Update 45B - Charles Skutawenondi (part II)
P { margin-bottom: 0.21cm; } (New Bristol, July 1635)
The town of New Bristol was smaller than Charles had thought it would be. From all the talk he'd heard back in Nouvelle Géneve, he'd figured that New Bristol was a city ten times the size of Hochelaga. Certainly, it was much larger than Nouvelle Géneve, but Nouvelle Géneve was barely more than a village. Now that he was here, New Bristol seemed to Charles to be only half the size of Maisouna, maybe a quarter the size of Hochelaga. [1]
However, while the size of New Bristol was distinctly unimpressive to Charles, he still found the city itself quite remarkable. While the buildings were more or less similar to those he had seen in Nouvelle Géneve or Hochelaga's Petite Rochelle, their architecture still seemed strange and exotic to Charles, and the buildings here were certainly much grander than anything in Nouvelle Géneve. What impressed Charles most of all, though were the ships in the harbour. In Hochelaga, Charles would often see the Kanata Boats [2] which sailed upriver from Stadacona. He had always assumed that the ships which carried Kanata's furs across the ocean to France would be more or less similar to these Kanata Boats.
But the ships that Charles now saw in the harbour of New Bristol dwarfed the Kanata Boats as much as the Kanata Boats dwarfed his own people's canoes. These ships were the size of Hochelaga's largest longhouses, and great trees sprouted from their decks to support sails larger than anything Charles had thought was possible. All that he had read about ships and sailing had not really prepared him for the reality. [3]
“I can take you down to the harbour later,” spoke Jean Frechet, Charles' traveling companion. “Right now, I need to introduce you to the Bishop.” Frechet was one of Nouvelle Genéve's Huguenot ministers and the teacher at the Huguenot school. He had taken a liking to Charles ever since he had met him three years ago. Since then, Charles had gone on to become one of Frechet's best students, and Frechet had made it his mission to prepare Charles for a proper education in Calvinist Theology.
The Bishop who Charles was about to meet was the Anglican Bishop of the Diocese of New England. While the Huguenot Church of Nouvelle Géneve, like all Huguenot churches, was independently governed at the congregational level, it shared much doctrine in common with the Church of England. [4] The French Bibles used by the Huguenots were printed on English printing presses, and many Huguenots were sent to England to attend Theology school. Frechet travelled to New Bristol every summer to meet with the Anglican Bishop. This summer, he had decided to bring Charles along.
New Bristol's cathedral was much smaller and plainer than the Jesuit Church in Hochelaga. This, Charles thought, was likely due both to New Bristol's smaller number of parishioners as well as the Calvinist abhorrence of decadence. However, there was something about the straight lines and simple geometric perfection of this cathedral which captivated Charles. It was almost as if everything organic had been drained from the cathedral's structure, leaving nothing but its mathematical skeleton. But somehow, this skeleton was more beautiful than the flesh clinging to it had been. [5]
Frechet brought Charles inside the Cathedral, where he was greeted by a small middle-aged man with a kindly face. “Bishop Woodrow, how good it is to see you!” Frechet called out. He spoke in Latin, likely for Charles' benefit, although Charles had been studying English for a number of months in order to prepare for this meeting.
“Jean, my friend!” the Bishop replied. “Please call me 'Thomas'. You're not my subordinate, and formality shouldn't be necessary between us after all these years. Who is this who you bring along?”
“This is Charles Skutawenondi,” Frechet replied, “he is the student I was telling you about. He is only sixteen years old, yet he is able to astound me with his insight into Scripture.”
“Ahh, yes, you did write to me about him. He is a little…” the Bishop paused to find the right word “…darker than I thought he might be.”
“Well, he is a Kanatian,” Frechet replied, “he may look like the savages you find around these parts, but his people are much more civilized. [6] Besides, he is just as much a Christian like you or I.”
“It's a pleasure to meet you,” Charles broke in, speaking English. He caught a look of surprise on the Bishop's face.
“Thank you, Mr. … uh … Skawendy?” the Bishop said.
“Skutawenondi,” Charles replied.
“How about I just called you 'Charles Wendie'? I don't think I can quite wrap my tongue around your last name.” As the Bishop spoke, Charles replied with a nod. “By the way, your English is quite good. How long have you been studying it for?”
“Only two months,” Charles replied.
“He's a quick learner,” Frechet broke in. “I have been astounded many times with how quickly this boy can pick things up. To be honest, I'm starting to reach the limits of what I am capable of teaching him, and I really think he'd benefit from travelling abroad to attend University. I don't want to send him to France where he'd be studying under Catholics, so sending him to England is probably the best bet. However, in order to get him admittance into Oxford University, he'll need someone to recommend him. I was hoping that maybe you could play that role.”
“I don't think…” the Bishop started.
“Thomas,” said Frechet, “you don't have to make a decision now. Spend a few days, weeks, even months talking with the boy. Give him a chance to impress you with his intellect. Once you have gotten a chance to know him, you will want him to have a chance to attend Oxford just as much as I do. You'll see…”
* * * * *
(Oxford, February 1638)
The air inside the Raven's Eye Tavern was warm and comforting. Charles could smell the scent of fresh food and hear the sounds of his fellow students busy in conversation. It had been months since Charles had been inside his favourite tavern. He had been sick for much of this time. While the fact that he had survived smallpox as a child had spared him from that particular disease, there had been many other illness which had struck him over the past two years. Many, like this last one, had left him bedridden for months.
“Charlie Wendie! Come over here!” a familiar voice called out. It was Charles' fried Bart, a fellow Oxford student. As usual, most of the tavern patrons were students, and Bart was seated with a group of them, although most looked unfamiliar to Charles.
