The Left Hand of God

11

The last two miles up to the great gates of the Citadel of Memphis consisted entirely of markets of one kind or another. The noise and the smells and the colors left the boys wide-eyed and almost overwhelmed with delight. Any traveler would have considered it an experience to take with him until the Day of the Dead-but for three boys whose staple food was something called dead men’s feet, varied by an occasional rat, this was heaven itself, only a heaven rich and strange beyond imagining. Each drawn-in breath came with the smell of cumin and rosemary and along with it the sweat of a herder selling goats, a housewife dashed with oil of tangerine, a whiff of urine and the smell of roses. There were calls and cries from every direction: the squawk of cooking parrots, the miaow of the gourmet’s favorite-the Memphis boiling cat-the cooing of sacrificial doves, the bark of dogs raised in the hills around the city for roasting on holidays; pigs squealed, cows groaned, and a huge shout went up as a pike about to be gutted flapped its way loose from a fishmonger and flailed its way to freedom in a sewer. A cry of tragic loss from the monger, derisive laughter from the crowd.

On they moved through the traders’ incomprehensible cries, “Widdee, Widdee, Wee!” called out a man who seemed to be selling bright pink cow tails from a casket, shaved of skin and the color of candy floss. “Etchy-Gudda-Munda,” shouted another, displaying his vegetables with a hand swept out with all the smugness of a magician who had just made them appear from thin air. “Buyee myah vegetables ah! Rhyup tommies. Deliciosa pinnapules. Buy ah my herbage, my gorgheous botany.”

Some stalls were on sites filling half an acre-and on one corner an old man, half-naked, held out a ragged cloth, trying to sell the two speckled eggs it contained and hopping from foot to foot.

Gawping around to his left, Vague Henri saw a train of boys of around nine years, linked by chain round their necks, being led toward a gate watched over by huge men in leather jackets, who nodded them through. The boys seemed unconcerned, but what truly alarmed Vague Henri was that the lips of the boys were painted red and their eyelids powdered in a delicate blue.

Vague Henri called over to one of the soldiers next to him. He nodded at the boys and the building through the gate, gaudily painted and even more crowded than the market.

“What’s going on there?”

The solider looked at the boys and his face paled over with disgust.

“That’s Kitty Town. Never go there.” He paused and looked sadly at Vague Henri. “Not if you have a choice.”

“Why is it called Kitty Town?”

“Because it’s run by Kitty the Hare. And so you don’t ask any more questions, he ain’t no woman and he ain’t no hare. Stay away.”

As they entered past the guards into the city of Memphis proper, the change was instant: from the crush and noise and smell of the market into the deep cool of the tunnel. Within thirty yards of near darkness under the walls they were out in the light again. And then again it was another world. Unlike the Sanctuary, where brownness and uniformity made everywhere look like everywhere else, in the citadel there was endless variety: a palace with spiky copper minarets blooming with green stood next to a manor house of yellow and purple brick. There were tailor-perfect boulevards with trees whose trunks were painted white with chalk, and leading off them warped and ancient lanes so narrow even a cat would think twice before entering. Hardly anyone looked at the boys: it was as if they were not so much ignored as unseen. Except by the younger children, who ogled them from behind the delicate iron railings of the garden squares, all curls and golden hair.

Then there was a burst of activity from one of the roads above them, and twenty household cavalry in red and gold uniforms clattered into the square escorting a decorated carriage. They headed urgently toward the caravan and pulled up around the covered wagon in which Lord Vipond lay unconscious. The carriage opened its two wide doors and three important-looking men rushed toward the wagon and disappeared inside. The boys all stood for five minutes and waited in the cool breeze and the shadows of the trees that lined the square.

A small girl, perhaps five years old, walked unseen by her gossiping mother up to the rail nearest the three acolytes.

“Hey, you, boy.”

Cale looked at her with all the considerable unfriendliness he could muster.

