Saint Leibowitz and the Wild Horse Woman

by Walter Michael Miller, Jr.

  Brownpony in due course learned about these battalions, which constituted a regiment of cunning mountain fighters; the Pope sent a courier to express his wish that the Tenesi might encourage the Texark troops to extend their stay in the east until spring, by a minimum of necessary hostile engagements. The courier carried the message as a coded tattoo in his crotch, and he was too fat to lean over far enough even to see it himself without a mirror, and he did not have the key to the code anyway. Brownpony did not worry about him; there seemed to be no point in torturing the messenger. Nevertheless, agents from Imperial Intelligence caught and tormented him into revealing that the tattoo was a message to the Tenesi, and tormented him some more to establish his ignorance of the code. The I.I. men decided not to kill him, but they strapped him to an operating table and removed the message with a skinning knife. He was then free to go, but could not walk because of the pain between his legs. They salted the skin, tacked it to a board to dry, and sent it to Hannegan City for study. The skinning knife had not been sterilized, and the Pope’s fat courier died of septicemia.

  Upon learning of his messenger’s fate, Brownpony could only heap more ecclesiastical sanctions upon an already excommunicated and anathematized Filpeo Harq Hannegan and his uncle, the apostle of Platonic friendship and other deviations from orthodoxy.

  Wooshin did his best to console his master. “It seems to me, ’Oliness, that the Tenesi will be doing what you asked them to do anyway.”

  “So my message needlessly sacrificed the messenger?”

  Wooshin was silent, remembering that his master, even if he did share the warrior’s indifference to life and death, would never allow himself to realize it.

  “How simpler it must have been to manage a war with the methods of communication of the Magna Civitas! Our generals receive our commands—if at all—weeks after we send them, and by then the situation has usually changed!”

  “Yes, ’Oliness, and that is why, in my people’s tradition, a general in the field is obliged to consider his Emperor’s commands only as fatherly advice, unless he is fighting very close to the imperial court. As for the Magna Civitas, Brother St. George told me that generals in those days complained bitterly because commands from the rulers were so numerous and came so quickly that the war was mismanaged by politicians. Look what happened to the Magna Civitas!”

  “Ishould not try to tell the Tenesi what to do?”

  Wooshin was silent again, and Brownpony smiled. “Axe, if it were up to me, you would be the commander of the operation in the Province instead of Magister Dion.”

  “I have no ambition to command an army, ’Oliness.”

  • • •

  It was November before Blacktooth came limping into the snowy mountains with a sore toe and in the company of Aberlott and a glep cougar kitten with one blue ear and a half-bald skull. He had been robbed of his mount by outlaws after his Wilddog escort left him on the papal highway, and then Aberlott—who had returned first to Valana and then taken the highway south in the hope of seeing the sister of Jæsis again—found him moaning and half-conscious, with a ravenous kitten sucking at his bloody big toe. When they arrived at the military checkpoint at Arch Hollow, Blacktooth’s name was found to be on the guards’ list of admissible persons, but Aberlott’s name was not.

  “He was here with me last year, and we were both here as emissaries from the Secretariat in Valana.”

  “There is no ‘Aberlott’ on the list. And I don’t think he is one of us.”

  “Neither am I.”

  The guard stared oddly at the monk. “No? I could have sworn—”

  Aberlott broke out laughing. “You’re a spook, Nimmy. I’ve known it since Ædrea told Anala you were.”

  Blacktooth sputtered. To the guard, he said, “I’ll vouch for the idiot.”

  The guard called an officer. Blacktooth was made to sign a guarantee as Aberlott’s custodian.

  “If he breaks any laws, you’ll take his punishment.”

  “What a wonderful opportunity for me!” said Aberlott. “When I’m naughty, you’ll get whacked!”

  “And you’ll get shot!” the officer snapped.

  But as soon as they arrived at the new and temporary Holy City, they found themselves in the polite custody of Wooshin, Qum-Do, and Foreman Jing, and for the second time Nimmy had to inform them of the death of a comrade serving their common master. They expressed concern about Gai-See’s continued absence.

