There was too much excitement in Valana for anyone yet to think of questioning what excuse the Secretariat might have for keeping an army of six professional killers on the payroll, although Blacktooth had been wondering the same thing ever since he left Leibowitz Abbey with the Axe under Brownpony’s wing. He felt he was less privy to the cardinal’s intentions than his inside job suggested. He now realized this more clearly since he had seen Ædrea’s weapon. A whole wing of the Secretariat was closed to him. A whole range of SEEC activities were invisible to him. He tried not to be curious. He was temporarily sharing Brownpony’s outer office with two other specialist secretaries, and they observed that at least once a day someone from the forbidden wing came to the office with a folder of documents, was admitted to Brownpony’s private sanctum, and departed without the folders, which were never filed by the outer office. He had no files in his sanctum, but a stove for burning papers. Together, the other two secretaries had induced an opinion that the forbidden wing dealt with intelligence and operations, and with this Blacktooth did not disagree. He said nothing to them about weapons.
CHAPTER 13
The Abbot shall see to the size of the garments, that they be not too short for those who wear them, but of proper fit.
—Saint Benedict’s Rule, Chapter 55
T SEEMED TO BLACKTOOTH THAT HIS MASTER had become obsessed with Nomad politics during a time of trouble for both the papacy in Valana and the Eastern Church. While he might have been in constant correspondence with Eastern cardinals who had taken part in the election of Pope Amen, he was instead inviting Hultor Bråm of the Grasshopper to enter Valana with all the guards he cared to bring in order to meet the Pope. The purpose was obvious. The cardinal stood accused of favoring the candidacy of Chür Ösle Høngan of the Wilddog Horde over that of the Grasshopper war sharf. To establish a neutral posture, Brownpony had invited Hultor Bråm to meet the Pope before he invited Høngan. He left the Pope’s immediate vicinity to ride out onto the Plains accompanied by only one meek-looking policeman instead of his usual ferocious bodyguard to meet the Grasshopper war sharf, although the Pope certainly needed him near at hand during such troubled times. Blacktooth’s admiration for his employer’s courage had grown, even while he was entertaining suspicions laced with fantasy about the Secretary’s loyalty to the Pope and his perceived guns-for-the-misborn activities. “This is the world, O Saint Isaac Edward Leibowitz, that I abandoned as your monk. And where am I now?”
He went early with Wooshin to the place Brownpony had set for their meeting upon his return from the Plains, and there they saw Ædrea’s replacement as messenger from New Jerusalem already standing there in the street. Now that Blacktooth had learned both officially from the cardinal and directly from Ædrea something about the exchanges between New Jerusalem and the covert wing of SEEC, he and the Axe had both been introduced to Ulad from the colony. Blacktooth had assumed that all spooks were normal in appearance. Ulad looked normal, if one saw him at a distance with nothing nearby for comparison. But when he stood next to another man in a crowd, he stood about a man-and-a-third high and probably weighed about two men and a half. Thrice Blacktooth had watched the giant, whose hands seemed disproportionately slender, pick the pockets of passersby before he crossed the street to warn the giant, “If you do that again, I’ll tell.”
Ulad picked him up by the head with one of those long slender hands, the thumb so crushing his temple that he almost lost consciousness from pain. Wooshin slipped behind him and did something to his knee which made him release the monk with a howl and sit down on the pavement, clutching his leg. The Axe stepped in front of him and pressed a sword to his nose, flattening it. “If you do that again, I’ll kill.”
“I didn’t recognize you at first,” the giant sang out, his voice a surprising contralto, to the tiny old warrior.
“Do you like your job?” asked the Axe.
“It’s good to be able to come to town, yes.”
“Do your people know you’re a thief?” the monk asked, picking himself up.
“It’s part of my cover. People know me hereabout. It doesn’t matter if I get arrested. The police know me. They think I’m local, and so I am, part-time. Sometimes they lock me up for a few days, but sometimes I work for them. I used to ride as a guard for Ædrea. This place is where we met before going home.”
“Does His Eminence know all this?”
