“Blessed Leibowitz, please!” monsignor corrected. “No, not yet. We opened the inner chamber. Had a devil of a time getting it unsealed. Fifteen skeletons inside and many fascinating artifacts. Apparently the woman — it was a woman, by the way-whose remains you found was admitted to the outer chamber, but the inner chamber was already full. Possibly it would have provided some degree of protection if a falling wall hadn’t caused the cave-in. The poor souls inside were trapped by the stones that blocked the entrance. Heaven knows why the door wasn’t designed to swing inward.”
“The woman in the antechamber, was she Emily Leibowitz?”
Aguerra smiled. “Can we prove it? I don’t know yet. I believe she was, yes — I believe — but perhaps I’m letting hope run away with reason. We’ll see what we can uncover yet; we’ll see. The other side has a witness present. I can’t jump to conclusions.”
Despite his disappointment at Francis’ account of the meeting with the pilgrim, Aguerra remained friendly enough. He spent ten days at the archaeological site before returning to New Rome, and he left two of his assistants behind to supervise further excavation. On the day of his departure, he visited Brother Francis in the scriptorium.
“They tell me you were working on a document to commemorate the relics you found,” said the postulator. “Judging by the descriptions I’ve heard, I think I should very much like to see it.”
The monk protested that it was really nothing, but he went immediately to fetch it, with such eagerness that his hands were trembling as he unpacked the lambskin. Joyfully he observed that Brother Jeris was looking on, while wearing a nervous frown.
The monsignor stared for many seconds. “Beautiful!” he exploded at last. “What glorious color! It’s superb, superb. Finish it — Brother, finish it!”
Brother Francis looked up at Brother Jeris and smiled questioningly.
The master of the copyroom turned quickly away. The back of his neck grew red. On the following day, Francis unpacked his quills, dyes, gold leaf, and resumed his labor on the illuminated diagram.
9
A few months after the departure of Monsignor Aguerra, there came a second donkey train — with a full complement of clerks and armed guards for defense against highwaymen, mutant maniacs, and rumored dragons — to the abbey from New Rome. This time the expedition was headed by a monsignor with small horns and pointy fangs, who announced that he was charged with the duty of opposing the canonization of the Blessed Leibowitz, and that he had come to investigate — and perhaps fix responsibility for, he hinted — certain incredible and hysterical rumors which had filtered out of the abbey and lamentably reached even the gates of New Rome. He made it evident that he would tolerate no romantic nonsense, as a certain earlier visitor perhaps had done.
The abbot greeted him politely and offered him an iron cot in a cell with a south exposure, after apologizing for the fact that the guest suite had been recently exposed to smallpox. The monsignor was attended by his own staff, and ate mush and herbs with the monks in the refectory — quail and chaparral cocks being unaccountably scarce that season, so the huntsmen reported.
This time, the abbot did not feel it necessary to warn Francis against any too liberal exercise of his imagination. Let him exercise it, if he dared. There was small danger of the advocatus diaboli giving immediate credence even to the truth, without first giving it a thorough thrashing and thrusting his fingers into its wounds.
“I understand you are prone to fainting spells,” said Monsignor Flaught when he had Brother Francis alone and had fixed him with what Francis decided was a malign glare.
“Tell me, is there any epilepsy in your family? Madness? Mutant neural patterns?”
“None, Excellency.”
“I’m not an ‘Excellency,’“ snapped the priest. “Now, we’re going to get the truth out of you.”A little simple straight-forward surgery should be adequate, his tone seemed to imply, with only a minor amputation being required.
“Are you aware that documents can be artificially aged?” he demanded.
Brother Francis was not so aware.
“Do you realize that the name, Emily, did not appear among the papers you found?”
“Oh, but it—” He paused, suddenly uncertain.
“The name which appeared was Em, was it not? — which might be a diminutive for Emily.”
“I — I believe that is correct, Messér.”
“But it might also be a diminutive for Emma, might it not? And the name Emma DID appear in the box!”