  “I think Sharf Demon Light is keeping him for a while as a teacher of his arts to young Jackrabbit warriors. He wanted to keep me to teach them to read. Now, when may I see His Holiness?”

  He found himself looking at Aberlott and three—uh-oh!—expressionless yellow faces.

  CHAPTER 26

  It happens all too often that the constituting

  of a Prior gives rise to grave scandals in monasteries.

  For there are some who become inflated

  with the evil spirit of pride and consider

  themselves second Abbots.

  —Saint Benedict’s Rule, Chapter 65

  WHEN THEY TOLD BLACKTOOTH WHAT HAD BEEN done to Ædrea, they were prepared to restrain him and tie him down until he listened to the whole story, including their master’s promise to commute her sentence as soon as the Pope could leave New Jerusalem. Instead Nimmy listened in silence, wept a little, but in the end said, “Good! But what about Gai-See? Has he come back yet?”

  “We have heard nothing,” Axe told him.

  Nimmy wanted an audience with the Pope, but Axe convinced him the time was not right. They waited five more days for the warrior’s return. Then Blacktooth said to Foreman Jing, “Come with me to Arch Hollow.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I am no longer the Pope’s servant. Nor was Gai-See when he started obeying Hadala and Nauwhat. The guards will not answer my questions. They may talk to you.”

  Jing agreed. They left the municipal area in the early morning and were back to their servants’ quarters before sundown. Blacktooth allowed Jing to tell Wooshin the bad news.

  “Gai-See arrived at Arch Hollow a few days after Blacktooth and Aberlott. The guards there seized him, charged him with murder, and escorted him straight up through the mountain passes. They took him to Slojon’s court in the central square. There he was indicted, and thence he was sent to the cage. Slojon went directly to the Pope and informed him of the action. They met alone with no witnesses.”

  “I remember that meeting!” said Axe. “I did not know what it was about.”

  “Of course,” said Qum-Do. “You were there too,” he said to Jing.

  “So, why aren’t you looking angry, Axe?” Blacktooth asked.

  “At whom?”

  “At the Holy Father, of course! For approving Gai-See’s arrest.”

  So unthinkable was the suggestion, so irreverent to their master, that they all glared at him.

  “Well, false friends, I am going to see the Pope about Gai-See!” said Blacktooth.

  “No you’re not,” said Wooshin, laying a hand on his arm. “His Holiness is not ready—”

  Having called him a false friend without provoking him, Blacktooth slapped him. So unexpected was the event that Axe failed to evade the blow. Nimmy stepped back defensively.

  “You’ll have to kill me to stop me, Axe, and your master won’t like that.”

  “But you’re not supposed to crash in without—”

  “That’s not for you to say. I am going to see the Pope. Come along if you want, all of you.” He glanced at Ri’s warriors. Qum-Do and Foreman Jing were standing at hand-on-sword alert. Either of them would abandon Gai-See to his fate without protest, if their master so much as frowned at him. So would Axe.

  Nimmy turned his back on them and walked out of the house. He could hear them coming behind him. He had recovered from the beating he had taken from the outlaws. The earth felt good under his feet again. However briefly, he had visited his ancestors. While with them he had seen something w
ithin himself as in a mirror. The earth, any earth, was his to walk on now. Moreover he had seen the Nomad wife of the Pontiff, red as the sunset, soaring over the corpse-strewn landscape. Gai-See was only the beginning of what he wanted to see the Pope about. Blacktooth was vaguely conscious of casting aside his vow of obedience, but felt no qualms about it this time. Ædrea was in his mind like a vision, but he had nothing to say about her.

  At the entrance to the audience room, a member of the Papal Guard armed with a halberd blocked the doorway. Blacktooth stamped the guard’s slipper with his heel, seized the halberd, and rammed his stomach with the butt of it to get inside the door. His Oriental companions watched the fight without comment. Once inside the doors, he was seized by Cardinal Linkono and the Grand Cardinal Penitentiary. Axe stepped in to assist them now, but Brownpony called out from the throne.

  “Let him in. Let them all in.”

