“And if not for your countrymen, and their drunkard Prince, there would have been no war.
“No,” he continued, raising his hand to stop her. “Don’t tell me that you were oppressed, and had no choice but to rise in revolt. The strong have always dominated the weak: it is Nature’s unchanging law. Had you been strong enough to defeat us, you would have won your freedom, and left the women of England to mourn the dead.”
Mary looked hard at him, disconcerted. She had been ready to pour out the crucible of her wrath upon him, and at the slightest mockery, to rush forward and scratch out his eyes. But he only remained before her, unmoved and unmovable, with no apparent effort refuting her every grievance. Worst of all, his words held the power of a twisted truth.
“You have an answer for everything. That doesn’t make you right. In the eyes of God---”
“God?” he sneered, as if the very thought were offensive. “You have reached young womanhood and still not seen through that, the cruelest and emptiest of farces? Look at me, girl.”
She did, then wished she hadn’t. Those cold and knowing eyes seemed to look straight through her. Hatred deserted her, leaving only fear. And in that moment she was sure it was not her father, but the Devil himself who stood before her. His wicked tongue was a foil far too clever for her innocence, and she knew it. She felt her innermost temples exposed, and had little doubt that he could ridicule and undo the most sacred feelings she possessed.
“Aren’t you going to ask me why I I don’t believe? Are you afraid? I am going to tell you; and if only once in your fairy-tale existence you listen to the voice of reason, then let it be now.” He spoke evenly at first, but it was clear that she had stirred the cauldron of his emotions.
“I disbelieve for the simplest, and most undeniable reason of all. Experience. For forty years I have taken what I wanted, disobeying each Commandment, each precept, a thousand times over. And not only do I go unpunished. . .but I have thriven, and raised myself to great power.
“I will tell you something I have never told anyone; you may take that any way you like. Listen! From earliest manhood I have fought against the principles, nay, the very heart of Christianity. In truth, a part of me longed for punishment and reversal: to be put in my place, as a sign there was some meaning, some Order in the world. But there is none, unless it be survival of the fittest. Hardly the kind of world that a God would make, unless his sole purpose was to punish its weak, pathetic creatures.”
He paused, trying unsuccessfully to calm himself. “The only ‘earth’ that the meek shall inherit. . .are the indifferent shovelfuls the diggers throw back into their graves!