The monk looked at him incredulously.
Axe laughed at his expression. “I don’t think you want to hear that argument in Churchspeak. Have you forgotten that they were Cardinal Ri’s men?”
“I assumed they were Christian, and I’ve heard them chanting, but—”
“But you wouldn’t expect soldiers to be very religious?” Nimmy thought about it for a while. His mind caught a chilling glimpse of remembered warriors, his boyhood rapists, in action. “I suppose I’m prejudiced, Axe. The soldiers I’ve met are often pious, but I never met any warrior except you who seemed to have a spiritual dimension.”
“Except me? Do I have aspiritual dimension, Nimmy?”
“You may laugh, but I’ve thought so. All I really know about you is what you want me to know. Isn’t it so, Axe?”
“Well, where these men come from, all monks, even Christians, have aweaponless warrior tradition.”
“They’re not weaponless now! Are you saying they are monks?”
“Yes, I think you can call them monks. As for the weapons, Ri dispensed them from that rule, and our master extended the dispensation. The order they belong to is Asiatic, and it isn’t recognized here. When either Cardinal Brownpony or the Pope understands that they do have religious vows, they will lose their freedom until the Church can decide what to do with them. They are not anxious to go home, but their vows are similar to yours. They want to be free to form a community, but they’ve been afraid to ask. That’s why they want and need to learn Churchspeak as soon as possible. You don’t need to nag us about that. I suggested to the cardinal they stay awhile at Leibowitz Abbey. There, they could wear their habits and learn your liturgy. Would they be welcome?”
“I am not the one to speak for Abbot Jarad Cardinal Kendemin.” He fought bitterness for a moment, but went on: “You’ve read the Rule of Saint Benedict, Axe. The Brothers of Leibowitz still honor most of that rule, which means that they must offer hospitality to anybody who comes to them, as if he were Christ wandering in from the desert. But I’m not suggesting that Ri’s men take advantage of that rule.”
“No, of course you wouldn’t want the abbot to know you suggested it by suggesting against it,” Wooshin said sourly. “But you’re right about their learning Churchspeak. I’ll drill them more. If they go to Leibowitz Abbey, it will not be at your suggestion, but the cardinal’s which he already made.”
“All right. I hereby forget it, although I would like to know about their Order.”
“They know that I taught you to fight a little, and they want to know if other monks of your Order would be allowed to learn weaponless combat, or would it be against rules?”
“Well, there is no rule, as long as it’s for sport or exercise. We have occasional ball games outside the walls, those of us whose jobs don’t involve physical labor.” He laughed. “But if you can imagine getting the Lord Abbot’s permission to train fighters!”
“I know. It’s too bad. Their Order has an interesting tradition. If they are to remain there, they would like to form a community, or merge with one.”
Later he confessed to Blacktooth, “You know, Nimmy, my people out on the coast were refugees from these Asian Christians several generations ago. Cardinal Ri was a super-Benefez in his own country. These Christians were conquerors. My people were the losers, and crossed the ocean.”
Nimmy looked at the executioner as if seeing him for the first time. “Mine were the losers too,” he said. “We should be spiritual brothers.”
A sharp glance from Axe told him this intimacy was getting too thick. He wheeled his mount around and rode back toward the guards and the wagon. Once again, Nimmy realized that Axe did not fully trust him since he had disobeyed the cardinal.
Wooshin had become strange to him again, but he knew the estrangement lay within himself. The news, conveyed by a possibly ironic Wooshin, that the Yellow Guard was trying to convert him to their Christianity—that news discomfited him. Why had he and his fellow monks ignored Wooshin’s religion, if he had any? Axe had come to Mass habitually, but never received communion. His dedication and loyalty had a spiritual quality, as did his attitude toward death. He would have made a good monk, Nimmy thought. But the Albertian Order of Leibowitz was never devoted to the conversion of the heathen. That was why. It was against the rules. Monks were free to answer a guest’s religious questions, but the Axe never asked any. Now these strange men wanted to bring him into their religious brotherhood. The Order of Leibowitz had missed its chance to have, besides its electric chair, a warrior monk and executioner.
Wooshin’s new friends in the Yellow Guard had learned of his years as a headsman for the Hannegans, Filpeo Harq and his predecessor. Nimmy had heard them talking, understood very little of their mixed dialect except when they practiced Churchspeak, but could tell that the aliens were both sympathetic and amused, and he sensed that the Axe came away from the conversation both irritated and relieved. It seemed to Nimmy that Wooshin had succumbed to an attack of almost Christian guilt about his old job, and the warriors were apparently trying to cure him of it by conversion. The Axe obviously missed the cardinal as Blacktooth did; and the monk wondered who was now acting as Brownpony’s bodyguard after the attempted assassination. Ri’s men had all been loaned by the new Vicar Apostolic to SEEC’s clandestine wing, once they had learned to communicate a little in Rockymount, but here they were: far from their new master, and as lost as Nimmy himself.
The monk tried to make religion his only concern again, at least for the duration of the trip, but the effort gradually failed, and the effect of the failure was that he became so irritable he went for three days without even attempting to pray, meditate, or read the canonical hours. His mind, affected by periods of heat exhaustion, kept reaching out to grasp at Jarad, Brownpony, Ædrea, Holy Madness, or the Pope, and to rehearse imaginary dialogues with them, to shake sense into them. Especially Ædrea. This was self-indulgence, self-absorption, vanity, and ego. Because he could not pacify his mind internally, he finally turned outward and tried to stay busy and available for conversation with even Aberlott.
The group of travelers had taken on an almost military structure of command under Elkin, with Wooshin and Ulad as lieutenants. By the route they were to take, there was danger neither from Texark agents nor from motherless Nomads, although drifting outlaws of every stripe occasionally wandered through the arid land, and there was always the possibility of hostile confrontation. The terrain was rougher than that which Blacktooth had encountered on his first visit to Valana. There was no fixed road; only passes through mountainous areas were clearly defined. The group carried conventional arms, besides those carried by pack mules and in the wagons, but they met no one except a wizened old man who joined them one night after sundown, having wandered in behind them from the direction of Valana. The advent of the old man was the occasion of an argument among those concerned with secrecy and security, but the old fellow seemed half dead, and he was headed toward New Jerusalem anyway. Ulad claimed that he had seen him before. “He’s been to New Jerusalem,” said the giant. “Magister Dion hired him once, so he knows about us.”
“Hired him? For what?”
“He can make it rain, for silver.”
“Is he any good?”
“It rained, but not much. Dion paid him, but not much.”
“He knows the town, then, but does he know about our baggage?” Elkin wondered. “He’s already seen us, so he must come with us. If he behaves himself, he’s a guest. If he tries to leave, he’s a prisoner, until we get where we’re going.”