The Captain Abbess did not normally entertain in her own quarters, considering that such entertainments were not in keeping with her understanding of holy poverty.
Besides, it was such a nuisance.
However, exceptions were made on special occasions. It was her custom to entertain a very select group after the midnight Mass of Christmas. This Christmas, the first on the planet recently renamed “Tyrone,” she shared fruitcake and brandy in her austere study with Diarmuid MacDiarmuid, the ancient and venerable Prior, Sean Murphy, the young and very shrewd Subprior, Brigadier Liam Carmody of the Wild Geese regiment and his wife, Maeve, and General Seamus Finnbar O’Neill, Earl of Tyrone, and his pregnant wife, Lady Margaret—called Pegeen by almost everyone—O’Neill.
The Countess, now charmingly plump, announced to the small company that of all the things she liked on the island of Iona, the best was the Lady Deirdre’s fruitcake.
Her husband was glum. He was always glum at Christmastime, but to make matters worse, he had had a shouting fight with the Abbess before the Mass. Now, he was angry at himself for having lost his temper. She had not returned his anger, which meant that she had won. He wished Pegeen would stop babbling, damn the woman. Was that all she was good for anymore? Prattling about fruitcake? She had become a Taran biddy in short order.
Pegeen. Glory be to God, what can you do about a name like that? Of course she loved it; she loved everything about the Iona—the stained glass in the chapel, the library, which she was devouring book by book, the plainsong, the services, the monks, the nuns, and the Wild Geese. It was as though the whole damn pilgrimage had been put together for her entertainment. The “wee leprechaun lass” was an instant hit with the whole monastery. Having to share his wife with monks, nuns, and a regiment of Wild Geese was poor reward for all the risks he’d taken on this planet.
It isn’t fair.
His ruminations came full circle—back to his argument with Deirdre. It had begun with his complaining about the close—too close, he thought—relationship between Marjetta and Deirdre. He was tired of having an Abbess for a mother-in-law, he had said—half in fun and half in earnest. “Ah, sure, Seamus, what’s a poor old woman to do when she sees a queen coming into her territory? She had better be after making her peace with the new woman.”
He answered irritably, “You’re daft, woman. What do you mean a ‘queen’? She’s just a Captain in an army that doesn’t exist anymore.”
“’Tis not so, Seamus O’Neill,” she replied calmly, fingering her pectoral cross. “You may not be much of an Earl—that will take time to tell; sure it was nothing on your part that deserved it—but you have found for yourself a real queen in that wee lass.”
That’s when all hell broke loose. After the big blowup and after she had floored him with the whole story of his mission, Deirdre must have felt sorry for his obvious deflation because she had asked with more concern than she usually displayed, “You are not really dissatisfied with Pegeen, are you?”
“Ah, musha, I’ve not taken leave of all my senses. I suppose I’ve got nothing to complain about along those lines. She’ll do until someone better comes along.”
Even now, blathering away and munching on the fruitcake, Marjetta was enough to make O’Neill’s throat tighten and his eyes fill with tears. A touch from her hand and he melted into slush. There was hardly a minute of the day when she wasn’t in the back of his mind. There she was, accepting another “wee sip” of the abbatial brandy. He sighed. The creature had a very bad effect on the woman’s sexual appetites; it increased them enormously, pregnant or not. It looked like another long night for Seamus O’Neill—and on the Holy Feast of Christmas. He sighed again. He thought of Ernie and Sammy. It had been a long time.
The thought of Sammy took him back to that first day after Iona had landed. His orders were to restore some discipline in the City. He sent the main body of his force of pacifiers into the Central Quarter to secure what was left of the Energy Center. O’Neill took a squad in the direction of the jail to rescue Sammy. Along with them was Cathy Houlihan as medical “adviser,” a superb doctor who never lost her nerve in a fight or a crisis. The wind was dying; it was time to begin bringing in the wounded and injured to the hospital.
He led his team rapidly through the now quiet streets of the City, past the dead bodies and over the rubble to the ruins of the jail.
“Seamus, you idjit, what are we after doing here?” Cathy exclaimed.
“Somewhere in this mess we may be able to find the Director of their hospital. Sure she’ll be useful before the day is out.”
It took only a few minutes to find the staircase that led down to the tiny dungeon where Sammy was. “Glory be to God!” burst out of Cathy when the heavy metal door was opened and she saw what was inside.
