But no, there we go again. Face it, Paulo: it's not the food for the belly that does it; it's the food for the brain. Something up there is not digesting.
"But what?"
The wooden saint gave him no ready answer. Pap. Sifting out chaff. Sometimes his mind worked in snatches. It was better to let it work that way when the cramps came and the world weighed heavily upon him. What did the world weigh? It weighs, but is not weighed. Sometimes its scales are crooked. It weighs life and labor in the balance against silver and gold. That'll never balance. But fast and ruthless, it keeps on weighing. It spills a lot of life that way, and some times a little gold. And blindfolded, a king comes riding across the desert, with a set of crooked scales, a pair of loaded dice. And upon the flags emblazoned — Vexilla regis . . .
"No!" the abbot grunted, suppressing the vision.
But of course! the saint's wooden smile seemed to insist.
Dom Paulo averted his eyes from the image with a slight shudder. Sometimes he felt that the saint was laughing at him. Do they laugh at us in Heaven? he wondered. Saint Maisie of York herself — remember her, old man — she died of a laughing fit. That's different. She died laughing at herself.
No, that's not so different either. Ulp! The silent belch again. Tuesday's Saint Maisie's feast day, forsooth. Choir laughs reverently at the Alleluia of her Mass. "Alleluia ha ha! Alleluia ho ho!"
"Sancta Maisie, interride pro me."
And the king was coming to weigh books in the basement with his pair of crooked scales. How "crooked," Paulo? And what makes you think the Memorabilia is completely free of pap? Even the gifted and Venerable Boedullus once remarked scornfully that about half of it should be called the Inscrutabilia. Treasured fragments of a dead civilization there were indeed — but how much of it has been reduced to gibberish, embellished with olive leaves and cherubims, by forty generations of us monastic ignoramuses, children of dark centuries, many, entrusted by adults with an incomprehensible message, to be memorized and delivered to other adults.
I made him travel all the way from Texarkana through dangerous country, thought Paulo. Now I'm just worrying that what we've got may prove worthless to him, that's all.
But no, that wasn't all. He glanced at the smiling saint again. And again: Vexilla regis inferni prodeunt... Forth come the banners of the King of Hell, whispered a memory of that perverted line from an ancient commedia. It nagged like an unwanted tune in his thought.
The fist clenched tighter. He dropped the fan and breathed through his teeth. He avoided looking at the saint again. The ruthless angel ambushed him with a hot burst at his corporeal core. He leaned over the desk. That one had felt like a hot wire breaking. His hard breathing swept a clean spot in the film of desert dust on the desktop. The smell of the dust was choking. The room went pink, swarmed with black gnats. I don't dare belch, might shake something loose — but Holy Saint and Patron I've got to. Pain is. Ergo sum. Lord Christ God accept this token.
He belched, tasted salt, let his head fall onto the desk.
Does the chalice have to be now right this very minute Lord or can I wait awhile? But crucifixion is always now. Now ever since before Abraham even is always now. Before Pfardentrott even, now. Always for everybody anyhow is to get nailed on it and then to hang on it and if you drop off they beat you to death with a shovel so do it with dignity old man. If you can belch with dignity you may get to Heaven if you re sorry enough about messing up the rug... He felt very apologetic.
He waited a long time. Some of the gnats died and the room lost its blush but went hazy and gray.
Well, Paulo, are we going to hemorrhage now, or are we just going to fool around about it?
He probed the haze and found the face of the saint again. It was such a small grin — sad, understanding and, something else. Laughing at the hangman? No, laughing for the hangman. Laughing at the Stultus Maximus, at Satan himself. It was the first time he had seen it dearly. In the last chalice, there could be a chuckle of triumph. Haec commixtio . . .
He was suddenly very sleepy; the saint's face grayed over, but the abbot continued to grin weakly in response.
Prior Gault found him slumped over the desk shortly before None. Blood showed between his teeth. The young priest quickly felt for a pulse. Dom Paulo awakened at once, straightened in his chair, and, as if still in a dream, he pontificated imperiously: "I tell you, it's all supremely ridiculous. It's absolutely idiotic. Nothing could be more absurd."
