The Left Hand Of God (6 page)

“Right,” said Kleist, “let’s have a look at what’s wrong.” He was clearly enjoying the chance to demonstrate his sense of superiority and very keen that Cale should know he was enjoying it too.

Cale raised the longbow Kleist had handed him, pulled back the drawstring to his cheek, aimed, held for a second, and then loosed the arrow to its target eighty yards away. He groaned even as it left the bow. The arrow arced toward the target, the size and shape of a man’s body, and missed by several feet.

“Shit!”

“Oh dear, oh dear,” said Kleist, “I haven’t seen anything like that since . . . well, I can’t remember. You used to be adequate—where on earth did you pick up a set of shanks like that from?”

“Just tell me what I need to do to put them right.”

“Oh, that’s easy enough. You’re plucking the bowstring when you should just be letting it go—like this.” He twanged at the string of his own bow to show what Cale was doing wrong and then showed him, with enormous pleasure, how it should be done. “You’re also opening your mouth when you shoot and dropping the elbow of your string arm before you let loose.” Cale started to protest. “And,” interrupted Kleist, “you’re letting your string hand creep forward at the same time.”

“All right, I get the point. Just talk me through it. I’ve just got into some bad habits, that’s all.”

Kleist drew in his breath through his teeth as melodramatically as possible.

“I’m not sure, myself, if it’s as simple as a few bad habits. I think you’re probably a choker.” He pointed to his head with a finger. “I think you’ve lost it up here, mate. Now that I think about it, yours is the worst case of the yips I’ve ever seen.”

“You just made that up.”

“You’ve got the yips all right, the staggers, the twitches. No known cure. All that mouth gaping and elbow dropping—just an exterior mark of the state of your soul. The real problem’s in your spirit.” Kleist put an arrow in his bow, drew back the string, and let it loose in one elegant movement. It arced beautifully and landed with a satisfying
thwack
in the chest of the target. “You see, perfect—an outward sign of inward grace.”

By now Cale was laughing. He turned back to the quiver of arrows lying on the bench behind him, but as he did so he saw Bosco walking through the middle of the field and approach Redeemer Gil, who immediately gestured an acolyte forward. Cale heard a soft “Zut!” behind him and turned his head to see Kleist furtively aiming his bow at the distant Bosco and making the sound of an arrow on its way.

“Go on. I dare you.”

Kleist laughed and turned back to his pupils sitting and talking some distance away. One of them, Donovan, had as usual taken advantage of any pause to begin sermonizing on the evils of the Antagonists. “They don’t believe in a purgatory where you can burn away your sins and then go to heaven. They believe in justification by faith.” There was a gasp of disbelief from some of the acolytes who were listening. “They claim that each one of us is saved or damned by the unalterable choice of the Redeemer and there is nothing you can do about it. And they take the tunes from drinking songs and use them for their hymns. The Hanged Redeemer that they believe in never existed, and so they will die in their sins because they have a horror of confession, and so will depart this life with all their transgressions printed on their souls and be damned.”

“Shut your gob, Donovan,” said Kleist, “and get back to work.”

Once the acolyte had left with his message for Cale, Bosco waved Redeemer Gil to one side so they could not be heard.

“There are rumors that the Antagonists are talking to the Laconic mercenaries.”

“Are they solid?”

“They’re solid by the standard of rumors.”

“Then we should be worried.” A thought struck Gil. “They’ll need ten thousand or more to break us. How will they pay?”

“The Antagonists have found silver mines at Laurium. Not a rumor.”

“Then God help us. Even we have no more than a few thousand troops . . . three, maybe . . . capable of going up against Laconic hired men. Their reputation isn’t exaggerated.”

“God helps those who help themselves. If we cannot deal with men who fight only for money and not the glory of God, then we deserve to fail. It’s a test and to be expected.” He smiled. “In spite of dungeon, fire and sword—isn’t that right, Redeemer?”

“Well, My Lord Militant, if it is a test, it’s one I don’t know how to pass, and if
I
don’t—pardon the sin of pride—there’s no other Redeemer who does.”

“Are you quite sure? About the sin of pride, I mean.”

