Saint Leibowitz and the Wild Horse Woman

CHAPTER 19

THEY HAD ARRIVED AT LEIBOWITZ ABBEY DURING the recreational hour in the late afternoon of Ash Wednesday. The Yellow Guard presided over several kick-boxing matches between novices, and even the professed Brothers Wren and Singing Cow were sparring clumsily. Blacktooth observed that the style of fighting differed in some respects from that of Wooshin—although the Axe would never admit to having a “style”. However, Foreman Jing, who had fenced with Wooshin, called it the “way of the homeless sword,” and a “style of no-style.”

Brownpony’s first duty was to confer with Abbot Olshuen.

Blacktooth’s was to bring bad news to the Yellow Guard. First he established himself in the guest room.

“You’re still here!” he exclaimed upon entering.

“No, no,” said Önmu Kun, the Jackrabbit gun smuggler. “I’m back for the second time since you left.” He was full of wine and the urge to talk. “The Jackrabbit Weejus and Bear Spirit have chosen me as sharf, did you know that?”

Nimmy doubted it, but didn’t much care. By looking around at their war gear, Nimmy knew the comrades of the late Weh-Geh, although they were working hard around the abbey, participating in the liturgy, and teaching weaponless fighting to novices, were still staying in the guesthouse along with Önmu Kun. This to Nimmy meant that Olshuen was not about to take them on as postulants or novices without permission from on high.

They greeted him with smiles and handclasps as they returned from the bouts in the courtyard, but Önmu was still talking and laughing about his adventures in the Province, and the warriors were a polite lot. Only their eyes questioned him (“Weh-Geh? Where?”), but they waited for the smuggler to finish.

Brownpony’s flirtations with Churches in the Province had made it easier for Önmu to sell guns, he said. He had only to ask a pastor whether he had seen Cardinal Brownpony on his way toward Hannegan City. If the priest said that he had not, Önmu hurried away. If he had seen him, and showed the slightest enthusiasm, it meant there existed a group of local partisans wanting arms. One cadre which called itself the Knights of Empty Sky was a charity organization. He had supplied them not only with infantry weapons, but made a special trip to bring them three cannon that fired either a peach-size ball or a load of heavy buckshot, for those badly in need of charity. According to “Sharf” Önmu, the Knights anointed each cannon with oil, placed it in a well-caulked box, dug a shallow grave in the Churchyard, and buried it by night.

Blacktooth murmured politely in reply, but finally turned his back toward the tipsy smuggler, and faced the five warriors who watched him expectantly with those dark eyes with uncreased lids. He was ashamed of his failure to befriend an alien in a strange land for no better reason than that he was not Wooshin.

“Brother Weh-Geh was killed while defending his master,” he told them—rather loudly to silence Önmu. “I heard it happen, but I did not see it. There were three shots. There were four men holding guns pointed at him when I looked through the door, and he was already down. He had taken a gun he took from one of our guards. If he fired it, he must have missed. I am very sorry. Whether it was a mistake or not, he was living out his duty. He was a better monk than I.”

“Was it a mistake?” asked Jing-U-Wan, the Foreman.

“Who were those four men?” Gai-See wanted to know.

“Did he have last rites?” asked Woosoh-Loh. “A proper funeral?”

“Dare we ask Abbot Olshuen to say a Mass for him?”

Nimmy tried to answer some of their questions and apologize for his inability to answer others. He finished his talk with them by promising to see Olshuen about a Mass for the repose of souls on behalf of Weh-Geh, and he went at once to the abbot’s office. The door was open, and Brownpony was sitting at the abbot’s desk and talking while Olshuen sat on a stool.

“It’s a shame the Hannegan has a monopoly on the telegraph,” the cardinal complained as he finished writing a letter which Nimmy was certain was addressed to the Valanan Curia. He turned sideways at the desk to look at the abbot who owned the desk and he saw Nimmy in the doorway, beckoned him in, and continued. “The Church has the money to hire Filpeo’s technicians. We could build aline from here to Valana, and perhaps from Valana to the Oregonians.”

The abbot said, “Money enough, yes. But what about the copper? I heard Hannegan had to confiscate coinage, pots, and Church bells. Buy it, you might. But who has it to sell?”

“I’m told silver conducts electrical essence even better than copper. And I’m not sure it’s practical, but we have a source of silver.”

