A Canticle For Leibowitz

by Walter M. Miller, Jr.

"What madness—"

  Benjamin kneaded the arm while he stared hopefully into the scholar's eyes.

  His face clouded. The glow died. He dropped the arm. A great keening sigh came from the dry old lungs as hope vanished. The eternally knowing smirk of the Old Jew of the Mountain returned to his face. He turned to the community, spread his hands, shrugged eloquently.

  "It's still not Him," he told them sourly, then hobbled away.

  Afterwards, there was little formality.

  21

  * * *

  IT WAS DURING THE TENTH WEEK of Thon Taddeo's visit that the messenger brought the black news. The head of the ruling dynasty of Laredo had demanded that Texarkanan troops be evacuated forthwith from the realm. The King died of poison that night, and a state of war was proclaimed between the states of Laredo and Texarkana. The war would be short-lived. It could with assurance be assumed that the war had ended the day after it had begun, and that Hannegan now controlled all lands and peoples from the Red River to the Rio Grande.

  That much had been expected, but not the accompanying news.

  Hannegan II, by Grace of God Mayor, Viceroy of Texarkana, Defender of the Faith, and Vaquero Supreme of the Plains, had, after finding Monsignor Marcus Apollo to be guilty of "treason" and espionage, caused the papal nuncio to he hanged, and then, while still alive to be cut down, drawn, quartered, and flayed, as an example to anyone else who might try to undermine the Mayor's state. In pieces, the priest's carcass had been thrown to the dogs.

  The messenger hardly needed to add that Texarkana was under absolute interdict by a papal decree which contained certain vague but ominous allusions to Regnans in Excelsis, a sixteenth century bull ordering a monarch deposed. There was no news of Hannegan's countermeasures, as yet.

  On the Plains, the Laredan forces would now have to fight their way back home through the nomad tribes, only to lay down their arms at their own borders, for their nation and their kin were hostage.

  "A tragic affair!" said Thon Taddeo, with an apparent degree of sincerity. "Because of my nationality, I offer to leave at once."

  "Why?" Dom Paulo asked. "You don't approve of Hannegan's actions, do you?"

  The scholar hesitated, then shook his head. He looked around to make certain no one overheard them. "Personally, I condemn them. But in public—" He shrugged. "There is the collegium to think of. If it were only a question of my own neck, well—"

  "I understand."

  "May I venture an opinion in confidence?"

  "Of course."

  "Then someone ought to warn New Rome against making idle threats. Hannegan's not above crucifying several dozen Marcus Apollos."

  "Then some new martyrs will attain Heaven; New Rome doesn't make idle threats."

  The thon sighed. "I supposed that you'd look at it that way, but I renew my offer to leave."

  "Nonsense. Whatever your nationality, your common humanity makes you welcome."

  But a rift had appeared. The scholar kept his own company afterward, seldom conversing with the monks. His relationship with Brother Kornhoer became noticeably formal, although the inventor spent an hour or two each day in servicing and inspecting the dynamo and the lamp, and keeping himself informed concerning the progress of the thon's work, which was now proceeding with unusual haste. The officers seldom ventured outside the guesthouse.

  There were hints of an exodus from the region. Disturbing rumors kept coming from the Plains. In the village of Sanly Bowitts, people began discovering reasons to depart suddenly on pilgrimages or to visit in other lands. Even the beggars and vagrants were getting out of town. As always, the merchants and artisans were faced with the unpleasant choice of abandoning their property to burglars and looters or staying with it to see it looted.

  A citizens' committee headed by the mayor of the village visited the abbey to request sanctuary for the townspeople in the event of invasion. "My final offer," said the abbot, after several hours of argument, "is this: we will take in all the women, children, invalids, and aged, without question. But as for men capable of bearing arms, we'll consider each case individually, and we may turn some of them away."

  "Why?" the mayor demanded.

  "What should be obvious, even to you!" Dom Paulo said sharply. "We may come under attack ourselves, but unless we're directly attacked, we're going to stay out of it. I'll not let this place be used by anybody as a garrison from which to launch a counterattack if the only attack is on the village itself. So in case of males able to bear arms, we'll have to insist on a pledge — to defend the abbey under our orders. And we'll decide in individual cases whether a pledge is trustworthy or not."

