Saint Leibowitz and the Wild Horse Woman

by Walter Michael Miller, Jr.

  “You know her as Shard’s Ædrea,” said Brownpony. “She became a nun on the Feast of Saint Clare last week, and so Mother Iridia named her Clare, which is what she will be called in her cloister.”

  Slojon sputtered. “Her offenses are not unspecified. She violated the law by leaving the community without a permit from the Mayor’s office. And she is suspected of espionage.”

  “She is innocent of espionage against this realm, to my certain knowledge,” Brownpony growled. “As for your other complaint against her, the Church does teach obedience to legitimately constituted government, such as yours. Since she admits her guilt in disobeying the law while it was in force, I promise you she will be appropriately sentenced for that offense by me. I must take note, however, that you are no longer enforcing the law that she broke. That is your affair. Sister Clare is our affair. You shall release her immediately to an ecclesiastical court. You well know the sanctions incurred for usurping Church jurisdiction. My predecessor of beloved memory excommunicated the Emperor of Texark himself for jailing me and my secretary.”

  “So that’s the trick! Well, it won’t work with me.” Slojon turned and walked away from the papal audience with minimum courtesy.

  Brownpony immediately drafted a letter to all clergy throughout the Suckamints commanding that the sacraments be withheld from the Mayor’s son until he obeyed the order to release Sister Ædrea St. Clare into the custody of the Curia. The Pope knew that Slojon would not give any weight to such a sanction, except for the humiliating effect of the bad publicity when the letter was prominently posted for all to read in every Church in the mountains.

  Still, Slojon would not budge until his father returned from battle a week later. Dion conferred with the Pope. First they discussed the war in the Province, which had stalled around the 98th meridian. Then they discussed Ædrea. Whatever he might believe privately, Dion was a public Catholic. After the conference, he released Sister Clare into the custody of Mother Iridia Silentia, O.D.D., who became her defense counsel. The sanctions against the Mayor’s son were lifted. In an unusual move, the Pope permitted Slojon to assist the schoolteacher Abraha Cardinal Linkono as inquisitor and prosecutor.

  The outcome was inevitable, and the only point in dispute became the sentence to be imposed upon the nun by the Supreme Pontiff.

  Brownpony noticed that the beauty of the barefoot Sister who stood before him had not been diminished by motherhood, or completely obscured by her coarse habit. She was radiant, smiling at him faintly, and her eyes were attentive and unafraid. That was bad. It implied that there was a conspiracy, and it had worked. Slojon already knew he had been duped, but—he noticed the faint smile.

  Thus spoke Amen II, with some attempt at sternness: “Sister Ædrea St. Clare-of-Assisi, you are remanded into the permanent custody of Cardinal Silentia. For your offense against the laws of New Jerusalem, a legitimate secular authority, we sentence you to cross the Brave River and spend the rest of your life in exile there, or until your sentence is commuted by the Holy See. Should you cross the river again from south to north, you incur excommunication by the very act of doing so.”

  Ædrea’s smile did not change. The sentence imposed was not different from that which her vows imposed. She came slowly forward and knelt to kiss her judge’s ring. “Where is Blacktooth?” she whispered.

  Brownpony suppressed a chuckle at her audacity, and whispered back, “I have no idea.”

  Thus it came to pass that the lady cardinal departed from New Jerusalem with Sister Ædrea St. Clare and the three nuns who had been her conclavists in Valana. A coach was provided, and four mounted soldiers were appointed to escort them all the way to the Brave River. At the last minute, Iridia paid the Pope another visit and sweetly asked his permission to make a rest stop at Leibowitz Abbey, a detour which would add no more than a few days to their journey.

  Brownpony gazedat her in surprise. Cardinal Silentia was almost his own age, still gauntly beautiful and full of charm if not grace, but now he saw that she was being charmed by Ædrea.

  “She wants to know if Blacktooth has gone back to the abbey,” the Pontiff sighed.

  “That had occurred to me, Holy Father. But the guesthouse there is adequate and secure. The Brothers and my Sisters will see each other only in Church, if at all.”

  “Very well, but if you lose her, you are both in trouble,” he told her. His permission was based on his belief that neither Blacktooth nor Abbot Olshuen wanted to see the other ever again. “However, if you meet Brother St. George anywhere, tell him I require his presence here immediately.”

