by Paul Hoffman
“I’m not an expert on bandits, Captain, but that was what Pardee told me before he died. Do you have any reason to think otherwise?”
“Some odd things.”
“Such as?”
“The way the columns were attacked seemed too organized, too deft for Gurriers. They’re opportunists and butchers, and they rarely band together in the numbers needed to take soldiers of the quality who were guarding you—even if they were scattered by the storm.”
“I see,” said Vipond.
“And also, the fact that they left you alive. Why?”
“Barely alive.”
“True. But why risk it? At all?” Albin walked over to the window and looked down on the courtyard below.
“You were found with a folded paper pushed into your mouth.”
Vipond looked at him, and an unpleasant sensation came back to him of his jaws being forced open and having to fight for breath before he lost consciousness.
“I’m sorry, Lord Vipond, this must be upsetting. Would you like me to come back tomorrow?”
“No. It’s all right. What was on the paper?”
“It was the message you were carrying from Gauleiter Hynkel to Marshal Materazzi promising that there would be peace in our time.”
“Where is it?”
“Count Materazzi has it.”
“It’s worthless.”
“Ah,” said Albin, thoughtfully. “You think so? That is interesting.”
“Because?”
“Leaving you alive with a message of some importance stuffed in your mouth looks like someone trying to make a point.”
“Such as what?”
“An obscure point. Deliberately perhaps. It certainly doesn’t seem like Gurriers. They’re interested in rape and thieving, not political messages—clear or otherwise.”
“If it was a message—shouldn’t it have been clearer?”
“Not necessarily. Hynkel thinks of himself as something of a prankster. It would amuse him, no doubt, to disguise such an attack on a minister of the Materazzi, while also unsettling us by making us think there was more to it.” Albin smiled, self-deprecatingly. “But you’ve met him more recently: perhaps you disagree?”
“Not at all. He was a good-humored host but he twinkled a good deal too much. Like many clever men, he thinks that everyone else is a fool.”
“That’s certainly what he thinks of our ambassador.”
There was a slight pause and Albin wondered if he had gone too far. Vipond looked him over carefully.
“You seem to know a great deal,” said Vipond, careful yet inviting him to go on.
“A great deal? I wish that were true. But something. In a few days I may have news that could clear this up one way or the other.”
“I would be extremely grateful if you would keep me informed. I have resources also that might be of use.”
“Of course, my lord.”
Albin was pleased with what looked like an arrangement. It was not a question of whether Vipond could be trusted, because he most certainly could not. The court at Memphis was a nest of vipers, and no one without sharp teeth full of venom could have occupied a place as important as Vipond’s. It was unreasonable to expect otherwise. Still, he felt there was progress toward an understanding, the understanding being that he could depend on Vipond not to betray him until it was seriously in his interests to do so.
“There are one or two other matters I’d like to discuss with you, my lord. But of course if you’re too tired, I can return tomorrow.”
“Not at all. Please . . .”
“There’s the odd matter of four young persons that Bramley found standing over you when you were . . .” He paused.
“Buried up to my neck?”
“Well, yes.”
“I thought,” said Chancellor Vipond, “that was a dream. Three boys and a girl.”
“Yes.”
“What were they doing?”
“Ah, we thought you might be able to answer. Bramley wants to execute the boys and sell on the girl.”
“What on earth for?”
“He thinks they were part of the Gurrier band who attacked you.”
“They attacked us at least twenty-four hours before I was found. What in God’s name would they be doing there if they had anything to do with the Gurriers?”
“Bramley still wants to execute them. He says we need to send a message that anyone who attacks a minister of the Materazzi should know what’s coming to them.”
“He’s a bloodthirsty bastard, this Bramley of yours.”
“Oh, he’s not one of mine—God forbid.”
“What do these children have to say for themselves?”
“That they’d just arrived and were about to dig you up.”
“And you don’t believe them?”
“There were no signs of digging,” Albin paused. “And I wouldn’t say they were children exactly. The three boys are thirteen or fourteen, but hard-looking creatures. The girl, on the other hand, looks as if she’d been stored in soft soap. And what were they doing in the middle of the Scablands?”
“What did they have to say for themselves?”
“They said they were gypsies.”
Vipond laughed. “There haven’t been any gypsies in this part of the world since the Redeemers wiped them out sixty years ago.”
He looked thoughtful for a moment. “I’ll talk to them myself in a few days when I feel better. Pass me that cup of water, there’s a good fellow.”
Albin reached to the table beside the bed and handed Vipond the cup. He was looking very pale now.
“I’ll leave you, Chancellor.”
“You said there were two things?”
Albin stopped. “Yes. Before Bramley found you he caught IdrisPukke skulking about four or so miles away.”
“Excellent,” said Vipond, his eyes alight with interest. “I’ll talk to him tomorrow.”
“Unfortunately he escaped.”
Vipond gasped with irritation. He did not speak for nearly a minute.
“I want IdrisPukke. If he ever comes under your hand, you will bring him to me, and tell no one else.”
Albin nodded. “Of course.” He left Vipond’s room a satisfied man.