  Blacktooth strode up to the dais and fell to his knees before his Pontiff. The Pope reached down to lift him up, but the monk evaded his hands and stood erect. Brownpony regarded him with faint amusement.

  “Is this so urgent, Brother St. George? We were discussing policy with our eminent brethren. About Ædrea—”

  “It’s not about Ædrea. Who do you see here besides your eminent brethren?”

  “Why, I see an unhappy monk, and three of my personal guards.”

  “Why not four of your personal guards, Holy Father?”

  “Oh. I did not know that you and Gai-See were close. It is unfortunate.”

  “We were not close at all, and your betrayal is worse than unfortunate.”

  Brownpony frowned as if not quite believing his ears.

  “I see it is possible for a Pope to do evil.”

  Against these insulting words to the master, swords were drawn.

  Nimmy turned his back on the Pope and faced his companions. “If your master wills my death, cowards, why do you hesitate? Hit!”

  Immediately he turned to Brownpony again. “Can’t you see what you’ve done? Right here before you, they’re ready to do what Gai-See did. Except that Gai-See thought he was right and they know they are wrong. And Your Holiness accepts this kind of loyalty in good conscience?”

  Brownpony was watching his former Nomadic secretary in apparent fascination. Blacktooth heard one sword return to its sheath. That would be Foreman Jing, he guessed. Wooshin would kill him without the Pope’s nod if he thought the Pope’s best interest would be served by the killing.

  “Blacktooth, you were always a quick study, but this is a new role, isn’t it?”

  “Holy Father, as a Catholic, I have to believe that what you bind on Earth is bound also in Heaven, and I have to believe that when you are speaking about faith and morals, the Holy Ghost prevents you from speaking any error.”

  “You have to believe, but do you?”

  “I have a question. Is a declaration of war an assertion about faith and morals? Ever? Even if you call it a holy war? Father Suarez taught—and he was extending Saint Augustine’s teaching—that a war to convert the heathen can never be just. Can a war against heretical Christians be holy, if a war against the heathen is unjust?”

  “The war is against neither heathens nor heretical Christians. It is against a tyrant who usurps the apostolic power and oppresses the whole world.”

  “But it’s heathens and Christians who are killed, while the tyrant still lives and the apostle is still in power.”

  Brownpony seemed to swear under his breath for a moment, then recovered. “You wrote me that you killed a man in battle, Nimmy. Is that what’s wrong with you now?”

  Blacktooth nodded and spoke slowly. “The man in a Texark uniform was a child of yours, Holiness: a glep from the Valley. I meant to miss him. My aim was bad, and I hit him in the belly. What he wanted from me then was a bullet in the brain, but I cut his throat instead, because a sergeant was watching. Yes, I think that is what’s wrong with me, Holy Father. Eltür Bråm, because I had already killed, would have made me a Nomad warrior with only the initiation, without the ordeal of battle. Then they would stop calling me ‘Nimmy,’ he said, and stop laughing about it. I don’t mind the name or the laughter. I want never to kill again. But I don’t want to see Gai-See punished. He saw Hadala as a fugitive from your commands. He couldn’t arrest him or Gleaver; he did what he thought was necessary.”

  “He had no license from me.”

  “You accepted his services as a warrior. Did you really withhold from him the license that he assumed was his?”

  Pope Amen frowned and called out for everyone but Blacktooth and one guard to leave the room. It was the guard with the sore stomach who stayed, and who sealed the doors after the others were outside.

  “Go on, finish what you have to say.”

  Blacktooth looked around to make sure Cardinal Linkono was gone. “For one thing, Gai-See is a member of a religious order, and—”

  “I see,” Brownpony interrupted. “I claimed jurisdiction in Ædrea’s case, why not in Gai-See’s? Because no pope has yet recognized the Order to which Ri’s men say they belong, that’s why. I meant to do it sooner or later, but I can’t do it just to free Gai-See. It’s too transparent. But go on, if you have more to say.”

  “I cannot, Your Holiness, speak to the Vicar of Christ on Earth as freely as I did to my former employer, the Secretary for Extraordinary Ecclesiastic Concerns. I don’t know the Vicar of Christ.”