  Iridia knelt and withdrew. That was three weeks before Nimmy’s letter came to him from a battleground on the eastern Plains. Brownpony found the letter irritating, and said to the messenger, “Tell him to honor the butchering festival, and then deliver me his butt.”

  But as soon as he said it, there came to Pope Amen II a flash vision of Blacktooth’s future—in shock upon learning of Ædrea’s sudden calling to religion, and of the Pope’s sentence passed upon her. Shock and maybe fury. He resolved not to see the monk immediately upon his arrival. Let him hear about it from Qum-Do, Jing-U-Wan, Wooshin, and the two Oriental secretaries he inherited from Cardinal Ri. They understood his motives and his necessity. Brother St. George would eventually apply his religious thing to his fury, and then it would be safe for the Pope to see him.

  Late September came, and Blacktooth had still not arrived at Pope Amen II’s log-cabin Vatican. His Holiness gulped the rest of his brandy, put his heels on the table, leaned back, and smiled at his elderly bodyguard. A single candle lighted Brownpony7s private office in the Papal Palace with its log walls and fired-clay floor, but there was an exceptionally bright full moon shining through the big southern windows, and everything seemed to glow in its light, including the faces of the Pope and the warrior.

  “Axe, do you know what tomorrow is?”

  “Thursday, the twenty-ninth, ’Oliness.”

  “It is a feast of Saint Michael, the commander in chief of the heavenly hordes.”

  “I thought it was the ‘heavenly hosts.’”

  “No, no! All angels are Nomads and there are hordes of them.”

  “So what of it, ’Oliness?”

  “Axe, the Cathedral of Saint Michael Angel-of-Battle is in Hannegan City, and belongs to Urion Benefez. For him tomorrow is a day of pomp and High Masses. And I shall offer the same Mass in a quiet way. The Gospel for the day is the first ten verses of Matthew Thirteen, and at first glance it seems unrelated to the Archangel Michael. In it, Jesus calls a little child to him, and tells how we must all become little children again before we can enter Heaven. Isn’t that strange?”

  “No, to the children the angel’s sword gives life.”

  Brownpony paused. He knew what Axe meant, but what an odd way to say it.

  “An old Jew once told me that this, our angel of battle, is the defender of the Synagogue, just as we see him as defender of the Church. And of course of her children. That explains the choice of the Gospel, I think. But do you know that a bunch of old Nomad women married me off to the Burregun, the Buzzard of Battle?”

  “I believe you have mentioned it several times, ’Oliness. I hope it is a happy marriage.”

  “Oh, it is, it is! We’re winning the war, I think.” The Pope poured himself another glass of brandy. “But I feel strange praying to Michael now. I hope the commander of the angelic armies forgives me. It was a forced marriage. Must I apologize for imagining Benefez’s Angel of Battle pitted against my supernatural bird-wife?”

  “No.”

  “Oh, you have an opinion! It was a rhetorical question, Axe, but why do you say ‘no’?”

  “Because the angel and the buzzard are the same.”

  “I wish you had said they are on the same side. You’ll never be a Christian, will you Wooshin? And yet you have certain shocking insights. Tell me about Mankiller again sometime.”

  “Again? I don’t remember telling you ab
out him a first time, ’Oliness.”

  “No, I just heard part of what you were telling Blacktooth one day. Who is Mankiller?”

  “The Compassionate One.” His capital letters were audible.

  Brownpony stared at him by moonlight and wondered.

  Wooshin added: “An ancient saying among my people goes: ‘The sword that kills is the same sword that gives life.’”

  “Have another glass of this good mountain brandy. But to whom has a sword ever given life?”

  The Axe declined the brandy. “Whenever there is a fight, the sword gives death to one man and life to the other. And life to his family, his retainers, and lord.”

  “Yes, I suppose your sword has given me life once or twice. The saying is less than profound, though. Some things you say make a lot of people think you confuse God and the Devil, Wooshin.”

  “I hope Y’roliness is not among them.”

  “No, but what do you say to the charge?”

  “I deny it. How can I confuse them? I see they are not two.”

