The moon phase had waned from full to new. Then one afternoon past visitors’ hours, a man in a lacy surplice came and stood looking in at them.
“Torrildo!”
The former brother winked at Nimmy but remained silent.
“What do you want, man?” Brownpony snapped.
“My Lord the Archbishop wonders if you would like the Eucharist brought to you here.”
“I would like bread and wine with which to offer Mass myself.”
“I’ll ask,” said Torrildo, and departed.
“Find out if the Pope knows we’re in jail!” Blacktooth called after him.
“Nimmy!” hissed the cardinal.
But Torrildo had stopped. Without looking back, he said, “He knows,” and resumed his departure.
“Damn! It’s all over.” Brownpony was angry and downcast.
Blacktooth decided to let him alone. He rolled up in his blankets and took a nap in the icy wind.
Three days later Torrildo came back. This time Blacktooth winked at him. Torrildo blushed. “I never saw a sarcastic wink before,” he said.
“What about the bread and wine?” the cardinal asked.
“Your Eminence will not have time to say Mass.” He produced a letter from a sleeve and a key from his pocket. “I am to let you go when you read this and promise to obey these instructions.”
Brownpony accepted the papers and began reading, handing each page to Blacktooth as he finished.
“Damn! It’s all over,” the cardinal repeated, again downcast but without anger.
“I thought every cardinal had a Church in New Rome,” Nimmy remarked as soon as he read the first lines.
“There is a Saint Michael’s in New Rome,” Brownpony told him. “And it’s Urion’s Church, but there he is not called the Angel of Battle.”
They read in silence while Torrildo watched and impatiently drummed the key in his palm. The first page was thus.
To His Eminence Elia Cardinal Brownpony, Deacon of Saint Maisie’s.
From Urion Cardinal Benefez, Archbishop of Saint Michael the Archangel.
Inasmuch as the pretended Pope, one Amen Specklebird, has by trying to resign the papacy, admitted that he was never Pope, it has pleased His Imperial Grace the Mayor of Texark to pardon all of your crimes except attempted regicide, for which you and your servant Blacktooth St. George are under suspended sentences of death. You are to be expelled from the Empire as personae non gratae. By countersigning this letter in the place indicated below, you enter a plea to the remaining charge against you of nolo contendere, which His Grace is persuaded to accept, and you agree to be escorted under guard as swiftly as possible to a crossing point of your choosing on the Bay Ghost River, and promise never to return except by order of a reigning Pontiff, a General Council, or a Conclave, and only for the purpose of direct passage to or from New Rome from the nearest border crossing.
There was a place for their signatures below a statement acknowledging the charges with a plea of no contest, and agreeing to obey a decree of permanent banishment.
The other pages were a more or less personal plea from Benefez to Brownpony and other Valanan cardinals to accept New Rome as the proper place for an immediate conclave to elect a pope. When Brownpony finished reading, he looked up at Torrildo. The acolyte was holding a metal pen and a phial of ink out to him through the bars. They quickly signed, and the key turned in the lock.
Their trip back to the Bay Ghost by coach on the main military highway west was a fast, rough ride, taking less than ten days. Before they left the Province, the guards permitted Brownpony to buy two horses from a Jackrabbit farmer. The moon was full again, allowing them to ride sometimes by night. When they came at last to Leibowitz Abbey, an excited Abbot Olshuen knelt to kiss the cardinal’s ring and tell him that he, Brownpony, was now Pope-Elect, chosen by an angry conclave of Valanan cardinals, called by Pope Amen before his resignation. The cardinals were eagerly awaiting his accepto.
“Who brought this crazy message?” Brownpony demanded.
“Why, it was an old guest of ours, who went to New Rome with you. Namely, Wooshin. Cardinal Nauwhat sent him with the letter from the Curia—it’s in my office—and an oral message from Sorely.”
“What was the oral message?”
“That he had opposed the conclave, but hoped you would accept the election anyway.”
“He knows it isn’t legal” was the Red Deacon’s immediate comment. “Of course I won’t accept.”
“You have a more immediate problem,” said Olshuen, recovering from his initial awe of the cardinal.
“And what is that, Dom Abiquiu?”
“Have you told Brother St. George about his young lady? She came for him while you were gone. He thought she had died. She said you knew she was alive.”
Brownpony was suddenly nervous. “We’ll talk about that. Let’s go to your office. I need to read the letter from the Curia.”
CHAPTER 19
Let all guests who arrive be received
as Christ, for He is going to say,
“I came as a guest, and you received me.”
THEY HAD ARRIVED AT LEIBOWITZ ABBEY DURING the recreational hour in the late afternoon of Ash Wednesday. The Yellow Guard presided over several kick-boxing matches between novices, and even the professed Brothers Wren and Singing Cow were sparring clumsily. Blacktooth observed that the style of fighting differed in some respects from that of Wooshin—although the Axe would never admit to having a “style”. However, Foreman Jing, who had fenced with Wooshin, called it the “way of the homeless sword,” and a “style of no-style.”
Brownpony’s first duty was to confer with Abbot Olshuen.
Blacktooth’s was to bring bad news to the Yellow Guard. First he established himself in the guest room.
“You’re still here!” he exclaimed upon entering.
“No, no,” said Önmu Kun, the Jackrabbit gun smuggler. “I’m back for the second time since you left.” He was full of wine and the urge to talk. “The Jackrabbit Weejus and Bear Spirit have chosen me as sharf, did you know that?”
Nimmy doubted it, but didn’t much care. By looking around at their war gear, Nimmy knew the comrades of the late Weh-Geh, although they were working hard around the abbey, participating in the liturgy, and teaching weaponless fighting to novices, were still staying in the guesthouse along with Önmu Kun. This to Nimmy meant that Olshuen was not about to take them on as postulants or novices without permission from on high.
They greeted him with smiles and handclasps as they returned from the bouts in the courtyard, but Önmu was still talking and laughing about his adventures in the Province, and the warriors were a polite lot. Only their eyes questioned him (“Weh-Geh? Where?”), but they waited for the smuggler to finish.
Brownpony’s flirtations with Churches in the Province had made it easier for Önmu to sell guns, he said. He had only to ask a pastor whether he had seen Cardinal Brownpony on his way toward Hannegan City. If the priest said that he had not, Önmu hurried away. If he had seen him, and showed the slightest enthusiasm, it meant there existed a group of local partisans wanting arms. One cadre which called itself the Knights of Empty Sky was a charity organization. He had supplied them not only with infantry weapons, but made a special trip to bring them three cannon that fired either a peach-size ball or a load of heavy buckshot, for those badly in need of charity. According to “Sharf” Önmu, the Knights anointed each cannon with oil, placed it in a well-caulked box, dug a shallow grave in the Churchyard, and buried it by night.