Lanz blinks. “What do you mean?”
I tilt my head at him. “I mean…have fun? I hope it’s fun.”
“But you…” He frowns. “You say that like you’re not going.”
“I’mnotgoing.” I look at Morgan. “Why would I go?”
Lanz, too, looks at Morgan. Then back at me. Gives an awkward cough.
“Because…we’re going.”
We’re going. The four of them, presumably. And if they have to be there, and they also have to watch me, then…
…then I have to be there too.
“You’regoing?” Morgan says, incredulous. “As in the four of you are? But you don’t go to stuff like this.”
“Right,” Lanz says, “but this is…didn’t Kingston tell you?” He looks from Morgan to me. “That they’re coming to campus?”
Both of us shake our heads.
“Who?” I ask, heart pounding.
Lanz sets his jaw. “The White Brothers,” he says. “The Consistory.”
“With all due respect,I don’t think it could be any clearer.”
Kingston’s voice is even, flat. He stares at Emrys. “Nequaquam illorum, quos deis putant, nostris sanctis martyribus comparare praesumat quisquam.Let no one presume to compare those gods you celebrate with our holy martyrs.”
Emrys’s arms are folded, his expression quizzical. “Your point?”
“Augustine is saying,” Kingston goes on, “that the rites and rituals of the pagan Gods—andspecificallythe harvest goddesses Isis and Ceres”—he points, on the facsimile, to thenames in question—“can be inno wayequivocated to Christian worship.” He exhales sharply through his nose.
I sit, a bit stunned. Kingston isn’t angry, per se, but he’s…dogged.
He’s not wrong, either.De Civitate Dei, chapter 27. St. Augustine is pretty unequivocal about slamming down even the possibility of pagan and magical practices having any plausible place in Christian worship.
This is what we’ve been doing, all class period. Rereading, cross-comparing, analyzing. Emrys gave us analogies to search for—Celtic myths, pagan practices, a hodgepodge of tradition and motif that he’d studied in his capacity as a so-called theoretical mage. If there was a connection, somewhere, in any of these Christian texts, the theory might bear out. That the Grail isn’t a grail—that it’s something more. A hidden power subsumed by the Church.
But if that’s wrong, if there’s no connection…
…then we’re at a dead end.
“Or this.” Kingston flips through sheets to another, different text facsimile. “Aquinas.” He traces with his finger as he reads aloud. “Mali angeli non possunt facere vera miracula, sed tantum aliqua quae mirabilia videntur hominibus.”
“Evil spirits cannot perform true miracles, but only things which seem wonderful to men,” Emrys translates out loud, a bit wearily.
My heart sinks.
“I know you want this to make sense,” Kingston goes on. “I know you want there to be this connection and…syncretism. But what you’re suggesting is explicitly ruled out by the writings of the Church Fathers.”
“Oh, and we couldn’t dream of questioning the Church Fathers.”
I surprise myself by speaking up.
Kingston stares at me. Half-surprised, half…chastened, almost. I meet his eyes as long as I can stand it.
“What do you mean?”