  "It's unfair!" howled a committeeman. "You'll discriminate—"

  "Only against those who can't be trusted. What's the matter? Were you hoping to hide a reserve force here? Well, it won't be allowed. You're not going to plant any part of a town militia out here. That's final."

  Under the circumstances, the committee could not refuse any help offered. There was no further argument. Dom Paulo meant to take in anyone, when the time came, but for the present he meant to forestall plans by the village to involve the abbey in military planning. Later there would be officers from Denver with similar requests; they would be less interested in saving life than in saving their political regime. He intended to give them a similar answer. The abbey had been built as a fortress of faith and knowledge, and he meant to preserve it as such.

  The desert began to crawl with wanderers out of the east. Traders, trappers, and herdsmen, in moving west, brought news from the Plains. The cattle plague was sweeping like wildfire among the herds of the nomads; famine seemed imminent. Laredo's forces had suffered a mutinous cleavage since the fall of the Laredan dynasty. Part of them were returning to their homeland as ordered, while the others set out under a grim vow to march on Texarkana and not stop until they took the head of Hannegan II or died in trying. Weakened by the split, the Laredans were being wiped out gradually by the hit-and-run assaults from Mad Bear's warriors who were thirsty for vengeance against those who had brought the plague. It was rumored that Hannegan had generously offered to make Mad Bear's people his protected dependents, if they would swear fealty to "civilized" law, accept his officers into their councils, and embrace the Christian Faith. "Submit or starve" was the choice which fate and Hannegan offered the herdsman peoples. Many would choose to starve before giving allegiance to an agrarian-merchant state. Hongan Os was said to be roaring his defiance southward, eastward, and heavenward; he accomplished the latter by burning one shaman a day to punish the tribal gods for betraying him. He threatened to become a Christian if Christian gods would help slaughter his enemies.

  It was during the brief visit of a party of shepherds that the Poet vanished from the abbey. Thon Taddeo was the first to notice the Poet's absence from the guesthouse and to inquire about the versifying vagrant.

  Dom Paulo's face wrinkled in surprise. "Are you certain he's moved out?" he asked. "He often spends a few days in the village, or goes over to the mesa for an argument with Benjamin."

  "His belongings are missing," said the thon. "Everything's gone from his room."

  The abbot made a wry mouth. "When the Poet leaves, that's a bad sign. By the way, if he's really missing, then I would advise you to take an immediate inventory of your own belongings."

  The thon looked thoughtful. "So that's where my boots—"

  "No doubt."

  "I set them out to be polished. They weren't returned. That was the same day he tried to batter down my door."

  "Batter down — who the Poet?"

  Thon Taddeo chuckled. "I'm afraid I've been having a little sport with him. I have his glass eye. You remember the night he left it on the refectory table?"

  "Yes."

  "I picked it up."

  The thon opened his pouch, groped in it for a moment, then laid the Poet's eyeball on the abbot's desk. "He knew I had it, but I kept denying it. But we've had sport with him ever since, even to creatin
g rumors that it was really the long-lost eyeball of the Bayring idol and ought to be returned to the museum. He became quite frantic after a time. Of course I had meant to return it before we go home. Do you suppose he'll return after we leave?"

  "I doubt it," said the abbot, shuddering slightly as he glanced at the orb. "But I'll keep it for him, if you like. Although it's just as probable that he'd turn up in Texarkana looking for it there. He claims it's a potent talisman."

  "How so?"

  Dom Paulo smiled. "He says he can see much better when he's wearing it."

  "What nonsense!" The thon paused; ever ready, apparently, to give any sort of outlandish premise at least a moment's consideration, he added: "Isn't it nonsense — unless filling the empty socket somehow affects the muscles of both sockets. Is that what he claims?"

  "He just swears he can't see as well without it. He claims he has to have it for the perception of 'true meanings' — although it gives him blinding headaches when he wears it. But one never knows whether the Poet is speaking fact, fancy, or allegory. If fancy is clever enough, I doubt that the Poet would admit a difference between fancy and fact."

