On his way to Aberlott’s, Blacktooth paused to watch some of the cardinals recently created by Pope Amen as they arrived and entered the assembly. He stood beside a young priest, who told him their names.
There was Abbot Joyo Cardinal Watchingdown, from Watchingdown Abbey, far east of the Great River.
And Wolfer Cardinal Poilyf, from the North Country, came still wearing his furs, although it was not a cold day.
Domidomi Cardinal Hoydok of Texark was excommunicated by Benefez for supporting Pope Amen, who then appointed him to the College. He was the one who had penned the angry summons to conclave, and he seemed still angry as he stalked into the hall.
Then came Furi Cardinal Shirikane, quietly, almost slinking along; he was from the west coast, a priest who could also speak Wooshin’s dialect, so the Axe had told him. His countenance also seemed to bear a trace of Asia in it.
And there was Abrahà Cardinal Linkono, a schoolteacher from New Jerusalem, the only known spook in the College.
“And there is Hawken Chief Irrikawa,” said the young priest.
“I know. I saw him yesterday.”
“Did you know that it was Cardinal Buldyrk who suggested him to Pope Amen in the first place? The Abbey of N’ork is adjacent to Irrikawa’s forest kingdom.”
“I’m surprised,” Nimmy told his informant. “Last year, the lady seemed to be leaning toward Cardinal Benefez.”
“Hah! That was before Pope Amen ordained two women, and made another one cardinal,” the priest said—rather stiffly, it seemed to Blacktooth.
“Irrikawa makes strange claims, says his family is as old as the continent itself. And that eagle feather! He doesn’t want to be called ‘Cardinal.’ His servants call him ‘Sire’ and ‘Majesty.’”
Two humbler men then went in the door: Buzi Cardinal Fudsow, a local plumbing contractor who had added a flush toilet of his own invention to Amen Specklebird’s hillside retreat, and Leevit Lord Cardinal Bæhovar, a merchant from the Utah country.
Then the new Bishop of Denver, Varley Cardinal Swineman, whose diocese included the whole of the Denver Freestate, except for Valana itself; his cathedral was two days’ ride to the north at Danfer, a small community on the outskirts of an expanse of half-buried rubble which was once a city of Denver. Although a Bishop of Denver had mounted the throne of Peter a few years ago, the Denver diocesan chair was not traditionally occupied by a cardinal.
Blacktooth thanked the priest and picked his way through the crowd in the square again. The conclave, legitimate or illegitimate, was not yet officially locked and sealed. The doors and windows were all still open, and the crowd in the square was quiet because a loud voice could be heard from within addressing the prelates who had already arrived. It took a few moments for Nimmy to recognize the voice of his master, because there was anger in it:
“I am under a suspended sentence of death imposed by the Imperial Mayor. The Pope has been denounced as an impostor by the Hannegan, the Archbishop, and their allies. They are attempting to convene a General Council of the Church in New Rome, and this—as you know—cannot be done without the approval of the Pope, and if there is no Pope, it cannot be done at all. Texark has begun to wage an undeclared war against the Valanan papacy, and we are all in danger. While we all deplore the Grasshopper raid into the illegally occupied zone around New Rome, and the ensuing massacre of innocents, we find ourselves by necessity allied with the hordes against the Empire. You must protect yourselves. There are Texark spies in Valana. One was caught yesterday and severely mutilated, without my knowledge, by the Lord of the Three Hordes. He is receiving medical treatment in the local jail. As you must recall, assassins tried a year ago Easter to kill me and my secretary. There will be more attacks of this kind.
“Weapons are available—superior weapons—for the Papal Guard, and for any of you who wish them for yourselves or your servants. Valana is an open city. We do not have border guards, and you may be sure that the agents of the Hannegan come and go as they please. Sidearms for you and your servants will be provided…”
Perhaps the anger he heard in the voice was rhetorical. The monk shook his head in wonder and moved on. He did not regret that Brownpony had chosen other conclavists this time, although he hoped his obvious reluctance to serve as one of them would be forgiven.
