Wulfsyarn: A Mosaic (26 page)

“Why do you let him wander?”

“I think it is kinder.”

Senior Confrere Leo shrugged. Again silence. The image of Wilberfoss held for a few more minutes and then dissolved to reveal Commander Roscoe. “Did you know him when he was the pilot here at Pacifico?” she asked.

“I knew of him. I didn’t know him well. None of us did.”

Roscoe looked skeptical. “Strange,” she said. “Now that he is disgraced, no one seems to have known him.”

“It is the truth,” said Senior Confrere Leo, but even to him this sounded lame.

“Well. Well. Tell me how long do you think we will be delayed?”

Senior Confrere Leo shrugged. “The Abbey was unprepared. That’s all I can tell you. We didn’t expect to be made the prison for Wil... He paused, aware that he had said more than he meant and aware that he had revealed the cast of his mind.

The erstwhile friendly face of Commander Roscoe stiffened. “It was not my understanding that I was bringing Captain Wilberfoss to prison,” she said. “He is a sick animal and one of our own and every step must be taken to recover his health.”

Senior Confrere Leo scratched the stubble on the dome of his head. He was not used to being spoken to in this way. Nor was he used to being brought face to face with his prejudices. But he was an honest man. “Perhaps we on Juniper have a lot to sort out,” he said lamely.

Commander Roscoe nodded. The conversation had reached its end. She withdrew and handed communication back to her navigation officer.

Neither she nor Leo were aware of the true state of affairs at the Pacifico Monastery.

In truth a battle was taking place centered on two men who faced one another savagely. One was Magister Tancredi. Opposite him was a much younger man who was a senior secretary from Assisi Central. His name was Rufino. The meeting took place in the very room where Wilberfoss had received the special tidings from Tancredi. I was there, in a comer, as amanuensis.

Magister Tancredi was speaking and he shook his staff. “Any member of the Gentle Order who deigns to command one of the hospital ships knows the risk and responsibility he must accept. The
Nightingale
is no exception. It is a
r
ulin
g,
a law, a moral law, that all life must be protected at all costs. One of those costs may be the life of the commander himself. That awareness concentrates the mind in a wondrous manner. And now Wilberfoss comes waltzing back from the dead with his ship part-destroyed, with evidence of wanton destruction and God alone knows what other crimes aboard. Make no mistake. Wilberfoss destroyed the bio-crystalline brain because it would have revealed the truth of his crimes. And you want us to give him sanctuary.”

“No. We want you to bring him to his right mind.”

“He killed. He killed defenseless creatures aboard his ship.”

“There is no proof of that.”

“Then he allowed killing. There is blood on his hands. He is a man I honored and protected and guided and now he is worthless. He has committed the one crime for which there can be no atonement and no excuse. We know what we are. We know what we must be. He is a killer. His crime pollutes the entire order. You, me, all of us stink because of it.”

“Even so—”

The old man held up his hand. “Do not start to talk about Mercy. There is a law beyond Mercy for us who choose to be the protectors of life. We are not subject to the gentler laws. We may not appeal for Mercy. What Mercy could there be for St. Francis Dionysos if he had succumbed to the Tempter? What if he had betrayed those who trusted him? What if he had said, ‘Arrest my followers. Take Peter. They call him the rock. Crush him to sand.’ Would we have Mercy on Him? Would we?”

WULFNOTE

I must interrupt to explain. We must be aware that there is an inconsistency here. Magister Tancredi is confusing the founder of Christianity with the ancient God Dionysos and the much later St. Francis. Tancredi for all his gifts was not a scholar. Beyond fundamental accuracy, I doubt that this confusion has much significance. The central meaning is clear. Wilberfoss had betrayed the major tenet of the Gentle Order, namely, that ALL life must be protected. As a young man when he joined the Gentle Order many years earlier, he had confessed his violence and abjured it.

May I also add that I think Magister Tancredi had been made bitter by disappointment. His protege had foiled and Tancredi had hoped for so much.

Now back to the argument. Rufino from Assisi Central is speaking.