“I’m supposed to meet him here. He’s coming in the Grasshopper Nomad’s coach. I hate Nomads. You look like a Nomad to me, and you called me a spook.”
Nimmy faced his glower. “Did you ever see a Nomad wearing a monk’s habit?” he scoffed. “Do you look like a spook?” He felt Wooshin touching his arm, trying to warn him, but it was too late.
Ulad growled and pulled a knife. Steel met steel, slid together, and then the edge of the short sword cut the giant’s forearm, all in one sweep of motion from the thrust of the dagger through the cut to the fall of dagger and blood on the ground. They stood frozen for a moment; then Wooshin sheathed his blade and said, “Go do something for your arm. It’s not a deep cut.”
“I think he tried to stab me, Axe.”
“You do?” Axe snickered. “Well! The cardinal warned me about Ulad, and he is very unhappy with him as Ædrea’s replacement. The man has a habit of going berserk once in a while. He’s only temporary, in my opinion; the New Jerusalemites were so infuriated by our master’s rejection of Ædrea as persona non grata that they made Ulad her replacement. They can be arrogant.”
“Why isn’t he caged up?”
“Well, one, because the cardinal wants him to meet this Nomad he’s bringing home, and two, because he’s apparently a warrior of power and a high officer of a small army that’s supposed to be on our side.”
“Our side against whom, for the love of God? Do your one and your two make a three? Which is our side?”
“Why, our master’s side!” Wooshin snapped, glaring at him. “Your loyalty is a question in my mind, Brother St. George. Do not think I would not cut your throat if you ever betray him!”
“Whoa, please! It’s me, Blacktooth. I was just trying to understand his thinking.”
“That is not your place.”
“Are you the one to tell me my place and keep me in it, Axe? This is new.”
“I can’t tell you your place, but don’t let me catch you out of it.”
This is new—yes, and real. It was the first time he had felt real menace from the old warrior. Brownpony must be more angry than he realized. His fear of Wooshin at the abbey was founded on nervous imagination. But lately he had learned that Wooshin lived only to carry out his master’s wishes and protect his person and his welfare; this was the warrior’s highest good. Blacktooth, of a different persuasion in matters of loyalty, had disobeyed his master. Wooshin knew it, at least in a vague way, because the monk had been gone so long. Things were not the same between them, although Axe had just saved him from Ulad’s dagger. Ædrea had changed everything about his life.
Just as Ulad came back with a bandaged forearm, a coach pulled by four beautiful gray stallions appeared from the east and stopped in front of the Venison House. The standard-bearer of the totemic Grasshopper triumph pole rode up, dismounted, and stood at attention with his standard in front of the restaurant.
“Forth come the banners of the king of hell,” Blacktooth said sourly, quoting an ancient poet.
Nimmy later learned that when Brownpony met Hultor Bråm, the latter was riding in his royal coach, probably of Eastern manufacture and stolen during a raid into the Eastern timberland, and he was accompanied by sixteen well-armed horsemen, while the Prince of the Church himself had left behind even his formidable bodyguard and brought along only a meek-looking Valana policeman. Bråm seemed embarrassed when he saw that the lone Churchman was his host, and promptly sent all but two of his warriors home. Thus Brownpony rode back alone in the coach with a surprised but not yet friendly sharf. As the party dismounted, Ulad the giant stro
de toward the coach and presented himself to the cardinal, who frowned at him, spoke a few words, and waved him away.
“He will call you first,” the giant said to Blacktooth, and to Axe, “You shall guard the entrance.”
Ulad was plainly upset. “They should put all Nomads in jail when they come to town.”
“Then how could they do any business?”
“Their only business is to steal!”
“I see. With you, it’s a hobby, with them a business.”
Ulad growled, and Wooshin nudged the monk again.
Next to the driver sat a Nomad with a long rifle and a mean mouth. Two mounted warriors rode guard. A policeman and a Nomad got out of the coach and then helped the prelate and another Nomad get out. The second Nomad was fancier than the first. Ulad was plainly disappointed to see that the Nomads were not in custody. Three Nomads and the policeman stayed with the carriage while the fancy Nomad and the prelate went inside to eat.
