Saint Leibowitz and the Wild Horse Woman

CHAPTER 21

NIMMY SLEPT BADLY THAT NIGHT, AND AROSE twice from nightmares to pray before the crucifix. Once he had a visitor. Moonlight shining through the window fell on white bedsheets and he could see a dark figure in the doorway. By its bulk, he knew it could only be Mounts-Everybody. He came quickly to his feet, prepared to fight if the outlaw tried to live up to his name. But the hulk merely grunted and moved on. A few seconds later, another dark figure stole down the corridor behind the motherless one. That would be one of the Yellow Guard, shadowing him. Probably he was only looking for a place to urinate.

Nimmy went back to bed. He dreaded the morrow, for he saw clearly the direction of recent events, and how Brownpony was moving them. It was not as if the Red Deacon had drawn a map of the future, but he was bent toward one goal; whatever happened he examined it to see if it might be useful as a means toward that goal. Nimmy was not opposed to the destruction of the Empire, or the reduction of its power and the restoration of the New Roman papacy. That was Brownpony’s end. The means, in part, he might deem legitimate. There was such a thing as a just war; he did not doubt the ancient teaching. But Leibowitz had been a man of peace, had he not?—after a warlike youth—and he was still the Saint’s willing follower, although a half-unwilling member of the Saint’s present Order under abbots like Jarad and Olshuen. He had renounced the world, just as the abbots and his brethren had renounced it, but now he was in the midst of the world, and the renunciation seemed meaningless. He lay awake most of the night, remembering his devotion to Leibowitz and the Holy Virgin. When he did fall briefly asleep, he dreamed of Ædrea, woke up with an erection, and fought an urge to masturbate because it was dawn and people were moving in the hallway.

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 qcesczc/z 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 prepared 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 athreatening 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:

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:

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.

On his way to Aberlott’s, Blacktooth paused to watch some of the cardinals recently created by Pope Amen as they arrived and entered the assembly. He stood beside a young priest, who told him their names.

There was Abbot Joyo Cardinal Watchingdown, from Watchingdown Abbey, far east of the Great River.

And Wolfer Cardinal Poilyf, from the North Country, came still wearing his furs, although it was not a cold day.

Domidomi Cardinal Hoydok of Texark was excommunicated by Benefez for supporting Pope Amen, who then appointed him to the College. He was the one who had penned the angry summons to conclave, and he seemed still angry as he stalked into the hall.

Then came Furi Cardinal Shirikane, quietly, almost slinking along; he was from the west coast, a priest who could also speak Wooshin’s dialect, so the Axe had told him. His countenance also seemed to bear a trace of Asia in it.

And there was Abraha Cardinal Linkono, a schoolteacher from New Jerusalem, the only known spook in the College.

“And there is Hawken Chief Irrikawa,” said the young priest.

“I know. I saw him yesterday.”

“Did you know that it was Cardinal Buldyrk who suggested him to Pope Amen in the first place? The Abbey of N’ork is adjacent to Irrikawa’s forest kingdom.”

“I’m surprised,” Nimmy told his informant. “Last year, the lady seemed to be leaning toward Cardinal Benefez.”

“Hah! That was before Pope Amen ordained two women, and made another one cardinal,” the priest said—rather stiffly, it seemed to Blacktooth.

“Irrikawa makes strange claims, says his family is as old as the continent itself. And that eagle feather! He doesn’t want to be called ‘Cardinal.’ His servants call him ‘Sire’ and ‘Majesty.’”

Two humbler men then went in the door: Buzi Cardinal Fudsow, a local plumbing contractor who had added a flush toilet of his own invention to Amen Specklebird’s hillside retreat, and Leevit Lord Cardinal Baehovar, a merchant from the Utah country.