“Oh? Where is that?”

Brownpony changed the subject. He handed Olshuen a letter and asked, “What do you think of this? Come in, Nimmy, come in.”

The abbot took it and studied for a bit, holding it so that Blacktooth might read it as well if he wanted to:

“You ask me what I think? How should I know?” Olshuen said while shaking his head. “In the name of God, m’Lord, I am only a monk of Leibowitz. I am not Abbot Jarad. My only vocation is here, my God is here, and although I am a servant of Holy Mother Church…”

“Oh, bother. Stop, stop, please! I’m sorry I showed it to you. Jarad should have refused the red hat, but the seventh Linus insisted. I know that, and you probably do too.”

“I’m trying to remember if an abbot here ever refused a Pope’s request, m’Lord.”

“Maybe not, but if Amen Specklebird made you a cardinal, what would you say?”

Olshuen hesitated before he said, “No, not even from him.” It was plain that even those who knew him only by hearsay adored the old priest-hermit-magician Pope. But among lovers of power, only Brownpony seemed to feel a deep affection for him.

Nimmy presented his petition on behalf of Jing-U-Wan’s men and their deceased brother, and Olshuen promised a Mass. The next morning Brownpony sent Blacktooth to Sanly Bowitts with the message and gold enough to hire a courier with two horses to carry it quickly to Valana. The messenger promised to ride from dawn to dusk, and by night when the moon permitted, and to wait in Valana for a reply, unless Wooshin replaced him.

While he was returning to the abbey, he met Gai-See riding toward the village. They exchanged greetings and paused for a moment. Nimmy asked why he was going to town, and Gai-See said, “After you left, the cardinal decided to send another message. I have it with me.”

“Another letter to Valana?”

“No. New Jerusalem.” He frowned at himself. “You have a right to ask that?”

“Probably not. I’ll try to forget it.”

They went their opposite directions. Nimmy knew well what the cardinal had to say to Mayor Dion. Somehow a small weapon from their west-coast arsenal had found its way into the hand of Filpeo Harq. Both master and servant had seen it. There seemed to be no other possibility than that New Jerusalem had been infiltrated by the Hannegan’s agent. But he would not ask Brownpony about it, lest he make trouble for Gai-See, who told him the letter’s destination.

While Nimmy in October had found unfriendly attitudes in the atmosphere at the monastery, he now found them downright hostile in early March. He was being shunned again by the professed. On the other hand, some novices seemed to find him much more interesting than before. He tried to find out what had happened since, but “unexpected visitors” was the only mumbled answer he could get to his questions.

The three novices who were in the abbot’s waiting room overheard a shouting match between the abbot and Cardinal Brownpony—or “Pope Brownpony,” as one of them called him—and mentioned it to Nimmy. Very little of the shouting was understandable, but that it was about Blacktooth, they were certain.

Blacktooth decided to confront the cardinal, but upon finding him kneeling before the lady altar praying to the Virgin, he merely knelt beside him and waited. Brownpony stirred, and Nimmy sensed his discomfort. The Red Deacon crossed himself and arose. The monk waited a few seconds and did the same. Brownpony was pacing toward the door. Nimmy shuffled behind him. Hearing the shuffle, the Red Deacon turned.

“Do you want something, Brother St. George?”

“Only to know what’s going on.”

They walked outside and stopped.

“I knew she might be alive. But I did not want to arouse false hopes. Go climb the Mesa of Last Resort. The man who saw her last may be living there now.” The cardinal started walking away.

“She? Who?” Nimmy called after him.

Brownpony looked back at him without answering.

“Ædrea!”

“Go to the Mesa. I’ll tell the abbot I sent you. He wanted to send you himself. But it was my responsibility. I let you down.”

Pale as a ghost, Nimmy hurried toward the kitchen to beg some hard biscuits and water for the journey. From the cook, who was in a good humor, he received the biscuits, some cheese, and a wineskin filled with a mixture of wine and water. Then he went to the guesthouse to pack a bedroll; it was too late to leave that day, so he slept and left before daylight while his brethren were being called to Lauds. It was a long hike to Last Resort, and the first thing he saw when he arrived at the usual way of ascent was a recent grave with two sticks lashed together for a cross. Its meaning eluded him. After the slow climb, the sun was sinking behind distant mountains. He went straight to the ramshackle shelter he had discovered the previous year and found it rebuilt, but no one was home. He was reluctant to try the door.