Sammy was still alive, bleeding badly from wounds opened by her furious struggle with her chains. She was still in the full fury of the frenzy, howling, snarling, screaming. He crammed a tranquillity pill into her foaming mouth. It had its usual effect. Sammy went limp against the chains, collapsing in a heap when Seamus freed her. She would not look up. Seamus gently put the back of his hand against her face.
“Dr. Houlihan, I would like to present Dr. Samaritha, who has just become the Director of the Body Institute here—hospital, to you. You will excuse her unprepossessing appearance. Through no fault of her own she has had a rather rough time of it.” O’Neill spoke in a formal and dignified tone. Sammy began to pull herself together. She would not look at him, however.
“I am sure that the Doctor will want to go to the hospital immediately to begin the arduous task of ministering to the wounded and dying. Houlihan, you and the rest of the squad go along with her; offer every assistance possible. I will ask the Captain Abbess to instruct the Pat Moynihan to land in front of the hospital to provide you with auxiliary power. We will send the rest of our medical team in as soon as Dr. Samaritha has determined what needs to be done. Carry on, gentlepersons.” He left quickly to rejoin the main force of the Wild Geese.
Cathleen told O’Neill later what had happened after he left. A tiny immunized skeleton staff had survived the night of horror hidden behind the walls of the hospital compound, fearing attack by the Hooded Ones. When the popular Samaritha arrived, they sorted themselves out and began to work. Within an hour the Tarans and Sammy’s staff were laboring efficiently together to aid those Zylongi who had dragged themselves to the hospital for treatment. The Moynihan landed a medical team from the Iona shortly thereafter. By the end of the day, the cross-cultural medical team had saved hundreds of lives.
As Cathy had put it later, with the characteristic ethnocentrism of the Tarans, “She’s a quare heathen person, she is, but a daycent woman just the same; and I’ll speak up for her to anyone, I will. Seamus, she’s a hell of a fine doctor.”
When O’Neill left the jail, he hastened to the command post that the Wild Geese had established just off the ruins of the Central Plaza. The noise of the shuttlecraft landings, then the troop carriers, and finally the huge monastery, the terrifying appearance of the Geese and the fierce banshee wail of their pipes sent most of the celebrating Zylongi scurrying back to their living spaces in terror. The wind died down in the morning, easing the force of the frenzy. Those Zylongi who still seemed of a mind to continue the killing and raping were quickly dissuaded by the “stun” charge of the phasers carried by the Geese. By noon, what was left of the City was quiet.
O’Neill was beginning to get things under control when he remembered the tranquillity pills. He got on the communication link to Deirdre. “What have you in the way of defrenzy pills, woman? My people are going to need them by nightfall—not to mention the entire population of Zylong.”
“Someone as wise as myself could be trusted to have thought of that, O’Neill. Your, er, lass was good enough to help us with a sample of her blood for us to analyze so that we could produce some kind of medication. A secondary investigation into the nature of the wind has produced the theory that the frenzy is in part an allergic reaction to what the wind picks up blowing across the harvested jarndt fields. Just as your man down in Hyperion thought. If you stop the wind, you stop the frenzy.”
“Sure, ’tis analyses like that that got you those pretty red robes. Now all you have to do is stop the wind.”
“If we can divert a meteor with our psychic powers, we can stop a wind.”
Sure enough, the wind stopped just as abruptly as it had begun. A great peace descended on Zylong, a peace so profound and reassuring that Seamus could see Retha and Yens relax as though a vast burden had lifted from their shoulders. They looked at each other with tears in their eyes.
“In years to come, we must celebrate this day in a new way. This Day of Peace shall be a new Festival by which all our descendants will remember the final ceasing of the wind,” said Yens, holding his wife’s hand.
“Geemie O’Neill Day,” the delightful little tyke giggled.
“There will be none of that,” Seamus insisted, without—to tell the truth—too much conviction.
So the work of reconstruction began. Horor and engineers from the monastery busied themselves repairing the energy station; the computer technicians arranged lines into Podraig—whose language had been considerably cleaned up in deference to Zylongi sensibilities. Yens, as the Chairman of Public Order, in consultation with Fergus Hennessey, posted the daily assignments of Wild Geese patrols. Order slowly emerged.
* * *
He worried about Sammy. One day as he was crossing the hospital plaza, Cathy stopped him to sing the praises of Dr. Samaritha again. She had done a brilliant job of restoring the hospital to its former efficiency. “Ah, sure she’s worked hard, she has,” said the golden-haired Cathleen, and pounded the side of the Moynihan, which was still parked there. “The poor thing.”
