The old man advanced to kiss the Red Deacon’s ring, found none, and kissed his hand instead. “I am called Shard. That is our family’s name. You will be welcome to stay in my house until the snow stops. We have not much to eat just now, after the winter, but Ædrea can perhaps kill a deer.” He turned to the old woman with his arm raised as if to cuff her. She gave the musket to the girl and hurried away.
“We carry corn, beans, and monks’ cheese,” said Brownpony. “We’ll share with you. Tomorrow is Ash Wednesday, so we’ll need no meat. Two of us can sleep in the carriage. We have tarpaulins to protect it from the cold wind. We thank you, and pray the weather lets us leave soon.”
“Please forgive the rude welcome,” said the mottled man. “We are often visited by a small bands of Nomads, drunks or outlaws. Most of them are superstitious, and fear the flag.” He pointed to the yellow and green banner that flew from the gable of his home. It bore the papal keys, and a ring of seven hands. As a warning of papal protection, it had become the flag of the Watchitah Nation. “Even those who don’t fear it soon see we have nothing of value, except a girl, and leave us in peace, but my sister trusts no one. But three days ago, we were visited by Texark agents posing as priests. We knew they were sent to spy on us, so we have been very suspicious.”
“What happened?”
“They wanted to know how many of us lived in these hills. I told them just one other family a quarter-hour walk up the trail. I advised them not to go back there, that the bear boy was dangerous, but they insisted. Only two of them came back an hour later, and they were in a hurry to leave.”
“Do you really think the Hannegan would chase Valley runaways this far outside the Empire?”
“We know it. Others have been killed closer to the Province. Filpeo Harq exploits people’s hatred for gennies, and calls us criminals because we fought our way out of the Valley. Some of his guards were killed.”
While they were unhitching the horses, Blacktooth noticed two cows with shaggy coats in a pen next to the barn. They were not ordinary farm animals, and appeared to be Nomad cattle. But Nomad cows would have kicked and butted their way out through the boards of the fence by now, so he decided they must be hybrids. Or genny animals, like their genny owners. For that matter, the Nomad cattle probably descended from a few successful freaks. Sometimes, rarely, an apparent monster, whether man or beast, proved to have superior survival value.
The gennies’ hospitality improved sharply after the bad beginning. Apparently not of Shard’s family, the hunchback had disappeared. Soon Ædrea had killed a fawn; she brought a cup of its blood into the house and presented it to Chür Høngan, who looked at it in frozen silence.
The cardinal was turning red as he choked back laughter. When the Nomad looked at him, Brownpony hid his mouth. Høngan snorted at him and took the deer blood from the girl. Growling at her, he frowned mightily and downed it at a gulp. The girl stepped back as if in awe. The Red Deacon’s laughter exploded, and after a moment they were all laughing except Ædrea.
“Well, Nomads drink blood, don’t they?” she demanded. Blushing at the laughter, she went to dress the fawn.
“Some do,” said Holy Madness. “On ceremonial occasions.”
After an evening meal of veal-tender venison, black bread, peas, and mugs of cloudy home brew, they talked again, crowding around the fire in Shard’s house. Only the Nomad was missing; pretending to speak little Ol’zark, he had taken his blanket roll and gone to bed early in the carriage after losing a drawing of lots for a place in the house. The other loser was Blacktooth, who was glad to sleep away from a headsman, a cardinal, a crazy priest, and several portents, including a pretty female tease.
The common language among them was Ol’zark, but when Shard asked the Oriental a question, Wooshin replied in broken Churchspeak. After this had happened three times, Brownpony turned to him and said, “Wooshin, speak the language of our hosts. That language is Ol’zark Valleyspeak of the Watchitah Nation.”
The Axe bristled and stared at Brownpony, who gazed at him evenly. “Valleyspeak is the language of our hosts,” he repeated.
Wooshin looked down at the floor. The room was dead silent. He looked up, then, and said in flawless Texark, “Good simpleton, the answer to your question is that by profession I was a seaman and a warrior. But in my later years I cut off heads for the Mayor of Texark.”
“And how did you sink to that, Ser?” asked a thin voice from Ædrea.