“Yes, boy, you.”

“What?” said Cale.

“You have a face like a pig.”

“Go away.”

“Where have you come from, boy?”

He looked at her again.

“From hell, to take you away in the night and eat you.”

She considered this for a moment.

“You look like an ordinary boy to me. A dirty, ordinary boy.”

“Looks can be deceiving,” said Cale. By this time Kleist was interested.

“You’ll see,” he said to the little girl. “Three nights from now we’re going to break into your room, but very quiet-like so your mother can’t hear. And then we’ll put a gag in your mouth and then we’ll probably eat you there and then. And then all we’ll leave behind is some bones.”

Her confidence in their ordinariness seemed to waver. But she was not a girl to be easily frightened.

“My dada will stop you and kill you dead.”

“No, he won’t, because we’ll eat him too. Probably first, so you’ll know what’s coming.”

Cale laughed aloud at this and shook his head at Kleist’s pleasure in the exchange.

“Stop encouraging her,” he said, smiling. “She looks like a snitch to me.”

“I am not a snitch!” said the little girl indignantly.

“You don’t even know what a snitch is,” said Kleist.

“Yes, I do.”

“Quiet!” whispered Cale.

The girl’s mother had finally missed her and was hurrying over to her.

“Come away, Jemima.”

“I was just talking to the dirty boys.”

“Be quiet, bold girl! You mustn’t talk about these unfortunate creatures like that. I’m sorry,” she said to the boys. “Apologize now, Jemima.”

“I won’t.”

She started to drag her away. “Then there will be no pudding for you!”

“What about us?” Kleist called. “What about pudding for us?”

Now there was movement ahead, and six household soldiers were lifting down Chancellor Vipond while the three men looked on with worried faces. He was taken to the carriage and carefully lifted inside. Within a minute the carriage had left the square, and the caravan moved on slowly behind.

Three hours later they were inside the last keep, had been taken down to the cells, stripped, searched and had three buckets of freezing water thrown at them, smelling of unpleasant chemicals unfamiliar to them. Then they’d been given back their clothes, dusted in itchy white powder and locked in a cell. They sat in silence for thirty minutes until Kleist gave a sigh and said, “Whose idea was this? Oh yes, Cale’s. I forgot.”

“The difference between here and the Sanctuary,” replied Cale, as if barely interested enough to reply, “is that here we don’t know what’s going to happen. If we were back there we would, and it would involve a lot of screaming.” It was hard to argue with this, and within a few minutes they were all asleep.

For three days Lord Vipond drifted closer and closer to death. Many were the balms and medicines given to him, the aromatic herbs burned day and night; tinctures of this and that were smoothed on his wounds. Each one of these treatments was either useless or positively harmful and only Vipond’s natural vigor and good health pulled him through, despite the best efforts of the finest physicians Memphis could provide. Just when his heirs had been told to prepare for the worst (or, from their point of view, the best), Vipond woke up and croakingly demanded that the windows be opened, the noxious herbs removed and his body washed in boiled water.

In a few days, no longer deprived of cool fresh air and with his natural defenses able to do their work, he was sitting up and giving an account of the events that led to him being buried up to his neck in the sandy grit of the Scablands.

“We were about four days from Memphis when we were hit by a sandstorm, though it was more gravel than sand. That was what scattered the caravan, and before we could regroup Gurriers attacked us. They killed everyone as they stood-but for some reason they decided to leave me as you found me.”

The man he was speaking to was Captain Albin, head of the Materazzi’s secret service-a tall man with the blue eyes of a young girl. This striking feature was in great contrast to the rest of his appearance, which was precise (he looked as if he had just been ironed) and cool.

“You’re sure,” asked Albin, “that it was just Gurriers?”

“I’m not an expert on bandits, Captain, but that was what Pardee told me before he died. Do you have any reason to think otherwise?”

“Some odd things.”

“Such as?”

