The Past Through Tomorrow Page 52

  West Point had suited me. Oh, I had joined in the usual griping among classmates, the almost ritualistic complaining common to all military life, but truthfully I enjoyed the monastic routine—up at five, two hours of prayers and meditation, then classes and lectures in the endless subjects of a military education, strategy and tactics, theology, mob psychology, basic miracles. In the afternoons we practiced with vortex guns and blasters, drilled with tanks, and hardened our bodies with exercise.

  I did not stand very high on graduation and had not really expected to be assigned to the Angels of the Lord, even though I had put in for it. But I had always gotten top marks in piety and stood well enough in most of the practical subjects; I was chosen. It made me almost sinfully proud —the holiest regiment of the Prophet’s hosts, even the privates of which were commissioned officers and whose Colonel-in-Chief was the Prophet’s Sword Triumphant, marshal of all the hosts. The day I was invested in the shining buckler and spear worn only by the Angels I vowed to petition to study for the priesthood as soon as promotion to captain made me eligible.

  But this night, months later, though my buckler was still shining bright, there was a spot of tarnish in my heart. Somehow, life at New Jerusalem was not as I had imagined it while at West Point. The Palace and Temple were shot through with intrigue and politics; priests and deacons, ministers of state, and Palace functionaries all seemed engaged in a scramble for power and favor at the hand of the Prophet. Even the officers of my own corps seemed corrupted by it. Our proud motto “Non Sibi, Sed Dei” now had a wry flavor in my mouth.

  Not that I was without sin myself. While I had not joined in the struggle for worldly preference, I had done something which I knew in my heart to be worse: I had looked with longing on a consecrated female.

  Please understand me better than I understood myself. I was a grown man in body, an infant in experience. My own mother was the only woman I had ever known well. As a kid in junior seminary before going to the Point I was almost afraid of girls; my interests were divided between my lessons, my mother, and our parish’s troop of Cherubim, in which I was a patrol leader and an assiduous winner of merit badges in everything from woodcraft to memorizing scripture. If there had been a merit badge to be won in the subject of girls—but of course there was not.

  At the Military Academy I simply saw no females, nor did I have much to confess in the way of evil thoughts. My human feelings were pretty much still in freeze, and my occasional uneasy dreams I regarded as temptations sent by Old Nick. But New Jerusalem is not West Point and the Angels were neither forbidden to marry nor were we forbidden proper and sedate association with women. True, most of my fellows did not ask permission to marry, as it would have meant transferring to one of the regular regiments and many of them cherished ambitions for the military priesthood—but it was not forbidden.

  Nor were the lay deaconesses who kept house around the Temple and the Palace forbidden to marry. But most of them were dowdy old creatures who reminded me of my aunts, hardly subjects for romantic thoughts. I used to chat with them occasionally around the corridors, no harm in that. Nor was I attracted especially by any of the few younger sisters—until I met Sister Judith.

  I had been on watch in this very spot more than a month earlier. It was the first time I had stood guard outside the Prophet’s apartments and, while I was nervous when first posted, at that moment I had been no more than alert against the possibility of the warden-of-the-watch making his rounds.

  That night a light had shone briefly far down the inner corridor opposite my post and I had heard a sound of people moving; I had glanced at my wrist chrono—yes, that would be the Virgins ministering to the Prophet… no business of mine. Each night at ten o’clock their watch changed —their “guard mount” I called it, though I had never seen the ceremony and never would. All that I actually knew about it was that those coming on duty for the next twenty-four hours drew lots at that time for the privilege of personal attendance in the sacred presence of the Prophet Incarnate.

  I had listened briefly and had turned away. Perhaps a quarter of an hour later a slight form engulfed in a dark cloak had slipped past me to the parapet, there to stand and look at the stars. I had had my blaster out at once, then had returned it sheepishly, seeing that it was a deaconess.

  I had assumed that she was a lay deaconess; I swear that it did not occur to me that she might be a holy deaconess. There was no rule in my order book telling me to forbid them to come outside, but I had never heard of one doing so.