  “It seems to me you’ve been speaking freely enough. But suppose I just take off my zucchetto and tell you that the Vicar of Christ has taken the day off. I am still Elia Brownpony—the bastard son of a lesbian nomad and a Texark rapist. So, Nyinden, farmboy Nomad, sometime monk, sometime lover, speak your mind. I may throw you out, but I won’t throw you in a dungeon.”

  “Then release Gai-See from a dungeon.”

  “I didn’t imprison Gai-See. Cardinal Linkono did.”

  “Without your permission?”

  “You don’t understand the situation here, Blacktooth. We are the guests of the city. I won’t say we’re captives here—until I try to return to Valana and see if they let me go. Cardinal Linkono informed me of Gai-See’s arrest. Chuntar Hadala played bishop to these people, because he was bishop to the Valley whence they came. Slojon and everybody here knows that I sent men to arrest Hadala, and, well—”

  “Oh. So when Gai-See killed him, they thought you ordered the execution.”

  “Not yet, but they will certainly suspect it if I secure his release now. He killed a bishop, and prince of the Church. Cardinal Hadala was popular here.”

  “I was there when it happened, Holy Father. All along, Gleaver and his officers had been shooting those of us who wavered or held back. In that light, Gai-See shot in self-defense and the defense of us all. But first he crawled up to me under fire. He asked if it was true that Cardinal Hadala was defying your orders, and betraying you. I told him it was so. I knew what he might do when I told him that, and I hoped he would do it. So I am the one who sentenced the cardinal to death. Have them arrest me too, Holy Father.”

  “I’ll see what I can do,” Brownpony said darkly, and beckoned to the guard and breathed a quiet order. The guard with the sore stomach seized Blacktooth’s arm, led him straight to jail, and put him in Gai-See’s cell. Gai-See embraced him. During the embrace, the guard reached through the bars and punched Blacktooth hard in the kidney with the butt of the halberd.

  “I’ll be back for you soon,” he said with a sweet grin.

  Gai-See was not alone in jail. Two men who claimed to be political refugees from the Empire and who now sought asylum in New Jerusalem were imprisoned there until their claims were thoroughly investigated. One was Urik Thon Yordin, S.I., the Ignatzian who was also a professor of history at the secular university at Texark, and whom Brownpony had suspected of hiring the thugs who tried to kill them on Easter before the last conclave. How desperate the man must be to escape Texark, that he should come here for asylum! He glanced at Blackto
oth once, but neglected to recognize him.

  The other man was Torrildo.

  “Blacktooth, my God! You can’t imagine what that beast Benefez did to me!”

  Nimmy sat down on Gai-See’s bed and fell to questioning the warrior. He tried to ignore Torrildo’s confession of the intimately brutal sins the Archbishop of Texark had perpetrated upon his person.

  According to Gai-See, Yordin and Torrildo were refugees, not from a terrible Emperor, but from a furious Archbishop who had suddenly been made to realize that he could never be Pope, even if his nephew conquered all of his enemies. At the university, Yordin had made the mistake of saying openly that Benefez was now non papabilis, and Torrildo himself was part of the Archbishop’s problem which insured that he would never wear the tiara. In each fugitive’s case, it was his own confessor who, after hearing the rumbles from the top of the mountain, advised his penitent to do his penance in some land far from the reach of the Imperium and the Diocesan Ordinary. So there they sat in a New Jerusalem jail, hoping to be of some value to a Pope who had the power to set them free. Blacktooth found this interesting and ironic, but decided not to concern himself with their fate.

  After a while, the guard came back for him and they returned to the throne room. He asked Wooshin in a whisper if he knew about Yordin and Torrildo, but the Axe ignored him.

  “Is Gai-See sick?” Brownpony wanted to know. “Is he mistreated or badly fed?”

  “He is sick at heart. Keeping him caged is mistreatment, and so is the food.”

  “If you had not been hiding out with Amen Specklebird when they blew up the Palace, none of this would have happened,” Brownpony told him. “You would have come here with me. Now you are furious, as if it were my intent that you fight or kill in battle.”

  “I was not ‘hiding out’ with the Pope.”