‘I don’t think I did.’
Vague Henri looked at him. Blank.
‘Why were they trying to kill you?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘They must have had a reason.’
‘No.’
‘Even Redeemers have to have a reason to kill someone.’
Vague Henri was tempted to say something sarcastic but had the sense to stop himself.
‘Perhaps they thought we were Antagonists.’
‘Are you?’
‘Is that a crime?’
‘No.’
‘I’m not an Antagonist.’
‘Then who are you?’
‘I’m from Memphis.’
‘At last.’
‘Sorry?’
‘Never mind.’
‘What did you do in Memphis?’
‘I worked in the kitchens at the Palazzo.’
‘Good job?’
‘No. I cleaned dishes.’
‘Parents?’
‘Don’t know. Dead, I think. Maybe they’re just going about like me.’
‘Going about?’
‘Going about from place to place looking for work. Staying away from Redeemers.’
‘But you didn’t – stay away from them, I mean.’
‘Will I go to prison?’
‘Not worried about your friends?’
‘They’re not my friends.’ This was true enough. ‘I was just travelling with them. Did some cooking. It seemed safer.’
‘Do you know who they are?’
‘Just people going about trying to find work and stay away from the Redeemers. You would if you were them – if you were me.’
The interrogator was silent for a moment.
‘No – in answer to your question. You won’t go to prison. We have a camp for crossovers, people like you, about thirty miles away in Koniz. You’ll have to live in a tent. But you’ll be fed. There are guards to keep you safe. There might be more questions.’
‘Will I be able to leave?’
‘No.’
‘So it is a prison?’
‘No, it’s a sort of holding place while we find out more about you. There are thousands doing what you’re doing. We can’t have them just wandering all over the country. We’d have Redeemer fifth columnists everywhere.’
Vague Henri appeared to consider this. ‘What’s a fifth columnist?’
‘A sort of spy. You understand now?’
‘Yes,’ said Vague Henri.
‘Fair enough, then. You go to the camp and you’ll be safe there. Then we’ll see. Things will probably settle down. Then you can go on your way.’
‘Is that what you think? That it will all settle down?’
The interrogator smiled. He wanted to reassure the boy. ‘Yes. That’s what I think.’ And on the balance of probabilities this was truly what he did believe. What was the point, after all, of the Redeemers fighting a war on so many fronts? There had been serious concessions to the annexation of Nassau and Rockall and plausible reassurance from the Pope as a result of them. It was difficult for a cautious and pessimistic person, which is what he considered himself to be, to see what the Redeemers could gain from a total war. There was nothing left to concede, everything had already been given away. Anything more would merely be unconditional surrender and not even the most recalcitrant and feeble would tolerate that. From now on the Redeemers would either be happy with the significant concessions offered them, and which had cost them nothing, or risk everything they had in a universal war, which might cost them everything. A war did not, on balance, seem plausible. He pushed a piece of paper across the table.
‘Sign this,’ he said softly.
‘What is it?’
‘Read it if you like.’
‘I can’t read,’ said Vague Henri.
‘It asks you whether or not you brought any meat or flowering vegetables into the country. And to give details, where applicable, of any misfeasance committed here or in another country. Misfeasance means bad things.’
‘Oh,’ said Vague Henri. ‘No bad things. Here or anywhere. I’m a good boy.’
The next day he was in a walking convoy on his way to the tent city the interrogator had told him about. He thought it was unlikely they’d actually get him there as there were around three hundred refugees, some of them women and children, and only fifteen guards. As it turned out, the camp at Koniz was on the way to Spanish Leeds so it made sense to let the border guards feed him and keep him safe as the interrogator had said they would. He’d probably skip out before they got there, or after if it seemed more sensible.
A prison with tents wasn’t going to be able to hold someone who’d got out of the Sanctuary – boastful thoughts he had to revise over the following days. The Swiss guards knew their job and so maybe the guards at Koniz would too. Still, things could be worse. He could be dead like most of the dozen Redeemers he and Kleist had taken over the border to kill Redeemer Santos Hall for murdering Kleist’s wife and baby in the wilderness on the way to Silesia.
Of the four kinds of military failure Vague Henri’s small expedition to kill Hall was the worst: disaster from the word go. Nothing went right: the rain started as they left and did not stop, the horses became sick and so did the men. They stumbled into three Redeemer patrols when a minute later or earlier they would have passed unobserved. Even before they arrived at Santos Hall’s camp in Moza they’d lost two men. When they arrived they just walked into the camp, well able to blend in with men they’d lived with most of their lives; unluckily one of the Purgators was immediately recognized by an oblate who was being sent back to Chartres with hideous foot rot. Again, a fraction earlier or later and everything might have been reclaimed from the previous week of disasters.
Having only passed through the first wall of defence they were able to fight their way out, but not without losing another four Purgators. In the dark of their escape he lost Kleist and had no idea whether he was alive or dead. And yet although it had failed miserably, and was a foolish idea in the first place, their attempt to kill Santos Hall had been well planned by two people who knew what they were doing. No one could have foreseen their dreadful bad luck nor its frequency. They had thrown a coin twelve times and twelve times it had come up tails. Vague Henri had plenty of time to consider what he’d done wrong in planning and executing the attack and was very willing to learn from his mistakes. But as far as he could see he hadn’t really made any, other than doing it in the first place.
In a few days his run of misfortune deserted him and a storm helped him slip away just before the column made it to Koniz. In a week he was back in Spanish Leeds having learnt an important lesson – although he wasn’t quite sure what it was. Never do anything, perhaps.
Within two days he was delighted and relieved by the arrival of Kleist, only for both of them to learn from Cadbury that Cale was back and being looked after in some luxury by Riba, now wife of the Hanseatic Ambassador to the Court of the King. Vague Henri was delighted by the return of Cale but put out by the news of Riba, having nursed something of a crush on her since he had shamefully spied on her washing naked in a pool in the Scablands after their escape from the Sanctuary. But both he and Kleist had more pressing problems. Cadbury had not turned up to tell them the local gossip but to summon them before Kitty the Hare, who knew very well what they’d been up to and was aggrieved at their stupidity.
‘If you have prayers, prepare to say them now,’ said Cadbury, ushering them to the door.
Cadbury’s light-hearted attempt at alarming the two boys seemed less amusing when he delivered them to Kitty’s house by the canal. Cadbury saw two men entering Kitty’s rooms. He didn’t recognize them, but he had spent too much time among the wicked not to recognize this quality when he saw it in someone. The way they held themselves, the way they moved and gazed at others betrayed their grudge against life. There were other explanations, of course: few people of an elevated moral stature came to do business with Kitty the Hare. Still, his nose for bad business was twitching. He sent one of Kitty’s servants to fetch Deidre. He turned to the two boys and gestured them over to the table by the wall.