The Left Hand of God

25

Four hours later Cale, Vague Henri and Kleist were settling themselves into their comfortable rooms in Arbell Materazzi’s quarter of the palazzo.

“What if they find out we don’t know anything about being bodyguards?” said Kleist as they sat down to eat.

“Well, I’m not going to tell them,” said Cale. “Are you? Anyway, how difficult can it be? Tomorrow we go through the place and make it secure. How many times have you practiced doing that? Then we stop anyone new from coming in and one of us stays with her wherever she goes. If she leaves here, which we discourage, she can’t go outside the keep, and two of us plus a dozen guards go with her. That’s all there is to it.”

“Why didn’t we just take a reward for saving her and get out?”

Kleist’s question was a good one because it was exactly what Cale knew they should be doing, and if it wasn’t for the way he felt about Arbell Swan-Neck, it was exactly what he would have done.

“We’re just as safe here as we would be anywhere else” was all he said. “We’ll get the reward we were promised and the money for taking care of business here. This job is money for old rope, and the truth is we’ve got an entire army guarding us from the Redeemers. If you’ve got somewhere better to go, be my guest.”

And that was that. That night Arbell Swan-Neck slept with Vague Henri and Kleist outside her door. “We’d better be careful until we can make a plan of the place tomorrow,” said Cale, planning all the while how he was going to make his entrance the next day as her all-powerful protector. He would show her his disdain for everything about her, and she would be cowed and afraid, and he would be delighted with himself as well as devastated.

It was nine o’clock the next morning when Arbell Swan-Neck emerged from her private apartment, having been told by the maids who’d brought her breakfast that there were two guards outside accompanied by two scruffy-looking herberts who they’d only seen before clearing out the stables.

Wearing her coldest face, she was put out to discover that, besides the two guards standing formally to attention on either side of the door, she was faced not by Cale but by two boys she’d never seen before either.

“Who are you and what are you doing here?”

“Good morning, lady,” said Vague Henri affably.

She ignored him.

“Well?” she said.

“We’re your bodyguards,” said Kleist, controlling his urge to be bowled over by her staggering beauty and covering it with a look that signified he had seen any number of beautiful aristocrats in his life and he wasn’t impressed, especially and particularly, with this one.

“Where’s your…” She couldn’t think of a word insulting enough. “Ringleader?” she said, at last, unsatisfied.

“Looking for me?” called out Cale as he turned the corner from a nearby passage accompanied by two men carrying several long rolls of paper.

“Who are these people?”

“These are your bodyguards. This one is Henri, the other one is Kleist. They have all my authority and you will please do as they ask.”

“So, they’re your familiars,” she said, hoping to be as offensive as possible.

“Familiars? What’s that?”

“Devils,” she replied triumphantly. “Like the flies who go with Beelzebub whenever he leaves hell.”

Unsurprisingly this put out Henri and Kleist but delighted Cale.

“Yes,” he said, smirking at the two of them. “These are certainly my familiars.”

“They’re a little on the puny side for bodyguards, wouldn’t you say?”

Cale looked at them regretfully. “I’m sorry about their condition-I wouldn’t want to have to look at them all day myself. But as for puny? Perhaps you’d like to set a couple of Materazzi on them, then you’ll see how puny they are.”

“So they’re killers like you?”

Henri was deeply offended by this, but Kleist clearly liked the insult.

“Yes,” replied Cale easily, “killers exactly like me.”

Unable to think of a reply, Arbell Swan-Neck walked back into her apartments and slammed the door behind her.

Ten minutes later there was a knock at the door, and Arbell Swan-Neck signaled her personal maid to answer it. When she did so, the maid was pleased to see that Cale’s eyes widened with astonishment. It was Riba.

Riba’s rise to such an exalted position had been as strange in its own way as Cale’s. As soon as Anna-Maria had supervised Riba’s ejection from Mademoiselle Jane’s apartments, the old servant made her way quickly to the palazzo occupied by the Honorable Edith Materazzi, mother to Arbell Swan-Neck and the estranged wife of the Marshal. It should be said that since their arranged marriage twenty years before, they had never been anything but strangers, and the conception of Arbell Swan-Neck must have been one of the chilliest royal mergers in history. The Marshal’s attempts to avoid his wife at all costs were often successful, but much less so his attempts to deny her all power or influence over the course of Memphis affairs. The Honorable Edith Materazzi was a woman who knew where the bodies were buried, and there was very little that took place in Memphis that was murky or underhand about which she was not, in some way, informed-or, when occasion demanded it, the origin of. Despite having no official power of any kind-something expressly seen to by the Marshal-the Honorable Edith Materazzi had influence backed up, often as not, by her knowledge of those skeletons and lapses prone to inhabit every family be they never so proud and great. So it was that within thirty minutes of Mademoiselle Jane’s conniption attack over Riba, the Honorable Edith Materazzi knew of it from her spy, Anna-Maria, and had arranged for the angry if bewildered Riba to be a given a room in her own palazzo.

