No Nomads came—no howling barbarians to pick through the ruined and smoking center of all Christendom. No shots, no shouts, no neighing horses, no mad laughter or cries of delight or screams of dismay. A great fire brings with it a truce in the natural order of things, a still center; and there weren’t even scavengers in the streets. The occasional corpses, one every block or so, lay in quiet dignity as Blacktooth walked around them. There were only the buzzards gathering high overhead, like fly ash.
Saint Peter’s was not hard to find. The roof had burned and fallen, but the smoke-stained dome still stood over the ruins. Most of the interior was destroyed. Blacktooth sat in the back in one of the long pews that had survived the lottery of destruction. It was curious, he thought, what was left and what was consumed, by time as well as fire. There were a few memories left of his childhood—the hard months among the Nomads, the early days at the abbey. But whole years were gone, leaving nothing but ash, like the long rows of gray ash marking where the clean-burning oak pews had been. Where a pew was gone, its footstool might be left behind. It was like the remnants of the Magna Civitas, burned to the ground more than a thousand years ago. Parts of it stood almost intact, like the Church; other parts were not even remembered.
For the first time in months, Blacktooth closed his eyes and prayed; not under duress but because he wanted to. He stayed on his knees when he finished. He could feel Hilbert’s fever returning, like an old friend. He welcomed it—for there was Ædrea again, in the waterfall that had no water where water did not fall. And there was Amen Specklebird.
Amen I with his cougar smile—
Amen was shaking him by the shoulder. But it was Amen II. “Nimmy, is it really you? We thought you were dead!”
“So here you see my Church,” said Brownpony. His hair was gone and his eyes stared out of dark hollows. Even the red beard of the Red Deacon was mostly white. All around the basilica, the great empty windows looked out on ruins. The deserted streets were quiet and only the howling of dogs could be heard, far off in the distance.
“Oh, God, the Grasshopper!” Brownpony knelt and blackened his hands in the ashes, and held them up toward the smoke-stained dome. “What a fool I have been, Nimmy. To trust the Grasshopper!”
“Holy Madness trusted them too, Holy Father,” Blacktooth replied. “And so did Axe!”
“I trusted Bråm to fight well,” said Wooshin. “He did that, before the desertions.”
“It may be,” said the Pope, “that he could not control his warriors, once they felt the battle fury—drawn down from Empty Sky, as they say.” He wiped his hands on his dirty white cassock; over it he wore a repeating pistol in a shoulder holster. “And the Grasshopper warriors have no love for the Church hereabouts.”
Wooshin stood by, still wearing the plaid tunic and sergeant general’s stripes Brownpony had made for him. He seemed depressed. Blacktooth was not surprised. All Wooshin’s friends, the Yellow Guard, were either dead or gone south with Magister Dion and the Qæsach dri Vørdar. His master, Brownpony, seemed weaker than ever; and ruined.
“Nimmy,” Brownpony was saying. “Look what I have done to my Church. It wasn’t for myself that I wanted this throne. And now look at it.”
“It wasn’t you…” Blacktooth started. But he couldn’t finish. Who else had done it? It was Brownpony who had assembled the Three Hordes, who had armed them with repeating weapons, who had set them in motion across the sea of grass toward New Rome—and who had then told them not to set fires.
I set fires, Eltür Bråm’s carriage was inscribed. He had made no secret of it. like hell you will, the Pope had answered.
Like Hell—and now, look around.
Brownpony laid his hand on Blacktooth’s brow, leaving a smear of ash. “Your fever seems better, Nimmy,” he said.
“I got over it,” said Blacktooth. “They captured me and gave me some pills, the same pills the Texark are using south of the Nady Ann. But they are almost gone.”
“You don’t feel feverish.”
“I can feel it,” said Blacktooth. “I can see it coming. When I am feverish I see the girl, Ædrea. And the old Pope, Amen Specklebird. They were with me just now, before you came in.” He saw no point in lying to Brownpony; not anymore. “I was glad to see them.”
“Do you see them now?” Brownpony asked.
“No, of course not. The fever is not that bad.”
“The fever is not that bad,” repeated Brownpony. He seemed more distracted than ever. Then suddenly he drew the pistol from his shoulder holster. “Do you hear that, Nimmy?”
“Hear what, your—”
“Shhhh!—”
Wooshin drew his short sword from his belt; he left his long sword in its steel scabbard. Seconds later, Blacktooth heard what the old warrior and Brownpony had heard. Hooves on the paving stones, and then on steps, and then on wood—clattering “inside” the cathedral.
It was Black Eyes, the Nomad double agent who had briefly been imprisoned across from Brownpony and Blacktooth in the Hannegan City zoo. He was dressed in the full regalia of a Wilddog warrior, riding a sorrel pony. “Your Holiness,” he said sarcastically. He nodded at Nimmy and avoided Wooshin’s eye—and sword—altogether.
“Put it away,” said Brownpony, softly—although he still held the repeating pistol in his hand. Wooshin put the short sword away, but kept his hand on the hilt of the long one.
“What are you doing here? I thought you were with the Emperor in Hannegan City.” Brownpony stood straighter, tried to look regal. Black Eyes didn’t seem impressed.
“As a spy,” the Nomad said. “When the Lord of the Three Hordes came south, with the tanks and the glep army, I crossed the Red River to join them. But the battle is lost. The Hannegan’s guns spoke too loudly, and too fast. The gleps have run back to their valley, the spooks are on their way back to the Suckamints, and the War Sharf of the Three Hordes is on his way home.”
“Høngan Ösle?” Brownpony looked stricken. “The Qæsach dri Vørdar is going home?”
“The Weejus are calling,” said the Nomad. His pony was dancing in and out of the pew ashes, ruining their straight lines. “The Texark Wooden-Nose is burning our lodges, killing our women, stealing our horses. We ride for the short grass. I am only here to make sure that none of the children of the Big Sky Woman are left in the city when the grass-eaters arrive. You should leave also. You are also her child and she is also your mother, begging your pardon, Holiness. The Texark cavalry is on its way.”
“From the south?” The Pope pointed with the pistol. “From Hannegan City?”
“From the north as well. From the sea of grass. We will leave their city to them. Good luck, Your Holiness.”
He rode off loudly, hooves clattering, and Brownpony fell to his knees, cursing his fate. “Vexilla regis inferni produent!”
“What’s he saying?” Wooshin whispered.
“Forth come the banners of the King of Hell,” said Blacktooth.
“It is not their city,” Brownpony muttered. “They never wanted it!” He looked up toward the sky and saw only the blackened ruined dome. He tossed his pistol into the ashes.
In the center of the ruined sanctuary, the throne of Saint Peter’s had been miraculously spared. Behind it was a painted wooden statue of the Holy Virgin, also spared. Blacktooth and Wooshin silently followed Brownpony as he crossed toward the throne, picking his way through the litter. Brownpony paused in front of the throne and studied it before smoothing his cassock and sitting down. His freckled skin was drawn and thin strands of gray hair showed at the edges of his dirty white skullcap. He still wore his empty shoulder holster.