After shouting a few times and hearing no answer, he sat on his bedroll to wait. The light was becoming too dim for reading Compline, so he said his rosary, sometimes contemplating the mystery of each decade and sometimes contemplating the beautiful waif who had stolen it from him. The grave at the foot of the Mesa kept coming to mind. He shook his head impatiently and resumed contemplation of the fifth glorious mystery, which was the coronation in Heaven of the Mother by the Son, after her bodily assumption. But there was no before or after, according to Amen Specklebird, for whom the coronation of the Virgin was an event belonging to eternity. The Virgin’s face became Ædrea’s, and he finished the last decade as quickly as possible. When he looked up, a gaunt silhouette with a club raised on high stood over him against the twilight sky.

It croaked: “Don’t get up! Who are you? What are you doing here?”

“I am Brother Blacktooth St. George, and my master Cardinal Brownpony sent me.”

“Oh, I remember you now,” said the old Jew, squinting in the twilight. “On the road to New Jerusalem, you asked too many questions.”

“Did you make rain for them?”

“Still asking too many questions. Your master sent you with a message? For me?”

“No, he sent me with a question. What can you tell me about Ædrea? You saw her. Where did she go?”

The old Jew was silent for several seconds. “I happened to be of some assistance to her when she fled from her father. She came here with me, after the abbey turned her away. She had her babies. She went away.”

“Babies!”

“Twin boys. They were not alike, though. She left them with me, because they were not perfect. Her father would have killed them. And she had nowhere else to go but home. She knows too much about affairs in New Jerusalem to risk getting caught on the way east to the Valley.”

“Where are the children?”

“The milk of my goat did not agree with them. I took them to Sanly Bowitts. I left them with a woman who promised to take care of them until they were sent for.”

“By whom?”

“Hmm-nnn. How should I know? Someone from the Valley. Or you, the father, probably.”

“Ædrea told you that I am the father?”

“She is a talkative young woman. She was here for, hmm-nnn, seven or eight weeks. She was always singing or talking. I miss her singing, not her talking.” He groped in his bag and handed Nimmy pieces of flint and steel. “That’s the hearth, there in the shadow. Light the tinder. The wood is stacked.”

“Was it ahard birth?”

“Very hard. I had to cut. She lost a lot of blood.”

“Cut? You are a physician?”

“I am all things.”

Nimmy got the fire started at last. Following the old hermit’s instructions, he found in the hut a box of crumbled dry meal, dumped two double handfuls to a pot with a bail, and added water from a great jug by the door.

“Hang it from the tripod. Stir it with a clean stick.”

“What is that stuff?”

“Food, Father.”

“Don’t call me that. I’m no priest!”

“Did I say you were? You’re a father, though. I could call you ‘Dad.’”

Blacktooth felt himself reddening. “Why don’t you call me ‘Nimmy’?”

“Is that what they call you at the abbey?”

“No, but my master does.”

“Is he not at the abbey?”

“Yes?”

“Well, it seems your master let you think she was dead, isn’t it so?”

“He said he couldn’t be sure, didn’t want to arouse false hope. I think I believe him.”

“Hah!” The old Jew began chuckling to himself.

Nimmy stirred the pot until the mush turned thick. The old hermit brought out metal plates, spoons, and cups. Nimmy pulled his biscuits out of the bedroll, poured the cups full of his watered wine. They sat on a bench made of a flat stone supported by fat legs that were sunk in the ground, and ate dinner by the firelight.

Blacktooth crossed himself and whispered the blessing. The old Jew, holding his bowl, sang out a few words of prayer in a strange tongue which Nimmy supposed to be Hebrew.

The mush, Benjamin told him, was made of processed mesquite beans he had brought from Sanly Bowitts. Later in the year, he would pick and process his own. He had raised goats here before, and would try to acquire a herd again. He spoke of past ages as if he had been there personally. Several times he spoke of an “Abbot Jerome” as if he were still ruling the monastery, and referred to the conquests of Hannegan II as if they were still happening. For him, all ages seemed to coexist in his own private Now.

Nimmy spent the night inside the old man’s hut. Again he dreamed the dream of the open grave at the abbey, the one with the baby in it, but he awoke in surprise from the dream, knowing that Jarad Kendemin was buried there. In the morning, he dared to ask Benjamin about the recent grave at the foot of the Mesa. The hermit denied any knowledge of it, then noticed Nimmy’s doubt.

