The Left Hand of God

27

Well, Redeemer,” cooed Kitty the Hare, the nails of his hand stroking the wood on the table on which stood the golden statue of the Lustful Venus of Strabo. The faint sound of his voice felt to Redeemer Stape Roy as if something worse than you could possibly imagine was just about to softly crawl its way inside his ear. “This is all very strange,” continued Kitty the Hare, staring at the statue. Or at least Redeemer Stape Roy thought he was staring-as always Kitty the Hare’s face was covered by his gray hood, something for which the Redeemer was very grateful.

“The statue is yours if you help us. What do our reasons matter?”

The vague scraping of the nails along the wood continued, and then the Redeemer almost jumped as the scraping stopped and the covered hand reached forward to the statue and the gray cloth slid away from Kitty the Hare’s hand-only it was not a hand. Think of something gray and furred, though lightly, a dog’s paw but longer, very much longer, and with mottled nails, and yet this would not be close enough. The nails, softly, like a mother’s stroking her baby’s face, gently caressed the statue for a few moments and then withdrew.

“A beautiful piece,” gurgled Kitty the Hare. “But I was told that it had been broken into ten pieces and thrown into the volcano at Delphi.”

“Obviously not.”

There was a long sigh that he could feel on his face, like the hot and wet bad breath of a large and unfriendly dog.

“You will not succeed,” cooed Kitty the Hare.

“That’s a matter of opinion.”

“It is a matter of fact,” said Kitty the Hare sharply.

“This is our business.”

“You are trying to start a war and so it’s my business also.”

There was a long pause.

“As it happens,” continued Kitty the Hare, “I have no objections to a war. They’ve always done well by me in the past. You’d be amazed, my dear Redeemer, at just how much money can be made from supplying poor quality food and drink and pots and pans for even the teensiest war. I will want a guarantee, written, that should you win, none of my possessions will be damaged and I will be given a protected passage to anywhere I choose.”

“Agreed.”

Neither believed the other. Kitty the Hare was certainly happy to make money from a war, but his plans went a good deal deeper than that.

“It will take some time,” sighed Kitty the Hare, with another gush of hot, wet breath. “But I will have the plans ready within three weeks.”

“That’s too long.”

“Perhaps, but that’s how long it will take. Good-bye.”

With that, Redeemer Stape Roy was led out of Kitty the Hare’s private rooms and into the courtyard, then out into the town itself. A crowd had gathered to watch two men no older than sixteen being hanged from a gallows. Around each of their terrified necks was a sign that read: RAPIST.

“What’s a rapist?” asked Redeemer Stape Roy of his guard, innocence and evil living quite contentedly together.

“Anyone who tries to get away without paying,” came the reply.

It was a reflective Cale who made his way toward Arbell Swan-Neck’s now carefully cordoned-off chambers. Despite his deep suspicion and resentment of her, even he had begun to detect a softening toward him. She no longer glared at him or flinched every time he came near her. At times he even asked himself if the look in her eyes (although he could not, of course, recognize it as pity and desire) might be of some significance. But he quickly dismissed such ideas because they made no sense. Still, something confusing was happening. Lost in these thoughts, he was barely aware of a group of boys about ten years old, at the edge of the practice field, looking shady and throwing stones at each other. As he came closer, he realized that one of them was much older, fourteen or so, as tall and slender and handsome as Materazzi boys were prone to be at that age. What was so odd was that the younger boys were throwing stones not at each other but at the older boy and that they were also shouting at him. “Pillock! Half-wit! Drooling gobshite! Flap-mouthed turd!” Then the stones. But despite his size, the bigger boy simply whirled around in fear and confusion as each stone struck him. Then one took him on the forehead and he collapsed in a heap. As the younger boys started to run forward to give him a kick, Cale arrived, clipped one of them round the ear, tripped up another and gave him a light kick as he lay on the ground. In a moment the gang were on the run, screaming insults as they went.

“If I see you little scum again,” Cale called out after them, “you’ll get the full benefit of my boot up your shiv!”

Cale bent down over the fallen boy.

“It’s all right, they’ve gone,” he said to the weeping lump beside him, his hand covering his face and curled up into a ball. There was no reaction. The boy just kept whimpering. “I won’t hurt you. They’ve gone.” Still there was no reaction. Somewhat irritated now, Cale touched him on the shoulder. The boy burst into life, lashing out with such speed that his hand cracked Cale on the forehead. With a cry of astonishment and pain, Cale leapt back as the boy looked at him in utter astonishment and scrabbled backward toward a wall, looking around, terrified, for his tormentors.

“Shit!” said Cale. “Shit! Shit! Shit!” The boy had knuckles of iron, and it was as if he’d taken a glancing blow from a hammer. “What’s the matter with you, you bloody maniac?” he shouted at the wild-eyed boy. “I was trying to help you and you nearly take my head off.”

The boy kept on staring at him but finally spoke; only it was not speech but a series of grunts.

Because he was not used to the lame and the blind-they didn’t live long at the Sanctuary-it took a while for Cale to realize that the boy was dumb. He held out his hand. Slowly the boy took it and Cale pulled him to his feet. “Come with me,” he said. The boy stared at him. Deaf as well as dumb. Cale gestured to him to follow, and slowly, weeping with pain and humiliation, he did so.

