“Wintrow,” the priest repeated softly. He reached out and traced with a finger the tiny dragon that peered from the tree's upper branches, then touched the glistening curve of a serpent's body, all but hidden in the twisting roots. He put a hand on the boy's shoulders and turned him gently away from his worktable. As he steered him from the workroom, he rebuked him gently. “You are too young to sustain such a state for the whole morning. You must learn to pace yourself.”

Wintrow lifted his hands to knuckle at eyes that were suddenly sandy. “I've been in there all morning?” he asked dazedly. “It did not seem like it, Berandol.”

“I am sure it did not. Yet I am sure the weariness you feel now will convince you it is so. One must be careful, Wintrow. Tomorrow, ask a watcher to stir you at midmorning. Talent such as you possess is too precious to allow you to burn it out.”

“I do ache, now,” Wintrow conceded. He ran his hand over his brow, pushing fine black hair from his eyes and smiled. “But the tree was worth it, Berandol.”

Berandol nodded slowly. “In more ways than one. The sale of such a window will yield enough coin to reroof the novitiates' hall. If Mother Dellity can bring herself to let the monastery part with such a thing of wonder.” He hesitated a moment, then added, “I see they appeared again. The dragon and the serpent. You still have no idea” he let his voice trail away questioningly.

“I do not even have a recollection of putting them there,” Wintrow said.

“Well.” There was no trace of judgment in Berandol's voice. Only patience.

For a time they walked in companionable silence through the cool stone hallways of the monastery. Slowly Wintrow's senses lost their edge and faded to a normal level. He could no longer taste the scents of the salts trapped in the stone walls, nor hear the minute settling of the ancient blocks of stone. The rough brown bure of his novice robes became bearable against his skin. By the time they reached the great wooden door and stepped out into the monastery gardens, he was safely back in his body. He felt groggy as if he had just awakened from a long sleep, yet as bone weary as if he had hoed potatoes all day. He walked silently beside Berandol as monastery custom dictated. They passed others, some men and women robed in the green of full priesthood and others dressed in white as acolytes. Greetings were exchanged as nods.

As they neared the tool shed, he felt a sudden unsettling certainty that they were going there and that he would spend the rest of the afternoon working in the sunny garden. Any other time, it might have been a pleasant thing to look forward to, but his recent efforts in the dim work room had left his eyes sensitive to light. Berandol glanced back at his lagging step.

“Wintrow,” he chided softly. “Refuse the anxiety. When you borrow trouble against what might be, you neglect the moment you have now to enjoy. The man who worries about what will next be happening to him loses this moment in dread of the next, and poisons the next with pre-judgment.” Berandol's voice took on an edge of hardness. “You indulge in pre-judgment too often. If you are refused the priesthood, it will most likely be for that.”

Wintrow's eyes flashed to Berandol's in horror. For a moment stark desolation dominated his face. Then he saw the trap. His face broke into a grin, and Berandol's answered it when the boy said, “But if I fret about it, I shall have pre-judged myself to failure.”

Berandol gave the slender boy a good-natured shove with his elbow. “Exactly. Ah, you grow and learn so fast. I was much older than you, twenty at least, before I learned to apply that Contradiction to daily life.”

Wintrow shrugged sheepishly. “I was meditating on it last night before I fell asleep. ‘One must plan for the future and anticipate the future without fearing the future.’ The Twenty-Seventh Contradiction of Sa.”

“Thirteen years old is very young to have reached the Twenty-Seventh Contradiction,” Berandol observed.

“What one are you on?” Wintrow asked artlessly.

“The Thirty-Third. The same one I've been on for the last two years.”

Wintrow gave a small shrug of his shoulders. “I haven't studied that far yet.” They walked in the shade of apple trees, under leaves hanging limp in the heat of the day. Ripening fruit weighted the boughs. At the other end of the orchard, acolytes moved in patterns through the trees, bearing buckets of water from the stream.

“‘A priest should not presume to judge unless he can judge as Sa does; with absolute justice and absolute mercy.’“ Berandol shook his head. “I confess, I do not see how that is possible.”

The boy's eyes were already turned inward, with only the slightest line to his brow. “As long as you believe it is impossible, you close your mind to understanding it.” His voice seemed far away. “Unless, of course, that is what we are meant to discover. That as priests we cannot judge, for we have not the absolute mercy and absolute justice to do so. Perhaps we are only meant to forgive and give solace.”

Berandol shook his head. “In the space of a few moments, you slice through as much of the knot as I had done in six months. But then I look about me, and I see many priests who do judge. The Wanderers of our order do little except resolve differences for folk. So they must have somehow mastered the Thirty-Third Contradiction.”

The boy looked up at him curiously. He opened his mouth to speak and then blushed and shut it again.

Berandol glanced down at his charge. “Whatever it is, go ahead and say it. I will not rebuke you.”

“The problem is, I was about to rebuke you,” Wintrow confessed. The boy's face brightened as he added, “But I stopped myself before I did.”

“And you were going to say to me?” Berandol pressed. When the boy shook his head, his tutor laughed aloud. “Come, Wintrow, having asked you to speak your thought, do you think I would be so unfair as to take offense at your words? What was in your mind?”

“I was going to tell you that you should govern your behavior by the precepts of Sa, not by what you see others doing.” The boy spoke forthrightly, but then lowered his eyes. “I know it is not my place to remind you of that.”

Berandol looked too deep in thought to have taken offense. “But if I follow the precept alone, and my heart tells me it is impossible for a man to judge as Sa does, with absolute justice and absolute mercy, then I must conclude…” His words slowed as if the thought came reluctantly. “I must conclude that either the Wanderers have much greater spiritual depth than I. Or that they have no more right to judge than I do.” His eyes wandered among the apple trees. “Could it be that an entire branch of our order exists without righteousness? Is not it disloyal even to think such a thing?” His troubled glance came back to the boy at his side.

Wintrow smiled serenely. “If a man's thoughts follow the precepts of Sa, they cannot go astray.”

“I shall have to think more on this,” Berandol concluded with a sigh. He gave Wintrow a look of genuine fondness. “I bless the day you were given me as student, though in truth I often wonder who is student and who is teacher here. I shall miss you.”

Sudden alarm filled Wintrow's eyes. “Miss me? Are you leaving, have you been called to duty so soon?”

“Not I. I should have given you this news better, but as always your words have led my thoughts far from their starting point. I am not leaving, but you. It was why I came to find you today, to bid you pack, for you are called home. Your grandmother and mother have sent word that they fear your grandfather is dying. They would have you near at such a time.” At the look of devastation on the boy's face, Berandol added, “I am sorry to have told you so bluntly. You so seldom speak of your family. I did not realize you were close to your grandfather.”