The Left Hand of God

14

What do you want me to do with them?” asked Albin.

Vipond looked up from his desk and considered. “They interest me. But I think it’s time we squeezed them a little more. I want you to oversee their questioning about the Redeemers. We need to create a better picture of the Sanctuary and whether what the Redeemers are up to has any significance for us. In the meantime put the boys out as apprentices to the Mond.”

“Solomon Solomon won’t be happy about that.”

“Good God,” gasped Vipond. “Doesn’t anyone do as they’re told anymore? If he doesn’t like it, he can lump it.”

“The Mond are an arrogant collection, Chancellor. It won’t be easy for the three of them.”

“I realize. But I want you to keep a close eye on them. I want to know how they react to their treatment. I don’t blame them for lying to me-I’d do the same in their place-but I want to get to the bottom of this business.”

And that was how two days later Cale, Kleist, and Vague Henri found themselves in the Square of the Field of Excellence, along with forty-seven other apprentices, watching the same number of young Materazzi aristocrats warming up in front of Solomon Solomon, comptroller of martial arts at the Mond. He was a big man with a shaved head and bad-tempered eyes.

The new apprentices stood and admired the young men, fourteen-and fifteen-year-olds, as they stretched and eased their muscles on the field. In general their appearance was uniform-they were tall, astonishingly supple, blond and slim. Confidence and self-belief shimmered in the air about them as they stretched their long limbs into impossible contortions or performed one-handed push-ups as if magical engines powered their lithe arms. Forty-seven of the apprentices looked on awestruck, the sons of wealthy merchants who had paid Solomon Solomon a good deal of money to allow mere trade the opportunity to have daily contact with the Materazzi. The late substitution of the three yobs from the Scablands had cost Solomon Solomon more than a thousand dollars a year. This was why his icy heart was very much icier than usual.

Each of the apprentices had been placed under a different shield of arms, and while Cale had no idea what these were, he could see from the Materazzi warming up near him that each one had a badge on his chest and that they were the same as the coat of arms he could see behind some of the apprentices. It was a while before he could make out the owner of the badge that matched his own shield. He was like the others, only much more so: taller, blonder, more graceful, stronger. He moved with great speed as he mock-fought several opponents, pulling his blows but still putting each one on his backside. Cale took a few seconds to look back and scan the vast array of weapons for each one of the Mond-half a dozen kinds of sword, short, medium and long spears, axes, as well as several other kinds of weapons he had never seen before.

“You! YOU! STAND WHERE YOU ARE!” It was Solomon Solomon and he was staring at Cale. Solomon Solomon stepped down from the rough stage filled with combat dummies, from which he had been surveying the warm-up, and marched directly over to Cale, not taking his eyes from him for a moment, until he stood directly in front of him. On the field the warm-up came to a halt as the young Materazzi watched to see what would happen. They did not have to wait long. As soon as Solomon Solomon reached Cale, he fetched him a huge palm-open blow across the side of his head. Some of the Mond laughed in a kind of heartless sympathy, as you might on seeing an athlete take a terrible tumble in a race or a weak boxer walk into a punch that would knock him unconscious for hours.

Although Cale staggered, he did not go down as Solomon Solomon expected. Nor, as his head came back into line, did he protest or look Solomon Solomon angrily in the face-Cale had too much experience of arbitrary acts of violence and the incomprehensible bad temper of those in authority over him to make either mistake.

“Do you know what you’ve done?”

“No, sir,” said Cale.

“No, sir? You dare to tell me that you don’t know?” This was said with all the pent-up fury of a miser who had lost a thousand dollars a year without an acceptable explanation. He hit Cale again. When the third blow came, Cale realized his mistake. At the Sanctuary, falling down under a blow was only cause for another blow; here it was now clear that the opposite was true. He duly fell to the floor. “In future,” screamed Solomon Solomon, “you keep your eyes to the front, you watch your master and do not take your eyes from him. DO YOU UNDERSTAND?”

“Yes, sir.”

With that, Solomon Solomon turned and marched back to his podium. Cale slowly got to his feet, his head ringing. All of the other apprentices were staring ahead in terror, except for Vague Henri and Kleist, who stared ahead because they knew what was required. One person, however, was looking at him: the tallest and most graceful of the Materazzi, the one in front of whose shield Cale was standing. Those around him were laughing, but the blond Materazzi was not. He was almost bright red with anger.

