Saint Leibowitz and the Wild Horse Woman

by Walter Michael Miller, Jr.

  “I knew you weren’t just a runaway like the other, but something was wrong. You were some kind of fake. I wondered if you weren’t the cardinal’s prisoner.”

  Nimmy’s laugh was remote. “Something like that. I was in disgrace.”

  “Are you still in disgrace?”

  “As soon as the cardinal finds out I’ve seen you, I will be.”

  “I know. He ordered me out of town. That’s why I didn’t stay by the falls, so that you could go back the way you came.”

  “You left me a trail.”

  “You didn’t have to follow it.”

  “Yes, I did.” He eyed her accusingly.

  “Come back here where we can’t be seen.” She rolled over and crawled back into the cavern entrance, taking the gun with her. Nimmy followed. The rock overhead was less than ceiling height, and he could not stand up, but in the dim light from the door he could see a mattress on the floor, a saddle, a low table with a candle on it, and several wooden boxes.

  “You’ve been living here!”

  “Only for three days. Your employer told the sisters to turn me out. I’ve made my last trip to Valana. I’m not welcome at the Secretariat anymore. Our people will have to get somebody else. I’m going back home alone. That’s my horse you saw outside.”

  “But why? His Eminence told me you trade silver for scrip, but—”

  “Scrip?” She laughed. “Yes, that’s truth. Not the whole truth, but true. He doesn’t want me to handle it anymore because of you and me, and because of Jæsis. Jæsis was one of ours. And now your cardinal thinks we have a spy among us. He may be right, but it’s not me.”

  “Where did you get the gun?”

  “I swiped it from one of the crates in our shipment.”

  “Shipment?”

  “From the Secretariat to New Jerusalem, of course.”

  Nimmy was incredulous. “We are giving you guns?”

  “Not giving. Selling us some, depending on us to store some for the Secretary’s own arsenal. Didn’t you know? We’re bigger than you think, a nation almost. The mountains are easy to defend.”

  “I don’t think I should have come here,” he said in alarm.

  She caught his arm as he backed toward the door. “We won’t talk about it anymore. I thought you knew.” Her hand moved up his arm under the sleeve of his robe, caressing. “You’re nice and furry.”

  He sat down again. The gun was lying on one of the packing crates. He picked it up.

  “Be careful, it’s loaded. I was afraid, staying here alone. That’s the smallest model, but it shoots five times. Here, I’ll show you.” She took the weapon from him, manipulated it, and five brass objects fell one at a time out of the gun into her lap.

  “If those are the bullets, where is the powder?”

  She handed one of them to him. “The lead part is the bullet. The brass part contains the powder. Now watch this.” She cocked it and part of the gun rotated through a small angle. She pulled the trigger, and cocked it again, causing another rotation. “See? It shoots five times. And it’s this easy to reload.” She turned the cylinder one click at a time and dropped the cartridges back into their chambers.

  “But how do you reload the cartridges?”

  “You don’t, in the field. You carry a lot of cartridges with you. There’s a loading press back at your base, if you don’t lose the casings.”

  “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  “Neither has the Texark cavalry. The guns come from the west coast. I think the design came from Cardinal Ri’s country, but it was probably copied from the ancients.” She put the gun away, and embraced him suddenly. “I’m not going to see you again. Let’s make love—any way we can.”

  Resigned to what he had started, he did what he could to please her. They lay on the mattress, rubbing bodies and kissing. God, she is beautiful, he noticed in the faint light from the entrance. Spirit in the primordial ooze fucked the Earth, and the Earth gave birth to her, golden-haired as the new corn and laughing in the wind. O Day Maiden, thy name is Ædrea, and I love you.

  “Fujæ Go!”

  “What?” she whispered, squirming under him and grinning at her own pleasure.

  “Fujæ Go, It is one of the names of—”

  “What?”

  He remained silent, watching her violet eyes search his own.

  “Unspeakable?” she guessed.

  “You, are, almost, awake,” he groaned in sudden orgasm.

  “Oh, let me take it. Like before!” She reached down with her hand and caught his discharge.