Ten minutes later Cale was cleaning the boy up in the temporary guardhouse in Arbell Swan-Neck’s quarters, when she came rushing in, attended by Riba. She gasped on seeing the bleeding boy sitting in front of Cale, and cried out, “What have you done to him?”

“What are you talking about, you mad bitch?” he shouted back. “He was being given a hammering by a gang of your little charmers and I ran them off.”

She stared at him, full of remorse for having undone the good work of the last few days.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” she said, so pitifully and clearly stricken with regret that Cale felt an intense pleasure. For once he had an advantage in her presence. He gasped with dismissal, however. “I am so very sorry,” she repeated, then went up to the boy, all anxiety and worry, and kissed him. Cale had never seen her show this kind of concern for anyone. He looked on, amazed. The boy almost instantly began to calm down. Arbell Swan-Neck looked at Cale as she stroked the boy’s hair.

“This is my brother, Simon,” she said. “Most people call him Simon Half-Wit-though never in front of me. He’s deaf and dumb. What happened?”

“He was on the practice field. A group of younger boys were throwing stones at him.”

“Monsters!” she said, turning back to her brother. “They think they can get away with anything because he can’t tell on them.”

“Doesn’t he have a guardian?”

“Yes, but he wants to be on his own, and he’s always escaping to the practice field because he wants to be like the others. But they hate and fear him because he’s slow. They say he’s possessed by a devil.”

Happier now, Simon began pointing at Cale and grunting, acting out the stone throwing and his rescue.

“He wants to thank you.”

“How do you know?” replied Cale, rather too bluntly.

“Oh, well. I don’t know, but he has a good heart, even if he is simple.” She took Simon’s hand and formed it into an open palm and held it out for Cale to shake. Once Simon realized what he was to do, it took Cale some time to stop the energetic pumping of his hand. All the while the blood was soaking the temporary bandage Cale had placed on Simon’s wound. He gestured for the boy to sit and, anxiously watched by Arbell, peeled it back. It was a nasty gash nearly two inches long.

“The little bastards could have had his eye out. It’ll need stitching.”

Arbell Swan-Neck looked at him in astonishment. “What do you mean?”

“It’ll need stitching, just like you mend a shirt or a sock.” Cale laughed at what he’d said. “Obviously, not like you do.”

“I’ll get one of our doctors.”

Cale snorted with derision. “The last Materazzi doctor to treat me would have killed me given the chance. It’s not just that he’ll have a huge scar-a jagged wound like this won’t heal. Ten to one it will get infected, and then, God knows. Three or four stitches will close it up and you’ll barely know it’s there.”

Arbell Swan-Neck looked at him, completely at a loss.

“Let me get a doctor to look at him first. Please try to understand.”

Cale shrugged. “Suit yourself.”

An hour later two doctors had been called and after loudly arguing with one another had failed to staunch the bleeding and, if anything, had made it worse by their poking and prodding. By now Simon was so confused and in such pain that he’d had enough and refused to let the doctors near him, all the while bleeding profusely from his head wound.

After a few minutes of this, Cale had left, returning half an hour later to find Simon standing in the corner and refusing to let anyone touch him, not even his sister.

Cale pulled the distraught Arbell to one side, “Look,” he said. “I’ve got some yarrow from the market to stop the bleeding.” He nodded at the drama going on in the corner. “This isn’t doing any good. Why don’t you ask your father what he thinks?”

Arbell Swan-Neck sighed.

“My father refuses to have anything to do with him. You have to understand-it’s a terrible shame to have a child like this. I can make the decision.”

“Then decide.”

Within a few moments the doctors had been dismissed and the room cleared but for Cale and Arbell. Simon stopped yelling but eyed the two of them suspiciously from his corner. Cale made sure Simon could see as he undid the curled paper of yarrow powder and poured a little into the palm of his hand. Cale pointed at the powder and then at Simon’s wound and then at his own forehead. He paused for a second and then carefully approached Simon and knelt down, showing him his open hand with the yarrow powder as he did so. Simon looked at him, suspicion changing to wariness. Cale took a pinch of the yarrow and slowly brought it up to Simon’s head. He then leaned his own head back and gestured to Simon to do the same.

As leery as you like, the boy did so, and Cale sprinkled the powder on the still-bleeding wound, repeating this six times. Then he stood back and let Simon relax.

Within ten minutes the bleeding had stopped. Now calmer, Simon let Cale approach him again so that Cale could clean the yarrow powder out of the wound. While this was clearly painful, Simon was patient as Cale delicately did his work, all the while watched by Arbell Swan-Neck. When he’d finished, he coaxed Simon back into the middle of the room and onto the table. Then, watched still leerily by Simon, he took out a small fold of silk material from an inside pocket and opened it on the table. It contained several needles, some of them variously curved, with short lengths of silk already through the eyes. The suspicion returned to Simon’s eyes as Cale took one of the needles with its thread and held it up to show him. He tried various pantomime shows of what he wanted to do, but all that showed on Simon’s face was a deepening alarm. Every time he tried to begin stitching the wound, the uncomprehending Simon shouted and screamed in terror.