“Come, grab an ale, sit down with us,” Bart said, “Harry here was just talking about a Faustus Socinius, and his Arian heresy.” [7] The Raven's Eye was well known as a place where Theology students could speak freely about religious matters without risk of being branded a heretic. Oxford University enforced a fairly strict adherence to Calvinist orthodoxy within the classroom itself, but the Raven's Eye was one of the many places where deviations from that orthodoxy were tolerated.
“How many times to I have to tell you that Unitarianism is not the same thing as Arianism!” shouted a red-haired student, who seemed to be at the centre of this particular group. This must be Harry, Charles thought. “Arianism holds that Jesus was a divine entity below God but above humans. Socinius, on the other hand, teaches that God was and is the only divine entity. Jesus was simply the human son of God, nothing more.”
Bart ignored Harry and continued speaking to Charles. “Let me buy you a beer,” he said, “and are you hungry?”
“Thanks,” Charles replied, “I've been sick for so long that I've fallen behind on my translation work. [8] I haven't been paid in a couple of months, so I haven't really been eating well.”
“…there's nothing in the Bible that says that Jesus was God.” Harry continued. “Certainly, he was the Son of God, none of us doubt that, but Socinius argues that he couldn't have been God Himself. How can anyone, even God, be his own son? That's just nonsensical!”
“Harry,” interrupted another student. Charles couldn't remember his name, but he could remember that he was a Navarran, from Pamplona. [9] “What you're saying sounds an awful lot like the Mahometan [sic] teaching that Jesus was a prophet but nothing more. How is Socinius still a Christian and not a Mahometan?”
“Well, he doesn't follow the teachings of Mahomet for a start. Saying that Jesus is not God is not the same thing as denying that he was the son of God, or denying that, through his sacrifice, he saved us from sin. Really, all that Socinians and Mahometans have in common is that we're - I mean they're - both monotheists! Socinius simply takes seriously the idea that there truly is only one God, rather than three Gods in one!”
By this time, Bart had returned with ale and a bowl of stew for Charles. Taking a sip of the frothy drink, Charles was reminded of how much better English beer was than Kanatian beer. If he ever got homesick and though of returning home, a taste of good Enlgish ale was enough to convince him to stay. “Ok, Harry,” Bart said, “let's suppose for the sake of argument that there is nothing in Scripture which says that the Trinity exists. At the same time, there is definitely nothing in Scripture which says that the Trinity doesn't exist. So, the question becomes, if both positions are equally unjustified by Scripture, why not go with the one that every Christian has followed since the First Council of Nicaea?”
“Bart,” Harry replied, “are you really saying that we should believe something just because it's orthodox to do so? If we followed that line of reasoning, wouldn't be still be following the Pope as our ancestors did 100 years ago? What's the point of the Reformation if it isn't to question orthodoxy?”
“Point taken,” said Bart, “but my question still stands. Why not believe in one God in three persons? What's the reason why God can't manifest himself in three different ways?”
“Or five different ways,” added Charles in a muffled voice.
“Five?” asked Bart, turning to Charles. “Why five?”
“Oh, well, back where I come from, in Hochelaga, there's an order called the Magdalene Sisterhood. They believe that God has manifested himself not just in three different persons, but in no fewer than five. My aunt is one of the leaders of the Magdalene Sisterhood, and I was just thinking of a letter I recently received from her. She's very interested in what I am learning here…”
“Ok, but back to the five. I'm assuming Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are three of them, but what are the fourth and fifth aspects of God?”
“God the Mother and God the Daughter,” answered Charles, “my people have this idea that there needs to be balance between the male and female aspects of things. Since two of the aspects of God are male, the Magdalenes have come up with the idea that there must be two female aspects to balance these two. God the Mother is supposed to be Mary, of course, and God the Daughter is a supposed to be the form in which God will come to Earth again.”
“And what do they say to the fact that God the Mother and God the Daughter are not mentioned in Scripture?” this time it was the Navarran who asked the question. The whole group had turned to listen to Charles; Harry was no longer the centre of attention.
“Well, my Aunt would say that Scripture only mentions the male aspects of God because the Bible was written by men. She firmly believes that there are other Gospels which were written by women apostles, but they have simply been forgotten.” [10]
“So, do you believe any of this?” continued the Navarran.
“Well, not really,” replied Charles. “To be honest, I feel that the Magdalenes are much worse than the Catholics when it comes to disregarding Scripture. However, I do feel that we have to be mindful of the fact that the Word of God has been passed down to us by men. I'm wondering if rather than 'God the Father' and 'God the Son', we should really be saying 'God the Parent' and 'God the Child'. I mean, is the 'He' used to refer to God supposed to signify that He is specifically male, or is it the generic 'He' which includes the female. I'd like to think its the latter. A perfect being would have to have both male and female aspects, would He not?”
“I don't know about that,” added another student whose name Charles didn't know. “Isn't the female just an imperfect version of the male? I mean, wasn't Eve created to serve Adam? Wasn't she created from just one of his ribs?”
“To be honest,” Charles replied, “it doesn't really matter whether women were created to serve men or not. The fact still remains that there are things that women can do, like bearing children, that men cannot. Any perfect, omnipotent being must be able to bear children, and thus must have a female aspect.”
“Ok, let's suppose that God in fact does have a female aspect,” said Harry, who had re-entered the conversation. For a while he had had an annoyed look on his face. He was likely disappointed that he was no longer the centre of attention. “Jesus, on the other hand, was a man; he could not bear children. Ergo, Jesus was not God, he was only the son of God.”
Charles sat back and started drinking a fresh mug of ale which the Navarran had just placed in front of him. He was glad that Harry had shifted the centre of the conversation away from him. It was good just to be able to sit here, eat, drink, and talk with other students. Some day, Charles would graduate and become a Pastor in a church somewhere, but, for now, he was living the easy life of a student.