“If you think I buried her there, go try to dig her up.”

“I believe you.”

Nimmy was not in a hurry to leave. His anger toward the cardinal had been aroused, and he wanted to rid himself of it, or turn it into mere diminished trust. Brownpony had withheld the truth from him before, but he could not remember an outright lie. From what the old man said, he knew Ædrea thought he lied. But she had not heard his actual words to Blacktooth.

He stayed an extra day and night. The sky was overcast, and a cold wind had risen. The waterskin and the hermit’s jug were empty.

“Where do you get water up here?”

Benjamin looked at him, pointed casually at the sky, then continued milking the goat.

Twenty seconds passed. A large, cold drop of water hit the monk in the face. Moments later, there was a brief cloudburst. Nimmy asked no more questions.

The old hermit complained that Nimmy was eating more food than he brought with him. So he left shortly after dawn on the third day. When gravel came rattling down the way behind him, he looked back up the path. The old Jew was following him down with a shovel.

Because of the dream, Nimmy had a brief vision of an open grave. And on the third day, she arose again—

But the grave was not open. Instead, they now found two graves at the foot of the Mesa. Obviously one had been dug only yesterday. The old Jew leaned on his shovel, and squinted at Nimmy.

“No, I won’t dig,” the monk said. “Goodbye and thank you.” He hurried away toward Sanly Bowitts without looking back.

Benjamin had given him the old woman’s name. He found her old adobe house without difficulty, and counted seven children playing in the yard. He suddenly realized this was the “orphanage” the abbey had always supported in the town. The woman was sullen. She seemed to know who he was and why he was here, but considered him an outcast and a scoundrel. “Why did you not come for them ten days ago? They have been taken away for adoption.”

“By whom?”

“Three sisters.”

“Where were they taken?”

“I’m not at liberty to say.”

When Blacktooth showed signs of anger, she called him a scoundrel, a libertine, a false monk. She ordered him to leave at once, and retired to the old adobe building.

“Where did the mother go?” he yelled after her, to no effect. So he marched in gloom back to the abbey.

The shooting began while the monks were in the convent’s refectory for lunch on the following day. Atop the parapet wall, Father Levion, now Prior, was fasting when the first distant boom! occurred. He was praying, as he often did, toward the grandeur of the broken desert horizon and to the God who made it. The first explosion scarcely distracted him from prayer, although his eyes scanned the open country for a sign of smoke. After the second boom! Önmu Kun came running out of the refectory and across the courtyard. He saw Levion on the wall and raced up the stairs to join him.

“Where?” he asked breathlessly.

“I don’t know. I didn’t see anything.”

Boom! The interval between explosions was about a minute and a half.

“It sounds like it’s coming from over there,” said Levion, pointing down the valley.

“The crosswind makes it sound that way,” Önmu replied, looking straight at the Mesa of Last Resort.

After the fourth boom!, he pointed at the Mesa. There was indeed a tiny wisp of smoke up there.

On the fifth boom!, a plume of dust shot up from a spot about two hundred paces from the abbey.

“Damn! He’s getting our range!” cried the smuggler.

On the sixth boom!, a cannonball hit the center of the road m front of the abbey, bounced through the open gates, caromed off the stone curb around the rose bed, and went on bouncing directly into the convent and through the refectory doors. Screaming was heard, and monks came pouring out of the building.

“Take cover!” yelled the Jackrabbit. “He’s got two balls left.”

There were no more shots, and while the monks at their meager Lenten lunch were badly frightened, the only damage was in the kitchen; but Önmu had indicted himself by knowing too much. The cannonball was found, and although it had been deformed and somewhat flattened, there appeared to be a few characters in Hebrew scratched upon it. An expert was summoned. The legible part of the inscription said, “…maketh bread to spring forth from the Earth.” It was a blessing over food. “Apt enough, considering the target,” said the translator. There was an immediate conference in the abbot’s office. Blacktooth was called in, and appointed interrogator, since he knew the man as well as anyone, and spoke his dialect best.

They met in the guesthouse.

“By what right are you staying here, good simpleton?”

“I was invited,” said the Jackrabbit.

“By whom?”

“By Abbot Olshuen, who else?”

“At the cardinal’s insistence?”

