The Last Four Things

  ‘No’

  ‘Have you talked to anyone who has?’

  He laughed at such a barmy idea. ‘Of course not. What was a parish priest doing with the four books of the Redeemer? Only the Cardinals are supposed to read them and then only once in case they defile them with human understanding. There aren’t more than fifty of them and I can’t see them sharing with a priest from the parish of Bumhole-in-the-Dale. No offence.’

  She did seem, if not offended, then certainly startled.

  ‘It was a copy. I’m sure it was the parish priest’s handwriting – he wasn’t a proper scribe but his script was careful.’

  ‘So it was done from memory.’ It was clear what he thought of this and it wasn’t much.

  ‘Don’t you care what it said?’ she asked, clearly astonished.

  ‘No.’

  She would not be put off.

  ‘It said that we should love our neighbour as we love ourselves, do to others as we would be done by, that if someone strikes us on the left cheek we should turn the right one.’

  ‘Arse or face?’

  ‘It’s true!’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘It was written in the book itself.’

  ‘In some nutter Redeemer’s handwriting. They burn a dozen a year in the courtyard two hundred yards from here – madmen who’ve had the word of God revealed to them in a vision. The only difference is that your mopus had the sense at least to try and keep his gibberish locked away.’

  ‘It was the truth. I know it.’

  ‘That’s what they all say – what else?’

  ‘Peace and good will to all men,’ she said.

  Cale laughed as if this were the most delightfully funny thing he had ever heard. ‘Pull the other one,’ he said, ‘it’s got bells on. “Obey and suffer … Give in and take your kicking”, that’s more the Redeemer style.’

  She looked at him eyes as wide, thought Cale, as that weird creature in the zoo at Memphis, the one with the index finger half the size of its body.

  ‘Those who hurt children are to be punished. It will be better for them if they had a millstone tied around their neck and be cast into the sea.’

  Oddly enough he did not seem to find this so amusing and said nothing for some time. She sat on the edge of the bed looking frail and scrawny and he thought about what was going to happen to her and he felt bad about laughing at the things that had brought her here to this dreadful place.

  ‘I’ll do what I can to get some food to you.’ It was all the comfort he could imagine. She looked at him and it made him feel horribly old and bad, very bad.

  ‘Can you help me to get away?’

  ‘No. I wish I could but I can’t.’

  Once outside the House of Special Purpose it was to find that winter had arrived at last and in the great square of the Sanctuary the new-fallen snow lay round about, deep and crisp and even. The choughs coughed in the leafless trees as Cale crunched past and the nail-toothed hunting dogs barked at the cold as if it were a burglar or escapee. Nothing could give the drably monumental buildings of the Sanctuary charm, but covered in snow and lit by the only fitfully clouded moon it had that night a frigid beauty to it – as long as you didn’t have to live there.

  Later he asked Bosco if he could send the Maid food.

  ‘I can’t allow that.’

  ‘You won’t.’

  ‘No. I can’t. You’ve never heard that phrase: “A lion at home, a spaniel in the world?”’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well, now you have.’

  ‘What’s a spaniel?’

  ‘A dog notorious for its willingness to please. I can explain your presence in her cell – but only once. When it became known – and it would in a matter of days – that I had allowed her to eat more than necessary to keep her alive for the executioner I would be instantly revealed as a heretic. As I would be. Her sins against the Redeemer faith cannot be weighed.’

  ‘I gave her a promise.’

  ‘Then more fool you.’

  ‘And her sins cannot be weighed because she read the copy of the sayings of the Hanged Redeemer and talked about them?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You burned the book she found I suppose.’

  ‘It seemed best.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And what?’ His taunting of Cale almost involved a kind of gaiety.

  ‘This book of sayings of the Hanged Redeemer. What was it?’

  A thoughtful, still teasing grimace from Bosco.

  ‘It was a book of sayings of the Hanged Redeemer.’

  A silence.

  ‘You’re mocking me.’

  ‘Yes. But it was still a copy of the sayings of the Hanged Redeemer.’

