“For the most part,” my father says delicately, “yes. But it seems they’ve decided to send an envoy to…celebrate the holiday with us.”
I flex my hands with the effort to stay still. I don’t like this, don’t like any part of this.
“You just found out now?” I ask.
Father Denis gives a tiny wince. “A bit more advance notice would have been helpful,” he agrees.
“They travel only by boat,” my father says, his lip curling with an unamused smile. “Send letters that way, too. The virtue of simplicity, so they say. A core tenet of their monastic rule. I have only about twelve hours’ more notice than you.”
I grip the armrest of the chair.
“Why now?” I manage.
My father doesn’t meet my eyes. “They didn’t say.” His speech is slow, measured. “Not in so many words.”
A beat of silence passes. “Well,” Father Denis says at last, bright and oblivious. “We will do everything we can to make them welcome. I assume the accommodations are?—”
“Taken care of,” my father confirms. “I wished to ask only if their friar might co-celebrate Candlemas with you, here in the chapel.”
“Of course.” Father Denis nods. “The house of God is open to all.”
I’ve never had any reason to dislike Father Denis. He is a good and stalwart priest, well-liked as dean of the Divinity School. If anything, he’s…dull, but that’s hardly a shortcoming.
But he doesn’t know. Doesn’t know the full extent of our so-called fraternal relationship with the White Brothers. Doesn’t know they are the Consistory. Doesn’t know that they are anything more than a reclusive, old-fashioned, devout and discrete monastic order that holds ties with us from afar.
“Excellent.” My father claps his hands on his knees. “I assumed as much. But—well, never assume. I appreciate your time, Father.” He turns to me. “Kingston—shall we?”
We walk in silence through the nave.
“The Brothers,” I start, keeping my voice low against the echoing stones. “Are they?—”
“This is your fault,” my father hisses.
The suddenness—the vitriol—it stops me in my tracks.
“Mine?” My voice sounds frustratingly thin. “How?”
My father does not stop. He is at the vestibule, throwing open the door to the silvered quads and gray sky.
“How?” he repeats as I catch up, breath fogging in front of me. “How?”
“You know how.” My father sweeps a hand at the snow-covered campus as he descends the chapel steps. “This…all of this. You fence poorly and injure yourself. You can’t study without some…somemageto tutor you. And our mostpreciousresource, a lifetime’s collection—no, a lineage’s collection of irreplaceable archives go up in?—”
“That was Moroslav,” I counter, lengthening my strides to keep up. “The Russians?—”
“Whom you are meant tostop, Kingston,” he all but roars. He stops walking. “Your watch, your leadership, barely six months in anddisasteris striking again and again. If you are surprised to be blamed then you are as stupid as you are incapable.”
The ground before me is pulsing as I stare at it. The back of my throat aches. Somewhere, distantly, I am grateful that it’s early yet and no one seems to be out on this quad.
“This is not some social call,” my father goes on. “This is not some gesture of goodwill and brotherhood for Candlemas Day. This is aninspection, Kingston.”
“I won’t disappoint you.” The words are mechanical from my lips. And yet I don’t know how to mean them any more than I do. I could not mean anything more.
“All youdois disappoint me!” His voice is tight with something between fury and disgust. “The son so wished for, so hoped for, soprayedfor, and this is how you turn out? Truly, I wonder that you couldeverbe worth what you’ve cost the world, Kingston.”
Something goes very still inside me.
I have no answer for that.