  The thon smiled quizzically. "Outside my door the other day, he yelled that I needed it more than he did. That seems to suggest that he thinks of it as being, in itself, a potent fetish — good for anyone. I wonder why."

  "He said you needed it? Oh ho!"

  "What amuses you?"

  "I'm sorry. He probably meant it as an insult. I'd better not try to explain the Poet's insult; it might make me seem a party to them."

  "Not at all. I'm curious."

  The abbot glanced at the image of Saint Leibowitz in the corner of the room. "The Poet used the eyeball as a running joke," he explained. "When he wanted to make a decision, or to think something over, or to debate a point, he'd put the glass eye in the socket. He'd take it out again when he saw something that displeased him, when he was pretending to overlook something, or when he wanted to play stupid. When he wore it, his manner changed. The brothers began calling it 'the Poet's conscience,' and he went along with the joke. He gave little lectures and demonstrations on the advantages of a removable conscience. He'd pretend some frantic compulsion possessed him — something trivial, usually — like a compulsion aimed at a bottle of wine.

  "Wearing his eye, he'd stroke the wine bottle, lick his lips, pant and moan, then jerk his hand away. Finally it would possess him again. He'd grab the bottle, pour about a thimbleful in a cup and gloat over it for a second. But then conscience would fight back, and he'd throw the cup across the room. Soon he'd be leering at the wine bottle again, and start to moan and slobber, but fighting the compulsion anyhow—" the abbot chuckled in spite of himself "—hideous to watch. Finally, when he became exhausted, he'd pluck out his glass eye. Once the eye was out, he'd suddenly relax. The compulsion stopped being compulsive. Cool and arrogant than, he'd pick up the bottle, look around and laugh. 'I'm going to do it anyhow,' he'd say. Then, while everyone was expecting him to drink it, he'd put on a beatific smile and pour the whole bottle over his own head. The advantage of a removable conscience, you see."

  "So he thinks I need it more than he does."

  Dom Paulo shrugged. "He's only the Poet-sirrah!"

  The scholar puffed a breath of amusement. He prodded at the vitreous spheroid and rolled it across the table with his thumb. Suddenly he laughed. "I rather like that. I think I know who does need it more than the Poet. Perhaps I'll keep it after all." He picked it up, tossed it, caught it, and glanced doubtfully at the abbot.

  Paulo merely shrugged again.

  Thon Taddeo dropped the eye back in his pouch. "He can have it if he ever comes to claim it. But by the way, I meant to tell you: my work is nearly finished here. We'll be leaving in a very few days."

  "Aren't you worried about the fighting on the Plains?"

  Thon Taddeo frowned at the wall. "We're to camp at a butte, about a week's ride to the east from here. A group of, uh — Our escort will meet us there."

  "I do hope," said the abbot, relishing the polite bit of savagery, "that your escort-group hasn't reversed its political allegiance since you made the arrangements. It's getting harder to tell foes from allies these days."

  The thon reddened. "Especially if they come from Texarkana, you mean?"

  "I didn't say that."

  "Let's be frank with each other, Father. I can't fight the prince who makes my work possible — no matter what I think of his policies or his politics. I appear to support him, superficially, or at least to overlook him — for the sake of the collegium. If he extends his lands, the collegium may incidentally profit. If the collegium prospers, mankind will profit from our work."

  "The ones who survive, perhaps."

  "True — but that's always true in any event."

  "No, no — Twelve centuries ago, not even the survivors profited. Must we start down that road again?"

  Thon Taddeo shrugged. "What can I do about it?" he asked crossly. "Hannegan is prince, not I."

  "But you promise to begin restoring Man's control over Nature. But who will govern the use of the power to control natural forces? Who will use it? To what end? How will you hold him in check? Such decisions can still be made. But if you and your group don't make them now, others will soon make them for you. Mankind will profit, you say. By whose sufferance? The sufferance of a prince who signs his letters X? Or do you really believe that your collegium can stay aloof from his ambitions when he begins to find out that you're valuable to him?"