  Brownpony laughed. “Axe, did you ever take paradox lessons from Pope Amen Specklebird?”

  “No, but he kindly spoke to me a few times. You say I’ll never be aChristian. Foreman Jing says the same. But if I could have been Saint Specklebird’s student, I might have become one.”

  “You just canonized him. That’s my job. Are you an atheist?”

  “Oh no, I honor all the gods.”

  “How many belong to that all?”

  “Countless. And one.”

  “How meaningless!”

  “’Oliness, let me hear you count to one.”

  “One.”

  “Point at that one.”

  Brownpony stirred restlessly. Finally he tapped his index finger against his temple.

  Wooshin laughed quietly. “Wrong. You had to think about it too long. And you didn’t count to one. You counted from one and stopped. The one is countless.”

  The Pope changed the subject. He was no mystic, but he seemed to attract mystics. Specklebird, Blacktooth, and Wooshin—they all had a streak of it, and they were all quite different. He was fascinated, but he did not understand.

  In Hannegan City in mid-September, the Emperor called together his generals and waxed gleeful about the captured weapons; fire had not ruined them for study, only for use. Stocks and grips were burned, some cylinders had exploded, and some barrels were bent by the heat and by bursting kegs of powder. Filpeo handled them lovingly, and his hands were black with soot. According to his gunsmiths, it would be possible to begin duplicating this west-coast weapon as soon as they could tool up, produce the right kinds of steel, find copper for making brass for cartridges—if his forces could hold out that long.

  Meanwhile Admiral e’Fondolai, Carpios Robbery, was already equipped with several dozen of the repeating weapons. Soon he and Esitt Loyte (he whom the troops called “Wooden-Nose”) would begin their raids from north of the Misery. The wolf-skinned Texark forces, disguised as motherless outlaws, would wreak enough havoc on the Nomad women and horses left behind to draw off the left flank of the Antipope’s crusade.

  “Admiral?” protested General Goldæm. “I thought Carpy had been made a field marshal.”

  “Admiral for now,” Filpeo answered. “An admiral is a pirate with a uniform, and a pirate doesn’t think in terms of capturing territory. His method of warfare is perfectly suited to the ocean of grass that is the Nomad homeland.”

  Time as well as terror was on the Emperor’s side. The opposing armies of Pope and Empire, Church and State, were dug in on opposite banks of the Washita, and it was easier for Filpeo to feed his men than for Amen II to feed his. Moreover, Brownpony was counting on forces he did not control.

  “The Antipope thinks he holds the undying allegiance of the Wilddog Horde, but I am not so sure,” Filpeo told his generals. “They say Sharf Oxsho licks the false Pope’s footprints, but Høngan Ösle Chür seems to have risen above his Wilddog partisanship to become the Sharf of Sharfs, so to speak, of all three hordes. Even Sharf Demon Light pays respect to his lord, and we know how the Jackrabbit leaped into his arms and arose against us. No doubt, Eltür is as much our enemy as his brother Hultor, but he is cautious, he is clever, he is reasonable. And unlike Høngan, he is no Christian. We may be able to negotiate.”

  “I’m not sure you mean what you seem to be saying, Sire,” said Father Colonel Pottscar. “You speak as if Christianity demands submission to a false pope.”

  “No, Pottsy. It just means Sharf Eltür, with no Christianity, cares nothing about disputes internal to the Church. Therefore he is free to negotiate.”

  A few days later, the glee of Filpeo Harq surpassed all bounds, and he danced a three-second jig in his private quarters when his uncle Urion came to him with the news that Sorely Cardinal Nauwhat had defected from the service of the false Pope. His jig-dancing stopped when he realized that he should have heard the news about Nauwhat before his uncle heard it.

  “Why didn’t the commander who accepted his defection report it to me?” he demanded.

  “I made arrangement with Sorely while he was still in Valana, and I made the border guard honor it. I had advance knowledge he was coming, because he agreed to cross over only if my archdiocese granted him sanctuary.”

  “Bastards! You subvert my own military. Heads are going to roll. And he wants sanctuary from whom, me?” Filpeo barked.

  “Of course. And I don’t think you’ll take Father Colonel Pottscar’s head or mine.”

