“And although at this time we make no mention either of names or meetings, yet nevertheless everyone's opinion shall assuredly come to our hands, in what language so ever it be; nor anybody shall fail, who so gives his name, but to speak with some of us, either by word of mouth, or else, if there be some let, in writing. And this we say for a truth, that whosoever shall earnestly, and from his heart, bear affection unto us, it shall be beneficial to him in goods, body, and soul; but he that is false-hearted, or only greedy of riches, the same first of all shall not be able in any manner of wise to hurt us, but bring himself to utter ruin and destruction.”

-from the pamphlet Fama Fraternitatis, Castle, Italy, 1614

The bell of the nearby Church upon the big-bellied hill, the bell of the abbey at the edge of the wood, and the bells of the priory on the mountainside, which towered above the wood, no longer tolled in his ears.

But as David toiled along, sinking and covering turnip spuds behind Doris, as Father did the work of the both them on his own separate row behind them, the bells of these sacred places—as well as the yet-to-be-seen cathedrals and pontific chapels whose bells tolled only in his hopes and dreams—yet sang their songs in his mind, the place where his soul took refuge from its worldly lot, and from the seething rage of his father’s suffering lot which so plagued him.

The dirt had finally clogged the hole in his hand into which Doris had cruelly driven the turnip spike on the end of the same stick she sometimes prodded him with when he was too slow hauling water, earth or other such burdens. Amongst the bells tolling in his mind—both remembered and imaginary—David at once enjoyed the power and suffered the curse of a clockwork mind, which had made such a joy of his now done studies under Father Schyl at Moonday school among the catacombs beneath the church. Now, at age twelve and one, a baker’s dozen of years upon the earth, David had been surrendered back to Father for the first day of weekly labor, never to know the joy of reading, writing and factoring again.

Unlike most of his fellows, who happily embraced illiteracy in adulthood, having, by the time they married been away from the learned courses longer than the three brief winters of their late childhood which comprised their education, David could not imagine being without the tools of the learned, chief-most among them, in his mind, was the clock. He would so miss Father Schyl’s clock in it cabinet, and had managed to replicate it in his mind soon upon his first encounter with it. For David, alone among the wretched serfs on this sun-kissed field, knew that four hours, twenty-six minutes and sixteen ticks of the second hand remained before the Bells of Respite tolled at noon. He knew the time, cloudy or clear, night or day—was never without the clock within.

The soil-sticking, knee-scraping and spud-plunking sounds seemed to stop behind him, in a wave of sympathetic discord, for work was ceasing. He dared not—though he wondered mightily—stop, turn and look in the direction of the work lull, but rather continued, until Father stopped his labors and Doris followed in kind.

Afraid to cease his own labors, David continued until he came up against Doris’ leg and discovered that not another hole remained to be planted. At that instant a pair of goodly shoed feet stopped beside him, and a long, caped shadow was cast before him, the shadow of a man straight and unbent by labors, attired after the fashion of a merchant, and possessed of endless patience as he stood serenely overhead.

After some moments—three-minutes and forty-three seconds, to be exact—Father raised his voice gruffly, “For God’s sake, Sprat, raise your eyes to your better!”

The man above him then spoke without turning, his eyes on David and his mind on Father, “If this be David Able Saul, he may take as many well-considered seconds, minutes, and aye, hours, to consider my presence before dining to acknowledge it.”

Father’s temper rose to the surface of his shallow mind as he took a hurried step toward the shadowy man and those all about gasped as he cursed, “You goddamned upper-cruster-mucker! This acre must be planted this morning or I’ll plant y—”

A snap of the cape was the only sound that cut off Father’s rant. When David looked up at the tall figure of a dandily leather-clad man, with slight features, wide brown eyes and the greased black hair of a rake, he saw that the man regarded him with an easy smile, and that Father was clutching at his throat, as if his voice had been taken by that masterfully gloved hand. The clean shaven chin broadened into a grin beneath the neatly trimmed mustache and the persuasive voice that belonged to no clockwork mind, greeted him, extending the hand that had somehow silenced Father painfully even as the other hand replaced the ermine-banded leather cap upon the well-attended head, “David Able Saul, I am Hessman Shew Mote, of the Sacred Order of the Rose Cross, Seventh Inquirer of His Augment of Truth of Her Abbey Sophia. If you are not indisposed at this moment, might His Augment have the pleasure of an audience? His clock appears to be a tick off in time.”

The strong, gloved hand touched his and it was as if he floated to his feet rather than rose on already creaking legs. Words were beyond him as he toddled along beneath the man who towered above the man who had towered so ominously in his nightmares, now standing choking upon a word afraid to emerge from his throat, as the entire field gawked in astonishment at David’s sudden liberation. David’s feet were unsure, his legs wobbly with shock beyond their prematurely aged and malnourished state, as he staggered along in a dreamlike hurry, wondering if it would all vanish like the dreams in his mind ever had—no, dreams, once recognized for what they were, sunk, where this, somehow seemed to be a rising up.

Finally, having reached the edge of the field—those who had ruled his life with such grim efficiency having dwindled to tiny, insect-like proportions in the distance—David, tears wetting his eyes, looked up from his small place to the towering man above him and exclaimed, “You are not a knight in a dream? You are real?”

The man grinned like some great, hunting cat, a dark twinkle in his eye and spoke more smoothly than any man that ought to be trusted, “No knight am I, David, but one of the Seven that every unrighteous knight, blasphemer, apostate and heretic fears. I am the Seventh—and therefore most junior—Inquirer, to His Augment of Truth, who sits at the right hand of the Holy Pontiff and does put the men of Christendom—from mightiest to most low—to the Holy Question, either in Her Abbey Sophia, where he sits and ponders among Man’s most wondrous things, or to that other place where the worst of us are bound.”

David was excited at the news of a room full of wonders, and blurted, “Among the many wonders is a clock, a clock that ticks out of time?”

“Yes, David, there is, and it is a clock most holy.”

“And the sophists and artisans that serve His Augment of Truth cannot simply synchronize this holy clock with the clock within their own minds?”

The darkly mysterious man named Hessmen Shew Mote then looked off into an unhappy quarter of his own mind—which David gathered was not as brightly lit as the bustling, clockwork corners of his own mind—paused for three and three-quarters of a second, unless one factored the twitch of the mustache, which would have made it three and seven eighths and then said, in a most discomforted tone, “David, there is only one clockwork mind within Christendom to mirror the clockwork mind of God Above which does keep at bay the evils of the Devil without, and he toddles dirtily at my side. Now, perhaps we polish the cabinet of that clock, and toward that purpose, take him without a tear to yonder abbey?”

So said the elegant man as he motioned with an expansive gesture toward the structure seated just beyond the very limits of David’s thirteen-year-old world which had ever loomed so ominously in the near distance. And it did not go without notice in the keen, clockwork mind of David Able Saul that the gesture had about it the manner of a peasant pointing out the nearest turnip mound.