CHAPTER 19
Let all guests who arrive be received
as Christ, for He is going to say,
“I came as a guest, and you received me.”
—Saint Benedict’s Rule, Chapter 53
THEY HAD ARRIVED AT LEIBOWITZ ABBEY DURING the recreational hour in the late afternoon of Ash Wednesday. The Yellow Guard presided over several kick-boxing matches between novices, and even the professed Brothers Wren and Singing Cow were sparring clumsily. Blacktooth observed that the style of fighting differed in some respects from that of Wooshin—although the Axe would never admit to having a “style”. However, Foreman Jing, who had fenced with Wooshin, called it the “way of the homeless sword,” and a “style of no-style.”
Brownpony’s first duty was to confer with Abbot Olshuen.
Blacktooth’s was to bring bad news to the Yellow Guard. First he established himself in the guest room.
“You’re still here!” he exclaimed upon entering.
“No, no,” said Önmu Kun, the Jackrabbit gun smuggler. “I’m back for the second time since you left.” He was full of wine and the urge to talk. “The Jackrabbit Weejus and Bear Spirit have chosen me as sharf, did you know that?”
Nimmy doubted it, but didn’t much care. By looking around at their war gear, Nimmy knew the comrades of the late Weh-Geh, although they were working hard around the abbey, participating in the liturgy, and teaching weaponless fighting to novices, were still staying in the guesthouse along with Önmu Kun. This to Nimmy meant that Olshuen was not about to take them on as postulants or novices without permission from on high.
They greeted him with smiles and handclasps as they returned from the bouts in the courtyard, but Önmu was still talking and laughing about his adventures in the Province, and the warriors were a polite lot. Only their eyes questioned him (“Weh-Geh? Where?”), but they waited for the smuggler to finish.
Brownpony’s flirtations with Churches in the Province had made it easier for Önmu to sell guns, he said. He had only to ask a pastor whether he had seen Cardinal Brownpony on his way toward Hannegan City. If the priest said that he had not, Önmu hurried away. If he had seen him, and showed the slightest enthusiasm, it meant there existed a group of local partisans wanting arms. One cadre which called itself the Knights of Empty Sky was a charity organization. He had supplied them not only with infantry weapons, but made a special trip to bring them three cannon that fired either a peach-size ball or a load of heavy buckshot, for those badly in need of charity. According to “Sharf” Önmu, the Knights anointed each cannon with oil, placed it in a well-caulked box, dug a shallow grave in the Churchyard, and buried it by night.
Blacktooth murmured politely in reply, but finally turned his back toward the tipsy smuggler, and faced the five warriors who watched him expectantly with those dark eyes with uncreased lids. He was ashamed of his failure to befriend an alien in a strange land for no better reason than that he was not Wooshin.
“Brother Weh-Geh was killed while defending his master,” he told them—rather loudly to silence Önmu. “I heard it happen, but I did not see it. There were three shots. There were four men holding guns pointed at him when I looked through the door, and he was already down. He had taken a gun he took from one of our guards. If he fired it, he must have missed. I am very sorry. Whether it was a mistake or not, he was living out his duty. He was a better monk than I.”
“Was it a mistake?” asked Jing-U-Wan, the Foreman.
“Who were those four men?” Gai-See wanted to know.
“Did he have last rites?” asked Woosoh-Loh. “A proper funeral?”
“Dare we ask Abbot Olshuen to say a Mass for him?”
Nimmy tried to answer some of their questions and apologize for his inability to answer others. He finished his talk with them by promising to see Olshuen about a Mass for the repose of souls on behalf of Weh-Geh, and he went at once to the abbot’s office. The door was open, and Brownpony was sitting at the abbot’s desk and talking while Olshuen sat on a stool.
“It’s a shame the Hannegan has a monopoly on the telegraph,” the cardinal complained as he finished writing a letter which Nimmy was certain was addressed to the Valanan Curia. He turned sideways at the desk to look at the abbot who owned the desk and he saw Nimmy in the doorway, beckoned him in, and continued. “The Church has the money to hire Filpeo’s technicians. We could build aline from here to Valana, and perhaps from Valana to the Oregonians.”
