“I can tell you definitely: There will be war,” said the messenger from New Rome. “All Laredo’s forces are committed to the Plains. Mad Bear has broken camp. There’s a running cavalry battle, nomad style, all over the Plains. But the State of Chihuahua is threatening Laredo from the south. So Hannegan is getting ready to send Texarkana forces to the Rio Grande-to help ‘defend’ the frontier. With the Laredans’ full approval, of course.”
“King Goraldi is a doddering fool!” said Dom Paulo. “Wasn’t he warned against Hannegan’s treachery?”
The messenger smiled. “The Vatican diplomatic service always respects state secrets if we happen to learn them. Lest we be accused of espionage, we are always careful about-”
“Was he warned?” the abbot demanded again.
“Of course. Goraldi said the papal legate was lying to him; he accused the Church of fomenting dissension among the allies of the Holy Scourge, in an attempt to promote the Pope’s temporal power. The idiot even told Hannegan about the legate’s warning.”
Dom Paulo winced and whistled. “So Hannegan did what?”
The messenger hesitated. “I suppose I can tell you: Monsignor Apollo is under arrest. Hannegan ordered his diplomatic files seized. There’s talk in New Rome of placing the whole realm of Texarkana under interdict. Of course, Hannegan has already incurred ipso facto excommunication, but that doesn’t seem to bother many Texarkanans. As you surely know, the population is about eighty per cent cultist anyhow, and the Catholicism of the ruling class has always been a thin veneer.”
“So now Marcus,” the abbot murmured sadly. “And what of Thon Taddeo?”
“I don’t quite see how be expects to get across the Plains without picking up a few musket-ball holes just now. It seems clear why he hadn’t wanted to make the trip. But I know nothing about his progress, Father Abbot.”
Dom Paulo’s flown was pained. “If our refusal to send the material to his university leads to his being killed-”
“Don’t trouble your conscience about that, Father Abbot. Hannegan looks out for his own. I don’t know bow, but I’m sure the thon will get here.”
“The world could ill afford to lose him, I hear. Well-But tell me, why were you sent to report Hannegan’s plans to us? We’re in the empire of Denver, and I can’t see how this region is affected.”
“Ah, but I’ve told you only the beginning. Hannegan hopes to unite the continent eventually. After Laredo’s firmly leashed, he will have broken the encirclement that’s kept him in check. Then the next move will be against Denver.”
“But wouldn’t that involve supply lines across nomad country? It seems impossible.”
“It’s extremely difficult, and that’s what makes the next move certain. The Plains form a natural geographical barrier. If they were depopulated, Hannegan might regard his western frontier as secure as it stands. But the nomads have made it necessary for all states adjoining the Plains to tie up permanent military forces around the nomad territory for containment. The only way to subdue the Plains is to control both fertile strips, to the east and to the west.”
“But even so,” the abbot wondered, “the nomads-”
“Hannegan’s plan for them is devilish. Mad Bear’s warriors can easily cope with Laredo’s cavalry, but what they can’t cope with is a cattle plague. The Plains tribes don’t know it yet, but when Laredo set out to punish the nomads for border raiding, the Laredans drove several hundred head of diseased cattle ahead to mingle with the nomads’ herds. It was Hannegan’s idea. The result will be famine, and then it will be easy to set tribe against tribe. We don’t, of course, know all the details, but the goal is a nomad legion under a puppet chieftain, armed by Texarkana, loyal to Hannegan, ready to sweep west to the mountains. If it comes to pass, this region will get the first breakers.”
“But why? Surely Hannegan doesn’t expect the barbarians to be dependable troops, or capable of holding an empire once they finish mutilating it!”
“No, m’Lord. But the nomad tribes will be disrupted, Denver will be shattered. Then Hannegan can pick up the pieces,”
“To do what with them? It couldn’t be a very rich empire.”
“No, but secure on all flanks. He might then be in a better position to strike east or northeast. Of course, before it comes to that, his plans may collapse. But whether they collapse or not, this region may well be in danger of being overrun in the not-too-distant future. Steps should be taken to secure the abbey within the next few months. I have instructions to discuss with you the problem of keeping the Memorabilia safe.”
