He was wearing a black cassock under the alb, and both of them looked like they had once been richly made. They were much too short for Roche. She could see a good ten centimeters of his worn brown hose below the cassock’s hem when he bent over the altar. They had probably belonged to the priest before him, or were castoffs of Imeyne’s chaplain.
The priest at Holy Re-Formed had worn a polyester alb over a brown jumper and jeans. He had assured Kivrin that the mass was completely authentic, in spite of its being held in midafternoon. The antiphon dated from the eighth century, he had told her, and the gruesomely detailed stations of the cross were exact copies of Turin’s. But the church had been a converted stationer’s shop, they had used a folding table for an altar, and the Carfax carillon outside had been busily destroying “It Came Upon the Midnight Clear.”
“Kyrie eleison,” Cob said, his hands folded in prayer.
“Kyrie eleison,” Father Roche said.
“Christe eleison,” Cob said.
“Christe eleison,” Agnes said brightly.
Kivrin hushed her, her finger to her lips. Lord have mercy. Christ have mercy. Lord have mercy.
They had used the kyrie at the ecumenical service, probably because of some deal Holy Re-Formed’s priest had struck with the vicar in return for moving the time of the mass, and the minister of the Church of the Milennium had refused to recite it and had looked coldly disapproving throughout. Like Lady Imeyne.
Father Roche seemed all right now. He said the
The vicar had read the same verses at St. Mary’s. He had read it from the People’s Modern Bible, which had been insisted on by the Church of the Millenium, and it had begun, “Around then the P.M. landfilled a tax hike on the ratepayers,” but it was the same gospel Father Roche was laboriously reciting.
“‘And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace among men of good will.”‘“ Father Roche kissed the gospel. “
The sermon should come next, if there was one. In most village churches the priest only preached at the major masses, and even then it was usually no more than a catechism lesson, the listing of the seven deadly sins or the seven Acts of Mercy. The high mass Christmas morning was probably when the sermon would be.
But Father Roche stepped out in front of the central aisle, which had nearly closed up again as the villagers leaned against the pillars and each other, trying to find a more comfortable position, and began to speak.
“In the days when Christ came to earth from heaven, God sent signs that men might know his coming, and in the last days also will there be signs. There will be famines and pestilence, and Satan will ride abroad in the land.”
Oh, no, Kivrin thought, don’t talk about seeing the devil riding a black horse.
She glanced at Imeyne. The old woman looked furious. But it wouldn’t matter what he’d said, Kivrin thought. She’d been determined to find mistakes and lapses she could tell the bishop about. Lady Yvolde looked mildly irritated, and everyone else had the look of tired patience people always got when listening to a sermon, no matter what the century. Kivrin had seen the same look in St. Mary’s last Christmas.
The sermon at St. Mary’s had been on rubbish disposal and the dean of Christ Church had begun it by saying, “Christianity began in a stable. Will it end in a sewer?”
But it hadn’t mattered. It had been midnight, and St. Mary’s had had a stone floor and a real altar, and when she’d closed her eyes, she’d been able to shut out the carpeted nave and the umbrellas and the laser candles. She had pushed the plastic kneeling pad out of her way and knelt on the stone floor and imagined what it would be like in the Middle Ages.
Mr. Dunworthy had told her it wouldn’t be like anything she had imagined, and he was right, of course. But not about this mass. She had imagined it just like this, the stone floor and the murmured kyrie, the smells of incense and tallow and cold.
“The Lord will come with fire and pestilence, and all will perish,” Roche said, “but even in the last days, God’s mercy will not forsake us. He will send us help and comfort and bring us safely unto heaven.”
Safely unto heaven. She thought of Mr. Dunworthy. “Don’t go,” he had said. “It won’t be anything like you imagine.” And he was right. He was always right.
