11
Drawing his long knife, Lugavoy reached down and pulled the veil from Cale’s head to make sure he was going to kill the right person.
‘Thomas Cale?’ he asked.
‘Never heard of him,’ whispered Cale. Lugavoy, who was left-handed, drew back the long knife and stabbed at Cale who cried out, but then there was a loud THWACK! like an old woman beating a carpet of its dust. Trevor Lugavoy saw but did not understand that the lower half of his forearm, with the hand that had been holding the long knife, was now lying on the cloister floor. He raised his amputated arm and stared at the stump, utterly bemused.
Then the shock hit him and he sat down heavily on his backside. A blurred figure moved in front of him and struck Trevor Kovtun, who had moved directly behind Cale, in the chest. It is no easy thing to kill a man instantly with a sword but Kovtun was close to death within seconds of slumping to the ground. Lugavoy had moved onto his knees and had taken hold of his severed forearm, as if in the preliminary stages of putting it back on. Then he looked up and saw a creature whose very eyes and nose and mouth seemed to have been smeared across its face in colours of blue and red. Whether he saw anything more terrible after that cannot be known – no one returns from that place, scheduled or unscheduled.
Having finished off Trevor Lugavoy, something that, to Deidre’s vexation, took three strokes rather than one, she turned back to the astonished boy sitting knackered before her and said, ‘Are you Thomas Cale?’
Dog-weary as he was, Cale was too suspicious by nature to answer quickly. What if she was just a rival assassin and wanted to kill him herself? He panted more heavily to signal he could not speak and held out his right hand, palm forward, in a gesture of compliance. It didn’t work.
‘Are you Thomas Cale?’ she demanded.
‘It’s all right, Deidre. It’s him.’ It was Cadbury, with four alarmingly large men from the dangerous lunatic section of the Priory. ‘Marvellous work, Deidre. Marvellous, marvellous, marvellous. Now be a good girl and put away the sword.’
Meek as a little girl made from sugar and spice, Deidre did as she was told.
‘If I may say so,’ said Cadbury, to Cale, ‘you don’t look at all well.’
‘I’d say,’ a pause to stop being sick, ‘that things,’ another pause, ‘could be a lot worse,’ replied Cale, putting out his hand.
Cadbury pulled him up and looked him over, smiling. ‘I appreciate your desire to make up for all your wickedness but are you really sure you’re cut out for Holy Orders?’
Cale took off Sister Wray’s habit and picked up the veil Lugavoy had dropped on the pavement.
‘Stay here,’ he said to Cadbury and walked off wearily into the shadows of the covered walkway.
‘It’s all right, it’s me,’ he called out into the dark. ‘You’re safe, I’ve got your …’ he wasn’t sure what to call them, ‘… clothes.’ He placed the habit and the veil on a small section of pavement illuminated by the moon and then stood back. ‘The face thing’s a bit torn. Sorry.’ Nothing happened for a moment and then a shockingly white arm moved into the light and pulled the habit and veil slowly into the dark. There was a short period of rustling.
‘Are you all right? Not hurt?’ said Sister Wray from the shadows.
‘Not hurt.’ A pause. ‘Are you all right?’ Cale asked her.
‘Yes.’
‘Somebody rescued me. Do you think it was God?’
‘After you told him to his face he didn’t exist?’
‘Perhaps he wants to save me – for better things.’
‘You must think pretty well of yourself.’
‘As it happens I don’t think it was God – the woman who saved me, she doesn’t look like she’s had much to do with angels. Perhaps the devil was behind me all the time.’
‘So,’ said Poll, from the dark. ‘So you’re still the chosen one and not just a nasty little boy with a gift for bloodshed.’
‘I was hoping,’ replied Cale, ‘that you might have taken one in the gob. You’d better come and meet our redeemers.’
But halfway down the cloisters he changed his mind. ‘Perhaps you shouldn’t. There are people, I don’t know … it’s better not to come to their attention.’
He vanished into the dark but Sister Wray decided she’d had enough of doing as she was told by Cale. She eased forward until she was able to hide at the left-hand corner of the cloister. Cale was talking to a tall man, elegantly dressed in black, and next to them a woman with her back to Sister Wray who had clearly lost interest in what was going on around her and was looking away into the darkness at the back of the cloister. When Deidre Plunkett turned around, Sister Wray drew back into the shadows and began to take the view that Cale had been right. It was a face best avoided.
‘We can’t stay,’ said Cadbury. ‘There was some unpleasantness earlier in the town and it’s time we weren’t here. She needs a scrub and to get out of these clothes.’
‘What about the bodies?’
‘Considering they were about to kill you before we stepped in I don’t think it’s unreasonable to ask you to sort them out. Don’t think you have to thank her, by the way.’
‘Oh, yes. Thanks,’ said Cale, calling out to Deidre, who merely stared at him for a moment and then looked away again. He would have offered to take his rescuers to his room but it was clear from the presence of the watchmen that they were going nowhere. Then the furious Director of the Priory arrived and was about to demand an explanation when she saw the two dead men and the dismembered arm followed by Deidre Plunkett’s face. The blood drained from her lips, as well it might, but she was made of heavy-duty cloth. ‘Come here,’ she said to them both, and backed away from the cloisters’ entrance.
For several futile minutes Cale and Cadbury tried to explain what had happened until they were interrupted by Sister Wray. ‘I was a witness and participant. Those two men came to kill us both. Why I can’t say, but it was completely unprovoked and had the …’ she paused, ‘… young woman and this man not intervened it would be our bodies lying in the cloister.’
‘And what,’ said the Director, ‘am I supposed to do with the bodies that are here?’
‘I’ll deal with them,’ said Cale.
‘I’m sure you will,’ said the Director. ‘I’m sure that’s the kind of talent you have in abundance.’
‘Call the magistrate,’ said Sister Wray.