It was two days before Hultor Bråm was admitted to an audience with His Holiness. During Cardinal Brownpony’s absence from the Curia, the Pope announced a date for his return to New Rome. If the head of SEEC felt miffed about being left out of the decision process, he at least had an alibi for the bad decision. The Pope planned a very early departure. There had been no communication with Texark about the matter. The Pope used his interview with Hultor Bråm to send the Apostolic Benediction to the Grasshopper Weejus and Bear Spirit people, and to ask permission to cross Grasshopper lands on his way to New Rome. Graciously the war sharf promised that one hundred warriors would escort the Pope’s party once it emerged from Wilddog country. Brownpony listened in silence to this, but made it clear to all that he would not accompany the expedition, having urgent business both on the Plains and in Texark itself.
“It is my wish to make you Vicar Apostolic to the Three Hordes,” the old black Pope told the Red Deacon the next day.
Brownpony actually gasped, Nimmy noticed, and the few members of the Curia who were present exchanged frightened glances. There was a long silence, because what the Pope just said caused a mental avalanche. First thought: to make the territory of all three hordes a Vicariate Apostolic was to abolish the de facto status of the Jackrabbit Horde as missioners of the Texark Archdiocese. It would end the archbishop’s authority in the Province, and would force him to recall his missionary priests there or let them submit to a new authority. Second thought: it would infuriate Benefez, no matter who was appointed. But Brownpony? Third thought: before Brownpony could be appointed a Vicar Apostolic, he would have to be ordained and then consecrated as bishop of an extinct ancient diocese, for he would be the equivalent of a bishop in a missionary area not yet a diocese. Blacktooth remembered the cardinal’s own words: I was called to be a lawyer, not a priest, and that’s it.
“Well, Elia? Will you do it?”
“Holy Father, I don’t think I have a calling.”
“We are calling you. Right now.” It was the first time Blacktooth had ever heard Amen use the pontifical we except in formal Latin.
With great dignity, Brownpony prostrated himself before the old man, but still he said nothing. He stayed that way until the Pope interpreted it as consent, whereas it was, as it seemed to Blacktooth, merely submission.
“Get up, Elia. We’ll have you ordained, consecrated, and on your way by next week. If we do it quietly, you can go to the convention on the Plains before Benefez hears about it.”
Later, at the cardinal’s request, Blacktooth explained the situation to Hultor Bråm before the sharf left town. “He will be the representative of the Pope to all of the hordes, and govern all Churches and missions both north and south of the Nady Ann. However, you must not speak of it before it is accomplished.”
The sharf shook his head. “He will not be accepted by the Grasshopper,” Bråm growled, commenting on the appointment, “unless your master makes his peace with the Høngin Fujæ Vurn, as he has promised. And the Bear Spirit must be consulted.”
“It seems,” said Brownpony, when Blacktooth relayed the remark to his employer, “that ever since I made the mistake of denouncing Yordin’s speech, I have been ambushed by unpleasant surprises, not all of them from my enemies. Aren’t you astonished, Nimmy?”
“Not altogether, since I provided one unpleasant surprise myself.” It was as close as he had come to an apology, but the cardinal just looked at him curiously.
The monk’s attitude toward Brownpony had been tainted by suspicion, but not to the extent of doubting that the deeds of his friend, Pope Amen Specklebird, were entirely unexpected by the cardinal. Perhaps it had been Sorely Cardinal Nauwhat or Hilan Bleze who, during Brownpony’s absence, had put Amen in mind of making all Nomadic territory an Apostolic Vicariate, to be ruled as a diocese would be, but by a bishop directly responsible to the Pope, clearly ending the de facto role of the Texark Archdiocese as missioner to the conquered province. The Churches throughout that Province were now headed by missionaries appointed by Urion Cardinal Benefez, but in no way had the Province been added to the Texarkana diocese. Most of its first priests had been military chaplains. But to create a papally dominated Vicariate out of the whole domain of the Three Hordes was to deprive Benefez of power and revenue throughout half of his nephew’s domain. Could a holy old hermit come up with such an idea without a sinister force at his elbow? The sinister force might indeed be the Holy Ghost, so far as Blacktooth could distinguish. The old man was, as Saint Leibowitz used to say, “Independent as a hog on ice.” It was an idea just crazy enough to have come from either God or Specklebird. Or as Urion Benefez might say, from either Satan or Brownpony. The very fact that the Red Deacon became an overnight archbishop made it evident, to anyone who wished to think so, that the promotion was a coup, coaxed by cunning out of a crazy old pope-contender who began to rule before he was legally elected.
