“Why?”
Thon Taddeo paused. “Why — as guides…” He stopped, and suddenly smiled. “No, I’ll be quite truthful. Some of your people disapprove of our presence here. While your hospitality has been—”
Hongan Os threw back his head and roared with laughter. “They are afraid of the lesser clans,” he said to the old ones. “They fear being ambushed as soon as they leave my tents. They eat grass and are afraid of a fight.”
The scholar flushed slightly.
“Fear nothing, outlander!” chortled the clans chief. “Real men shall accompany you.”
Thon Taddeo inclined his head in mock gratitude.
“Tell us,” said Mad Bear, “what is it you go to seek in the western Dry Land? New places for planting fields? I can tell you there are none. Except near a few water holes, nothing grows that even cattle will eat.”
“We seek no new land,” the visitor answered. “We are not all of us farmers, you know. We are going to look for—” He paused. In the nomad speech, there was no way to explain the purpose of the journey to the Abbey of St. Leibowitz “ — for the skills of an ancient sorcery.”
One of the old ones, a shaman, seemed to prick up his ears. “An ancient sorcery in the west? I know of no magicians there. Unless you mean the dark-robed ones?”
“They are the ones.”
“Ha! What magic do they have that’s worth looking after? Their messengers can be captured so easily that it is no real sport — although they do endure torture well. What sorcery can you learn from them?”
“Well, for my part, I agree with you,” said Thon Taddeo. “But it is said that writings, uh, incantations of great power are hoarded at one of their abodes. If it is true, then obviously the dark-robed ones don’t know how to use them, but we hope to master them for ourselves.”
“Will the dark-robes permit you to observe their secrets?”
Thon Taddeo smiled. “I think so. They don’t dare hide them any longer. We could take them, if we had to.”
“A brave saying,” scoffed Mad Bear. “Evidently the farmers are braver among their own kind — although they are meek enough among real people.”
The scholar, who had stomached his fill of the nomad’s insults, chose to retire early.
The soldiers remained at the council fire to discuss with Hongan Os the war that was certain to come; but the war, after all, was none of Thon Taddeo’s affair. The political aspirations of his ignorant cousin were far from his own interest in a revival of learning in a dark world, except when that monarch’s patronage proved useful, as it already had upon several occasions.
16
The old hermit stood at the edge of the mesa and watched the approach of the dust speck across the desert. The hermit munched, muttered words and chuckled silently into the wind. His withered hide was burned the color of old leather by the sun, and his brushy beard was stained yellow about the chin. He wore a basket hat and a loincloth of rough homespun that resembled burlap — his only clothing except for sandals and a goat-skin water bag.
He watched the dust speck until it passed through the village of Sanly Bowitts and departed again by way of the road leading past the mesa.
“Ah!” snorted the hermit, his eyes beginning to burn.
“His empire shall be multiplied, and there shall be no end of his peace: he shall sit upon his kingdom.”
Suddenly he went down the arroyo like a cat with three legs, using his staff, bounding from stone to stone and sliding most of the way. The dust from his rapid descent plumed high on the wind and wandered away.
At the foot of the mesa he vanished into the mesquite and settled down to wait. Soon he heard the rider approaching at a lazy trot, and he began slinking toward the road to peer out through the brush. The pony appeared from around the bend, wrapped in a thin dust shroud. The hermit darted into the trail and threw up his arms.
“Olla allay!” he shouted; and as the rider halted, he darted forward to seize the reins and frown anxiously up at the man in the saddle.
His eyes blazed for a moment. “For a Child is born to us, and a Son is given us…” But then the anxious frown melted away into sadness. “It’s not Him!” he grumbled irritably at the sky.
The rider had thrown back his hood and was laughing. The hermit blinked angrily at him for a moment. Recognition dawned.
“Oh,” he grunted. “You! I thought you’d be dead by now. What are you doing out here?”
“I brought back your prodigal, Benjamin,” said Dom Paulo. He tugged at a leash and the blue-headed goat trotted up from behind the pony. It bleated and strained at the rope upon seeing the hermit. “And… I thought I’d pay you a visit.”
“The animal is the Poet’s,” the hermit grunted. “He won it fairly in a game of chance — although he cheated miserably. Take it back to him, and let me counsel you against meddling in worldly swindles that don’t concern you. Good day.” He turned toward the arroyo.
“Wait, Benjamin. Take your goat, or I’ll give it to a peasant. I won’t have it wandering around the abbey and bleating into the church.”
“It’s not a goat,” the hermit said crossly. “It’s the beast which your prophet saw, and it was made for a woman to ride. I suggest you curse it and drive it into the desert. You notice, however, that it divideth the hoof and cheweth the cud.” He started away again.
The abbot’s smile faded. “Benjamin, are you really going back up that hill without even a ‘hello’ for an old friend?”
“Hello,” the Old Jew called back, and marched indignantly on. After a few steps he stopped to glance over his shoulder. “You needn’t look so hurt,” he said. “It’s been five years since you’ve troubled to come this way, ‘old friend.’ Hah!”
“So that’s it!” muttered the abbot. He dismounted and hurried after the Old Jew. “Benjamin, Benjamin, I would have come — I have not been free.”
The hermit stopped. “Well, Paulo, since you’re here…”
Suddenly they laughed and embraced.
“It’s good, you old grump,” said the hermit.
“I a grump?”
“Well, I’m getting cranky too, I guess. The last century has been a trying one for me.”
“I hear you’ve been throwing rocks at the novices who come hereabouts for their Lenten fast in the desert. Can this be true?” He eyed the hermit with mock reproof.
“Only pebbles.”
“Miserable old pretzel!”
“now, now, paulo. one of them once mistook me for a distant relative of mine — name of Leibowitz. He thought I had been sent to deliver him a message — or some of your other scalawags thought so. I don’t want it to happen again, so I throw pebbles at them sometimes. Hah! I’ll not be mistaken for that kinsman again, for he stopped being any kin of mine.”
The priest looked puzzled. “Mistook you for whom? Saint Leibowitz? Now, Benjamin! You’re going too far.”
Benjamin repeated it in a mocking singsong: “Mistook me for a distant relative of mine — name of Leibowitz, so I throw pebbles at them.”
Dom Paulo looked thoroughly perplexed. “Saint Leibowitz has been dead a dozen centuries. How could—” He broke off and peered warily at the old hermit. “Now, Benjamin, let’s don’t start that tale wagging again. You haven’t lived twelve cent—”
“Nonsense!” interrupted the Old Jew. “I didn’t say it happened twelve centuries ago. It was only six centuries ago. Long after your Saint was dead; that’s why it was so preposterous. Of course, your novices were more devout in those days, and more credulous. I think Francis was that one’s name. Poor fellow. I buried him later. Told them in New Rome where to dig for him. That’s how you got his carcass back.”
The abbot gaped at the old man as they walked through the mesquite toward the water hole, leading the horse and the goat. Francis? he wondered. Francis. That could be the Venerable Francis Gerard of Utah, perhaps? — to whom a pilgrim had once revealed the location of the old shelter in the village, so that story went — but that was before the village was there. And about six centuries ago, yes, and — now this old gaffer was claiming to have been that pilgrim? He sometimes wondered where Benjamin had picked up enough knowledge of the abbey’s history to invent such tales. From the Poet, perhaps.