Brother Assassin

by Fred Saberhagen

  The questioning general shifted in his front-rank chair. “How in the world is an alien machine going to influence the outcome of a trial in an ecclesiastical court?”

  The briefing officer could only shake his head and stare gloomily at his charts. “Frankly, we’ve still a shortage of good ideas on that. We doubt that the enemy will try again to play a supernatural role, after the failure of their last attempt along that line.

  “But here’s an angle worth keeping in mind. Only one enemy device is engaged in this attack, and from all screen indications it’s a physically small machine, only about the size of a man. Which immediately suggests to us the possibility that this one may be an android.” The speaker paused to look round at his audience. “Oh, yes, I know, the berserkers have never, anywhere, been able to fabricate an android that would pass in human society as a normal person. Still, we hardly dare rule out the possibility that this time they’ve succeeded.”

  A discussion got going on possible counter-measures. A whole arsenal of devices was being kept in readiness in Stage Two for dropping into the past, but no one could say yet what might be needed.

  The briefing officer pushed his charts aside for the moment. “The one really bright spot, of course, is that this attack lies within the time band where we can drop live agents. So naturally we’ll count on putting men on the spot as our main defense. Their job will be to keep their eyes on Vincento from a little distance; they’ll be people able to spot any significant deviation from history when they see it. Those we choose as agents will need to know that particular period very well, besides having experience in Time Operations… .”

  Listening, Derron looked down at the new insignia he was still carrying in his hand. And then he began at last to fasten them on.

  About two miles along the road from the spot where they had met, Brother Jovann and Brother Saile topped yet another rise and discovered that they were about to catch up with the coach that had passed them so speedily not long before. Its load-beasts unharnessed and grazing nearby, the vehicle stood empty beside the broken gate of a high-walled enclosure, which crouched under slate roofs at the foot of the next hill ahead.

  Atop that hill there rose the already famed cathedral-temple of Oibbog, much of its stonework still too new to bear moss or signs of weathering. Holding its spire now immense and overshadowing against the lowering sky, the graceful mass seemed almost to float, secure above all human effort and concern.

  The ancient road, after passing the broken gate of the monastery at the foot of the new cathedral’s hill, swerved left to meet a bridge. Or the stub of a bridge, rather. From where the friars now stood they could see that all of the spans were gone, together with four of the six piers that had supported them. The river that had torn them down was raging still, jamming tree trunks like forked spears against the supports that remained. Obviously swollen to several times its normal flow, the current was ravaging the lowlands on both its banks.

  On the other side of the torrent, beyond another stub of bridge, the walled town of Oibbog sat secure on its high ground. People could be seen moving here and there in those distant streets. Inside the town’s gate, which opened on the Empire road, more coaches and load-beasts waited, having been interrupted in journeys outbound from the Holy City.

  Brother Jovann watched leaden clouds still mounting ominously up the sky. Fleeing from these clouds was the river, a great, swollen, terrified snake being lashed and goaded by distant flails of lightning, a snake that had burst its bonds and carried them away.

  “Brother River will not let us cross tonight.”

  When he heard this personification, Brother Saile turned his head slowly and cautiously around, as if he wondered whether he was expected to laugh. But before he had time to decide, the rain broke again, like a waterfall. Tucking up the skirts of their robes, both friars ran. Jovann sprinted barefoot, Saile with sandals flapping, to join the occupants of the coach in whatever shelter the abandoned-looking monastery might afford.

  A hundred miles away, in what had been the capital of the vanished Empire and was now the Holy City of the embattled Temple, the same day was warm and sultry. Only the wrath of Nabur the Eighth, eighty-first in the succession of Vicars of the Holy One, stirred like a storm wind the air of his luxurious private apartments.

  This wrath had been some time accumulating, thought Defender Belam, who stood in robes of princely scarlet, waiting in silent gravity for it to be over. It had been accumulated and saved up till now, when it could be discharged harmlessly, vented into the discreet ears of a most trusted auditor and friend.

