The descendants of those who had sung square-wrought, pious Lutheran hymns had designed, at German cartels, the evil instruments which had shown up the “God” of the Christian Church for what he was.

Death was not an antagonist, the last enemy, as Paul had thought; death was the release from bondage to the God of Life, the Deus Irae. In death one was free from Him—and only in death.

It was the God of Life who was the evil god. And in fact the only God. And Earth, this world, was the only kingdom. And they, all of them; they constituted his servants, in that they carried out, had always done so, over the thousands of years, his commands. And his reward had been in keeping both with his nature and with his commands: it had been the Ira. The Wrath.

And yet here sat Lurine. So it made no sense.

Later, when the Dominus McComas had ambled, trudged off on foot to see about his business, Father Handy sat with Lurine.

“Why?” he said.

Shrugging, Lurine said, “I like kindly people. I like Dr. Abernathy.”

He stared at her. Jim Abernathy, the local Christian priest in Charlottesville; he detested the man—if Abernathy was really a man; he seemed more a castrato, fit, as put in Tom Jones, for entry in the gelding races. “He gives you exactly what?” he demanded. “Self-help. The ‘think pleasant thoughts and all will be—’ “

“No,” Lurine said.

Ely said dryly, “She’s sleeping with that acolyte. That Pete Sands. You know; the bald young man with acne.”

“Ringworm,” Lurine corrected.

“At least,” Ely said, “get him a fungicide oinment to rub on his scalp. So you don’t catch it.”

“Mercury,” Father Handy said. “From a peddler, itinerant; you can buy for about five U.S. silver half-dollars—”