by Paul Hoffman
It was not just a wonderful story of luxury and comfort, of body spoiling, of care and warmth. It was also incomprehensible. Every time Riba added a new detail of a way in which she and the other girls were petted, mollycoddled, pampered and indulged, the three acolytes became more mystified about why the Redeemers would behave in such a way to anyone, least of all to creatures who were the devil’s playground. And how did this astonishing kindness make any sense at all in the light of the hideous practices performed on Riba’s friend Lena, a cruelty so grotesque not even the boys would have credited such a thing to the Redeemers. But it would be a long time before any of them could begin to put together the terrible story of which the three acolytes, Riba and the Lord Militant were now a part—and not least since Cale had put the sweet-smelling object he had found in the dissecting dish in one of his rarely used pockets and forgotten all about it.
But they had more pressing matters than the fate of mankind to deal with: how to stay alive while hauling along the beautiful but hefty Riba. They made ten miles that day, something of a tribute to Riba’s willpower, as the most strenuous work she had done in her life before this was to raise a piece of fried chicken to her lips or turn over on a massage table to have rich foams and unguents stroked into her smooth skin. Needless to say, this determination on Riba’s part was not much appreciated by the three boys. Exhausted, she fell asleep on the ground as soon as they stopped for the night. Then as they ate the dried meat prepared by Kleist, the boys discussed what to do with her.
“Let’s leave her here and run away,” said Kleist.
“She’ll die,” said Vague Henri.
“We’ll leave water. Let’s face it,” said Kleist, scanning her overfed body, “it’ll be a long time before she dies of starvation.”
“She’ll die anyway if we move at this rate, and us with her.” This time it was Cale who spoke, not so much forming an argument as pointing out a simple fact.
Vague Henri tried flattery. “I don’t think so, Cale. Look, you’ve fooled them completely. They already think we’re miles away. They’ll probably think we had help to get away that easily.”
“Who the hell would help us against the Redeemers?” said Kleist.
“What does it matter? They think we’ve got away. And we have. They’re not going to realize for a long time how we did it, if they ever do. We can afford to go slowly.”
“It’s a lot better if we don’t,” said Cale.
“They’ll catch us at this rate,” said Kleist. “It’ll take more than a trick and some badger shit to keep them off our trail.”
“We’ve gone through all of this to save her. We can’t let her die now.”
“Yes, we can,” said Kleist. “The kindest thing is to cut her throat while she’s sleeping. Best for her and us.”
Cale let out a brief sigh, not especially regretful.
“Henri’s right. What’s the point if we let her die now?”
“What’s the point?” shouted an exasperated Kleist. “The point, stupid bastards, is that we get away. Free. Forever.”
The other two said nothing. It was true enough.
“Let’s vote,” said Vague Henri.
“No, let’s not vote. Let’s use our brains.”
“Let’s vote,” said Cale.
“Why bother? You’ve made up your minds. We keep the girl.”
There was a bad-tempered silence.
“There’s something else we should do,” said Cale at last.
“What now?” groaned Kleist. “Go and find enough goose feathers to make that fat beezle a mattress?”
“Keep your voice down,” said Vague Henri. Cale ignored Kleist.
“We have to decide who’s to do it if the Redeemers catch us.”
It was an unpleasant thought, but they knew he was right. None of them wanted to be taken alive back to the Sanctuary.
“We’ll draw straws,” said Vague Henri.
“There isn’t any straw,” said Kleist, miserable.
“Then we’ll draw stones.” Vague Henri searched for a minute and came back with three stones of different sizes. He showed the others, who nodded their agreement. “Smallest loses.” Henri put the stones behind his back and then held out his left hand, fist clenched in front of him. There was a pause—suspicious as always, Kleist was unwilling to choose. Cale shrugged and held out his hand, palm up, eyes closed. Without letting Kleist see, Vague Henri dropped the stone, and Cale closed his fist around it. He opened his eyes. Then Henri brought out the remaining two stones, one in each fist. Still Kleist was wary of making a decision in case he should, in some way he couldn’t quite put his finger on, be taken advantage of.
“Get a move on,” said Vague Henri, unusually irritable. With great reluctance Kleist tapped Henri’s right hand and closed his eyes. Now they all had one stone each.
“On a count of three. One, two, three.”
The three boys opened their fists. Cale was holding the smallest stone.
“Well, at least you know it’ll be done properly.”
“You needn’t have worried, Cale,” said Kleist. “I wouldn’t have had any problems slotting you.”
Cale looked at him, but the trace of a smile was still there.
“What are you doing?” Riba had woken up and had been watching them. Kleist looked over at her.
“We’ve been discussing who we eat first when we run out of food.” He looked at her meaningfully, as if to suggest that the answer was pretty obvious.
“Don’t listen to him,” said Vague Henri. “We were just deciding who’d take the first watch.”
“When is it my turn?” said Riba.
All three of the acolytes were surprised at the defiant, even irritable note in her voice.
“You need all the rest you can get,” said Vague Henri.
