A Canticle For Leibowitz

“Read it to me again,” he said abruptly to the monk who stood motionless near at hand.

The monk’s hood jogged slightly in the abbot’s direction.

“Which one, Domne?” he asked.

“You know which one.”

“Yes, m’Lord.” The monk fumbled in one sleeve. It seemed weighted down with half a bushel of documents and correspondence, but after a moment he found the right one. Affixed to the scroll was the label:

SUB IMMUNITATE APOSTOLICA HOC SUPPOSITUM EST.

QUISQUIS NUNTIUM MOLESTARE AUDEAT,

IPSO FACTO EXCOMMUNICETUR.

DET: R’dissimo Domno Paulo de Pecos, AOL, Abbati

(Monastery of the Leibowitzian Brethren,

Environs of Sanly Bowitts Village

Southwest Desert, Empire of Denver)

CUI SALUTEM DICIT: Marcus Apollo

Papatiae Apocrisarius Texarkanae

“All right, that’s the one. So read it,” the abbot said impatiently.

“Accedite ad eum…” The monk crossed himself and murmured the customary Blessing of Texts, said before reading or writing almost as punctiliously as the blessing at meals. For the preservation of literacy and learning throughout a black mille

Having finished the blessing he held the scroll high against the sunset so that it became a transparency. “‘Iterum oportet apponere tibi crucem ferendam, amice…’“

His voice was faintly singsong as his eyes plucked the words out of a forest of superfluous pen-flourishings. The abbot leaned against the parapet to listen while he watched the buzzards circling over the mesa of Last Resort.

“‘Again it is necessary to set before you a cross to be borne, old friend and shepherd of myopic bookworms,’“ droned the voice of the reader, “‘but perhaps the bearing of the cross will smack of triumph. It appears that Sheba is coming to Solomon after all, though probably to denounce him as a charlatan.

“‘This is to notify you that Thon Taddeo Pfardentrott, D.N.Sc., Sage of Sages, Scholar of Scholars, Fair-Haired Son-out-of-Wedlock of a certain Prince, and God’s Gift to an “Awakening Generation,” has finally made up his mind to pay you a visit, having exhausted all hope of transporting your Memorabilia to this fair realm. He will be arriving about the Feast of the Assumption, if he manages to evade “bandit” groups along the way. He will bring his misgivings and a small party of armed cavalry, courtesy of Ha

“‘So first, let me caution you about this person, Thon Taddeo. Treat him with your customary charity, but trust him not. He is a brilliant scholar, but a secular scholar, and a political captive of the State. Here, Ha

The monk glanced up from his reading. The abbot was still watching the buzzards over Last Resort.

“You’ve heard about his childhood, Brother?” Dom Paulo asked.

The monk nodded.

“Read on.”

The reading continued, but the abbot ceased to listen. He knew the letter nearly by heart, but still he felt that there was something Marcus Apollo had been trying to say between the lines that he, Dom Paulo, had not yet managed to understand. Marcus was trying to warn him — but of what? The tone of the letter was mildly flippant, but it seemed full of ominous incongruities which might have been designed to add up to some single dark congruity, if only he could add them right. What danger could there he in letting the secular scholar study at the abbey?

Thon Taddeo himself, according to the courier who had brought the letter, had been educated in the Benedictine monastery where he had been taken as a child to avoid embarrassment to his father’s wife. The thon’s father was Ha

But the young Taddeo of Ha

Perhaps he thinks of our cloister as a place of durance vile, thought the abbot. There would be bitter memories, half-memories, and maybe a few imagined memories.

“‘. . . seeds of controversy in the bed of the New Literacy,’“ the reader continued. “‘So take heed, and watch for the symptoms.

“‘But, on the other hand, not only His Supremacy, but the dictates of charity and justice as well, insist that I recommend him to you as a well-meaning man, or at least as an unmalicious child, like most of these educated and gentlemanly pagans (and pagans they will make of themselves, in spite of all). He will behave if you are firm, but be careful, my friend. He has a mind like a loaded musket, and it can go off in any direction. I trust, however, that coping with him for a while will not be too taxing a problem for your ingenuity and hospitality.

“‘Quidam mihi calix nuper expletur, Paule.Precamini ergo Deum facere me fortiorem. Metuo ut hic pereat. Spero te et fratres saepius oraturos esse pro tremescente Marco Apolline.Valete in Christo, amici.

“ ‘Texarkanae datum est Octava Ss Petri et Pauli, A