Saint Leibowitz and the Wild Horse Woman

by Walter Michael Miller, Jr.

  “I’m not at liberty to say.”

  When Blacktooth showed signs of anger, she called him a scoundrel, a libertine, a false monk. She ordered him to leave at once, and retired to the old adobe building.

  “Where did the mother go?” he yelled after her, to no effect. So he marched in gloom back to the abbey.

  The shooting began while the monks were in the convent’s refectory for lunch on the following day. Atop the parapet wall, Father Levion, now Prior, was fasting when the first distant boom! occurred. He was praying, as he often did, toward the grandeur of the broken desert horizon and to the God who made it. The first explosion scarcely distracted him from prayer, although his eyes scanned the open country for a sign of smoke. After the second boom! Önmu Kun came running out of the refectory and across the courtyard. He saw Levion on the wall and raced up the stairs to join him.

  “Where?” he asked breathlessly.

  “I don’t know. I didn’t see anything.”

  Boom! The interval between explosions was about a minute and a half.

  “It sounds like it’s coming from over there,” said Levion, pointing down the valley.

  “The crosswind makes it sound that way,” Önmu replied, looking straight at the Mesa of Last Resort.

  After the fourth boom!, he pointed at the Mesa. There was indeed a tiny wisp of smoke up there.

  On the fifth boom!, a plume of dust shot up from a spot about two hundred paces from the abbey.

  “Damn! He’s getting our range!” cried the smuggler.

  On the sixth boom!, a cannonball hit the center of the road m front of the abbey, bounced through the open gates, caromed off the stone curb around the rose bed, and went on bouncing directly into the convent and through the refectory doors. Screaming was heard, and monks came pouring out of the building.

  “Take cover!” yelled the Jackrabbit. “He’s got two balls left.”

  There were no more shots, and while the monks at their meager Lenten lunch were badly frightened, the only damage was in the kitchen; but Önmu had indicted himself by knowing too much. The cannonball was found, and although it had been deformed and somewhat flattened, there appeared to be a few characters in Hebrew scratched upon it. An expert was summoned. The legible part of the inscription said, “…maketh bread to spring forth from the Earth.” It was a blessing over food. “Apt enough, considering the target,” said the translator. There was an immediate conference in the abbot’s office. Blacktooth was called in, and appointed interrogator, since he knew the man as well as anyone, and spoke his dialect best.

  They met in the guesthouse.

  “By what right are you staying here, good simpleton?”

  “I was invited,” said the Jackrabbit.

  “By whom?”

  “By Abbot Olshuen, who else?”

  “At the cardinal’s insistence?”

  “Probably.”

  “The abbot knows what you do?”

  “I don’t know. But even if he knows, I would not, I could not, bring my merchandise here. I never have.”

  “So you bury it in the desert here until you’re ready to travel again. Then you dig it up.”

  “This time, the old man dug it up. My bad luck. I thought he never came down, and never had visitors. It’s the first time I used that spot. I didn’t expect him to desecrate a grave.”

  “He’s a little crazy, but not stupid. He knew it was no grave. So he dug up your cannon, and sent us a message with it.”

  “He must have exceeded the maximum load to reach this far. And pointed it up about forty degrees.”

  “And he’s shooting from about five hundred feet above us.”

  “Was he trying to kill someone?”

  “Old Benjamin? No. He was telling the abbot about you.”

  “I’d better leave.”

  “What was in the other grave?”

  “Rifles.”

  “If you’re going to try to reclaim your merchandise, someone is going to go with you. There are six of us. Any one of us can manage you.”

  “Even you?” The Jackrabbit laughed.

  Blacktooth knocked the wind out of him and threw him in the corner. Önmu looked up in surprise, gasping for breath, but without anger.

  “Why did you do that, Brother St. George?”

  “To show you, if you get into a quarrel with the old man over your guns, you’re going to lose.”

  “But they are my guns! They are for the Grasshopper, and I am Sharf.”

  “You know that’s a lie. You told me yourself you get a commission.”

  “Sure, if I sell them. If I lose them, they’re mine.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I have to pay for them. Who do you think owns them, Cardinal Brownpony?”