* * * * *
(Muirkirk, October 1641)
The sun was beginning to set when Charles returned from his walk on the moors. He would have liked to be out longer but the damp cold weather was starting to chill him, and his flask of whisky was nearly empty. It would be better to return to his house to warm up and have his housekeeper make him some dinner.
While there was a certain natural beauty to the wilderness of rural Scotland, it was nothing like the forests of home. To be honest, a posting in Muirkirk would definitely not have been Charles' first choice. It just happened to be that, when he graduated from Oxford, it had been Scotland that had been most in need of Calvinist Pastors. Besides, while Charles had been made welcome as a student at Oxford, it had been made clear enough that he was just not English enough for a career in the Anglican Church.
Charles shuddered whenever he remembered why Scotland was in such desparate need of Pastors. The last Pastor sent to this parish had only lasted four years before he had been captured by the Scottish Inquisition. With the Supplicants [11] in control of most of the Ayrshire, Charles hoped that he could now avoid that fate.
As he approached the small house that adjoined Muirkirk's church, Charles was surprised to see a young boy waiting on his doorstep. The boy was dressed in the military clothes of the Supplicant army, although his clothes were torn and almost falling off his body. As he got closer, Charles realized that he recognized the boy's face, although there was something wrong about it.
It was only when he was almost at the doorstep that Charles realized where he knew the face from. It wasn't a boy, it was a girl, but she had cut her hair short and put on military clothes. Her name was Margaret, Charles recalled, and she had been a member of the local congregation until a few months ago. Last spring her father and older brother had left to fight in the war, and she had been left behind with her mother. When her mother had died in an accident, she had left to go live with her aunt and uncle in the nearby village of Auchinleck. So, what was she doing back here?
“Pastor Wendie!” she called out. “I'm glad you're back! Your housekeeper wouldn't let me inside without your permission. I don't think she recognized me…”
“Oh, poor girl,” Charles replied, “please come inside. What is it that's troubling you?” As Charles opened the door for her, he realized that it wasn't just her clothes that had been damaged. She had bruises on her face and cuts on her arm.
“Please, Pastor, protect me and pray for me. Keep me safe!”
“Safe from what?” asked Charles.
“This,” Margaret said, gesturing towards her cuts and bruises.
“Tell, me, who did that to you? Why would anyone hurt you?”
Margaret didn't speak for a minute or so. “I should probably start at the beginning,” she finally said. “After my mother died, which was the last time you saw me, I began hearing the voice of the Holy Spirit in my head. The voice talked to me, told me that God had a special plan for me. The voice told me that my father and brother had been killed by the Catholic armies, and that I was needed to go out and fight to save Scotland. The voice told me that I would need to pretend to be a boy in order to join the armies, so I did. I cut my hair, and found boy's clothes, and went off to fight, just like Joan of Arc did.”
“Joan of Arc, you say?” She must have heard that from the French Priest who was preaching here before the Supplicants took over, Charles thought. No Scot or Englishman would ever tell that story, or at least wouldn't tell it in a way that treats Joan as a heroine.
“Yes, Joan of Arc went off to fight for France, and I went to fight for Scotland”, Margaret continued. “But,” she paused, as if fearful of what she was going to say next, “but I was a coward! I couldn't do it. God sent me off to war, but I couldn't face battle. God didn't grant me the strength I needed, and I ran away from there as fast as I could. I've prayed to him all I could, but I just couldn't face the thought of all that blood…” she was crying now.
“My child,” Charles said. “It's not in everyone's nature to be a soldier. Remember, God sent you to Earth as a girl, not as a boy. If He'd truly wanted you to be a fine warrior, He would have made you a man. Instead, He must have another plan for you.”
“But, God spoke to me… He did… I know it…” Margaret seemed even more fearful than she had been before. She was not comforted by Charles' words, and he wasn't sure why. “Unless…”
“Unless what?” Charles asked.
“What if I am a witch and I don't know it? What if it was Satan who was speaking to me and not God.”
“Of course you're not a witch,” Charles said, “you're a good Christian. Even good Christians are misled by Satan from time to time. But God is merciful; if you have done wrong, just ask for forgiveness and you will have it…”
“But I tried that!” Margaret cried out in frustration. “When I came back from the war, I asked my aunt and uncle for forgiveness. I asked them to take me back into their home, and they refused. They said that I was unnatural for wanting to dress in boy's clothes, and they told me that they knew that I was a witch. They said that they had heard me talking to my dead mother. 'Anyone who talks to the dead must be a witch', they said.”
“Talking to your dead mother?” Charles asked.
“Yes,” Margaret replied. “When God first started speaking to me, he spoke to me in my mother's voice. I thought He was her at first. It was only later that I discovered that it was actually God who had been speaking to me all along. But, my uncle told me that he didn't believe me. He told me that God would never disgrace himself and take on female form.”
“I then told him what you told me in your sermon last year,” Margaret continued. Her voice had gotten calmed and more confident at this point. “You told me - you told all of us - that God has both male and female inside of Him. You told me that, just as God once came to Earth as a man, that He might also someday come to Earth as a woman, and that, because of that, all women should be respected and cherished.”
“But my uncle didn't like that. He told me then and there that I was a tool of the devil, and that all women, including me, were evil. That's when he…” Margaret stopped and gazed at her bruises. Charles could tell what she meant by this.
“He told me, my uncle told me, that if I ran, if I told anyone about what he'd done to me that he'd have to have me burnt at the stake. He told me that unless I kept quiet, he'd tell the whole village that I was a witch and had killed my own mother. But I knew I couldn't stay there. I knew I had to go. So I came here, because I know that you'll help me, that you'll keep me safe.” [12]
By this point in the conversation, the night had become quite dark. The stars and moon were out, but there was another glow on the horizon, not in the Western sky where the setting sun had been, but in the South, down by the river. “I'll keep you safe, I promise,” Charles said, “but I need you to get out of sight. Stay put, and don't come out until I tell you to…” Charles got up and went to the door.