Not even the beating he had handed out to Cale improved Solomon Solomon’s temper; the loss of so much money had been a deep blow to the heart. “Attend to your apprentices. Shortswords.”

The Mond walked toward the line of apprentices and stood opposite. The tall young Materazzi looked at Cale and spoke softly. “Make an exhibition of yourself like that again and I’ll make you wish you’d never been born. Do you hear?”

“Yes, I hear,” replied Cale.

“I am Conn Materazzi. You call me Boss from now on.”

“Yes, Boss, I hear.”

“Give me the shortsword.”

Cale turned around. There were three swords hanging from a wooden bar, with blades of equal length but different shapes, from straight to curved. To Cale, a sword was a sword. He picked one.

“Not that one.” This was followed by a kick in the arse. “The other one.” Cale reached for the sword next to it. He took another kick. There was much laughter from Conn Materazzi’s cronies and some of the apprentices. “The other one,” said Conn. Cale picked it out and handed it to the smiling young man. “Good. Now say thank you for that instructional kick.” There was quiet at this, the quiet of expectation that perhaps the apprentice might be foolish enough to protest or, even better, strike back.

“Thank me,” repeated Conn.

“Thank you, Boss,” said Cale, almost pleasantly, much to the relief of Vague Henri and even Kleist.

“Excellent,” said Conn, looking at his pals. “A lack of backbone, I like to see that in a servant.” The ingratiating laughter was cut short by another barked order from Solomon Solomon. For the next two hours Cale watched, head aching, as the Mond went through their training routines. When it was over, they left the field, laughing, to bathe and eat. Then several older men, the scouts, came out and instructed the apprentices in the use and care of the weapons stacked behind them.

Later, the three sat and talked, Vague Henri and Kleist surprisingly more miserable than Cale.

“God,” said Kleist, “I thought we’d finally had a bit of luck turning up here.” He looked at Cale bitterly. “You have a real talent, Cale, for getting under people’s skin. It took you, what, twenty minutes to pick a fight with the two biggest smells in what looked like being a really cushy number.”

Cale considered this thoughtfully, but said nothing.

“Do you want to leave tonight?” asked Vague Henri.

“No,” replied Cale, still thoughtful. “I’ll need time to steal as much stuff as I can.”

“It isn’t wise to wait. Think what might happen.”

“It’ll be all right. Besides, there’s no need for you two to leave. Kleist is right, you’ve landed on your feet here.”

“Hah!” said Vague Henri. “Once you’re gone, they’ll move on to us anyway.”

“They might, they might not. Perhaps Kleist is right-it’s something about me that makes people angry.”

“I’ll come with you,” said Vague Henri.

“Don’t.”

“I said I’ll come.”

There was a long silence, finally broken by Kleist. “Well, I’m not staying here on my own,” he said, and stormed off in a sulk.

“Perhaps,” said Cale, “we could leave before he gets back.”

“It makes sense for us to stick together.”

“I suppose so, but why does he have to whinge so much?”

“He just does. It’s his way. He’s OK.”

“Really?” asked Cale, as if only mildly curious.

“When do you want to leave?”

“A week-there’s a lot of stuff worth filching here. We need to stock up.”

“It’s too dangerous.”

“It’ll be fine.”

“I don’t agree.”

“Well, it’s my head and my arse, so it’s my decision.”

Vague Henri shrugged. “I suppose so.” He changed the conversation. “What did you think of the Mond-full of themselves, wouldn’t you say?”

“Pretty good, though.”

“Well,” said Vague Henri, smiling, “pretty, anyway.” After a pause he said, “Do you think Riba will be all right?”

“Why shouldn’t she be?”

It was clear that Vague Henri was truly worried. “The thing is,” he said, “she’s not like you and me. She couldn’t take a beating or anything. She wasn’t brought up to that.”

“She’ll be fine. Vipond has seen us all right, hasn’t he? What Kleist said is true-if it wasn’t for me, you’d be in clover here.” He didn’t in fact know what clover was, but he’d heard the saying a couple of times and liked the sound of it. “Riba knows how to get on with people. She’ll be all right.”

“Why can’t you get on with people, then?”

“I don’t know.”