  “I don’t know, but I doubt it. Mayor Dion, probably. But whoever sells them, you’re only the broker.”

  “I am also Sharf! Secretly, of course.”

  Önmu Kun disappeared from the abbey that night, never to return. Being related to the royal tribe was prerequisite to election as sharf of a horde, and Nimmy doubted that any Nomad north of the Nady Ann would recognize his claim. Gai-See was sent galloping toward Last Resort on the abbot’s horse to protect the old Jew, and if possible to negotiate the surrender of the weapons. He returned the following day dragging one cannon, and reported two empty graves, also reported that Benjamin had not opened the second grave. Evidently Kun had recovered his rifles and moved on. But so it was that Leibowitz Abbey came into possession of modern ordnance, but as yet no ammunition. Abiquiu Olshuen locked the cannon in the basement room with the rusty weapons from earlier centuries.

  Novices reported another loud argument between the cardinal and the abbot behind closed doors. This time it was about guns. Brownpony emerged angry and humiliated; he told Blacktooth that Olshuen felt the abbey’s hospitality had been abused.

  “He knows now that the Jackrabbit is being armed,” he told Nimmy. “He’s afraid for the monastery, if the Hannegan suspects his monks are involved. He wants Jing’s men to leave.”

  “But they have nothing to do with it!”

  “No, but the concept of warrior monks is alien to Dom Abiquiu’s idea of Christianity. To him it’s a scandal. We should leave here soon.”

  “Did the Jackrabbit grandmothers really choose Önmu Kun as Sharf, as he claims?”

  “Everything is secretive in Jackrabbit country, Nimmy. With them, the test is not legal but practical. If the men follow him in battle, he is Sharf. If they don’t, he is not, no matter what the Weejus say.”

  Well into Lent, a messenger from Hannegan City brought a petition addressed to all bishops and signed by Urion Benefez and seven other cardinals. It announced a General Council of the Church to be held in New Rome six weeks after Easter, and all bishops and abbots able to travel must attend. The purpose of the Council would be to draft new legislation concerning conclaves.

  “Only a sovereign Pontiff can summon a General Council,” said Brownpony, and refused to sign. Olshuen also refused. The messenger shrugged and rode on.

  Wooshin arrived the following day with the expected summons to a conclave in Valana. He was warmly greeted by Brownpony, Blacktooth, and the Yellow Guard, but the summons he brought was rather strange. Apparently the Curia knew of the petition for a General Council, for the tone of the summons was angry, and the last paragraph threatened excommunication to any cardinal who attended a rump session in New Rome “where schismatics and heretics will try to install a known sodomite to sit on the throne of Peter the Apostle.” The document was signed by Amen, Episcopus Romae, servus servorum Dei, but Brownpony was suspicious of the signature, and the language was certainly not Specklebird’s.

  “Things are getting ugly,” said the Red Deacon. “We must leave here at once.”

  CHAPTER 20

  We think it sufficient for the daily dinner,

  whether at the sixth or the ninth hour,

  that every table have two cooked dishes,
>
  on account of individual infirmities, so that

  he who for some reason cannot eat of the one

  may make his meal of the other.

  —Saint Benedict’s Rule, Chapter 39

  FOR MORE THAN A YEAR NOW, IT SEEMED TO Blacktooth that he was always on the road. This time there was no coach to Valana. Eight men with sixteen horses rode the papal highway north. Several miles south of the side road which led to Shard’s place and on into the mountains of New Jerusalem, Cardinal Brownpony stopped, called Blacktooth and Wooshin to his side, and announced a detour around that whole area.

  Blacktooth protested. “M’Lord, the only one who needs to take a detour is me. I can ride east out into the scrub, travel a few miles north, and then catch up with you on the road before dark.”

  “No,” said the cardinal. “I want no more than one of us to be seen. Wooshin, pick a man to ride past the glep guards and take a message to Magister Dion. The message is really for Shard as much as for the Mayor, but Shard will accept orders only from Dion.”

  “Why not send me?” Axe offered.

  “No. Shard remembers you.”