“I’m ready to do my share.”
“Of course. In a few days when you’re more used to this. For now we need you as rested as possible. It’s best—you can see that.”
It was, of course, hard to argue.
“Would you like something to eat?” said Vague Henri, holding up a piece of dried rat. It did not look appetizing, least of all to a girl raised on cream and pastries, chicken pie and delicious gravies. But she was very hungry.
“What is it?” she said.
“Um. Meat,” said Vague Henri vaguely.
He moved toward her and shoved it under her nose. It smelled very much as a dead rat might be expected to. Her delicate nose wrinkled in involuntary disgust.
“Ugh, no.” Though she quickly added, “Thank you.”
“Going without for a bit won’t do her any harm,” muttered Kleist under his breath, but loudly enough for the girl to hear. Riba, however, was not aware that she was in any way less than perfect. She had been told so all her life, and as a result Kleist’s remark, although she was aware it was hostile, conveyed no specific insult to her at all.
“I’ll take first watch,” said Cale, and with that he turned and walked to the top of a nearby scab. The two remaining boys lay down and within minutes were asleep. Riba, however, could not settle and she began to sob quietly. Kleist and Vague Henri were dead to the world. Cale, however, on the top of the scab, could hear the sound of her crying and considered it carefully before finally she too fell asleep.
The next morning the boys woke at five as usual, but there was no point in striking camp, such as it was. “Let her sleep,” said Cale. “The more rested she is the better.”
“Without her we could be eighty, perhaps a hundred, miles from here,” muttered Kleist. A knife thudded point-down at his feet.
“I took it from Picarbo. Cut her throat, if you like. Anything, so long as you stop whining.” His tone was matter-of-fact, not angry at all. Kleist stared at Cale, eyes cold and full of dislike. Then he turned away. Vague Henri wondered if he had really been ready to kill the girl or perhaps use the knife on Cale—or whether he just liked having something to complain about. Cale, at any rate, was wise
enough not to imply any kind of victory when he spoke again.
“I’ve an idea. Perhaps we can make use of the problem with the girl.”
Kleist turned back, sullen—but he was listening. “If we can’t put distance between us and the search parties to east and west of us, it’s best if we track them to make sure we don’t cross them by accident.”
He bent down and picked up the knife and started drawing in the sand. “If Henri and the girl move south in a straight line and don’t do more than twelve miles a day, then Kleist and me will always know where you are, pretty much. Kleist goes west, I’ll go east, and find the two nearest search parties.” He gestured to the straight line he’d drawn for Henri and Riba. “If we think they’re going to hit the search parties as they zigzag, then we return and take them off in the other direction.”
Kleist looked thoughtful as well as dubious.
“Suppose you come back and take them off somewhere. How am I supposed to find you when you’re not at the meeting point?”
Cale shrugged. “You’ll have to decide whether to track us or make your own way to Memphis. Wait for us there as long as you think best.”
Kleist sniffed and looked away. It was an agreement of sorts.
“Does that suit you?” asked Cale, nodding to Henri.
“Yes,” said Vague Henri. “There are a lot of things I want to find out from the girl.”
Within five minutes, having split the food and water, Kleist and Cale were moving off to east and west. In five minutes more they’d vanished from sight.
Vague Henri was sitting down eating his breakfast and looking at the girl as she slept, observing the beautiful pale skin, the red lips and the long eyelashes, the sense of beautiful peace. He was still watching, fascinated, an hour later when she woke up. She was startled at first to find Vague Henri looking straight at her, not more than three feet away.
“Didn’t anyone ever tell you it’s rude to stare?”
“No,” said Vague Henri truthfully.
“Well, it is.”
Henri looked down at his feet and now felt awkward.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to be so harsh.”
At this, Vague Henri forgot his awkwardness and burst into laughter.
“What’s so funny?” she said, angry again.
“For us, being harsh means dragging you out in front of five hundred people and the Redeemers stringing you up.”
“What do you mean?”
“Hanging you by the neck. You know, like the Hanged Redeemer.”
“Who’s the Hanged Redeemer?”
This shut him up. He looked at her as if she had asked what the sun was, or if animals could talk. He said nothing for some time, but there were hammers beating in his brain about what this could possibly mean.
“The Hanged Redeemer is the son of the Lord of Creation. He sacrificed himself to wash our vile sins away with his blood.”
“Uuugh!” she said. “Whatever for?”
His look of astonishment made her instantly regret her reaction. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to offend you. It’s just such a strange idea.”
“What is?” he said, still openmouthed.
“Well . . . what sins? What did you do?”
“I was born sinful. Everyone is born full of revolting sin.”
“What a ridiculous idea.”
“Is it?”
“How can a baby have done anything wrong, let alone anything dreadful?”
Neither of them said anything for a moment. “And why would you wash something away in blood?”
“It’s a symbol,” he said, defensive and wondering why.
“I’m not stupid,” she replied. “I can see that. But why? Why would you use blood as a symbol of something like that?”