Then the new Bishop of Denver, Varley Cardinal Swineman, whose diocese included the whole of the Denver Freestate, except for Valana itself; his cathedral was two days’ ride to the north at Danfer, a small community on the outskirts of an expanse of half-buried rubble which was once a city of Denver. Although a Bishop of Denver had mounted the throne of Peter a few years ago, the Denver diocesan chair was not traditionally occupied by a cardinal.

Blacktooth thanked the priest and picked his way through the crowd in the square again. The conclave, legitimate or illegitimate, was not yet officially locked and sealed. The doors and windows were all still open, and the crowd in the square was quiet because a loud voice could be heard from within addressing the prelates who had already arrived. It took a few moments for Nimmy to recognize the voice of his master, because there was anger in it:

“I am under a suspended sentence of death imposed by the Imperial Mayor. The Pope has been denounced as an impostor by the Hannegan, the Archbishop, and their allies. They are attempting to convene a General Council of the Church in New Rome, and this—as you know—cannot be done without the approval of the Pope, and if there is no Pope, it cannot be done at all. Texark has begun to wage an undeclared war against the Valanan papacy, and we are all in danger. While we all deplore the Grasshopper raid into the illegally occupied zone around New Rome, and the ensuing massacre of innocents, we find ourselves by necessity allied with the hordes against the Empire. You must protect yourselves. There are Texark spies in Valana. One was caught yesterday and severely mutilated, without my knowledge, by the Lord of the Three Hordes. He is receiving medical treatment in the local jail. As you must recall, assassins tried a year ago Easter to kill me and my secretary. There will be more attacks of this kind.

“Weapons are available—superior weapons—for the Papal Guard, and for any of you who wish them for yourselves or your servants. Valana is an open city. We do not have border guards, and you may be sure that the agents of the Hannegan come and go as they please. Sidearms for you and your servants will be provided...”

Perhaps the anger he heard in the voice was rhetorical. The monk shook his head in wonder and moved on. He did not regret that Brownpony had chosen other conclavists this time, although he hoped his obvious reluctance to serve as one of them would be forgiven.

Aberlott was not at home. Meaning to copy the strange prayer and leave it on his table with a note, he tried the door but found it locked. He shrugged to himself and started to retrace his steps when a thought struck him: he still had not been able to see Amen Specklebird because of the crowds waiting outside his door. But people who were not at work were now forming the crowd in John-in-Exile Square, and the cardinals were inside the Palace. So he turned around and started climbing the hill to Amen’s home.

“I’ll not translate it for you,” said the old black Pope, holding Mother India’s card. They were sitting together alone in the hillside house of stone. The rocks were cold, but there was a small fire on the hearth, and the room was chilly but not uncomfortable.

“It’s more poem than prayer. It is not written in the language the Sisters speak today, but their speech does have more classical Spanish in it than Rockymount or Ol’zark has. This is old Spanish with a word or two of country dialect perhaps. I have seen it before. I know what it means to the Sisters. They think the crucified woman does not depict an event of history, but an event in the mind of Mary when she allowed herself to feel the crucifixion of her son.”

“She wishes herself in his place on the cross?”

“Wishes? In her own heart, she’s already there. Librada del mundo means set free from the world. But the next three lines seem to be spoken by the crucified. She has eyes, but doesn’t see herself. With her hands nailed to the cross, she can’t touch herself. With her feet nailed there too, she can’t walk about. The line after that—‘with the angels of number forty-three’—its meaning is lost. The last two lines might be spoken by the Christ child: ‘Mary’s blanket covers me. Mary’s breasts turn me rosy.’ The child is nursing. This is the Sisters’ interpretation.”

“What is yours?”

“I’m not an interpreter. You are, Blacktooth. You have eyes, hands, and feet. Can you see yourself, touch yourself, walk about?”

“I never doubted it before, but—” He paused. “But what I see in a mirror is not me, is it? I can touch my body, but is that me? My feet move, but who is walking?”

“If you have the right questions, why do you need answers? The answers are in the questions.” He smiled a cat’s smile. “I like your questions.”