  ‘A good copy.’

  ‘Good enough – a few errors but he was an intelligent man with an excellent memory.’

  ‘Was?’

  ‘Now you’re being deliberately slow.’

  ‘So why was it so sinful what she did?’

  Bosco laughed. ‘As you said yourself: the word of God is easily soiled by human understanding. That’s terribly good, by the way. Would you object if I used it in a sermon?’

  ‘You were listening?’

  ‘Did you ever suspect otherwise?’

  Cale did not reply for a moment. ‘I don’t know what it means, not really. It’s just something I heard a friend of mine say in Memphis. He was joking.’

  Bosco was a little disappointed. He had felt rather proud of Cale when he’d heard him say it. It had been, after all, just right. Perhaps the fact that he could not keep his promise to the girl had taken the wind out of his great vanity for a minute. And why not explain, after all?

  ‘Even for those Redeemers who do not realize that God has decided to begin again, what we would agree on is that when it comes to men and to women there is no end to their garboils and quarrels over everything. There is no statement direct from the mouth of God, no matter how plain and easy to understand, that will not have them cutting each other’s throats over what it truly means. As for me: to publish the word of God to mankind is casting pearls before swine. Either way, what the Maid of Blackbird Leys has done is unforgivable.’

  But later that night the snow brought more than an unaccustomed allure to the Sanctuary – it had also driven Redeemer General Guy Van Owen to take refuge there. He had been waiting outside the great gates for ten minutes and was in a foul mood because the guards had refused to let him in. Van Owen had intended to return to his command on the Golan Heights that protected the Eastern Front, a journey that normally meant avoiding the Sanctuary and Bosco by twenty miles. But the snow had made the way impassable and unprepared in his rush to return in such extreme weather he was obliged to take shelter where he could or die. He also hated Bosco because thirty years earlier he thought he had seen him smile dismissively during a sermon he had given on Holy Emulsion. In fact Bosco had merely been bored and was thinking of the hot chocolate that would follow Van Owen’s sermon – a rare treat special to that particular holyday because the saint in question had been boiled alive in sugar.

  Finally Bosco turned up in one of the towers that guarded the great gate.

  ‘Who are you and what do you want?’

  ‘You know damn well who I am,’ shouted back Van Owen.

  ‘I only know who you told the Colour Chaplain you were. If you think that’s enough to get you and a hundred men inside the Sanctuary uninspected and in the middle of the night …’ He did not finish his sentence.

  Van Owen swore and shouted at his lighterman to raise his lantern up so that he could remove his hood and show himself.

  ‘Satisfied?’

  ‘Get the lighterman to go along the ranks. I want to see the men with you.’

  ‘Buggeration!’ He turned to the lighterman. ‘Do as he says.’ It took another ten minutes for Bosco to be s
atisfied. It was certainly the case that he would have done this even had Van Owen been an ally but he had to admit that the delay gave him a mean-spirited pleasure. Eventually Bosco was persuaded and disappeared from Van Owen’s view. He was made to wait, increasingly furious and uncertain, for another two minutes and then the gates slowly swung open – but only partly so that the men and horses were obliged to come in slowly one by one.

  Van Owen came in first, looking for a row with Bosco.

  ‘Where is he?’ he shouted at the Colour Chaplain.

  ‘The Lord Redeemer has gone to bed, Redeemer. He’ll send for you after mass tomorrow morning. I’ll show you to your room. Your men are to sleep in the main hall which will be locked.’

  Fuming, Van Owen was led across the pristine snow unwatched by his men, who were only interested in stabling the horses and getting out of the cold. But one person was observing him carefully from a high window. When he had made his bad-tempered way into the main building Cale lit a beeswax candle, went to the library, unlocked the door with a key he had stolen from Bosco and searched carefully in the stacks for the file on Van Owen and a much thinner testament, ‘Tactics of the Laconic Mercenary’. Then he sat down at Bosco’s desk in Bosco’s padded chair and began to read.