It was the sixth day of their captivity in the cells underneath Memphis, but despite the uncertainty the three boys were in good spirits. They had three good meals a day, which is to say that by the standards of a normal person they had three revolting meals a day; they were able to sleep as long as they liked, and they did so for as much as eighteen hours, as if making up for the deprivations of a lifetime. At about four in the afternoon their jailer unlocked the cell door and showed in Albin, who had interrogated them once before, along with a clearly much-revered man in his late fifties.
“Good afternoon,” said Lord Vipond.
Vague Henri and Kleist looked at him carefully from their beds. Cale was sitting on his with his knees drawn up to his chest and his hood drawn over his face.
“On your feet when Lord Vipond enters the room,” said Albin quietly. Slowly Vague Henri and Kleist stood up. Cale did not move.
“You, stand up and remove your hood—or I’ll get the guards to do it for you.” Again Albin’s voice was quiet, unthreatening, matter-of-fact.
There was a pause, and then Cale sprang to his feet as if rising from a refreshing sleep and flicked back his hood. He stared at the floor as if he found what was in the dust of immense interest.
“So,” said Vipond. “Do you recognize me?”
“Yes,” said Kleist. “You’re the man we tried to rescue in the Scablands.”
“That’s right,” said Vipond. “What were you doing there?”
“We’re gypsies,” said Kleist. “We got lost.”
“What kind of gypsies?”
“Oh, the usual kind,” said Kleist, smiling.
“Captain Bramley thinks you were trying to rob me.”
Kleist sighed. “He’s a bad man, that Captain Bram
ley, a very bad man. All we were doing was trying to save an important person like yourself and he chains us up like criminals and puts us in here. Not very grateful.”
There was a strange and alarming gaiety about the way Kleist was cheeking the great man in front of him, as if not only did he not expect to be believed, but he did not care whether he was or not. Vipond had met this kind of insolence from only one other source: men he had accompanied to the gallows who knew that nothing could save them.
“We were going to help you,” said Vague Henri—and of course from his point of view he was telling the truth.
Vipond looked over at Cale.
“What’s your name?”
Cale did not respond.
“Come with me.” Vipond walked to the door. The jailer quickly opened it. Vipond turned back to Cale. “Come on, boy. Are you deaf as well as insolent?” Cale looked at Vague Henri, who nodded, as if urging him to agree. Cale did not move for a moment but then slowly walked to the cell door.
“Follow us, if you’d be so kind, Captain Albin.” Vipond set off with Cale behind him and Albin hanging back, his finger loosening the clasp holding his shortsword in its scabbard. Kleist moved to the bars as the cell was locked.
“What about me? I fancy a walk too.”
Then the two boys heard the outer door being unlocked and Cale was gone.
“Are you sure,” asked Vague Henri, “that you’re all right in the head?”
Cale found himself in a pleasant courtyard with an elegant lawn at its center. They began to walk along the path that followed the walls, Cale keeping in step with Chancellor Vipond.
“I’ve always believed in the principle,” said Vipond, after they had been walking for a minute or so in silence, “that you should never tell your best friend anything you wouldn’t be prepared to tell your worst enemy. But now is a time, as far as you’re concerned, when honesty is very much the best policy. So I don’t want to hear any nonsense about gypsies, or indeed any other nonsense. I want the truth about who you are and what you were doing in the Scablands.”
“You mean the truth like I’d tell my best friend.”
“I may not be your best friend, young man, but I am your best hope. Tell me the truth and I might be prepared to take a generous view of the fact that, while the girl and the slow-witted one wanted to help me, you and that other guttersnipe wanted to leave me there.”
Cale looked at him. “Since we’re telling the truth, Lord, wouldn’t you have thought about what you were getting into—if you were in our shoes?”
“Indeed. Now get on with it. And if I think you’re lying, I’ll hand you over to Bramley as quick as two shakes of a lamb’s tail and no questions asked.”
Cale said nothing for a few seconds and then sighed as if he had made a decision.
“The three of us are Redeemers’ acolytes from the Great Sanctuary at Shotover.”
“Ah, the truth,” said Vipond, smiling. “It has a ring about it, don’t you find? And the girl?”
“We were looking for food in the combs—tunnels and hallways the Redeemers had closed off. We stumbled across her in a place we’ve never heard of. There were others like her.”
“Women in the Sanctuary? How very strange! Or perhaps not.”
“We were seen with the girl and we had no choice. We had to go on the lam.”
“A very great risk, I understand.”
“There was no risk at all if we’d stayed.”
“Quite so.” He thought about what he had heard for a minute or so as the two walked slowly in step around the courtyard, side by side. “And the Scablands?”
“It was the best place to hide—you can’t see far because of all the hillocks and eskers that break it up.”
“The Redeemers hunt with dogs. I’ve seen one—ugly as death but great sniffers.”