“He won’t let you. Try something else,” said the distraught Arbell.

“Look,” said an exasperated and increasingly irritated Cale, “the wound’s too deep. I told you it’s going to get infected-then he’ll really have something to scream about-or it’ll just shut him up permanently.”

“It’s not his fault-he doesn’t understand.”

It was impossible to disagree and Cale simply stood back and sighed. Then he stepped back again, took out a small knife from his inside pocket and, before either Simon or Arbell Swan-Neck could react, cut a deep gash into the palm of his left hand, just at the fleshy point leading to the thumb.

For the first time for many minutes there was silence. Both Simon and his sister stared in shock and awe at what they had just seen. Cale put the knife away, and as the blood poured from the wound, he took a bandage from the table and pressed it hard into the cut. For the next five minutes he said nothing and the other two just stared at him. Then carefully he pulled away the bandage and saw that the wound had stopped bleeding freely. He moved slowly to the table, picked up the needle and thread and showed it to Simon, as if he were about to perform a magic trick. Then he placed the needle carefully next to the wound and began pushing it through from one side of the cut to the next. He pulled it taut with an expression of concentration on his face as if he were darning a sock. Then he tied it off in a knot, reached for another threaded needle in his pack and repeated the action three more times until the wound was tightly closed. Then he held the stitched wound up to Simon’s face so that he could examine it carefully. When he had finished, Cale looked him in the eyes, nodded and waited. Simon, now pale with apprehension, took a deep breath and then nodded back. Cale took another needle from his pack, held it to the boy’s wound (he thought of him as a boy, even though they were the same age) and pushed.

The five stitches were duly done but not, understandably, without a good deal of yowling and screaming from Simon. When he finished, Cale smiled and shook Simon’s hand, and while Simon had gone as white as Melksham milk, he had endured the pain of hell. Cale turned to Arbell Swan-Neck, now almost as white and shaking as her brother.

“He’s got the right stuff,” he said to her. “There’s more to your brother than people think.”

Cale’s shameless showing off was having the effect he had hoped for. As she stared at the extraordinary creature in front of her, Arbell Materazzi, dazzled, shocked, afraid and astonished, was now very nearly half in love.

The Guelphs-a people of notoriously ungenerous disposition-have a saying: no good deed goes unpunished. Cale was soon to discover the occasional truth of this miserable proverb. Unfortunately for him, he had not been brought up to police the behavior of nasty little boys with their childishly cruel ways-he had been brought up to kill. Moderation in violence was a deeply unfamiliar notion, and sadly the kick he had delivered to one of Simon’s tormentors had been harder than he had intended and had broken two of the boy’s ribs. By unfortunate coincidence the boy’s father was Solomon Solomon, who already wanted his revenge on Cale for having thrashed five of his best students and who now was beside himself with rage at his son’s injury. As is often the case with murderous brutes, Solomon Solomon was a kind and indulgent parent. Nevertheless his anger, which was incandescent, had to be contained. It was not possible to challenge Cale to a duel when the reason for doing so was that the injury to his boy had been caused while the little monster was attacking Marshal Materazzi’s son. Mortified and ashamed as the Marshal might be at having a half-wit for a male heir, he would be furious at the attack on his family honor, and for all his importance and martial skill, Solomon Solomon would find himself shipped off to some dump in the Middle East to supervise burials in a leper colony. To an already festering anger against Cale was added a murderous hatred just waiting for an opportunity. The opportunity would not be long in coming.

It was not surprising that Simon Half-Wit, as he was universally known when not in the hearing of his father or sister, took to spending as much time with Cale, Kleist and Vague Henri as he could. Surprisingly, this addition to their company of someone who could neither speak nor hear was not as irksome to the three of them as might be imagined. Like them, he was an often maltreated outsider, but they also pitied him because he was so near to having everything that would have seemed to them like heaven-money, position, power-and yet so unreachably far from it. In addition, he wasn’t allowed to become a nuisance. It was true that his behavior was erratic and emotionally wild, but that was only because no one had taken the time to instill in him what the boys considered polite behavior. This they did by shouting at him whenever he annoyed them-which, being deaf, made no difference to him-and giving him a swift kick up the arse, which did. Most useful of all, as they quickly came to realize, was to ignore him completely when he went into one of his unintelligible rants or otherwise misbehaved. He hated this more than anything, and he soon learned the basic social skills of the Redeemer acolyte. These, while they may not have been of much social benefit in the drawing rooms of Memphis, were still the only proper skills for dealing with people anyone had ever taught him.

Arbell told Cale that Simon had been given the very best teachers, and nothing had come of it-but the boys had one advantage over even the best teachers in Memphis. The Redeemers had developed a simple sign language for the various days and weeks during which they were forbidden from speaking. The acolytes, who were forbidden from speaking even more often, had developed the sign language further. Having tried unsuccessfully to get Simon to speak a few words, Cale started teaching him some of their signs, which he quickly picked up: water, stone, man, bird, sky and so on. Three days after they’d started, Simon had pulled Cale’s sleeve as they were walking through a garden with a large pond and a couple of ducks and had signaled “waterbird.” It was then that Cale began to think that perhaps Simon might not be entirely slow-witted after all. Over the following week Simon absorbed the Redeemers’ sign language as if it was water poured onto a parched sponge. It turned out that, far from being a half-wit, he was as sharp as a tack.

