The letter in her hand said so little and told her so much.

"If Ma'am has something urgent to attend to, this old man can wait."

Her gaze flickered over the top of the letter, then she stepped over and placed it into the fire before taking her seat. A small smile on her lips, she said, "While I appreciate the offer, let us at least chat since I am already here."

The older man chuckled, hand over his mouth as he lightly combed his beard. "Please, there is no need to indulge me," he said, hand coming down to his lap. "I am but a humble servant of God."

"You are far from only a humble servant of God, hence my visit," she said, not with any antagonism, but a slight humour.

Sure enough, he chuckled again, the longer laugh this time fading into a long sigh. "Well, Ma'am is as discerning in person as in her letters. I confess, although perhaps not so far as to be cerning, it is in my nature to… encourage thought. To not waste Ma'am's time, I will try to resist this urge to teach."

"It is an appreciated gesture, if unnecessary, my time rarely too precious to forgo learning."

His laughter fell silently this time, mouth pulled into a broad smile. "But Ma'am's time is certainly too precious for visiting a little church in the middle of nowhere. If nothing else, she knows how to write a letter well."

She regarded him for a long moment before bringing up her hand and clearing her throat. "Of course, there are some discussions best had in person. This particular discussion is one best had with the person who has, in his own way, best made use of my assistance in matters of agriculture."

The older man's eyebrows rose, then his smile seemed to thin. There was a sadness in his tone. "Is that so? It is… unpleasant to hear that."

She did not comment, merely looked at him, watched as his gaze lowered, listened to his distant voice.

"Ma'am doesn't need to be reminded of what she has done, but it is worth telling her. These villages suffered. In many ways, they still do, but it cannot be compared to how it was. It's not unusual for a harvest to fail. The problem was that it failed two years in a row, which only made them more desperate. They couldn't bear to leave a field fallow while their children slowly starved. Even though the next crop didn't fail, it wasn't enough to make up for the last years, and the harvests only grew worse as the ground was never given time to recover. The old baron… I did what I could, but he wouldn't listen, and giving back a tenth of nothing is still nothing…. No, it was worse than nothing. I took away their hope that the Lord would hear their prayers."

A monologue delivered without any grandeur, merely heavy with his regrets.

She watched him. There were many replies she could have given, but the one she gave him was this: "It is only because of such suffering that I may do good works."

His expression did not change, yet there came to be a sombre humour to his solemn gaze. "Yes. It is unfathomable to us why evils must exist, what Christ instead revealed to us that we need only react to such evils with compassion."

"That is wrong."

Her words cut through his flow of thoughts, bringing him to a stop, a moment before he composed himself. "It is?" he asked softly.

"It is not enough to only react. The Lord knows what I am capable of," she said, her tone neither prideful nor humble.

Nor did he find such a reply to be prideful, his smile turning wry. "I cannot argue with that."

Although there had been no joke made, the heaviness of his monologue had lightened, last of it blown away as he let out a long sigh.

"Still, we of these humble villages are in eternal gratitude to Ma'am," he said, lowering his head.

"That is quite a bold declaration to make. After all, what would you do if you come to disagree with my actions?" she said.

His mouth pulled into another small smile. "Of course, we all know the parable of the Good Samaritan. I need not tell Ma'am its meaning."

By that particular phrasing, she surmised he did not refer to the Church's more allegorical interpretation of the parable; however, the more literal meaning of the parable did not answer her question either. "Sir is being cerning."

He choked on his breath, a laugh forcing its way out. "And Ma'am is being discerning," he said lightly, then his whole demeanour seemed to age, a weight settling on him. "We speak often of the good Samaritan and rarely of the one he saved."

There he paused for a deep breath, hands together.

"I cannot put to words the feeling of being resigned to death. After all, I never was, but I was resigned to overseeing burial after burial of children, and being helpless to stop it. Worse than helpless, powerless. My help meant nothing to their suffering in the moment. An adult can make peace with their fate, comforted by the gospel. Children, though, cannot understand. They are in pain and it is my duty to ease it and… I could not."

The emotion tore at him, tense, as if his pain had truly manifested, countless needles plunged into his muscles.

"I won't make a baseless claim that Ma'am is good and good people cannot do evil. If nothing else, that cheapens my gratitude. No, I will not do evil for her, but I will show my gratitude through whatever evils may come to pass. Christ told us to go and do as the Samaritan did, and you are my Samaritan."

