He had lost weight and seemed to age rapidly during his three years at the abbey, but his presence on the bench outside the judgment hall aroused irrational panic in the culprit who cringed beside him. Until that moment, Blacktooth’s worst fear was excommunication, with all its civil penalties and disabilities. Now he thought of the superbly sharp cutlery for the kitchen, and the axes and scythes that Wooshin made for the gardeners. Why, why, was this professional killer summoned to my trial? It was obvious to Blacktooth that Wooshin had been called by the tribunal, but not as a witness. I barely know the man! He had always wondered if the severed head retained a moment of confused consciousness as it fell into the basket.
Wooshin touched his arm. Blacktooth started up with a gasp, but the man was only offering him a large handful of clean, cottonlike waste from his shop.
“Leak the nose.”
It took Blacktooth a moment to realize that the man was offering him a mop to wipe away the liquid snot that was running down to his chin.
“Horrid night cold on Mesa,” said Brother Axe, betraying his knowledge of the runaway’s whereabouts during the absence. So everybody knew.
Blacktooth hesitantly took the mop and used it, then formally nodded his thanks to the donor, as if he were actually observing a religious silence which, in present circumstances, seemed a bit hypocritical even to himself.
Wooshin smiled. Emboldened, Blacktooth asked, “Are you here because of me?”
“I not sure, but not probably. I think I leave here with Cardinal.”
Mildly relieved, Blacktooth resumed his former posture. It seemed strange to him that the Axe, who could speak very good Ol’zark, refused to communicate in that tongue, which his accent in Churchspeak betrayed that he spoke. It was one of several languages, besides Churchspeak, which were used with some regularity at the abbey, but when Brother Axe heard it, he usually walked away. What use, he wondered, did Elia Cardinal Brownpony or the Curia have for an executioner who hated his former employer? Was the Church departing from its ancient refusal to shed the blood of its enemies?
An hour late, the bell rang for supper. The meeting hall became a refectory again, and the tribunal adjourned for the meal. As the stream of monks filed silently down the corridor, Wooshin got up to join them. “You not eat?” he asked the defendant.
Blacktooth shook his head and remained seated.
Before the meal was finished, Levion came to the door and spoke to him: “Brother Medic says you should eat.”
“No. Too sick.”
“Stupid,” said Levion. “Stupid and lucky,” he added, more to himself than Blacktooth, as he turned back into the refectory. Lucky? The word lingered in his mind, but he could not find an application for it.
There was a faintly audible reading by the lector; then supper ended. Except for the members of the tribunal, the monks filed silently out of the refectory. This time Blacktooth made bold to watch them go, but nobody, not even Wren or Singing Cow, looked down at him in passing. The last man out closed the door. The proceedings resumed.
Soon the door opened again. Someone stepped outside and stood there. Blacktooth looked up, saw a freckled face, graying red hair, and a splash of scarlet. Blue-green eyes were staring at him. Blacktooth arose with a gasp and tried to genuflect with a leg that had gone to sleep. Elia Cardinal Brownpony caught his arm as he stumbled.
“Your Eminence!” he croaked, and tried again to bow.
“Sit down. You’re not well yet. I want to talk to you for a moment.”
“Certainly, m’Lord.”
Blacktooth remained standing, so the cardinal himself sat on the bench and tugged at the monk’s sleeve until he sank beside him.
“I understand you have trouble with obedience.”
“That has been true, m’Lord.”
“Has it always been thus?”
“I—I’m not sure. I suppose so, yes.”
“You did begin by running away from home.”
“I was thinking of that, m’Lord. But when I came here, I tried to obey. At first.”
“But you tired of your assigned work.”
“Yes. That is no excuse, but yes.”
The cardinal shifted into Grasshopper dialect, with a Jackrabbit accent. “You speak and write well in several languages, I’m told.”
“I seem to get along fairly well, Your Eminence, except I’m weak in ancient English,” he answered in the same tongue.
“Well, you know, most of our present dialects are at least half old English,” said the cardinal, lapsing into Rockymount. “It’s just that the pronunciation has changed, and melted in with Spanish, and some think a bit of Mongolian, especially in Nomadic. Although I have my doubts about the myth of a Bayring Horde.”
Silence fell while the cardinal seemed to muse. “Do you suppose you could serve obediently as someone’s interpreter? It would not involve hunching over a copy table for hours at a time, but you would have to translate on paper as well as interpret the spoken word.”
Blacktooth mopped his face again with Wooshin’s waste and began crying. The cardinal allowed him to sob quietly until he regained control. Was this what Levion meant by “lucky”?
“Do you think you could obey me, for example?”
Blacktooth choked, “What good is a promise of mine? I broke all my vows but one.”
“Which one is that, if you don’t mind saying?”
“I have never had a woman, or a man. When I was a boy, I was had, though.” Torrildo’s accusing face came to mind as he said it, but he rejected the self-accusation.
The Red Deacon laughed. “What about solitary unchastity?” Seeing Blacktooth’s face change, he hastily added, “Forgive the joke. I’m asking you seriously whether you want to leave this place forever.”
“Forever?”
“Well, at least for a very long time, with no reason to expect the Order would take you back even if you wanted to come.”
“I have nowhere to go, m’Lord. That’s why I came back from the Mesa.”
“Your abbot will release you to come to Valana with me, but you must promise to obey, and I must believe your promise. You cannot be laicized yet. You will be my servant.”
Once more, the copyist was overwhelmed by tears.
“Well, it’s now or never,” said the cardinal.
“I promise,” he choked, “to do my best to obey you, m’Lord.”
Brownpony stood up. “I’m sorry. What is ‘your best’? You can’t be allowed to decide that for yourself. That makes it a crippled promise. No, it won’t do.” He started toward the refectory door. Blacktooth fell to the floor, crawled after him, and clutched the hem of his cassock. “I swear before God,” he gasped. “May the Holy Mother abandon me, may the saints all curse me, if I fail. I promise to obey you, m’Lord. I promise!”
The cardinal studied him contemptuously for a moment.
“All right, get up then, and come with me, Brother Groveler. Here, this way, give me your arm. Come on through the doorway. Face them, Blacktooth. Now.”
Feverish and dizzy, Blacktooth stepped into the refectory, walked a few steps toward the abbot’s table, looked at their faces, and fainted.
He was awakened by a voice saying, “Give him this when he comes to, Father.” It was Brother Surgeon.
“All right, go see your other patient,” said Prior Olshuen.
“I’m awake,” said Blacktooth, and sat up by candlelight as the only occupant of the three-bed infirmary. Brother Surgeon came back to his bedside, felt his forehead, and handed him a glass of milky green liquid.