Finally, and somewhat dispirited because he knew it was worth something but not how much, he went into Carcaterra’s House of Precious Metals. The man behind the counter was perhaps in his mid-thirties and probably a Jew thought Cale because the only people he had seen before wearing skull caps were Jews.
‘Can I help you,’ said the man, a little warily. Cale put the ruby or whatever it was down on the table. The man picked it up, interested, and held it over a candle, examining the light refracted through it with the quiet care of someone who knew what he was doing. After a minute he looked at Cale.
‘You don’t look well, young man. Would you care to sit down?’
‘I just want to know what it’s worth. I know already, mind, I just want to know whether or not you’re going to try and steal from me.’
‘I can try and steal from you just as easily if you’re sitting down as if you’re standing up.’
As it happened Cale was feeling not just tired but exhausted. The black circles around his eyes were as bad as those belonging to the tragopan in the Memphis Zoo. There was a bench behind him and as he sat his legs almost gave way.
‘Would you care for a cup of tea?’
‘I want to know what it’s worth.’
‘I can tell you what it’s worth and give you a cup of tea.’
Cale felt too shattered to be awkward. ‘Thanks.’
‘David!’ called out the jeweller. ‘Would you be kind enough to bring me a cup of tea – builder’s tea if you please.’
There was a shout of acknowledgement and the jeweller went back to looking at the gemstone. Eventually David, Cale presumed, brought in a cup and saucer and was waved over to Cale by the jeweller. All three noticed that as he took it the cup and saucer began to jangle as if it was being held by an old man. David, puzzled, left them to it.
‘Do you know what this is?’ said the jeweller.
‘I know it’s worth a lot.’
‘That depends on your idea of worth, I suppose. It’s a type of gemstone called Red Beryl. It’s from the Beskidy Mountains and I know this not only because I am very well informed when it comes to gemstones but because that’s the only place they can be found. Do you agree?’
‘If you say so.’
‘I do. And the thing is, the very interesting thing is, that time out of mind the Beskidy Mountains have been in control of the One True Faith of the Hanged Redeemer. Did you know that?’
‘I can honestly say that I didn’t.’
‘So this must either be very old – I’ve only seen two before today – or it’s been taken off the statue of the Mother of the Hanged Redeemer for whom this particular gem is, I understand, solely reserved.’
‘Sounds about right.’ Cale was too exhausted to try and invent anything and was impressed by the man’s knowledge and skill.
‘I’m afraid I don’t deal in looted religious artefacts.’
Cale finished his tea and, still jangling, put it down on the bench beside him.
‘I don’t suppose you know anyone who does?’
‘I’m not a fence, young man.’
‘Sorry.’
Cale stood up feeling not so much exhausted now as unutterably weary and walked over to the jeweller, who handed the gemstone back to him.
‘I didn’t steal it.’ He paused. ‘All right, I did steal it. But no one ever earnt something they stole more than me and Red Beryl here.’
He walked over to the door. As he left the jeweller called out: ‘Try not to sell it for less than six hundred.’ And with that Cale shut the door behind him and was off into the square wondering if he had the energy to make it to his room.
‘You Cale?’ asked a pleasant voice.
Cale ignored it and walked on not looking up.
He tried to keep moving but the way was blocked by two hard-looking types he would have been wary of at the best of times. This was not the best of times.
‘And there are another three of us as well,’ said the pleasant voice.
Cale looked at the man.
‘You’re the bloke from Silbury Hill.’
‘How gratifying you remember,’ said Cadbury.
‘Not dead then?’
‘Me? I was just passing by. IdrisPukke?’
‘Still alive.’
‘So it is true – only the good die young.’
‘And your owner – Hagfish Harry?’
‘It’s a coincidence – remarkable really – that you should ask. Kitty the Hare would like a word.’
‘I have a butler now. He’ll give you an appointment.’
‘That’s enough cheek, now, sonny. My owner doesn’t like being kept waiting. Besides, you look as if you could do with a sit down. You’ve disimproved since we last met. If Kitty the Hare meant any harm to you we wouldn’t be talking now.’ Cadbury gestured the way and Cale went as gracefully as he knew how.
Fortunately they didn’t have to go far. In a few turns they moved on to the rich houses of the canal district with their huge windows open to let the light in and along with it the envy of the passers-by. They stopped at one of the swankiest and were let in as if expected momentarily. Cadbury motioned him further into the house and into a large and airy room overlooking an elegant garden of box-tree mazes, espaliered fruit trees in vertical and horizontal cordons, cut knee and navel, nipple and nose.
‘Sit down before you fall down,’ said Cadbury pulling up a chair.
‘Is someone cooking onions?’ asked Cale.
‘No.’
The door opened and a servant came in and lit several candles. Then he pulled the curtains shut but with some effort because they were so thick and tall, more like those for a stage than a house. Shortly after, the door opened and Kitty the Hare passed into the room. No other word would do. The hood he wore was deep enough to cover his face in that poor light and the gown like a small boy’s too large dressing gown. There was, however, nothing of the priest about him. His smell was different too. The Redeemers had the body odour of too little washing and something indefinably sour; Kitty the Hare smelt of something not unpleasant exactly and not just odd but oddly odd. Cadbury held a chair for him all the while carefully watching Cale to see how he reacted to this unsettling creature. No one said anything and no one moved. There was only the different rhythm of Kitty’s breathing, something like a dog panting only not.