"What's absurd, Domne?"
The abbot shook his head, blinked several times. "What?"
"I'll get Brother Andrew at once."
"Oh? That's absurd. Come back here. What did you want?"
"Nothing, Father Abbot. I'll be back as soon as I get Brother—"
"Oh, bother the medic! You didn't come in here for nothing. My door was closed. Close it again, sit down, say what you wanted."
"The test was successful. Brother Kornhoer's lamp, I mean."
"All right, let's hear about it. Sit down, start talking, tell me alllll about it." He straightened his habit and blotted his mouth with a bit of linen. He was still dizzy, but the fist in his belly had come unclenched. He could not have cared lass about the prior's account of the test, but he tried his best to appear attentive. Got to keep him here until I'm awake enough to think. Can't let him go for the medic — not yet; the news would get out: The old man is finished. Got to decide whether it's a safe time to be finished or not.
15
* * *
HONGAN OS WAS ESSENTIALLY a just and kindly man. When he saw a party of his warriors making sport of the Laredan captives, he paused to watch; but when they tied three Laredans by their ankles between horses and whipped the horses into frenzied flight, Hongan Os decided to intervene. He ordered that the warriors be flogged on the spot, for Hongan Os — Mad Bear — was known to be a merciful chieftain. He had never mistreated a horse.
"Killing captives is woman's work," he growled scornfully at the whipped culprits. "Cleanse yourselves lest you be squaw-marked, and withdraw from camp until the New Moon, for you are banished twelve days." And, answering their moans of protest: "Suppose the horses had dragged one of them through camp? The grass-eater chieflings are our guests, and it is known that they are easily frightened by blood. Especially the blood of their own kind. Take heed."
"But these are grass-eaters from the South," a warrior objected, gesturing toward the mutilated captives. "Our guests are grass-eaters from the East. Is there not a pact between us real people and the East to make war upon the South."
"If you speak of it again, your tongue shall be cut out and fed to the dogs!" Mad Bear warned. "Forget that you heard such things."
"Will the herb-men be among us for many days, O Son of the Mighty?"
"Who can know what the farmer-things plan?" Mad Bear asked crossly. "Their thought is not as our thought. They say that some of their numbers will depart from here to pass on across the Dry Lands — to a place of the grass-eater priests, a place of the dark-robed ones. The others will stay here to talk — but that is not for your ears. Now go, and be ashamed twelve days."
He turned his back that they might slink away without feeling his gaze pour upon them. Discipline was becoming lax of late. The clans were restless. It had become known among the people of the Plains that he, Hongan Os, had clasped arms across a treaty-fire with a messenger from Texarkana, and that a shaman had clipped hair and fingernails from each of them to make a good-faith doll as a defense against treachery by either party. It was known that an agreement had been made, and any agreement between people and grass-eaters was regarded by the tribes as a cause for shame. Mad Bear had felt the veiled scorn of the younger warriors, but there was no explaining to them until the right time came.
Mad Bear himself was willing to listen to good thought, even if it came from a dog. The thought of grass-eaters was seldom good, but he had been impressed by the messages of the grass-eater king in the east, who had expounded the value of secrecy an
d deplored the idle boast. If the Laredans learned that the tribes were being armed by Hannegan, the plan would surely fail. Mad Bear had brooded on this thought; it repelled him — for certainly it was more satisfying and more manly to tell an enemy what one intended to do to him before doing it; and yet, the more he brooded on it, the more he saw its wisdom. Either the grass-eater king was a craven coward, or else he was almost as wise as a man: Mad Bear had not decided which — but he judged the thought itself as wise. Secrecy was essential even if it seemed womanly for a time. If Mad Bear's own people knew that the arms which came to them were gifts from Hannegan, and not really the spoils of border raids, then there would arise the possibility of Laredo's learning of the scheme from captives caught on raids. It was therefore necessary to let the tribes grumble about the shame of talking peace with the farmers of the east.
