Within five minutes, having split the food and water, Kleist and Cale were moving off to east and west. In five minutes more they’d vanished from sight.
Vague Henri was sitting down eating his breakfast and looking at the girl as she slept, observing the beautiful pale skin, the red lips and the long eyelashes, the sense of beautiful peace. He was still watching, fascinated, an hour later when she woke up. She was startled at first to find Vague Henri looking straight at her, not more than three feet away.
“Didn’t anyone ever tell you it’s rude to stare?”
“No,” said Vague Henri truthfully.
“Well, it is.”
Henri looked down at his feet and now felt awkward.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to be so harsh.”
At this, Vague Henri forgot his awkwardness and burst into laughter.
“What’s so funny?” she said, angry again.
“For us, being harsh means dragging you out in front of five hundred people and the Redeemers stringing you up.”
“What do you mean?”
“Hanging you by the neck. You know, like the Hanged Redeemer.”
“Who’s the Hanged Redeemer?”
This shut him up. He looked at her as if she had asked what the sun was, or if animals could talk. He said nothing for some time, but there were hammers beating in his brain about what this could possibly mean.
“The Hanged Redeemer is the son of the Lord of Creation. He sacrificed himself to wash our vile sins away with his blood.”
“Uuugh!” she said. “Whatever for?”
His look of astonishment made her instantly regret her reaction. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to offend you. It’s just such a strange idea.”
“What is?” he said, still openmouthed.
“Well… what sins? What did you do?”
“I was born sinful. Everyone is born full of revolting sin.”
“What a ridiculous idea.”
“Is it?”
“How can a baby have done anything wrong, let alone anything dreadful?”
Neither of them said anything for a moment. “And why would you wash something away in blood?”
“It’s a symbol,” he said, defensive and wondering why.
“I’m not stupid,” she replied. “I can see that. But why? Why would you use blood as a symbol of something like that?”
Vague Henri was, by nature, someone who thought carefully about everything. But these ideas had been so much a part of him and for so long that she might just as well have questioned the point of his arms or the meaning of his eyes. “Where are the others?” she said. Still reeling over what he had heard, his answer was distracted.
“Oh, they’ve gone.”
“They’ve left us?” she said, eyes widening in alarm.
“Only for a few days. They’re going to track down the searchers on either side of us and make sure we don’t walk into them.”
“How will they find us again?”
“They’re very good at tracking,” Henri said evasively.
“I don’t understand,” she said. “I thought you said you hardly ever left the Sanctuary?”
“Um… we better get going. I’ll explain as we go along.”
Redeemer Bosco raised his walking stick and rapped twice on the door.
It was nearly thirty seconds before it opened, but he did not show any sign of impatience, or indeed any sign at all. Finally the door opened and a tall man, another Redeemer, stood in front of the Lord Militant.
“Do you have an appointment?” said the tall man.
“Don’t be foolish,” replied Bosco, terse and dismissive. “The High Redeemer asked to see me. Here I am.”
“The High Redeemer commands, he does not ask any-”
Bosco pushed past him. “Tell him I’m here.”
“He’s displeased with you. I’ve never seen him so angry.” Bosco ignored him as the tall man went over to an inner door, knocked and went in. There was a short pause, the door opened again, and the tall man returned, smiling, though nothing pleasant was intended.
“He is ready to see you now.”
Bosco walked into a room so dark that even the gloom-accustomed eyes of the Lord Militant found it hard to see. It was something more, though, than the small shuttered windows and the dark tapestries murkily retelling stories of ancient and hideous martyrdoms. The center of the darkness seemed to come from the bed in the corner. A man was sitting up, propped by at least a dozen uncomfortable cushions. Bosco had to move very close before he could make out the face, the skin pale to the point of being white, and hanging down from cheek and neck in endless scrawny folds. The eyes were watery, as if the mind had long gone. But when he caught sight of Bosco something bright flashed there, a light full of hate and great cunning.
“You kept me waiting!” said the High Redeemer, the voice distant but sharp.
“I came as soon as I could, Your Grace.” He was not believed, nor did he expect to be.
“When I summon you, Bosco, you drop everything instantly and damned quick.” He laughed. It was a particularly unpleasant sound that only, perhaps, Bosco in all the Sanctuary would not have been unnerved by. It was the sound of something dead, animated only by an intense malice and anger.
“What did you wish to see me about, Your Grace?” The High Redeemer stared at him for a moment.
“That Cale boy.”
“Yes, Your Grace?”
“He’s made a fool of you.”
“How so, Your Grace?”
“You had plans for him.”
“You know that I did, Your Grace.”
“He must be brought back.”
“You and I differ on nothing, Your Grace.”
“Brought back and scourged.”
“Of course, Your Grace.”
“Then hanged and quartered.”
Bosco did not respond at first.
“He murdered a Redeemer. He must become an Act of Faith.”
Bosco looked thoughtful for a moment.
“My investigations have made it clear that it was the two other acolytes who were responsible. It seems likely that they coerced Cale into leaving with them. They were armed; he was not. If this is true, then Cale should be punished merely as an example. The quartering, however, seems unnecessary to me. The others will do, given the fault is theirs.”
There was a snort of contempt that might have been mistaken for choking.
“Ha! Pity is nothing of kin to you, Bosco. This is just your vanity talking. It doesn’t matter whether Cale or these other two killed Picarbo. By God, I’ve half a mind to burn the entire dormitory along with them.”
The High Redeemer had allowed himself to become rather too excited and was now choking on his own spittle. He gestured toward a mug of water on his bedside table. Taking his time, Bosco handed it to him. He drank noisily. Finally, he handed back the now sloppy wet mug. Bosco replaced it on the table with a look of fine distaste.
Gradually the High Redeemer’s sucking breath began to slow and return to normal. The light of malevolence, however, had only increased.
“Tell me about this business with Picarbo.”
“Business, Your Grace?”
“Yes, business, Bosco, the business of the Lord of Discipline being found in his rooms with a disemboweled slut!”
“Ah,” said Bosco thoughtfully. “That business.”
“You think because I’m old and sick that I don’t know what’s going on here? Well, not for the first time, you’re wrong. Sick as I am, you still can’t get up early enough to catch me out, Bosco.”
“No one of any intelligence would underestimate your wisdom and experience, Your Grace, but…” He let out a regretful sigh. “I had hoped to spare you the revolting nature of what we found in Redeemer Picarbo’s rooms. It would be a pity if a reign as distinguished as your own should be overshadowed by something like this.”
“I’m too old for that flannel, Bosco. I want to know what he was doing with her. It wasn’t just fucking, was it?”
Even Bosco, a man apparently unmoved by anything, was unsettled by the use of the term. Such direct reference to the sex act was never heard, it usually being spoken of only using such circumlocutions as “beastliness” and “uglification”-though, even then, rarely.