“Probably.”

“The abbot knows what you do?”

“I don’t know. But even if he knows, I would not, I could not, bring my merchandise here. I never have.”

“So you bury it in the desert here until you’re ready to travel again. Then you dig it up.”

“This time, the old man dug it up. My bad luck. I thought he never came down, and never had visitors. It’s the first time I used that spot. I didn’t expect him to desecrate a grave.”

“He’s a little crazy, but not stupid. He knew it was no grave. So he dug up your cannon, and sent us a message with it.”

“He must have exceeded the maximum load to reach this far. And pointed it up about forty degrees.”

“And he’s shooting from about five hundred feet above us.”

“Was he trying to kill someone?”

“Old Benjamin? No. He was telling the abbot about you.”

“I’d better leave.”

“What was in the other grave?”

“Rifles.”

“If you’re going to try to reclaim your merchandise, someone is going to go with you. There are six of us. Any one of us can manage you.”

“Even you?” The Jackrabbit laughed.

Blacktooth knocked the wind out of him and threw him in the corner. Önmu looked up in surprise, gasping for breath, but without anger.

“Why did you do that, Brother St. George?”

“To show you, if you get into a quarrel with the old man over your guns, you’re going to lose.”

“But they are my guns! They are for the Grasshopper, and I am Sharf.”

“You know that’s a lie. You told me yourself you get a commission.”

“Sure, if I sell them. If I lose them, they’re mine.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I have to pay for them. Who do you think owns them, Cardinal Brownpony?”

“I don’t know, but I doubt it. Mayor Dion, probably. But whoever sells them, you’re only the broker.”

“I am also Sharf! Secretly, of course.”

Önmu Kun disappeared from the abbey that night, never to return. Being related to the royal tribe was prerequisite to election as sharf of a horde, and Nimmy doubted that any Nomad north of the Nady Ann would recognize his claim. Gai-See was sent galloping toward Last Resort on the abbot’s horse to protect the old Jew, and if possible to negotiate the surrender of the weapons. He returned the following day dragging one cannon, and reported two empty graves, also reported that Benjamin had not opened the second grave. Evidently Kun had recovered his rifles and moved on. But so it was that Leibowitz Abbey came into possession of modern ordnance, but as yet no ammunition. Abiquiu Olshuen locked the cannon in the basement room with the rusty weapons from earlier centuries.

Novices reported another loud argument between the cardinal and the abbot behind closed doors. This time it was about guns. Brownpony emerged angry and humiliated; he told Blacktooth that Olshuen felt the abbey’s hospitality had been abused.

“He knows now that the Jackrabbit is being armed,” he told Nimmy. “He’s afraid for the monastery, if the Hannegan suspects his monks are involved. He wants Jing’s men to leave.”

“But they have nothing to do with it!”

“No, but the concept of warrior monks is alien to Dom Abiquiu’s idea of Christianity. To him it’s a scandal. We should leave here soon.”

“Did the Jackrabbit grandmothers really choose Önmu Kun as Sharf, as he claims?”

“Everything is secretive in Jackrabbit country, Nimmy. With them, the test is not legal but practical. If the men follow him in battle, he is Sharf. If they don’t, he is not, no matter what the Weejus say.”

Well into Lent, a messenger from Hannegan City brought a petition addressed to all bishops and signed by Urion Benefez and seven other cardinals. It announced a General Council of the Church to be held in New Rome six weeks after Easter, and all bishops and abbots able to travel must attend. The purpose of the Council would be to draft new legislation concerning conclaves.

“Only a sovereign Pontiff can summon a General Council,” said Brownpony, and refused to sign. Olshuen also refused. The messenger shrugged and rode on.

Wooshin arrived the following day with the expected summons to a conclave in Valana. He was warmly greeted by Brownpony, Blacktooth, and the Yellow Guard, but the summons he brought was rather strange. Apparently the Curia knew of the petition for a General Council, for the tone of the summons was angry, and the last paragraph threatened excommunication to any cardinal who attended a rump session in New Rome “where schismatics and heretics will try to install a known sodomite to sit on the throne of Peter the Apostle.” The document was signed by Amen, Episcopus Romae, servus servorum Dei, but Brownpony was suspicious of the signature, and the language was certainly not Specklebird’s.

“Things are getting ugly,” said the Red Deacon. “We must leave here at once.”