  ‘I must be back in Golan as soon as possible.’

  ‘What’s your hurry, Redeemer?’

  ‘Tell your acolyte to leave if you would.’

  ‘My acolyte?’ Bosco looked bemused. ‘Oh, this is not my acolyte. This is Thomas Cale.’

  Van Owen looked at Cale, his expression a mix of the reluctantly impressed and the dismissive. Cale stared back, blank as you like.

  ‘If you wish him to stay,’ said Van Owen, ‘by all means.’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘Now as time is so short …’ Van Owen paused but only so that he could deliver his news momentously. ‘There are eight thousand Laconic mercenaries in the pay of the Antagonists marching through the Machair towards the Golan Heights.’

  ‘And you’re to take command of their defence.’ It was a statement rather than a question.

  ‘No,’ said Van Owen, clearly delighted at least to have something over Bosco. ‘That is not my intention. The Golan is to be the base for a forward defence of the Heights. I am determined not to allow these creatures to inspire the fear and alarm they are accustomed to. A Redeemer army has nothing to fear of any soldier, particularly not these frightful sodomites. I have eight thousand of my own men waiting on the Golan and by tomorrow they will be joined by another ten thousand.’

  ‘You have nothing to fear but you intend to outnumber them more than two to one?’

  Van Owen smiled, feeling that he had surprised Bosco with his daring.

  ‘You are not the only one, Bosco, who believes in new tactics. But I intend to be bold without taking unnecessary risks.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Bosco, as if conceding something. ‘It is bold.’

  There was a satisfied but silent acknowledgement from Van Owen. Cale spoke for the first time.

  ‘It’s mad attacking them on the Machair.’

  ‘You know it well do you, little boy?’

  ‘I know that it’s mostly flat – and flat is flat wherever you are. It couldn’t be better ground for the Laconics to fight on. Attack them there and they’ll think all their birthdays have come at once.’ The phrase about birthdays was one he’d heard often in Memphis and liked the way it sounded. As he realized when he said it aloud in Bosco’s rooms it had less of a ring to it when used to someone who didn’t have a birthday. You will remember that a Redeemer had the right to kill an acolyte who did something sufficiently unexpected. Who knows what might have happened if Van Owen had been less astonished at being talked to in such a way or had brought a weapon with him.

  Bosco reached across the table and fetched Cale an enormous blow to the face. This time it was Cale’s turn to be stunned by shock into inaction.

  ‘You must forgive him,’ said Bosco calmly to Van Owen. ‘I have indulged him in the interests of his talents for the glory of our Redeemer and he has grown big-headed and insolent. If you will excuse us you will have every assistance and I will punish him. I am deeply sorry.’

  Such humility from his enemy was almost as surprising as the rudeness of Cale, and Van Owen found himself nodding idiotically and then outside in the corridor as Bosco showed him to the door and closed it behind him.

  The Redeemer General turned barely breathing to look at Cale. It was not a pleasant sight. The boy had gone white with fury, an expression Bosco had never seen before not just on Cale but on anyone.

  ‘There is a knife in the drawer just on the left,’ said Bosco. ‘But before you kill me, which I know you can do, just hear me out.’

  Cale did not reply or even change his expression but neither did he move.

  ‘You were about to say something that could have changed the world. Never,’ he said, softly but shaking slightly, ‘never interrupt your enemy when he’s making a mistake.’

  Cale still did not move – but slowly a sort of colour, a kind of inhuman reddish tinge began to return to his face.

  ‘I’m going to sit down,’ said Bosco. ‘Over here. Then when I’ve finished you can decide whether or not to kill me.’ For the first time since he had turned back from the door he looked away from Cale and sat down on a wooden bench against the wall. Cale’s eyes lost the yellowy wild-dog look as something human began to seep back into them.

  Bosco let out a deep breath and began talking again.

  It was twenty-four hours before Cale turned up in the convent to tell Vague Henri what had happened.

  ‘I came this close,’ said Cale, holding his thumb and forefinger almost together, ‘to killing him.’