‘You wanted …’ began Cale.
‘Move into the light so I can see you well,’ interrupted Kitty. The non-look of him, the great performance of his arrival in the almost dark made Cale expect a voice fit for all this portent – doom-filled dark and menacing. But it was the cooing and the lisping, the almost but not at all feminine liquid tone that raised the hair on his arms, damp as they were from sweat. ‘Please do as I ask,’ said Kitty.
Shaken and poorly Cale shuffled forward, not by much. He was cautious now because he felt so weak but it also left him feeling a certain freedom. He was in no state for any swashbuckling – he could barely walk to the door let alone dash for it. In his present state he would have had trouble wrestling a kitten to its knees.
‘So. This is what the wrath of God looks like,’ said Kitty. ‘Original. Don’t you think so, Cadbury?’
‘Yes, Kitty.’
‘But it makes sense, the more you think about it, to have a child represent the anger of the almighty – given what so many of his innocents must endure. You are not well, I think.’
‘Just a cold.’
‘Well, don’t give it to us, eh, Cadbury?’
It may have been jovial – it was impossible for Cale to tell.
‘I have heard a great deal about you, mister. Is half of it true?’
‘More.’
‘He’s vain, Cadbury, how I like that in a god.’
‘What do you want?’ The strange sweet smell that at first had not bothered Cale was becoming more and more unpleasant and
was beginning to make him feel even worse.
‘You have information?’
‘About?’
‘A great many things no doubt but I won’t insult you by trying to buy news about your friends – curious though I am to know where Vipond and his brother are sticking their snouts, I want information that is valuable to me and which I think you will quite happily share.’
‘About?’
‘The Redeemers. Bosco. Now that he is Pope …’
Had he been feeling less dreadful Cale might have hidden his surprise better.
‘You didn’t know.’ Kitty was clearly amused.
‘I left in a hurry while I had the chance. So you see I’m not worth what you thought.’
‘Not at all. News I can always get easily enough. Intelligence – that’s something else. You were more than close to Bosco, you can tell me about his plans for you and for his faith now that he is the rock on which it is built. These things are valuable to me. There will be war but a new kind, I think. If so, I need to know what it is.’ He leant back in his chair. ‘You will be well paid but just as useful is that you will have influence through me in a world that doesn’t as yet have very much time for you. Influence more precious than rubies. As for your Purgators – find an excuse for their presence pretty soon.’ He stood up as Cadbury quickly moved to pull away his chair. ‘In a couple of days when you’re feeling better we’ll talk at greater length. Cadbury will give you tea. Mint might give you a lift.’ With that he was moving to the door, which was opened from the outside by someone who must have been remarkable of hearing, and then Kitty the Hare was gone. The same servant as before came in, opened the curtains and to Cale’s intense relief, because he thought the smell would make him sick, also opened the window to clear the air. Cadbury ordered tea and Cale went to the casement, drawing in the sweet air as if he had been at the bottom of a dirty pond for the last ten minutes.
‘What you expected?’ said Cadbury.
Cale did not reply. Cadbury handed Cale a small jar whose label announced in grand lettering: MRS NOLTE’S CHRISM. ‘It’ll help if you stick it up your nose next time you come. Just don’t leave a trace round your nostrils. Kitty takes offence.’
When Cale got back to his room feeling stronger for his black, not mint, tea and two cream slices he fell asleep, making fourteen hours over the last twenty-four – this for someone who usually got by on six or seven. When he woke up he noticed a large envelope had been pushed under the door. It was an invitation to a dinner in the Great Hall of Spanish Leeds Castle. He had barely finished reading it for the third time when there was a knock on the door.
‘IdrisPukke.’
Cale opened it, invitation in his other hand. It was so pompously ornate and grand it could not be overlooked and IdrisPukke was not, in any case, an overlooking sort of person. ‘May I?’ he said, pulling the invitation out of Cale’s hand.
‘Help yourself.’ Cale was curious to know what this great dinner was about and why he was invited but before he had a chance to pump IdrisPukke for information he was offered some unequivocal advice.
‘You can’t go.’
‘Why?’
‘It’s a trap.’
‘It’s a dinner.’
‘For everyone else. For you it’s a trap.’
‘I’m all ears.’
‘The invitation is from Bose Ikard.’
‘It says the Lord Mayor.’
‘He wants there to be trouble so that he can persuade the King that it’s dangerous to have the remnants of an embittered empire filling his second-largest city and hoping for a war to get their broken fortunes back.’
‘He has a point.’
‘Indeed he has.’
‘What’s it got to do with me?’
‘Your reputation goes before you.’
‘Meaning?’
‘That wherever you go disaster follows you like a spaniel.’ Cale was not easily lost for the last word but even he was startled by this. ‘He wants to see a quarrel with you and the Materazzi and he has a pretty good idea how to start one. You’ll find yourself sitting opposite Arbell and her husband.’