When Vipond heard what had happened and that Riba was now in the Honorable Edith Materazzi’s clutches, he summoned Mademoiselle Jane immediately and gave his niece a most frightful bollocking. She emerged from his office, sobbing and wailing in terror, but there was nothing to be done but wait and see what the old witch was up to.

The Honorable Edith Materazzi did not waste time. She knew that something was up and that it involved her daughter. There had been wild rumors about her absence after visiting Lake Constanz three weeks before, rumors including a secret marriage and a secret birth. None of them so wild, however, as the truth itself. The Honorable Edith Materazzi had spent much time and money to get to the bottom of what happened but with little success-and little success was not something she was prepared to tolerate.

“Have they been treating you well?” asked the Honorable Edith Materazzi as she patted the sofa beside her and signaled with a warm smile that Riba should sit. Nervously, but also warily, Riba did as she was asked. She was already experienced enough in the social distinctions of Memphis to realize that something odd was going on-respect for the slightest difference in rank was insisted upon as if it had been ordained by God himself, and outsiders were treated with ridicule no matter what their status in the provinces. Riba had heard it said repeatedly of the Countess of Karoo, who had come to Memphis more than ten years ago, that she paid for the journey by selling her pigsty. This was a grotesque slander, as everyone well knew, because the people of the Karoo regarded swine as unclean. Why then, wondered Riba as she sat, was a woman of such eminence treating her with such kindness?

“First of all, my dear,” said the Honorable Edith Materazzi, “I am sorry that you were subjected to so much unpleasantness by Jane. It’s not an excuse, of course, but I was a friend of her late mother and there is no other word for it: she was spoiled, always given her way in everything. But, that’s the way of things now, children get everything they ask for and you can see the result for yourself. But there it is,” she said, sighing and patting Riba’s hand. “And I’m sorry for it.”

Riba was not certain what to say. “Yes, madam.”

“Good,” said the Honorable Edith Materazzi, as if pleased. “Now I want to ask you a great favor.”

Riba could barely believe what she was hearing.

“I have a daughter too, you know,” said the Honorable Edith Materazzi sadly. “And I worry about her.” She turned to Riba. “You have seen her?”

“The Mademoiselle Arbell? Yes, madam.”

“Ah,” the Honorable Edith Materazzi sighed softly as if speaking of a distant memory. “She is so beautiful, isn’t she?”

“Yes, madam.”

Now the Honorable Edith Materazzi picked up Riba’s hand.

“Now I want to take you into my confidence and also to help you because I feel that you are a girl with a kind heart and to be trusted with the concerns of a mother. Is that so, Riba?”

“Yes, madam, I hope so,” replied the startled girl.

“Yes, I think so,” said the Honorable Edith Materazzi, as if she had looked into Riba’s soul and seen only kindness and a deep appreciation of maternal disquiet.

“We must speak of things that are difficult for me-but being a mother comes before pride, as I’m sure you’ll discover for yourself one day.” She sighed. “My husband hates me and does everything he can to stop me from seeing my daughter. What do you think of that?”

Riba’s eyes widened in astonishment.

“I think it is very sad, madam.”

“And so it is. He prevents my seeing her and poisons her against me. But I cannot defend myself, because if she were to take sides against the Marshal, it would destroy her future prospects. This I cannot do. So, Riba, I must endure. My own daughter, whom I love, I must endure her belief that I am cold and distant and care nothing for her. What do you think of that?”

“I…” Riba hesitated. “I think it must be terrible for you.”

“It is. But you can help me.”

Riba’s eyes opened still farther, but she was unable to think of a reply.

“I have heard that you are an excellent companion and a beautifier of wonderful skill.”

“Thank you, madam.”

“Everyone talks about how your talents have transformed that ungrateful madam, Jane. She was no great beauty, if truth be told, but you have almost made her one.”

“Thank you, madam.”

There was a pause.

“Now, what I want you to do is this, and it will help you to a great place besides. I have arranged for you to become the beautifier to my daughter.”

“Oh,” said Riba.

The Honorable Edith Materazzi smiled.

“Oh, indeed. Is it not a great thing?”

“Yes, madam.”

“I know you will do well. And all I ask of you are two things, though. It will be hard for you to do one of them because I can see you are a good girl and honest.” She looked at Riba, who was already waiting for the catch in all this. “I’m asking you not to reveal to my daughter that you are coming to her through me.” She clasped Riba’s hand tightly as if she was desperately smothering an entirely natural protest. “I know this seems wrong and I understand, but it is only because she will refuse you otherwise. To do a great right it is sometimes necessary to do a little wrong. All I want from time to time is for you to come and tell me how she is, what she talks about, anything that worries her. Just the little things, the things that a daughter would tell a mother who loves her. Could you do that, Riba?”

Of course she could, and besides, what else was she to do? She entered into this contract with the Honorable Edith Materazzi, and if she did not entirely believe her, what difference did that make? There was no real choice for Riba, and they both knew it.