“Just try and stay out the way, and if you can’t, stop looking like you want to slit their throats and feed them to the dogs.”

But the next day Vague Henri’s hope that things might blow over with Solomon Solomon and Conn Materazzi was disappointed. Solomon Solomon found another excuse to continue the hefty beating of the day before, but this time in the middle of the field so that everyone could have a good look and be encouraged to find an excuse to do likewise. Conn Materazzi, however, more subtle than his fighting master and unwilling to be seen merely to be copying him, continued kicking Cale on the slightest pretense but putting hardly any force into it. The young man had a talent for humiliation, treating Cale as if he were an amusing burden that was his lot to deal with as kindly as possible. With his long and flexible legs and after a lifetime of practice, he could hit Cale on the back of the leg, his arse or give him a gentle clip around the ear, as if using his hands on someone like Cale was to take him too seriously. After four days of this, it was Conn’s effect on Cale that began to worry Vague Henri more than the rough treatment handed out by Solomon Solomon. Cale was used to a brutality more extreme than anything Solomon Solomon could come up with. But mockery, being made to look ridiculous, was outside their experience. Henri began to worry that Cale might be provoked into striking back.

“He seems calmer than ever to me,” said Kleist as Vague Henri sat beside him worrying.

“As quiet as a haunted house until its demon be up.” They both laughed at this often-repeated line from the Redeemers.

“Just two more days.”

“Let’s get him to leave tomorrow.”

“All right.”

Conn Materazzi continued to develop his role as the tolerant master of a ridiculous fool with ever greater malice-and was much admired by his friends for doing so. In between the hefty beatings handed out by Solomon Solomon, he would ruffle Cale’s hair over some pretended mistake, as if he were an old family pet, incontinent yet much pitied. There were endless provoking gentle slaps to the back of his head, light taps on the buttocks with the flat of his sword blade. And all the time Cale became quieter and quieter. And Conn would see this-see that the hefty beatings seemed to leave no impression, but that, however carefully disguised, his mockery was slowly penetrating through this very hard soul. Conn Materazzi was a monster, but no fool.

The Materazzi were famous for two things: the first, their supreme skill in the martial arts and a reckless courage to go with it; the second, the extraordinary beauty of the Materazzi women, matched by their extraordinary coldness. Indeed, it was said that it was impossible to understand the Materazzi’s willingness to die in battle until you had met one of their wives. The Materazzi individually and collectively were a terrifying war machine. But if you really did encounter one of their wives, you would certainly be met with a condescension, pride and dismissal such as you would never have experienced before. But you would also have been thunderstruck by their beauty-and, like the Materazzi men, been willing to endure almost anything for a smile or a patronizing kiss. Although the Materazzi held nearly a third of the known world in the solid grip of their military, economic and political power, the conquered could always console themselves with the thought that, however great their ascendancy, the Materazzi were slaves to their women.

As the beatings and the harassment of Cale continued, all three of the former acolytes were spending as much time thieving as possible. This was not particularly difficult or dangerous-the Materazzi had what, to the boys, was a bizarre attitude toward their possessions. They seemed ready to throw things away almost as soon as they had bought them. As acolytes forbidden possessions of any sort, this baffled them. At first they would steal objects they thought would be useful-a clasp knife, a sharpener, then money left casually lying about in their bosses’ bedrooms, often in astonishingly large amounts. Then it became easier to ask the boss if he wanted something tidied up or put elsewhere, because often they were told just to get rid of it. Inside four days they had stolen and been “given” more stuff than they could use, or even knew how to use: knives, swords, a light hunting bow with a nick easily repaired by Kleist, a small field kettle, bowls, spoons, rope, twine, preserved foods from the kitchens and a fair amount of money, of which there would be more when they sucked their bosses’ rooms dry just before they left. This was all hidden carefully in an assortment of nooks and crannies, but there was little chance of discovery because no one missed any of it. The realization that you could live the life of Riley in this place just off the things that other people didn’t want made Kleist and Vague Henri deeply sad that they had to leave. But Vague Henri saw with every mocking taunt by Conn Materazzi, and every humiliating poke and prod, that Cale became more and more quiet. Conn would flick Cale’s ears and pull his nose as if he were a mischievous small boy.