“She is that.” He tried to break away from the conversation. He didn’t want to have to think about re-establishing that relationship.
“It was strange what happened the second day after the hospital reopened—it almost broke my heart, ‘twas so sad,” persisted Cathy. “A new group of badly injured Zylongi had been brought in by a squad of Geese from a quarter of the City that was just being pacified. One of them was a man with a badly shattered skull. Dr. Samaritha hesitated for just a moment, then plunged ahead with dramatic and skillful surgery. Sure she saved that man’s life on the spot. Then,” Cathy paused dramatically for effect and went on, “she turned to me and said, ‘Honored Adviser, perhaps you would not mind if I rest for just a few moments?’
“‘Heaven help us, woman,’ I said, ‘you’ve earned more than a bit of rest. That was as brilliant a piece of work as I have ever seen. You saved that fellow when I would have given him up for sure. He’s a very distinguished-looking fellow. Must be someone important around here.’
“‘He directs an orchestra, Honored Adviser,’ she said. ‘I’m glad you find him pleasant. He … he is my mate.’
“Praise be to Brigid, Patrick, Columcile, and the Holy Mother of God, Seamus, what was there for the two of us to do but break down and weep in each other’s arms. I tell you, man, she’s a fine lady—heathen or not!”
He told himself that he had to see Sammy and Ernie, had to exchange forgiveness and understanding, had to renew their friendship. Could he do it? He’d asked the Cardinal what she thought, the old witch.
“Why have you been after waiting so long? And herself expecting a child, like almost every other female on this heathenish planet. The poor things still love you, you idjit. More than ever. Which you don’t deserve at all, at all.”
* * *
The reconstruction of the City passed from physical rebuilding to the reformation of the political structure. The first political act of the Council, as the Young Ones had constituted themselves, was to unanimously elect Seamus King. He stormed out of the meeting, saying he would be damned if he would be king of anything, whereupon they revised their agenda, tabled the “King” vote, and respectfully requested that he rejoin them to advise them in their deliberations. They voted themselves into office for a year (providing for their replacement by citizen vote after that time—a detail that was strongly urged on them by O’Neill and of which they had somehow not thought).
The meeting was adjourned until the next day, when a public ceremony was planned to present the Tarans formally to the citizenry of the City and to exchange pledges of mutual help and support for the future peace and prosperity of the planet.
It had been a grand sight. In one of the smaller and still intact plazas near the wall, the Council, with their Taran “Advisers,” gathered for its first meeting under the deep purple Zylongian sky. The Young Ones were still clad in their torn and dirty robes (“Turrible pagan clothes,” muttered old Diarmuid); the Wild Geese stood tall and proud in their black and white armor; the monks and nuns waiting for the ceremony to begin made a solid block of Celtic blue in their long dress habits. The Zylongi crowd that had gathered to watch the show were awed at the spectacle. Then the pipers struck up “Deirdre’s March,” and the Abbess approached slowly, clad in her full crimson robes of office with golden Brigid crozier aloft, ascending to her throne in a most regal fashion. The ceremony began officially with speeches, exchanging of scrolls of peace and friendship, and other appropriate gestures of protocol.
Subprior Murphy had risen to say that he strongly agreed with General O’Neill’s decision to reject the kingship. Sure no good had ever come to any planet from having a King. All they did was want to fight. So, as an alternative, he recommended that the City be governed by someone who should be entitled “Earl,” someone who would preside over the Council and its Taran Advisers and administer the government on a daily basis for no longer than a year’s term—subject, of course, to reelection. He felt that General O’Neill could hardly refuse to accept office under those conditions.
Fergus promptly seconded the nomination, adding that General O’Neill was the only one, with the possible exception of his lovely lady, who knew enough about the two cultures to maintain the delicate links that would combine them in their glorious efforts to make this planet a happy and free place for all who lived on it.
Horor then rose to speak for the Council of Tyrone. He assured the Tarans of the warm welcome their citizenry extended to their new friends and allies, saying that as the first Taran friend, the Noble Lord General O’Neill surely should act as the Earl for at least a year. Horor was the only one who kept a straight face throughout the farce.
After that, herself asked if there were any more nominations. There were none. O’Neill was elected Earl by acclamation.
What could he do? When Deirdre solemnly asked him, “Will you accept, General O’Neill?” he responded with the shortest speech he ever gave in his life: “Woman, I will.”
