Saint Leibowitz and the Wild Horse Woman

by Walter M Miller Jr

  Almost unwillingly he accompanied the cardinal to conference in the Palace with the leaders of the hordes and of New Jerusalem. It would surely last most of the day. His employer noticed his reluctance, and said, “I’m sorry, Nimmy, but I’m going to need you. So will the Grasshopper.”

  Only four members of the Sacred College attended: Sorely Nauwhat, Chuntar Hadala, Elia Brownpony, and a new cardinal, one Hawken Chief Irrikawa, who was said to be king of his northeast forest nation, and who wore a feather sewed to his red hat. He claimed to outrank all princes of the Church except the Pope. Besides the four cardinals, several military people of nationalities both east of the Great River and west of the continental divide were here, and they had come to town with their cardinal electors. There was a roll call, a counting of noses, and many introductions. Mayor Dion was obviously still irked by Nimmy’s petition on behalf of Ædrea and at first objected to his and Wooshin’s presence.

  Brownpony turned to Eltür Bråm, winked, and said, “Would you please give the commander an account of the battles that have happened between the Grasshopper and Texark since the death of your brother?”

  The sharf smiled wryly and began to speak. After half a minute of it, Dion held up his hand.

  “What is he saying?”

  “I understand most of it,” said the cardinal, “but I’m only good at Jackrabbit, and fair in Wilddog. Grasshopper is Brother Blacktooth’s native dialect.”

  Dion looked at Nimmy and nodded.

  “And Wooshin commands the Yellow Guard, who offer training in very efficient methods of weaponless combat.”

  The Mayor acquiesced, but as if to prove his impartiality, told Ulad and another of his own officers to warm the bench outside the doors. Blacktooth translated Sharf Demon Light’s account of recent skirmishing between his warriors and the Texark cavalry, but it had been low-intensity warfare with few casualties and fewer deaths. Because of orders given by Holy Madness, the Grasshopper forces had not made any further raids on the protected farmlands. Bråm noted with irony that the unprotected farmlands north of the Misery had been free from raids since trading between farmers and Nomads had begun a generation or more ago.

  Most of the principals had their own interpreters, and local dialects were translated into Churchspeak. It made for slow going. The focus of attention was usually a wall map of that part of the continent between the Rocky and the Appalotchan Mountains. The map was a problem for all the Nomads except Holy Madness, but Father Ombroz tried to assist them with explanations of correspondences between the Earth and the paper.

  Nimmy found himself becoming the ears and the voice of the Grasshopper sharf, and was soon rebuking the others, especially Brownpony and Dion, for communicating between themselves in Churchspeak or Ol’zark Valley dialect without waiting for his interpretation. Even Önmu Kun was trilingual, but if Demon Light understood anything but the Nomad dialects, he would not admit it; Nimmy noticed, however, that the sharf frowned when the monk interpreted “Red Beard” as “Your Eminence.” His Eminence himself, though understanding a bit of Grasshopper, kept a straight face. Bråm acknowledged nothing spoken to him in the form of a request or an order unless it came from the Lord Høngan Ösle Chür. Only to the Qæsach dri Vørdar did he even appear to defer. He was polite, if only to hide a natural arrogance.

  Nimmy found himself admiring the Grasshopper leader. True, it was like the admiration a man might have for grizzly bear or a cougar, but he might, after all, be a distant relative to Demon Light. The sharf was not condescending or rude to the monk, although he knew well enough that Blacktooth’s ancestors had deserted the horde to farm on lands owned by the Denver Archdiocese.

  At one point during the meeting, he noticed Holy Madness looking up at one of the high windows. Blacktooth followed his gaze, and it was the same balcony window through which Amen Specklebird had been passed into the building at the last conclave. The window was open. A policeman and the young Sharf Oxsho, who had been conspicuous by his absence, at least to Blacktooth, were both gesturing. The Lord of the Hordes came to his feet.

  “M’Lord Cardinal, Your Eminence, I must excuse myself and find out what they want.” He pointed.

  Brownpony looked at the window, nodded, and said, “We will discuss matters which would not much concern your realm while you’re gone. If something’s amiss, please let us know.”