“He needs someone,” said Cale as the four of them sat in the guards’ room eating their dinner, “to invent more words for him.”

“What’s the good of that,” said Kleist, “if no one else knows what he’s signing? What good’s it going to do him?”

“But Simon isn’t just anybody, is he? He’s the Marshal’s son. They can pay for him to have someone to read his signs and speak them aloud.”

“Swan-Neck will pay,” said Vague Henri.

But this wasn’t in Cale’s plan. “Not yet,” he said, looking at Simon. “I think he deserves revenge on his father and everyone else but Swan-Neck. He needs to do something big, something to really show them. I’ll find someone and pay them.”

While this was certainly a true account of his reasons, it was not wholly true. He was well aware that Arbell Swan-Neck had changed her attitude toward him, but not by how much. He was not, after all (and why should he be?), very skilled in such matters as the feelings of a beautiful and much-desired young woman for someone who still frightened the life out of her. He felt he needed something dramatic to impress her, and the more astounding the better.

And so it was that the next day, along with IdrisPukke, his advisor in this matter, Cale found himself in the office of the comptroller of the Buroo of Scholars, an institution widely known as the Brainery. Here were trained the many bureaucrats needed for the administration of the empire. The most important postings were, of course, reserved for the Materazzi-not just the governors of this or that province but also any job of power and influence. However, it was understood, if not publicly acknowledged, that insufficient numbers of them had enough wit or general good sense to run so large a dominion efficiently or, indeed, at all. Hence the foundation of the Brainery, a place that operated on strict principles of merit so that the administration of things did not quickly fall into incompetence and chaos. Wherever there was an idiot son or profligate nephew of the Materazzi appointed governor of this or that conquered state, there was always a significant number of graduates from the Brainery to make sure there was a limit to how much damage he could do. It was therefore solely out of aristocratic self-interest that a wisdom had been born that ensured that the clever and ambitious sons of merchants (though not the intelligent poor) had scope for their ambitions and a stake in the future of Memphis. This kept them out of involvement in the kind of conspiracy against the order of things that has ruined many an aristocracy before and since.

The comptroller eyed IdrisPukke, a man whose up-and-down reputation went well before him, with some suspicion. This suspicion was not allayed by the vicious-looking young ruffian beside him whose reputation was even worse-if somewhat more mysterious.

“How may I be of help?” he asked as unhelpfully as he could.

“Lord Vipond,” said IdrisPukke, taking out a letter from his inside pocket and placing it on the table in front of the comptroller, “has asked that we are given your best assistance.”

The comptroller eyed the letter suspiciously, as if it might perhaps not be entirely authentic.

“We need your best scholar as an equerry to an important member of the Marshal’s family.”

The comptroller cheered up-this might be useful.

“I see. But isn’t that kind of position normally something kept within the Materazzi?”

“Normally,” agreed IdrisPukke, as if this utterly and irrevocably cast-in-stone tradition was of no real significance. “On this occasion we need an equerry with intelligence and skill-language skills, that is. Someone flexible, capable of thinking for himself. Do you have such a person?”

“We have many such persons.”

“Then we’ll have your best.”

And so it was that two hours later a stunned Jonathan Koolhaus, hardly believing his luck, made his way up through the keep and was taken, with the deference due to a Materazzi equerry, into the palazzo quarters of Arbell Swan-Neck and then to the guardroom.

If Jonathan Koolhaus had not heard the dictum of the great General Void-“No news is ever as good or as bad as it first seems”-he was about to learn the truth of it. He had been expecting to find himself in a grand apartment, the waiting room to a grand life, something he felt that was no less than his talents deserved. Instead he found himself in a guardroom stacked with numerous beds against the wall along with numerous vicious-looking weapons of one kind or another. Something was not quite right. Half an hour later in walked Cale with Simon Materazzi. Cale introduced himself and Simon grunted at the now bewildered scholar. Then he heard what was expected of him: he was to use his skills to develop a proper sign language for Simon and was then to go everywhere with him and be his translator. Imagine the galling disappointment of poor Jonathan. He had been expecting a glorious future at the very peak of Memphis society, only to discover that in reality he was to be the mouthpiece for the Materazzi equivalent of the village idiot.

Cale had a servant show him to his room, which wasn’t much better than the one he’d had at the Brainery. Then he was taken to Simon’s rooms, where Vague Henri was waiting to take him through the basic signs of the Redeemers’ silent language. This at least gave the despondent Koolhaus something to take his mind off his disappointment. His reputation as someone with a natural talent for languages was deserved, and he quickly decided there wasn’t much to this sign language business. In two hours he had all the signs written down. Slowly he became intrigued. Inventing, rather than learning, a new language might be interesting. No news is as good or as bad as it first seems. At any rate there was nothing to do but get on with it, even if he did lament the fact that all he had to work with was a half-wit.