  ‘Why didn’t you?’

  ‘My guardian angel, my guardian angel stopped me.’

  Vague Henri laughed.

  ‘Did he give you a name? Because I’d like to thank him, that guardian angel of yours. He saved my neck.’

  ‘Don’t be too pleased because there’s bad news too.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Bosco made a bargain with Van Owen to take me and the Purgators with him.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘As observers. He told him that me and the Purgators however successful in the veldt had a lot to learn from a soldier like Van Owen. That and a bribe.’

  ‘A bribe?’ Vague Henri was wide-eyed at this. Perhaps there’s a point beyond which the human heart contains so much loathing it cannot be added to. That was certainly what it seemed like to Vague Henri when he thought about the Redeemers. But he was shocked almost by the idea of one of them accepting a bribe.

  ‘Bosco offered him,’ said Cale, ‘the preserved foot of St Barnabus. Van Owen has a personal devotion to St Barnabus. You know that stuff that the cats in Memphis go off their tracks for – he was just like that.’ Cale could not bring himself to tell Vague Henri that he also had to apologize to Van Owen. It was necessary but heart-scalding.

  You must eat it up, Bosco had said. You will shortly watch him fail and that will make up for it.

  Are you sure he’ll fail?

  No.

  ‘What’s the bad news?’ said Vague Henri.

  ‘You’re going to come with me.’

  ‘Me? Why?’

  ‘Because I asked for you.’

  ‘What the bloody hell did you do that for?’

  ‘Because I need you with me.’

  ‘No you don’t.’

  ‘You should think better of yourself.’

  ‘There’s nothing wrong with the way I think about myself.’

  ‘I need someone to listen to my ideas. Who else can I talk to?’

  ‘I don’t want to go.’

  ‘I’ll bet you don’t. I’ll bet you’d rather stay here getting your end away with a shoal of beezles who think the sun shines out of your backs
ide – but you can’t. Time to wake up.’

  ‘All right!’ shouted Vague Henri. ‘All right! All right! All right!’ He breathed out like a bad-tempered horse and swore. ‘When?’

  ‘Tomorrow as he purposes.’

  ‘Why is Bosco letting me go?’

  ‘Because he thinks we won’t, either of us, leave the girls in the lurch.’

  ‘And will we?’

  ‘I don’t know. What do you think?’

  Vague Henri did not reply directly.

  ‘At least it explains why he let us enjoy the sins of the flesh.’

  ‘It explains why he let you enjoy them. He let me in there because you can’t corrupt the Wrath of God.’

  ‘And is that what you are?’

  ‘What do you think?’

  ‘You keep asking me that.’

  ‘Because I want to know. I value your opinion – I told you.’ There was a pause. ‘Talking of which, what do you think about taking my acolyte, Model, into the convent before we go?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘It would be a kindness. Who knows what will happen to us? He might never get a chance to see a woman.’

  Vague Henri looked at him, furious now.

  ‘They’re not animals in the Memphis Zoo. They don’t belong to you so you can lend them out to your pals.’

  ‘All right, keep you hair on. I don’t remember you objecting when it was your turn.’

  ‘They’re not turns.’

  ‘Have it your own way. Good God! It was just an idea.’

  Vague Henri did not reply.

  The next day, two hours into the journey to the Golan Heights, Vague Henri was cold, miserable and deeply, deeply missing the lovely girls he’d left behind, nearly all of them in tears except for his favourite Vincenza who kissed him on both cheeks and then lightly on the lips. He shivered, and not from the cold, as he remembered what she had whispered in his ears between these soft kisses. She, wisest of the girls by far, was signalling him out as hers.

  ‘Come back to me and I’ll show you something you’ve never seen before.’

  He missed them horribly and who can blame him. If there was a heaven how could it be better than life in the convent? Other, of course, than not being surrounded by hell. And that was the problem of problems – he was, he knew, willing to go through hell to get back to them but he was not able to. There was only one person with the skill required, the menace and the violence and the rage.