The abbot said, “Money enough, yes. But what about the copper? I heard Hannegan had to confiscate coinage, pots, and Church bells. Buy it, you might. But who has it to sell?”
“I’m told silver conducts electrical essence even better than copper. And I’m not sure it’s practical, but we have a source of silver.”
“Oh? Where is that?”
Brownpony changed the subject. He handed Olshuen a letter and asked, “What do you think of this? Come in, Nimmy, come in.”
The abbot took it and studied for a bit, holding it so that Blacktooth might read it as well if he wanted to:
To Sorely Cardinal Nauwhat, Secretary of Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Concerns.
From Elia Cardinal Brownpony, Vicar Apostolic to the Hordes.
Non accepto!
You know it is not possible to hold a conclave without notification of every cardinal on the continent. The Curia must have recommended to His Holiness that he clarify the law on both resignations and conclaves, and I cannot believe that he made legal a conclave such as the one the Curia has apparently conducted. You know it, and I know it. You must have been a minority in an angry Sacred College.
My imprisonment by the Hannegan forced His Holiness to offer his resignation. But I am free now, and I pray that he reconsider. He is not bound by anything he did under pressure of blackmail; let him renounce his resignation saying that it was forced. If he will not do that, then you must summon every cardinal (including me here at the abbey) to Valana to choose another successor of Saint Peter, complying in every way with existing legislation.
Although I appreciate the irony of electing a Pope that Hannegan just released from jail in a trade-off of this kind, I have to say again, non accepto, as you, Sorely, knew I would.
I await instructions from my sovereign Pontiff, Pope Amen, and when they come, it would please me greatly if you can spare Wooshin to bring them here.
“You ask me what I think? How should I know?” Olshuen said while shaking his head. “In the name of God, m’Lord, I am only a monk of Leibowitz. I am not Abbot Jarad. My only vocation is here, my God is here, and although I am a servant of Holy Mother Church…”
“Oh, bother. Stop, stop, please! I’m sorry I showed it to you. Jarad should have refused the red hat, but the seventh Linus insisted. I know that, and you probably do too.”
“I’m trying to remember if an abbot here ever refused a Pope’s request, m’Lord.”
“Maybe not, but if Amen Specklebird made you a cardinal, what would you say?”
Olshuen hesitated before he said, “No, not even from him.” It was plain that even those who knew him only by hearsay adored the old priest-hermit-magician Pope. But among lovers of power, only Brownpony seemed to feel a deep affection for him.
Nimmy presented his petition on behalf of Jing-U-Wan’s men and their deceased brother, and Olshuen promised a Mass. The next morning Brownpony sent Blacktooth to Sanly Bowitts with the message and gold enough to hire a courier with two horses to carry it quickly to Valana. The messenger promised to ride from dawn to dusk, and by night when the moon permitted, and to wait in Valana for a reply, unless Wooshin replaced him.
While he was returning to the abbey, he met Gai-See riding toward the village. They exchanged greetings and paused for a moment. Nimmy asked why he was going to town, and Gai-See said, “After you left, the cardinal decided to send another message. I have it with me.”
“Another letter to Valana?”
“No. New Jerusalem.” He frowned at himself. “You
have a right to ask that?”
“Probably not. I’ll try to forget it.”
They went their opposite directions. Nimmy knew well what the cardinal had to say to Mayor Dion. Somehow a small weapon from their west-coast arsenal had found its way into the hand of Filpeo Harq. Both master and servant had seen it. There seemed to be no other possibility than that New Jerusalem had been infiltrated by the Hannegan’s agent. But he would not ask Brownpony about it, lest he make trouble for Gai-See, who told him the letter’s destination.
While Nimmy in October had found unfriendly attitudes in the atmosphere at the monastery, he now found them downright hostile in early March. He was being shunned again by the professed. On the other hand, some novices seemed to find him much more interesting than before. He tried to find out what had happened since, but “unexpected visitors” was the only mumbled answer he could get to his questions.