“What are you saying? It’s not necessary to be obscure with me. I deserve better at your hands.”

“Of course. My apologies for my own presumption.” He beat himself gently on the chest three times. “
Mea culpa. Mea culpa. Mea maxima culpa.
I have been expecting this, or something like it, for some time. I have always felt that our faith would be tested and tested harshly. The Redeemer was sent to save us and mankind replied to that divine gift by hanging my love from a gibbet.” His eyes began to mist over as he stared into the distance as if at something he had witnessed himself, though a millennium had passed since the Redeemer’s execution. He sighed deeply again as if at a terrible and recent grief and then looked directly at Gil. “I can’t say more.” He touched his arm lightly and with true affection. “Except that if this report is true, then I haven’t been idle in my search for an end to the apostasy of the Antagonists and to putting right the awful crime of doing murder to the only messenger of God.” He smiled at Gil. “There is a new tactic.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Not a military tactic—a new way of seeing things. We should no longer think just of the problem of the Antagonists—but of an ultimate solution to the problem of human evil itself.”

He urged Gil closer and lowered his voice still further.

“For too long we have been ready to think only about the Antagonist heresy and our war with them—what they do, what they don’t do. We have forgotten that they’re of secondary importance to our purpose to allow no god but the One True God and no faith but the One True Faith. We’ve allowed ourselves to become stuck in this war as if it were an end in itself—we have let it become one squabble in a world filled with squabbles.”

“Forgive me, Lord, but the Eastern Front covers a thousand miles and the dead can be numbered in hundreds of thousands—that’s not a squabble.”

“We are not the Materazzi or the Janes, interested in war only for gain or power. But that’s all we have become. One power amongst many in the war of all against all because, like them, we desire victory but fear defeat.”

“It’s sensible to be leery of defeat.”

“We are the representatives of God on earth through His Redeemer. There is a single purpose to our existence and we’ve forgotten it because we’re afraid. So things must change: better to fall once than be forever falling. Either we believe that we have God on our side or we do not. If that’s what we truly believe rather than what we affect to believe, then it follows that we must pursue absolute victory or none at all.”

“If you say so, Lord.”

Bosco laughed, a sweet sound, genuinely amused.

“I do say so, friend.”

Both Cale and Kleist were aware of the acolyte as he walked up to them, pleased at the chance to deliver what he clearly felt was unpleasant news. As he started to speak, Kleist interrupted.

“What do you want, Salk? I’m busy.”

This put Salk off the slow malice with which he’d intended to spin out his news.

“Tough titty, Kleist. It’s got nothing to do with you. Redeemer Bosco wants to see Cale in his rooms after night prayers.”

“Fine,” said Kleist, as if this were utterly routine. “Now piss off.”

Taken off guard both by the hostile lack of curiosity and by the fact that Cale was staring at him oddly, Salk spat on the ground to show his own indifference and walked away. Cale and Kleist looked at each other. Because Cale was Bosco’s zealot, calls for him to go and see the Lord Militant, something that would have terrified any other boy, were not uncommon. What was unusual, and therefore disturbing given the events of the day before, was that Cale had been called to his private rooms and not until late evening. This had never happened before.

“What if he knows?” said Kleist.

“Then we’d be in the House of Special Purpose already.”

“It’d be just like Bosco to make us think that.”

“I suppose. But there’s nothing we can do about it now.” Cale drew back the bow, held for a second and then loosed the arrow. It arced toward the target and missed by a good twelve inches.

The three had already agreed to escape dinner. Normally to be anywhere but where you were supposed to be was dangerous, but it was unheard of for an acolyte to be absent from a mealtime because they were always hungry, however repellent the food. As a result, the Redeemers were at their least vigilant at the evening meal, something that made it easier for Cale and Kleist to hide behind Basilica Number Four and wait for Vague Henri to bring them their food from the sacristy. They ate the food more slowly this time, and not much of it, but ten minutes later they were all sick.

Half an hour later Cale was waiting in the dark corridor outside the Lord Militant’s rooms. An hour later he was still there. Then the cast-iron door opened and the tall figure of Bosco stood watching him.