  Nimmy said, “He may remember any or all of us. He went for his gun and came out shooting when we were on our way to the abbey last fall.”

  Axe went to consult the warrior monks. When he came back, he said, “I suggest Gai-See. He’s the smallest target and rides the fastest horse. If he can’t find a way around, he can wait until dark and gallop right up Scarecrow Alley. There’s moon enough.”

  Brownpony nodded and beckoned to Gai-See, then instructed him to avoid any contact with the families that guarded the passage. “Tell this to Dion: ‘On the east, open gates to the Wilddog and to the Grasshopper. On the west, send gifts to the Curia.’ Now repeat that, please.”

  “On the east, open gates to the Wilddog and to the Grasshopper. On the west, send gifts to the Curia.”

  “Good! Then remind him of what Nimmy and I saw in the hand of the Hannegan. I sent him a message about it from the abbey. If he got it, he will know what has to be done. Afterward, he will provide you with a well-laden pack mule. Leave New Jerusalem from the west and come on to Valana as fast as you can.”

  Gai-See dismounted, bowed to the cardinal, and sat down beside the trail. “He’ll wait until dark,” said Axe. “I too think it’s safer that way.”

  Brownpony looked at Blacktooth. “Why so disappointed?” he asked.

  “It’s nothing, m’Lord.”

  “You were hoping someone would be able to find out if Ædrea is in her father’s house?”

  “I know it’s not practical. It would be dangerous.”

  “Never mind. Gai-See can ask the Mayor about her.”

  “And get the same kind of truth about her as he gave to me?”

  Brownpony shrugged. “I can’t tell Dion what to say or do, except with my own property.”

  It was the first time the cardinal had spoken of the arsenal as his own property, but that was not Blacktooth’s concern.

  “M’Lord, I wish Gai-See would not mention Ædrea to Dion.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because he will be wondering about a spy or a traitor when Gai-See tells him about the gun we saw in Filpeo’s hand. And Ædrea ran away from home during that time. We know where she went, but the Mayor may not believe her.”

  The cardinal looked down at Gai-See. “Did you hear and understand that?”

  “Yes, m’Lord Cardinal. I’ll be discreet.”

  “We’ll see you in Valana. Now, let’s ride a mile or so back into the juniper scrub.”

  Three days later, they camped in the scrub half a mile east of the papal highway on the evening of Monday, April 3rd. It would be the night of the Paschal full moon of Holy Week, but the sun was not yet set, and because their food supply was running short, Nimmy went forth in search of roots and edible greens that might be beginning to sprout, while Wooshin took the party’s only firearm and went to hunt small game while the cardinal’s warriors gathered wood and tended the fire. Brownpony himself, clearly exhausted from the long journey and developing a nasty cough, wrapped himself in blankets and with his head on a saddle, fell asleep before dark.

  Blacktooth dug up a few bulbs of last year’s wild onions from the bank of a half-frozen creekbed; they had little value except as seasoning, in case the Axe came back with meat. Of course it was a day of Lenten abstinence, but it was also an emergency, especially for the cardinal, who had never fully recovered from his ordeal in the breeding pit. Nimmy tried to keep track of his direction from camp by watching the sunset, the stars of twilight, and finally the glow of the campfire in the distance. He found yucca, and uprooted some skinny tubers from the hard ground with a sharp stick.

  He heard two gunshots, and decided that they came from Wooshin’s pistol, but they were closely followed by a third—too closely for the Axe to have reloaded. A horse galloped past along a creekbank at the foot of the hill, and he caught a glimpse of a Nomad rider. There was a burst of shouting from the direction of the camp, accompanied by one more gunshot, but he could make out only the voices of Foreman Jing and Woosoh-Loh in their native tongue, until he heard Axe shout a death threat in poor but understandable Wild-dog, and a weaker echo from the cardinal that the threat was real and enforceable.

  Nimmy hurried back toward the firelight as quietly as possible. Two Nomad outlaws were sitting on the ground with their hands tied behind them, surrounded by Brownpony’s guards. The cardinal himself was sitting up in his bedroll. A strange small horse was tied to a juniper, and two unfamiliar muskets were propped against a log.

  “Nimmy, where are you?”