During the next few days Koolhaus began to revise this opinion. Simon had been more or less left to his own devices throughout his life and was wholly undisciplined, never having been brought under control by any system of education or good behavior. Two things made it possible for Koolhaus to teach him: Simon’s fear and worship of Cale and his own desperate desire to learn to communicate with others now that he had experienced this wonderful pleasure, even if only at the simple level afforded by the limited silent language of the Redeemers. This combination made Simon a more promising pupil than he at first appeared, and they made swift progress, albeit interrupted at least twice a day by tantrums brought about by Simon’s frustration at not being able to understand what Koolhaus was doing. The first time Simon had one of these outbursts, an alarmed Koolhaus sent for Cale, who shut Simon up by threatening to give him a good thrashing unless he behaved himself. Simon, who, after the stitching incident, believed Cale capable of anything, did as he was told. Cale made a performance out of handing over his authority to Koolhaus to deliver horrible but unspecified punishments, and that was that. Koolhaus got on with his teaching, and Simon, who beyond anything wanted to please Cale, got on with learning. Koolhaus was not under any circumstances to tell anyone what he was doing, and his presence was explained away by letting it be known that he was Simon’s temporary bodyguard.

Though unaware of Cale’s bigger ambitions for her brother, Arbell Swan-Neck was well aware of what else he was doing for him. There were no games in the Sanctuary-play was an occasion of sin. The nearest thing to it was a training exercise in which two sides, separated only by a line neither side was allowed to cross, attempted to hit members of the other side with a leather bag on a string. If this seems harmless enough, you should know that the leather bag was filled with large stones. Serious injury was common; death was rare but not unknown. Realizing the three of them were getting flabby from the easy life of Memphis, Cale revived the game but with sand instead of rocks. Though it was still intended only as a training exercise, they were amazed to discover that without the threat of constant serious injury they were laughing and enjoying themselves. Lacking a player, they let Simon join in. He was awkward and without the grace of other Materazzi, but full of energy and so much enthusiasm that he was constantly hurting himself. He never seemed to mind this. They made so much noise, laughing and jeering at each other’s failure and incompetence, that Arbell could not fail to hear them. Often she would stand watching at the window high over the garden as her brother laughed and played and belonged for the first time in his life.

This too sank deeper into her heart-along, of course, with the strange power and strength of Cale, his muscle and his sweat as he ran and threw and chased and laughed.

Later, after he had been outside her room for an hour or so, she had Riba call him in. While she carefully prepared herself in her bedroom to appear casually beautiful, Cale waited in the main chamber. As this was his first opportunity to look around on his own, he began a systematic check of everything, from what books were on the tables to the tapestries and the large painting of a couple that dominated the room. He was inspecting this closely when Arbell entered behind him and said, “That’s my great-grandfather and his second wife. They caused a great scandal by actually being in love with each other.” He was about to ask why she had a portrait of these two on the wall when she changed the subject.

“I wanted,” she said, softly and shyly, “to thank you for all you’ve done for Simon.” Cale did not reply, because he didn’t know how and because this was the first time the object of his confused adoration had spoken to him in such a kindly way since he had first seen her and been struck down by love. “I saw you playing your game today is what I mean. He’s so happy to have people to…” She was going to say “play with” but realized that this alternately brutal and kind young man might take this the wrong way. “Be friendly to him. I’m very grateful.”

Cale liked the sound of this very much.

“That’s all right,” he said. “He picks things up quickly, once you can explain what’s going on. We’ll toughen him up.” As soon as he said it, he realized that it was not quite the thing to say. “I mean we’ll teach him how to look after himself.”

“You won’t teach him anything too dangerous?” she said.

“I won’t teach him to kill anyone, if that’s what you mean.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, crestfallen at having offended him. “I didn’t mean to be rude.”

But Cale was not as touchy around her as he used to be. He realized there had been a considerable warming toward him.

“No, you weren’t rude. I’m sorry for always being so quick to take offense. IdrisPukke told me to remember I’m just a hooligan and to be more careful around people who were properly brought up.”

“He didn’t,” she said, laughing.

“He certainly did. He doesn’t have much respect for my sensitive side.”

“Do you have one?”

“I don’t know. Do you think it would be a good thing?”

“I think it would be a wonderful thing.”

“Then I’ll try-though I don’t know how. Perhaps you could tell me when I’m behaving like a hooligan and tell me off.”

“I’d be too frightened,” she said, her eyelids fluttering slowly up and down.

He laughed. “I know everyone thinks I’m no more good-natured than a polecat, but I draw the line at killing someone just for telling me off about being a thug.”

“You’re much more than that.” Her eyes still fluttered.

“But still a thug, all the same.”

“Now you’re being oversensitive again.”

“You see. You’ve told me off and I haven’t killed anyone-and I’ll keep trying to do better.”

She smiled and he laughed, and yet another step was taken deeper into the chambers of her baffled heart.

Kleist was teaching Simon and Koolhaus how to fletch an arrow with goose feathers. This was Simon’s third failed effort, and he was so furious he broke the arrow and threw the two pieces across the room. Kleist looked at him calmly and signaled to Koolhaus to translate.