Francis was silent.
“Well?”
“What was the question, Messér?”
“Never mind! I just thought I’d tell you that the evidence suggests that ‘Em’ was for Emma, and “Emma” was not a diminutive of Emily. What do you say to that?”
“I had no previous opinion, on the subject, Messér, but — ’
“But what?”
“Aren’t husband and wife often careless about what they call each other?”
“ABE YOU BEING FLIPPANT WITH ME?”
“No, Messér.”
“Now, tell the truth! How did you happen to discover that shelter, and what is this fantastic twaddle about an apparition?”
Brother Francis attempted to explain. The advocatus diaboli interrupted with periodic snorts and sarcastic queries, and when he was finished, the advocate raked at his story with semantic tooth and nail until Francis himself wondered if he had really seen the old man or had imagined the incident.
The cross-examining technique was ruthless, but Francis found the experience less frightening than an interview with the abbot. The devil’s advocate could do no worse than tear him limb from limb this one time, and the knowledge that the operation would soon be over helped the amputee to bear the pain. When facing the abbot, however, Francis was always aware that a blunder could be punished again and again, Arkos being his ruler for a lifetime and the perpetual Inquisitor of his soul.
And Monsignor Flaught seemed to find the monk’s story too distressingly simple-minded to warrant full-scale attack, after observing Brother Francis’ reaction to the initial onslaught.
“Well, Brother, if that’s your story and you stick to it, I don’t think we’ll be bothered with you at all. Even if it’s true — which I don’t admit — it’s so trivial it’s silly. Do you realize that?”
“That’s what l always thought, Messér,” sighed Brother Francis, who had for many years tried to detach the importance which others had attached to the pilgrim.
“Well, it’s high time you said so!” Flaught snapped.
“I always said that I thought he was probably just an old man.”
Monsignor Flaught covered his eyes with his hand and sighed heavily. His experience with uncertain witnesses led him to say no more.
Before leaving the abbey, the advocatus diaboli, like the Saint’s advocate before him, stopped at the scriptorium and asked to see the illuminated commemoration of the Leibowitz blueprint (“that dreadful incomprehensibility” as Flaught called it). This time the monk’s hands trembled not with eagerness but with fear, for once again he might be forced to abandon the project. Monsignor Flaught gazed at the lambskin in silence. He swallowed thrice. At last he forced himself to nod.
“Your imagery is vivid,” he admitted, “but we all knew that, didn’t we?” He paused. “You’ve been working on it how long now?”
“Six years, Messér — intermittently.”
“Yes, well, it would seem that you have at least as many years to go.”
Monsignor Flaught’s horns immediately shortened by an inch, and his fangs disappeared entirely. He departed the same evening for New Rome.
The years flowed smoothly by, seaming the faces of the young and adding gray to their temples. The perpetual labor of the monastery continued, daily storming heaven with the ever-recurring hymn of the Divine Office, daily supplying the world with a slow trickle of copied and recopied manuscript, occasionally renting clerks and scribes to t
he episcopate, to ecclesiastical tribunals, and to such few secular powers as would hire them. Brother Jeris developed ambitions of building a printing press, but Arkos quashed the plan when he heard of it. There was neither sufficient paper nor proper ink available, nor any demand for inexpensive books in a world smug in its illiteracy. The copyroom continued with pot and quill.
On the Feast of the Five Holy Fools, a Vatican messenger arrived with glad tidings for the Order. Monsignor Flaught had withdrawn all objections and was doing penance before an ikon of the Beatus Leibowitz. Monsignor Aguerre’s case was proved; the Pope had directed that a decree be issued recommending canonization. The date for the formal proclamation was set for the coming Holy Year, and was to coincide with the calling of a General Council of the Church for the purpose of making a careful restatement of doctrine concerning the limitation of the magisterium to matters of faith and morals; it was a question which had been settled many times in history, but it seemed to re-arise in new forms in every century, especially in those dark periods when man’s “knowledge” of wind, stars, and rain was really only belief. During the time of the council, the founder of the Albertian Order would be enrolled in the Calendar of Saints.