As Charles exited the house he caught sight of the mob. The were coming up the road from the river with torches in hand. They were carrying what must be makeshift weapons, and had an angry look to the way they were walking. As the mob drew closer, Charles noticed that the man leading it walked with a limp and had a black eye. This must be the uncle, he thought, it seems that Margaret isn't quite as bad a fighter as she makes herself out to be. “What business do you have here at so late an hour?” he called out.
“We're here after a witch!” the uncle called out. “A girl, although she's dressed as a boy. Margaret is her name! Have you seen her?”
“A witch, you say?” Charles asked. “I haven't seen any witches about.”
“Margaret,” the uncle repeated. “She's my niece. The innkeeper said that she had been seen walking up this road a few hours ago. Are you sure you haven't seen her?”
“No, I haven't,” Charles said.
“Then you'd have no objection to us looking through your house to see if she's in there?”
“You don't trust me, the Pastor of this church?” Charles questioned. “How would you feel if I told your Pastor back in Auchinleck that you ransacked my house because you didn't take me at my word?”
“I'm his Pastor,” another man called out, “and I wouldn't take anyone of your savage race at his word either! For all I know you're a servant of Satan too! Let's go in and get the witch!” As he said this, the mob charged the door. Charles threw himself between the mob and the door, but, before he knew what was happening, something cracked him across the top of his head, and he fell to the ground and blacked out…
…Charles awakened to the feel of heat and the scent of smoke. His housekeeper, Fiona, was standing above him shaking him and talking frantically. Looking up Charles could see that he had been dragged away from his house, which was now on fire. “Where is Margaret?” he asked, “is she safe?”
“She's inside,” Fiona replied, “and you're not going back in there. They only let me go just in time to save you from the flames.” Charles heard a scream as the roof of the house collapsed. He felt devastated.
“Fiona,” he said, “I'm leaving this place. I cannot preach the word of God to those who will not hear it. I don't know where I'm going, but I'll make do. I'm sure I'll be able to find translation work somewhere.”
“Take this,” he said handing her his watch, “this is your severance pay. And feel free to take anything else of mine that has survived the fire. You've served me well, and I know you'll serve the next Pastor here just as well. Good-bye.”
Charles head was still ringing with pain, and his flask of whisky was empty, but he forced himself to get up and walk back out onto the moors… [13]
Footnotes to Part II:
[1] At this point in time, New Bristol has a population in the thousands while Hochelaga has a population over ten thousand. And Hochelaga's population is just going to keep growing at this point. Hochelaga won't rival major European cities until probably the 19th or 20th centuries, but New Bristol will never surpass it in population. I don't think even TTL's New Amsterdam will ever catch up to Hochelaga in population, but am not really sure.
[2] The Kanata Boats are one of TTL's alternate techs. They're riverboats built specifically for the fur trade, and have a design somewhere between a European riverboat and a Kanatian canoe. Really, they're fairly similar to OTL's Voyageur canoes, as they serve the same purpose, but have become a
'thing' a little earlier than OTL.
[3] While transatlantic ships can make it upriver to Hochelaga, the nature of the dual Canada Company/Arkevujay control Kanatian fur trade means furs have to be offloaded in both Hochelaga and Stadacona, so ocean going ships rarely risk the shoals and sand bars upriver from Stadacona.
[4] Remember TTL's Church of England is much more radically Reformed than OTL's. Really TTL's Anglicanism is just 'Calvinism, but with Bishops' due to the influence of Edward VI.
[5] The combination of Calvinist austerity with the monumental architecture called for by a monarch-headed Church, has led to a unique style to TTL's Anglican church architecture which emphasizes straight lines and little decoration while still maintaining some sort of majestic quality. I almost want to say it's kinda like Soviet architecture but with 17th-century technology.
[6] The fact that the Kanatians have adopted 300% more European technology than their distant cousins in New England leads many of the colonizers to think of Kanatians as in a separate racial category between Europeans and the rest of the North American Natives.
[7] Faustus Socinius was one of the OTL founders of Unitarianism. He was born before the POD, and grew up soon enough after it that I feel that he could easily have developed the same theological ideas as he did OTL. I'm guessing that his later life was different than it was OTL, although not enough different to prevent his theology from making its way to England.
[8] Charles' greatest intellectual gift is the ease with which he picks up new languages. Thus, translation work comes easy to him. There is enough translation work available in Oxford that Charles can make enough doing it to cover his tuition.
[9] Remember that, in TTL, Navarre is an independent Protestant kingdom in personal union with the Netherlands. Theological, the Navarrese share as much in common with the English as the Huguenots do (in fact, much of the Navarran population is made up of Huguenots who fled France).
[10] The Magdalene Priestesses will have a field day when the Gospel of Mary [Magdalene] is discovered, although they will have to gloss over the fact that the Gospel of Mary doesn't say most of the things they'd want it to say.
[11] The Supplicants are a sort of Scottish Protestant militia. They're really the same organization as OTL's Covenanters, although the oppression they're fighting is that of the Scottish Inquisition rather than that of the English King. 'Supplicant' was actually the term even OTL's Covenanters used to refer to themselves before the outbreak of the English Civil War.
[12] Margaret here is an unreliable narrator. Her uncle's abuse started as soon as she went to live with them, and her reason for running away to join the army was due to the abuse, not due to the fact that God spoke to her. She is a little mentally unstable, so she made have heard voices at one point or another, but really she's trying to un-victimize herself by casting herself in the role of Joan of Arc.
[13] This is not the last you'll see of Charles, I hope. I just felt like it was a good place to end, and a good segue into the Supplicant War in Scotland, which will be the next update.