Aberlott was not at home. Meaning to copy the strange prayer and leave it on his table with a note, he tried the door but found it locked. He shrugged to himself and started to retrace his steps when a thought struck him: he still had not been able to see Amen Specklebird because of the crowds waiting outside his door. But people who were not at work were now forming the crowd in John-in-Exile Square, and the cardinals were inside the Palace. So he turned around and started climbing the hill to Amen’s home.
“I’ll not translate it for you,” said the old black Pope, holding Mother India’s card. They were sitting together alone in the hillside house of stone. The rocks were cold, but there was a small fire on the hearth, and the room was chilly but not uncomfortable.
“It’s more poem than prayer. It is not written in the language the Sisters speak today, but their speech does have more classical Spanish in it than Rockymount or Ol’zark has. This is old Spanish with a word or two of country dialect perhaps. I have seen it before. I know what it means to the Sisters. They think the crucified woman does not depict an event of history, but an event in the mind of Mary when she allowed herself to feel the crucifixion of her son.”
“She wishes herself in his place on the cross?”
“Wishes? In her own heart, she’s already there. Librada del mundo means set free from the world. But the next three lines seem to be spoken by the crucified. She has eyes, but doesn’t see herself. With her hands nailed to the cross, she can’t touch herself. With her feet nailed there too, she can’t walk about. The line after that—‘with the angels of number forty-three’—its meaning is lost. The last two lines might be spoken by the Christ child: ‘Mary’s blanket covers me. Mary’s breasts turn me rosy.’ The child is nursing. This is the Sisters’ interpretation.”
“What is yours?”
“I’m not an interpreter. You are, Blacktooth. You have eyes, hands, and feet. Can you see yourself, touch yourself, walk about?”
“I never doubted it before, but—” He paused. “But what I see in a mirror is not me, is it? I can touch my body, but is that me? My feet move, but who is walking?”
“If you have the right questions, why do you need answers? The answers are in the questions.” He smiled a cat’s smile. “I like your questions.”
“Is there anything you can do for Ædrea?”
Specklebird was silent. “Not that question,” Nimmy was afraid he would say. After a time he purred a cougar’s purr. “Stay awhile and pray with me. We’ll pray the silent prayer.”
They prayed without words. Occasionally, Blacktooth arose to feed the fire. At dusk, they ate a simple meal, and prayed some more. In the morning, Brother Blacktooth chopped more wood, and Amen Specklebird hung out a sign that said, I PRAY—GO AWAY.
Nimmy stayed with him and prayed with him. The silence was like what the silence at the Abbey of Leibowitz should have been. On the fifth day, someone came and yelled “Habemus Papam!” three times before he went away. Specklebird seemed not to notice. The silence was unbroken by the event.
Blacktooth stayed for nine days, a novena of sorts. He learned more about his own soul during those nine days than he had learned during all his years at Leibowitz Abbey. Amen Specklebird was a teacher in silence. The soul of the student somehow began to resemble the soul of the teacher in silence. There was no explanation for it, for to explain would break the silence.
He might have stayed longer than nine days, but when he came out to chop wood on the tenth morning, a great cloud of smoke was arising from Valana. Was the whole city on fire?
Amen followed him most of the way down the hill, until they could see that it was only the Papal Palace and the police barrack
s burning. Only! That was Specklebird’s word.
They embraced in silence, and parted in silence. Nimmy was vaguely worried about the old man. He had tried to remove himself entirely from the scene of the ecclesiastical and political struggle for supremacy, but how could he be free from it while men continued to bicker and battle about his quitclaim on the Apostolic See? Was he ever Pope? Was he still Pope? Where was his resignation? If someone had burned the original, Blacktooth felt the old man was not safe. And yet he knew it would be useless presumption to advise him to seek protection.
The fires had been preceded by explosions, the guard at the gate told him. But Cardinal Brownpony, now Pope Amen II, was not dead. He had only fled the city along with most of the Curia. Gone where? The guard could not say. Most of Mayor Dion’s brigade had ridden south on the papal highway, leaving a few men, with part of the Yellow Guard, to train the civilian militia in the fort the spooks had built. Several cardinals had taken refuge there. Perhaps the Holy Father had gone with Dion. The Texark spy had disappeared from the jail, and the guard reckoned there must have been as many as forty infiltrators to accomplish the jailbreak and blow up the Palace. “These bastards have been living among us for years—settlers from Texark. Most of them pretended to be fugitives.”