“The way the columns were attacked seemed too organized, too deft for Gurriers. They’re opportunists and butchers, and they rarely band together in the numbers needed to take soldiers of the quality who were guarding you-even if they were scattered by the storm.”

“I see,” said Vipond.

“And also, the fact that they left you alive. Why?”

“Barely alive.”

“True. But why risk it? At all?” Albin walked over to the window and looked down on the courtyard below.

“You were found with a folded paper pushed into your mouth.”

Vipond looked at him, and an unpleasant sensation came back to him of his jaws being forced open and having to fight for breath before he lost consciousness.

“I’m sorry, Lord Vipond, this must be upsetting. Would you like me to come back tomorrow?”

“No. It’s all right. What was on the paper?”

“It was the message you were carrying from Gauleiter Hynkel to Marshal Materazzi promising that there would be peace in our time.”

“Where is it?”

“Count Materazzi has it.”

“It’s worthless.”

“Ah,” said Albin, thoughtfully. “You think so? That is interesting.”

“Because?”

“Leaving you alive with a message of some importance stuffed in your mouth looks like someone trying to make a point.”

“Such as what?”

“An obscure point. Deliberately perhaps. It certainly doesn’t seem like Gurriers. They’re interested in rape and thieving, not political messages-clear or otherwise.”

“If it was a message-shouldn’t it have been clearer?”

“Not necessarily. Hynkel thinks of himself as something of a prankster. It would amuse him, no doubt, to disguise such an attack on a minister of the Materazzi, while also unsettling us by making us think there was more to it.” Albin smiled, self-deprecatingly. “But you’ve met him more recently: perhaps you disagree?”

“Not at all. He was a good-humored host but he twinkled a good deal too much. Like many clever men, he thinks that everyone else is a fool.”

“That’s certainly what he thinks of our ambassador.”

There was a slight pause and Albin wondered if he had gone too far. Vipond looked him over carefully.

“You seem to know a great deal,” said Vipond, careful yet inviting him to go on.

“A great deal? I wish that were true. But something. In a few days I may have news that could clear this up one way or the other.”

“I would be extremely grateful if you would keep me informed. I have resources also that might be of use.”

“Of course, my lord.”

Albin was pleased with what looked like an arrangement. It was not a question of whether Vipond could be trusted, because he most certainly could not. The court at Memphis was a nest of vipers, and no one without sharp teeth full of venom could have occupied a place as important as Vipond’s. It was unreasonable to expect otherwise. Still, he felt there was progress toward an understanding, the understanding being that he could depend on Vipond not to betray him until it was seriously in his interests to do so.

“There are one or two other matters I’d like to discuss with you, my lord. But of course if you’re too tired, I can return tomorrow.”

“Not at all. Please…”

“There’s the odd matter of four young persons that Bramley found standing over you when you were…” He paused.

“Buried up to my neck?”

“Well, yes.”

“I thought,” said Chancellor Vipond, “that was a dream. Three boys and a girl.”

“Yes.”

“What were they doing?”

“Ah, we thought you might be able to answer. Bramley wants to execute the boys and sell on the girl.”

“What on earth for?”

“He thinks they were part of the Gurrier band who attacked you.”

“They attacked us at least twenty-four hours before I was found. What in God’s name would they be doing there if they had anything to do with the Gurriers?”

“Bramley still wants to execute them. He says we need to send a message that anyone who attacks a minister of the Materazzi should know what’s coming to them.”

“He’s a bloodthirsty bastard, this Bramley of yours.”

“Oh, he’s not one of mine-God forbid.”

“What do these children have to say for themselves?”

“That they’d just arrived and were about to dig you up.”

“And you don’t believe them?”

“There were no signs of digging,” Albin paused. “And I wouldn’t say they were children exactly. The three boys are thirteen or fourteen, but hard-looking creatures. The girl, on the other hand, looks as if she’d been stored in soft soap. And what were they doing in the middle of the Scablands?”

