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.”