Elia Brownpony’s ordination as a priest and consecration as Bishop of Palermo were conducted in secret ceremonies to which no one was admitted except the participants, nor did Blacktooth’s master change his manner of dress or wear a bishop’s ring until he was ready to leave the city for the Plains, somewhat in advance of the Pope’s own departure for New Rome. It was clear that Filpeo Harq and Urion Benefez were to remain in ignorance of Brownpony’s new rank and office until his acceptance by the Nomads of all three hordes as the spiritual leader of Christians on the Plains and in the Province had been established.
“There’s no doubt they’ll hear about it, Nimmy,” the cardinal told him. “But only the Pope will inform them officially, and when he’s ready to tell them. Now I have a new task for you. You will find your predecessor has taken over your office for the time being. I am going to visit first Chür Høngan, then Hultor Bråm.
“Deliver my written message to Mayor Dion in New Jerusalem; among other things, it introduces you. Tell them that Sorely Cardinal Nauwhat will, for the time being, be in charge of the Secretariat. Tell them that Ulad is out of control and must be replaced. If they insist on knowing why I refused to deal with Ædrea, I suppose you’ll have to say she became too intimate with clergy.”
“I am ashamed, m’Lord.”
“How about contrite? Never mind. Do your best to mollify them. Learn as much as you need to know about New Jerusalem. Along the Way, let Wooshin brief you on what is going to happen. These things are secret for the present, although they are becoming less secret every day. You may, or may not, continue working at the Secretariat—for Cardinal Nauwhat. You may report back to him, if you wish. If he finds no use for you, he will tell you where to find me, or you may go back to your girlfriend in Arch Hollow and perhaps find a home in the colony. Or you may go beg them to take you back at the abbey, or become a hermit. I do not want to see you again unless and until this attachment is behind you.”
“I expected to be dismissed, m’Lord. I did not obey.”
“We’ll see how it goes with you.”
“And Axe is coming with me?”
“Along with all six of Cardinal Ri’s men, and someone from the other wing—Elkin, I believe you know him.”
“I didn’t know he was from the other wing. I thought he was just a receptionist.”
“Top security, and also a fighter almost in Wooshin’s class. He was at Leibowitz Abbey once. You’ll have a lot of expensive baggage with you, a twelve-mule train, but that will be Ulad’s and Elkin’s responsibility. When it’s safe, they may let you and Ulad and Axe ride on ahead of the train and shorten your journey. Pack your habit and wear something else on the trail. You can put your habit back on when you arrive. Nimmy, I’m trusting you with new secrets.”
“I’ll be careful. And you, m’Lord?”
“I go to the convention of all the shamans of the hordes, all the Weejus and Bear Spirit people. I hope, with help from Holy Madness and Father e’Laiden, to be admitted as a Christian shaman observer and explain my new role.”
“Hultor Bråm will try
to keep you out.”
“Of course, but the Jackrabbit will want to hear what I have to say, because they will be most affected by the transition. Bråm can’t put together a majority. His grandmother might be able to do it, but she won’t. Depending on what happens, I may go on to New Rome after the Pope, or even to Texark. Goodbye now, Nimmy. I would bless you, but you have heard me say I have no calling, yet here I am, a pretender.”
“M’Lord, I know from history that once upon a time in a much earlier Church, a vocation to the priesthood meant a call from the bishop, not necessarily a call from God. And I heard the Bishop of Rome himself call you to be that which you have now become by ordination and consecration.”
The cardinal smiled. “Thank you, Nimmy. Bless you, then, until tomorrow.”