“What did they have to say for themselves?”

“They said they were gypsies.”

Vipond laughed. “There haven’t been any gypsies in this part of the world since the Redeemers wiped them out sixty years ago.”

He looked thoughtful for a moment. “I’ll talk to them myself in a few days when I feel better. Pass me that cup of water, there’s a good fellow.”

Albin reached to the table beside the bed and handed Vipond the cup. He was looking very pale now.

“I’ll leave you, Chancellor.”

“You said there were two things?”

Albin stopped. “Yes. Before Bramley found you he caught IdrisPukke skulking about four or so miles away.”

“Excellent,” said Vipond, his eyes alight with interest. “I’ll talk to him tomorrow.”

“Unfortunately he escaped.”

Vipond gasped with irritation. He did not speak for nearly a minute.

“I want IdrisPukke. If he ever comes under your hand, you will bring him to me, and tell no one else.”

Albin nodded. “Of course.” He left Vipond’s room a satisfied man.

It was the sixth day of their captivity in the cells underneath Memphis, but despite the uncertainty the three boys were in good spirits. They had three good meals a day, which is to say that by the standards of a normal person they had three revolting meals a day; they were able to sleep as long as they liked, and they did so for as much as eighteen hours, as if making up for the deprivations of a lifetime. At about four in the afternoon their jailer unlocked the cell door and showed in Albin, who had interrogated them once before, along with a clearly much-revered man in his late fifties.

“Good afternoon,” said Lord Vipond.

Vague Henri and Kleist looked at him carefully from their beds. Cale was sitting on his with his knees drawn up to his chest and his hood drawn over his face.

“On your feet when Lord Vipond enters the room,” said Albin quietly. Slowly Vague Henri and Kleist stood up. Cale did not move.

“You, stand up and remove your hood-or I’ll get the guards to do it for you.” Again Albin’s voice was quiet, unthreatening, matter-of-fact.

There was a pause, and then Cale sprang to his feet as if rising from a refreshing sleep and flicked back his hood. He stared at the floor as if he found what was in the dust of immense interest.

“So,” said Vipond. “Do you recognize me?”

“Yes,” said Kleist. “You’re the man we tried to rescue in the Scablands.”

“That’s right,” said Vipond. “What were you doing there?”

“We’re gypsies,” said Kleist. “We got lost.”

“What kind of gypsies?”

“Oh, the usual kind,” said Kleist, smiling.

“Captain Bramley thinks you were trying to rob me.”

Kleist sighed. “He’s a bad man, that Captain Bramley, a very bad man. All we were doing was trying to save an important person like yourself and he chains us up like criminals and puts us in here. Not very grateful.”

There was a strange and alarming gaiety about the way Kleist was cheeking the great man in front of him, as if not only did he not expect to be believed, but he did not care whether he was or not. Vipond had met this kind of insolence from only one other source: men he had accompanied to the gallows who knew that nothing could save them.

“We were going to help you,” said Vague Henri-and of course from his point of view he was telling the truth.

Vipond looked over at Cale.

“What’s your name?”

Cale did not respond.

“Come with me.” Vipond walked to the door. The jailer quickly opened it. Vipond turned back to Cale. “Come on, boy. Are you deaf as well as insolent?” Cale looked at Vague Henri, who nodded, as if urging him to agree. Cale did not move for a moment but then slowly walked to the cell door.

“Follow us, if you’d be so kind, Captain Albin.” Vipond set off with Cale behind him and Albin hanging back, his finger loosening the clasp holding his shortsword in its scabbard. Kleist moved to the bars as the cell was locked.

“What about me? I fancy a walk too.”

Then the two boys heard the outer door being unlocked and Cale was gone.

“Are you sure,” asked Vague Henri, “that you’re all right in the head?”

Cale found himself in a pleasant courtyard with an elegant lawn at its center. They began to walk along the path that followed the walls, Cale keeping in step with Chancellor Vipond.

