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7: Holy Mother Assassinated
The summons came even as the ceremony moved on and we four were left to pick up our Elements and leave them at a side altar before politely escaping and going home to a well-deserved rest.
I purposely dragged my feet and slowly brought the now-erased earth box to the side altar. I glimpsed Her Holiness, conferring briefly with one of her cardinal ladies before moving on to the closing ceremonies.
Minutes later, as I was leaving the ceremonial dome to head back to the monkery at Graniston 1, a pair of priestesses closed in around me in the middle of a throng of partiers in the town square. Wine flowed freely, as did all sorts of fried and sweet foods, and happy dancing music flowed from a dozen taverns all around. It was carnival time, and the normally austere atmosphere of the Dome gave way to people having a good time. The two women were young, attractive, and efficient. They wore the modest and trim black jumpsuits, with hanging half-robes slit at the calf, of the Frankie Order. I noticed combat boots under all that, and saw guns bulging in their waist sashes. "You sent a message to the Holy Mother," said the redheaded one, who wore her black beret skewed backwards with a rocket symbol on the front. To which the brunette added, "what is the nature of this danger to Her Person?"
"I don't know," I said. As I spoke, I saw the Abbot's baleful gaze boring through me from a balcony above a tavern. He stood with the two police chiefs and one Councilwoman. I told the two priestesses: "I was told by a Triber, who used to live here, that there is a traitor in the city who plans to kill the Popessa during her visit here. He was killed before he could tell me more. I knew of no other way to reach her with my warning."
"That is all you have?" asked the brunette, whose beret sat tilted up on her left, with the rocket symbol.
I nodded. "I'm sorry. I wish I had more."
"You have done well," the redheaded priestess said. "We'll take it from here."
I sighed a great breath of relief as I watched them head back toward the geodesic dome. Looking up, I saw that the Abbot and his companions were no longer there.
I needed a cold beer more than a bear needs to go in the woods, so I stopped at a booth and purchased a cold one plus a bratwurst in a freshly baked bun with sharp spicy mustard. I was starving after the long ceremony, and tired, so I sat down on a stone bench and watched people walking by.
I managed to get about half the bratwurst down my neck, washed down with a cold beer, and I was about to devour the rest of my brat and go for seconds, when a horrified groan swept through the crowd. The music all around me stopped, and people jumped to their feet and ran to congregate in darkly chattering groups.
I couldn't see anything from this vantage point, but we would all see the terrible scene in holovid replays time and again: the Holy Mother, standing at the altar for the final ceremonies, suddenly reaches up with agonizing slowness to clutch at her throat, which no longer works. She has been poisoned. Her heart starts fluttering, but mostly she feels first a tingling in her extremities, then a coldness like death itself that spreads up her limbs toward the heart. Her breathing starts to become frozen, and her neck and diaphragm are numb. Before anyone can understand why she suddenly grasps her throat, why her mouth is open in a silent gasp for air that she cannot get, and her eyes bulge in horror, she falls down backwards. Her feet kick feebly a few times, and she lies still in death.
I did not see that when I was finishing my bratwurst. As the crowd suddenly changed from happy to hushed and horrified, I was puzzled why the two priestesses were sprinting toward me with guns waving in their hands. They shoved people aside and knocked others over. Their robes hung flat in the air with the great speed at which they ran. They homed in on me like a pair of missiles fired by a siege balloon. Their long legs pumped furiously and their faces grimaced with slitty eyes as they raced to find me. More of their fellow female detectives close in behind me, a half dozen of them. These gals were not hearing 'no' for an answer as their berets came off and their hair flowed like a pair of banners. Next thing I know, I am kneed, chopped, drop-kicked, and stomped onto the ground face down. My hands are cuffed behind my back, and I'm looking up the barrels of two huge handguns being aimed into my face, held in white-knuckled fists by two panting, very angry, and very dangerous looking women whose eyes have the glint of killing in them. I could smell the gun oil on those two deadly blue-black machines.
The priestesses thought I had done it.
And that's all my old friend the Abbot needed to hear.
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