“The case is hardly the same.”

“It is exactly the same. We who choose to command ships of the Mercy Fleet obey the same laws as applied to our founder. No more, but certainly no less. And remember that no one forces us to accept the responsibility.” “Mercy is indivisible.”

“Bah. Sophistry. Only St. Francis can be merciful. Only Dionysos who sees all can be all forgiving. Let Francis Dionysos be merciful if he chooses. WE may not.”

The younger man sighed. He had been warned that Magister Tancredi was a cunning debater. But he had not been warned that he would be facing a granite wall of Faith. He found that he rather admired the old warhorse. He had no doubt that if Tancredi and Wilberfoss could in some way have changed places, Tancredi would not have returned. He would have died with his ship.

Rufino decided on another tack. Very gently but very clearly he said, “You have as I see it two choices. Either you can accept the decision of Assisi Central and try to make it work. Or you can ask to be relieved of your position. Both courses are honorable.”

Tancredi humphed to himself and sat down. “I suppose I must take some of the responsibility on myself,” he said finally. “There was warning aplenty and I encouraged him.” The face that looked at Rufino was haggard, for Tancredi had hardly slept since the news of the recovery of the
Nightingale
had broken. “Bring him down. The Poveredo Garden is ready as ever. I won’t meet him myself, but Lily and Wulf here can tend him. He knows them and they cannot be contaminated. I will have his progress monitored and will keep Assisi Central informed.”

“And you will of course remain Magister of Pacifico?” “I will.”

“Good. That is all I need to know. Can the old landing area be used?” Tancredi nodded. “Then we will bring him down after nightfall. There is no need for eyes to see.”

“We will convey him straight to the garden.”

“It is finished.” Rufino nodded and offered his hand to shake. “I am glad to have met you, Magister Tancredi,” he said. “You are highly regarded on Assisi.”

Tancredi waved him away brusquely. “You have done your job,” he said.

The night was moonless.

The old landing field, hardly ever used these days except for storage and repairs, especially since the establishment of the shuttle platform, was cleared and switched on. Deep blue sensor lights dickered above the stanchions which once supported rocket ships.

I was there and so was Lily. We were alone, except for two Children of the War who stood wed away from us, clicking their stones to one another in the darkness, listening to everything. There were no humans present and we had received our briefing directly from Tancredi.

At about one in the morning a small landing craft rode down on its blue anti-gravity units and held still a few inches above the ground. The door opened and light shone out. Revealed were two tad contact confreres and between them was a stooping man. They helped him forward and down the short flight of steps. They entered the pool of light cast by Lily and myself. I saw Wilberfoss’s face. His eyes were closed and the face was a mass of silver wrinkles as though a snail had wandered over him. He was walking asleep.

Lily opened her womb-cage and two of her strong dexetels reached out and received him under the arms, lifting him and guiding him inside. The doors of the cage closed and locked.

Without so much as a word, the contact confreres who had delivered him re-entered their transit ship. The short ladder withdrew, the door closed. I heard the vacuum studs on its air-lock hiss and moments later the craft lifted.

The transfer was complete.

Lily trundled and I drifted across the black concrete of the landing field, through the gates and out onto the road that runs by the shore and leads back to the Pacifico Monastery. We must have looked a strange pair, though so for as I am aware there was no one about to see us. Following us were the two Children of the War. No doubt their task was to report directly back to Tancredi. We made a short detour to avoid the shuttle port where there was normal activity, a supply ship being currently above us in a holding orbit.

Entering the monastery from the coast road we came to the crossroad close by the house where Wilberfoss and Medoc once lived. There were more Children of the War here. Quite a crowd had gathered. They had their ears trained toward us, and they clicked their stones as we passed.

We paused as is customary at the statue of St Francis Dionysos and then the gate of the Poverello Garden swung open and we entered. The sleepy gate warden closed the gate behind us.

We heard a great clattering of stones as the Children of the War recorded our passing.

WULFNOTE

Lily does not usually make reports but I have managed to persuade her that this one at least is necessary. I have helped with the writing but the style is her own. I trust you will forgive some slight repetition. Lily is as uncompromising as a new author with a treasured manuscript and will hardly allow me to cut a word.

