There was a splatter of blood, not a deep cut, but it brought an order to drop the weapons. “Finish it with your hands and feet,” Sharf Hultor barked, “or stop it right now. Hear me well! No killing! Not among ourselves. If you have a grudge against a comrade, save it until this war party gets back home.”
“Why does he call it a war party?” Brownpony asked the man who rode beside him. “It was meant to be an honor guard.”
“The Grasshopper is always at war,” declared the rider, and spurred his horse to distance himself from this farmer and red-hat Christian.
CHAPTER 16
The beds, moreover, are to be examined
frequently by the Abbot, to see if any private
property be found in them. If anyone should be
found to have something that he did not receive
from the Abbot, let him undergo the most severe discipline.
IT WAS A TROOP OF FOOLS, THOUGHT THE commander of the police guard. Thirty-seven cardinals rode horseback along with the Pope while another twenty-four bounced along in the beds of wagons dragged across the roadless grasslands by mules. Thirty Denver mounted police and thirty Wilddog warriors escorted the party, although this force would turn back when the party reached Grasshopper country and met the riders of Sharf Bråm.
When they reached the boundary, they pitched camp and waited for the warriors of the Grasshopper.
Amen Specklebird had waited more patiently than the others. The tents provided by their Wilddog escorts were comfortable enough, and the Pope insisted that the cardinals join him each day in singing Lauds, the Mass, and Vespers, and to pray the other canonical prayers in common. Most of them were accustomed to muttering the first few lines of each psalm; they called it reciting the breviary.
The camp of the itinerant Curia was surrounded by curious women and children of both Wilddog and Grasshopper families whose herds or breeding pits were located nearby, but the escorting warriors kept them at a distance to prevent thievery. Everyone was relieved, except perhaps the warriors themselves, when the Grasshopper riders appeared on the crest of the hill, not gamboling or quarreling now, but riding in a typical Grasshopper battle formation, a line of advance that surged alternately here and fell back there, making the order of battle difficult for the enemy to portray. The Wilddog scouts, outnumbered, grabbed their lances and sidearms and moved to mount their stallions, but Hultor Bråm called a halt and cried out, “Peace! In the name of the Fujæ Go.”
The Curia watched as Cardinal Brownpony left their fierce ranks and rode forward. Amen Specklebird advanced to meet him, and raised him up when he fell to the ground to kiss the fisherman’s ring.
“We have heard, Elia, that Jarad is with Christ, not yet risen.”
That was a curious way of putting it, but the cardinal answered, “I knew that would be the first thing you mentioned, Holy Father. If you will excuse me from your presence, I should like to travel now to Leibowitz Abbey and join their mourning.”
The old black panther seemed surprised. “I thought you would be going on south of the Nady Ann to visit your Churches in the Province.”
“That too, Holy Father. But the Texark forces will be expecting me to cross the Nady Ann, not the Bay Ghost. If I come in from the west, I may not be arrested. And it should only take a day or two to pay my respects at the abbey.”
“We shall excommunicate anyone who dares lay a finger on you in the Province. I’ll put that in writing. You are ordered to go to Leibowitz Abbey, and then east to Jackrabbit country.”
“Thank you. I wish to go on to Hannegan City afterward, Holy Father.”
“Then you go as my legate. The wax on your orders will be sealed by my ring. I’ll send the papers by messenger to the abbey.”
“Forgive me, but that may not impress the Archbishop or his nephew.”
“You do not have my permission to be a martyr, Elia.”
“Do I need it?”
Amen smiled and changed the subject. “How are our friends among the Weejus and the Bear Spirit? And how was that cave of theirs? You were in it one night?”
“Breeding pit, Holy Father. To be frank, I think its reputation is highly exaggerated by myth and storytelling. It must have been a dangerous place centuries ago, but unless some ill befell Holy Madness, I believe its devil has lost her cunning.” He spoke these words three weeks before an attack of nausea and lethargy came over him at Leibowitz Abbey.
When he parted from the Pope and the Curia, he went to thank Hultor Bråm for his courtesy. Bråm complained that no money was forthcoming. The cardinal merely denied any knowledge of the problem, and left it in the hands of the weary prelates of the Pope’s company.
Pope Amen’s last words to him were “See about Leibowitz Abbey, Elia. Tell them to elect their new abbot, and you impart to him my confirmation. Cardinal Onyo here will be a witness that I so instructed you, if there is any later question.”
A quick embrace ended it. He looked back at the Grasshopper escort. The Wilddog warriors and the Valana police gave them wide berth. The Wilddog mounted, and rode west-northwest, while the policemen lingered for a time.
Later historians were to suggest that the war which destroyed the papacy began when Amen Specklebird accepted the ninety-nine Grasshopper warriors who had been recruited by Hultor Bråm, separated from their families by Hultor Bråm, trained, drilled, and indoctrinated by Hultor Bråm, but not paid by Hultor Bråm, because the Grasshopper sharf was angry with Cardinal Brownpony, and extended his anger to Brownpony’s master. After the comptroller with the Pope’s party told him there was no gold with the train, the commander of the police guard explained the situation to the Pope.
The papacy in Valana had signed a contract with certain Wilddog and Grasshopper families to furnish for hire fresh horses to Church messengers at relay stations so that crossing the Plains from the Denver Republic to the marginal farmlands of the East could be accomplished in less than ten days. One enterprising Wilddog family and one Grasshopper undertook to carry mail across the Plains, competing with Church messenger service, but not with Hannegan’s telegraph. These families were given certain immunities in both written and horde law. It was too early to say that a new class of Nomad entrepreneur was immediately coming into being, but certain grandmothers were accumulating an embarrassment of riches from providing services to the enemy: to civilization. Nomad society had always followed the wild, unfenced cattle, and a wealth of possessions made one’s village less portable. But it was under the terms of this contract, as construed by Bråm, that payment was expected.
“Promise to pay them later” was all Pope Amen could say.
After a promise was made to Bråm, the Pope and the Curia proceeded east with these tutelary demons on horseback. Because of the weariness of old men, the journey took four days instead of two. The Pope was fond of chatting with ordinary people, and he spoke frequently to members of the Grasshopper escort along the way, whenever an opportunity arose.
“Our tribes are angry,” one of them told him. “We are angry because the Wilddog has allowed Churchmen to be guests at the sacred meeting of the hordes. Not only is Cardinal Brownpony there, but so is an emissary from Archbishop Benefez. And Brownpony favors Ösle Høngan Chür over Hultor Bråm.”
The Pope took note of the warrior’s polite reversal of Holy Madness’ name. Angry or not, he accepted the grandmothers’ political will, their favoritism for the Wilddog sharf, as legitimately governing the electoral situation on the Plains. But his resentment of Brownpony was extended to Brownpony’s master, the Pope, and thus wages had been requested in advance.