  Spent, he nevertheless started up in total surprise. She was rubbing it into herself, into that tiny orifice no larger than a buzzard-quill pen. “What are you doing?” Nimmy gasped.

  Still grinning, she said, “Getting pregnant. Like last time. I’m way late for my period since we did it.”

  Stunned, he sat up. It had been black as pitch in Shard’s root cellar, and he had been too drunk to be certain what happened, and he could feel it but not see it, in spite of what he said in confession to an old onetime hermit.

  “Nimmy, you’re white as a sheet!”

  “Why?”

  “Shard had me stitched up by a surgeon, and he won’t have it undone, and he’s my father, and I love him, and I won’t defy him, but this way I can let a baby tear it open, if he won’t let a surgeon cut me.”

  “Oh, my God!” He rolled over with his face in his hands.

  “Nimmy, please don’t cry.” She held his shoulders and tried to keep him from shaking so. “Oh, please!—I didn’t mean to make you unhappy. I just picked you to have a baby with. You!”

  Nimmy felt dizzy and sick. There seemed to be only a moment of blackness, but when he awoke and went outside, Ædrea and the white gelding were gone. He was alone in front of the tiny cavern. She had written in the sand: Goodbye, Nimmy. You really are a monk.

  He saw her in town again, however, on his way home from the hills. Walking down the street, he looked over his shoulder at the sound of a horse and saw Ædrea slowly overtaking him. She shook her head quickly, but barely looked at him. He nodded understanding and kept going. She had stopped somewhere along the way, but had to come through town to go back home by the main road. Blacktooth, who was wearing his Leibowitzian novice’s robe, turned a corner and just avoided running into another man, who was skipping rope. He wore a wood and leather harness which held a harmonica up to his mouth. He played a rapid but recognizable Salve Regina while he jumped the rope; a cup on the ground at his side asked for, and had collected, a few coins. Blacktooth suppressed a sharp gasp and tried to pass behind him as quietly as possible. For there wearing a Leibowitzian postulant’s robe in the road was Torrildo playing the fool for coins. Blacktooth had gone about six paces when the music and the slapping of the rope suddenly stopped, so that he could hear the tread of hooves of his love’s mount as she too passed the excommunicated musical mendicant.

  “Hey, Blacktooth. Darling!” Torri called.

  Blacktooth broke into a fast trot. Behind him, he could hear them. Ædrea stopped to exchange pleasantries with Torrildo, whom she had apparently met before.

  “Oh, so he was the one!” he heard her say as he fled.

  The sound came from the chapel, a whishingslap followed by a moan. It was repeated every two or three seconds. His Eminence Cardinal Brownpony stopped to listen, then walked inside. After three days of absence without leave, his secretary for Nomad affairs was found at last. Blacktooth was kneeling before the altar of the Virgin in the Secretariat’s private chapel; he was flagellating himself with a scourge of thongs.

  “Stop it,” the cardinal said quietly, but the sound went on. Whish, slap, moan. Pause. Whish, slap, moan. Pause.

  The head of SEEC cleared his throat loudly. “Nimmy, stop it!”

  Finding himself ignored, he turned toward his office, the Axe at his elbow. “Come see me as soon as you can,” he called over his shoulder as the flogging continued. “We have an audience with
His Holiness early tomorrow. It’s about your petition.”

  • • •

  The audience went badly. As they walked to the Papal Palace, Blacktooth, his back sore and his guilt making him sick, said nothing to his master and his master said nothing to him. There was an alienation between them that he had never felt before. Brownpony obviously knew he had disobeyed and seen Ædrea, but he could not know, or perhaps only suspected, that she had told Blacktooth about the smuggling of guns. If they had spoken as they walked, mutual accusation might arise, and Nimmy was grateful for the strained silence.

  The Pope, still looking uncomfortable in his white cassock, greeted them warmly and without formality. As Blacktooth knelt to kiss his ring, Amen nodded to the cardinal, who then disappeared, leaving the surprised monk alone with the Supreme Pontiff.

  “Please get up, Nimmy. Come let us sit over here.”