Blacktooth bent to kiss his ring, but the cardinal avoided his lips, squeezed his hand, said, “We’ll say goodbye again tomorrow,” and was gone.
Nimmy found himself near tears, and began to pray as he walked toward the nearest Church. Brownpony had been to him like a kindly Nomad father who was never drunk, while Abbot Jarad had been like a sterner Nomad uncle, always judging and finding fault. But he had missed the latter; he knew he would miss the former more. He knew too that loving people was a way of loving God, but to be attached to the one loved was not proper for a poor monk, and evidence of worldliness or delusion. Not wrong to love, but wrong to be attached to the one loved, for always came the anguish of tearing loose from all impermanent things.
By the morrow, he had sufficiently recovered from his lapse of anxious worldliness to think of his former roommate and then confidently cajole his beloved (and possibly bedamned) cardinal into interviewing Aberlott, who as a friend of the late Jæsis could serve well as an emissary from SEEC to the dead student’s family and help convince the ruling council that nobody had exposed Jæsis as a spook until the police learned of it after his death. There was suspicion at both ends, in the relationship between the colony and the Secretariat, which would now be managed temporarily by Sorely Cardinal Nauwhat, and Brownpony agreed that some gesture of reconciliation was advisable.
“But that would be one more person who knows about the armaments, Nimmy. So I think not.” It was the first time Brownpony had mentioned the subject of the guns to him. And he would not have mentioned it now without a realization that the monk already knew through his forbidden contact with Ædrea.
“Do you really believe the secret is safe from Texark, m’Lord?”
“No, it’s only possible to minimize their knowledge. They know the genny colony is there. They know it is well armed, and that I have been helping them. I hope that’s all they know. I only pray the secret, as you call it, is temporarily safe from the Pope.”
The remark caused the monk some surprise. In the first place, nothing was safe from Amen Specklebird, but his surprise was more due to a smell of betrayal about the words. The surprise was duly suppressed, and after some further discussion, the cardinal agreed to see the student, and so Blacktooth departed to seek him out before he began another journey.
“They say the mountains there are wonderfully cool in summer. You get to ride a free horse. You’ll meet the family of Jæsis. You’ll learn a brand-new skill.”
“Like what?”
“Keeping your mouth shut?”
“What use is that?”
“You’ll live longer as a secret agent.”
Aberlott walked with him to the Secretariat. Brownpony was marching out the main entrance. He greeted his assistant, and his young friend by saying to Aberlott, “Student at the college, I’m told. And what do you think of our city and its young ladies?”
Aberlott answered fast, and the monk felt his face grow hot. “Well, when Blacktooth and I walked down past the police station last month, we saw a corpse hung there feet-in-your-face high, with a sign tied to his ankles. Blacktooth read the sign. ‘For coitus interruptus’ is what it said. I’m afraid of young ladies here.”
Brownpony eyed him in mock dismay. “Do you think the Valana police force is a branch of the papacy?”
“Theology is not my strong point, Your Eminence.”
“Or is the papacy a part of the police, perhaps?”
“Certainly I had no such idea in mind, m’Lord!” Aberlott was beginning to turn white.
“Of course you did, and you still do. In Texark, the mayorality is part of the police. The cities are quite different in that regard.”
Aberlott had flirted with danger and was becoming scared. Brownpony had crowded him into a corner and was pressing him for comment. The joking student was, after all, talking to a Prince of the Church.
“Actually, I think the sign said, ‘Hanged for impudence to a prelate.’ I beg your pardon, m’Lord.”
“I don’t have your pardon. Get your own.” Brownpony smiled a consoling smile at him, then shook his head at Blacktooth. “Do you really think this man can be trusted?”
“Of course, Your Eminence.”
“Everything you need for the journey is ready at the stable. Pick up your papers at the office. Wear mufti until you get to the colony. After Ulad is replaced, and the council is satisfied, your ties to the Secretariat continue only if Cardinal Nauwhat needs you. I am going east to meet Chür Høngan, Hultor Bråm, and a Jackrabbit sharf who is still a stranger to me. No telling how long I’ll be away.”
“Then what, m’Lord?”
