Brownpony had been staring out the window at the scenery as if in deep reverie. Eltür was forced to repeat the question. Oxsho rephrased it in the Wilddog dialect, but Brownpony’s response was indirect.
“The attack on the Palace was a complete surprise to me. I was too confused to think clearly for an hour or two. The agents who broke Loyte out of jail must have taken him straight to the telegraph terminal. We should have thought of that immediately and sent forces to capture it before he could get a message out. Now it will be captured in due course, but too late.”
“So the Hannegan’s forces will not cross the Great River!”
“We can’t know that until you try to arrange a cease-fire, Sharf Bråm.”
“You expect me to play the coward, Red Beard?”
“Of course not! You can seem unwilling. Let him know that Holy Madness demands it of you, that you would be delighted to resume hostilities if Texark turns you down.”
Brownpony had the uneasy feeling that Eltür blamed him for twin Hultor’s self-destructive behavior, but this feeling probably arose out of Father Steps-on-Snake’s opinion that Hultor’s murderous raid was meant to send a message to the cardinal who pampered Wilddog Christians and left the Grasshopper out of his councils.
“Your tribes and your warriors, and you yourself, Sharf Bråm, are the most powerful force we have against the Hannegan.”
Eltür had trouble understanding. Oxsho tried to shift the dialect to Grasshopper, but the result was less than satisfactory.
“We are not your force, Red Beard,” said the sharf.
They passed a dozen armed men from New Jerusalem along the way. The papal highway had been seized by, and was being patrolled by, Dion’s forces. The guard drew itself up into formation and saluted as the Pope passed by. Soon they came to their destination. The road to Shard’s place was no longer just a path through the bushes leading to Scarecrow Alley. Magister Dion’s men were fast builders. The brush had been cleared. Fifty yards from the papal highway, a log barricade had been erected, and twin guardhouses flanked the improved road. A cloud of dust raised by men and horses hovered over the area. The ramshackle houses of the gleps had been razed. Barracks and other log buildings replaced them. Two trains of wagons were loaded and stood ready to move out, while the dust of a third train heading south was still visible—Önmu Kun, Brownpony thought.
Amen II was quickly surrounded by his Curia when he descended from Eltür’s coach, and his leave-taking from the Nomad sharfs was perfunctory and less than cordial. Each of them was met by a band of warriors from his horde, and they were ready to move out within the hour. The secrets of the Suckamints were no longer secret, and the colony now was clearly at war.
The Mayor strode up to the group of cardinals, genuflected with military precision to the figure in white, and brushed the Pope’s ring with his lips. He answered questions before they were asked.
“The telegraph station has been captured. According to the prisoners we took, Loyte had already been there and gone. Outlaw forces ambushed a cavalry troop in the outlaw lands. The ruffian you sent me brought over a hundred men to us, and they took no prisoners. Our light horse are riding hard toward the second station, and they are passing Jackrabbit guerrillas on their way to join us. Now what of our allies in the East?”
“Well, word has not reached them yet about what’s happening here.” Brownpony shrugged. “So we’ll not know for some time.” He gestured toward the mountains. “Is the way open to us?”
“Of course, Holy Father. The buildings are all of logs, but new, and it is your third Rome as long as you wish it to be.” He beckoned to a young man with such long legs and short arms that one might have considered him a glep, except that Dion introduced him as his son, and he was both well-mannered and handsome.
“Slojon will be your guide as long as you need one. He will be in charge of my office while I am with the army.”
The young man bowed and squinted closely at the Pope’s ring without actually kissing it.
Brownpony continued to peer out at the scenery as if in deep thought while they rode upward into the mountains in a coach formerly belonging to the Mayor, who had ordered the door panels repainted with the papal tiara and the keys. This time Wooshin rode with him inside the coach, along with Dion’s Slojon, and Cardinals Hilan Bleze and Mother Iridia Silentia. With the latter, he had enjoyed a distant but enduring acquaintance, and she had thanked him for concurring in the first Amen’s choosing her for the cardinalate. Brownpony admitted that he had in fact done no such thing, but he now applauded her appointment after the fact.
During the journey into the mountains, she brought up the subject of Ædrea’s captivity, but Brownpony’s respiratory weakness returned to him as they gained altitude, and he was unable to say anything to support her in her petition to Dion’s Slojon, except to smile at her and gesture in the young man’s direction. The gesture could have meant whatever each of them might want it to mean. Hilan Bleze changed the subject to curial matters.
By the time they arrived in the heart of the community, Pope Amen II needed to be carried by sedan chair to his new quarters. He asked the Secretary of State to send an urgent message to Blacktooth in Valana for a copy of a recipe by the Venerable Boedullus. Then he collapsed in a feather bed and slept for sixteen hours. Outside the building was a disappointed crowd of the faithful among these normal-looking “Children of the Pope,” who had assembled in the hope of receiving the Apostolic Benediction from their special father. Secretary Hilan Cardinal Bleze blessed them himself, and told them to come back tomorrow.
Corporal Blacktooth St. George never received his Pontiff’s urgent message, for when it arrived in Valana, it was routed to the fort and delivered to his commander, Major Elswitch J. Cleaver, who signed a receipt for it in Blacktooth’s absence, but somehow forgot to give it to him later. He called Chuntar Cardinal Hadala’s attention to the message. The cardinal opened and read it.
“Our new Holy Father must have become a gourmand since his election,” said Hadala with a hint of contempt in his tone. “It’s only a request for a recipe by a cook named Boedullus.”
“Could it be a coded message?” suggested the florid major.
“I think not. If Corporal Blacktooth had any secret information, the Pope would just summon him directly.”
“Well, I heard that His Holiness had sent for him.”
“Where did you hear that?” the cardinal asked sharply.
“A rumor. He may have started it himself, but somebody said it came from Cardinal Nauwhat.”
“Damn it! I’ll have a talk with Sorely. You know Mayor Dion doesn’t want that monk in New Jerusalem. There is his affair with that suspect girl, and the Pope, after all, is now too dependent on the Mayor to risk offending him. I’m sure that’s why Elia hasn’t summoned him. Besides, he won’t need a Nomad interpreter in New Jerusalem, even if—” He broke off.
The Major looked at him and wondered if the distinction between interpreter and translator had stopped his line of thinking. As to confirm this, Hadala continued:
“Besides, we are going to need someone to handle correspondence between ourselves and the Nomad sharfs. Sorely will surely need him too, for the same reason. That’s why we proposed his promotion to corporal, and we want to keep him reasonably satisfied. I doubt any rumor about his going back into Brownpony’s, uh, the Pope’s service came from Nauwhat.”
“Well, I can keep him busy until you need him,” said Gleaver. “Right now, the police have him. And then he’s on leave until after the funeral tomorrow.”