A Canticle for Leibowitz - Walter M. Miller [100]
“Will he live, Brother?”
“I cannot know, Domne. Mistreatment, starvation, exposure, fever-if God wills it-” He shrugged…
“May I speak to him?’
“I’m sure it won’t matter. But he doesn’t make sense.”
The abbot entered the room and softly closed the door behind him.
“Brother Claret?”
“Not again,” gasped the man on the bed. “For the love of God, not again-I’ve told you all I know. I betrayed him. Now just let me-be.”
Dom Paulo looked down with pity on the secretary to late Marcus Apollo. He glanced at the scribe’s hands. There were only festering sores where the fingernails had been.
The abbot shuddered and turned to the small table near the bed. Out of a small collection of papers and personal effects, he quickly found the crudely printed document which the fugitive had brought with him from the east:
HANNEGAN THE MAYOR, by Grace of God: Sovereign of Texarkana, Emperor of Laredo, Defender of the Faith, Doctor of Laws, Clans Chief of the Nomads, and Vaquero Supreme of the Plains, to ALL BISHOPS, PRIESTS, AND PRELATES of the Church throughout Our Rightful Realm, Greetings & TAKE HEED, for it is the LAW, viz & to wit:
(1) Whereas a certain foreign prince, one Benedict XXII, Bishop of New Rome, presuming to assert an authority which is not rightly his over the clergy of this nation, has dared to attempt, first, to place the Texarkanan Church under a sentence of interdict, and, later, to suspend this sentence, thereby creating great confusion and spiritual neglect among all the faithful, We, the only legitimate ruler over the Church in this realm, acting in concord with a council of bishops and clergy, hereby declare to Our loyal people that the aforesaid prince and bishop, Benedict XXII, is a heretic, simoniac, murderer, sodomite, and atheist, unworthy of any recognition by Holy Church in lands of Our kingdom, empire, or protectorate. Who serves him serves not Us.
(2) Be it known, therefore, that both the decree of interdict and the decree suspending it are hereby QUASHED, ANNULLED, DECLARED VOID AND OF NO CONSEQUENCE, for they were of no original validity…
Dom Paulo glanced at the rest of it only briefly. There was no need to read further. The mayoral TAKE HEED ordered the licensing of the Texarkanan clergy, made the administration of the Sacraments by unlicensed persons a crime under the law, and made an oath of supreme allegiance to the Mayorality a condition for licensing and recognition. It was signed not only with the Mayor’s mark, but also by several “bishops” whose names were unfamiliar to the abbot.
He tossed the document back on the table and sat down beside the bed. The fugitive’s eyes were open, but he only stared at the ceiling and panted.
“Brother Claret?” he asked gently. “Brother…”
In the basement, the scholar’s eyes had come alight with the brash exuberance of one specialist invading the field of another specialist for the sake of straightening out the whole region of confusion. “As a matter of fact, yes!” he said in response to a novice’s question. “I did locate one source here that should, I think, be of interest to Thon Maho. Of course, I’m no historian, but-”
“Thon Maho? Is he the one who’s, uh, trying to correct Genesis?’ Father Gault asked wryly.
“Yes, that’s-” the scholar broke off with a startled glance at Gault.
“That’s all right,” the priest said with a chuckle. “Many of us feel that Genesis is more or less allegorical. What have you found?”
“We located one pre-Diluvian fragment that suggests a very revolutionary concept, as I see it. If I interpret the fragment correctly, Man was not created until shortly before the fall of the last civilization.”
“Wh-a-at? Then where did civilization come from?”
“Not from humanity. It was developed by a preceding race which became extinct during the Diluvium Ignis.”
“But Holy Scripture goes back thousands of years before the Diluvium!”
Thon Taddeo remained meaningfully silent.
“You are proposing,” said Gault, suddenly dismayed, “that we are not the descendants of Adam? not related to historical humanity?”
“Wait! I only offer the conjecture