There was a huge cheer from the plaza, then much good-natured laughter when his wife caused him acute embarrassment by hugging him in public.
Politics, O’Neill discovered, was much harder than war or reconstruction. In a battle, you either won or lost or ended up in a draw; reconstruction was just a matter of efficiently organizing relief and such. In government, you never really knew whether a decision was a good one or a bad one, and you usually had to be content with a compromise that most people could live with. You could never be sure whether the compromise had been wise or not until much later. Sometimes you never found out.
He and Quars met halfway down the continent within a week of his election to set up permanent communication between Hyperion and the City and to appoint Quars Regent in charge of hordi, mutants, and exiles.
“It will take a long time,” the gruff officer admitted, “but it has to be done, and it should have been done long ago. I’ll say this for you. That scene on the River when your friends showed up scared the hell out of them. They really do think you are the red-bearded god. That will help us get started in making peace with those poor folks and giving them a chance.”
“Will you be after doing it?”
“It’ll keep me busy, Seamus, but my wife says she’ll leave me if I don’t do it. Claims I’m irritable when I’m bored. By the way, I see you finally captured that lovely girl.”
“Ah, was that the way it was? Sure I thought she captured me. To listen to her tell it, I was a pushover.”
Then there was a hesitant invitation to a “small entertainment” in honor of Quars, who had recruited Samaritha into his team of hordi specialists.
“I won’t have time to go,” Seamus told his wife. “You represent me.”
“We’re both going, Seamus.” She put on her steely-eyed military face, which terrified him more than the Cardinal’s frown.
“Well, why didn’t you say so in the first place.”
So Seamus turned on all his charm, touching hands in the friendship sign with Sammy and Ernie at the door of their quarters, hugging Carina, and swinging the pregnant hordi servant over his head, to the accompaniment of delighted clicks.
Quars’s wife was the only female at the party not expecting. The Zylongi were producing the children they had always wanted, some, like Sammy, presumably in the nick of time.
Seamus sang and told stories about his fictional adventures, the space bum once again. Forgiveness and the renewal of love, mutual, implicit, and fervent, was so easy as to be an anticlimax.
“We will not presume to invite you again, Noble Lord,” Sammy said as he and his proper woman were leaving. “We know how hard you must work.”
“If I don’t see you two once a month, I’ll have you locked up in the bowels of the monastery.”
“Very nice, Seamus,” herself had whispered to him on the way back to the monastery. “Just like the night I knew I loved you.”
“Sure I was much better tonight.”
“I should hope so, and yourself a married man.”
Good enough it was, but there was too much of it altogether. As Christmas approached, Seamus began to think about taking his woman and his child and returning to Tara as soon as they could. His weary brain had been awhirl for weeks with never-ending administrative and political crises.
I’m a poet, aren’t I?
Not a frigging politician.
He was in a vile mood on the night before Christmas when he cornered the Cardinal just before First Vespers. Tired and nervous, he ranted that he had been tricked into the job, he hated politics, he was no good at it, couldn’t imagine why they had maneuvered him to become “Earl,” he wanted out—now, not next year.
“Now, do you hear me, woman? I am sick of all your wee plots and your fey schemes and your spooky tricks. Just give me and my wife the old Dev and let us get the hell off this bloody planet!”
She let him rave. When he stopped, she said quietly, “Why would you be thinking we sent you here in the first place?”
“Musha, you sent me here to be a psychic sponge.”
“Och, Seamus O’Neill, can you be that much of an idjit still?”
He began to see the pieces falling into place.
“You mean you were after sending me here from the beginning to become a politician?” The ground was quaking beneath his feet.
“Whatever other reason would you be thinking? Surely not because of your self-control?” She smiled complacently.
“You mean you connived from the beginning to make me King of this place?” Anger was surging through him like the waters of a river in flood.
“King for a year.”
“Regardless.”
“Would I dare to do anything like that without consulting the Council of Tyrone? Or our own Council?” She adjusted her ruby ring, worn especially for Christmas.
“I’m no good as a politician, woman.” He was screaming at her now. “You wasted your time. I’m a third-rate poet, a fourth-rate anthropologist, and you yourself said an incorrigible, inept womanizer.”
“And a flannel-mouth braggart, I believe I also said?” A quizzical eyebrow raising slightly.
“All right, add that too!” He kicked the wall, something he hadn’t done since he was a child.