Wooshin looked at her without anger.
“Not sink, not rise,” he said in bad Churchspeak, then returning to her tongue: “Death is the way of the warrior, girl. There is no honor in it, nor any dishonor, if one is just being oneself.”
“But to do it for the Hannegan?”
Wooshin’s normal expression was relaxed, alert, about-to-smile, wrinkled about the eyes, humorous, scrutinizing. But now it was as frozen as a corpse. Facing Ædrea, he arose slowly and bowed to her. Blacktooth felt his scalp crawl.
Then the Axe looked at the Red Deacon as if to say “See what you made me do!” and went to take a walk in the night. It was the last time the old manslayer ever resisted speaking Ol’zark, but Blacktooth noticed that when he did so, he always imitated Shard’s accent, and he called it Valleyspeak. He treated Ædrea with extreme courtesy during their stay. There was no mistaking the bitterness of his regret, but regret for what? Blacktooth was unsure.
After two days of intermittent light snow, they stayed at Arch Hollow, as the Shards called it, for six days, while Chür Høngan spent most his time riding out to investigate the conditions along the trail. Wooshin too was gone most of the time, but made no account of his activities, unless to the cardinal in secret. It seemed best to wait until other passing traffic began to shovel its way along in the near vicinity.
On the second night they sat around the fire in the center of Shard’s lodge. Brownpony tried to elicit the family’s story without asking too many questions. His skill in conversation soon led Shard into recounting his family’s adventures since the famine and the exodus. There had been a mass escape attempt ten years ago. At least two hundred were hunted down and killed by Texark troops as they fled through forests and up streambeds across the crest of the ridge. At least twice as many escaped the troops that were there both to protect the Watchitah people against intruders and to prevent the escape of the gennies. The Valley was more than a valley; it was a small nation which had kept the name of its place of origin until the conquest. No one had counted the population, but Shard called it a quarter of a million, causing Brownpony to raise an eyebrow. Fifty thousand was closer to popular consensus.
“The approaches to the Watchitah are well guarded by the Hannegan, but the patrols could not catch so many at one time,” said Shard. “Probably half of the dead were killed by Texark troops and the others lynched by farmers. Ædrea, of course, could have escaped by passing for normal, becoming a ‘spook.’ My daughter is very brave to remain with us. The spooks among us are the ones most hated and feared. They can marry unsuspecting normals and pass on the curse, give birth to monsters.”
“How safe are you here from the natives?” Brownpony wondered. “I think of this as outlaw country.”
“It was, and is, to some extent. The nearest town is two days away. They know we’re here. The priest visits us every month, except in winter. He and the baron govern the town. There has been no trouble. Only ’Drea goes to town. Of course she wears the green headband. We’re south of the Denver Republic, but the Church is respected here more than in the Empire. The papal highway is patrolled, of course. Still, there are occasional outlaws, but they are looking for traveling merchants. We have nothing here to invite robbery.”
“Are there more of you living near here?”
“You saw the hunchback, Cortus. His family lives next door. But the only family behind us is the one with the bear boy.”
“Shard, I am the Secretary for Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Concerns.”
The old man l
ooked at him with suspicion. “If you really are, then you don’t need to ask such a question.”
The monk could feel a tension bordering on hostility in the room but it passed in silence. It seemed clear Shard was lying about the presence of other gennies in the region.
After the dishes had been washed outside in the snow, Linura entered and sat beside, but a little behind, her brother. Then Ædrea came in and dropped cross-legged on the floor beside Blacktooth, who stirred restlessly and almost stopped listening. He wanted his rosary back. Her girl-smell teased his nostrils. Her knees were shiny by firelight. When she noticed his gaze, she pulled a blanket over her lap, but smiled briefly into his eyes before attending the conversation again. Remembering that this coy creature had grabbed his penis at their first encounter, he nudged her.
“Rosary back!” he whispered fiercely.
She giggled and nudged back, hard.
“I’ve often wondered about life in the Valley,” the Red Deacon was saying.