“Do that again, Simon, and you’ll get my boot up your shiv.”

“Shiv?” asked Koolhaus, wanting to show his distaste for such coarseness.

“You’re so clever, work it out for yourself.”

“Guess what I’ve found in the cellar under here?” said Vague Henri, coming into the room as if someone had given him jam on his bread as well as butter.

“How, in God’s name,” said Kleist not looking up from the table, “am I supposed to guess what you’ve found in the cellar?”

Vague Henri refused to allow his excitement to be diminished. “Come and look.” His joy was so obvious that now Kleist was curious. Henri led them down to the floor under the palazzo and along an increasingly dark corridor to a small door that he opened with difficulty. Once in, a high-up casement window gave them all the light they needed.

“I was talking to one of the old soldiers, who was telling me all his war stories-interesting stuff, as it happens-and he mentioned that about five years ago he’d been on a scouting duty in the Scablands looking for Gurriers and they came across a Redeemer juggernaut that’d got separated from the main wagon train. There were only a couple of Redeemers standing about, so they told them to get lost and confiscated the juggernaut.” He went over to a tarpaulin and swept it to one side. Underneath was a huge collection of relics: holy gibbets of various sizes in wood and metal, statues of the Hanged Redeemer’s Holy Sister, the blackened toes and fingers of various martyrs preserved in small, elaborately decorated containers-one even had a nose in it, at least that was what Vague Henri thought it was; after seven hundred years it was hard to tell. There was Saint Stephen of Hungary’s right forearm and also a perfectly preserved heart.

Koolhaus looked at Vague Henri. “What is all this? I don’t understand.”

Vague Henri held up a small bottle three-quarters filled and read the label: “This is ‘Oil of sanctity that dripped from the coffin of Saint Walburga.’ ”

Kleist had lost patience and the pile of relics had stirred up bad memories. “Tell me you didn’t bring us down here for this.”

“No.” He walked over to a smaller tarp and this time whisked it away like the climax to the magician’s reveal they had seen in the palazzo upstairs the week before.

Kleist laughed. “Well, now at least there’s some point to you.”

Lying on the ground was an assortment of light and heavy crossbows. Vague Henri picked up one of them with a rack-and-pinion winding system. “Look, an arbalest. I bet you’d get something special from this. And this…” He picked up a small crossbow with what looked like a box on top. “I think this is a repeater. I’ve heard about them but never seen one.”

“It looks like a kid’s toy.”

“We’ll see once I can get some bolts made. None of them have got any bolts. The Materazzi probably left them behind-didn’t know what they were.”

Simon made a few finger passes at Koolhaus.

“He’s worried about what you said about Henri.”

Kleist looked puzzled. “I didn’t say anything.”

“About there not being a point to him. He wants you to apologize or you’ll feel his boot up your shiv.”

It was easy for Simon not to understand the way the boys spoke to each other. Before he met them, he was used only to outright insult or outright toadying. Kleist looked at Simon. Koolhaus’s fingers raced as he spoke.

“Vague Henri is what the Materazzi call…” He lost the word and began searching. “A cecchino… a hit man. The crossbow is all he ever uses.”

It was two hours later before Cale turned up in the guardroom, and the news of the crossbows immediately put him in a bad mood.

“Did you tell Simon and Koolhaus to keep it callow?”

“Why would we need to do that?” said Kleist.

“Because,” replied Cale, now really irritable, “I can’t see any good reasons for anyone knowing Henri is a sniper.”

“And the bad reason?”

“What they don’t know can’t hurt us. The less they know about us the better.”

“That’s rich coming from someone who made such an exhibition of themselves in the summer garden,” said Kleist.

“Look, Cale,” said Henri, “how could I have got the bows out or done anything with them without someone finding out? I’ll need to get bolts made and I need to practice.”

By then it was too late in any case. Two days later the three of them were summoned to see Captain Albin. He seemed amused as much as anything.

“You don’t seem like the murderous type, Henri.”

“I’m not a murderer, I’m just a sniper.”

“Jonathan Koolhaus said you were a cecchino.”

“You don’t want to listen to Koolhaus.”

“So you’re a sniper who doesn’t kill people. What’s the point of you, then?”

Vague Henri, aggrieved, refused to rise to the bait, but the upshot of it all was that Albin demanded a demonstration.

“I’ve heard about this contraption. I’d like to see one at work.”

“It’s not one contraption; there are six of them.”

“Very well, six. Will the Field of Dreams be all right?”

“How long is it?”

“Three hundred yards or so.”

“No.”

“Then what do you need?”

“About six hundred.”

Albin laughed. “You’re telling me you can hit something at six hundred yards with these things.”

“Only with one of them.”

Albin looked doubtful. “I suppose we could close off the western edge of the Royal Park. Five days, then?”

“I’ll need eight. I’ve got to get some bolts made and all the bows need to be restrung.”

“Very well.” He looked at Kleist. “Koolhaus tells me you’re an archer.”

“He’s got a big gob, that Koolhaus.”

“Not withstanding the size of his gob, is it true?”

“Better than you’ve ever seen.”