“I’d worked out how to stop them.” Cale explained, omitting the detail of his double escape. The fact of their escape may have been true, but whatever Vipond said, the events leading up to it did not sound true. And besides, they had all agreed to keep their story simple after Kleist’s half-witted attempt to claim they were gypsies. It was clear that whatever the Redeemers had told them about the gypsies was a lie: there had been no treacherous attack on the Sanctuary sixty years before followed by a punitive but restrained expedition to teach the gypsies to behave themselves in future. They must have massacred them to the last child.
“Will you hand us over to the Redeemer search party?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
Vipond laughed. “Good question. But we’ve no reason to. We don’t even have diplomatic relations. We only deal with them through the Duena.”
“Who are the Duena?”
“Do you know what a mercenary is?”
“Someone who kills for pay.”
“The Duena are mercenaries who are paid to negotiate instead of kill. We have so little in the way of dealings with the Redeemers it’s cheaper to pay someone else to do it on our behalf. Time for a change, I think. We’ve been remiss in remaining ignorant. You could be very useful. Their war in the Eastern Breaks has kept them busy for a hundred years. Perhaps they are planning something here—perhaps elsewhere. It’s time we knew more.” He smiled at the boy. “So perhaps you can trust me, because you can be of use.”
“Yes,” said Cale thoughtfully. “Perhaps.”
By now they had returned to the outer door of the cells. Vipond gave it a hefty thump with his fist and it opened immediately. He turned to Cale.
“In a few days you will be moved somewhere more comfortable. Until then you will be made more welcome—decent food and exercise.”
Cale nodded and went through the door, which shut quickly behind him.
Vipond turned as Albin came up behind him. “How very curious, my dear Albin; not like any children I’ve ever met. If any Redeemers turn up looking for them, they are to be told nothing and kept in the outskirts. The boys are to have house-arrest status.”
And with that Vipond walked away, calling out over his shoulder, “Bring the girl to me tomorrow at eleven.”
12
So, Riba,” said Vipond, affable as a kindly schoolmaster, “until these three young men stumbled upon this attempt by a Redeemer to assault you and during which he was knocked unconscious, you were completely unaware of the presence of men in the Sanctuary?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And yet you had lived there since you were ten years old and had been treated, from what you say, like a little princess? That’s very strange, don’t you think?”
“It was what I was used to, sir. We were given nearly everything we wanted, and the only strict rule, for which the punishment would be terrible, was not to leave our grounds. They were very large and the walls impossible to climb. And we were happy.”
“Did the women in charge of you explain why you were being treated with such kindness and generosity?”
Riba sighed for the death of a long-held dream.
“They said that when we were fifteen we would be taken to become brides in a place more wonderful even than the Sanctuary, and we would be blissfully happy forever. But only if we became as perfect as possible.”
“Perfect? In what way?” asked the now slightly startled Vipond.
“Our skin must be without flaw, our hair shiny and manageable, we must have wide, bright eyes, our cheeks pink, our breasts round and large, our buttocks large and smooth and between our legs, under our arms, nor anywhere else except our heads were we to permit the growth of a single hair. We must be always interested and charming and always smell of flowers. We must never be angry or scold or be critical of other people, but be kind and affectionate and always ready with kisses and tenderness.”
Both Albin and Vipond were men of considerable experience and had seen and heard many strange things, but when Riba had finished, neither of them could think of a thing to say. It was Albin who finally spoke.
“To go back to the assau
lt on you by this Redeemer. You’d never seen him before?”
“No, nor any man.”
“How,” asked Vipond, “did you practice your . . . tenderness? If you had no men.”
“On each other, sir.” This startled the two men even more.
“We would take it in turns and pretend to be tired and bad-tempered and shout a lot and bang doors, and one of the others would calm us down and be kind until we were happy.” She looked at them and realized that her answer had fallen short in some way. “Then there were the dolls.”
“The dolls?”
“Yes, the man dolls. We dressed them and massaged them and treated them like kings.”
“I see,” said Vipond.
“Me and Lena . . .” She stopped for a moment. “Lena was the girl the Redeemer killed—we were told we had been chosen to be sent to be married and live happily ever after. But then we were taken to that man’s room by our aunties—that’s what we called the women who brought us up and told us we were going to be married. But then that man came and he killed Lena.”
“Your aunties, they knew about what would happen to you?”
“Why would they do that, having been so kind to us? They must have been tricked.”
“Wasn’t it a strange coincidence,” said Albin, not now sure if they weren’t being led up the garden path, though she was, he thought, a brilliant liar if this was so, “that you should have come across this Redeemer and Cale all in twenty-four hours and that Cale should have arrived in the nick of time to save you?”
“Yes. I thought that—even at the time. How strange to come across four men at the same time after all those years—and one so cruel and the others risking their lives for me, for someone they didn’t know. Are such things common?”
“No,” said Vipond. “Not common. Thank you, Riba. That will be all for the moment.” He rang a bell in front of him. The door opened and in walked a young woman. She had about her the air of cool pride of any sixteen-year-old member of the aristocracy, as if she had seen everything and little of it held interest. But her eyes goggled when she saw Riba with her dark hair and enormous plump curves. Standing next to one another, they seemed to be creatures only distantly related.