On the afternoon of the fifth day, Cale was on the search to steal something useful in a part of the keep where, as an apprentice, he was forbidden to go. “Forbidden” in Memphis meant something different from “forbidden” in the Sanctuary-there an infraction might mean, say, forty strokes with a metal-studded leather belt from which you might easily bleed to death. Here it meant something you shouldn’t do that might mean a vaguely unpleasant punishment or something you could easily talk your way out of. In this instance, if caught, Cale would apologetically explain that he was lost.

He was moving now through the oldest part of the great keep, indeed the oldest part of Memphis. Much of this wall, with its interior rooms now used for storage, had been demolished and replaced by the elegant houses with their huge windows so beloved by the Materazzi. But this old part of Memphis was dark, the only light from the passageways entering and exiting at the walls’ limits, often sixty feet apart. It was designed for siege, not casual passage. As Cale went carefully up one set of dark stone steps without any guard or banister to stop him falling forty feet or more onto the flagstones below, he heard someone hurrying down the stairs toward him. He could not see because of a curve in the stairwell, but whoever it was was carrying a lantern. He stepped back into a recess on the stairs and hoped to be missed as they passed by. The hurried steps and the faint light moved on and then someone appeared. He pressed himself back into the wall and the girl did not see him as she rushed past. But the light was poor in this great dim place and the stones uneven. She had come around the curve too fast and, already unbalanced, clipped her heel on an uneven flagstone. For a moment she started to twist and was held in balance as she hovered over a forty-foot drop onto hard stone. There was a brief cry from the girl as she threw the lantern over the edge and was about to go with it, when Cale snatched her by the arm and pulled her back.

She cried out in terror at this astonishing appearance from nowhere.

“My God!”

“It’s all right,” said Cale. “You were going to fall.”

“Oh!” she said, and looked down at the lantern, broken but still burning the oil that had spilled. “Oh,” she said again. “You frightened me.”

Cale laughed. “Lucky you’re still alive to be frightened.”

“I would have been fine.”

“No, you wouldn’t.”

She looked down at the steep drop and then back at Cale in the dim light. He was not like any boy or man she had ever seen-of only medium height and with deep black hair-but it was the expression in his eyes, old and dark and something else she could not place.

Suddenly she was afraid.

“I have to go,” she said. “Thank you.” And then she started to run swiftly down the stairs.

“Careful,” said Cale, so softly that he could not possibly be heard.

And then she was gone.

Cale felt as though he had been struck by lightning. Even the oldest and wisest head was liable to have been turned by the girl Cale had chanced upon, and, when it came to women, Cale was very far from either. She was Arbell Materazzi, daughter of Marshal Materazzi, Doge of Memphis. But no one, except her father, thought of Arbell by her given surname. To everyone else she was always Arbell Swan-Neck, and she was recognized by all as the most beautiful woman in Memphis, and probably all of its vast territories. Describe her beauty? Think of a woman like a swan.

How different history would have been had Cale not encountered her inside the great wall that afternoon, or had lacked the deftness in that dark and slippery place to pull her back and, as certainly would have been the case, she had broken her oh-so-beautifully long and elegant neck on the flagstones below.

Within hours a lovestruck Cale had told one bemused and one resentful companion that he had changed his mind about leaving Memphis. He did not, of course, explain the real reason, telling them that he had taken worse beatings than those handed out by Solomon Solomon all his life and that he had decided just to ignore Conn Materazzi’s nonsense. Why should he let the stupid jokes of a spoiled brat worry him when they had so many good reasons to stay? Puzzled though they were, Vague Henri and Kleist had no reason to doubt him. Nevertheless, Vague Henri did so.

“Do you believe him?” he said later when he was alone with Kleist.

“Why should I care in any case? It suits me if he wants to stay. I just don’t like him acting like God Almighty all the time.”

