‘Yes?’
‘The people on this list in the north wing are to be executed.’
Brzica was not especially surprised given that so many prisoners from the north wing of the House had been put to death recently. He examined the list, calculating roughly what sort of task it was. ‘I thought,’ he said, more to make conversation than anything, ‘the executions were finished for now.’
‘Obviously not,’ came the bad-tempered reply. ‘Perhaps you’d like to go and see the Lord Redeemer Bosco and ask him yourself what he thinks he’s up to.’
‘Not my job,’ replied Brzica. ‘Ours is not to reason why. When?’
‘Now.’
‘Now?’
‘I’ve just come from Redeemer Bosco’s presence.’
This was compelling.
‘What’s the rush?’
‘That’s nothing to concern you. All you need to worry about is how quickly you can start and finish.’
‘How many exactly?’
‘Two hundred and ninety-nine.’
Brzica considered, his lips moving in silent calculation.
‘I can start in two hours.’
‘How soon can you start if you get your finger out?’
Again Brzica considered.
‘Two hours.’
Bergeron sighed.
‘Then how long?’
‘Once the rotunda gets going we can do one every two minutes. With breaks – eleven hours.’
‘And without breaks?’
‘Eleven hours.’
‘Very well,’ said Bergeron, in a tone that suggested he had concluded his negotiation successfully. ‘The rotunda in two hours.’
Brzica was in fact working in the rotunda in less than an hour with his four assistants or topping coves. He had taken a look at his victims carefully. They were a tough-looking bunch. If they caught a sniff of what was happening there would be trouble. At the moment it was clear they were unaware – though not blissfully so. Not even men as ginty-looking as this could be so carefree in the face of death and the everlasting torment that waited. One thing bothered him a great deal. ‘Why,’ he said to the Redeemer on guard, ‘aren’t they locked in their cells? Why’s there no one but you to watch them?’
His reply was convincing. ‘No idea.’
If the guard was uncommunicative it was not just because he genuinely knew nothing, but also because no one wanted to talk to Brzica. Even the most thuggish Redeemers looked down on, indeed despised, him in the way executioners have always been despised. Nobody liked him but he didn’t care, or at least that was what he told himself. In fact he was sensitive about the way he was regarded. He liked being feared. He liked being seen as deadly and mysterious. He was aggrieved, however, by the disdain. It was uncalled for. It was unjust. He held himself aloof but his feelings were hurt by this lack of respect.
He suffered in silence, not out of choice but because no one wanted to talk to him. Not even his assistants, two of whom had recently, and much to his irritation, tried to get themselves reassigned to ministering to lepers in Mogadishu. They would get theirs in due course for this disloyalty, but tonight required unity and harmonious skill.
Problems still remained and he decided to walk along the ambulacrum to clear his head. Should they be bound first? No. The advantage of tied hands and hobbled legs needed to be offset against the clear worry this would give that something unpleasant was up. These were not the kind of men to go quietly and given the fact that for some reason they had been left with the doors to their cells open, a riot could easily result. It was better, he decided as he loped up the ambo, to keep them innocent and do it all so quickly they wouldn’t catch on until they were halfway to the next life. It required more deftness and a surer touch but then these he had in abundance.
‘Good night, Redeemer.’ It was Bosco walking past, mulling over Cale.
‘Good ...’
But Bosco was already gone.
The Rotunda had been designed by Brzica’s predecessor – a Fancy Dan, in Brzica’s opinion – and had been constructed, in his professional opinion, more elaborately than was necessary. Keep it simple was his motto. He had replaced the Rotunda’s three-room system for mass executions – one about to be killed, one in the next room being prepared and the third the victim in waiting – and replaced it with something that relied more on the cooperation of the victim under the impression that something else was happening. The victim was told he was to have a brief introduction to the Prior of the Sanctuary. When he entered through the thick and soundproof door he would see the Prior kneeling to pray with his back to him and facing a Holy icon of the Hanged Redeemer. He and his two guards would kneel side by side, the latter a little closer perhaps than one would expect. The Prior would then stand up and turn around, the victim would look up, Brzica in his leather apron would grab his hair, the two guards hold his arms and then Brzica would draw the knife embedded in his glove across his throat. Already dying and in shock he would be dropped onto the false floor in front of him, this would be lowered by the guards, the dead or dying man would be pushed down the chute to be pulled away by the Redeemers in the room below, who would wash the false floor quickly and carefully and then the floor would be pushed and raised back into place. A quick check for signs of the struggle and then the guards would be up and leaving the room by a door further along the corridor. Outside the next victim would be patiently waiting with his two guards. He would see dimly in the shadows what he thought was his predecessor leaving through the exit door. Then the whole procedure would begin again.
This went on throughout the night with only a single interruption. One of the victims, more alert than all the rest, sensed something was not quite right. As a tired hand grasped his hair and another his left hand he instinctively jerked free. Slipping and sliding and screaming as all four of his murderers grappled and tried to pin him down, screaming and fighting till they bundled him into the shaft, stamped on his hand, beat him about the head and finally pushed him through to be finished off by the Redeemers in the chambers below. Not even the thickest door could prevent the sound of such a dreadful struggle reaching the ears of the man waiting in the corridor outside. Brzica went out himself and stabbed the frightened Redeemer where he stood before he could raise a fuss. Other than that, everything passed as it should.
The next morning at eleven, Redeemer Jailer Bergeron inspected the pile of lightly washed bodies laid out in the Rotunda Aftorium, waiting to be removed to Ginky’s Field under the cover of night. It was a sobering but impressive sight. Half an hour later he was standing in front of a slightly impatient Bosco, who was trying to work out the boring but complicated documents involving an argument over the delivery of a large consignment of spoiled cheese.
‘What is it?’ said Bosco, not looking up.
‘The executions have been carried out as you ordered, Redeemer.’
Bosco looked up having lost, to his irritation, his train of thought over the claim and counter-claim concerning responsibility for the rotten cheese.
‘What?’
A terrible dread flushed through Bergeron as if he had been hit by a winter spate.
‘The execution of the prisoners in the House of Special Purpose.’
Bergeron’s voice was whisper thin. He took out the order sheet with the names and pointed to the last page. ‘There’s the cross you put at the end to confirm it.’
Bosco took the paper from him without fuss. A horrible quiet settled over him. He looked at it for a moment. His precious gauleiters gone, every one.
‘The cross at the bottom,’ he said softly, ‘was to show that I’d read it.’
‘Ah.’
‘Ah, indeed.’
‘I ...’
‘Please don’t say anything. You’ve brought me a disaster this morning. Take me to see them.’