The announcement was followed by a period of rejoicing at the abbey. Dom Arkos, now withered by age and close to dotage, summoned Brother Francis into his presence and wheezed:
“His Holiness invites us to New Rome for the canonization. Prepare to leave.”
“I, m’Lord?”
“You alone. Brother Pharmacist forbids me to travel, and it would not be well for Father Prior to leave while I am ill.
“Now don’t faint on me again,” Dom Arkos added querulously. “You’re probably getting more credit than you deserve for the fact that the court accepted the death date of Emily Leibowitz as conclusively proved. But His Holiness invited you anyway. I suggest you thank God and claim no credit.”
Brother Francis tottered. “His Holiness… ?”
“Yes. Now, we’re sending the original Leibowitz blueprint to the Vatican. What do you think about taking along your illuminated commemoration as a personal gift to the Holy Father?”
“Uh,” said Francis.
The abbot revived him, blessed him, called him a good simpleton, and sent him to pack his bindlestiff.
10
The trip to New Rome would require at least three months, perhaps longer, the time depending to some extent on the distance which Francis could cover before the inevitable band of robbers relieved him of his ass. He would be traveling alone and unarmed, carrying only his bindlestiff and begging bowl in addition to the relic and its illuminated replica. He prayed that ignorant robbers would have no use for the latter; for, indeed, among the bandits of the wayside were sometimes kindly thieves who took only what was of value to them, and permitted their victim to retain his life, carcass, and personal effects. Others were less considerate.
As a precaution, Brother Francis wore a black patch over his right eye. The peasants were a superstitious lot and could often be routed by even a hint of the evil eye. Thus armed and equipped, he set out to obey the summons of the Sacerdos Magnus, that Most Holy Lord and Ruler, Leo Pappas XXI.
Nearly two months after leaving the abbey, the monk met his robber on a heavily wooded mountain trail, far from any human settlement except the Valley of the Misborn, which lay a few miles beyond a peak to the west, where, leperlike, a colony of the genetically monstrous lived in seclusion from the world. There were some such colonies which were supervised by hospitalers of Holy Church, but the Valley of the Misborn was not among them. Sports who had escaped death at the hands of the forest tribes had congregated there several centuries ago. Their ranks were continually replenished by warped and crawling things that sought refuge from the world, but some among them were fertile and gave birth. Often such children inherited the monstrosity of the parent stock. Often they were born dead or never reached maturity. But occasionally the monstrous trait was recessive, and an apparently normal child resulted from the union of sports. Sometimes, however, the superficially “normal” offspring were blighted by some invisible deformity of heart or mind that bereft them, seemingly, of the essence of humanity while leaving them its appearances. Even within the Church, some had dared espouse the view that such creatures truly had been deprived of the Dei imago from conception, that their souls were but animal souls, that they might with impunity under the Natural Law be destroyed as animal and not Man, that God had visited animal issue upon the species as a punishment for the sins that had nearly destroyed humankind. Few theologians whose belief in Hell had never failed them would deprive their God of recourse to any form of temporal punishment, but for men to take it upon themselves to judge any creature born of woman to be lacking in the divine image was to usurp the privilege of Heaven. Even the idiot which seems less gifted than a dog, or a pig, or a goat, shall, if born of woman, be called an immortal soul. thundered the magisterium, and thundered it again and again. After several such pronouncements, aimed at curbing infanticide, had issued from New Rome, the luckless misborn had come to be called the “Pope’s nephews,” or the “Pope’s children,” by some.
“Let that which is born alive of human parents be suffered to live,” the previous Leo had said, “in accordance with both the Natural Law and the Divine Law of Love; let it be cherished as Child and nurtured, whatever its form and demeanor, for it is a fact available to natural reason alone, unaided by Divine Revelation, that among the Natural Rights of Man the right to parental assistance in an attempt to survive is precedent to all other rights, and may not be modified legitimately by Society or State except insofar as Princes are empowered to implement that right. Not even the beasts of the Earth act otherwise.”
