently fanning his face with it.
Mme. Celia d'Ivry was in dress uniform too, red jacket and blue skirt, her blue stetson enlivened by a broad red ribbon. It trailed down her back, next to the single black braid. She was dark from Sicilian ancestry, tall and lean though of course still over a head shorter than Frank. She walked beside him with her right hand companionably on his back.
Fletcher turned back to Fr. Robert. "They came to me to ask for my blessing," the young priest said. "I, uh, I asked for half an hour while I considered what steps to take—that was the wording I used—and then came straight to you."
Fletcher raised an eyebrow and smiled on one side. "Who is the spiritual counselor here?"
"Here and now, you, sir, if you will. This is out of my experience but not, I think, out of yours."
Fletcher raised the other eyebrow and said, "I will help if I can. What prompted this? Why did they come to you now? I'd have thought they'd've had their pairing blessed years ago, actually."
"Mr. Frank and his lady propose to muster out soon. They mean to buy or found a farm in Yetzirah. They plan to raise horses, grow apples and cherries, and breed fancy ducks. They want to adopt some children."
"Sounds idyllic," said Fletcher, though it was rather pastoral for his taste. "But you have a problem? This is far from the first time people have asked for such a blessing."
"It's the first time for me." He met Fletcher's curious gaze. "I knew, of course, that the situation might arise, but that doesn't mean I've gotten around to thinking my way through it."
"And you want me to help you do it now, quickly, since you've been overtaken by events?"
"Yessir."
Fletcher leaned back as far as his human spine would go and steepled his fingers. "Please explain the exact nature of your difficulty."
Fr. Robert gazed out the window behind Fletcher, though Frank and d'Ivry were no longer visible there. "I think that, if I could do that, I could resolve it."
Fletcher nodded. "We have half an hour." He picked up and folded his computer, got his feet under him, and rose. "Let's have a cup of tea. Or do you like coffee?" They adjourned to the outer office, where Lt. Sanders was already putting the water on.
"That smells nice," said Fr. Robert, indicating a crock pot that breathed the odor of new-mown hay. "What is it?"
"Mulch," Fletcher answered. "Grass stew. You wouldn't like it. Even we don't like it; our pallets are still human, you see. So: Any broken oaths? Any plans to break oaths?"
"No." Nymic mages could read the state of binding oaths. Fr. Robert was such a mage, as were most Grand Norman clergy; he was only a beginner, but the bishop's deputation let him do everyday checks.
Fletcher was, he insisted, not a mage, but he could read things too, and it seemed to him that Fr. Robert's "no," though delivered firmly and without hesitation, had some qualifications hanging off it. He waited, but Robert added no more. "Well, that's good," he said after the wait. "Let me catch up on Frank and d'Ivry."
Fletcher stood with his computer on one arm, scrolling through records, pausing to reflect and remember, then scrolling again. Ostensibly, he was part of the conversation, but really he let Sanders engage Fr. Robert. Finally, he rejoined:
"Nothing like context to clarify things. I've an idea of their stories now:
"Frank did his crown service in the Infantry, then did land transport as his first career—trucker, running Sundered goods through the monde-minor. Married at twenty-two, widowed at twenty-eight. No children, but parents living and plenty of nieces and nephews and younger cousins. Enlisted at twenty-nine, graduated at thirty." He turned the computer around and displayed the graduation picture of Frank's class: seven young centaurs in two rows, four standing in back, three crouching uncomfortably in front, but all smiling, all in dress uniform. Frank was clearly the oldest of the class, but his hair was dark, his jacket fit, and his smile was as eager as the rest.
While pulling the records together, Fletcher had been dredging his memory for his occasional social encounters with Frank and d'Ivry. "I think... I think that, after his wife's death, he decided marriage was in his past. He may have felt the best use of his ... life was to support his family." The Dedicated Cavalry paid you well for muddling your species in the Crown's service. "He had chunks of his salary sent directly to various family accounts.
"He went back to land transport—haulage, motor mechanic—and construction. Some noticeable fraction of our out-zone infrastructure has his handprints on it. Helped build the fort at Gevurah-Set and fought in the siege. Has three medals for bravery. Saw combat four times on support runs to Fort Ratatosk."