  Chür Høngan (Blacktooth tried to remember the deferential name reversal when speaking to the man, but sometimes failed to think it correctly) was gone for a quarter hour, during which the talk was mostly with suppliers of military equipment from the west coast. When the Lord of the Hordes returned, his face was a storm cloud.

  “A Texark spy has been listening to every word spoken here,” he growled, staring at Brownpony.

  “They caught him up there?”

  “Yes. Our Sharf Oxsho was on watch.”

  “Are you sure he’s from Texark?”

  “Of course. I know him. So does Your Eminence.” He paused, and his stare at Brownpony became a glare. “He is, or was, the husband of Potear Wetok. He’s your Texark cavalry-tactics expert. You sent him to us, remember? I always suspected him.”

  Father Ombroz who was sitting nearby dropped his head in his hands. “Esitt Loyte!” he groaned.

  Brownpony turned pale. “He is in custody now?”

  “Oh, yes, m’Lord. Oxsho bound his hands and has him tethered.”

  Nimmy winced. He knew what Holy Madness meant by “tethered.” Holes were punched in the captive’s cheeks and a loop of rope or rawhide was passed through the holes.

  “Shall I bring him in for you to question? I’ll cut the tether, so he can use his tongue.”

  “No, have them keep him in the local jail. Let him rot there, for all I care.”

  “NO! He belongs to me and the Wetok family. When I leave here, he goes with me, dead or alive,”

  Brownpony came to his feet and faced the angry Nomad lord. “Trusting him was my mistake,” he said. “You are right to claim jurisdiction over him. But Lord Høngan Ösle Chür, as your Vicar Apostolic I forbid you in the name of God to kill him.”

  They stared at each other. The Nomad gave him a barely perceptible nod. The cardinal sat down.

  Høngan left the room again. This time he was gone for nearly an hour. When he came back he faced Brownpony again.

  “Is he in jail?”

  “Most of him is in jail,” said the Qæsach dri Vørdar. “The rest of him is here.” On the table before his Vicar Apostolic, he emptied a bag of bloody parts. Nimmy could see a hand, two ears, the tip of a nose, and what was probably the captain’s penis.

  Sitting next to Blacktooth, Demon Light came to his feet with a deafening Grasshopper battle cry to announce his approval. Brownpony turned and vomited.

  “You said not to kill him,” Høngan said mildly.

  The meeting was adjourned while servants cleaned the table and the floor. When they reconvened, Oxsho joined the other two sharfs in the meeting, and they sat with their Lord Høngan and Eltür’s interpreter. Nimmy sat surrounded by four Nomads, and it seemed to him that the others took a different seating arrangement than before. No chair adjacent to a Nomad was occupied.

  Magister Dion at first resisted the plan that Brownpony and the Nomads favored; he wanted to join forces with the Wilddog and the Grasshopper and move across the Plains north of the Nady Ann, then join forces with able-bodied gleps from the Watchitah Nation and attack Hannegan City from the north. Chuntar Cardinal Hadala, Vicar Apostolic to the Valley, was familiar with its military potential, once its people were armed, and he backed Dion in his plan for a combined army of spooks from the Suckamints and their glep relatives from Ol’zarkia. It was in expectation of this that the spook commander had brought his light-horse brigade here to Valana.

  Brownpony, however, was opposed. Having made reconnaissance in the Province, he foresaw a war on three fronts. Present were military officers from four nation-states in the Appalotcha region, who were pr
epared to invade the Texark’s puppet allies on the east bank of the Great River. Their aim would be less to conquer than to force Filpeo to send forces to the defense of the east-bank puppets, lest he lose control of the river. The plan would be to harass, skirmish, and retreat, and prevent these forces from returning until Hannegan City itself was directly endangered. The commander in chief of the armed forces of the King of the Tenesi was present, and he outlined the plans the eastern nations had made among themselves, with the participation of Hawken Irrikawa.

  Most of the Nomads were pleased by this eastern plan. Lord Høngan Ösle Chür suggested that the Grasshopper sharf propose a temporary truce with Filpeo’s forces, just before the attack on the east-bank states came.