The Nomads had returned to the Plains, he told Nimmy, and perhaps the Pope was with them, instead.
Blacktooth hurried first to Aberlott’s. A note on the door said, “Gone to the fort. Help yourself.” Blacktooth tried the latch. This time it was unlocked. Judging by the mess on the floor and the overturned furniture, someone had already helped himself, or else the student had been dragged to the fort after resisting.
He went to SEEC. The building was deserted, except for the covert wing. When he tried to enter there, he was quickly ejected. He went to Saint John-in-Exile. Only a curate was present. He told Blacktooth that the new Pope, after escaping from the burning building, had left the city in a coach belonging to the Grasshopper sharf, but they had indeed followed Dion south.
“Did the coach have ‘I set fires’ painted on the side?”
“Is that what it said? It was ancient English, I think.”
Bråm was going to take charge of a shipment of guns, Nimmy thought. He started walking to the fort. On the way, he was grabbed by the scruff of the neck and dragged to the fort. It was Ulad, who would not believe that he was going there of his own free will.
“You know I am a servant of Cardinal, uh, Pope Amen Two,” he protested.
“If you still were, you would be with him. You are a soldier now, piss-robe,” the giant said. “You are going to fight for the Holy City.”
Holy City? Did he mean New Rome or New Jerusalem?
“Will I get to see Ædrea?”
“Not likely,” growled the hulk.
Nimmy stopped struggling, but Ulad kept his long slender hand around his neck as they walked.
CHAPTER 22
Let a good pound weight of bread suffice for the day, whether there be only one meal or both dinner and supper.
—Saint Benedict’s Rule, Chapter 39
LIA BROWNPONY—NOW POPE AMEN II—MISSED his Grasshopper interpreter; no one had seen Nimmy since the election. The new Pope was reluctant to believe that Blacktooth had deserted him; he had left messages with cardinals who remained in Valana. Now he rode with Sharfs Oxsho and Demon Light Bråm in Bråm’s coach, while several cardinals came along behind, some in coaches, some on horseback. Wooshin, who was not fluent in any Nomad dialect, rode with the Pope’s driver. Inside the coach, the young Wilddog sharf fawned on his Pontiff, somewhat to his Pontiff’s annoyance, because Bråm was still calling him “Red Beard,” and every time Oxsho said “Your Holiness” or “Holy Father,” the Grasshopper sharf grew surly. Bråm mentioned Esitt Loyte more often than seemed polite. Oxsho argued that the spy had been caught before he could learn much more than the identities of the participants in the war council.
“And that’s too much,” Eltür snapped. “Once the Hannegan knows we have allies in the east, he will be less likely to send forces across the Great River. Isn’t that so, Red Beard?”
Brownpony had been staring out the window at the scenery as if in deep reverie. Eltür was forced to repeat the question. Oxsho rephrased it in the Wilddog dialect, but Brownpony’s response was indirect.
“The attack on the Palace was a complete surprise to me. I was too confused to think clearly for an hour or two. The agents who broke Loyte out of jail must have taken him straight to the telegraph terminal. We should have thought of that immediately and sent forces to capture it before he could get a message out. Now it will be captured in due course, but too late.”
“So the Hannegan’s forces will not cross the Great River!”
“We can’t know that until you try to arrange a cease-fire, Sharf Bråm.”
“You expect me to play the coward, Red Beard?”
“Of course not! You can seem unwilling. Let him know that Holy Madness demands it of you, that you would be delighted to resume hostilities if Texark turns you down.”
Brownpony had the uneasy feeling that Eltür blamed him for twin Hultor’s self-destructive behavior, but this feeling probably arose out of Father Steps-on-Snake’s opinion that Hultor’s murderous raid was meant to send a message to the cardinal who pampered Wilddog Christians and left the Grasshopper out of his councils.
“Your tribes and your warriors, and you yourself, Sharf Bråm, are the most powerful force we have against the Hannegan.”