“It all sounds to me like a perfect job description for a politician, Seamus.” She ignored his tantrum. “Be sensible. You have been a decent soldier, you are brave, and you think rapidly in a combat situation, but we will not have many wars on this planet, I hope. You write decent, if not outstanding, poetry. You are good at winning people to like you and to agree with you. You charm these poor heathens every time you smile at them. That is what this planet needs.”
“I’m not good at any of it. I’ll not do it. I don’t believe that the fellas in the regiment want me to be some great damn bloody Earl.” His anger ebbed. He was ashamed at himself for acting like a baby.
“Ah, you’ve noticed how much they complain about all the mistakes you’ve made since you’ve been an Earl.” She smiled that damn complacent smile and folded her arms in satisfaction.
“They have not complained, Deirdre Fitzgerald! You’re lying in your teeth. There hasn’t been a single major complaint from a one of them, I’ll have you know. After all the work I’ve done holding this bloody place together, I’ll not have you saying that the fellas in the regiment don’t like it…” His voice trailed off as he realized what he was saying.
“Precisely my point,” she said, her triumph complete.
So he had a lot to think about through the vespers and the Mass of Christmas. Now it was late. Time to take their leave of the assembled guests in the Abbess’s room. With Pegeen leaning on his arm, he bade the Lady a formal good evening and a happy Christmas.
“You’ll do it, Seamus?” she asked, with more anxiety than she usually permitted to creep into her voice.
“Musha, Your Ladyship, the whole bloody mess was a near thing from beginning to end.” He sighed his most Taran of sighs.
“It was, Seamus O’Neill,” she conceded.
“Well, sure we had some luck coming.”
“God knows,” her sigh easily outdid his. Always the last word.
He and Pegeen went out silently into the cool, starlit night.
“Are you all right, Geemie?” she asked him, affectionately squeezing his arm.
“And why wouldn’t I be?” he protested.
“When my man is quiet through a whole evening, he has something on his mind.”
“Can’t a man do a bit of thinking without everyone in Tyrone getting in an uproar about it?”
“What were you and Holy Lady Abbess talking about when we left?”
“Ah, ‘tis a long story.” He sighed again.
“A story that could be told on the night of our Savior’s birth?” She sighed back.
Damn it, she’s even imitating Deirdre’s sighs.
“Saints preserve us, the woman’s becoming a damn religious fanatic!” he exclaimed, hugging her. “Well, it could be told, I guess, if a woman doesn’t mind finding out that her husband is the worst damn fool in the galaxy.”
“What if she knows that already and wouldn’t have it any other way?”
The Earl of Tyrone turned to mushy plum pudding. Sure, it might not be a bad Christmas after all.
In the monastery the bell chimed out a very old Celtic Christmas song. Before O’Neill began his story, he sang the carol in Gaelic for his proper woman.
God greet You, sacred Child,
—poor in the manger there,
yet happy and rich tonight
—in Your own stronghold in glory
Motherless once in Heaven,
—Fatherless now in our world,
true God at all times You are,
—but tonight You are human first.
Grant room in Your cave, O King,
—(though not of right) to this third brute
among the mountain dogs
—for my nature was ever like theirs.
Mary, Virgin and Mother,
—open the stable door
till I worship the King of Creation.
—Why not I more than the ox?
I will do God’s service here,
—watchful early and late.
I will chase the hill-boys’ dogs
—away from this helpless Prince.
The ass and the ox, likewise,
—I will not let near my King;
I will take their place beside Him,
—ass and cow of the living God!
In the morning I’ll bring Him water.
—I’ll sweep God’s Son’s poor floor.
I’ll light a fire in my cold soul
—and curb with zeal my wicked body.
I’ll wash His poor garments for Him,
—and, Virgin, if you let me,
I’ll shed these rags of mine
—as a covering for your Son.
And I’ll be the cook for His food.
—I’ll be the doorman for the God of Creation!
On behalf of all three I’ll beg,
—since they need my help to speak.
No silver or gold I’ll ask
—but a daily kiss for my King
I will give my heart in return
—and He’ll take it from all three.
Patrick, who through this Child
—by grace got Jesus’ crozier
—O born without body’s bile—
—and Brigid be with us always.
Patron of the Isle of Saints,
—obtain God’s graces for us.
Receive a poor friar from Dún
—as a worm in God’s cave tonight.
A thousand greetings in body tonight
—from my heart to my generous King
In that He assumed two natures
—here’s a kiss and a greeting to God!