Silentia ignored Olshuen’s irony. “I’ll tell Sister Clare that she must avoid talking to anyone outside the guesthouse.”
“There is one of our postulants in the guesthouse.”
“Then she must—”
“But I’ll get him out. Who is the other Sister?”
“My assistant. She will return with me to San Pancho.”
Brother Liveryman appeared in the doorway, caught the abbot’s eye, and in response to the abbot’s nod asked: “Domne, did you tell our guests to choose their own rooms?”
“Yes, of course. Is there a problem?”
“Only that one of the nuns chose the, uh, isolation cell.”
“You must get her out of there! It’s not safe yet.”
“She said it was built for her. I don’t know what she meant.”
The cardinal studied the abbot’s expression for a moment and said, “I think I know.” She arose. “Well, Domne. I am very tired and would like to retire. If I may be excused, I shall say Compline alone in my room. I’ll speak to my student. I do thank you for all.”
Student? The word lingered in the abbot’s office behind her.
That evening, Sister Clare abandoned the abbot’s whore-hut for a cell in the guesthouse with the others, saying that she knew it had been meant for her originally, but that she had been unaware of the quarantine. Singing Cow suppressed his curiosity about her and said nothing.
Three nuns, two soldiers, a scholar from Texark, a Nomad who was a possible postulant, and Father Singing Cow now shared the guesthouse. Ædrea stayed in her cell except when they all went to the refectory or to Mass together. The cardinal, her assistant, and the Wilddog Nomad Snow Ghost were often absent from the building, presumably singing the Divine Office with the Brothers. Singing Cow was busy in the Scriptorium making a glossary from the work of Brother Blacktooth, and Thon Elmofier Santalot was usually busy searching the bookshelves in the basement, or reading and making notes in the clerestory. The Laredan soldiers were left alone most of the time, with Ædrea staying behind a closed door. One of the soldiers rode into Sanly Bowitts on the second day and brought back a jug of local hooch. When the soldiers were both solemnly drunk, the bolder of them knocked upon the pretty nun’s door and offered her a drink.
Ædrea opened the door, took the proffered jug, tilted it, and swallowed mightily.
“Thank you, Corporal Browka,” she said with a smile, then closed the door and clicked the latch.
Browka knocked again, but there was no answer. “You saw her smile at me?”
Father Moo and the Nomad youth returned from Church, and soon after, Santalot came in. The soldiers offered everyone a drink, but there was little left in the jug and no one accepted. The cardinal came in and sat down in the reading room for a moment before retiring. The soldiers hid the jug and pretended to be sleeping.
“We shall leave here after Lauds in the morning,” said Mother Iridia. “We must all thank the monks for their hospitality.” She was speaking Churchspeak, which was the only common language among the monastery’s guests. The soldiers spoke it poorly, but as soldiers they were very curious about the military campaigns of the present Pope, and had many questions, asked and unasked. In two days at the abbey, they had learned very little.
In the morning, after a last conference with the abbot, Mother Iridia bade her student a tearful goodbye and she and her servants departed. Ædrea cried in her cell for an hour after they were gone. She shared the guesthouse now with Singing Cow, Snow Ghost, and Elmofier Santalot the scholar. Abbot Olshuen told Snow Ghost he could now move to a cell in the dormitory, but Snow Ghost resisted, saying he was not yet quite ready for silence and solitude. Surprised, the abbot glanced quickly at Ædrea, as if he wondered whether the Nomad was not quite ready for chastity either, but he did not press it. Nomad vocations were rare, and except when Singing Cow was present, Brother Wren, the abbey’s cook, had no one to talk to in his own tongue or a related dialect.
It was during the Feast of Saint Clare, one year after her taking her vows, from which she was now released, that Ædrea Sister Clare-of-Assisi performed a miracle in the guesthouse of Leibowitz Abbey.
In late August Brother Wren got permission to visit Singing Cow in the guesthouse, and Ædrea Sister Clare-of-Assisi became aware that Brother Cook had a cancer eating his throat. His voice had diminished to a hoarse whisper. He called his cancer Brother Crab, and joked about it. Ædrea came up behind him as he sat and talked with his old friend, Moo. He started up as she touched him, but then settled back in his chair with a smile and let her hands explore his throat. He started again when she pressed down hard with her fingertips below his Adam’s apple.
“Relax, Brother. Does it hurt?”
“Not much,” Wren whispered. “What have you done? Something popped.”
She continued caressing his throat for a while, then left him and went to her cell. Father Moo crossed himself. Brother Wren noticed and followed suit.
“Better not tell anyone,” Singing Cow said.
Within three days, Wren began to get his voice back. Word got around. Within a week, Sister Clare had healed infected blisters, a hernia, an abscessed tooth, and a probable case of gonorrhea of the eye. All this might have passed unnoticed, but when she cured the old librarian, Brother Obohl, of his myopia and he got a look at the beautiful woman who had laid hands on his eyes, his squawk of astonishment was followed by the joyful noise of his thanksgiving, and this fell upon the ears of Dom Abiquiu.
Singing Cow was present in the guesthouse when the abbot strode to the closed door of Ædrea’s cell.
“I told you not to mix with the monks.”
“I have not mixed with the monks.”
“Cardinal Silentia forbade you to practice your healing tricks.”
Sister Clare opened her door. “Beg pardon, Domne, but she did not. I do not have any healing tricks.”
“You argue with me! Where is your religious training?”
“You prefer Brother Librarian half blind?”
“It was my fault, Domne,” put in Father Moo. He ventured a lie: “I sent him to her.”
“What?” Olshuen gasped and paused for self-control. “You are not to lay hands on anyone else while you are here. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Domne.”
“Will you obey?”
“Yes, Domne.”
The abbot glared at Singing Cow. “I think it is about time you returned home.”
“Thank you, Domne.” As soon as Dom Abiquiu was gone, he said, “Alleluia!”
Sister Clare smiled. “Will you carry a message to my family and the Mayor when you go?” she asked.
But Singing Cow had not yet departed when her wounds began to appear. When Ædrea went to Mass, she knelt in the back of the Church behind a pillar where she was not visible to the monks in the choir. Thus she always left the Church first. Following her back to the guesthouse, Singing Cow noticed dark spots in the prints of her bare feet in the sand. When she walked across the guesthouse floor, the blood was even more apparent. He called out to her, asking how she had hurt her feet.
The young nun stopped, pulled up the skirt of her habit, and looked down. She stared, then looked back at Father Moo. When she lifted her hand to her face, he saw that the palm was bloody. She seemed very confused.
“Who hurt you, Sister?”
Her voice trembled. “I don’t know. It was dark. I think it was the Devil. He was wearing a robe like yours.”
“What? Someone actually attacked you?”
“It’s like a dream. There was a hammer—” She stopped, looked at him wildly, then bolted into her cell and latched the door. Singing Cow could hear her praying. He went to look for Dom Abiquiu, whom he found praying before the wooden Leibowitz in the corridor.