Over the next few days Vague Henri watched as the beatings and mockery continued. As always it was the ridicule of Cale that concerned him most. Conn Materazzi might have been a spoiled brat, but he was also a martial artist of formidable skill. Only the oldest and most experienced of the Materazzi men-at-arms ever beat him in the painfully realistic fights that took place every Friday and lasted the whole day. And these defeats against soldiers of deadly skill and ruthlessness became fewer and fewer as the weeks passed. He was renowned, it was as simple as that, and for good reason. It was no surprise at all that in the last week of his formal training he was awarded a prize given only rarely to anyone passing out into the Materazzi army: the Forza or Danzig Shank, known popularly as The Edge. Made by Martin Bacon, the great armorer, a hundred years before, it was a weapon forged from a steel of unique strength and flexibility, a secret sadly lost when Bacon killed himself over a young Materazzi aristocrat who did not care for him. Peter Materazzi, the then doge for whom he had made the sword, was inconsolable at his death and refused for the rest of his life to believe that a man of Bacon’s genius could have killed himself for such a reason. “A girl!” he exclaimed in disbelief. “I’d have given him my wife if he’d only asked.” Given the reputation of Materazzi women for coldness, the effectiveness of such an offer remains doubtful.

At any rate, the superintendence of The Edge was a signal honor for Conn and had not been awarded for more than twenty years.

The award ceremony and passing-out parade was as splendid as might be imagined: vast crowds, hats waved, cheers, music, pomp and splendor, speeches and all the rest. The Mond arrayed in front of their forebears were nearly five thousand strong. These should not be confused with mere soldiers-these were an armored elite, the best trained and equipped in the world, each one of high rank and aristocratic birth.

And at the center of it all, Conn Materazzi: sixteen years old, six feet tall, blond, muscular, slender and beautiful-the observed of all the observers, the very center of attention, the darling of the crowds, the pride of the Materazzi. How full of himself he was as he acknowledged the cheers and applause as The Edge was presented to him. As he raised it high about his head, there was a roar like the end of the world.

Vague Henri clapped in order not to call attention to himself. Kleist enthusiastically expressed his dislike by exaggerating his applause and cheering as loudly as if Conn were his twin brother. But despite a nudge from Kleist and a whispered plea from Vague Henri, Cale looked on impassively, a reaction not missed by his master, for all Conn’s feelings that he had been struck by a heavenly lightning.

Given his already high opinion of himself-one reinforced by his set of sycophantic admirers-Conn’s sense of his own wonderfulness had expanded to dizzying new heights. Even two hours later, after the crowds had dispersed and he had returned to the seclusion of the great keep, his brain still buzzed like a hive of excited bees. Nevertheless, after the compliments and adoration of his friends and the cream of Materazzi society began to die away, he had returned sufficiently to the real world to remember the calculated insult offered him by Cale’s refusal even to applaud his triumph. This spectacular act of insubordination was not to be endured, and he sent off one of the servants to call his arms apprentice to come at once.

It took the servant some time to find Cale, not least because when he arrived at the apprentices’ dormitory he had the misfortune to ask Vague Henri where Cale could be found. His talent for evasion had not been needed for some time, but under direct questioning his natural slipperiness reasserted itself.

“Cale?” he said as if he was not even sure what such a thing might be.

“Lord Conn Materazzi’s new apprentice.”

“Lord who?”

“He’s got black hair. So high.” The servant, believing he was dealing with someone dense, stuck his hand out at about five feet six. “Miserable looking.”

“Oh, you mean Kleist. He’s down in the kitchens.”

Perhaps, thought the servant, he was looking for Kleist. He thought Conn Materazzi had said Cale, but it might have been Kleist, and given the mood he was in, he didn’t much fancy going back and asking him. Unfortunately Cale came into the dormitory hoping to get some sleep, and Vague Henri’s plan to send the servant halfway toward the Sanctuary in his search came to nothing.

“That’s him,” said the servant to Vague Henri.

“That’s not Kleist,” replied Vague Henri triumphantly, “that’s Cale.”