Fletcher broke off, smiling. "I remember him cursing fit to curdle the whiskey, down at the Bow and Sabre, last time he was sent to Ratatosk. Not his favorite place, by now. But nothing happened."
He looked back at the screen. "Magic: not a lot. Good spell-sniffer, a bit of finding, some percussive maintenance."
"Which is why," Sanders put in, "I've heard heard folk at the motor pool say, 'Have Frank come kick it.'"
Fletcher poked the computer again. "D'Ivry joined the cavalry at eighteen. Another big family. No marriage. Wanderlust and a love of horses, from what I recall of chance remarks I've heard from her. That worked out for her: she's seen the Yggdrasil Reach, the Road to the Sun, the Ithil Reach, the American Southwest, the Australian Outback, all from a saddle.
"Has led sorties and guarded camps and caravans as senior officer. Decorated five times for bravery. Has taught marksmanship classes and is, in fact, a gun mage. Somewhat generally Receptant."
"(And admits it)," Sanders muttered.
"Was also at the Gevurah siege and decorated. Huh." Fletcher gazed at the ceiling. "I bet that's where they met. Victory celebration. In a line with all the other honorees. Later, chatting on the fortress walls to get out of the crowd. Discover a mutual fondness for polo, admire each other's senses of humor, that sort of thing. Wonder if he felt he picked the wrong cavalry..."
Fr. Robert looked his puzzlement at Fletcher, who was apparently still watching the party in another year and zone. "(I'd take the bet)," Sanders murmured to him. "(About how they met. Looks like he's on a roll.)"
Fletcher scrolled on. "She's never had him in her command, which was smart. Lots of requests from both for specific assignments; if I stopped to look, I bet I'd find they were trying to go on the same expeditions—always a hassle, across services. They do manage to take leave together most of the time.
"When they do, they practice domesticity at their boarding house and passionately follow the polo teams. And he laments that he's the opposite of a polo pony, and vents by playing around with a soccer ball and a mallet with grand-nieces and -nephews on his back when they visit."
"Is that in his record?" Fr. Robert asked.
"I'm just guessing."
"('Guessing,' he calls it)," Fletcher muttered for Robert's ear alone.
If Fletcher heard, he affected not to, but he added, "I have seen them playing—him and the children, against her on her horse. So now, I suppose they feel they've had enough exploring and want to settle down together," he said in the faintly dubious tones of someone who has been running expeditions for half a century and still wasn't tired of them. What, he wondered, was luring them away from that?
He saw d'Ivry, in jeans and a short-sleeved blouse, walking toward him, holding the hand of a young boy he knew to be a visiting grand-nephew. Behind her lumbered Frank, emerging from an orchard, passing a red pickup truck that had been heavily modified to be driven by someone big lying down in the truck bed. On his back rode a little girl, grinning brilliantly. His face was shaded by an old duty stetson. His beard was a little grayer. The polo team T-shirt looked painted on, but he was perhaps a bit thinner. He smiled and held out his hand to Fletcher.
Sanders was answering his last remark with a rhyme:
"I've sailed on the Black Sea,
The Red Sea, and the Blue,
But I'm tired of all these colors, dear,
So I'm coming home to you."
The doggerel brought Fletcher back to the here-and-now.
"Something like that," he agreed. He had, he now knew, been gazing blankly and saw Sanders was, in turn, realizing his captain had been elsewhere. He gave Fletcher a curious look, but satisfaction would have to wait.
He folded the computer and put it down. "So that's them."
"A bit of an unusual pairing," Sanders commented. "She's something of an ace and he's, well..."
"Just a slogger," said Fletcher. "We always hope that, when we add horsehood to manhood, we'll get something of a quadrupedal superhero, but that's just hope. Still, give sloggers their due: they keep the world ticking, and most of us are sloggers most of the time. He's done an awful lot of work for the Crown. And, though I don't know him well, I think he's a decent, good-natured slogger, and anyone might appreciate that. So she loves him and he loves her, and love will find a way, certainly around so slight a thing as a law."