  “Damn! Why, with me the cardinal is completely safe. I’d give him a state dinner.”

  “That’s what he’s afraid of. And from you, he would be safe from harm, but not from interrogation.”

  “What has he got to hide?”

  “Everything! He is here to separate himself from this maniac in the western mountains, not to betray him. He will give no aid and comfort to either side. He is neutral, but only under my protection.”

  The Emperor tugged at his nervous earlobe and paced for a time. “By God!” he said at last. “When this is all over and you elect a real pope, who to choose?—who better than a cardinal who remained principled but neutral?” He turned to watch the Archbishop’s face, and immediately laughed. “Uncle Urion, you stand accused of too many bad habits to be the next Pope. I’m sure the accusations are false, but—” He shrugged.

  “Yes,” said Benefez. “I suppose Sorely has thought about Hoydok’s slander.”

  “Treat him well, Uncle, even if you fear his ambition. And let me visit him in your palace. Invite us both to dine with you.”

  “Not unless he is comfortable with the idea. If he is comfortable with it, I’ll invite you. Otherwise you won’t even get an explanation.”

  The invitation to dine at the Archdiocesan Palace came to Filpeo after only three days. The Emperor eagerly accepted, and warmly welcomed the dissident Nauwhat to Hannegan City. But he began to question him as soon as his uncle briefly excused himself after a whispered message from the subdeacon Torrildo.

  “Brownpony is under a suspended death sentence throughout the Empire,” Filpeo told the Oregonian as soon as Benefez was out of earshot. “His election itself was an act of war by the Valanan Church against Texark. If he is caught, he will go to the chopping machine. He should not blame you for turning your back on him.”

  “No, Sire. But you call his election an act of war by the Valana clergy, and I helped elect him. I did not—we did not—think of it as declaring war on you, I can tell you that.”

  “The Valana clergy elected him, you say? Not the Sacred College?”

  “Sire, in exile, the Valana clergy is the clergy of Rome. The Sacred College is the clergy of Rome only because each member maintains a Roman or Valanan Church. But in an emergency situation, the clergy of the Roman diocese elects its own bishop. The College was a later development in Church history.”

  “Oh, I wondered how you justified that so-called conclave!”

  “I believe i
t was justified. But afterward, it was Brownpony who abandoned the Curia. You may think of this war as his alone, although others do claim it and do pursue it. I was in Valana, and was not consulted before he proclaimed a crusade. I am not even sure his war is just, let alone holy.”

  “And yet I am told that there was a council of war before the election, and that you attended. And how is it that you joined Chuntar Hadala’s attempt to bring arms to the Valley?”

  “I merely accompanied him across the Plains, Sire. I left him before the battle started.”

  “Yes, well, tell me this. How long ago did Brownpony begin to pile up an arsenal in the Suckamint Range?”

  “Did Cardinal Benefez not tell you that I would give no reply to questions about military matters? I am not a spy.”

  Archbishop Benefez returned to the table and, having heard the last exchange, began berating his nephew for breaking his promise not to badger the cardinal from Oregonia.

  Nevertheless, the Emperor went away happy that night. The defection of Sorely Cardinal Nauwhat, now a guest in the episcopal palace of his uncle, added respectability to Filpeo’s cause. Even though Nauwhat declined to be interviewed by intelligence, and made it plain that he considered himself the equal of his host, the Emperor was delighted at the prospect of establishing good relations with the Oregonians, who were Nauwhat’s people. It was the odd move of a knight on the continental chessboard: two squares west and one north. Oregonia was not far from what the Emperor had concluded to be the west-coast source of Brownpony’s arms. The man owned land there, and received revenue from it. Filpeo would bestow gifts upon the Oregonian ruler as soon after victory as possible, whoever that ruler by then might be.

  To the east, while Hadala was preparing his expedition from Valana, before the time of harvest, the King of the Tenesi had taken advantage of the Mayor’s problems with the Grasshopper and with Brownpony’s army in the Province. He attacked the Texark puppet state of Timberlen on the east bank of the Great River. Filpeo Harq sent his regulars across the Great River to drive back the Tenesi from his burned and looted ally. But the Tenesi were expecting them; they retreated into impenetrable mountains, which the Texark general then decided to penetrate.