  “That way, he won’t be so uneasy about sending forces across the river.”

  Sharf Demon Light smiled at his lord, and the smile said that the truce, if made, would be opportunely broken.

  The role of the armies of New Jerusalem in this plan would be to join with the guerrilla forces of Önmu Kun, who were at present scattered throughout the hill country in the Province. The guerrillas would move in small groups into the disputed areas a few days’ ride to the west of the town of Yellow, staying away at first from the well-patrolled, but narrow, telegraph right-of-way that led to the last station nearest Valana. Kun had taken a pointer to the map and used it to draw a circle around the country where the Bay Ghost and the Nady Ann were hardly more than creeks, except for small lakes where antiquity’s crumbled dams left small waterfalls. It was outlaw country, to the east of the papal highway, and Blacktooth began to see why his employer wanted Mounts-Everybody among his allies, although the prospect for such a thing was not mentioned at all by the cardinal. The northern hordes would object to the motherless ones, but because of Texark protection, the Jackrabbit had been little bothered by these outlaw bands.

  When the forces of Kun, Dion, and perhaps the outlaws themselves converged here under one command, the rearming of the Jackrabbit with the west-coast weaponry which Önmu had not previously been allowed to smuggle would quickly proceed. The complete destruction of the telegraph was contemplated; also the physical removal of the wire to New Jerusalem. Local Jackrabbit militias, already secretly armed, albeit with older weapons, would rise in revolt as Dion’s and Kun’s armies drove eastward, between the Red and Nady Ann Rivers.

  While Texark’s forces were thus engaged in the Province and beyond the Great River, the Wilddog and the Grasshopper would join forces and attack from the west, hoping to help arm any able-bodied gleps from the Watchitah Nation and mount a combined attack.

  Eventually Magister Dion became convinced. He insisted that Valana should raise its own militia, and occupy the fort his men had built, where citizens might take sanctuary in case of raids by “infiltrators or outlaws,” and the militia would be used to assist the police in apprehending disloyal citizens, especially those of Texark origin. He designated one of his two military aides, Major Elswitch J. Gleaver, a short keg of a man with a red face and long mustachios, as the right officer to command the militia. Blacktooth expected his master to resist this usurpation, but he said nothing. Chuntar Cardinal Hadala broke the silence and said to Brownpony with a wink, “I’ll keep a close eye on the Major for you, Cardinal. I’m staying in the fort.”

  No one raised a question about Valana’s possible response to putting an outsider and a spook in charge.

  When the meeting finally ended, it was nearly dark outside. Brownpony told the Nomads that the Palace, where they were residing, would be needed tomorrow for the beginning of conclave, and asked them to pack their belongings and move to his estate for the night. “Blacktooth will show you the way.”

  Then he beckoned to the monk and whispered, “Make sure they don’t get there before moonrise. I’ll speak privately with Dion now and tell him to expect that outlaw leader.”

  Nimmy nodded his understanding. He prevailed upon the sharfs and Holy Madness to eat dinner at the cardinal’s expense at the Venison House. By the time they arrived at the estate, Mounts-Everybody had gone, presumably to meet with Dion. They greeted their host with minimum cordiality, still angry about the spy, and went at once to their rooms.

  The food was gone from the dinner table, but Brownpony asked Nimmy to sit with them over a glass of wine. He asked what he felt about the day’s events.

  “I felt myself in the service of the hordes instead of you, m’Lord.”

  “That’s quite natural. You were Bråm’s interpreter. What else?”

  “I was both afraid and angry.”

  “Afraid of whom? Angry at whom?”

  “You.”

  This brought a threatening grunt from Wooshin.

  “I suppose that’s natural too,” said the cardinal. “Holy Madness and the sharfs were certainly angry at me, because of Esitt Loyte. And it rubbed off on you. Loyte was one of the few men I’ve ever completely misjudged. Well, tomorrow begins the conclave. You’ll find that less rowdy than last year, and—” He broke off, noticing Blacktooth’s expression. The Axe noticed it too, and was scowling, for his loyalty to his master was absolute.