But the talk was not of peace. The talk was good, and it promised loot.
A few weeks ago, Mad Bear himself had led a "war party" to the east and had returned with a hundred head of horses, four dozen long rifles, several kegs of black powder, ample shot, and one prisoner. But not even the warriors who had accompanied him knew that the cache of arms had been planted there for him by Hannegan's men, or that the prisoner was in reality a Texarkanan cavalry officer who would in the future advise Mad Bear about probable Laredan tactics during the fighting to come. All grass-eater thought was shameless, but the officer's thought could probe that of the grass-eaters to the south. It could not probe that of Hongan Os.
Mad Bear was justifiably proud of himself as a bargainer. He had pledged nothing but to refrain from making war upon Texarkana and to stop stealing cattle from the eastern borders, but only as long as Hannegan furnished him with arms and supplies. The agreement to war against Laredo was an unspoken pledge of the fire, but it fitted Mad Bear's natural inclinations and there was no need for a formal pact. Alliance with one of his enemies would permit him to deal with one foe at a time, and eventually he might regain the grazing lands that had been encroached upon and settled by the farmer-people during the previous century.
Night had fallen by the time the clans chief rode into camp, and a chill had come over the Plains. His guests from the east sat huddled in their blankets around the council fire with three of the old people while the usual ring of curious children gaped from surrounding shadows and peeped under tent skirts at the strangers. There were twelve strangers in all, but they separated themselves into two distinct parties which had traveled together but apparently cared little for each other's company. The leader of one party was obviously a madman. While Mad Bear did not object to insanity (indeed, it was prized by his shamans as the most intense of supernatural visitations), he had not known that the farmers likewise regarded madness as a virtue in a leader. But this one spent half of his time digging in the earth down by the dry riverbed and the other half jotting mysteriously in a small book. Obviously a witch, and probably not to be trusted.
Mad Bear stopped only long enough to don his ceremonial wolf robes and have a shaman paint the totem mark on his forehead before he joined the group at the fire.
"Be afraid!" an old warrior ceremonially wailed as the clans chief stepped into the firelight. "Be afraid, for the Mighty One walks among his children. Grovel, O clans, for his name is Mad Bear — a name well won, for as a youth he did overcome without weapons a bear run mad, with his naked hands did he strangle her, verily in the Northlands. . ."
Hongan Os ignored the eulogies and accepted a cup of blood from the old woman who served the council fire. It was fresh from a butchered steer and still warm. He drained it before turning to nod at the Easterners who watched the brief wassail with apparent disquiet.
"Aaaah!" said the clans chief.
"Aaaah!" replied the three old people, together with one grass-eater who dared to chime in. The people stared at the grass-eater for a moment in disgust.
The insane one tried to cover his companion's blunder.
"Tell me," said the madman when the chieftain was seated. "How is it that your people drink no water? Do your gods object?"
"Who knows what the gods drink?" rumbled Mad Bear. "It is said that water is for cattle and farmers, that milk is for children and blood for men. Should it be otherwise?"
The insane one was not insulted. He studied the chief for a moment with searching gray eyes, then nodded at one of his fellows. "That 'water for the cattle' explains it," he said. "The everlasting drought out here. A herdsman people would conserve what little water there is for the animals. I was wondering if they backed it by a religious taboo."
His companion grimaced and spoke in the Texarkanan tongue. "Water! Ye gods, why can't we drink water, Thon Taddeo? There's such a thing as too much conformity!" He spat dryly. "Blood! Blah! It sticks in the throat. Why can't we have one little sip of—"
"Not until we leave"
"But, Thon—"
"No," snapped the scholar; then, noticing that the clans people were glowering at them, he spoke to Mad Bear in tongue of the Plains again. "My comrade here was speaking of the manliness and health of your people," he said. "Perhaps your diet is responsible."
"Ha!" barked the chief, but then called almost cheerfully to the old woman: "Give that outlander a cup of red."