  Blacktooth moved as if in a dream. As he sat down, he felt as if he were resuming his role as a penitent in Specklebird’s home cavern. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Specklebird become a cougar.

  “There seems to be a divine being among us,” said the cougar, smiling a thin smile.

  “The divine being should shut up,” Nimmy heard himself say, and heard with pleasure the cougar’s laugh. The being was playful.

  “You are going to continue in Cardinal Brownpony’s employ for some time, unless you object,” said the cougar, dissolving into an old black man with a cloud of white hair and white skullcap.

  “I am surprised he still wants me.” (Nimmy again hearing himself.)

  “Why do you think he chose you among his translators as a personal secretary?”

  “I have wondered that myself, Holy Father. I can only think that he has become attached to the people of his unknown mother, through his frequent contacts with them. I am of the same blood.”

  “It’s just ethnic nepotism? Do you really think so?”

  “The alternative is to suppose that he thinks I have some particular quality or talent that he appraises rationally, and so chooses me, in spite of my disobedience, but I cannot, Holy Father, imagine what that could be. Whatever it is, it must be imaginary on his part.”

  “In other words, you’re just a poor sinner who deeply loves God, but hasn’t got much to offer in the way of talent.”

  Sarcasm? Blacktooth withered. He had unconsciously spoken through a mask of humility, and the cougar as Specklebird-Peter ruthlessly held up a mirror to the mask he was looking through.

  Recovering after a moment, he said, reflecting the sarcasm, “All right, let’s admit that I’m a genius in Nomadic languages, having invented the new alphabet myself, which even Saint Ston’s uses, I’m told. Not only that, I’ve learned to defend myself, understand most of my master’s affairs with the Nomads, and that’s where we’re going. So perhaps his choosing me is rational. Also, I’ve been taught how to kill a man.”

  “You are to abstain from deadly violence, my son,” said the old mountain cat.

  “Neither am I to covet my neighbor’s ox, Holy Father.”

  The Pope laughed heartily. “You’re awake sometimes, Nimmy. I do believe it: you are called to contemplation.”

  Blacktooth sighed and lowered his head. “I could be laicized and still work for the cardinal, Holy Father. And I don’t have to be a monk to contemplate.”

  Specklebird returned to his subject: “In your case, I think you do. Cardinal Brownpony chose you because you are a monk, Nimmy, a real monk, and a contemplative. Why do you think he, a rich and powerful man, formed a friendship with me, a hermit and beggar, a bedraggled and much-reprimanded priest with no parish, denied access for several years to the altars of Valanan Churches? Your master wants to learn more about people like us, Nimmy. There is hope for him, just because he perceives we are different, and the perception leads him to curiosity rather than contempt. If you were not truly a man of religion, why would he choose you?—who know less about the Secretariat’s business than at least three of the others. I know him. He wonders what it is like to know God.”

  “If you are being infallible, I surrender. If not, I say he made a mistake, because I am, or was, a very bad monk.”

  “You bring in a load of donkey shit. That’s yours to confess if you think so, but it’s not yours to judge on the last day.”

  “I’m in love with a spook, a genny girl, Holy Father.”

  “Is that why you want to be laicized?”

  “Not at first.” He sighed. “Maybe that’s part of it now.”

  “Maybe?”

  “Because she too says I’m a monk. Everybody says I’m a monk but me.”

  “Smart girl. When you feel love for her, see God in her. Do not let this love lessen your love of the Lord. Passion is the other side of compassion, not its negation. You should be able to see and love God through any of His works, including a forbidden girl. But remember that you are a monk of Saint Leibowitz. Love is not a sin.”

  “But consummation is.”

  “For you. You yourself chose it to be so.”

  “As a runaway at age fifteen.”

  “Your solemn vows were taken much later, Brother St. George!”

  “But I was still ignorant of the world I was undertaking to shun by my vows, from which only you can absolve me, Holy Father.”

  “You have learned so much about the world lately?”

  “I am in love.”