We have pieced the report together during the long hours while Wilberfoss is sleeping. It covers the first few days of his time with us.

I, Lily the autonurse, have brought many thousands of babies into the world. I have stood in the smoke, protecting children in my iron womb, while the bombs fell and the hospital burned about me. Those which war left without parents I have brought up. I have watched the children learn to love my nipple, knowing no better.

I have watched over them as they learned to crawl and climb. I have tended them while they became sturdy and rough and have bade them farewell when, at a certain age, they have been taken from me.

Let it also be said that for many humans, I have crossed their hands over their chests and closed their eyes for the last time after they have returned to my garden to die. I have heard the last confidences of many sad humans as well as the words that are spoken and sung before their bodies are destroyed.

I am Lily the autonurse, the protector of life, the giver... and now you have brought me this sorry man, Jon Wilberfoss, whom I tended in his pride and vigor, and you have asked me to make him whole again.

Well, we shall see. I have examined him while he shakes in his dreams. Physical ailments I can cope with. I can suspend life. I can take the place of the heart, the lungs and the liver. I can hunt out the forces which distress the body. I can evacuate tumors like rotten onions. But the mind ... ah, the mind is its own place . . . and I see my limits like the rim of an iron bowl. I cannot invade the mind. The mind is a threshold which separates the humblest mortal from the greatest of machine nurses and I am not the greatest, though I may be the oldest.

On Jon Wilberfoss may I make this judgment? Sleep brings him no relief. He wanders in terror and nightmare. The physical symptoms he exhibits, the shaking, the biting of his knuckles, ulceration of the stomach lining and bowels, the sores around his mouth and anus, all are the manifestations of his horrified spirit. I have seen such before, though never so extreme. The consequence of self-hatred is the abuse of the body.

As regards his mind, Jon Wilberfoss must be his own doctor and Wulf, who likes the patterns that words do make, will no doubt be glad to assist. If Wilberfoss survives it will be because he wants to. Lily the autonurse can be little more than a constant and caring companion. I offer time and my Garden of Delight.

Wulf tells me that Jon Wilberfoss is wandering in the valley of the shadow of death. Into this ravine the sun never penetrates and the human spirit is alone as it follows a stony path between tumbling rapids and thorn bushes. Wed, when he returns, if he returns, I shad be waiting with broth and flowers and crisp, clean sheets.

At this present moment while I record these things and Wulf stares at me with his sullen red eye, Jon Wilberfoss is asleep. The drugs which held him unconscious when he was brought in wore off during that first night. I was curious to see how he would react. Awaking, he would not know where he was. He might even think he was dead. He would hear the gentle patter of rain on the leaves outside the window and smell the moist earth.

He woke up and lay in my open womb, his fingers playing about his Ups and his eyes wandering. His brain registered those rhythms which are associated with delight: rhythms of calm ecstasy, passionate meditation. Such are the contradictions of the mind. Wilberfoss was suspended in that no-man’s-land between memory and dream. Those brief moments are the only healing time he has at present between nightmare and consciousness. He was for that brief space as simple as a shellfish that registers the tides and filters the ooze for food.

Then consciousness came to him. A blade entering the shed. He still did not know where he was, but now he did not care. He knew who he was. His face screwed up like a bad of crushed red paper and his tongue came from between his lips and began to flap like the tad of a fish. I feared he would bite and so I closed him down.

I closed him down with gas, considering that to be gender than the drugs administered to him since his rescue. I secured his tongue and placed it so that he could not swallow it. I massaged his gums. I brought his knees up to his chest and let his bowels and bladder void. Afterward I cleaned him and made him comfortable. I am aware that that act of release can carry the sleeping human back to the time before birth and can clear and settle the mind. No child feels guilty in the womb. Ad pleasure is innocent there.

Jon Wilberfoss has awoken and slept several times since he was returned to my care. When possible, I have made sure that he has awoken in my garden. I have had plenty of time to observe him.