Vague Henri was, by nature, someone who thought carefully about everything. But these ideas had been so much a part of him and for so long that she might just as well have questioned the point of his arms or the meaning of his eyes. “Where are the others?” she said. Still reeling over what he had heard, his answer was distracted.
“Oh, they’ve gone.”
“They’ve left us?” she said, eyes widening in alarm.
“Only for a few days. They’re going to track down the searchers on either side of us and make sure we don’t walk into them.”
“How will they find us again?”
“They’re very good at tracking,” Henri said evasively.
“I don’t understand,” she said. “I thought you said you hardly ever left the Sanctuary?”
“Um . . . we better get going. I’ll explain as we go along.”
Redeemer Bosco raised his walking stick and rapped twice on the door.
It was nearly thirty seconds before it opened, but he did not show any sign of impatience, or indeed any sign at all. Finally the door opened and a tall man, another Redeemer, stood in front of the Lord Militant.
“Do you have an appointment?” said the tall man.
“Don’t be foolish,” replied Bosco, terse and dismissive. “The High Redeemer asked to see me. Here I am.”
“The High Redeemer commands, he does not ask any—”
Bosco pushed past him. “Tell him I’m here.”
“He’s displeased with you. I’ve never seen him so angry.” Bosco ignored him as the tall man went over to an inner door, knocked and went in. There was a short pause, the door opened again, and the tall man returned, smiling, though nothing pleasant was intended.
“He is ready to see you now.”
Bosco walked into a room so dark that even the gloom-accustomed eyes of the Lord Militant found it hard to see. It was something more, though, than the small shuttered windows and the dark tapestries murkily retelling stories of ancient and hideous martyrdoms. The center of the darkness seemed to come from the bed in the corner. A man was sitting up, propped by at least a dozen uncomfortable cushions. Bosco had to move very close before he could make out the face, the skin pale to the point of being white, and hanging down from cheek and neck in endless scrawny folds. The eyes were watery, as if the mind had long gone. But when he caught sight of Bosco something bright flashed there, a light full of hate and great cunning.
“You kept me waiting!” said the High Redeemer, the voice distant but sharp.
“I came as soon as I could, Your Grace.” He was not believed, nor did he expect to be.
“When I summon you, Bosco, you drop everything instantly and damned quick.” He laughed. It was a particularly unpleasant sound that only, perhaps, Bosco in all the Sanctuary would not have been unnerved by. It was the sound of something dead, animated only by an intense malice and anger.
“What did you wish to see me about, Your Grace?” The High Redeemer stared at him for a moment.
“That Cale boy.”
“Yes, Your Grace?”
“He’s made a fool of you.”
“How so, Your Grace?”
“You had plans for him.”
“You know that I did, Your Grace.”
“He must be brought back.”
“You and I differ on nothing, Your Grace.”
“Brought back and scourged.”
“Of course, Your Grace.”
“Then hanged and quartered.”
Bosco did not respond at first.
“He murdered a Redeemer. He must become an Act of Faith.”
Bosco looked thoughtful for a moment.
“My investigations have made it clear that it was the two other acolytes who were responsible. It seems likely that they coerced Cale into leaving with them. They were armed; he was not. If this is true, then Cale should be punished merely as an example. The quartering, however, seems unnecessary to me. The others will do, given the fault is theirs.”
There was a snort of contempt that might have been mistaken for choking.
“Ha! Pity is nothing of kin to you, Bosco. This is just your vanity talking. It doesn’t matter whether Cale or these other two killed P
icarbo. By God, I’ve half a mind to burn the entire dormitory along with them.”
The High Redeemer had allowed himself to become rather too excited and was now choking on his own spittle. He gestured toward a mug of water on his bedside table. Taking his time, Bosco handed it to him. He drank noisily. Finally, he handed back the now sloppy wet mug. Bosco replaced it on the table with a look of fine distaste.
Gradually the High Redeemer’s sucking breath began to slow and return to normal. The light of malevolence, however, had only increased.
“Tell me about this business with Picarbo.”
“Business, Your Grace?”
“Yes, business, Bosco, the business of the Lord of Discipline being found in his rooms with a disemboweled slut!”
“Ah,” said Bosco thoughtfully. “That business.”
“You think because I’m old and sick that I don’t know what’s going on here? Well, not for the first time, you’re wrong. Sick as I am, you still can’t get up early enough to catch me out, Bosco.”
“No one of any intelligence would underestimate your wisdom and experience, Your Grace, but . . .” He let out a regretful sigh. “I had hoped to spare you the revolting nature of what we found in Redeemer Picarbo’s rooms. It would be a pity if a reign as distinguished as your own should be overshadowed by something like this.”
“I’m too old for that flannel, Bosco. I want to know what he was doing with her. It wasn’t just fucking, was it?”
Even Bosco, a man apparently unmoved by anything, was unsettled by the use of the term. Such direct reference to the sex act was never heard, it usually being spoken of only using such circumlocutions as “beastliness” and “uglification”—though, even then, rarely.
