Then he came striding up the path, as if the crying had summoned him; tall, bearded, straight-backed, dressed in a long black robe with something bright and shining and immediately attractive to the wailing child on the breast of it. He wasted no time, verbally laying into the men in a voice like thunder, somehow making it clear that it was their good fortune he wasn’t going to lay into them physically as well. There was a great deal of what Alberich—from his dispassionate distance—recognized as Holy Writ being quoted, mostly about the poor, the fatherless, and the repentant. There was also a great deal of Writ quoted about the ultimate destination of those who abused the poor, the fatherless, and the repentant.

And a curious thing happened. The more the man spoke, the larger he seemed to become, and the smaller the woman’s harassers became. As they shrank into themselves, unable to look either at the woman or the Sunpriest—that was clearly what he was, although it was Alberich, and not Orven, who knew this—the woman took on more confidence. Since none of the thunder was being directed at him or his mother, the child calmed and crept near to her, and she hugged him close.

“Now, go!” the man finished at last, in tones dripping with disgust. “And if you don’t wish another taste of my tongue, find yourselves something godly to do for a change!”

They slunk off, exactly like whipped curs. Now the man came to stand over the boy and his mother. “How long has this been going on, woman?” he asked curtly, but not unkindly.

She shrugged. “Since he was born, Holy Father,” she replied, in a resigned voice.

Now the Priest looked down at the boy. “Then it is time I took a hand,” he pronounced, in a way that said quite clearly that it would be useless to protest. “I will have the boy with me for two marks in the morning, every morning. It is time he learned the ways of the Sunlord, blessed be His Name, and when the village sees that my eye is on you, there will be no more of scenes like this.”

Then he turned and stalked away again, and the memory—or, more accurately, manufactured memory—was over.

Alberich “woke,” suddenly released from the experience, and opened his eyes. He was as calm as he had been when he took his place on the couch, but from the tear streaks on Orven’s face, it was clear that he had experienced, and quite directly, everything appropriate to that young child in that situation.

The Healer was grinning with great satisfaction, so Alberich had to suppose that what he had planned had worked. But he put one finger to his lips, and motioned to Alberich that he should leave the room for the moment.