P { margin-bottom: 0.21cm; } (New Bristol, July 1635)
The town of New Bristol was smaller than Charles had thought it would be. From all the talk he'd heard back in Nouvelle Géneve, he'd figured that New Bristol was a city ten times the size of Hochelaga. Certainly, it was much larger than Nouvelle Géneve, but Nouvelle Géneve was barely more than a village. Now that he was here, New Bristol seemed to Charles to be only half the size of Maisouna, maybe a quarter the size of Hochelaga. [1]
However, while the size of New Bristol was distinctly unimpressive to Charles, he still found the city itself quite remarkable. While the buildings were more or less similar to those he had seen in Nouvelle Géneve or Hochelaga's Petite Rochelle, their architecture still seemed strange and exotic to Charles, and the buildings here were certainly much grander than anything in Nouvelle Géneve. What impressed Charles most of all, though were the ships in the harbour. In Hochelaga, Charles would often see the Kanata Boats [2] which sailed upriver from Stadacona. He had always assumed that the ships which carried Kanata's furs across the ocean to France would be more or less similar to these Kanata Boats.
But the ships that Charles now saw in the harbour of New Bristol dwarfed the Kanata Boats as much as the Kanata Boats dwarfed his own people's canoes. These ships were the size of Hochelaga's largest longhouses, and great trees sprouted from their decks to support sails larger than anything Charles had thought was possible. All that he had read about ships and sailing had not really prepared him for the reality. [3]
“I can take you down to the harbour later,” spoke Jean Frechet, Charles' traveling companion. “Right now, I need to introduce you to the Bishop.” Frechet was one of Nouvelle Genéve's Huguenot ministers and the teacher at the Huguenot school. He had taken a liking to Charles ever since he had met him three years ago. Since then, Charles had gone on to become one of Frechet's best students, and Frechet had made it his mission to prepare Charles for a proper education in Calvinist Theology.
The Bishop who Charles was about to meet was the Anglican Bishop of the Diocese of New England. While the Huguenot Church of Nouvelle Géneve, like all Huguenot churches, was independently governed at the congregational level, it shared much doctrine in common with the Church of England. [4] The French Bibles used by the Huguenots were printed on English printing presses, and many Huguenots were sent to England to attend Theology school. Frechet travelled to New Bristol every summer to meet with the Anglican Bishop. This summer, he had decided to bring Charles along.
New Bristol's cathedral was much smaller and plainer than the Jesuit Church in Hochelaga. This, Charles thought, was likely due both to New Bristol's smaller number of parishioners as well as the Calvinist abhorrence of decadence. However, there was something about the straight lines and simple geometric perfection of this cathedral which captivated Charles. It was almost as if everything organic had been drained from the cathedral's structure, leaving nothing but its mathematical skeleton. But somehow, this skeleton was more beautiful than the flesh clinging to it had been. [5]
Frechet brought Charles inside the Cathedral, where he was greeted by a small middle-aged man with a kindly face. “Bishop Woodrow, how good it is to see you!” Frechet called out. He spoke in Latin, likely for Charles' benefit, although Charles had been studying English for a number of months in order to prepare for this meeting.
“Jean, my friend!” the Bishop replied. “Please call me 'Thomas'. You're not my subordinate, and formality shouldn't be necessary between us after all these years. Who is this who you bring along?”
“This is Charles Skutawenondi,” Frechet replied, “he is the student I was telling you about. He is only sixteen years old, yet he is able to astound me with his insight into Scripture.”
“Ahh, yes, you did write to me about him. He is a little…” the Bishop paused to find the right word “…darker than I thought he might be.”
“Well, he is a Kanatian,” Frechet replied, “he may look like the savages you find around these parts, but his people are much more civilized. [6] Besides, he is just as much a Christian like you or I.”
“It's a pleasure to meet you,” Charles broke in, speaking English. He caught a look of surprise on the Bishop's face.
“Thank you, Mr. … uh … Skawendy?” the Bishop said.
“Skutawenondi,” Charles replied.
“How about I just called you 'Charles Wendie'? I don't think I can quite wrap my tongue around your last name.” As the Bishop spoke, Charles replied with a nod. “By the way, your English is quite good. How long have you been studying it for?”
“Only two months,” Charles replied.
“He's a quick learner,” Frechet broke in. “I have been astounded many times with how quickly this boy can pick things up. To be honest, I'm starting to reach the limits of what I am capable of teaching him, and I really think he'd benefit from travelling abroad to attend University. I don't want to send him to France where he'd be studying under Catholics, so sending him to England is probably the best bet. However, in order to get him admittance into Oxford University, he'll need someone to recommend him. I was hoping that maybe you could play that role.”
“I don't think…” the Bishop started.
“Thomas,” said Frechet, “you don't have to make a decision now. Spend a few days, weeks, even months talking with the boy. Give him a chance to impress you with his intellect. Once you have gotten a chance to know him, you will want him to have a chance to attend Oxford just as much as I do. You'll see…”
* * * * *
(Oxford, February 1638)
The air inside the Raven's Eye Tavern was warm and comforting. Charles could smell the scent of fresh food and hear the sounds of his fellow students busy in conversation. It had been months since Charles had been inside his favourite tavern. He had been sick for much of this time. While the fact that he had survived smallpox as a child had spared him from that particular disease, there had been many other illness which had struck him over the past two years. Many, like this last one, had left him bedridden for months.
“Charlie Wendie! Come over here!” a familiar voice called out. It was Charles' fried Bart, a fellow Oxford student. As usual, most of the tavern patrons were students, and Bart was seated with a group of them, although most looked unfamiliar to Charles.
