The Last Four Things

  ‘What are you doing?’

  She had not moved but merely opened up her eyes and was suddenly awake. Had he been looking at her face, as most of the time he had, or turned his body facing her she might have seen the tenderness. She pulled the sheet over her, the action itself a terrible rebuke – an oeillade of disgust upon her pretty face.

  ‘I feel exposed,’ she said, shaking with a revulsion incomprehensible to him. He started to speak, to explain.

  ‘Don’t. Please go.’

  And so he did. Given a little luck this night of humiliation might have passed him by, he might have found sleep easier to come by that night, she might have stayed asleep herself and all would have been well and all manner of things.

  Eventually to the gentle sound of the small bells that rang the quarter-hours at Chartres he fell asleep. At six he was woken by Vague Henri and there was no time for anything but war and matters of life and death.

  Redeemer General Bosco would very much have liked to be equally single-minded. But he had a visitor. At first there were too many instructions to be given and information to be taken in but finally the scrawny Redeemer was so insistent he be heard that he stopped for a moment, attentive only so that this nuisance would go away.

  ‘Who are you?’ said Bosco.

  The man sighed, clearly unhappy about his treatment. He was a man who expected to be taken seriously.

  ‘I am Redeemer Yes, from the Office of the Holy Spirit.’

  ‘Never heard of them.’

  ‘We used to be the Office of Celibacy.’

  ‘Oh, I’ve heard of them.’

  ‘So you can see that this is no trivial matter.’

  ‘What is it you want?’

  ‘To help you, Redeemer.’

  ‘I’m trying to fight a war, you can help by going away.’

  ‘The church has a duty in love to help its bishops.’

  ‘I’m not a bishop.’

  ‘Its bishops and equally senior prelates to disable our celibate prelates from straying. As an act of love we of my office wish to be present with the prelate at all times to prevent any private or secretive lives. How can we ask of you, Redeemer, that all your actions as father of the church be pure and not give you the help required?’

  ‘Help?’

  ‘Constant attendance by a member of the office.’

  ‘In my bedroom, constant attendance?’

  ‘Especially your bedroom, Redeemer. But your helper will be blindfolded during the hours of darkness. And you will be provided as a further act of love with a pair of night gloves. Night gloves are…’

  ‘Yes, I understand,’ interrupted Bosco. His face softened. ‘I understand your concerns, of course, Redeemer. Yes. You are right to say there can be no intrusion into the privacy of someone who has no private life.’ He smiled, as if regretfully. ‘But you see I must deal with … not a greater threat, perhaps, but a more pressing one.’

  Redeemer Yes did not look as if he agreed that offences against the Holy Spirit were any more pressing than questions of survival. ‘I will be back soon, one way or another – if I am spared – and then we can give this matter the attention it deserves.’

  Redeemer Yes was not entirely at ease with this. It was a matter of deep regret to him that bishops were not more welcoming to him and his office. He was obviously only trying to help but you would hardly think so. With some reluctance he agreed to return the following week and then left. As soon as he had done so Bosco called Gil over to him. ‘That Redeemer Yes. Put him on the list.’

  The issue of being watched was also on the mind of others.

  ‘How are we going to get away now you’ve been made the Lord bloody God Almighty of Everything?’

  ‘What was I supposed to do – refuse? I’m all ears if you can come up with something.’

  ‘Oh, I can see you’re heartbroken.’ Vague Henri looked at him as unfriendly as you like. ‘You want this, don’t you?’

  ‘What I’d say is that as usual I can either like it or lump it. So what? I’m doing something I’m good at and it’s not as if I had a choice anyway.’

  ‘Lose.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Lose!’

  ‘Why don’t you say it louder? I don’t think they’ll have heard you on the other side of the city.’

  ‘All right. Pretend I said it softly.’

  ‘I never heard anything so bloody daft in all my life.’