“You are free until you hear from me or Cardinal Nauwhat. Or your abbot. Goodbye, Nimmy. God love you.”
Blacktooth thought about it later. He had expected to be fired. What astonished the monk most was not his master’s tolerance of impudence, or even his offhand approval of Aberlott, but that Aberlott had looked at this one cardinal among cardinals and felt safe in being impudent. The student usually had a good instinct for audience. Aberlott had picked up the aura of Brownpony’s nonhostile personality; his personality showed through the red cloth. Blacktooth had seen it before, and knew the aura was deceptive. Brownpony wasted no hostility when he struck. He was never hostile, except for show. He seemed to be anticipating the now of things just a moment before they happened, and anticipating with the best expectations. When he expected the best, many people hated not giving it to him.
Others who gave him the worst usually regretted it, without much effort on the cardinal’s part. He moved easily among a herd of people, but he seemed more a friendly undercover sheepdog than one of the sheep, even among cardinals most of whom had far outranked him before his consecration. He made himself a safe man, approachable from above or below, or from straight and level.
“What a pope he would make!” was Aberlott’s only comment. He looked at Nimmy for confirmation, but the monk was pointedly silent.
CHAPTER 14
Likewise those who have been sent on a journey shall not let the appointed Hours pass by, but shall say the Office by them-selves as well as they can, and not neglect to render the task of their service.
—Saint Benedict’s Rule, Chapter 50
HE WESTERN ROUTE TO NEW JERUSALEM FROM Valana was less clearly defined and proved more difficult to traverse with wheeled vehicles than was the Pope’s road to the east, which Blacktooth and Wooshin had traveled with the cardinal in early spring. There were only four wagons, besides the pack mules, but their wheels had to be spoke-levered to help the animals at every draw, especially after a late summer rain. Annual rainfall was sparse, but this was the season for it, and flash floods often rushed through the desert’s low places. The eastern road would have been so much easier and faster if the travelers had no reason to avoid other wayfarers. The reason was “security.” While they forded a stream, one of the tarp-covered boxes fell from a wagon and broke open. Blacktooth watched Wooshin and Ri’s guards scramble to retrieve rifles from the shallow water, while they furtively looked around as if for spies in the juniper scrub. Later, he was unable to avoid learning about handguns and ammunition in the mule packs. When he asked, Elkin told him it was a comparatively s
mall shipment. The receptionist guard at SEEC seemed to be in charge of the expedition, and he let Nimmy know that he came from the covert wing. The party included several mule drivers, Wooshin, Aberlott, Ulad, and the six warriors from the party of late Cardinal Ri.
Ri’s men were already skilled as weaponless warriors. By firelight they sparred with each other, and with Wooshin, who was hard-pressed to cope with the foreman among them, his junior by thirty years. They were speaking their own language among themselves, and Wooshin was laughing. “O Axe, please do remind them,” Blacktooth called, “that they’re supposed to be practicing either ’Mount or Church.”
The Axe grunted at them, and they tried haltingly to continue their conversation in Churchspeak. Nimmy suddenly realized they had been talking about him, because he was an exception to what they saw to be the rule here, that monks don’t fight, or can’t, or won’t. Whereas they themselves were Christians with vows, although one of them had a wife back home. When Wooshin explained this to Blacktooth, the monk was astonished.
Ri’s guards were a puzzle to him at first. Wooshin had fallen right in with them, and they seemed to understand each other’s language well enough when words were accompanied by frenetic gesticulation. On the third day, Blacktooth dared to remind Wooshin again that he was tasked with teaching Churchspeak to the “Yellow Guard,” as they had begun to be called around Valana. Wooshin glowered at the reminder, but after a moment explained, not without embarrassment, that Cardinal Ri’s men had been trying to convert him to Christianity.
The monk looked at him incredulously.
Axe laughed at his expression. “I don’t think you want to hear that argument in Churchspeak. Have you forgotten that they were Cardinal Ri’s men?”
“I assumed they were Christian, and I’ve heard them chanting, but—”
“But you wouldn’t expect soldiers to be very religious?”
Saint Leibowitz and the Wild Horse Woman Page 20