The three novices who were in the abbot’s waiting room overheard a shouting match between the abbot and Cardinal Brownpony—or “Pope Brownpony,” as one of them called him—and mentioned it to Nimmy. Very little of the shouting was understandable, but that it was about Blacktooth, they were certain.
Blacktooth decided to confront the cardinal, but upon finding him kneeling before the lady altar praying to the Virgin, he merely knelt beside him and waited. Brownpony stirred, and Nimmy sensed his discomfort. The Red Deacon crossed himself and arose. The monk waited a few seconds and did the same. Brownpony was pacing toward the door. Nimmy shuffled behind him. Hearing the shuffle, the Red Deacon turned.
“Do you want something, Brother St. George?”
“Only to know what’s going on.”
They walked outside and stopped.
“I knew she might be alive. But I did not want to arouse false hopes. Go climb the Mesa of Last Resort. The man who saw her last may be living there now.” The cardinal started walking away.
“She? Who?” Nimmy called after him.
Brownpony looked back at him without answering.
“Ædrea!”
“Go to the Mesa. I’ll tell the abbot I sent you. He wanted to send you himself. But it was my responsibility. I let you down.”
Pale as a ghost, Nimmy hurried toward the kitchen to beg some hard biscuits and water for the journey. From the cook, who was in a good humor, he received the biscuits, some cheese, and a wineskin filled with a mixture of wine and water. Then he went to the guesthouse to pack a bedroll; it was too late to leave that day, so he slept and left before daylight while his brethren were being called to Lauds. It was a long hike to Last Resort, and the first thing he saw when he arrived at the usual way of ascent was a recent grave with two sticks lashed together for a cross. Its meaning eluded him. After the slow climb, the sun was sinking behind distant mountains. He went straight to the ramshackle shelter he had discovered the previous year and found it rebuilt, but no one was home. He was reluctant to try the door.
After shouting a few times and hearing no answer, he sat on his bedroll to wait. The light was becoming too dim for reading Compline, so he said his rosary, sometimes contemplating the mystery of each decade and sometimes contemplating the beautiful waif who had stolen it from him. The grave at the foot of the Mesa kept coming to mind. He shook his head impatiently and resumed contemplation of the fifth glorious mystery, which was the coronation in Heaven of the Mother by the Son, after her bodily assumption. But there was no before or after, according to Amen Specklebird, for whom the coronation of the Virgin was an event belonging to eternity. The Virgin’s face became Ædrea’s, and he finished the last decade as quickly as possible. When he looked up, a gaunt silhouette with a club raised on high stood over him against the twilight sky.
It croaked: “Don’t get up! Who are you? What are you doing here?”
“I am Brother Blacktooth St. George, and my master Cardinal Brownpony sent me.”
“Oh, I remember you now,” said the old Jew, squinting in the twilight. “On the road to New Jerusalem, you asked too many questions.”
“Did you make rain for them?”
“Still asking too many questions. Your master sent you with a message? For me?”
“No, he sent me with a question. What can you tell me about Ædrea? You saw her. Where did she go?”
The old Jew was silent for several seconds. “I happened to be of some assistance to her when she fled from her father. She came here with me, after the abbey turned her away. She had her babies. She went away.”
“Babies!”
“Twin boys. They were not alike, though. She left them with me, because they were not perfect. Her father would have killed them. And she had nowhere else to go but home. She knows too much about affairs in New Jerusalem to risk getting caught on the way east to the Valley.”
“Where are the children?”
“The milk of my goat did not agree with them. I took them to Sanly Bowitts. I left them with a woman who promised to take care of them until they were sent for.”
“By whom?”
“Hmm-nnn. How should I know? Someone from the Valley. Or you, the father, probably.”
“Ædrea told you that I am the father?”
“She is a talkative young woman. She was here for, hmm-nnn, seven or eight weeks. She was always singing or talking. I miss her singing, not her talking.” He groped in his bag and handed Nimmy pieces of flint and steel. “That’s the hearth, there in the shadow. Light the tinder. The wood is stacked.”