  Dom Paulo had not expected to convince him. But it was with a heavy heart that the abbot noticed the plodding patience with which the thon heard him through; it was the patience of a man listening to an argument which he had long ago refuted to his own satisfaction.

  "What you really suggest," said the scholar, "is that we wait a little while. That we dissolve the collegium, or move it to the desert, and somehow — with no gold and silver of our own — revive an experimental and theoretical science in some slow hard way, and tell nobody. That we save it all up for the day when Man is good and pure and holy and wise."

  "That is not what I meant—"

  "That is not what you meant to say, but it is what your saying means. Keep science cloistered, don't try to apply it, don't try to do anything about it until men are holy. Well, it won't work. You've been doing it here in this abbey for generations."

  "We haven't withheld anything."

  "You haven't withheld it; but you sat on it so quietly, nobody knew it was here, and you did nothing with it."

  Brief anger flared in the old priest's eyes. "It's time you met our founder, I think," he growled, pointing to the wood-carving in the corner. "He was a scientist like yourself before the world went mad and he ran for sanctuary. He founded this Order to save what could be saved of the records of the last civilization. "Saved" from what, and for what? Look where he's standing — see the kindling? the books? That's how little the world wanted your science then, and for centuries afterward. So he died for our sake. When they drenched him with fuel oil, legend says he asked them for a cup of it. They thought he mistook it for water, so they laughed and gave him a cup. He blessed it and — some say the oil changed to wine when he blessed it — and then: "Hic est enim calix Sanguinis Mei," and he drank it before they hung him and set him on fire. Shall I read you a list of our martyrs? Shall I name all the battles we have fought to keep these records intact? All the monks blinded in the copyroom? for your sake? Yet you say we did nothing with it, withheld it by silence."

  "Not intentionally," the scholar said, "but in effect you did — and for the very motives you imply should be mine. If you try to save wisdom until the world is wise, Father, the world will never have it."

  "I can see the misunderstanding is basic!" the abbot said gruffly. "To serve God first, or to serve Hannegan first — that's your choice."

  "I have little choice, then," answered the thon. "Would you have me work for the Church?" The scorn in his voice was un
mistakable.

  22

  * * *

  IT WAS THURSDAY WITHIN the Octave of All Saints. In preparation for departure, the thon and his party sorted their notes and records in the basement. He had attracted a small monastic audience, and a spirit of friendliness prevailed as the time to leave drew near. Overhead, the arc lamp still sputtered and glared, filling the ancient library with blue-white harshness while the team of novices pumped wearily at the hand-powered dynamo. The inexperience of the novice who sat atop the ladder to keep the arc gap adjusted caused the light to flicker erratically; he had replaced the previous skilled operator who was at present confined to the infirmary with wet dressings over his eyes.

  Thon Taddeo had been answering questions about his work with less reticence than usual, no longer worried, apparently, about such controversial subjects as the refrangible property of light, or the ambitions of Thon Esser Shon.

  "Now unless this hypothesis is meaningless," he was saying, "it must be possible to confirm it in some way by observation. I set up the hypothesis with the help of some new — or rather, some very old — mathematical forms suggested by our study of your Memorabilia. The hypothesis seems to offer a simpler explanation of optical phenomena, but frankly, I could think of no way to test it at first. That's where your Brother Kornhoer proved a help." He nodded toward the inventor with a smile and displayed a sketch of a proposed testing device.

  "What is it?" someone asked after a brief interval of mystification.

  "Well — this is a pile of glass plates. A beam of sunlight striking the pile at this angle will be partially reflected, and partially transmitted. The reflected part will be polarized. Now we adjust the pile to reflect the beam through this thing, which is Brother Kornhoer's idea, and let the light fall on this second pile of glass plates. The second pile is set at just the right angle to reflect almost all of the polarized beam, and transmit nearly none of it. Looking through the glass, we'd scarcely see the light. All this has been tried. But now if my hypothesis is correct, closing this switch on Brother Kornhoer's field coil here should cause a sudden brightening of the transmitted light. If it doesn't—" he shrugged "—then we threw out the hypothesis."