  ‘Why? Let the Laconics through and you said yourself they could start rolling up the trenches all the way to Tripoli. Chartres will be lost in a week and then no one to stand in their way for three thousand miles. Why are we trying to stop them?’

  ‘Because they’re going to roll us up with them. You know what they do, the Laconics, don’t you, to little boys? Or they would if they took prisoners. I killed Folk Antagonists by the thousand on the veldt. You think they haven’t heard all about Bosco’s Angel of Death. The Antagonists used to have twelve cards with a description of all the most unclean Redeemers who were to be killed on sight. Now there are thirteen.’

  ‘And I bet you were delighted when you heard: Thomas Cale, the big “I am”.’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘You know damn well.’

  ‘I never asked you to come after me. What are you doing here?’ It was a question delivered with as much bile as he was capable of. And it stung.

  ‘I keep asking myself the same question.’

  ‘Well, it’s a pity you didn’t ask it in Memphis. Or anywhere else but here. For God’s sake, as if I didn’t have enough to worry about.’

  ‘I didn’t notice you complaining when I kept you alive while you played at being Fritigern the Frightful on the steps of old Materazzi’s palace. And when you charged down the hill at Silbury like the bloody stupid berk you are over that treacherous beezle Arbell bloody Swan-Neck I saved your life a dozen times while you were thrashing about like a fish on a slab.’

  There was a poisonous stay. And it was Cale who spoke first.

  ‘I think you’ll find that at Silbury Hill you didn’t save my life above half a dozen times. But it’s good to know you were counting.’

  ‘I think you’ll find I had a better view of what happened there than you did.’

  ‘I’m not a stupid berk,’ said Cale.

  ‘Yes, you are,’ replied Vague Henri. ‘We need to think about how to get away and now.’

  ‘Now you’re the one being a berk. There’s nowhere to get away to. In case you’ve gone deaf: we’re surrounded by murderous bastards on all three sides. When we were in Memphis I didn’t notice anyone there had a good word to say for the Antagonists. Just because they’re not Redeemers doesn’t mean it’s all cigarette trees and a lie-in on Sundays.’

  ‘They can’t be worse than the Redeemers.’

  ‘Yes they can. And even if they’re not – as far as they’re concerned we’re Redeemers and me in particular. Who do you think I was fighting on the veldt – old Mother Hubbard?’

  There was a knock on the door, which was instantly opened by the guard outside. It was Bosco. He was a lot less cheerful than the last time they’d seen him.

  ‘The Pope has confirmed your appointment, temporarily. You must sign these.’ He laid out two documents on the table.

  ‘What are they?’

  ‘Warrants.’

  ‘What sort of warrant?’

  ‘This one is for the execution of the Maid of Blackbird Leys.’

  ‘She’s just a girl.’

  ‘Clearly not. Sign.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I told you – she’s just a girl.’

  ‘You know she nailed placards on the doors of churches in the eight towns criticizing the Pope’s burning of heretics as being contrary to the merciful teachings of the Hanged Redeemer. How could you do such a thing and
expect to live?’

  ‘And do the stars still shine?’

  ‘You’re being ridiculous. You know very well she must not live but die.’

  And indeed he did know. It was surprising she had not caught fire spontaneously so great were the number of her inflammatory crimes. ‘Let me list them for you,’ said Bosco. ‘Written words on a church door. Death. She criticized the Pope. Death. She showed consideration for the lives of heretics. Death. And she offered an opinion about the human quality of the Hanged Redeemer. Death. And had been a woman while she did so. Whipping. And all of this while dressed as a man so that she could manage to reach the door during the night. Death.’ He gestured to the warrant. ‘Sign if you please. Sign if you don’t please. But sign.’

  ‘Why does it need my signature?’

  ‘Because the Pope is merciful he may not sign death warrants. They must be signed by the commander of the military wing of the Redeemers in Chartres. And that, as of this morning, is you.’

  ‘As I’m the commander I’ve decided to think about it.’