  “Oh, I can get along without you,” the Red Deacon said. “I don’t need a Grasshopper interpreter in conclave, and I can borrow a secretary from Cardinal Bleze or Nauwhat. Still angry?”

  “No, m’Lord. Just very tired.”

  “It’s been a tiring day. All right, then take a vacation until we have a new pope. The Nomads will be in town a few more days. They have things to talk over among themselves and with Dion’s officers. But remember Loyte, and remember last year’s attack. Watch your back.”

  Early the next morning, while walking through the streets Blacktooth saw several cardinals and their servants on their way to conclave at the Palace. One of them was a woman, but she was not Cardinal Buldyrk. He had heard about her, but had not seen her before.

  There was a small convent on the south bank of the Brave River where a community of barefoot nuns, Sisters of Amen Specklebird’s Ordo Dominae Desertarum Nostrae, lived, worked, and prayed, and Mother Iridia Silentia had been created cardinal by Pope Amen, the second woman in the Sacred College. Blacktooth noticed that her conclavists wore the same religious garb that Ædrea had worn when she was serving as courier between SEEC and New Jerusalem. The same Order had last year held a temporary residence in Valana, and Nimmy had assumed that among these local nuns, Ædrea’s friend, Sister Julian, had provided her with a habit for disguise. But the local nuns were gone now. He had a wild hunch, and it overcame his misgivings about approaching one of them in the street. He spoke to her in a low voice.

  “Forgive me, Sister. I am a monk, not in very good standing, of Saint Leibowitz. A young woman wearing your habit used to come here sometimes from a mountain community. Her name was Ædrea. I was wondering if you might know…”

  The Sister kept her eyes lowered and did not speak. Mother Iridia noticed her conclavist being accosted by a brash cleric of some sort, and she approached them wearing a frown. She and her nun exchanged murmurs in a foreign tongue. Mother Iridia inspected Blacktooth from head to toe, nodded, reached in her portfolio, and handed him a prayer card.

  “God bless you, Brother Blacktooth,” she said, making a tiny cross. “Pray for those in trouble.” Then she gripped her helper’s arm and led her fast away.

  Blacktooth, amazed that she knew his name and therefore his sin, felt the heat of a blush in his face. He looked at the prayer card. It was thick, glossy, and heavily enameled, and probably blessed with holy water like many tiny sacramental placards sold by mendicant religious orders. Most were saccharine and sentimental, but this was not. On one side it bore a picture of a crucifix at the top, but the crucified one was a woman, and the name above it was Santa Librada. Beneath the cross was advice in ancient English, which he understood with small difficulty. The English said:

  (Pray to Santa Librada in times of

  trouble with the police, the courts,

  and when freedom is
not visible. She

  will help you, if you believe.)

  For Ædrea, freedom was certainly not visible!

  He wanted to run after the nuns and ask more questions, but that would be highly improper, and they would not answer. Instead, he resolved to write them a note of inquiry, and get one of Brownpony’s housekeepers to deliver it.

  He looked at the other side of the card. There was printed a prayer or poem which he had difficulty understanding, for although the language reminded him of Latin, it was not Latin:

  Santa Librada del Mundo,

  Tengo ojos, no me miren;

  Tengo manos, no me tapen;

  Tengo pieses, no me alcansan.

  Con los angeles del 43,

  Con el manto de Maria estoy tapado.

  Con los pechos de Maria estoy rosado.

  He thought of Aberlott, who was back in school at Saint Ston’s, and turned to walk toward their old shared residence. The student might know someone at the school who could translate.

  A crowd was gathering in John-in-Exile Square, but this was no mob like last year’s raging rabble. There was no sickness in the city, and more fear than anger, and what anger there was, was directed at Texark and cardinals absent from the city. The people wanted Specklebird to remain as Pope, but his refusal they now seemed to accept as a sad reality. Brownpony was well known and popular, but not well revered; if he was lacking in holiness, he was also lacking in haughtiness, and he seemed to feel affection for the common people of the city.