om."

Fra Tomasso looked out over his audience for another silent moment, then
said, "God must value freedom very highly if He allows so much evil to
occur, just so freedom can exist."

_I never thought of that._

But there was very little freedom in the world, Simon thought, apart
from the power to sin. Everybody from kings down to the meanest serfs
was bound in a net of obligations, duties, laws, loyalties, obedience.
Simon remembered what Friar Mathieu had said about using Fra Tomasso's
vow of obedience, through de Verceuil's speaking to his Dominican
superior, to force him to give up his opposition to the alliance.

And now Simon noticed that Fra Tomasso was looking at de Verceuil.

"Often, all too often, one man will seek to rob another of the freedom
to do what is right," Fra Tomasso said. "If a superior commands another
to do wrong, and the inferior obeys, the one who gives the wrongful
order bears the greater burden of guilt. But some guilt also falls upon
the one who obeys. It is only with the greatest reluctance and after the
greatest deliberation that one should disobey any order from one of
higher rank. But there are times when it must be done."

Again he looked at de Verceuil.

"Thus when we see a mighty nation that again and again does harm to the
innocent," said Fra Tomasso, "we are bound in conscience to denounce
it."

Simon felt as if he had been struck on the head with a rock. Now he was
sure of what was coming. And so, evidently, were others, because a
murmuring was arising in the church.

Fra Tomasso blinked slowly, as if to show his calm acceptance of the
stir he was causing. "We are obliged to denounce unjust war even when
the evildoer offers us the hand of fellowship. When a puissant nation
takes up arms against the world, when it makes war its chief occupation,
when it attacks peoples that have not harmed it, when it threatens all
humanity, we are not permitted to condone such wrongs. When this nation
carries war to innocent, unarmed men, women, and children, slaughtering
these noncombatants by the tens and hundreds of thousands, we are
obliged to condemn it."

_Oh, my God! If this is the Church's verdict, all is lost._

Simon looked at the pope on his throne to the right of the altar. He sat
slumped, his white mitre tilted forward, his eyes half shut as if in
thought. Simon saw no sign that Urban objected to what Fra Tomasso was
saying.

The murmur was louder now. Despairing, Simo