  ‘Oddly enough, it’s not quite that simple. When you leave here, which should be by this afternoon, the next most senior military cleric in the city, which is to say me, becomes commander of the garrison. And I will sign.’

  ‘Then there’s no problem.’

  ‘Yes there is. Signing this warrant is a great honour, as is attending the execution of that warrant. If you don’t sign it will mean that your first act as a direct appointee of the Pontiff is to insult the One True Faith. Egregiously. You will be removed from office and then you’ll be good for neither man nor beast. She’s dead whatever you do. Sign.’

  Cale looked at him, sullen and deflated.

  ‘Van Owen,’ he said, at last, ‘Van Owen is the next most senior military cleric in the city.’

  ‘Not,’ said Bosco, quietly, ‘when you sign the second warrant.’

  As you will know if you’ve ever attended two of them, one execution is very much like another: the crowd, the wait, the arrival, the shouts, the screaming, the long or short death, the blood or ashes on the ground.

  It was a feature of the Redeemers’ dealings with one another that they were as obsequious and fawning as they were disdainful and arbitrary towards anyone who was not. Outside of the occasional reign of terror concerning Antagonist conspiracy or fiddling with boys, Redeemers were indulgent when it came to each other’s sins. Even when it came to the grave matter of boys it was something that had to be witnessed mid-fiddle by an ordained Redeemer if the charge were to stick. As the consequences of bringing a false accusation – which is to say a true accusation that failed – the results for the accuser were hideous. The Redeemers were able to congratulate themselves that such filthiness was rare by ensuring that only the most desperate victims made a fuss. Most of these victims soon came to regret it.

  Usually very cautious about punishing one of their own, the decision to blame Van Owen for the defeat in front of the Golan was unprecedented. Van Owen, therefore, was to be charged with treachery not incompetence. It was, after all, improbable that a general who had always fought well in the past should suddenly lead his men so badly. It was obvious therefore that this was an example of something that was often used to explain great Redeemer defeats: ‘The stab in the back.’ The Battle of Eight Martyrs had been a stab in the back because it was as plain as the nose on your face that Van Owen was a secret Antagonist traitor and had conspired to create a defeat out of certain victory.

  Van Owen was tried in his absence to ensure he did not use the occasion to spread any filthy Antagonist lies and this was what brought him to the Square of Emancipation mid-afternoon only three days after he had been condemned. However, even the Redeemer Bishop of Verona, head of the Sodality of the Black Cordelias who had suffered such terrible losses, had not objected when Van Owen’s sentence was passed along with the not inconsiderable privilege of being hanged before he was burned. While personally he would have liked to disembowel Van Owen with a blunt shovel for causing the near annihilation of the Black Cordelias, even he was unwilling to break that precedent. One never knew after all.

  The Notable Redeemers, led by a sulky looking Cale, sat on a platform overlooking the Square of Emancipation and two scaffolds. The Pope was not there and neither was Vague Henri. There was a good crowd, though, waiting with a seething good humour for someone to take the blame.

  When he appeared between four guards there was a ripple of excitement from the crowd, some wild applause, a few indecent gibes and a fierce joy which, as the historian Solerine said later, ‘made them resemble rather wild beasts than men’. Despite the many guards, the crowd pushed further towards the scaffold so they could get a better look. As was the custom the Dominican Overseer Novella ordered Van Owen to be stripped of his robe. Although he remained wearing a woollen tunic there was loudly muttered disapproval from the back of the Redeemer platform.

  ‘Is this really necessary?’

  But it was too late to intervene and Van Owen had removed his robe as obediently as if he were a child about to be punished. Knowing this was coming he had intended to say something pious at this point about how much he had dearly loved to wear that holy gown but fear had dried his mouth and the words stuck. Then an increasingly white-faced Overseer Novella led him over to the ladder. Van Owen asked for water and so distracted was the Overseer by the horror of performing something which, when it was an idea in a courtroom, he had most enthusiastically set out to accomplish, that he forgot himself enough to give him his own hip-flask. Van Owen wanted to wet his throat so he could speak but the executioner, more used to the reality of these occasions than Novella, realized what Van Owen was up to and had no intention of permitting any heroism to spoil the punishment.