At the conclusion of his speech, he met her gaze, eyes wet with unshed tears, lips quivering.

She met his gaze for but a moment, then lowered her eyes. "Perhaps it would be better for you to be more cerning."

He did not laugh, but his mouth quirked into a crooked smile. "Ma'am came to speak of farming and here I am boring her with other things."

For a long second, she held a silence, then simply said, "It is not boring to hear I ruled well."

Those words brought about a peace, the heavy, awkward air of before settling into another moment of comfortable silence before he broke it. "I meant what I said earlier: it is unfortunate to hear I am the one making best use of Ma'am's assistance.

"The land here is so poor, the villagers have gone from barely surviving to surviving. We managed to clear out more land for pastures and that has helped immensely. Land we could only clear with Ma'am's help, pastures we could only fill with Ma'am's help. I put the tithes towards buying oxen and a Dutch plough. It certainly helps come sowing season, and we have brought some of the tougher soil under cultivation, but the harvests have only recovered, not grown. We are at least safer from disaster now we have gone back to growing some barley, rye, oats."

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He spoke in a dry manner, as if reading aloud a report. At the same time, there was a gentleness to his tone, a relief.

"That is," she said, "I should not need to point out that, to clear land, to manage sheep, these are such things which require… time."

Her words landed like a puzzle, his brow furrowed. It took him a handful of seconds to find the threads and untangle them. As his expression softened, a rueful smile lingered. "Ma'am is discerning. Yes, I have been blind. Not all days of labouring are equal and they now put some labour to the future. To their future."

He leaned back, his chin raised, gaze upon the roof of the simple room, gazing far beyond it.

"Truly, it feels like just yesterday that I rang the bell like a madman," he whispered. "Exhausted as they were, the men of the villages rushed here. I gave each a sack of biscuits. They couldn't believe me. One man, bless his soul, thought it a joke and tried to bite one, only to crack his tooth."

With a long sigh, he lowered his head to face her once more.

"There I go, praising Ma'am again," he said lightly.

She gave a small smile. "This matter, I shall be candid. The truth is I do not want there to be more food. Rather, I wish for there to be less farmers."

His eyes widened a moment, mouth pressed thin, then he nodded, his hand coming up to stroke his beard. "Of course."

Whispered words, lingering in the silence which followed, a brief silence.

"Ma'am is truly, truly, truly… discerning," he said, his raised hand lowering back down to the table. "I thought she intended to produce more food to grow the towns—and the city."

"That is not entirely wrong, that we still import a significant amount, which gives merchants a certain leverage I do not wish them to have," she said, head tilted.

He smiled a small smile, eyes pinched. "If three men can do the farming work of four, then there is now many, many more men free to do other work."

She returned his smile. "How are you finding the patata?" she asked.

His smile broadened at that. "The little truffles," he said, his hand gesturing along. "Well, tubers more than truffles. It truly is incredible how these will grow almost anywhere."

"How do they keep?"

He shook his hand, mouth pulled to the side. "Not as well as grains it seems. Still, a few months is hardly bad. I noticed the ones I planted first kept the best, so I wonder if leaving them in the ground longer helps them keep," he said, then brought his hands together. "On the other hand, I think we could have two harvests in a season. Maybe even three."

She tittered, hand over her mouth, then lowered her hand back to her other one. "I heard a lot about them from a Spaniard who spent time over there. In Italy, I saw some trying out the maize for animal feed, so I grew curious. It is unfortunate that it does not grow well this side of the mountains. However, speaking to that Spaniard of maize, I learned of the patata. While he did not eat it much, he told me the… people of there did and it gave them the strength for their… work."

Someone who always spoke so well, her little pauses did not escape his notice and it did not take him long to reason them out.

"Ma'am is not pleased with what is happening in America?" he asked, his tone hiding hesitancy behind gentleness.

She seemed as if a different woman at his question. Still, so very still, her gaze low and, without so much as a polite smile, her expression held a coldness that only added to the distance.

"That letter spoke of what King Sigismund is doing in Greece," she whispered. "We will have to confirm, but it is alleged that, to punish a town which did not surrender, he had them all slaughtered, women and children included. Of course, he will have many justifications. One I know he will use is that they were heretics."