His Holiness the Redeemer Bosco sat on his balcony and looked down at the soldiers moving beneath him as far as the eye could see, filling the vastness of their Sanctuary. Men shouted, mules brayed, horses snorted and were sworn at by their handlers. The sights and sounds of so much preparation pleased him-the commencement, after all, of his life’s ambition. He took another sip of his soup, a favorite: chickens’ feet and a green vegetable known as asswipe in Memphis, where it was prized only for its usefulness and not its value as food.

There was a knock at the door.

“Come in.”

It was Redeemer Stape Roy.

“You wished to see me, Your Devoutness.”

“I want you to take twenty Redeemers and try to kill Arbell Materazzi.”

“But, Your Holiness, that’s impossible!” protested Stape Roy.

“I’m well aware of that. If it were possible, I wouldn’t be sending you.”

Irritated and afraid, Stape Roy nevertheless restrained an impulse to ask Bosco to say what he damn well meant.

“You are angry with me, Redeemer Stape Roy.”

“I serve at your pleasure, Your Devoutness.”

Bosco stood up and signaled to the Redeemer to come over to a table on which lay a map of the fortifications of Memphis.

“You were at the siege of Voorheis, weren’t you?”

“Yes, Your Devoutness.”

“How long did it take before it fell?”

“Nearly three years.”

Bosco gestured to the map of the Memphis fortifications.

“How long, as an experienced man, do you think it would take to raze Memphis?”

“Longer.”

“How much longer?”

“Very much longer.”

Bosco turned and looked at him.

“We could waste ourselves, great as we are, trying to take Memphis by force, which is why it will not happen. Have you heard the rumors about why we attempted to kidnap Arbell Materazzi?”

Redeemer Stape Roy looked uneasy.

“It is sinful to listen to gossip and even more sinful to pass it on, Your Devoutness.”

Bosco smiled.

“Of course, but in this instance I’m granting you a dispensation. The sin of spreading gossip is already forgiven you.”

“It was mostly said that she was a secret convert to the Antagonists and was spreading their word and that she was a witch and she held orgies and corrupted men in their thousands, and made captured Redeemers defile themselves by making them eat prawns under torture.”

Bosco nodded.

“A very formidable sinner, if true.”

“I only repeated the rumors, I didn’t say I believed them.”

“Good for you, Redeemer,” Bosco said and smiled. “The reason I had her kidnapped was because I wanted to force the Materazzi out from behind the walls of Memphis. To everyone in their empire she is a queen, idolized for her youth and beauty, a star in the firmament. Everywhere, even in the most flyblown collections of hovels in the empire, they talk about her exploits; no doubt many of them made up or exaggerated. She is adored, Redeemer, and not least by her father. When I heard that the abduction had failed, I was not, however, much concerned. Once it became known we had done something so heinous, my aim would have been fulfilled. The Materazzi would have come bounding out of Memphis full of piss and vinegar and ready to wipe us from the face of the earth.” Bosco sat down and regarded the tough-looking man in front of him. “That didn’t happen, of course, is what you’re thinking, and so I must be wrong. You are merely too polite or afraid to say so. But you would be wrong yourself, Redeemer. Marshal Materazzi, on the contrary, agrees with me. It turns out that even if he is a loving father, he is not a sentimental one. He has kept the abduction a secret, precisely because he knows he would not be able to resist the people’s desire for revenge. And this brings me to you, Redeemer. You have such a good relationship with that thing in…”

“Kitty Town, Your Holiness.”

“I want you to persuade him to help you launch an attack using such a number of soldiers-thirty, perhaps fifty-as you decide fit. You will inform these soldiers that the rumors already widespread among the Redeemers as to her foul and sinful apostasy are true, and that they will be accorded martyrdom should they die… which they will. You will ensure that the captains you choose will each carry a certificate of martyrdom explaining why they are doing the Lord’s work. With good fortune some of them will survive long enough for the Materazzi to torture the truth out of them. This time I do not want any possibility that our actions will be kept secret. Is that clear to you?”

“Yes, Your Devoutness,” answered a pale Redeemer Stape Roy.

“You’ve gone quite white, Redeemer. I should tell you that your own death is not required. Quite the contrary. You should also use soldiers who have been disgraced in some way. What I ask is an evil thing, but necessary.”

On his learning that the sacrifice of his own worthless life was not required, the color returned to Redeemer Stape Roy’s cheeks. “Kitty the Hare,” he said, “will want to know what he’s being made a part of. He’s not likely to think it’s in his interests to get mixed up with something as dubious as this.”

Bosco waved him away.

“Promise him anything you wish. Tell him that when we win we’ll make him the Satrap of Memphis.”

“He’s no fool, Your Holiness.”

Bosco sighed and thought for a moment.

“Take him the gold statue of the Lustful Venus of Strabo.”

Redeemer Stape Roy looked astonished.

“I thought it had been broken into ten pieces and thrown into the volcano at Delphi.”

“Just a rumor. Blasphemous and obscene though it is, the statue will stuff the ears of this creature of yours and make him deaf to any questions he asks himself, fool or no fool.”