“Then we’ll have a demo from you as well. How about you, Cale, do you have any more party tricks you’ve been keeping under your top hat?”

Eight days later a small gathering of Materazzi generals, the Marshal, who had invited himself, and Vipond met behind large canvas screens usually used for herding deer past society women who wanted to do a little hunting. Albin, as relentlessly cautious as Cale, had decided it might be better to keep the demonstration quiet. He could not have said why, but the three boys were always hiding something and therefore unpredictable. And there was something about the boy Cale that always promised havoc. Best to be on the safe side of sorry.

Within five minutes of the start of the demonstration, Albin realized that he had made a dreadful mistake. It is not easy to accept, not deep in the deepest recesses of the soul, that by reason of birth other people less able, hardworking, intelligent and willing to learn, should always have the first opportunity to stick their snouts in what the poet Demidov calls “the great pig trough of life.” Having had so much to do with Vipond-a hardworking man of intelligence and with outstanding ability-the sense of childish justice still hidden in Albin’s soul had willingly overlooked the fact that aristocratic Vipond could easily have been chancellor had he been a complete dunce. The generals waiting for the demonstration to begin were no more or less able as generals than any other group selected by virtue of their relatives. Bakers, brewers, stonemasons in Memphis, all observed the rights of birth as rigidly as any Materazzi duchess. You are an idiot, thought Albin to himself, and deserve this humiliation. It was not merely that these three were children-if pretty odd, as children go-but that they weren’t even common. It was possible to respect a stonemason, an armorer; even to be rude to a servant was regarded as vulgar by most Materazzi. But these boys were without identity, part of nothing, migrants, and, most important, one of them had gone too far. It was not that the generals would have condoned the matter of bullying by the Mond and Solomon Solomon-widely acknowledged to be a boor-it was that putting it right was a matter for the Materazzi themselves. Such things as injustice to members of the underclass were to be settled quietly, but if they were not settled, then they were not settled. It was not for the offended against in such circumstances to take matters into their own hands and in such an effective and humiliating manner. That Cale should have resolved his own grievances was a painful threat. And perhaps they’re right, thought Albin.

First up was Kleist. Twelve wooden soldiers, usually used for sword practice, had been set up three hundred yards away. The Materazzi were familiar with bows but used them primarily for hunting: they were elegantly and beautifully made composites imported at great expense. Kleist’s bow was the nearest thing to a broomstick they had ever seen. It seemed impossible to bend such an ugly-looking item. He placed the bottom of the bow on the ground, bracing it with the instep of his left foot. Holding the bowstring just under the loop, he started to bend the bow. Thicker than a fat man’s thumb, it slowly curved to his great strength and then he delicately lifted the loop into the notch. Turning to the semicircle of arrows stuck into the ground behind him, he pulled one, notched it onto the bowstring, drew it back to his cheek, aimed and fired. All this was done in one flowing movement, one arrow loosed every five seconds. There were eleven identical thwacks as the arrows hit-and one silent miss. One of Albin’s men ran from behind a protective wall of wooden beams and confirmed the score by waving two flags: eleven of twelve. The Marshal applauded enthusiastically; his generals followed his guidance, not enthusiastically.

“Oh, well done!” said the Doge. Miffed at the lack of response from the generals, Kleist gave a resentful nod in acknowledgment and stepped away for Vague Henri to show what he could do.

“There are three basic types of crossbow,” he began brightly, convinced that his audience would share his enthusiasm. He held up the lightest of two resting in their cradles in front of him. “This is the one-foot crossbow-we call it that because you put one foot in here.” He put his right foot in the stirrup at the top of the crossbow, hooked the string with a claw attached to a belt around his waist and pushed down with his foot and straightened his back at the same time, letting the trigger mechanism grab the string and hold it in place.

“Now,” said Vague Henri, cheerfulness diminishing as he became aware of the disapproving looks of the generals. “I put the bolt in place, then…” He turned, took aim and fired. He grunted with relief at the thwack!-loud even from three hundred yards away-as the bolt hit its mark. “Oh, good shot!” said the Doge. The generals stared at Vague Henri not just unimpressed but sullen and disdainful. Having expected the power and accuracy of his shot to impress, he instantly lost confidence and started to become hesitant. He turned to the next crossbow, much bigger but with much the same design. “This is the two-foot crossbow-called that because you put… um… two feet in the stirrup… and… uh… not just one. This means,” he added lamely, “it… um… gives you even more power.” He repeated his previous moves and loosed the bolt into the second target, but this time it hit with such force it split the head of the wooden soldier in two.

The disapproving silence grew as cold as the ice on the top of the great glacier of Salt Mountain. Had he been older or more experienced in the art of presentation, Vague Henri might have stopped and cut his losses. But as he was neither, Henri blundered on to his last great mistake. To one side Henri had draped a large object with one of the tarpaulins from the palazzo cellar. There was no excited magician’s brio this time. With Cale’s help he slid the tarpaulin aside to reveal a steel crossbow twice the size of the last one but bolted onto a thick post set firmly into the ground. A large winding mechanism was attached to the back end of the crossbow. Vague Henri began cranking the mechanism and shouting over his shoulder. “This is too slow for the battlefield, of course, but using a windlass and steel for the bow, you can hit a target at up to a third of a mile.”

