Saint Leibowitz and the Wild Horse Woman

CHAPTER 13

IT 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 strode 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 Wild-dog.”

“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.

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.