  I do not think that she had seen me before I spoke to her. “Peace be unto you, sister.”

  She had jumped and suppressed a squeal, then had gathered her dignity to answer, “And to you, little brother.”

  It was then that I had seen on her forehead the Seal of Solomon, the mark of the personal family of the Prophet. “Your pardon, Elder Sister. I did not see.”

  “I am not annoyed.” It had seemed to me that she invited conversation. I knew that it was not proper for us to converse privately; her mortal being was dedicated to the Prophet just as her soul was the Lord’s, but I was young and lonely—and she was young and very pretty.

  “Do you attend the Holy One this night, Elder Sister?”

  She had shaken her head at that. “No, the honor passed me by. My lot was not drawn.”

  “It must be a great and wonderful privilege to serve him directly.”

  “No doubt, though I cannot say of my own knowledge. My lot has never yet been drawn.” She had added impulsively, “I’m a little nervous about it. You see, I haven’t been here long.”

  Even though she was my senior in rank, her display of feminine weakness had touched me. “I am sure that you will deport yourself with credit.”

  “Thank you.”

  We had gone on chatting. She had been in New Jerusalem, it developed, even less time than had I. She had been reared on a farm in upper New York State and there she had been sealed to the Prophet at the Albany Seminary. In turn I had told her that I had been born in the middle west, not fifty miles from the Well of Truth, where the First Prophet was incarnated. I then told her that my name was John Lyle and she had answered that she was called Sister Judith.

  I had forgotten all about the warden-of-the-watch and his pesky rounds and was ready to chat all night, when my chrono had chimed the quarter hour. “Oh, dear!” Sister Judith had exclaimed. “I should have gone straight back to my cell.” She had started to hurry away, then had checked herself. “You wouldn’t tell on me… John Lyle?”

  “Me? Oh, never!”

  I had continued to think about her the rest of the watch. When the warden did make rounds I was a shade less than alert.

  A mighty little on which to found a course of folly, eh? A single drink is a great amount to a teetotaler; I was not able to get Sister Judith out of my mind. In the month that followed I saw her half a dozen times. Once I passed her on an escalator; she was going down as I was going up. We did not even speak, but she had recognized me and smiled. I rode that escalator all night that night in my dreams, but I could never get off and speak to her. The other encounters were just as trivial. Another time I heard her voice call out to me quietly, “Hello, John Lyle,” and I turned just in time to see a hooded figure go past my elbow through a door. Once I watched her feeding the swans in the moat; I did not dare approach her but I think that she saw me.

  The Temple Herald printed the duty lists of both my service and hers. I was standing a watch in five; the Virgins drew lots once a week. So it was just over a month later that our watches again matched. I saw her name—and vowed that I would win the guard mount that evening and again be posted at the post of honor before the Prophet’s own apartments. I had no reason to think that Judith would seek me out on the rampart—but I was sure in my heart that she would. Never at West Point had I ever expended more spit-and-polish; I could have used my buckler for a shaving mirror.

  But here it was nearly half past ten and no sign of Judith, although
I had heard the Virgins gather down the corridor promptly at ten. All I had to show for my efforts was the poor privilege of standing watch at the coldest post in the Palace.

  Probably, I thought glumly, she comes out to flirt with the guardsmen on watch everytime she has a chance. I recalled bitterly that all women were vessels of iniquity and had always been so since the Fall of Man. Who was I to think that she had singled me out for special friendship? She had probably considered the night too cold to bother.

  I heard a footstep and my heart leaped with joy. But it was only the warden making his rounds. I brought my pistol to the ready and challenged him; his voice came back, “Watchman, what of the night?”

  I answered mechanically, “Peace on Earth,” and added, “It is cold, Elder Brother.”

  “Autumn in the air,” he agreed. “Chilly even in the Temple.” He passed on by with his pistol and his bandolier of paralysis bombs slapping his armor to his steps. He was a nice old duffer and usually stopped for a few friendly words; tonight he was probably eager to get back to the warmth of the guardroom. I went back to my sour thoughts.