  The vicar’s peripatetic tirade against his military and theological opponents broke off in mid-sentence; Nabur was distracted, and his pacing stopped, by a dull scraping sound, ending in a heavy thud, which floated in from outside, accompanied by the shouts of workmen. The vicar moved to look down from a balconied window into a courtyard. Earlier, Belam had seen the workmen down there, starting to unload some massive blocks of marble from a train of carts. Today a famed sculptor was to choose one block, and then begin work on Nabur’s portrait-statue.

  What did it matter if each of eighty predecessors had been willing to let their worldly glorification wait upon posterity?

  The vicar turned from the balcony suddenly, the skirts of his simple white robe swirling, and caught Belam wearing a disapproving face.

  In his angry tenor, which for the past forty years had sounded like an old man’s voice, the vicar declaimed, “When the statue is completed we will have it placed in the city’s Great Square, that the majesty of our office and our person may be increased in the eyes of the people!”

  “Yes, my Vicar.” Belam’s tone was quite calm. For decades he had been a Defender of the Faith and a Prince of the Temple. From close range he had seen them come and go, and he was not easily perturbed by vicarial tempers.

  Nabur felt the need to explain. “Belam, it is needful that we be shown increased respect. The infidels and heretics are tearing apart the world which has been given by God into our care!” The last sentence came bursting out, a cry from the inner heart.

  “My faith is firm, my Vicar, that our prayers and our armies will yet prevail.”

  “Prevail?” The vicar came stalking toward him, grimacing sarcastically. “Of course! Someday. Before the end of time! But now, Belam, now our Holy Temple lies bleeding and suffering, and we …” The vicarial voice dropped temporarily into almost inaudible weakness. “We must bear many burdens. Many and heavy, Belam. You cannot begin to realize, until you mount our throne.”

  Belam bowed, in sincere and silent reverence.

  The vicar paced again, skirts flapping. This time he had a goal. From his high-piled worktable he snatched up in shaking fist a pamphlet that was already worn from handling, and wrinkled, as if it had perhaps been once or twice crumpled up and thrown across a room.

  Belam knew what the pamphlet was. A contributing if not a sufficient cause of today’s rage, he thought, with his cool habit of theologian’s logic. A small thorn compared with others. But this particular barb had stabbed Nabur in the tenderest part of his vanity.

  Nabur was shaking the paper-covered booklet at him. “Because you have been away, Belam, we have not yet had the opportunity to discuss with you this—this back-stabbing abomination of Messire Vincento’s! This so-called Dialogue on the Movement of the Tides! Have you read it?”

  “The wretched man cares nothing about the tides. In this pamphlet his purpose is to once more promulgate his heresy-tainted dreams. He clings to his wish to reduce the solid world beneath our feet to a mere speck, to send us all flying around the sun. But even that is not enough. No, not for him!”

  Belam frowned now in real puzzlement. “What else, my Vicar?”

  Nabur advanced on him in a glow of anger, as if the Defender were the guilty one. “What else? I will tell you! The arguments of this pamphlet are cast in the form of a debate among three persons. And Vincento its author intends one of these fictional de
baters—the one who defends traditional ideas, who therefore is described as ‘simple-minded’ and ‘below the level of human intelligence’—he intends this person to represent ourself!”

  “My Vicar!”

  Nabur nodded vigorously. “Oh, yes. Some of our very words are put into the mouth of this simpleton, so-called!”

  Belam was shaking his head in strong doubt. “Vincento has never been moderate in his disputes, which have been many. Many? Nay, continuous, rather. But I am convinced that he has not in this pamphlet or elsewhere intended any irreverence, either to your person or to your holy office.”

  “I know what he intended here!” Vicar Nabur almost screamed the words. Then the most honored man in the world—possibly also the most hated, quite possibly also the most burdened by what he saw as his God-given tasks—groaned incontinently and, like a spoiled child, threw himself into a chair.