  It was Brownpony’s voice. Blacktooth hurried into the firelight and dumped the yucca and wild onions beside the body of a dead wilddog. The cardinal winced at the odor of the onions.

  Wooshin explained. Three motherless ones with only one horse among them had tried to steal two horses from the cardinal. One had succeeded but the men who had dismounted to search and rob Brownpony had been surprised and captured by Axe and the others who had heard their approach.

  The scruffy Nomads were looking around in terror at the strange warriors with their long blades.

  “Nimmy, you tell them what the situation is,” said Axe with a wink.

  Blacktooth brushed the root dirt from his robe and went to stand behind his master. Facing them across the fire, he drew himself up, pointed at one of the men, and said in impeccable Grasshopper:

  “I know you. You haunt this region. Now you have accosted the Vicar Apostolic to the hordes, to whom even the Qæsach dri Vørdar Ösle Høngan Chür comes for counsel, not to mention the Grasshopper sharf, Eltür Bråm. Your fellow bandit has just stolen the horse of the High Shaman of all Christendom, the next Sharf and Great Uncle of the Holy Roman Catholic Church. He has also been chosen by the Buzzard of Battle; the Weejus have announced it.”

  “Don’t overdo it, Nimmy,” said the cardinal in Churchspeak.

  “Horse for horse!” said the bolder of the two. “You take this horse, Great Man. We even.”

  Nimmy ignored him and spoke again to the man he recognized. “You! It was Holy Madness himself, now Lord of the Hordes, that stopped you from raping Ædrea last year near Shard’s place, not far from here.”

  The outlaw shrugged but seemed suddenly meek.

  Brownpony picked himself up out of the bedroll and went to inspect the scruffy mustang. Having walked around the little mare, he faced them and said sternly in Wilddog, “She belongs to the Høngin Fujæ Vurn. You dare to violate a mare of the Wild Horse Woman! Lord Ösle Høngan Chür would have you eviscerated and fed to the dogs. Wooshin, release the animal at once.”

  The Axe flipped his sword twice, once to slice the hackamore that made her fast to the limb, the second time to swat her behind with the flat of the blade. The mustang snorted, kicked, and clattered away into the night. Since Gai-See had not taken an extra mount on his gallop through Scarecrow Alley, they still had an extra horse
per man, but neither Brownpony nor his aides were ready to let the matter lie.

  “Who is your master?” the cardinal asked.

  “His name is Mounts-Everybody.”

  “How far is his camp from here?”

  “Almost a day’s ride, Great Man.”

  “How many men in your band?”

  The outlaw seemed to be counting on mental fingers for a moment. “Thirty-seven, I think.”

  “And women? Children?”

  “Yesterday there were five captives. Today maybe more, maybe less.”

  “And how many bands like yours?”

  “I don’t know. Sometimes we encounter other no-family people. Sometimes we fight, sometimes we join together. There are many bachelors along the fringes of the Wilddog range, and to the south along the Nady Ann.”

  “Do you ever fight or rob farmers?”

  “It is not a wise policy.”

  “Does it happen?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “Would you like to be paid for fighting farmers?”

  The captives looked at each other and shifted uncomfortably. Brownpony elaborated:

  “There is a war between the Grasshopper and the Hannegan’s farmers.”

  “We know, but we are at war with both.”

  “But suppose the Grasshopper accepted you as allies?”

  “That they would never do, Great Man.”

  “Did the monk here tell you that I am the Christian shaman to all the hordes?”

  “We don’t know what that means.”

  “It means,” said Blacktooth, “that the word of His Eminence has power with all three hordes.”

  “Would you fight against the Hannegan under Demon Light?”

  “There is no possibility.”

  “What about a Jackrabbit sharf?”

  The idea of a Jackrabbit sharf brought roaring laughter from the bound men.

  “Let the cowards go,” Brownpony ordered. “You whimpering wild puppies go tell your Mounts-Everybody to come and see me in Valana, unless he’s a coward, and bring back the horse you stole. Otherwise, you will be driven south of the Nady Ann and east of the Bay Ghost. The Hannegan will know what to do with you. Now go.”