The Warlock Heretical by Christopher Stasheff

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    possible. If.
    The Abbot sat, too, and waved to Brother Alfonso. "Wine, if you please." The fruit of the vine trickled into a cup in front of the Abbot, then (just so he wouldn't have any false notions
    about who was more important here) into one in front of Rod; it may have been poor courtesy, but it was an
    effective statement. Rod, however, waited for his host to drink first. The Abbot raised his cup and said, "To Gramarye."
    "To Gramarye," Rod echoed, relieved that it was a toast he could drink to (albeit only a small sip; he loathed
    sweet wines).
    The Abbot didn't drink much more—only enough for the symbol. Then he sat back, toying with the cup.
    "To
    what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?"
    And he did seem to be enjoying it—for all the wrong reasons, no doubt. "Their Majesties have grown concerned
    about the role of the Church in this land of Gramarye, milord.''
    "Indeed." The Abbot tensed, but held his smile. "They should be so concerned, for only a godly country may be
    peaceful and whole."
    "Well, I can agree to that much, at least," Rod said with relief. "If all the people in a country believe in the same
    religion, it welds the country together."
    "Oddly phrased." The Abbot frowned. "Not that I disagree; but thou dost make the Church seem to be the tool of
    the State."
    Hasn't it always been? But Rod didn't say that aloud; he could think of a few cases where it had been just the
    reverse. "Not at all, milord. Indeed, the Church is to the State as the soul is to the body."
    "And the body is dead without it?" The Abbot smiled again, seeming to relax a trifle. "Well said, well said. I am
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    consoled to find that my royal son and daughter do see this so clearly." Rod wasn't quite sure Their Majesties would have phrased it the way he had, but he let it pass. "Yet also, milord,
    if the body is ill, the soul may suffer."
    "Not an it bear the thought of Heaven in mind." The Abbot frowned. "Yet I will own that a person who's ill may
    be tempted to anger and despair. Still, such trials will strengthen the soul, if they are endured."

    Rod had a sudden memory of the smoking ruins of a village he'd seen shortly after the bandits had left.
    "True, but
    the illness should not be courted. At least, that's what I was taught when I was a boy—that it's a sin to damage
    your body, because it has the potential of being a temple of God."
    "That, too, is true." But the Abbot's frown deepened. "Yet do not misconstrue; the body matters naught in
    Eternity. Only the soul endures."
    It was hard not to point out the logical flaw—that the Abbot's argument could be used as an excuse for oppression— but Rod managed; he was here to conciliate, not to antagonize. "But doesn't God want us to try to
    achieve a sound mind in a sound body?"
    "He doth; yet do not therefore dream that the two are equal in importance."
    "Surely, milord, you do not preach that the body should be the slave of the soul!" That was bringing matters to a
    head— who should rule? Church or Crown?
    "Not the slave," the Abbot qualified, "but the servant. Assuredly the body should be in all ways subject to the
    soul."
    Dead end. Rod took a deep breath, trying to think of another approach. "But how, milord, if the soul becomes
    ill?"
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    "Then it must come to the Church, to be cured!"
    Well, some of the medieval priests had been great practical psychologists—some. But Rod noticed that the
    Abbot had taken the argument around in a circle, stubbornly refusing to consider the implications of his own
    analogy. "Yet until it does, milord, it may create havoc within the body, may it not?" Rod had a vivid mental
    image of a schizophrenic patient he'd seen once—haggard, unshaven, and dressed in sloppy