“Was it ahard birth?”
“Very hard. I had to cut. She lost a lot of blood.”
“Cut? You are a physician?”
“I am all things.”
Nimmy got the fire started at last. Following the old hermit’s instructions, he found in the hut a box of crumbled dry meal, dumped two double handfuls to a pot with a bail, and added water from a great jug by the door.
“Hang it from the tripod. Stir it with a clean stick.”
“What is that stuff?”
“Food, Father.”
“Don’t call me that. I’m no priest!”
“Did I say you were? You’re a father, though. I could call you ‘Dad.’”
Blacktooth felt himself reddening. “Why don’t you call me ‘Nimmy’?”
“Is that what they call you at the abbey?”
“No, but my master does.”
“Is he not at the abbey?”
“Yes?”
“Well, it seems your master let you think she was dead, isn’t it so?”
“He said he couldn’t be sure, didn’t want to arouse false hope. I think I believe him.”
“Hah!” The old Jew began chuckling to himself.
Nimmy stirred the pot until the mush turned thick. The old hermit brought out metal plates, spoons, and cups. Nimmy pulled his biscuits out of the bedroll, poured the cups full of his watered wine. They sat on a bench made of a flat stone supported by fat legs that were sunk in the ground, and ate dinner by the firelight.
Blacktooth crossed himself and whispered the blessing. The old Jew, holding his bowl, sang out a few words of prayer in a strange tongue which Nimmy supposed to be Hebrew.
The mush, Benjamin told him, was made of processed mesquite beans he had brought from Sanly Bowitts. Later in the year, he would pick and process his own. He had raised goats here before, and would try to acquire a herd again. He spoke of past ages as if he had been there personally. Several times he spoke of an “Abbot Jerome” as if he were still ruling the monastery, and referred to the conquests of Hannegan II as if they were still happening. For him, all ages seemed to coexist in his own private Now.
Nimmy spent the night inside the old man’s hut. Again he dreamed the dream of the open grave at the abbey, the one with the baby in it, but he awoke in surprise from the dream, knowing that Jarad Kendemin was buried there. In the morning, he dared to ask Benjamin about the recent grave at the foot of the Mesa. The hermit denied any knowledge of it, then noticed Nimmy’s doubt.
“If you think I
buried her there, go try to dig her up.”
“I believe you.”
Nimmy was not in a hurry to leave. His anger toward the cardinal had been aroused, and he wanted to rid himself of it, or turn it into mere diminished trust. Brownpony had withheld the truth from him before, but he could not remember an outright lie. From what the old man said, he knew Ædrea thought he lied. But she had not heard his actual words to Blacktooth.
He stayed an extra day and night. The sky was overcast, and a cold wind had risen. The waterskin and the hermit’s jug were empty.
“Where do you get water up here?”
Benjamin looked at him, pointed casually at the sky, then continued milking the goat.
Twenty seconds passed. A large, cold drop of water hit the monk in the face. Moments later, there was a brief cloudburst. Nimmy asked no more questions.
The old hermit complained that Nimmy was eating more food than he brought with him. So he left shortly after dawn on the third day. When gravel came rattling down the way behind him, he looked back up the path. The old Jew was following him down with a shovel.
Because of the dream, Nimmy had a brief vision of an open grave. And on the third day, she arose again—
But the grave was not open. Instead, they now found two graves at the foot of the Mesa. Obviously one had been dug only yesterday. The old Jew leaned on his shovel, and squinted at Nimmy.
“No, I won’t dig,” the monk said. “Goodbye and thank you.” He hurried away toward Sanly Bowitts without looking back.
Benjamin had given him the old woman’s name. He found her old adobe house without difficulty, and counted seven children playing in the yard. He suddenly realized this was the “orphanage” the abbey had always supported in the town. The woman was sullen. She seemed to know who he was and why he was here, but considered him an outcast and a scoundrel. “Why did you not come for them ten days ago? They have been taken away for adoption.”
“By whom?”
“Three sisters.”
“Where were they taken?”
Saint Leibowitz and the Wild Horse Woman Page 31