  Arrogance remained, as always, but the spoiled-child aspect did not last long. Irascible humors having been discharged, calm and intelligence returned.

  “Belam.”

  “My Vicar?”

  “Have you yet had time to study this pamphlet, while on your travels perhaps? I know it has been widely circulated.”

  Belam gravely inclined his head.

  “Then give us your considered opinion.”

  “I am a theologian, my Vicar, and not a natural philosopher. Therefore I have taken counsel with astronomers and others and find my own opinion in this matter generally confirmed. Which is that Vincento’s arguments in this pamphlet concerning the tides really prove nothing regarding the movement of the celestial bodies, and are not even very accurate as regards the tides themselves.”

  “He thinks we are all fools, to be dazzled by brilliant words into accepting whatever shoddy logic he offers us. And that we will not even realize it when we are mocked!” The vicar stood up for a moment, sighed, and then tiredly resumed his seat.

  Belam chose to ignore the theory, which he did not for a moment believe, that the pamphlet’s aim was sacrilegious mockery. The real issue was vital enough. “As the vicar may possibly recall, I had occasion some years ago to write to Vincento regarding his speculations on the idea of a sun-centered universe. Then, as now, such theorizing caused me concern in my capacity as Defender.”

  “We recall the occasion very well, ha hum. In fact, Messire Vincento has already been summoned here to stand trial for his violation in this pamphlet of your injunction at that time… . Belam, what were the precise words of your warning, again?”

  Belam thought awhile before answering and then spoke slowly and precisely. “I wrote him, first, that mathematicians are quite free to calculate and publish whatever they wish regarding the celestial appearances or any other natural phenomena— provided they remain strictly in the realm of hypothesis.

  “Secondly, it is quite a different matter to say that in fact the sun is in the center of the universe. That in fact our globe spins from west to east each day, while revolving round the sun each year. Such statements must be considered very dangerous; though not formally heretical, they are liable to injure faith by contradicting the Holy Writings.”

  “Your memory, Belam, is even more than usually excellent. Just when did you write this letter of injunction?”

  “Fifteen years ago, my Vicar.” Belam showed a dry smile momentarily. “Though I must admit that I reread our archive copy this morning.” He was utterly serious again. “Thirdly and lastly, I wrote Vincento that if some real proof existed of the sun-centered universe he champions, we should then be forced to revise our interpretations of those passages in the Holy Writings which would appear to say otherwise. We have in the past revised our scriptural interpretations, for example in regard to the roundness of the world. But, in the absence of any such proof, the weight of authority and traditional opinion is not to be set aside.”

  Nabur was listening with great attentiveness. “It seems to us, Belam, that you wrote well, as usual.”

  “Thank you, my Vicar.”

  Satisfaction appeared mixed with anger in the vicarial mien. “In this pamphlet Vincento has certainly violated your injunction! The debater into whose mouth he puts his own opinions advances no convincing proofs, at least none that can be grasped by mere mortals like ourselves. And yet he does argue, at great length, that in very truth our globe spins like a toy top beneath our feet. To convince the reader of this is his plain intention. Then!” The vicar stood up dramatically. “Then, on the last page, our argument—often expressed by us as a means of compromising these difficult philosophical matters— our argument, that God may produce whatever effect He likes in the world, without being bound by scientific causes—our argument is quoted by the simpleton-debater who has been wrong about everything else, quoted as coming from ‘a person of high learning and wisdom, supremely above contradiction.’ And at this the other debaters piously declare themselves silenced and decide to adjourn for refreshment. One cannot fail to see them, and their author, laughing up their sleeves!”

  While the vicar struggled to regain his breath and calm once more, there was silence in the apartment, save for the workmen’s shouts and laughter drifting in. What were they doing out there? Oh, yes, only the marble. Belam uttered a brief prayer that he might never again be required to order a stake prepared for a heretic.