  ‘Abandon the idea of gabbing about your lack of guilt. Follow the example of our Holy Redeemer on the gallows and keep your mouth shut.’ Then he was roughly pushed up the ladder. Halfway up, the executioner, cheered on by the ogling crowd, started playing the buffoon by giving a bow and nearly slipped and fell off. This disgraceful behaviour acted like salts under the nose of Novella and he furiously shouted at the executioner. This rattled him so much that by the time they had reached the top of the ladder all his swagger had been replaced by alarm. Van Owen began to say his last words.

  ‘Into thy hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit and hope that I will today light such a candle as will never be pu—’

  This carefully rehearsed farewell was interrupted by such a premature and hefty shove that he not only fell in the halter around his neck and had it instantly broken but was pushed so ineptly and so hard that he also began swinging back and forth like the pendulum on a clock. Rather than using his good sense to climb on the firewood and steady the already dead man, the Redeemer charged with setting the fire anxiously fired it with a torch at once. The wood was seasoned and soaked in oil and went up magnificently. Unfortunately as the corpse swung back and forth through the fire, like a child on a swing, as if by devilment a strong wind rose up and blew the flames away from it. The crowd gasped in fear at this. ‘A miracle! A miracle!’ But in a minute the wind dropped and the swinging slowed and soon the crowd pressed forward again to get a better look.

  After a few minutes with the crowd gawping on in horror and fascination the fire completely burnt away the rope binding Van Owen’s arms. So intense was the heat that it caused his right hand to move slowly upwards and as it did so it seemed to point accusingly at the crowd. Later it was put about by the Office for the Propagation of the Faith that this was not the sign of a curse by Van Owen on the faithful for having wished the death of an innocent man but his bestowal of a blessing as a sign of repentance.

  The Redeemers on the platform were heartily sick of the whole process by now and some had the grace to be guilty and ashamed for what they had done. However it was not over yet. It was the task of the Arrabiate to humiliate the corpses of heretics and ten of them duly marc
hed out dragging a heavy bag of the stones of repentance and remorse. In a line in front of the now much-burnt body, they immediately set about pelting the corpse with their fist-sized rocks so that from time to time fragments of the half-consumed body fell down in the fire. ‘It rained,’ wrote Solerine, ‘blood and entrails.’

  Few people outside the hegemon of the Redeemers or Antagonists will have seen a live burning. In the popular imagination of those who live in the four quarters, their experience is shaped by the vast pyres of winter festivals where the dummy of Guy Fawkes or General Curly Wurly is set on fire on top of a mountain of wood. The reality is more mundane and so by many degrees more horrible. Imagine if you would the bonfire at the bottom of the garden of a moderately well-off merchant. Then imagine burning alive an adult pig on such a modest pile.

  You will understand why then I will not speak of the fifteen minutes it took the Maid of Blackbird Leys to die, of the screams beyond a pitch and sound you could ever expect to hear from a human throat, and the smell and, good God, the time it took. And throughout Cale watched and watched and did not look away, not once. And, after all, even the most dreadful martyrdom must run its course.

  ‘What was it like?’ asked Vague Henri.

  ‘If you wanted to know you should have come.’

  ‘Tell me it was quick.’

  ‘It was very far from quick.’

  ‘It wasn’t your fault.’

  ‘But you blame me anyway.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Yes. You think I should have used my power to magic her away to somewhere safe – wherever that would be. If I knew a place of safety I’d go there myself. Perhaps you think I should have leapt from the platform of the Blessed and cut her hands and sprouted wings and flown away.’

  ‘I didn’t say that.’

  ‘I rescued an innocent maiden in peril of her life twice before and look at how many thousands died as a result of me sticking my big nose into things I had no business trying to change.’