What kind of steward is Stewart?

[Elben]

The old man sat at his writing desk in the corner of his cell. It was not a large chamber, but it wasn't tiny either, unlike the usual cells to which most monks of the abbey found themselves. It didn't have much in the way of furnishings either. On the wall hung an ancient icon of St. Peter, candles in little holders on each side burning steadily. A crucifix was over the bed. A small book shelf held the volumes of an well-used breviary.

The occupant was well suited to his accommodations, old and shrunken, bald but for a thin bit of white hair around from ear to ear (a natural tonsure), and thin, slightly twisted hands, victims of arthritis. The eyes though flashed with inward vitality. The old man wasn't finished yet.

Onward he wrote, a slow scratch leaving behind crabby figures that would be copied fair by a young monk in the scriptorium in the morning...

...why I urge you to come visit us in Herzogenrode so that we may consult on how to go about the reforms of the financial institutions associated with the Church. Your counsel on the Church in Gunnland will no doubt prove invaluable. Please join us this coming week. We will look forward to having you in our presence as we celebrate anew the descent of the Holy Ghost this octave of Pentecost.

The pontiff initialed it and then went over to his prie-dieu for prayers.

@Gunnland

 

[Gunnland]

Vacant City, Tibur

His apartments were opulent, Empire-style, all fringe and gilded furniture, last decorated more than a century ago. The housekeeper complained it hadn't been dusted since the nineteenth century, either. Cardinal Stewart lay the pope's letter down upon a newspaper. It bore the headline of another Gunnish diplomatic victory, "MAEL COLUIM RETURNS TRIUMPHANT." Stewart had underestimated the upstarts: both Queen Julian and the Ordo Solaris. Badly underestimated them.

This was why he spent the winter in Tibur, investigating a bank scandal of his own making. Gunnland funded the Church. In the old days, Cardinal Stewart thought this was the game: to buy more influence than the Eiffellandian liberals. Of course, Gunnland was a much poorer country than Eiffelland. So sometimes Cardinal Stewart had to get his hands dirty. After all, it didn't matter if the money came from Slavic gangsters or the Marxist-Leninovists. It didn't even matter if the money came from MacLeish gangsters that paid the Church to help kidnap then-Princess Julian. Well that backfired. Just like everything else backfired. Still, he was a prince of the Church, and the Lord had not made him a prince of the church to scuttle around with his head down like a little sister of the poor.

Without his choir dress -- he was just wearing a black suit -- he looked bony and stooped, and his large nose and piercing gray eyes gave him the look of a velociraptor. Not pope, but still alive, still powerful, still one of the men who bankrolled the Church. "I am going to Herzogenrode, Father Gallagher. Make sure to pack my cappa magna." He would make a grand entrance.

 

[Elben]

The ceremonial needs of the papacy had largely been assumed by the monks of the abbey. As the days and weeks passed, John's appreciation for their skills only grew. It was as if they had been attending the papal court for centuries rather than only the past few decades. The master of ceremonies had trained them well, just as he was training John himself on his new duties. Thankfully, thought the old man, they aren't too cumbersome.

At the moment, everyone was engaged in a quick walk-through for the arrival of Cardinal Stewart in the next few days. The monks were not only skilled at ceremony, but at transforming the abbey's refectory into an appropriately furnished audience hall large enough for such an arrival.

The pope was anxious for Stewart to arrive. There was much John wanted to know on the thinking of the cardinals in regard to affairs in Gallo-Germania and Europe at large...