  “Good evening, John Lyle.”

  I almost jumped out of my boots. Standing in the darkness just inside the archway was Sister Judith. I managed to splutter, “Good evening, Sister Judith,” as she moved toward me.

  “Sssh!” she cautioned me. “Someone might hear us. John… John Lyle— it finally happened. My lot was drawn!”

  I said, “Huh?” then added lamely, “Felicitations, Elder Sister. May God make his face to shine on your holy service.”

  “Yes, yes, thanks,” she answered quickly, “but John… I had intended to steal a few moments to chat with you. Now I can’t—I must be at the robing room for indoctrination and prayer almost at once. I must run.”

  “You’d better hurry,” I agreed. I was disappointed that she could not stay, happy for her that she was honored, and exultant that she had not forgotten me. “God go with you.”

  “But I just had to tell you that I had been chosen.” Her eyes were shining with what I took to be holy joy; her next words startled me. “I’m scared, John Lyle.”

  “Eh? Frightened?” I suddenly recalled how I had felt, how my voice had cracked, the first time I ever drilled a platoon. “Do not be. You will be sustained.”

  “Oh, I hope so! Pray for me, John.” And she was gone, lost in the dark corridor.

  I did pray for her and I tried to imagine where she was, what she was doing. But since I knew as little about what went on inside the Prophet’s private chambers as a cow knows about courts-martial, I soon gave it up and simply thought about Judith. Later, an hour or more, my revery was broken by a high scream inside the Palace, followed by a commotion, and running footsteps. I dashed down the inner corridor and found a knot of women gathered around the portal to the Prophet’s apartments. Two or three others were carrying someone out the portal; they stopped when they reached the corridor and eased their burden to the floor.

  “What’s the trouble?” I demanded and drew my side arm clear.

  An elderly Sister stepped in front of me. “It is nothing. Return to your post, legate.”

  “I heard a scream.”

  “No business of yours. One of the Sisters fainted when the Holy One required service of her.”

  “Who was it?”

  “You are rather nosy, little brother.” She shrugged. “Sister Judith, if it matters.”

  I did not stop to think but snapped, “Let me help her!” and started forward. She barred my way.

  “Are you out of your mind? Her sisters will return her to her cell. Since when do the Angels minister to nervous Virgins?”

  I could easily have pushed her aside with one finger, but she was right. I backed down and went unwillingly back to my post.

  For the next few days I could not get Sister Judith out of my mind. Off watch, I prowled the parts of the Palace I was free to visit, hoping to catch sight of her. She might be ill, or she might be confined to her cell for what must certainly have been a major breach of discipline. But I never saw her.

  My roommate, Zebadiah Jones, noticed my moodiness and tried to rouse me out of it. Zeb was three classes senior to me and I had been one of his plebes at the Point; now he was my closest friend and my only confidant. “Johnnie old son, you look like a corpse at your own wake. What’s eating on you?”

  “Huh? Nothing at all. Touch of indigestion, maybe.”

  “So? Come on, let’s go for a walk. The air will do you good.”

  I let him herd me outside. He said nothing but banalities until we were on the broad terrace surrounding the south turret and free of the danger of eye and ear devices. When we were well away from anyone else he said softly, “Come on. Spill it.”

  “Shucks, Zeb, I can’t burden anybody else with it.”

  “Why not? What’s a friend for?”

  “Uh, you’d be shocked.”

  “I doubt it. The last time I was shocked was when I drew four of a kind to an ace kicker. It restored my faith in miracles and I’ve been relatively immune ever since. Come on—we’ll call this—a privileged communication—elder adviser and all that sort of rot.”

  I let him persuade me. To my surprise Zeb was not shocked to find that I let myself become interested in a holy deaconess. So I told him the whole story and added to it my doubts and troubles, the misgivings that had been growing in me since the day I reported for duty at New Jerusalem.

  He nodded casually. “I can see how it would affect you that way, knowing you. See here, you haven’t admitted any of this at confession, have you?”

  “No,” I admitted with embarrassment.