“There is more death than life there, m’Lord Cardinal,” Shard answered. “Few who live there want to risk giving birth. A normal birth is rare. Most die. Others are too feeble to want life. If it were not for the influx, the Watchitah would soon be empty.”
“Influx? From where?”
“You must know, m’Lord.”
Brownpony nodded. Many people in families of registered pedigree nonetheless had accursed offspring. Lest they lose their registration with the keepers of such records, families without fear of the Church killed their malformed babies. But often there were children whose deformities could be concealed for a time, and these were sent to the Valley at a later age by the pious. Monks and nuns often brought them. People who lived near the Watchitah hated and feared the inhabitants, especially the near-normal among them. Blacktooth noticed that everyone was glancing at Ædrea.
“Forgive me, daughter,” Brownpony murmured when she met his eyes.
“I don’t like admitting it,” Shard was saying, “but the patrols who guard the passes were as much our protectors as our jailers. But they did nothing to help us when famine came.”
“And the Church?” said the Red Deacon. “Too busy with its own schism to be of much help to anyone.”
“Well, of course we were cut off from papal protection, but the Archbishop of Texark did send in some supplies. I think he is not a cruel man, perhaps only powerless.”
“You cannot imagine how powerless is Cardinal Archbishop Benefez,” Father e’Laiden sighed.
Blacktooth glanced quickly at the priest, certain that he was being sardonic and meant the opposite of what he said. Benefez had behind him the power of the Hannegans. And e’Laiden spoke Texark like a native, which he probably was, although his command of Wild-dog Nomadic meant he had lived long on the High Plains.
“My rosary!” Blacktooth whispered angrily.
She winked at him and grinned. “I hid it in the barn. You can have it tomorrow.”
The way she looked at him brought on an eruption of horniness, and he felt his face turning red. Blacktooth feared her. Many deformities recurred, and many were genetically connected. Various writers had made lists. There was one mutation in which great physical beauty was coupled with a defect in the brain, the most notable symptom of which was the onset of criminal insanity a few years after puberty. He stole a glance at her, but she caught him at it, and flicked her tongue and smirked. She might not be crazy, but she was a she-devil. He wanted to go to the carriage and to bed, but he was ashamed to stand up at the moment. At last he prayed his erection away and mumbled good night to the others. Ædrea followed him outside, but he fled into the latrine, then climbed out the back window. He was immediately seized by the hunchback and another creature and dragged away toward another house with a lighted doorway. Nearly fainting with fright, he heard the hunchback whisper hoarsely that someone needed absolution.
“But I am not a priest!” he protested. In vain. They dragged him into the house of Shard’s neighbor.
The hunchback and his companion released Blacktooth after pushing him inside, and they stood blocking the door. The monk could only sit down on a stool pointed out to him, and from there await developments. There was firelight and a lantern. There was a wrinkled old man with a scraggly beard in the room, who said his name was Tempus. He pointed out the others. There was his wife. Irene, whose face was a permanent scar. There were Ululata, and Pustria, females both of portentous mien. The hunchback was called Cortus, and his companion Barlo. They were all siblings or cousins or half-siblings. Barlo had a terrible itch, especially in the genital area. Tempus shouted at him to stop masturbating, but the words had no effect on the creature.
God in His wisdom had given Ululata adeformed foot, although He had in all other ways given her the proportions of the divine image in His mind of God in mercy. But the foot was not something you would want to walk with. “God is thus,” said the father.
The father had given her crutches. To him, God had given seven fingers, which he displayed to the monk, a third useless eye, and four testicles with two healthy penes, all of which he exhibited. Pustria was Ululata’s half-sister, according to their faithful mother’s best memory of their conceptions under the weight of the same sire. Pustria was deformed only by blindness, and Mother Irene was partial to Pustria because Pustria could not see her mother’s face, a mask of scab of which Mother Irene was not proud. “God is thus, since the deluge of fire and ice,” said the father.
Barlo was in need of absolution, Tempus explained, in order to make him stop masturbating. Blacktooth explained that he could not absolve anybody, and that absolution would not have the effect that Tempus desired. Tempus was adamant. Blacktooth would not be allowed to leave until he performed.
“Will you let me go then, immediately?” he demanded.