“Come, grab an ale, sit down with us,” Bart said, “Harry here was just talking about a Faustus Socinius, and his Arian heresy.” [7] The Raven's Eye was well known as a place where Theology students could speak freely about religious matters without risk of being branded a heretic. Oxford University enforced a fairly strict adherence to Calvinist orthodoxy within the classroom itself, but the Raven's Eye was one of the many places where deviations from that orthodoxy were tolerated.
“How many times to I have to tell you that Unitarianism is not the same thing as Arianism!” shouted a red-haired student, who seemed to be at the centre of this particular group. This must be Harry, Charles thought. “Arianism holds that Jesus was a divine entity below God but above humans. Socinius, on the other hand, teaches that God was and is the only divine entity. Jesus was simply the human son of God, nothing more.”
Bart ignored Harry and continued speaking to Charles. “Let me buy you a beer,” he said, “and are you hungry?”
“Thanks,” Charles replied, “I've been sick for so long that I've fallen behind on my translation work. [8] I haven't been paid in a couple of months, so I haven't really been eating well.”
“…there's nothing in the Bible that says that Jesus was God.” Harry continued. “Certainly, he was the Son of God, none of us doubt that, but Socinius argues that he couldn't have been God Himself. How can anyone, even God, be his own son? That's just nonsensical!”
“Harry,” interrupted another student. Charles couldn't remember his name, but he could remember that he was a Navarran, from Pamplona. [9] “What you're saying sounds an awful lot like the Mahometan [sic] teaching that Jesus was a prophet but nothing more. How is Socinius still a Christian and not a Mahometan?”
“Well, he doesn't follow the teachings of Mahomet for a start. Saying that Jesus is not God is not the same thing as denying that he was the son of God, or denying that, through his sacrifice, he saved us from sin. Really, all that Socinians and Mahometans have in common is that we're - I mean they're - both monotheists! Socinius simply takes seriously the idea that there truly is only one God, rather than three Gods in one!”
By this time, Bart had returned with ale and a bowl of stew for Charles. Taking a sip of the frothy drink, Charles was reminded of how much better English beer was than Kanatian beer. If he ever got homesick and though of returning home, a taste of good Enlgish ale was enough to convince him to stay. “Ok, Harry,” Bart said, “let's suppose for the sake of argument that there is nothing in Scripture which says that the Trinity exists. At the same time, there is definitely nothing in Scripture which says that the Trinity doesn't exist. So, the question becomes, if both positions are equally unjustified by Scripture, why not go with the one that every Christian has followed since the First Council of Nicaea?”
“Bart,” Harry replied, “are you really saying that we should believe something just because it's orthodox to do so? If we followed that line of reasoning, wouldn't be still be following the Pope as our ancestors did 100 years ago? What's the point of the Reformation if it isn't to question orthodoxy?”
“Point taken,” said Bart, “but my question still stands. Why not believe in one God in three persons? What's the reason why God can't manifest himself in three different ways?”
“Or five different ways,” added Charles in a muffled voice.
“Five?” asked Bart, turning to Charles. “Why five?”
“Oh, well, back where I come from, in Hochelaga, there's an order called the Magdalene Sisterhood. They believe that God has manifested himself not just in three different persons, but in no fewer than five. My aunt is one of the leaders of the Magdalene Sisterhood, and I was just thinking of a letter I recently received from her. She's very interested in what I am learning here…”
“Ok, but back to the five. I'm assuming Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are three of them, but what are the fourth and fifth aspects of God?”
“God the Mother and God the Daughter,” answered Charles, “my people have this idea that there needs to be balance between the male and female aspects of things. Since two of the aspects of God are male, the Magdalenes have come up with the idea that there must be two female aspects to balance these two. God the Mother is supposed to be Mary, of course, and God the Daughter is a supposed to be the form in which God will come to Earth again.”
“And what do they say to the fact that God the Mother and God the Daughter are not mentioned in Scripture?” this time it was the Navarran who asked the question. The whole group had turned to listen to Charles; Harry was no longer the centre of attention.
“Well, my Aunt would say that Scripture only mentions the male aspects of God because the Bible was written by men. She firmly believes that there are other Gospels which were written by women apostles, but they have simply been forgotten.” [10]
“So, do you believe any of this?” continued the Navarran.
“Well, not really,” replied Charles. “To be honest, I feel that the Magdalenes are much worse than the Catholics when it comes to disregarding Scripture. However, I do feel that we have to be mindful of the fact that the Word of God has been passed down to us by men. I'm wondering if rather than 'God the Father' and 'God the Son', we should really be saying 'God the Parent' and 'God the Child'. I mean, is the 'He' used to refer to God supposed to signify that He is specifically male, or is it the generic 'He' which includes the female. I'd like to think its the latter. A perfect being would have to have both male and female aspects, would He not?”
“I don't know about that,” added another student whose name Charles didn't know. “Isn't the female just an imperfect version of the male? I mean, wasn't Eve created to serve Adam? Wasn't she created from just one of his ribs?”
“To be honest,” Charles replied, “it doesn't really matter whether women were created to serve men or not. The fact still remains that there are things that women can do, like bearing children, that men cannot. Any perfect, omnipotent being must be able to bear children, and thus must have a female aspect.”
“Ok, let's suppose that God in fact does have a female aspect,” said Harry, who had re-entered the conversation. For a while he had had an annoyed look on his face. He was likely disappointed that he was no longer the centre of attention. “Jesus, on the other hand, was a man; he could not bear children. Ergo, Jesus was not God, he was only the son of God.”
Charles sat back and started drinking a fresh mug of ale which the Navarran had just placed in front of him. He was glad that Harry had shifted the centre of the conversation away from him. It was good just to be able to sit here, eat, drink, and talk with other students. Some day, Charles would graduate and become a Pastor in a church somewhere, but, for now, he was living the easy life of a student.