  “Then don’t. Nurse your own fox. Major Bagby is broad-minded, you wouldn’t shock him—but he might find it necessary to pass it on to his superiors. You wouldn’t want to face Inquisition even if you were alabaster innocent. In fact, especially since you are innocent—and you are, you know; everybody has impious thoughts at times. But the Inquisitor expects to find sin; if he doesn’t find it, he keeps on digging.”

  At the suggestion that I might be put to the Question my stomach almost turned over. I tried not to show it for Zeb went on calmly, “Johnnie my lad, I admire your piety and your innocence, but I don’t envy it. Sometimes too much piety is more of a handicap than too little. You find yourself shocked at the idea that it takes politics as well as psalm singing to run a big country. Now take me; I noticed the same things when I was new here, but I hadn’t expected anything different and wasn’t shocked.”

  “But—” I shut up. His remarks sounded painfully like heresy; I changed the subject. “Zeb, what do you suppose it could have been that upset Judith so and caused her to faint the night she served the Prophet?”

  “Eh? How should I know?” He glanced at me and looked away.

  “Well, I just thought you might. You generally have all the gossip around the Palace.” ‘

  “Well… oh, forget it, old son. It’s really not important.”

  “Then you do know?”

  “I didn’t say that. Maybe I could make a close guess, but you don’t want guesses. So forget it.”

  I stopped strolling, stepped in front of him and faced him. “Zeb, anything you know about it—or can guess—I want to hear. It’s important to me.”

  “Easy now! You were afraid of shocking me; it could be that I don’t want to shock you.”

  “What do you mean? Tell me!”

  “Easy, I said. We’re out strolling, remember, without a care in the world, talking about our butterfly collections and wondering if we’ll have stewed beef again for dinner tonight.”

  Still fuming, I let him take me along with him. He went on more quietly, “John, you obviously aren’t the type to learn things just by keeping your ear to the ground—and you’ve not yet studied any of the Inner Mysteries, now have you?”

  “You know I haven’t. The psych classification officer hasn’t cleared me for the course. I don’t know why.”

  “I
should have let you read some of the installments while I was boning it. No, that was before you graduated. Too bad, for they explain things in much more delicate language than I know how to use—and justify every bit of it thoroughly, if you care for the dialectics of religious theory. John, what is your notion of the duties of the Virgins?”

  “Why, they wait on him, and cook his food, and so forth.”

  “They surely do. And so forth. This Sister Judith—an innocent little country girl the way you describe her. Pretty devout, do you think?”

  I answered somewhat stiffly that her devoutness had first attracted me to her. Perhaps I believed it.

  “Well, it could be that she simply became shocked at overhearing a rather worldly and cynical discussion between the Holy One and, oh, say the High Bursar—taxes and tithes and the best way to squeeze them out of the peasants. It might be something like that, although the scribe for such a conference would hardly be a grass-green Virgin on her first service. No, it was almost certainly the ‘And so forth.’”

  “Huh? I don’t follow you.”

  Zeb sighed. “You really are one of God’s innocents, aren’t you? Holy Name, I thought you knew and were just too stubbornly straight-laced to admit it. Why, even the Angels carry on with the Virgins at times, after the Prophet is through with them. Not to mention the priests and the deacons. I remember a time when—” He broke off suddenly, catching sight of my face. “Wipe that look off your face! Do you want somebody to notice us?”

  I tried to do so, with terrible thoughts jangling around inside my head. Zeb went on quietly, “It’s my guess, if it matters that much to you, that your friend Judith still merits the title ‘Virgin’ in the purely physical sense as well as the spiritual. She might even stay that way, if the Holy One is as angry with her as he probably was. She is probably as dense as you are and failed to understand the symbolic explanations given her—then blew her top when it came to the point where she couldn’t fail to understand, so he kicked her out. Small wonder!”

  I stopped again, muttering to myself biblical expressions I hardly thought I knew. Zeb stopped, too, and stood looking at me with a smile of cynical tolerance. “Zeb,” I said, almost pleading with him, “these are terrible things. Terrible! Don’t tell me that you approve?”