By the time Cale arrived in the summer garden, the crowd around Conn had thinned and vanished. However, one last and by far the most important visitor, as far as Conn was concerned, finally arrived: Arbell Swan-Neck. Because she had been brought up to treat men with disdain modified only by condescension, it was a matter of some difficulty for Arbell to give the impression that she had any personal regard for Conn beyond, at best, indifference. In fact, she was no more indifferent to his beauty and achievement than would most young women have been, however swanlike and beautiful. Had it been anyone else but Conn, she would have known instinctively to turn up halfway through the proceedings, offer him an unenthusiastic compliment and disappear. But it was not quite as easy as usual to be indifferent. Not even the chilliest of the Materazzi female elite could remain entirely indifferent to the gorgeous young warrior, the roar of the crowds and the glorious and rare power of the ceremony. Arbell Swan-Neck was, in fact, considerably less disdainful than she appeared, and to her great confusion she was actually shaking at the moment Conn had raised The Edge to the crowd and the crowd roared its approval to the magnificent young man. As a result, her talent for appearing utterly indifferent to young men, even magnificent young men, had rather deserted her and her indecisiveness had led her both to arriving far too late and even blushing (not enough for Conn to notice) when she complimented him on his great achievement. There were only two people that Conn regarded with any degree of deference-his uncle and his uncle’s daughter. He was completely in awe of Arbell because of both her staggering beauty and her apparent total contempt for him. Despite a day that had endowed the already swollen-headed youth with even more power and majesty, Conn was still thrown into confusion by her arrival and would not have noticed her discomfort short of her having thrown her arms around his neck and smothered him with kisses. He listened to her congratulations in such a state of awkwardness that he barely understood what she was saying, let alone the unsteady tone in which she said it. It was just as they bowed to each other and Arbell Swan-Neck turned to leave that Cale arrived.

Normally Arbell would no more pay attention to an apprentice than to a gray moth. But, already in something of a state, she was startled into yet deeper confusion by suddenly encountering the strange boy who had saved her from falling in the old wall only a few days before. Under such strain Arbell’s face froze into a look of utter blankness.

Only the greatest and most experienced lovers in history, the legendary Nathan Jog, perhaps, or the fabled Nicholas Panick, could have seen through such an expression to the now seething young woman within. Poor Cale, of course, was very far from either of these great lovers and saw only what he feared to see. To Cale, her expression spoke only of cold affront: he had saved her life and fallen in love and she did not even recognize him. Even in her deep state of confusion, Arbell Swan-Neck’s exit from this unexpected meeting was clear enough. She simply turned around and began walking toward the gate some hundred yards away at the other end of the garden. By now there were only seven people in the garden besides these three: four of Conn Materazzi’s close friends and three bored guards dressed in full ceremonial armor and carrying three times as many weapons as they would ever bring into a real battle. There was now also one observer: Vague Henri, worried for his friend, had made his way onto the roof overlooking the garden and was watching from behind a chimney.

Conn Materazzi now turned to his apprentice, but whatever he was going to do was overtaken by one of his friends who, the worse for drink, thought he would amuse everyone by copying Conn’s habit of treating Cale as if he were soft in the head. He reached out his hand and gave Cale a gentle couple of slaps on the face. The others, except Conn, began laughing loud enough to make Arbell Swan-Neck look back at them and see a third mocking slap. She was appalled by what she saw but Cale could only see yet more evidence of disdain in her expression.

It was on the fourth slap to his face that, it could be said, the world itself changed. Hardly seeming to make any great effort, Cale caught the young man’s wrist in his left hand and his forearm with his right and then twisted. There was a loud snap! and a scream of agony. Cale kept up his apparently slow movement and, grabbing the screaming adolescent by the shoulders, threw him at the startled Conn Materazzi, knocking him down. Cale took a pace backward, enclosed his right fist in his left hand and rammed his elbow into the face of the nearest Materazzi. He was unconscious before he hit the ground. Now the remaining two had overcome their astonishment and drawn their ceremonial daggers before stepping back into a fighting stance. They did not just look formidable, but were so. Cale kept moving toward them but stooped low as he did so and scraped up a handful of lime dust and gravel, which he flung into the faces of his two opponents. In agony they twisted away, Cale fetching a punch to the kidneys of the nearest and another to the sternum of the second. He picked up the two daggers and turned to face Conn, who now had untangled himself from his still-screaming friend. This had all taken no more than four seconds. Now there was a long silence as Conn and Cale faced each other. Conn Materazzi’s expression was controlled but furious; Cale’s face was utterly blank.

By now the three soldiers had run over from the cloister where they had been trying to keep cool in their full armor.

“Let us deal with him, sir,” said the sergeant-at-arms.

“You’ll stay where you are,” said Conn evenly. “If you move to take him, I swear to God you’ll be clearing out horse shit for the rest of your life. You are obliged to obey me.”