Dom Paulo felt the blackness beginning to gather. After twelve centuries, a little hope had come into the world-and then came an illiterate prince to ride roughshod over it with a barbarian horde and…
His fist exploded onto the desktop. “We kept them outside our walls for a thousand years,” he growled, “and we can keep them out for another thousand. This abbey was under siege three times during the Bayring influx, and once again during the Vissarionist schism. We’ll keep the books safe. We’ve kept them that way for quite some time.”
“But there is an added hazard these days, m’Lord.”
“What may that be?”
“A bountiful supply of gunpowder and grapeshot.”
The Feast of the Assumption had come and gone, but still there was no word of the party from Texarkana. Private votive masses for pilgrims and travelers were beginning to be offered by the abbey’s priests. Dom Paulo had ceased taking even a light breakfast, and it was whispered that he was doing penance for having invited the scholar at all, in view of the present danger on the Plains.
The watchtowers remained constantly manned. The abbot himself frequently climbed the wall to peer eastward.
Shortly before Vespers on the Feast of Saint Bernard, a novice reported seeing a thin and distant dust trail, but darkness was coming on, and no one else had been able to make it out. Soon, Compline and the Salve Regina were sung, but still no one appeared at the gates.
“It might have been their advance scout,” suggested Prior Gault.
“It might have been Brother Watchman’s imagination,” countered Dom Paulo.
“But if they’ve camped just ten miles or so down the way-”
“We’d see their fire from the tower. It’s a clear night.”
“Still, Domne, after the moon rises, we could send a rider-”
“Oh, no. That’s a good way to get shot by mistake. If it’s really them, they’ve probably kept their fingers on their triggers for the whole trip, especially at night. It can wait until dawn.”
It was late the following morning when the expected party of horsemen appeared out of the east. From the top of the wall Dom Paulo blinked and squinted across the hot and dry terrain, trying to focus myopic eyes on the distance. Dust from the horses’ hooves was drifting away to the north. The party had stopped for a parley.
“I seem to be seeing twenty or thirty of them,” the abbot complained, rubbing his eyes in annoyance. “Are there really so many?”
“Approximately,” said Gault.
“How will we ever take care of them all?”
“I don’t think we’ll be taking care of the ones with the wolfskins, m’Lord Abbot,” the younger priest said stiffly.
“Wolfskins?”
“Nomads, m’Lord.”
“Man the walls! Close the gates! Let down the shield! Break out the-”
“Wait, they’re not all nomads, Domne.”
“Oh?” Dom Paulo turned to peer again.
The parley was being ended. Men waved; the group split in two. The larger party galloped back toward the east. The remaining horsemen watched briefly, then reined around and trotted toward the abbey.
“Six or seven of them-some in uniform,” the abbot murmured as they drew closer.
“The thon and his party, I’m sure.”
“But with nomads? It’s a good thing I didn’t let you send a rider out last night. What were they doing with nomads?’
“It appeared that they came as guides,” Father Gault said darkly.
“How neighborly of the lion to lie down with the lamb!”
The riders approached the gates. Dom Paulo swallowed dryness. “Well, we’d better go welcome them, Father,” he sighed.
By the time the priests had descended from the wall, the travelers had reined up just outside the courtyard. A horseman detached himself from the others, trotted forward, dismounted, and presented his papers.
“Dom Paulo of Pecos, Abbas?”
The abbot bowed. “Tibi adsum. Welcome in the name of Saint Leibowitz, Thon Taddeo. Welcome in the name of his abbey, in the name of forty generations who’ve waited for you to come. Be at home. We serve you.” The words were heart-felt; the words had been saved for many years while awaiting this moment. Hearing a muttered monosyllable in reply, Dom Paulo looked up slowly.
For a moment his glance locked with the scholar’s. He felt the warmth quickly fade. Those icy eyes-cold and searching gray. Skeptical, hungry, and proud. They studied him as one might study a lifeless curio.
That this moment might be as a bridge across a gulf of twelve centuries, Paulo had fervently prayed-prayed too that through him the last martyred scientist of that earlier age would clasp hands with tomorrow. There was indeed a gulf; that much was plain. The abbot felt suddenly that he belonged not to this age at all, that he had been left stranded somewhere on a sandbar in Time’s river, and that there wasn’t really ever a bridge at all.
“Come,” he said gently. “Brother Visclair will attend to your horses.”
When he had seen the guests installed in their lodgings and had retired to the privacy of his study, the smile on the face of the wooden saint reminded him unaccountably of the smirk of old Benjamin Eleazar, saying, “The children of this world are consistent too.”