Cale raised the longbow Kleist had handed him, pulled back the drawstring to his cheek, aimed, held for a second, and then loosed the arrow to its target eighty yards away. He groaned even as it left the bow. The arrow arced toward the target, the size and shape of a man’s body, and missed by several feet.
“Shit!”
“Oh dear, oh dear,” said Kleist, “I haven’t seen anything like that since… well, I can’t remember. You used to be adequate-where on earth did you pick up a set of shanks like that from?”
“Just tell me what I need to do to put them right.”
“Oh, that’s easy enough. You’re plucking the bowstring when you should just be letting it go-like this.” He twanged at the string of his own bow to show what Cale was doing wrong and then showed him, with enormous pleasure, how it should be done. “You’re also opening your mouth when you shoot and dropping the elbow of your string arm before you let loose.” Cale started to protest. “And,” interrupted Kleist, “you’re letting your string hand creep forward at the same time.”
“All right, I get the point. Just talk me through it. I’ve just got into some bad habits, that’s all.”
Kleist drew in his breath through his teeth as melodramatically as possible.
“I’m not sure, myself, if it’s as simple as a few bad habits. I think you’re probably a choker.” He pointed to his head with a finger. “I think you’ve lost it up here, mate. Now that I think about it, yours is the worst case of the yips I’ve ever seen.”
“You just made that up.”
“You’ve got the yips all right, the staggers, the twitches. No known cure. All that mouth gaping and elbow dropping-just an exterior mark of the state of your soul. The real problem’s in your spirit.” Kleist put an arrow in his bow, drew back the string, and let it loose in one elegant movement. It arced beautifully and landed with a satisfying thwack in the chest of the target. “You see, perfect-an outward sign of inward grace.”
By now Cale was laughing. He turned back to the quiver of arrows lying on the bench behind him, but as he did so he saw Bosco walking through the middle of the field and approach Redeemer Gil, who immediately gestured an acolyte forward. Cale heard a soft “Zut!” behind him and turned his head to see Kleist furtively aiming his bow at the distant Bosco and making the sound of an arrow on its way.
“Go on. I dare you.”
Kleist laughed and turned back to his pupils sitting and talking some distance away. One of them, Donovan, had as usual taken advantage of any pause to begin sermonizing on the evils of the Antagonists. “They don’t believe in a purgatory where you can burn away your sins and then go to heaven. They believe in justification by faith.” There was a gasp of disbelief from some of the acolytes who were listening. “They claim that each one of us is saved or damned by the unalterable choice of the Redeemer and there is nothing you can do about it. And they take the tunes from drinking songs and use them for their hymns. The Hanged Redeemer that they believe in never existed, and so they will die in their sins because they have a horror of confession, and so will depart this life with all their transgressions printed on their souls and be damned.”
“Shut your gob, Donovan,” said Kleist, “and get back to work.”
Once the acolyte had left with his message for Cale, Bosco waved Redeemer Gil to one side so they could not be heard.
“There are rumors that the Antagonists are talking to the Laconic mercenaries.”
“Are they solid?”
“They’re solid by the standard of rumors.”
“Then we should be worried.” A thought struck Gil. “They’ll need ten thousand or more to break us. How will they pay?”
“The Antagonists have found silver mines at Laurium. Not a rumor.”
“Then God help us. Even we have no more than a few thousand troops… three, maybe… capable of going up against Laconic hired men. Their reputation isn’t exaggerated.”
“God helps those who help themselves. If we cannot deal with men who fight only for money and not the glory of God, then we deserve to fail. It’s a test and to be expected.” He smiled. “In spite of dungeon, fire and sword-isn’t that right, Redeemer?”
“Well, My Lord Militant, if it is a test, it’s one I don’t know how to pass, and if I don’t-pardon the sin of pride-there’s no other Redeemer who does.”
“Are you quite sure? About the sin of pride, I mean.”
“What are you saying? It’s not necessary to be obscure with me. I deserve better at your hands.”
“Of course. My apologies for my own presumption.” He beat himself gently on the chest three times. “Mea culpa. Mea culpa. Mea maxima culpa. I have been expecting this, or something like it, for some time. I have always felt that our faith would be tested and tested harshly. The Redeemer was sent to save us and mankind replied to that divine gift by hanging my love from a gibbet.” His eyes began to mist over as he stared into the distance as if at something he had witnessed himself, though a millennium had passed since the Redeemer’s execution. He sighed deeply again as if at a terrible and recent grief and then looked directly at Gil. “I can’t say more.” He touched his arm lightly and with true affection. “Except that if this report is true, then I haven’t been idle in my search for an end to the apostasy of the Antagonists and to putting right the awful crime of doing murder to the only messenger of God.” He smiled at Gil. “There is a new tactic.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Not a military tactic-a new way of seeing things. We should no longer think just of the problem of the Antagonists-but of an ultimate solution to the problem of human evil itself.”
He urged Gil closer and lowered his voice still further.
“For too long we have been ready to think only about the Antagonist heresy and our war with them-what they do, what they don’t do. We have forgotten that they’re of secondary importance to our purpose to allow no god but the One True God and no faith but the One True Faith. We’ve allowed ourselves to become stuck in this war as if it were an end in itself-we have let it become one squabble in a world filled with squabbles.”
“Forgive me, Lord, but the Eastern Front covers a thousand miles and the dead can be numbered in hundreds of thousands-that’s not a squabble.”
“We are not the Materazzi or the Janes, interested in war only for gain or power. But that’s all we have become. One power amongst many in the war of all against all because, like them, we desire victory but fear defeat.”
“It’s sensible to be leery of defeat.”
“We are the representatives of God on earth through His Redeemer. There is a single purpose to our existence and we’ve forgotten it because we’re afraid. So things must change: better to fall once than be forever falling. Either we believe that we have God on our side or we do not. If that’s what we truly believe rather than what we affect to believe, then it follows that we must pursue absolute victory or none at all.”
“If you say so, Lord.”
Bosco laughed, a sweet sound, genuinely amused.
“I do say so, friend.”
Both Cale and Kleist were aware of the acolyte as he walked up to them, pleased at the chance to deliver what he clearly felt was unpleasant news. As he started to speak, Kleist interrupted.
“What do you want, Salk? I’m busy.”
This put Salk off the slow malice with which he’d intended to spin out his news.
“Tough titty, Kleist. It’s got nothing to do with you. Redeemer Bosco wants to see Cale in his rooms after night prayers.”
“Fine,” said Kleist, as if this were utterly routine. “Now piss off.”
Taken off guard both by the hostile lack of curiosity and by the fact that Cale was staring at him oddly, Salk spat on the ground to show his own indifference and walked away. Cale and Kleist looked at each other. Because Cale was Bosco’s zealot, calls for him to go and see the Lord Militant, something that would have terrified any other boy, were not uncommon. What was unusual, and therefore disturbing given the events of the day before, was that Cale had been called to his private rooms and not until late evening. This had never happened before.