Eltür had trouble understanding. Oxsho tried to shift the dialect to Grasshopper, but the result was less than satisfactory.
“We are not your force, Red Beard,” said the sharf.
They passed a dozen armed men from New Jerusalem along the way. The papal highway had been seized by, and was being patrolled by, Dion’s forces. The guard drew itself up into formation and saluted as the Pope passed by. Soon they came to their destination. The road to Shard’s place was no longer just a path through the bushes leading to Scarecrow Alley. Magister Dion’s men were fast builders. The brush had been cleared. Fifty yards from the papal highway, a log barricade had been erected, and twin guardhouses flanked the improved road. A cloud of dust raised by men and horses hovered over the area. The ramshackle houses of the gleps had been razed. Barracks and other log buildings replaced them. Two trains of wagons were loaded and stood ready to move out, while the dust of a third train heading south was still visible—Önmu Kun, Brownpony thought.
Amen II was quickly surrounded by his Curia when he descended from Eltür’s coach, and his leave-taking from the Nomad sharfs was perfunctory and less than cordial. Each of them was met by a band of warriors from his horde, and they were ready to move out within the hour. The secrets of the Suckamints were no longer secret, and the colony now was clearly at war.
The Mayor strode up to the group of cardinals, genuflected with military precision to the figure in white, and brushed the Pope’s ring with his lips. He answered questions before they were asked.
“The telegraph station has been captured. According to the prisoners we took, Loyte had already been there and gone. Outlaw forces ambushed a cavalry troop in the outlaw lands. The ruffian you sent me brought over a hundred men to us, and they took no prisoners. Our light horse are riding hard toward the second station, and they are passing Jackrabbit guerrillas on their way to join us. Now what of our allies in the East?”
“Well, word has not reached them yet about what’s happening here.” Brownpony shrugged. “So we’ll not know for some time.” He gestured toward the mountains. “Is the way open to us?”
“Of course, Holy Father. The buildings are all of logs, but new, and it is your third Rome as long as you wish it to be.” He beckoned to a young man with such long legs and short arms that one might have considered him a glep, except that Dion introduced him as his son, and he was both well-mannered and handsome.
“Slojon will be your guide as long as you need one. He will be in c
harge of my office while I am with the army.”
The young man bowed and squinted closely at the Pope’s ring without actually kissing it.
Brownpony continued to peer out at the scenery as if in deep thought while they rode upward into the mountains in a coach formerly belonging to the Mayor, who had ordered the door panels repainted with the papal tiara and the keys. This time Wooshin rode with him inside the coach, along with Dion’s Slojon, and Cardinals Hilan Bleze and Mother Iridia Silentia. With the latter, he had enjoyed a distant but enduring acquaintance, and she had thanked him for concurring in the first Amen’s choosing her for the cardinalate. Brownpony admitted that he had in fact done no such thing, but he now applauded her appointment after the fact.
During the journey into the mountains, she brought up the subject of Ædrea’s captivity, but Brownpony’s respiratory weakness returned to him as they gained altitude, and he was unable to say anything to support her in her petition to Dion’s Slojon, except to smile at her and gesture in the young man’s direction. The gesture could have meant whatever each of them might want it to mean. Hilan Bleze changed the subject to curial matters.
By the time they arrived in the heart of the community, Pope Amen II needed to be carried by sedan chair to his new quarters. He asked the Secretary of State to send an urgent message to Blacktooth in Valana for a copy of a recipe by the Venerable Boedullus. Then he collapsed in a feather bed and slept for sixteen hours. Outside the building was a disappointed crowd of the faithful among these normal-looking “Children of the Pope,” who had assembled in the hope of receiving the Apostolic Benediction from their special father. Secretary Hilan Cardinal Bleze blessed them himself, and told them to come back tomorrow.
Corporal Blacktooth St. George never received his Pontiff’s urgent message, for when it arrived in Valana, it was routed to the fort and delivered to his commander, Major Elswitch J. Cleaver, who signed a receipt for it in Blacktooth’s absence, but somehow forgot to give it to him later. He called Chuntar Cardinal Hadala’s attention to the message. The cardinal opened and read it.
Saint Leibowitz and the Wild Horse Woman Page 35