This claim at least produced a reaction other than icy disapproval. There were outright snorts of disbelief. Because he had not shared the possibilities of his new discovery with either Cale or Kleist, they were equally dubious, though silent. This skepticism now cheered up Vague Henri. He was still young enough, foolish enough, innocent enough, to believe that when you proved people wrong, they would not hate you for it. He signaled to one of Albin’s men to raise a flag. There was a brief pause, then another flag at the far end of the park was raised in turn and a second tarpaulin was pulled from a white-painted target about three feet in diameter. Henri put his shoulder to the crossbow butt, paused for effect and fired. There was a tremendous twang! as the half ton of power locked into the steel and hemp let loose. The red-painted bolt shot away as if impelled by its very own devil and vanished from sight toward the white target. Ingeniously, Henri had covered the bolt in red powder paint, and as it hit the target the powder sprayed dramatically over the white surface. There were gasps and there were more grunts. Even, or especially, from Kleist and Cale. It was certainly an outstanding piece of marksmanship-although it was not as outstanding as it seemed. It had taken Vague Henri many hours to fix the windlass crossbow exactly and firmly in place and tune the bow to the exact distance.

There was a long silence, which the Marshal tried to conceal by walking over to Vague Henri and asking a great many questions. “Really?” “Goodness me!” “Most extraordinary!” He called his generals over and they proceeded to examine the crossbow with all the enthusiasm of a duchess asked to inspect a dead dog.

“Well,” said one of them at last, “if we ever need someone murdered from a safe distance, we’ll know where to come.”

“Don’t be like that, Hastings,” scolded the Marshal like a disapproving but still jovial uncle. He turned to Henri. “Don’t pay him any mind, young man. I think this is fascinating. Well done.”

That said, it was over and the Marshal and his generals were gone.

“You’re lucky,” said Cale to Henri, “that he didn’t chuck you under the chin and give you a Spanish gobstopper.”

“That crossbow,” said Kleist, nodding at the steel giant bolted to the post. “How many hours did it take to get it to do that?”

“Not long,” lied Henri. There was a brief silence.

“I learned a new word in Memphis market the other day,” said Kleist: “Balls.”

“There’s no reason,” said Vipond to the three boys in his office the following day, “why you should understand the way things work amongst the Materazzi, but it’s time you started to learn. The military are a law unto themselves subject only to the Marshal. While I advise him on matters of policy, I have much less influence when it comes to the business of war. Nevertheless, I must take an interest in war in general and a further interest in your considerable talents for violence in particular. I am ashamed to say,” he continued unashamedly, “I may have a need for your talents from time to time, and this is why there are certain things you need to understand. Captain Albin is an excellent policeman, but he is not one of the Materazzi, and in allowing the generals to witness your demonstration he failed to show an understanding of something he now grasps and which it would be wise for the three of you to grasp as well. The Materazzi have a deep repugnance for killing without risk. They regard it as something utterly beneath them, the province of common murderers and assassins. Materazzi armor is the finest in the world, and it is for precisely this reason that it’s so appallingly expensive. Many of the Materazzi take twenty years to pay off the debt incurred for just one suit of armor. It is beneath them to fight those without their armor and training. They pay these huge sums in order to fight men of equal rank whom they can kill or be killed by and maintain their status even in death. What status is to be won slaughtering a pig-boy or a butcher?”

“Or to be slaughtered by them,” said Cale.

“Precisely so,” said Vipond. “See things from their point of view.”

“We’re not pig-boys or butchers but trained soldiers,” said Kleist.

“I don’t mean to be offensive, but you’re of no social significance. You use weapons and methods that defy everything they believe in. To them you are a kind of heresy. You understand heresy, don’t you?”

“And what difference will that make?” said Cale. “A bolt or a dog arrow doesn’t know or care who your grandfather was on your mother’s side. Killing is just killing-just like a rat with a gold tooth is still just a rat.”

“Fair enough,” said Vipond, “but you don’t have to like it to understand this has been the Materazzi way for three hundred years, and they’re not going to change just because you think they should.” He looked at Kleist. “Can one of your arrows pierce Materazzi armor?”

Kleist shrugged. “Don’t know-never shot any Materazzi all dressed up. But it would have to be damned good to stop a four-ounce arrow at a hundred yards.”

“Then we must see what we can do so that you can test it out. This steel bow of yours, Henri. Do the Redeemers have many?”

“I only heard of them before, I never saw one. My master had only seen two, so I don’t think so.”

“I saw how long it took to load. The Materazzi were right to discount it for the battlefield.”

“I said that when I showed it you,” protested Vague Henri. “A bolt from one of the other crossbows could go through armor. I’ve seen it. I’ve done it.”

“But Materazzi armor?”

“Let me try it out.”

“In due course. I’m going to send one of my secretaries to you tomorrow and one of my military advisors. I want everything you know about Redeemer tactics put on paper, understand?”

The three of them looked shifty at this but did not dissent.

“Excellent. Now go away.”