* * * * *
(Muirkirk, October 1641)
The sun was beginning to set when Charles returned from his walk on the moors. He would have liked to be out longer but the damp cold weather was starting to chill him, and his flask of whisky was nearly empty. It would be better to return to his house to warm up and have his housekeeper make him some dinner.
While there was a certain natural beauty to the wilderness of rural Scotland, it was nothing like the forests of home. To be honest, a posting in Muirkirk would definitely not have been Charles' first choice. It just happened to be that, when he graduated from Oxford, it had been Scotland that had been most in need of Calvinist Pastors. Besides, while Charles had been made welcome as a student at Oxford, it had been made clear enough that he was just not English enough for a career in the Anglican Church.
Charles shuddered whenever he remembered why Scotland was in such desparate need of Pastors. The last Pastor sent to this parish had only lasted four years before he had been captured by the Scottish Inquisition. With the Supplicants [11] in control of most of the Ayrshire, Charles hoped that he could now avoid that fate.
As he approached the small house that adjoined Muirkirk's church, Charles was surprised to see a young boy waiting on his doorstep. The boy was dressed in the military clothes of the Supplicant army, although his clothes were torn and almost falling off his body. As he got closer, Charles realized that he recognized the boy's face, although there was something wrong about it.
It was only when he was almost at the doorstep that Charles realized where he knew the face from. It wasn't a boy, it was a girl, but she had cut her hair short and put on military clothes. Her name was Margaret, Charles recalled, and she had been a member of the local congregation until a few months ago. Last spring her father and older brother had left to fight in the war, and she had been left behind with her mother. When her mother had died in an accident, she had left to go live with her aunt and uncle in the nearby village of Auchinleck. So, what was she doing back here?
“Pastor Wendie!” she called out. “I'm glad you're back! Your housekeeper wouldn't let me inside without your permission. I don't think she recognized me…”
“Oh, poor girl,” Charles replied, “please come inside. What is it that's troubling you?” As Charles opened the door for her, he realized that it wasn't just her clothes that had been damaged. She had bruises on her face and cuts on her arm.
“Please, Pastor, protect me and pray for me. Keep me safe!”
“Safe from what?” asked Charles.
“This,” Margaret said, gesturing towards her cuts and bruises.
“Tell, me, who did that to you? Why would anyone hurt you?”
Margaret didn't speak for a minute or so. “I should probably start at the beginning,” she finally said. “After my mother died, which was the last time you saw me, I began hearing the voice of the Holy Spirit in my head. The voice talked to me, told me that God had a special plan for me. The voice told me that my father and brother had been killed by the Catholic armies, and that I was needed to go out and fight to save Scotland. The voice told me that I would need to pretend to be a boy in order to join the armies, so I did. I cut my hair, and found boy's clothes, and went off to fight, just like Joan of Arc did.”
“Joan of Arc, you say?” She must have heard that from the French Priest who was preaching here before the Supplicants took over, Charles thought. No Scot or Englishman would ever tell that story, or at least wouldn't tell it in a way that treats Joan as a heroine.
“Yes, Joan of Arc went off to fight for France, and I went to fight for Scotland”, Margaret continued. “But,” she paused, as if fearful of what she was going to say next, “but I was a coward! I couldn't do it. God sent me off to war, but I couldn't face battle. God didn't grant me the strength I needed, and I ran away from there as fast as I could. I've prayed to him all I could, but I just couldn't face the thought of all that blood…” she was crying now.
“My child,” Charles said. “It's not in everyone's nature to be a soldier. Remember, God sent you to Earth as a girl, not as a boy. If He'd truly wanted you to be a fine warrior, He would have made you a man. Instead, He must have another plan for you.”
“But, God spoke to me… He did… I know it…” Margaret seemed even more fearful than she had been before. She was not comforted by Charles' words, and he wasn't sure why. “Unless…”
“Unless what?” Charles asked.
“What if I am a witch and I don't know it? What if it was Satan who was speaking to me and not God.”
“Of course you're not a witch,” Charles said, “you're a good Christian. Even good Christians are misled by Satan from time to time. But God is merciful; if you have done wrong, just ask for forgiveness and you will have it…”
“But I tried that!” Margaret cried out in frustration. “When I came back from the war, I asked my aunt and uncle for forgiveness. I asked them to take me back into their home, and they refused. They said that I was unnatural for wanting to dress in boy's clothes, and they told me that they knew that I was a witch. They said that they had heard me talking to my dead mother. 'Anyone who talks to the dead must be a witch', they said.”
“Talking to your dead mother?” Charles asked.
“Yes,” Margaret replied. “When God first started speaking to me, he spoke to me in my mother's voice. I thought He was her at first. It was only later that I discovered that it was actually God who had been speaking to me all along. But, my uncle told me that he didn't believe me. He told me that God would never disgrace himself and take on female form.”
“I then told him what you told me in your sermon last year,” Margaret continued. Her voice had gotten calmed and more confident at this point. “You told me - you told all of us - that God has both male and female inside of Him. You told me that, just as God once came to Earth as a man, that He might also someday come to Earth as a woman, and that, because of that, all women should be respected and cherished.”
“But my uncle didn't like that. He told me then and there that I was a tool of the devil, and that all women, including me, were evil. That's when he…” Margaret stopped and gazed at her bruises. Charles could tell what she meant by this.
“He told me, my uncle told me, that if I ran, if I told anyone about what he'd done to me that he'd have to have me burnt at the stake. He told me that unless I kept quiet, he'd tell the whole village that I was a witch and had killed my own mother. But I knew I couldn't stay there. I knew I had to go. So I came here, because I know that you'll help me, that you'll keep me safe.” [12]
By this point in the conversation, the night had become quite dark. The stars and moon were out, but there was another glow on the horizon, not in the Western sky where the setting sun had been, but in the South, down by the river. “I'll keep you safe, I promise,” Charles said, “but I need you to get out of sight. Stay put, and don't come out until I tell you to…” Charles got up and went to the door.