  When Nabur spoke again, it was in a reasonable tone. “Now, Belam. Other than this weary argument on tides, which all seem to agree is inconclusive, do you suppose there can exist anywhere any evidence for Vincento’s spinning world? Anything he might impertinently introduce at his trial to … disrupt its course?”

  Belam drew himself up, slightly but perceptibly. “My Vicar, we shall of course conduct Vincento’s trial, or any other, with the greatest zeal for the truth that we can muster. Vincento may argue in his own defense—“

  “Of course, of course!” Nabur interrupted with a rapid dismissive waving of his hand; it was the gesture he used at a time when another man might apologize. But then he still waited for an answer.

  After frowning thoughtfully at the floor, Belam began to give what a later age would call a background briefing. “My Vicar, I have through the years made an effort to keep abreast of astronomers’ thinking. I fear many of them, religious and laymen both, have become Messire Vincento’s enemies. He has a relish and skill for making others look like fools. He has arrogance, in claiming for his own all that these new devices, telescopes, discover in the heavens. An arrogant and argumentative man is hard to bear, and triply hard when he is so often in the right.” Belam glanced up sharply for a moment, but Nabur had not taken the description as applying to anyone but Vincento. “My Vicar, is it not true that this pamphlet was brought to your attention by some priest-astronomer whom Vincento has offended and bested in some debate?” Though Belam knew of a number of such men, he was really only guessing.

  “Hmm. It may be so, Belam, it may be so. But Vincento’s offense is real, though it may have been maliciously called to our attention.”

  The two of them were pacing now, with old men’s measured tread, sometimes orbiting each other like perturbed planets. The Defender of the Faith said, “I raise the point to show the difficulty of obtaining unbiased testimony in this matter from other scholars. They are certainly unlikely to rush to Vincento’s defense. Nevertheless, I believe that most astronomers now perform their calculations using the mathematical assumption that the planets, or some of them, at least, revolve about the sun. Of course, that idea is not original with Vincento, nor is the idea that our globe is only a planet. It seems these assumptions make the mathematics of celestial movement more elegant and somewhat more satisfying to the scholar; fewer epicycles need be included in the orbits to make them fit the circular form—“

  “Yes, yes, Vincento makes the mathematics more elegant. But stick to the point. Can he have proof, mathematical or otherwise? Plain evidence of any kind?”

  “I would say rather the contrary.”

  “Ha!” Nab
ur stopped pacing and faced Belam squarely, almost smiling.

  The Defender said, “Had Vincento any plain proof, I think he would have printed it here. Arid there is solid evidence against him.” Belam gestured with his scholar’s hands, frail fingers unsure of technicalities but still grasping firmly whatever they were required to grasp. “It seems that if our globe did make a yearly journey round the sun, the relative positions of the fixed stars should appear to us to change from month to month, as we approached certain constellations or drew away from them. And no such displacement of the stars can be observed.”

  Vicar Nabur was nodding, looking satisfied.

  Belam made a shrugging gesture. “Of course, it is possible to argue that the stars are simply too distant for our measurements to discover such displacement. Vincento will always have arguments, if he wants to use them. … I fear that no other astronomer is going to be able to prove him wrong, much as some of them would love to do so. No, I think we must admit that the celestial appearances would be essentially the same if we did go round the sun.”

  “That is enough for any reasonable man to say.”

  “Exactly, my Vicar. As I wrote Vincento, where there is lack of other certainty, we have no excuse for turning our backs on tradition and substituting strained interpretations for the plain meaning of the Holy Writings.” Belam’s voice was rising gradually, achieving the tone of power that it would have in court. “We of the Temple have the solemn duty before God to uphold the truth that those Writings reveal. And, my Vicar, what I wrote to Vincento fifteen years ago is still true today—I have never been shown any proof of the motion of the world we stand on, and so I cannot believe that any such proof or any such motion exists!”