“I understand, m’Lord.”
“Father e’Laiden is another matter. I had no need to read your mind to see your curiosity about him. About him, you must also say nothing. He grew his beard for this trip, to avoid recognition. I picked him up forty miles south of Valana, and will let him off at the same place, which will make you even more curious. Not even my friend Dom Jarad knows who he is. I’ve told travelers he’s just a passenger to whom I gave a ride. You know I introduced him to Dom Jarad as my temporary secretary. No more of that. You will not mention him to anyone. If you meet him in Valana later without his beard, do not allow yourself to recognize him. His name is not e’Laiden, anyway. About these two men, you will be absolutely silent.”
“I have had much practice at being silent, m’Lord.”
“Yes, well, I took a big chance with you, Blacktooth. Nimmy. For now, your job is just to keep your mouth shut. I may find other uses for you in Valana.”
“That would please me, m’Lord. I have felt useless for years.”
Brownpony turned to look at him closely. “I am surprised to hear it. Your abbot told me you are quite religious, and seemed called to contemplation. Do you think that useless?”
“Not at all, but it’s my turn to be surprised the abbot said I was called to it. He was very angry with me.”
“Well, of course he was angry, partly at himself. Nimmy, he s sorry he made you do that silly Duren translation. He thought it would be useful.”
“I told him otherwise.”
“I know. He thought you were ducking hard work. Now he blames himself for your revolt. He’s agood man, and he’s really sorry the Order lost you. I know how humiliating it was for you at the end, but forgive him if you can.”
“I do, but he didn’t forgive me. I wasn’t even allowed to confess.”
“Not allowed by whom, Dom Jarad?”
“The prior said he would ask the abbot. I suppose he did.”
“Nobody shrived you, eh? Well, Father e’Laiden can confess you if you can’t wait until we get to Valana. I can imagine you need it by now.”
Blacktooth blushed, wondering if the remark implied a reference to Ædrea. Of course it did!
He approached the old whitebeard priest later that day, but the cleric shook his head. “His Eminence forgets something. I’m not even supposed to say Mass. You have seen me do it, but I don’t give the Eucharist, and I don’t do confessions. Saying a private Mass is my own sin if it is one — not involving others.”
A wild and sorrowful look came over the old man’s face, as if he were at war within himself. Blacktooth had seen the look before and shivered. Father e’Laiden was just a little crazy.
Strange traveling companions, he thought. A priest under interdict, a seaman-headsman-warrior, a wild but aristocratic Nomad, a disgraced monk, and a cardinal who was not more than a deacon. Brownpony, Blacktooth, and Høngan were all of Nomadic extraction, and e’Laiden obviously had lived among Nomads. Holy Madness, whose mother’s family was called Little Bear, and e’Laiden seemed old friends, and often talked of Nomad families known to both of them. Only the executioner was unrelated to the people of the Plains. Blacktooth was more puzzled than ever about the Red Deacon’s intentions. The cardinal, he had learned, was head of the Secretariat of Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Concerns, an obscure and minor office of the Curia which he had heard someone call “the bureau of trivial intrigues.”
After two days of light snow the skies cleared. There was bright sun and a breeze from the south. Three days later, the thaw was well under way. Chür Høngan was gone for half a day, then returned with an opinion that the highway was not impassable, although they might have to shovel slushy snow in a few places. Brownpony paid Shard a fair sum in coins from the papal mint, and the travelers took their leave of the village. Only the children, Shard, and Tempus watched them go. The monk’s eyes searched in vain for Ædrea. He was sure she was angry because of his mixed feelings and his avoidance of her. He wanted to let her know he blamed only himself, but there was no way.
She was gone for good.
They were still closer to Leibowitz Abbey than to Valana when they left Arch Hollow, but progress was faster as the road improved. Several days later, everyone’s breathing became labored as they approached the high passes. Something had happened to Earth’s atmosphere since the catastrophic demise of the Magna Civitas. One could only gaze upward at, not climb to, ruins of ancient buildings on mountainsides far above the present tree line. Once the air had been more breathable. And of course Earth herself had changed, sickened by the wars that long ago brought the end of a world. A new world was rising, but it could not grow as fast as the old. Rich pockets of resources had been plundered and dispersed. Now ancient cities were mined for iron. Petroleum was always going to be scarce. Hannegan had needed to plunder his people for copper. Living creatures had become extinct or changed. The wolves of the desert and plains were known to be different breeds, even by those Nomads who wore “wolfskins” but called their nation “the Wilddog Horde.” There was less forest and more grass in the world than before, but not even in the records of Leibowitz Abbey could one learn much about biology before the Flame Deluge and the great freeze that followed. The curse pronounced by God in Genesis had been renewed; Earth and Man were doubly fallen.
On the twentieth evening of their journey, Holy Madness saw Nunshån, the Night Hag. They made camp early, and Høngan had ridden ahead in the late afternoon to check the condition of the passes, and he came back ashen and babbling after sundown.
“I looked up, and there she was standing on a crag against the early stars. Ugly! I have never seen a woman so huge and ugly. There was a kind of black light around her, and I could see stars through it. The sun was behind a mountain, but the sky was still light. Then she cried out to me—a great sobbing sound, wild as a cougar.”
“Maybe it was a cougar,” said Brownpony. “This thin air can make you dizzy.”
“Cougar? No, no, a horse! She was there, and then she was a black horse and galloped away, into the very sky, it seemed!”
Brownpony was silent, busying himself with a plate of beans. Blacktooth studied Chür Høngan’s expression and found it excited but sincere. He had learned that the Nomad was at least nominally a Christian, but Nomad myths were not dispelled by baptism.
It was Father e’Laiden at last who spoke. “If you saw the Night Hag, who is dying?”
“The Pope is dying,” said the Red Deacon.
“Does the Nunshån appear for popes, m’Lord?” asked Blacktooth, almost amused.
“It could be my father dying,” the Nomad said quietly.
“God forbid,” said the cardinal. “Granduncle Brokenfoot must be elected Lord of the Three Hordes, and become the successor of the War Sharf Høngan Ös.” He looked quickly at Blacktooth. “This is something else you must forget you heard, Nimmy.”
“I shall obey, m’Lord.”
For Blacktooth, things were falling into place. There had been no Lord of the Three Hordes since the War Sharf Høngan Ös had led his people to defeat against Hannegan the Conqueror seven decades ago, and been sacrificed by his own shamans. The Jackrabbit Horde had been completely subdued, as well as a few tribes, including Blacktooth’s, of the Grasshopper Horde, and the descendants of these either lived within the Empire as small ranchers, or on the Denver Freestate farmlands. Without the participation of electors from the Jackrabbit Horde, the military and priestly office of the kingship could not be filled. The Hannegans had prevented this from happening. Blacktooth thought of his crazy dream in which he had been Pilate crucifying would-be kings of the Nomads. He believed in the meaningfulness of dreams; such was his Nomad heritage.