But as soon as he said it, there came to Pope Amen II a flash vision of Blacktooth’s future—in shock upon learning of Ædrea’s sudden calling to religion, and of the Pope’s sentence passed upon her. Shock and maybe fury. He resolved not to see the monk immediately upon his arrival. Let him hear about it from Qum-Do, Jing-U-Wan, Wooshin, and the two Oriental secretaries he inherited from Cardinal Ri. They understood his motives and his necessity. Brother St. George would eventually apply his religious thing to his fury, and then it would be safe for the Pope to see him.
Late September came, and Blacktooth had still not arrived at Pope Amen II’s log-cabin Vatican. His Holiness gulped the rest of his brandy, put his heels on the table, leaned back, and smiled at his elderly bodyguard. A single candle lighted Brownpony7s private office in the Papal Palace with its log walls and fired-clay floor, but there was an exceptionally bright full moon shining through the big southern windows, and everything seemed to glow in its light, including the faces of the Pope and the warrior.
“Axe, do you know what tomorrow is?”
“Thursday, the twenty-ninth, ’Oliness.”
“It is a feast of Saint Michael, the commander in chief of the heavenly hordes.”
“I thought it was the ‘heavenly hosts.’”
“No, no! All angels are Nomads and there are hordes of them.”
“So what of it, ’Oliness?”
“Axe, the Cathedral of Saint Michael Angel-of-Battle is in Hannegan City, and belongs to Urion Benefez. For him tomorrow is a day of pomp and High Masses. And I shall offer the same Mass in a quiet way. The Gospel for the day is the first ten verses of Matthew Thirteen, and at first glance it seems unrelated to the Archangel Michael. In it, Jesus calls a little child to him, and tells how we must all become little children again before we can enter Heaven. Isn’t that strange?”
“No, to the children the angel’s sword gives life.”
Brownpony paused. He knew what Axe meant, but what an odd way to say it.
“An old Jew once told me that this, our angel of battle, is the defender of the Synagogue, just as we see him as defender of the Church. And of course of her children. That explains the choice of the Gospel, I think. But do you know that a bunch of old Nomad women married me off to the Burregun, the Buzzard of Battle?”
“I believe you have mentioned it several times, ’Oliness. I hope it is a happy marriage.”
“Oh, it is, it is! We’re winning the war, I think.” The Pope poured himself another glass of brandy. “But I feel strange praying to Michael now. I hope the commander of the angelic armies forgives me. It was a forced marriage. Must I apologize for imagining Benefez’s Angel of Battle pitted against my supernatural bird-wife?”
“No.”
“Oh, you have an opinion! It was a rhetorical question, Axe, but why do you say ‘no’?”
“Because the angel and the buzzard are the same.”
“I wish you had said they are on the same side. You’ll never be a Christian, will you Wooshin? And yet you have certain shocking insights. Tell me about Mankiller again sometime.”
“Again? I don’t remember telling you about him a first time, ’Oliness.”
“No, I just heard part of what you were telling Blacktooth one day. Who is Mankiller?”
“The Compassionate One.” His capital letters were audible.
Brownpony stared at him by moonlight and wondered.
Wooshin added: “An ancient saying among my people goes: ‘The sword that kills is the same sword that gives life.’”
“Have another glass of this good mountain brandy. But to whom has a sword ever given life?”
The Axe declined the brandy. “Whenever there is a fight, the sword gives death to one man and life to the other. And life to his family, his retainers, and lord.”
“Yes, I suppose your sword has given me life once or twice. The saying is less than profound, though. Some things you say make a lot of people think you confuse God and the Devil, Wooshin.”
“I hope Y’roliness is not among them.”
“No, but what do you say to the charge?”
“I deny it. How can I confuse them? I see they are not two.”
Brownpony laughed. “Axe, did you ever take paradox lessons from Pope Amen Specklebird?”
“No, but he kindly spoke to me a few times. You say I’ll never be aChristian. Foreman Jing says the same. But if I could have been Saint Specklebird’s student, I might have become one.”
“You just canonized him. That’s my job. Are you an atheist?”
“Oh no, I honor all the gods.”
“How many belong to that all?”
“Countless. And one.”
“How meaningless!”
“’Oliness, let me hear you count to one.”
“One.”
“Point at that one.”
Brownpony stirred restlessly. Finally he tapped his index finger against his temple.
Wooshin laughed quietly. “Wrong. You had to think about it too long. And you didn’t count to one. You counted from one and stopped. The one is countless.”
The Pope changed the subject. He was no mystic, but he seemed to attract mystics. Specklebird, Blacktooth, and Wooshin—they all had a streak of it, and they were all quite different. He was fascinated, but he did not understand.
In Hannegan City in mid-September, the Emperor called together his generals and waxed gleeful about the captured weapons; fire had not ruined them for study, only for use. Stocks and grips were burned, some cylinders had exploded, and some barrels were bent by the heat and by bursting kegs of powder. Filpeo handled them lovingly, and his hands were black with soot. According to his gunsmiths, it would be possible to begin duplicating this west-coast weapon as soon as they could tool up, produce the right kinds of steel, find copper for making brass for cartridges—if his forces could hold out that long.
Meanwhile Admiral e’Fondolai, Carpios Robbery, was already equipped with several dozen of the repeating weapons. Soon he and Esitt Loyte (he whom the troops called “Wooden-Nose”) would begin their raids from north of the Misery. The wolf-skinned Texark forces, disguised as motherless outlaws, would wreak enough havoc on the Nomad women and horses left behind to draw off the left flank of the Antipope’s crusade.
“Admiral?” protested General Goldæm. “I thought Carpy had been made a field marshal.”
“Admiral for now,” Filpeo answered. “An admiral is a pirate with a uniform, and a pirate doesn’t think in terms of capturing territory. His method of warfare is perfectly suited to the ocean of grass that is the Nomad homeland.”
Time as well as terror was on the Emperor’s side. The opposing armies of Pope and Empire, Church and State, were dug in on opposite banks of the Washita, and it was easier for Filpeo to feed his men than for Amen II to feed his. Moreover, Brownpony was counting on forces he did not control.
“The Antipope thinks he holds the undying allegiance of the Wilddog Horde, but I am not so sure,” Filpeo told his generals. “They say Sharf Oxsho licks the false Pope’s footprints, but Høngan Ösle Chür seems to have risen above his Wilddog partisanship to become the Sharf of Sharfs, so to speak, of all three hordes. Even Sharf Demon Light pays respect to his lord, and we know how the Jackrabbit leaped into his arms and arose against us. No doubt, Eltür is as much our enemy as his brother Hultor, but he is cautious, he is clever, he is reasonable. And unlike Høngan, he is no Christian. We may be able to negotiate.”
“I’m not sure you mean what you seem to be saying, Sire,” said Father Colonel Pottscar. “You speak as if Christianity demands submission to a false pope.”