The coach was dirty from crossing the Plains but was of costly design and workmanship. The horses, while obviously tired, were elegant and well-bred animals that could be sold for at least a thousand pios as a team. The door of the coach was enameled blue and gold, with a touch of red on the crest that showed through the dust on the door. Someone was talking about the crest. They stood among a small group of people who, upon passing by or coming out of the inn, saw the Nomads and the police and the well-fitted coach with its spirited team, and lingered, becoming a crowd. Blacktooth kept a wary eye on Ulad.
“I tell you it can’t be the Secretary’s,” the grocer from next door was saying. “Those aren’t his arms, nor any Churchman’s.” “What about the motto?” said a woman beside him. “It’s Latin, isn’t it?” When the grocer shrugged, she turned to a friar who had come out of the inn and was staring at the coach. “Isn’t it Latin, Father?”
“As a matter of fact, it isn’t.”
“It can’t be Nomadic!” she said.
“No, it’s a Church language, all right. It’s English.”
“What does it say?”
“I’ve been out of school for twenty years,” said the cleric. He turned to go, but paused to add, “It says something about fire, though. And that’s Cardinal Brownpony inside, so you’d better leave.”
“You leave, Father! I live here.”
“Maybe the Pope’s starting his own fire department,” said a student from Saint Ston’s who turned out to be Aberlott.
Blacktooth himself put them straight. “The motto says: ‘I set fires.’ It’s the heraldry of a Grasshopper war sharf.
“See you later,” he said to his ex-roommate, left the group, and went to stand near the window.
Inside the tavern, the cardinal shared a meal with the Nomad officials. The fare was chicken cooked with herbs served with a local beer. The hungry plainsmen were polite enough not to scorn the lack of beef, but they did scrape away every trace of greenery from the meat. Bråm was continuing a monologue he had begun on the road, but the cardinal saw his secretary at the window and beckoned him inside. Blacktooth entered and found his master being theologically harassed by an offensive sharf in the crudest of terms.
“The father of the mother of God is also her son and her lover,” the Nomad was saying. He squinted toward the window and pretended not to be watching the cardinal. “That’s the way our Weejus explain it.”
The cardinal took another bite of chicken and chewed vigorously while he looked at Bråm.
“Did you hear what I said?”
“No,” Brownpony lied. “Say it again.” His Grasshopper dialect was adequate but he occasionally looked at Blacktooth for support.
“The father of the mother of God is also her son and her lover. This is the way the Grasshopper Bear Spirit sees it as well.”
“Just so.” Brownpony dipped the chicken leg in the sauce and took another bite. Hultor Bråm was trying to antagonize him in the most obvious possible way.
The sharf straightened and frowned. “‘Just so’! You agree?”
“‘Just so’ means I heard what you said, Sharf. I’m a lawyer, not a theologian. Have a piece of chicken.”
“He invites you to have a piece of chicken,” said the monk, sensing a Wilddog usage.
“If you’re a lawyer, then why don’t you have me arrested?”
“Because I’m not a theologian’s lawyer, and if I had you arrested, you would be of no use to anybody.” He looked at Blacktooth, who nodded. Only occasionally did he need to clarify what was being said.
“You’re the Pope’s lawyer.”
“Just so. The white meat is dry. Try the dark.”
“Jesus is Mary’s lover.”
Cardinal Brownpony sighed with disgust and began using his drumstick to beat on the table.
“Why do you want to pick a quarrel with me? Do I say ugly things about Empty Sky, or your Wild Horse Woman?”
“You did so once. At a holy council fire. That’s why I’m talking to you this way. You tried to drive her away, and your Christian puppet killed her priests.”
Brownpony sighed. “So I haven’t lived that down, eh? Sunovtash An was nobody’s puppet. As for me, what I did was foolish. I know that now, and I regret it. But that happened in the farming areas, not on the eastern Plains.”