Tempus nodded gravely and crossed his heart. Nimmy closed his eyes for a moment and tried to summon a little Latin.
“Labores semper tecum,” he said in the softest voice he could muster. “Igni etiam aqua interdictus tu. Semper super capitem tuum feces descendant avium.”
“Amen,” Tempus said in echo to this malediction.
Nimmy got up and left. At the moment, he was not particularly ashamed of wishing eternal suffering on the man, of pronouncing a dire sentence of exile, and calling down upon the head of Barlo a perpetual rain of birdshit; the glep who was still scratching his crotch followed him at a distance.
Chür Høngan was already asleep. Blacktooth had drawn lots with Wooshin and lost the third place indoors. He was relieved things had turned out so, especially after his escape from the clutches of the hunchback’s family. If he must sleep in the cold carriage, he preferred to sleep with the Nomad. Although, during his waking hours, he had lost his fear of the killer of hundreds, the Brother Axe still haunted his dreams. Sometimes he dreamed he himself was the executioner, chopping heads for Hannegan with a mighty sword, but that night in the carriage, he dreamed he was Pontius Pilate, and Wooshin the headsman stood beside him as Marcus the Centurion, confronted by a pretender to the Kingdom of God among the Nomads.
Kings of the Nomads were common in those days. He crucified not one but four of them during his lucrative career in south Texas-Judea. The first case was the hardest for him, and sad; Blacktooth-Pilate was like a boy killing his first deer. Because the pretender was harmless, the case was jinxed by the scruples of his wife. He had wanted to set the first one free. It was easier to kill the ones that followed, and certainly necessary to show that kings were made by Texark and not by tribal gods. He always asked them the same question. The first one could not or would not answer, and merely stood looking at him. The second to be crucified was more talkative.
“What is truth?” asked Blacktooth.
“Truth is the essence of all true statements,” said the second King of the Nomads. “Falsehood is the essence of all false statements. Without saying anything, there is neither true nor false. I offer Your Majesty my silence.”
&nbs
p; “Crucify him,” said Pilate, “with prejudice. And get it right this time. Wrap his arms and legs around the cross. That’s the way it shows in the Texark Procurators’ Handbook. Of course, that’s not enough for you new recruits these days. You have to know why. Well, I’ll tell you why.
“Nailing the hands to the back of the cross is sound engineering principle and sound governmental policy because when you nail the hands in front the weight of the body hangs on the nails, they tear, unless you also nail the forearm; but when you wrap the arms across the top of the cross and nail them from behind, the weight of the body hangs from the arm on the crossbar, and the nail does nothing but keep the arm in place. That way, you can smash his bones better when it’s time to go home from work. Do it the Texark way, men; the Texark way is the eternal way. Let’s carry out the sentence with some snap this time.”
“Hail to the Hannegan!” said Marcus the Axe.
“Hail Texark! Next case.”
Pontius felt better after that. Half-awake by now, he knew he was dreaming, but let the dream go on. The fellow’s silly explanation of truth probably had nothing to do with the silence of the first King of the Nomads, but it noisily invoked silence as policy and thus took some of the sting out of Pilate’s remembrance of the first one’s half-smiling gaze, which had seemed to say to him at the time nothing philosophical at all but had expressed an utterly intimate, infinite regress of “I who look at you who look at me who look at you…” His wife Ædrea had been frightened by the same look. It was perhaps sexy, and for that very reason insulting to those whose duty it was to see such scum as loathsome.
“What is truth?” said Pilate to the third King of the Nomads.
“Root for pearls, Texark pig!”
Blacktooth-Pilate had no qualms at all with that one.
He woke up thinking about Ædrea instead—and their coming assignation in a hayloft. A prank. Drowsily, he remembered hearing Brother Gimpus argue that a detachment from sexual passion was the essence of chastity, and that detachment was possible without abstinence. Brother Gimpus was caught naked with an ugly widow in the village who claimed she paid him every Wednesday for the eighth sacrament. “Rest in peace,” Blacktooth whispered against the pillow.
Saint Leibowitz and the Wild Horse Woman Page 7