to be baptized. For a thousand years I had been the leader, and all must follow me. What greater guidance could I give my people?
I stood back at the end of this speech. The monks were overcome with emotion. So were the hundreds of Taltos gathered in the glen around me.
At once began the heated discussions for which we were known—all in the human Art of the Tongue—the endless debates and telling of little tales and relating of this to that, and drawing memories into it where they seemed to pertain, and beneath it all the great theme: we could embrace Christ. He was the Good God! He was our God. The souls of the others were as open to Christ as was my soul.
A great many at once declared their faith. Others spent the afternoon, the evening, and the night examining the books I’d brought back, arguing somewhat about the things they’d heard, and there were some very fretful whispers about its being contrary to our nature to be chaste, absolutely contrary, and that we could never live with marriage.
Meantime I went out to the human beings of Donnelaith and preached this great conversion to them as well, and the monks followed me. We called all the clans of the valley together.
And in our great gathering ground, amid the stones, hundreds declared their desire to come to Christ, and indeed, some of the humans confessed they had already converted, maintaining it as a secret for their own protection.
I was very struck by this, particularly when I found that some human families had been Christian for three generations. “How very like us you are,” I thought, “but you don’t know it.”
It seemed then that all were on the verge of conversion. En masse, we begged the priests to begin the baptisms and the blessings.
But one of the great women of our tribe, Janet, as we had come to call her, a name very current then, raised her voice to speak out against me.
Janet too had been born in the lost land, which she mentioned now quite openly before the human beings. Of course they didn’t know what she meant. But we did. And she reminded me that she had no white streaks in her hair, either. In other words, we were wise and young, both of us, the perfect combination.
I had had one son by Janet, and truly loved her. I had spent many, many nights at play in her bed, not daring to have coitus, of course, but nursing from her rounded little breasts, and exchanging all kinds of other clever embraces that gave us exquisite pleasure.
I loved Janet. But there had never been any doubt in my mind that Janet was fierce in her own beliefs.
Now she stepped forth and condemned the new religion as a pack of lies. She pointed out all its weaknesses in terms of logic and consistency. She laughed at it. She told many stories which made Christians look like braggarts and idiots. The story of the gospel she declared unintelligible.
The tribe was immediately split. So loud was the talk that I could not even tell how many were for Janet’s point of view or against it. Violent verbal quarrels ensued. Once again we undertook our marathon debates, which no human being could watch without realizing our differences.
The monks withdrew to our sacred circle. There they consecrated the earth to Christ, and prayed for us. They did not fully understand yet how different we were, but they knew we were not like other people.
At last a great schism occurred. One third of the Taltos refused utterly to be converted, and threatened battle with the others if we tried to make the glen a haven of Christianity. Some evinced a great fear of Christianity and the strife it would cause among others. Others simply did not like it, and wanted to keep to our own ways and not live in austerity and penance.
The majority wanted to convert, and we did not wish to give up our homes—that is, to leave the glen and go elsewhere. To me, such a possibility was unthinkable. I was the ruler here.
And like many a pagan king, I expected my people to follow me absolutely in my conversion.
The verbal battles progressed to physical pushing and shoving and threats, and I saw within an hour that the entire future of the valley was threatened.
But the end of the world was coming. Christ had known this and come to prepare us. The