“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 —
“What is it?” the robber asked. “A charm?” He studied the two documents together for a time. “Oh! One is a ghost of the other. What magic is this?” He stared at Brother Francis with suspicious gray eyes. “What is it called?”
“Uh — Transistorized Control System for Unit Six-B,” the monk stammered.
The robber, who had been looking at the documents upside down, could nevertheless see that one diagram involved a figure-background reversal of the other-an effect which seemed to intrigue him as much as the gold leaf. He traced out the similarities in design with a short and dirty forefinger, leaving a faint smudge on the illuminated lambskin. Francis held back tears.
“Please!” the monk gasped. “The gold is so thin, it’s worth nothing to speak of. Weigh it in your hand. The whole thing weighs no more than the paper itself. It’s of no use to you. Please, sir, take my clothing instead. Take the donkey, take my bindlestiff. Take whatever you will, but leave me these. They mean nothing to you.”
The robber’s gray gaze was meditative. He watched the monk’s agitation and rubbed his jaw. “I’ll let you keep your clothes and your donkey and everything except this,” he offered. “I’ll just take the charms, then.”
“For the love of God, sir, then kill me tool” Brother Francis wailed.
The robber snickered. “We’ll see. Tell me what they’re for.”
“Nothing. One is a memento of a man long dead. An ancient. The other is only a copy.”
“What good are they to you?”
Francis closed his eyes for a moment and tried to think of a way to explain. “You know the forest tribes? How they venerate their ancestors?”
The gray eyes of the robber flashed angrily for a moment.
“We despise our ancestors,” he barked. “Cursed be they who gave us birth!”
“Cursed, cursed!” echoed one of the shrouded archers on the hillside.
“You know who we are? Where we are from?”
Francis nodded. “I meant no offense. The ancient whose relic this is — he is not our ancestor. He was our teacher of old. We venerate his memory. This is only like a keepsake, no more.”
“What about the copy?”
“I made it myself. Please, sir, it took me fifteen years. It’s nothing to you. Please — you wouldn’t take fifteen years of a man’s life — for no reason?”
“Fifteen years?” The robber threw back his head and howled with laughter. “You spent fifteen years making that?”
“Oh, but—” Francis was suddenly silent. His eyes swung toward the robber’s stubby forefinger. The finger was tapping the original blueprint.
“That took you fifteen years? And it’s almost ugly beside the other.” He slapped his paunch and between guffaws kept pointing at the relic. “Ha! Fifteen years! So that’s what you do way out there!Why? What is the dark ghost-image good for? Fifteen years to make that! Ho ho! What a woman’s work!”
Brother Francis watched him in stunned silence. That the robber should mistake the sacred relic itself for the copy of the relic left him too shocked to reply.
Still laughing, the robber took both documents in his hands and prepared to rip them both in half.
“Jesus, Mary, Joseph!” the monk screamed and went to his knees in the trail. “For the love of God, sir!”
The robber tossed the papers on the ground. I’ll wrestle you for them!” he offered sportingly. “Those against my blade.”
“Done,” said Francis impulsively, thinking that a contest would at least afford Heaven a chance to intervene in an unobtrusive way. O God, Thou who strengthened Jacob so that he overcame the angel on the rock…
They squared off. Brother Francis crossed himself. The robber took his knife from his belt-thong and tossed it after the papers. They circled.
Three seconds later, the monk lay groaning on the flat of his back under a short mountain of muscle. A sharp rock seemed to be severing his spine.
“Heh-heh,” said the robber, and arose to reclaim his knife and roll up the documents.
Hands folded as if in prayer, Brother Francis crept after him on his knees, begging at the top of his lungs. “Please, then, take only one, not both! Please!”
“You’ve got to buy it back now,” the robber chortled. “I won them fair enough.”
“I have nothing, I am poor!”
“That’s all right if you want them that bad, you’ll get gold. Two heklos of gold, that’s the ransom. Bring it here any time. I’ll tuck your things in my shanty. You want them back, just bring the gold.”
“Listen, they’re important to other people, not to me. I was taking them to the Pope. Maybe they’ll pay you for the important one. But let me have the other one just to show them. It’s of no importance at all.”
The robber laughed over his shoulder. “I believe you’d kiss a boot to get it back.”
Brother Francis caught up with him and fervently kissed his boot.
This proved too much for even such a fellow as the robber. He shoved the monk away with his foot, separated the two papers, and flung one of them in Francis’ face with a curse. He climbed aboard the monk’s donkey and started riding it up the slope toward the ambush. Brother Francis snatched up the precious document and hiked along beside the robber, thanking him profusely and blessing him repeatedly while the robber guided the ass toward the shrouded archers.
“Fifteen years!” the robber snorted, and again shoved Francis away with his foot. “Begone!” He waved the illuminated splendor aloft in the sunlight. “Remember — two heklos of gold’ll ransom your keepsake. And tell your Pope I won it fair.”
Francis stopped climbing. He sent a glowing cross of benediction after the departing bandit and quietly praised God for the existence of such selfless robbers, who could make such an ignorant mistake. He fondled the original blueprint lovingly as he hiked away down the trail. The robber was proudly displaying the beautiful commemoration to his mutant companions on the hill.
“Eat! Eat” said one of them, petting the donkey.
“Ride, ride,” corrected the robber. “Eat later.”
But when Brother Francis had left them far behind, a great sadness gradually engulfed him. The taunting voice still rang in his ears. Fifteen years! So that’s what youdo over there! Fifteen years! What a woman’s work! Ho ho ho ho…
The robber had made a mistake. But the fifteen years were gone anyhow, and with it all the love and torment that had gone into the commemoration.