As Charles exited the house he caught sight of the mob. The were coming up the road from the river with torches in hand. They were carrying what must be makeshift weapons, and had an angry look to the way they were walking. As the mob drew closer, Charles noticed that the man leading it walked with a limp and had a black eye. This must be the uncle, he thought, it seems that Margaret isn't quite as bad a fighter as she makes herself out to be. “What business do you have here at so late an hour?” he called out.
“We're here after a witch!” the uncle called out. “A girl, although she's dressed as a boy. Margaret is her name! Have you seen her?”
“A witch, you say?” Charles asked. “I haven't seen any witches about.”
“Margaret,” the uncle repeated. “She's my niece. The innkeeper said that she had been seen walking up this road a few hours ago. Are you sure you haven't seen her?”
“No, I haven't,” Charles said.
“Then you'd have no objection to us looking through your house to see if she's in there?”
“You don't trust me, the Pastor of this church?” Charles questioned. “How would you feel if I told your Pastor back in Auchinleck that you ransacked my house because you didn't take me at my word?”
“I'm his Pastor,” another man called out, “and I wouldn't take anyone of your savage race at his word either! For all I know you're a servant of Satan too! Let's go in and get the witch!” As he said this, the mob charged the door. Charles threw himself between the mob and the door, but, before he knew what was happening, something cracked him across the top of his head, and he fell to the ground and blacked out…
…Charles awakened to the feel of heat and the scent of smoke. His housekeeper, Fiona, was standing above him shaking him and talking frantically. Looking up Charles could see that he had been dragged away from his house, which was now on fire. “Where is Margaret?” he asked, “is she safe?”
“She's inside,” Fiona replied, “and you're not going back in there. They only let me go just in time to save you from the flames.” Charles heard a scream as the roof of the house collapsed. He felt devastated.
“Fiona,” he said, “I'm leaving this place. I cannot preach the word of God to those who will not hear it. I don't know where I'm going, but I'll make do. I'm sure I'll be able to find translation work somewhere.”
“Take this,” he said handing her his watch, “this is your severance pay. And feel free to take anything else of mine that has survived the fire. You've served me well, and I know you'll serve the next Pastor here just as well. Good-bye.”
Charles head was still ringing with pain, and his flask of whisky was empty, but he forced himself to get up and walk back out onto the moors… [13]
Footnotes to Part II:
[1] At this point in time, New Bristol has a population in the thousands while Hochelaga has a population over ten thousand. And Hochelaga's population is just going to keep growing at this point. Hochelaga won't rival major European cities until probably the 19th or 20th centuries, but New Bristol will never surpass it in population. I don't think even TTL's New Amsterdam will ever catch up to Hochelaga in population, but am not really sure.
[2] The Kanata Boats are one of TTL's alternate techs. They're riverboats built specifically for the fur trade, and have a design somewhere between a European riverboat and a Kanatian canoe. Really, they're fairly similar to OTL's Voyageur canoes, as they serve the same purpose, but have become a
'thing' a little earlier than OTL.
[3] While transatlantic ships can make it upriver to Hochelaga, the nature of the dual Canada Company/Arkevujay control Kanatian fur trade means furs have to be offloaded in both Hochelaga and Stadacona, so ocean going ships rarely risk the shoals and sand bars upriver from Stadacona.
[4] Remember TTL's Church of England is much more radically Reformed than OTL's. Really TTL's Anglicanism is just 'Calvinism, but with Bishops' due to the influence of Edward VI.
[5] The combination of Calvinist austerity with the monumental architecture called for by a monarch-headed Church, has led to a unique style to TTL's Anglican church architecture which emphasizes straight lines and little decoration while still maintaining some sort of majestic quality. I almost want to say it's kinda like Soviet architecture but with 17th-century technology.
[6] The fact that the Kanatians have adopted 300% more European technology than their distant cousins in New England leads many of the colonizers to think of Kanatians as in a separate racial category between Europeans and the rest of the North American Natives.
[7] Faustus Socinius was one of the OTL founders of Unitarianism. He was born before the POD, and grew up soon enough after it that I feel that he could easily have developed the same theological ideas as he did OTL. I'm guessing that his later life was different than it was OTL, although not enough different to prevent his theology from making its way to England.
[8] Charles' greatest intellectual gift is the ease with which he picks up new languages. Thus, translation work comes easy to him. There is enough translation work available in Oxford that Charles can make enough doing it to cover his tuition.
[9] Remember that, in TTL, Navarre is an independent Protestant kingdom in personal union with the Netherlands. Theological, the Navarrese share as much in common with the English as the Huguenots do (in fact, much of the Navarran population is made up of Huguenots who fled France).
[10] The Magdalene Priestesses will have a field day when the Gospel of Mary [Magdalene] is discovered, although they will have to gloss over the fact that the Gospel of Mary doesn't say most of the things they'd want it to say.
[11] The Supplicants are a sort of Scottish Protestant militia. They're really the same organization as OTL's Covenanters, although the oppression they're fighting is that of the Scottish Inquisition rather than that of the English King. 'Supplicant' was actually the term even OTL's Covenanters used to refer to themselves before the outbreak of the English Civil War.
[12] Margaret here is an unreliable narrator. Her uncle's abuse started as soon as she went to live with them, and her reason for running away to join the army was due to the abuse, not due to the fact that God spoke to her. She is a little mentally unstable, so she made have heard voices at one point or another, but really she's trying to un-victimize herself by casting herself in the role of Joan of Arc.
[13] This is not the last you'll see of Charles, I hope. I just felt like it was a good place to end, and a good segue into the Supplicant War in Scotland, which will be the next update.