The robber that accosted Brother Francis was not in any obvious way one of the malformed, but that he came from the Valley of the Misborn was made evident when two hooded figures arose from behind a tangle of brush on the slope that overlooked the trail and hooted mockingly at the monk from ambush, while aiming at him with drawn bows. From such a distance, Francis was not certain of his first impression that one hand grasped a bow with six fingers or an extra thumb; but there was no doubt at all that one of the robed figures was wearing a robe with two hoods, although be could make out no faces, nor could be determine whether the extra hood contained an extra head or not.
The robber himself stood in the trail directly ahead. He was a short man, but heavy as a bull, with a glazed knob of a pate and a jaw like a block of granite. He stood in the trail with his legs spread wide and his massive arms folded across his chest while he watched the approach of the small figure astride the ass. The robber, as best Brother Francis could see, was armed only with his own brawn and a knife which be did not bother to remove from his belt-thong, He beckoned Francis forward. When the monk stopped fifty yards away, one of the Pope’s children unleashed an arrow; the missile whipped into the trail just behind the donkey, causing the animal to spurt ahead.
“Get off,” the robber ordered.
The ass stopped in the path. Brother Francis tossed back his hood to reveal the eye patch and raised a trembling finger to touch it. He began lifting the patch slowly from his eye.
The robber tossed back his bead and laughed a laugh that might have sprung, Francis thought, from the throat of Satan; the monk muttered an exorcism, but the robber appeared untouched.
“You black-sacked jeebers wore that one out years ago,” he said. “Now get off.”
Brother Francis smiled, shrugged, and dismounted without further protest. The robber inspected the donkey, patting its flanks, examining teeth and hooves.
“Eat? Eat?” cried one of the robed creatures on the hillside.
“Not this time,” barked the robber. “Too scrawny.”
Brother Francis was not entirely convinced that they were talking about the donkey.
“Good day to you, sir,” the monk said pleasantly. “You may take the ass. Walking will improve my health, I think.” He
smiled again and started away.
An arrow slashed into the trail at his feet.
“Stop that!” howled the robber, then to Francis: “Now strip. And let’s see what’s in that roll and in the package.”
Brother Francis touched his begging bowl and made a gesture of helplessness, which brought only another scornful laugh from the robber.
“I’ve seen that alms-pot trick before too,” he said. “The last man with a bowl had half a heklo of gold hidden in his boot. Now strip.”
Brother Francis, who was not wearing boots, hopefully displayed his sandals, but the robber gestured impatiently. The monk untied his bindlestiff, spread its contents for display, and began to undress. The robber searched his clothing, found nothing, and tossed the clothing back to its owner, who breathed his gratitude; he had been expecting to be left naked on the trail.
“Now let’s see inside that other package.”
“It contains only documents, sir,” the monk protested. “Of value to no one except the owner.”
“Open it.”
Silently Brother Francis untied the package and unwrapped the original blueprint and the illuminated commemoration thereof. The gold-leaf inlay and the colorful design flashed brilliantly in the sunlight that filtered through the foliage. The robber’s craggy jaw dropped an inch. He whistled softly.
“What a pretty! Now wouldn’t the woman like that to hang on the cabin wall!”
Francis went sick inside.
“Gold!” the robber shouted to his robed accomplices on the hill.
“Eat? Eat?” came the gurgling and chortling reply.
“We’ll eat, never fear!” called the robber, then explained conversationally to Francis: “They get hungry after a couple of days just sitting there. Business is bad. Traffic’s light these days.”
Francis nodded. The robber resumed his admiration of the illuminated replica.
Lord, if Thou hast sent him to test me, then help me to die like a man, that he may take it only over the dead body of Thy servant. Holy Leibowitz, see this deed and pray for me —
A Canticle For Leibowitz l-1 Page 10
