‘No.’
‘Well, now you have.’
‘What’s a spaniel?’
‘A dog notorious for its willingness to please. I can explain your presence in her cell – but only once. When it became known – and it would in a matter of days – that I had allowed her to eat more than necessary to keep her alive for the executioner I would be instantly revealed as a heretic. As I would be. Her sins against the Redeemer faith cannot be weighed.’
‘I gave her a promise.’
‘Then more fool you.’
‘And her sins cannot be weighed because she read the copy of the sayings of the Hanged Redeemer and talked about them?’
‘Yes.’
‘You burned the book she found I suppose.’
‘It seemed best.’
‘And?’
‘And what?’ His taunting of Cale almost involved a kind of gaiety.
‘This book of sayings of the Hanged Redeemer. What was it?’
A thoughtful, still teasing grimace from Bosco.
‘It was a book of sayings of the Hanged Redeemer.’
A silence.
‘You’re mocking me.’
‘Yes. But it was still a copy of the sayings of the Hanged Redeemer.’
‘A good copy.’
‘Good enough – a few errors but he was an intelligent man with an excellent memory.’
‘Was?’
‘Now you’re being deliberately slow.’
‘So why was it so sinful what she did?’
Bosco laughed. ‘As you said yourself: the word of God is easily soiled by human understanding. That’s terribly good, by the way. Would you object if I used it in a sermon?’
‘You were listening?’
‘Did you ever suspect otherwise?’
Cale did not reply for a moment. ‘I don’t know what it means, not really. It’s just something I heard a friend of mine say in Memphis. He was joking.’
Bosco was a little disappointed. He had felt rather proud of Cale when he’d heard him say it. It had been, after all, just right. Perhaps the fact that he could not keep his promise to the girl had taken the wind out of his great vanity for a minute. And why not explain, after all?
‘Even for those Redeemers who do not realize that God has decided to begin again, what we would agree on is that when it comes to men and to women there is no end to their garboils and quarrels over everything. There is no statement direct from the mouth of God, no matter how plain and easy to understand, that will not have them cutting each other’s throats over what it truly means. As for me: to publish the word of God to mankind is casting pearls before swine. Either way, what the Maid of Blackbird Leys has done is unforgivable.’
But later that night the snow brought more than an unaccustomed allure to the Sanctuary – it had also driven Redeemer General Guy Van Owen to take refuge there. He had been waiting outside the great gates for ten minutes and was in a foul mood because the guards had refused to let him in. Van Owen had intended to return to his command on the Golan Heights that protected the Eastern Front, a journey that normally meant avoiding the Sanctuary and Bosco by twenty miles. But the snow had made the way impassable and unprepared in his rush to return in such extreme weather he was obliged to take shelter where he could or die. He also hated Bosco because thirty years earlier he thought he had seen him smile dismissively during a sermon he had given on Holy Emulsion. In fact Bosco had merely been bored and was thinking of the hot chocolate that would follow Van Owen’s sermon – a rare treat special to that particular holyday because the saint in question had been boiled alive in sugar.
Finally Bosco turned up in one of the towers that guarded the great gate.
‘Who are you and what do you want?’
‘You know damn well who I am,’ shouted back Van Owen.
‘I only know who you told the Colour Chaplain you were. If you think that’s enough to get you and a hundred men inside the Sanctuary uninspected and in the middle of the night ...’ He did not finish his sentence.
Van Owen swore and shouted at his lighterman to raise his lantern up so that he could remove his hood and show himself.
‘Satisfied?’
‘Get the lighterman to go along the ranks. I want to see the men with you.’
‘Buggeration!’ He turned to the lighterman. ‘Do as he says.’ It took another ten minutes for Bosco to be satisfied. It was certainly the case that he would have done this even had Van Owen been an ally but he had to admit that the delay gave him a mean-spirited pleasure. Eventually Bosco was persuaded and disappeared from Van Owen’s view. He was made to wait, increasingly furious and uncertain, for another two minutes and then the gates slowly swung open – but only partly so that the men and horses were obliged to come in slowly one by one.
Van Owen came in first, looking for a row with Bosco.
‘Where is he?’ he shouted at the Colour Chaplain.
‘The Lord Redeemer has gone to bed, Redeemer. He’ll send for you after mass tomorrow morning. I’ll show you to your room. Your men are to sleep in the main hall which will be locked.’
Fuming, Van Owen was led across the pristine snow unwatched by his men, who were only interested in stabling the horses and getting out of the cold. But one person was observing him carefully from a high window. When he had made his bad-tempered way into the main building Cale lit a beeswax candle, went to the library, unlocked the door with a key he had stolen from Bosco and searched carefully in the stacks for the file on Van Owen and a much thinner testament, ‘Tactics of the Laconic Mercenary’. Then he sat down at Bosco’s desk in Bosco’s padded chair and began to read.
‘I must be back in Golan as soon as possible.’
‘What’s your hurry, Redeemer?’
‘Tell your acolyte to leave if you would.’
‘My acolyte?’ Bosco looked bemused. ‘Oh, this is not my acolyte. This is Thomas Cale.’
Van Owen looked at Cale, his expression a mix of the reluctantly impressed and the dismissive. Cale stared back, blank as you like.
‘If you wish him to stay,’ said Van Owen, ‘by all means.’
‘I do.’
‘Now as time is so short ...’ Van Owen paused but only so that he could deliver his news momentously. ‘There are eight thousand Laconic mercenaries in the pay of the Antagonists marching through the Machair towards the Golan Heights.’
‘And you’re to take command of their defence.’ It was a statement rather than a question.
‘No,’ said Van Owen, clearly delighted at least to have something over Bosco. ‘That is not my intention. The Golan is to be the base for a forward defence of the Heights. I am determined not to allow these creatures to inspire the fear and alarm they are accustomed to. A Redeemer army has nothing to fear of any soldier, particularly not these frightful sodomites. I have eight thousand of my own men waiting on the Golan and by tomorrow they will be joined by another ten thousand.’
‘You have nothing to fear but you intend to outnumber them more than two to one?’
Van Owen smiled, feeling that he had surprised Bosco with his daring.
‘You are not the only one, Bosco, who believes in new tactics. But I intend to be bold without taking unnecessary risks.’
‘Yes,’ said Bosco, as if conceding something. ‘It is bold.’
There was a satisfied but silent acknowledgement from Van Owen. Cale spoke for the first time.
‘It’s mad attacking them on the Machair.’
‘You know it well do you, little boy?’
‘I know that it’s mostly flat – and flat is flat wherever you are. It couldn’t be better ground for the Laconics to fight on. Attack them there and they’ll think all their birthdays have come at once.’ The phrase about birthdays was one he’d heard often in Memphis and liked the way it sounded. As he realized when he said it aloud in Bosco’s rooms it had less of a ring to it when used to someone who didn’t have a birthday. You will remember that a Redeemer had the right to kill an acolyte who did something sufficiently unexpected. Who knows what might have happened if Van Owen had been less astonished at being talked to in such a way or had brought a weapon with him.