This brought about a silence of an altogether different kind. ‘Does Vipond know about this?’
‘Vipond sent me.’
‘So he expects me to do as I’m told.’
‘Do you ever do as you’re told? These days we all know you’re a god and not a bad-tempered hooligan with a big fist.’
‘I’m the anger of God not a god. I explained that.’
‘Vipond is warning you not to do what someone who wishes you harm wants you to do. Show some sense.’ He paused. ‘Please.’
Cale had been excited by the idea of a grand dinner but he could see IdrisPukke was right. But he could no more stay away than he could have prevented himself from falling to earth after he had launched himself from the tallest tower in Spanish Leeds.
29
Great the magnified cumulus of incense, pure the sopranos, sonorous the bass notes in the cathedral in the heart of Chartres where the new Pope, Bosco XVI, was crowned on the old rock on which the One True Faith was built. And the celebratory vestments of gold and green, orange and yellow and blue. Truncated rainbows of holiness. Except, of course, for the twenty nuns who were allowed to participate dressed all in black and just a little white around the face. But what faces! As they looked up at their Holy Father, hands tied behind backs to prevent them reaching out for the disgusting touch, smiles of ecstasy and so intense it seemed another holy expiration might take place to add to that of the Blessed Imelda Lambertini who died of ecstasy at her holy communion at the spiritually precious age of eleven.
But great the excitement of the prelates, bishops and cardinals, nuncio, mandrates, and gonfaloniers. Many were newly enobled, their predecessors gone to the fires, or the oubliettes and ditches out in the desert, fodder for foxes. This was their Pope, their chance, their time to be personally responsible for bringing about the end time and the great renewal.
The new Pope Bosco ascended the calumnion step by step, obliged to stop for obeisance and holy grovelling at each so that it took half an hour of renunciation for Bosco to make it to the top and to the great cantilevered lectern that jutted out over the vast space of the Sistine Chapel and which made it look as he was about to leap into the upturned congregation waiting to hear of a new life and a new purpose. They knew well enough what was coming; they had been primed for years on the new beliefs. They knew that God had lost his patience yet again and that where once they had been sacrificed to rain and water now there would now be fire and a sword delivered by the hand of a boy who was not a boy but the manifestation of God’s exasperation. And there would be no ark offering a reprieve this time. First the Antagonists, then everyone else and then the Redeemer faith itself would wither away. All this was delivered to an audience that could barely contain its joyful anticipation of God’s momentum concerning the ruin of his most blighted creation.
‘The wind of change is blowing through our world,’ said the new Pope. ‘Nothing can stop a blessed idea whose time has come. So we must come to the woman question.’
There was a certain heart murmur of surprise among the priests and monks. What woman question? And the same if understandably even more more trepidatious question amongst the nuns. What woman question?
There was always something slightly oily about the tone of voice of a Redeemer when he spoke well of women, not by any means so rare an occurrence as the casual follower of the faith might imagine. The nervous nuns were about to get a full dose of unction. When you flatter, lay it on with a trowel.
‘Blessed is the woman whose words can cheer but not influence. How can we not respect their strength in obedience, admire the doggedness of their submissiveness that God – and his likeness man – commands from the femininity? Redeemers are distinguished by unusual respect for the female sex that supplements and aids
the labour of men and priests by her unwearied collaboration. But the great Abbess Kuhne is now more correct than ever when she says that virginity is the true emancipation and proper state of women. In anticipation of the life to come no more will the Redeemer faithful give or take in marriage. Both men and women from this day will be virgins. I have set aside days on which the marriage debt, which most resembles the union of the beast in us, may not be paid between man and wife.
‘All Thursdays in memory of the arrest of the Hanged Redeemer (fifty-two days a year).
‘All Fridays in memory of the death of the Hanged Redeemer (another fifty-two days).
‘All Saturdays in honour of the Hanged Redeemer’s Virgin Mother (another fifty-two days).
‘All Sundays in honour of the resurrection (fifty-two more days).
‘And all Mondays to remember the departed souls (fifty-two days).’
In addition to banning marital intercourse on two hundred and sixty of the three hundred and sixty-five days of the year, Bosco went on to forbid physical contact of any kind for varying periods before and after half a dozen particularly sacred holydays.
It took Gil, no mean calculator, several minutes to work out that in the first year it would be possible for married couples to dench on only five days.
‘Do you think it’s too many?’ said a concerned Bosco. ‘By the third year all that will be behind us.’
‘More than enough,’ said Gil. ‘But where are our soldiers to come from?’
‘We have enough to wipe the world clean with a sponge as we are. You and I must be here to see the Redeemers wither away so that God can begin again with a creature more deserving of his gifts.’
The other question, the Cale question, had been dealt with by the invocation of a great secret prophecy concerning his return. The prophecy was now locked away in the vaults of the Holy City of Chartres having been given credence by a group of nuns he had talked to when they visited the Golan Heights. He had then mysteriously disappeared from amongst them although no one had actually seen him disappear. In this way the useful belief arose that he would return to fulfil his eschatological duties but only if the Redeemers faced great peril in their attempt to wipe evil man and his dreadful nature from the face of the earth.