This was true enough. The sergeant eased back but signaled one of the others to fetch more guards. I hope, thought the sergeant, that jumped-up little prick gets his arse kicked. But he knew this was not going to happen. Conn Materazzi was a uniquely skillful soldier, already a master even at sixteen. Prick he might be, but you had to hand it to him.

Conn drew The Edge. Other than for the ceremony on this particular day, it was far too valuable not to be safely displayed in the great hall. It was certainly far too valuable to be used in a fight. But Conn knew he could argue that he had no choice, and so for the first time in forty years The Edge was drawn with the intention of killing someone.

“Stop it!” called out Swan-Neck.

Conn ignored her-in a matter of this kind, not even she could have a say. Cale gave no sign he had even heard. Up on the roof Vague Henri knew there was nothing he could do.

Then it began.

Conn swept The Edge forward with enormous speed followed by another cut and another as Cale slowly retreated, blocking each blow with his two ornamental knives that were soon as toothed as an old saw. Conn moved and parried and blocked with grace and speed, as much like a dancer as a swordsman. Cale kept retreating, just managing to block each stroke as Conn jabbed and thrust at his head, his heart, his legs, anywhere he could see a gap. And it was all in silence except for the odd music of the clash of the almost tuneful Edge and the dull response of the daggers.

Conn Materazzi pressed on and Cale blocked, high to this thrust, low to the next, always moving back. Finally Conn had forced him against the wall and there was no retreating for Cale. Now that he had him trapped, Conn stepped back, covering any movement Cale could make to either side.

“You fight the way a dog bites,” he said to Cale. But Cale’s expression, flat and without emotion, did not change. It was as if he hadn’t heard.

Conn moved from side to side and made a few elegant passes signaling to those watching that he was now preparing to kill. His heart surged, shocked by the ecstasy of knowing he would never be the same again.

By now another twenty soldiers, archers among them, had come into the garden and had been drawn up by the sergeant-at-arms in a semicircle a few yards back from the fight. The sergeant could see, along with everyone else, where this was going. Despite Conn’s orders, he knew very well there would have been trouble if any harm had come to him. He felt truly sorry for the boy pinned back against the wall as Conn raised his sword for his last stroke. But Conn held it there waiting-searching out the fear in Cale’s eyes. But Cale’s expression never changed-blank and absent as if there was no soul inside him anymore.

Get on with it, you little shit, thought the sergeant.

Then Conn struck. It is not possible to say how fast The Edge cut through the air-lightning moved slowly compared to it. Cale did not block the blow this time-he simply moved to one side, barely at all. The stroke of the sword missed-but only by the breadth of a gnat’s wing. Then another stroke and another miss. Then a jab that Cale sidestepped, snake-fast though it was.

Then, for the first time, Cale struck a blow himself. Conn parried, but only just. Stroke after stroke now pushed him backward until they were almost back where the fight started. Conn was breathing heavily now, and growing fear made him gasp the harder-his body, unused to the terror and presence of death, rebelled against his great skill and years of training; nerves frayed and guts melted.

Then Cale stopped.

He stepped back out of striking range and looked Conn up and down. There was a beat of a second or two, and then a desperate Conn struck once more, The Edge hissing as it cut the air. But Cale was moving even before the blow began, blocking The Edge with one knife and stabbing the other deep into Conn’s shoulder.

With a cry of pain and shock, Conn dropped the sword as Cale twisted him around and held him around the neck with his forearm, pointing the remaining knife at Conn’s stomach.

“Keep still,” he whispered softly in Conn’s ear, and then loudly to the soldiers as they moved to stop him. “As you are or I’ll butterfly the little creep,” and he gave Conn a sharp jab in the stomach to make his point. The sergeant, terrified now, motioned his men to stop.

Throughout all this Cale had been squeezing Conn around the neck ever harder so that he could not breathe. Again he whispered in his ear.

“Just before you go, Boss, something to take with you: fighting isn’t an art.”

With that Conn collapsed into unconsciousness and hung limply from Cale’s now loosening grip around his neck.

“He’s still alive, Sergeant, but he won’t be if you do anything courageous. I’m going to pick up the sword-so behave yourself.”

Taking Conn’s considerable weight, Cale slowly sank down and reached for The Edge. Once it was in his grasp, he stood up again, keeping a weather eye on the soldiers. More were coming in through the outer gates now, until there must have been nearly a hundred.