“No matter, the tribe was formerly Grasshopper. You must remove the sacrilege.”
“How can I do that?”
“We have discussed it. You must go to her.”
“Where? Back to the farming area?”
“No. In the navel of the Earth, she lives: the breeding pit for her wild horses. It is a place of deadly fires, called Meldown.”
“I have heard of it. Isn’t that where Mad Bear became Lord of the Hordes before the conquest?”
“The same. Anyone nominated for the sacral kinship had to be chosen by her in that place. After election, each had to spend the night in that place by the light of the full moon. It will be so again. A new Qæsach dri Vørdar will be chosen. One of the three of us. It is also the place where we try men charged with crimes, a place of ordeal. Many never come out alive. Many come out sick, and lose their hair. Few emerge in full health. You committed a crime in the eyes of our Weejus and our Bear Spirit, Brownpony.”
“And if I submit to the ordeal?”
“There will be an alliance, if you live. And peace with the Wilddog.”
“No matter who is elected Lord?”
Bråm shook his head, seemed puzzled.
“As Qæsach dri Vørdar,” Blacktooth put in.
“Ah, no doubt about that! The old women know best. And the Høngin Fujæ Vurn.”
The cardinal spoke to Nimmy in Rockymount. “Explain carefully and politely to the sharf that His Holiness is the high priest of all Christendom, and that diplomatic immunity, which he has been practicing on me, does not cover the crimen laesae majestatis, so tell him to curb his tongue before the Pope.”
Hultor Bråm was a powerful Nomad about Chür Høngan’s size, but perhaps leaner. His body language had few words. The predominant accent was force, a force prepared to spring at you, either for a hearty hug or to kill. All his muscles seemed drawn up that way.
Nervously, Blacktooth translated Brownpony’s message.
For a moment, the sharf glowered at him. The body language said “kill the messenger,” but then he turned to the cardinal and nodded curtly. At that moment Ulad stooped to enter the doorway and crossed, as a crouching mass of muscle, toward the table. Brownpony sent Blacktooth away in Ulad’s wake. Ulad, the monk intuitively surmised, was to discuss matters not for his ears, for Brownpony needed an interpreter more than ever, because the genny giant spoke only Valley Ol’zark and a little Rockymount. Probably Ulad was there to discuss weapons with the Grasshopper sharf, and Brownpony would have to be interpreter for both of them. Temporarily dismissed, he headed home, accompanied by Aberlott, whom he had not seen since the election.
“Listen, I heard there is going to be schism, maybe even war. What
about it?”
“Takes two to make a schism or a war. Who do you have in mind for the war? And why ask me?”
“You work for the Secretary.”
“Who probably couldn’t answer your question either. Why don’t you ask a Weejus woman?”
“I don’t know any, do you?”
“Not yet.”
“When? I hear your cardinal is thinking of leaving for Nomad country.”
Blacktooth shot him a suspicious look. Everybody seemed to know more about his employer’s doings than he did. “Where did you hear that?”
“From a man who came out of the inn just before you did.”
Blacktooth worried. Brownpony was careless enough to let his conversation with Hultor Bråm be overheard by another customer who understood Nomadic. But there had been no one else visible from their table.
“A secret’s out?” asked Aberlott after a moment.
“I don’t know. I have a feeling I’m going to be fired, sooner or later.”
“By the cardinal? For what?”
“Remember the person who gave you my rosary back?”
Blacktooth said no more than that, but his friend watched his face, saw a blush, and asked no further questions. He turned away to cover a laugh with his hand, then asked, “What will happen to you then, Nimmy?”
“I don’t know. I have a big debt to pay. What the hell are you doing out of school?”
“I take no courses during the summer. I like to travel.”
“Where do you plan to go?”
“Where the horse takes me. No reins, you know. You just kick the animal when he stops to graze too often.”
“Be sure and pick the right horse, you half-wit, or it will take you to its birthplace.” He waved east toward the flatlands. Aberlott laughed and walked on alone.
Saint Leibowitz and the Wild Horse Woman Page 19