 

[Gunnland]

Herzogenrode, Eiffelland

Stewart felt a squeezing pain in his chest. The car came around a copse of oaks, approaching the papal residence at a snail's pace. Its engine seemed to mimic the Gunnish cardinal's reluctance to see the pope. He had procrastinated for months, sending excuse after excuse by mail. Your Holiness will excuse me, for I am unwell. Of course Henry had felt healthy as a horse, at least till a few hours ago when the plane touched down in Warnemünde. Now the square, reddish abbey came into view, its orchard trees out front, across a soccer field. Seminarians in black cassocks casually kicked a ball around. Two memories flooded into his mind at once, sweet and bitter. He was swinging an ash bat, still with a full head of red hair, a popular young priest and the hope for the secular clergy to beat the grey-robed Fergusines. A lucky guess, a hung curveball, a walk-off double lined deep into left field. Then Stephen Cardinal MacHugh was patting him on the back, and he was just the man for vicar general. Suddenly Old MacHugh turned into Cardinal Donnet, consoling him that the cardinals had selected an Elbener monsignor, Ernst von Eberstein, as a compromise candidate over Stewart. His ambition had been too plain. With a far-away feeling, Stewart recalled being short of breath that day.

When his driver unlatched the tinted car door, a weight on the other side flung it open. Henry Cardinal Stewart fell to the pavement, bones in flowing scarlet robes, dead as a door-nail.

 

[Elben]

That evening...

The coffin, plain wood built for a simple monk, rested upon a catafalque in the abbey church. Once it arrived in Gunnland, no doubt it would be exchanged for something more suitable for an archbishop of Windhaven and a prince of the Holy Tiburan Church.

The pope of that Church pondered what he knew of the man as the monks in their stalls chanted mournfully around him the ancient sequence of the Requiem Mass. Stewart, what kept you away until this end? Fear? Pride?

Liber scriptus proferetur,
In quo totum continetur,
Unde mundus judicetur.

I don't have long to wait for see such a book about me. Perhaps I shall see yours as well and get my answers. The old man bent over and rubbed his brow.

 

[Gunnland]

A week later, the apostolic nuncio to Gunnland brought the pope the following letter from

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, the royal residence on the outskirts of Windhaven.

Your Holiness,

The Gunnish bishops and I, by the ancient prerogative of the most Christian majesties of Gunnland, recommend the following three candidates to replace HE Henry Cardinal Stewart as Archbishop of Windhaven:

The Most Reverend Justin Broithe+, Bishop of Ayr
The Right Reverend Edmund Woodstone, OSF, Abbot of Holyrood
The Reverend Fr. Coemgein Gallagher
​

Having fulfilled the obligation of my blood, I now write you in strict confidence. I do not mourn the death of Cardinal Stewart. I regret his death only because I was not able to make him face justice. The absentee Archbishop of Windhaven refused to return to his see because I had ordered that he be arrested upon returning to Gunnland. During the interregnum after the death of my father, the cardinal went mad with power. When I called for reforms, he conspired with Duncan MacLeish to kidnap me and take me out of the country. Fr. Coemgein Gallagher, then the right-hand man to Cardinal Stewart, assisted him. I implore you not to appoint Fr. Gallagher to replace Archbishop Stewart. Besides the fact that he was the pawn of a criminal and a dangerous ideologue, I have confidential information that he would no longer be an independent voice for Gunnland. He would be as certain to declare his allegiance to Cardinal Taft as Bishop Broithe is to bring Gunnland closer to Cardinal Strelecki and the Eiffellandian liberals.

Cardinal Stewart was much revered by the people of Gunnland. But if their queen is now spiritually far from the church, he is to blame. I ask you, now in strict confidence, to choose an archbishop of Windhaven that I can accept.


Your faithful servant,

Jul. R.

 

[Elben]

Delivered by hand to the queen of Gunnland along with a small box sealed in wax containing a Rosary made of precious gems and a golden crucifix.

My daughter,

I have read and pondered your letter. Though you do not recommend him, Father Abbot Woodstone by process of elimination seems to be your choice. So shall it be. I know of him and his reputation is one of a true son of Saint Fergus.

It grieves my heart that a bishop of the Church should have been such a hurt to your faith. Know that you are in my prayers and I have asked Father Aloyisius, a monk here at the abbey, to say his daily Mass for you. We are both in a lonely place. You find yourself here near the start of your life and I near the end. May our angels and Our Lady pray for us as we climb our own Calvarys. I send you the greatest weapon of our faith to aid you on your way.

Yours in Christ,

Ioannes PP XXIII