“Where are you going to go, son?” said the sergeant.

“You know,” said Cale, “I hadn’t really thought about it.”

It was then that Vague Henri shouted down from the roof.

“Promise you won’t hurt him and he’ll let him go.”

Startled, the soldiers responded to this first attempt at negotiation with three arrows in Henri’s direction. Vague Henri ducked and disappeared from view.

“Delay that!” shouted the sergeant. “Next one who moves without an order gets fifty and a year cleaning the shithouse!”

He turned back to Cale. “What about it, son? Let him go and you’ll come to no harm.”

“And after?”

“I can’t say. I’ll do what I can. I’ll tell them these boys were moithering you-whether they’ll listen… What choice do you have?”

“Cale! Do what he says,” shouted Vague Henri from the roof, careful this time to let only his head show over the roof’s edge.

Cale waited for a moment, although it was perfectly clear what he had to do. Taking The Edge away from Conn’s throat, he carefully looked around for somewhere to place it. He was in luck. Just two steps back, which he took with extreme care, there was an old part of the wall at just below knee height where two enormous foundation stones met. He slipped The Edge between the two stones to a depth of about ten inches.

“What are you doing, boy?” called out the sergeant.

And with that Cale dropped the unconscious Conn Materazzi to the ground, turned to the sword and with all his strength pushed it against the weight of the great stones. The Edge, perhaps the greatest sword in the history of all the world, bent then snapped with a sound of a bell being struck-PING!

There was a gasp from the soldiers as if from one person: Cale looked at the sergeant then calmly dropped the broken half of The Edge he was still holding. The sergeant walked toward him, taking a chain and lock from one of the soldiers next to him.

“Turn around, boy.”

Cale did as he was told. As the sergeant cuffed his hands, he said softly in Cale’s ear, “That’s the last stupid thing you’ll ever do, son.”

One of the physician soldiers-one to every sixty men in the Materazzi army-was checking the unconscious Conn. He nodded to the sergeant and then went to check the others. Now Arbell Swan-Neck burst into the ring that surrounded Cale and knelt down next to Conn, checking his pulse. Satisfied, she stood up and looked at Cale, now pinioned between two soldiers. He stared back at her, expressionless and calm.

“I don’t suppose you’ll forget me a second time,” he said, and with that he was dragged off by the soldiers. It was then that Cale had a stroke of luck. Vague Henri had not been alone on the roof. Just as curious, if less worried about what might happen to Cale, Kleist had followed Vague Henri. As soon as the fight had started Vague Henri had told Kleist to try to bring Albin.

Kleist had found Albin in the only place he knew where to look for him. In a moment he was out of his office door and calling for his men to go with him. And so it was that Albin arrived just as four soldiers were dragging Cale out of the garden and heading for the city jail, a place where he would have been lucky to make it through the night.

“We’ll take care of this now,” said Albin, backed by ten of his men dressed in their uniform of black waistcoats and black bowler hats.

“The sergeant-at-arms told us to take him to the jail,” said the most senior of the soldiers.

“I am Captain Albin of Internal Affairs and responsible for security in the Citadel-so hand him over or else.”

Albin’s commanding presence as well as the ten hard-looking “bulldogs,” as they were not at all affectionately known, had cowed the soldiers, who were rarely allowed in the Citadel and were instantly ill at ease when challenged in such a strange place. Nevertheless the senior soldier tried once more.

“I’ll have to ask the sergeant-at-arms.”

“Ask who you like, but he’s our prisoner and he’s coming with us now.” With that, Albin nodded his men forward and the disadvantaged soldiers uncertainly let Cale be taken. The senior soldier nodded to one of the others and he legged it back into the garden to fetch help-but by then the bulldogs had taken Cale and, picking him up, had started making their way into the labyrinth of alleys that wound in and out of the Citadel. By the time help arrived, they had vanished.

Within ten minutes Cale was locked inside one of Vipond’s private cells and a jailer was working on the irons binding his hands. Twenty minutes later he was free and standing in the middle of the dimly lit cell as the door was locked behind him. There was a cell to either side of him, separated partly by a wall and partly by bars. Cale sat down and began to consider carefully what he had done. They were not happy thoughts, but after a few minutes they were interrupted by a voice from the cell to his right.

“Got a smoke?”