One of Fletcher's more useful abilities was being able to hear other people's pennies drop. He realized Fr. Robert had just realized something, so he waited. Fr. Robert shifted unhappily on his feet again, stared briefly out the window, then said, "I think that's it. It is against the law for you to marry," he said, gazing at the floor as he did so. "And they are working so hard to get around that. A ceremony, vows, a household. It's obeying the letter of the law but flouting the spirit." He looked up at the two monsters towering over him and added, "I, uh, I don't mean to be offensive."
They smiled. "Offensive," said Sanders, "is being told they'll cut off your arms, if they catch you, to make a proper horse of you."
"Offensive," Fletcher added, "is being told you should be sawed apart and the halves buried in separate graves, both unconsecrated."
"Oh!" said Fr. Robert. "And you've both…?" He didn't finish. They continued smiling; after all, they'd gotten away. "Well. Well. I'm glad I'm signed up for an expedition now, even if it's just as a trainee," he said, half to himself. "I need to share the risks, to have any proper moral standing with a flock like this."
Fletcher pondered a little, then said, "Of course, a good crown subject should be law-abiding. But we're none of us just subjects, and you are a minister of grace, not law."
"Then you think I should give them that blessing."
"I do. You are quite right in your intuition that observing the letter of a law while flouting its spirit shows a contempt for that law, or at least indifference. Now you must decide how you feel about this law. What do you know about it?"
"The law requires," Fr. Robert said carefully, "that men who enlist in the Dedicated Cavalry and so are transformed into centaurs must take a binding oath not to marry mortal women or couple with them."
"Did you ever wonder why the law is there?"
Fr. Robert looked more uncomfortable than ever. "People seem to think– In mythology–"
"In mythology, Kentauros is the accurséd son of Ixion and father of the centaurs of Thessaly, violent drunks and rapists. And then there's Chiron, son of Kronos, half-brother to the Olympians, sage and prophet, mentor to heroes. We aim for Chiron but everyone worries about Ixion's get. And the idea of bestiality rumbles around in the background.
"The thing is, Father, the rule about coupling was put in because people were having whim-whams about bestiality. Anatomy means no fractionally sensible or decent centaur would try or even offer, and no sensible woman would permit. Outside that, sexual assault is already a crime. But they put in that specific oath because they are that squeamish about that specific thing. The rule about marrying just underlines the first rule. They can't couple so of course they can't marry. But we have to say so and make them swear to it."
"But married men are permitted to join."
Fletcher's smile had an edge. "Yes, but you see Prince Hugh was married and a father when he founded the Cavalry by transforming himself. There are places where you can start a bar fight by pointing out that King Stephen is the grandson of a centaur, but it's the simple truth. And a precedent that can't be ignored. So, inconsistently, married men can join.
"D'Ivry and Frank want a family. They cannot physically have one naturally so they're putting one together, and they want to announce and celebrate it publicly, to make it as real as possible, with a blessing even if it can't be the sacrament of matrimony. That's all. Been done many times, including by your predecessor, Fr. FitzRoy. His last one, just before you came, was a nice ceremony for Ellen Barry and Don Venables, with dancing in the street in front of St. Martin's." He thought back to his snatch of vision. "As for d'Ivry and Frank, their subsequent behavior will be just the same, whatever you do. If you refuse them, they will be annoyed and sad, then go find a cleric who'll do it. I understand the Celtic Church is pretty easy-going about this. It amounts to deciding if this is against your principles, and if those principles are worth making the three of you feel bad about their request, one way and another."
Fr. Robert shook his head slightly and started to say something. Then he looked at the window and the other two became aware of a slow clop of hooves. A glance showed Frank and d'Ivry coming by again. Clearly, they were meandering the base until the half hour was up.
Fr. Robert went to the window, opened it, and called, "I've been consulting with Captain Fletcher, and he says Ellen Barry and Don Venables had a very nice ceremony last year. Would you want one like that?"
Pastoral Kiss by Heinrich Kley
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Copyright © Earl Wajenberg, 2019