“I’ll not translate it for you,” said the old black Pope, holding Mother India’s card. They were sitting together alone in the hillside house of stone. The rocks were cold, but there was a small fire on the hearth, and the room was chilly but not uncomfortable.
“It’s more poem than prayer. It is not written in the language the Sisters speak today, but their speech does have more classical Spanish in it than Rockymount or Ol’zark has. This is old Spanish with a word or two of country dialect perhaps. I have seen it before. I know what it means to the Sisters. They think the crucified woman does not depict an event of history, but an event in the mind of Mary when she allowed herself to feel the crucifixion of her son.”
“She wishes herself in his place on the cross?”
“Wishes? In her own heart, she’s already there. Librada del mundo means set free from the world. But the next three lines seem to be spoken by the crucified. She has eyes, but doesn’t see herself. With her hands nailed to the cross, she can’t touch herself. With her feet nailed there too, she can’t walk about. The line after that—‘with the angels of number forty-three’—its meaning is lost. The last two lines might be spoken by the Christ child: ‘Mary’s blanket covers me. Mary’s breasts turn me rosy.’ The child is nursing. This is the Sisters’ interpretation.”
“What is yours?”
“I’m not an interpreter. You are, Blacktooth. You have eyes, hands, and feet. Can you see yourself, touch yourself, walk about?”
“I never doubted it before, but—” He paused. “But what I see in a mirror is not me, is it? I can touch my body, but is that me? My feet move, but who is walking?”
“If you have the right questions, why do you need answers? The answers are in the questions.” He smiled a cat’s smile. “I like your questions.”
“Is there anything you can do for Ædrea?”
Specklebird was silent. “Not that question,” Nimmy was afraid he would say. After a time he purred a cougar’s purr. “Stay awhile and pray with me. We’ll pray the silent prayer.”
They prayed without words. Occasionally, Blacktooth arose to feed the fire. At dusk, they ate a simple meal, and prayed some more. In the morning, Brother Blacktooth chopped more wood, and Amen Specklebird hung out a sign that said, I pray—go away.
Nimmy stayed with him and prayed with him. The silence was like what the silence at the Abbey of Leibowitz should have been. On the fifth day, someone came and yelled “Habemus Papam!” three times before he went away. Specklebird seemed not to notice. The silence was unbroken by the event.
Blacktooth stayed for nine days, a novena of sorts. He learned more about his own soul during those nine days than he had learned during all his years at Leibowitz Abbey. Amen Specklebird was a teacher in silence. The soul of the student somehow began to resemble the soul of the teacher in silence. There was no explanation for it, for to explain would break the silence.
He might have stayed longer than nine days, but when he came out to chop wood on the tenth morning, a great cloud of smoke was arising from Valana. Was the whole city on fire?
Amen followed him most of the way down the hill, until they could see that it was only the Papal Palace and the police barracks burning. Only! That was Specklebird’s word.
They embraced in silence, and parted in silence. Nimmy was vaguely worried about the old man. He had tried to remove himself entirely from the scene of the ecclesiastical and political struggle for supremacy, but how could he be free from it while men continued to bicker and battle about his quitclaim on the Apostolic See? Was he ever Pope? Was he still Pope? Where was his resignation? If someone had burned the original, Blacktooth felt the old man was not safe. And yet he knew it would be useless presumption to advise him to seek protection.
The fires had been preceded by explosions, the guard at the gate told him. But Cardinal Brownpony, now Pope Amen II, was not dead. He had only fled the city along with most of the Curia. Gone where? The guard could not say. Most of Mayor Dion’s brigade had ridden south on the papal highway, leaving a few men, with part of the Yellow Guard, to train the civilian militia in the fort the spooks had built. Several cardinals had taken refuge there. Perhaps the Holy Father had gone with Dion. The Texark spy had disappeared from the jail, and the guard reckoned there must have been as many as forty infiltrators to accomplish the jailbreak and blow up the Palace. “These bastards have been living among us for years—settlers from Texark. Most of them pretended to be fugitives.”
The Nomads had returned to the Plains, he told Nimmy, and perhaps the Pope was with them, instead.
Blacktooth hurried first to Aberlott’s. A note on the door said, “Gone to the fort. Help yourself.” Blacktooth tried the latch. This time it was unlocked. Judging by the mess on the floor and the overturned furniture, someone had already helped himself, or else the student had been dragged to the fort after resisting.
He went to SEEC. The building was deserted, except for the covert wing. When he tried to enter there, he was quickly ejected. He went to Saint John-in-Exile. Only a curate was present. He told Blacktooth that the new Pope, after escaping from the burning building, had left the city in a coach belonging to the Grasshopper sharf, but they had indeed followed Dion south.
“Did the coach have ‘I set fires’ painted on the side?”
“Is that what it said? It was ancient English, I think.”
Bråm was going to take charge of a shipment of guns, Nimmy thought. He started walking to the fort. On the way, he was grabbed by the scruff of the neck and dragged to the fort. It was Ulad, who would not believe that he was going there of his own free will.
“You know I am a servant of Cardinal, uh, Pope Amen Two,” he protested.
“If you still were, you would be with him. You are a soldier now, piss-robe,” the giant said. “You are going to fight for the Holy City.”
Holy City? Did he mean New Rome or New Jerusalem?
“Will I get to see Ædrea?”
“Not likely,” growled the hulk.
Nimmy stopped struggling, but Ulad kept his long slender hand around his neck as they walked.
CHAPTER 22
Let a good pound weight of bread suffice
for the day, whether there be only one meal
or both dinner and supper.
ELIA BROWNPONY—NOW POPE AMEN II—MISSED his Grasshopper interpreter; no one had seen Nimmy since the election. The new Pope was reluctant to believe that Blacktooth had deserted him; he had left messages with cardinals who remained in Valana. Now he rode with Sharfs Oxsho and Demon Light Bråm in Bråm’s coach, while several cardinals came along behind, some in coaches, some on horseback. Wooshin, who was not fluent in any Nomad dialect, rode with the Pope’s driver. Inside the coach, the young Wilddog sharf fawned on his Pontiff, somewhat to his Pontiff’s annoyance, because Bråm was still calling him “Red Beard,” and every time Oxsho said “Your Holiness” or “Holy Father,” the Grasshopper sharf grew surly. Bråm mentioned Esitt Loyte more often than seemed polite. Oxsho argued that the spy had been caught before he could learn much more than the identities of the participants in the war council.
“And that’s too much,” Eltür snapped. “Once the Hannegan knows we have allies in the east, he will be less likely to send forces across the Great River. Isn’t that so, Red Beard?”