  Pope Amen laughed. “Loving God through His creatures is admirable, if you know what you are doing. Now let me remind you of something. I have spoken to Abbot Jarad, and he reminded me. The Order of Saint Leibowitz was originally an order of hermits. It is possible for you to remain in the Order, but live apart from the monastery. You would live by the ancient rules of Saint Leibowitz, as he originally established them. This would be after your present employer releases you, of course. I ask you to consider the possibility, and postpone your request to be laicized until you decide.”

  Blacktooth sighed deeply. He looked at the old black man; the cougar was gone. He lowered his head in submission, but a question remained: What if she is really pregnant? he thought, walking away empty from the audience. Well, not quite empty: a poor monk had talked back to a Pope. Riches, riches.

  Other employees of SEEC briefed him on events during his five-day absence. Valana was still in turmoil. The external violence and internal cowardice that tainted the Conclave of 3244 were acknowledged even by the new Pope, who had astonished everyone by placing the sickened city of Valana under a sentence of interdict. The security guard Elkin recited for Blacktooth the names of the leaders of the violence, who were brought forth to undertake to repair damages to the palace. “These seventeen thugs knelt there before Pope Amen, their hero. He got from them a promise to repair all damage. Then he imposed a penance of prayer and fasting, and then absolved them.”

  “But this did nothing to satisfy the Benefez people,” Nimmy guessed. Elkin nodded.

  It was immediately apparent that the election of an eccentric religious ascetic of dubious orthodoxy and religious impulsiveness caused a nervous shuddering to pass through the hierarchy and the institutions of power from coast to coast. It was either an unexpected attack by the Holy Ghost upon the conclave, or the work of the Devil and the Red Deacon.

  The Archbishop of Texark interviewed nearly 170 cardinals who had participated in the election before he found enough electors who willing to affirm that their votes for Amen Specklebird had been given under duress. He stayed only three days in the city, and, claiming illness, failed to come to pay homage to the elected Pope. He departed with his troops and quite a few Eastern cardinals who were healthy enough and eager to escape the sickened city. Some members of his faction announced that the Holy See was still vacant because the election was forced. They called upon the old man to admit the election was invalid, to announce another conclave to be held in New Rome, and then to step down from the throne he illegally occupied. Brownpony and others made the case for a valid election, and
proposed that the faction recognize His Holiness or face ecclesiastical sanctions. Only one of the group changed his mind at this point, and the others left Valana for home. It seemed obvious that the old wound of schism had again burst its stitches.

  By his will, locally drawn, Cardinal Ri left his servants to Cardinal Brownpony, an embarrassment which the Secretary for Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Concerns managed to share with His Holiness the Pope, to whom the Archbishop of Hong left his wife and lesser concubines. The lawyer who drew the will became angrily defensive when questioned about the possibility of a mix-up of the two bequests, with Brownpony supposed to get the women. The Red Deacon echoed his anger, and testified that Cardinal Ri before his death had asked him to take care of his servants afterward. He called it obvious that Ri had intended to leave the fate of his loved ones in the hands of none but the servant of the servants of God, Amen Papa Specklebird. Since the servants of Cardinal Ri were very happy to find a new master, Brownpony decided to keep all but one of them, not as bond servants, but on five-year contracts renewable only with mutual consent. The Pope granted SEEC an increase in funds to pay the expense of keeping them. They numbered six skilled warriors, two personal servants, and Ri’s confessor. This priest he released to Saint Ston’s, who wanted the former chaplain eventually to teach courses in the Oriental Rite as practiced in his land and in the language spoken there.

  As for the Pope’s inheritance of the three women, Amen gave them the gold which the prelate had willed to him, plus freedom, and, if desired, he offered a choice of school, a convent, or a marriage broker.

  Wooshin for his part was delighted to be in command of a squad of well-trained fighters who shared a military tradition not unlike his own. The Axe was beginning to speak Rockymount like a native, and this fact alone made it natural that he assume command of Brownpony’s private army, but he made them go through the formality of choosing him, and then swearing allegiance to him and to the Cardinal Secretary, their employer. Blacktooth wondered if Brownpony knew, as the Axe had once told him, that any one of the men of his tradition would kill anybody his employer designated, even the Pope, even themselves. Wooshin’s comparison of these fighters to Hannegan’s assassins revealed his contempt for even the professionals among the latter.