Thon Taddeo's companion shuddered, but made no protest.
"I have, O Chief, a request to make of your greatness," said the scholar. "Tomorrow we shall continue our journey to the west. If some of your warriors could accompany our party, we would be honored."
"Why?"
Thon Taddeo paused. "Why — as guides . . ." He stopped, and suddenly smiled. "No, I'll be quite truthful. Some of your people disapprove of our presence here. While your hospitality has been—"
Hongan Os threw back his head and roared with laughter. "They are afraid of the lesser clans," he said to the old ones. "They fear being ambushed as soon as they leave my tents. They eat grass and are afraid of a fight."
The scholar flushed slightly.
"Fear nothing, outlander!" chortled the clans chief. "Real men shall accompany you."
Thon Taddeo inclined his head in mock gratitude.
"Tell us," said Mad Bear, "what is it you go to seek in the western Dry Land? New places for planting fields? I can tell you there are none. Except near a few water holes, nothing grows that even cattle will eat."
"We seek no new land," the visitor answered. "We are not all of us farmers, you know. We are going to look for—" He paused. In the nomad speech, there was no way to explain the purpose of the journey to the Abbey of St. Leibowitz "—for the skills of an ancient sorcery."
One of the old ones, a shaman, seemed to prick up his ears. "An ancient sorcery in the west? I know of no magicians there. Unless you mean the dark-robed ones?"
"They are the ones."
"Ha! What magic do they have that's worth looking after? Their messengers can be captured so easily that it is no real sport — although they do endure torture well. What sorcery can you learn from them?"
"Well, for my part, I agree with you," said Thon Taddeo. "But it is said that writings, uh, incantations of great power are hoarded at one of their abodes. If it is true, then obviously the dark-robed ones don't know how to use them, but we hope to master them for ourselves."
"Will the dark-robes permit you to observe their secrets?"
Thon Taddeo smiled. "I think so. They don't dare hide them any longer. We could take them, if we had to."
"A brave saying," scoffed Mad Bear. "Evidently the farmers are braver among their own kind — although they are meek enough among real people."
The scholar, who had stomached his fill of the nomad's insults, chose to retire early.
The soldiers remained at the council fire to discuss with Hongan Os the war that was certain to come; but the war, after all, was none of Thon Taddeo's affair. The political aspirations of his ignorant cousin were far from his own interest in a revival of learning in a dark world, except when that monarch's patronage proved us
eful, as it already had upon several occasions.
16
* * *
THE OLD HERMIT STOOD at the edge of the mesa and watched the approach of the dust speck across the desert. The hermit munched, muttered words and chuckled silently into the wind. His withered hide was burned the color of old leather by the sun, and his brushy beard was stained yellow about the chin. He wore a basket hat and a loincloth of rough homespun that resembled burlap — his only clothing except for sandals and a goat-skin water bag.
He watched the dust speck until it passed through the village of Sanly Bowitts and departed again by way of the road leading past the mesa.
"Ah!" snorted the hermit, his eyes beginning to burn.
"His empire shall be multiplied, and there shall be no end of his peace: he shall sit upon his kingdom."
Suddenly he went down the arroyo like a cat with three legs, using his staff, bounding from stone to stone and sliding most of the way. The dust from his rapid descent plumed high on the wind and wandered away.
At the foot of the mesa he vanished into the mesquite and settled down to wait. Soon he heard the rider approaching at a lazy trot, and he began slinking toward the road to peer out through the brush. The pony appeared from around the bend, wrapped in a thin dust shroud. The hermit darted into the trail and threw up his arms.
"Olla allay!" he shouted; and as the rider halted, he darted forward to seize the reins and frown anxiously up at the man in the saddle.
His eyes blazed for a moment. "For a Child is born to us, and a Son is given us . . ." But then the anxious frown melted away into sadness. "It's not Him!" he grumbled irritably at the sky.
The rider had thrown back his hood and was laughing. The hermit blinked angrily at him for a moment. Recognition dawned.
A Canticle For Leibowitz Page 17