“Is there anything you can do for Ædrea?”

Specklebird was silent. “Not that question,” Nimmy was afraid he would say. After a time he purred a cougar’s purr. “Stay awhile and pray with me. We’ll pray the silent prayer.”

They prayed without words. Occasionally, Blacktooth arose to feed the fire. At dusk, they ate a simple meal, and prayed some more. In the morning, Brother Blacktooth chopped more wood, and Amen Specklebird hung out a sign that said, I pray—go away.

Nimmy stayed with him and prayed with him. The silence was like what the silence at the Abbey of Leibowitz should have been. On the fifth day, someone came and yelled “Habemus Papam!” three times before he went away. Specklebird seemed not to notice. The silence was unbroken by the event.

Blacktooth stayed for nine days, a novena of sorts. He learned more about his own soul during those nine days than he had learned during all his years at Leibowitz Abbey. Amen Specklebird was a teacher in silence. The soul of the student somehow began to resemble the soul of the teacher in silence. There was no explanation for it, for to explain would break the silence.

He might have stayed longer than nine days, but when he came out to chop wood on the tenth morning, a great cloud of smoke was arising from Valana. Was the whole city on fire?

Amen followed him most of the way down the hill, until they could see that it was only the Papal Palace and the police barracks burning. Only! That was Specklebird’s word.

They embraced in silence, and parted in silence. Nimmy was vaguely worried about the old man. He had tried to remove himself entirely from the scene of the ecclesiastical and political struggle for supremacy, but how could he be free from it while men continued to bicker and battle about his quitclaim on the Apostolic See? Was he ever Pope? Was he still Pope? Where was his resignation? If someone had burned the original, Blacktooth felt the old man was not safe. And yet he knew it would be useless presumption to advise him to seek protection.

The fires had been preceded by explosions, the guard at the gate told him. But Cardinal Brownpony, now Pope Amen II, was not dead. He had only fled the city along with most of the Curia. Gone where? The guard could not say. Most of Mayor Dion’s brigade had ridden south on the papal highway, leaving a few men, with part of the Yellow Guard, to train the civilian militia in the fort the spooks had built. Several cardinals had taken refuge there. Perhaps the Holy Father had gone with Dion. The Texark spy had disappeared from the jail, and the guard reckoned there must have been as many as forty infiltrators to accomplish the jailbreak and blow up the Palace. “These bastards have been living among us for years—settlers from Texark. Most of them pretended to be fugitives.”

The Nomads had returned to the Plains, he told Nimmy, and perhaps the Pope was with them, instead.

Blacktooth hurried first to Aberlott’s. A note on the door said, “Gone to the fort. Help yourself.” Blacktooth tried the latch. This time it was unlocked. Judging by the mess on the floor and the overturned furniture, someone had already helped himself, or else the student had been dragged to the fort after resisting.

He went to SEEC. The building was deserted, except for the covert wing. When he tried to enter there, he was quickly ejected. He went to Saint John-in-Exile. Only a curate was present. He told Blacktooth that the new Pope, after escaping from the burning building, had left the city in a coach belonging to the Grasshopper sharf, but they had indeed followed Dion south.

“Did the coach have ‘I set fires’ painted on the side?”

“Is that what it said? It was ancient English, I think.”

Bråm was going to take charge of a shipment of guns, Nimmy thought. He started walking to the fort. On the way, he was grabbed by the scruff of the neck and dragged to the fort. It was Ulad, who would not believe that he was going there of his own free will.

“You know I am a servant of Cardinal, uh, Pope Amen Two,” he protested.

“If you still were, you would be with him. You are a soldier now, piss-robe,” the giant said. “You are going to fight for the Holy City.”

Holy City? Did he mean New Rome or New Jerusalem?

“Will I get to see Ædrea?”

“Not likely,” growled the hulk.

Nimmy stopped struggling, but Ulad kept his long slender hand around his neck as they walked.