“I’ve always believed in the principle,” said Vipond, after they had been walking for a minute or so in silence, “that you should never tell your best friend anything you wouldn’t be prepared to tell your worst enemy. But now is a time, as far as you’re concerned, when honesty is very much the best policy. So I don’t want to hear any nonsense about gypsies, or indeed any other nonsense. I want the truth about who you are and what you were doing in the Scablands.”

“You mean the truth like I’d tell my best friend.”

“I may not be your best friend, young man, but I am your best hope. Tell me the truth and I might be prepared to take a generous view of the fact that, while the girl and the slow-witted one wanted to help me, you and that other guttersnipe wanted to leave me there.”

Cale looked at him. “Since we’re telling the truth, Lord, wouldn’t you have thought about what you were getting into-if you were in our shoes?”

“Indeed. Now get on with it. And if I think you’re lying, I’ll hand you over to Bramley as quick as two shakes of a lamb’s tail and no questions asked.”

Cale said nothing for a few seconds and then sighed as if he had made a decision.

“The three of us are Redeemers’ acolytes from the Great Sanctuary at Shotover.”

“Ah, the truth,” said Vipond, smiling. “It has a ring about it, don’t you find? And the girl?”

“We were looking for food in the combs-tunnels and hallways the Redeemers had closed off. We stumbled across her in a place we’ve never heard of. There were others like her.”

“Women in the Sanctuary? How very strange! Or perhaps not.”

“We were seen with the girl and we had no choice. We had to go on the lam.”

“A very great risk, I understand.”

“There was no risk at all if we’d stayed.”

“Quite so.” He thought about what he had heard for a minute or so as the two walked slowly in step around the courtyard, side by side. “And the Scablands?”

“It was the best place to hide-you can’t see far because of all the hillocks and eskers that break it up.”

“The Redeemers hunt with dogs. I’ve seen one-ugly as death but great sniffers.”

“I’d worked out how to stop them.” Cale explained, omitting the detail of his double escape. The fact of their escape may have been true, but whatever Vipond said, the events leading up to it did not sound true. And besides, they had all agreed to keep their story simple after Kleist’s half-witted attempt to claim they were gypsies. It was clear that whatever the Redeemers had told them about the gypsies was a lie: there had been no treacherous attack on the Sanctuary sixty years before followed by a punitive but restrained expedition to teach the gypsies to behave themselves in future. They must have massacred them to the last child.

“Will you hand us over to the Redeemer search party?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

Vipond laughed. “Good question. But we’ve no reason to. We don’t even have diplomatic relations. We only deal with them through the Duena.”

“Who are the Duena?”

“Do you know what a mercenary is?”

“Someone who kills for pay.”

“The Duena are mercenaries who are paid to negotiate instead of kill. We have so little in the way of dealings with the Redeemers it’s cheaper to pay someone else to do it on our behalf. Time for a change, I think. We’ve been remiss in remaining ignorant. You could be very useful. Their war in the Eastern Breaks has kept them busy for a hundred years. Perhaps they are planning something here-perhaps elsewhere. It’s time we knew more.” He smiled at the boy. “So perhaps you can trust me, because you can be of use.”

“Yes,” said Cale thoughtfully. “Perhaps.”

By now they had returned to the outer door of the cells. Vipond gave it a hefty thump with his fist and it opened immediately. He turned to Cale.

“In a few days you will be moved somewhere more comfortable. Until then you will be made more welcome-decent food and exercise.”

Cale nodded and went through the door, which shut quickly behind him.

Vipond turned as Albin came up behind him. “How very curious, my dear Albin; not like any children I’ve ever met. If any Redeemers turn up looking for them, they are to be told nothing and kept in the outskirts. The boys are to have house-arrest status.”

And with that Vipond walked away, calling out over his shoulder, “Bring the girl to me tomorrow at eleven.”