“Come in.”

Cale followed him into rooms only slightly less gloomy than the corridor. If he had expected to see anything of the private man after all these years, Cale would have been disappointed. There were doors leading off the room he entered, but they were shut and all there was to see was a study and with little in it. Bosco sat down behind his desk and examined a piece of paper in front of him. Cale stood and waited, knowing that it might be a requisition for the withdrawal of a dozen blue sacks or his own death warrant.

After a few minutes Bosco spoke, but without looking up and in a tone of mild inquiry.

“Is there anything you want to tell me?”

“No, Lord,” replied Cale.

Still Bosco did not look up.

“If you lie to me, there’s nothing I can do to save you.” He looked Cale straight in the eyes, his gaze infinitely cold and infinitely black. It was death itself looking at him. “So, I ask you again. Is there anything you want to tell me?”

Holding his gaze, Cale replied. “No, Lord.”

The Lord Militant did not look away, and Cale felt his will begin to dissolve as if some acid were being poured over his very soul. A horrible desire to confess began to grow in his throat. It was dread, the knowledge that had been with him since he was a small boy, that the Redeemer in front of him was capable of anything, that pain and suffering were the constant companions of this man, that anything that lived grew quiet in his presence.

Bosco looked back at the paper in front of him and signed his name. Then he folded the paper and sealed it with red wax. He handed it to Cale.

“Take this to the Lord of Discipline.”

A cold wind swept through Cale.

“Now?”

“Yes. Now.”

“It’s dark. The dorm will be locked in a few minutes.”

“Never mind about that. It’s been seen to.”

Without looking up, Redeemer Bosco began writing again.

Cale did not move. The Redeemer looked up again.

Instinct fought instinct in Cale. If he confessed, the Redeemer might help. He was his zealot after all. He might save him. But other creatures in Cale’s soul were screaming at him, “Never confess! Never admit guilt! Never! Always deny everything. Always.”

Cale turned and walked to the door, fighting his urge to run. Once outside he closed the iron door and stared back into the room as if it were as transparent as glass, eyes filled with hatred and loathing.

He walked to the nearest adjoining corridor and stopped under the dim light from a candle set into the wall. He knew that it was a deliberate test by Bosco, that he was offering him the chance to open the letter, an offense that would lead to his immediate execution. If Bosco knew about yesterday, it was possible this was an instruction to the Lord of Discipline to have him killed—it would be Bosco’s way to arrange for Cale to deliver his own death warrant. But it might be nothing, just another of the endless attempts by the Lord Militant to test him whenever he could.

He took a deep breath and tried to see things as they were, uncolored by fear. It was, of course, obvious: there might be nothing deadly in this letter, although its consequences were bound to be unpleasant and painful—but to open it would mean certain death. With that, he started walking toward the office of the Lord of Discipline, though all the time there were hammers beating in his brain about what he would do if the worse came to the worst.

Within ten minutes, having once become briefly lost in the warren of corridors, he approached the Chamber of Salvation. For a moment in the deep gloom he stood in front of the great door, heart beating with fear and anger. Then he noticed it was unlocked and very slightly ajar.

Cale paused for a moment, thinking about what to do. He looked at the document he was holding and then pushed the door open enough so that he could see inside. At the far side of the room he could see the Lord of Discipline bent over something and singing to himself.

Faith of our fathers, living still

In spite of dungeons, fire, and sword

Da dum de dum de dum de dum dum

Da dum de dum de dum de dum

Faith of our fathers, dum de dum

We will be true to thee till death.

Then he stopped singing and humming, needing to concentrate particularly hard on something. That part of the room was as well lit as anything could be by candlelight, and it seemed as if the Lord of Discipline was enclosing the light in a kind of dome of warm brightness bounded by the shape of his body. As Cale’s eyes adjusted, he could see that the Lord was leaning over a wooden table about six feet by two and there was something lying on it, though the end of it was wrapped in cloth. Then the humming started again, and the Lord of Discipline turned aside and dropped something small and hard onto an iron plate. Picking up a pair of scissors next to it, he turned back to his work.