Opposite her, he looked suitably broken by this news, mouth agape, eyes wide, hands clenched so very tight.

"This is what our fellow Christians are willing to do to other Christians without fear of retribution from us or God. What I have heard is happening in America, by our fellow Christians there, it sounds too cruel to be true. What is happening in Greece sounds too cruel to be true.

"However, such logic does not hold. The truth is the truth, however cruel, and cruelty is cruelty however justified. Not that there is a justification. The brazen murder of innocents, the enslavement of God's children—these are unequivocal evils…."

She trailed off there, the heat in her voice doused as a shudder ran through her.

"What is it, Ma'am?" he asked, quiet, gentle.

"Truth be told," she whispered, voice on the verge of breaking, "I questioned what kind of God could stay idle."

Her hand came to rest on her heart as she spoke, then, in her pause, she teased out the rosary beads from beneath her coat, gently clutching them.

"What I realised is that He was not idle, that He had given me compassion, ability, and opportunity. It is not enough to condemn evil. It is not enough to react to evil. If no one else will, then I must stand up to evil. Not in the name of righteousness or doing good, but because there are innocents who will suffer if I do not."

As fragile as she had sounded at the start, by the end, her words rang out with a subdued strength, an unwillingness to waver. A river which instinctively knew its path, eroding and tearing down anything in its way.

He was one swept away by her speech. "Ma'am, if I had any doubts before of your character, they are assuredly put to rest. We—the whole county is blessed to be in the care of someone who truly understands Christ's teachings."

She gave a small smile, the touch of warmth made significant by that which preceded it, the first ray of sunshine after a storm. "You are too generous. I should apologise for getting carried away," she said.

Expression soft, he waved off her apology and said, "Of all people, a priest knows the… importance of faith."

With a deep breath, she reasserted her demeanour. However she had come to look before, she now once more looked calm, settled, the slight curve of her lips not quite a smile.

"What was it we were speaking of… patatas. That they do not need to be milled to be cooked, there is a certain convenience to them, one I thought might be useful for an army on the march. Unfortunately, it seems they cannot be dried."

He nodded along. "I have some thoughts, but, even if they do work out, it makes little sense when grains last so well."

"Is that so?" she asked, tilting her head. "Well, it is not an obstacle as such. I thought they would best serve farmers without nearby mills. At the same time, I worry that it will serve farmers too well."

She spoke that last part with a knowing look and he, after a moment of thought, nodded. "It grows in poor soil and is filling."

"Perhaps even a better use of good land than wheat," she said, a touch quieter. "I think it best for such food to be seen as animal feed. If there comes a famine, it will be there and the people will eat it out of desperation. At the least, by then, we will know if it brings illness to animals. For all we know, those people of America might have secrets passed from mother to daughter when it comes to cooking these."

A deep sigh left him. "This, I cannot say Ma'am is wrong to be wary. They certainly do need to be boiled or baked for us. Other than a greedy sheep choking on one it tried to eat whole, it does seem they pose no risk to animals. Yes, Ma'am is right, a good way to keep livestock fed."

After a little silence, she rose to her feet. "I think that is the gist of what needs to be said. Tomorrow, if I may intrude on your time some more, I would love to the see the gardens and such and we may discuss anything else that needs to be discussed."

With noticeable effort, he pushed himself up, but then held himself well as he stood tall. "How can Ma'am intrude when my time is always hers to have? Well, outside of those times when it belongs to the Lord," he said, ending on a chuckle.

She politely laughed and began to walk to the door, only to pause. "There is one last thing…."

"What is it, Ma'am?" he asked, smile broad.

"I would hate to be seen as interfering, so I have left this matter well alone. However, the good bishop, he has had others handle more of his responsibilities in recent years," she said, her smile a touch wry.

He nodded along with a knowing look. "I cannot say I am particularly close to him, but I do speak with others who are closer, and this is something we are preparing for," he said, slower, more careful with his words. "It may well be wrong, but what I've heard makes me think Father Schmitt."

"Truly? He was but a deacon until recent," she said, her tone not accusatory, brow furrowed.

"Sometimes, people are kept in a position because they are good at it. Father Schmitt is a good man and rather capable with managing and arranging things that some of us priests sometimes struggle with. Well, even saying that much is perhaps saying too much, but I would not be disappointed to hear it was him."

Her lips curled into a smile.

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