Cale’s own heart was filled with loathing for the man who’d made this extraordinary thing and tried to make him feel compassion for a fanatic at the point of death. He was interrupted by a cough from the doorway at the far side of the room. He walked over to the Redeemer waiting for him with the usual mixture of the numb and the restless he nearly always felt before a fight.
And then he was in the room with the Pontiff of all the Redeemers. It was taking-away-of-the-breath splendid with its floor-to-roof stained windows and extraordinary statues of religious scenes as wonderful and hideous as the one in the anteroom.
Fifty yards away was the Pontiff on his throne, vestments of gold, the face of God on earth, powerful, austere, remote and wise, his hair grey beneath the gold cap he always wore. Watching Cale from either side of the throne were eighty Redeemers dressed in the holyday cassock varieties of the Sodalities and brought here today to terrify Bosco’s presumptuous acolyte. From behind the throne a choir began to sing, a great and terrible rolling basso profundo so deep it seemed to resonate in Cale’s guts, exactly what Gant had hoped. Looking all of his fifteen years he walked the fifty yards towards the barrier rope of blue before the throne. When he arrived, and it was a room big enough to arrive in, the Redeemer at his side touched his arm as if to prevent him leaping over the thickly corded barrier.
The great choir reached its nerve-shredding climax and there was a moment as the final note seemed to fill the air with something celestial, huge, capable of wiping away all sense of self and anything but the will for God. There was a long pause as the Pontiff, lion-headed, strong, God-appointed, looked at the boy in front of him exposing his soul to the wisdom of the rock of God.
‘In whose name do you came to trouble the anointed of the ...’
‘You’re not him,’ said Cale, matter of fact. There was a gasp and the majestic face of the man on the throne dwindled in stature as if the air had been let out of a Memphis child’s balloon.
‘What do you mean by ...’
‘You’re not him.’
‘Who is then?’ The voice of the man was now very far from that of holy majesty – it was querulous, miffed, clearly annoyed at having been rumbled with such ease.
Cale stared insolently into the eyes of the counterfeit Pontiff and without looking raised his right hand to point at a frail old man standing about midway in one of the lines of forty Redeemers leading to the throne. There was another ripple of astonishment, very satisfying indeed to Cale. Slowly, portentously, he turned to face in the direction of the man he was pointing at. He bowed his head, the Redeemer at his side gestured him forward and he walked up to the real Pontiff almost to touching point. The Holy Father looked at him and smiled absently, holding out his hand to be kissed.
‘Have you come far?’
17
Cale had rarely seen Bosco in a good humour but back in his company after the audience his old master was positively gleeful.
‘Hah! How did you guess that pompous fool Waller was a fake? I’ll bet he looked the part.’
‘It was his shoes,’ said Cale, a little bemused by Bosco’s extreme joviality and admiration. There was a moment as Bosco considered what he meant and then it clicked. His face lit up with even greater delight.
‘Wonderful! Wonderful!’
‘What do you mean?’ said Vague Henri from the other side of the room.
It was not easy for Cale to reply because he was not used to referring to the Redeemer in front of him when talking to Vague Henri as anything but ‘that shit-bag Bosco’.
‘For some reason, years ago when I was small, I remember – I remember the Redeemer here telling me about the Pope’s shoes, that they were specially made for him in red silk and no one but the Vicar of the Hanged Redeemer could wear shoes of that colour or of silk. I don’t know why I remembered that but when I got into the chapel I could see them right off. Everyone else’s shoes were black leather. They might just as well have hung a sign around his neck.’
‘Nonsense,’ said Bosco cheerfully. ‘I never saw the hand of God so clear in anything. You were inspired.’
As it happens it is to be doubted whether this peculiar charade made much or any difference to Cale being appointed to lead the Eighth Army. Already there were preachers at the street corners in Chartres hailing Cale as the incarnation of the Wrath of God and only some of them were obedient subordinates of Bosco. If ever a group of men were readier and riper for a saviour than at that moment history does not record it.
Reports of the Laconics’ inexplicable failure to advance either on or around the Golan had already reached Chartres but the about-to-be head of the Redeemer Eighth Army was not thinking about tardy mercenaries or startling plans of attack. He was, soft-hearted dog, weeping for his lost love. These were not, however, as the conventions of popular romances require, tears of loss and regret, though in the great commingled salmagundi of his feelings for Arbell Swan-Neck they were certainly present. These were mostly tears of anger and humiliation, particularly humiliation, and centred on a particular occasion that he hated to think about but was drawn back to in the bitter sleepless night like a poking tongue to a decaying tooth.
It had been the happiest night of his life. To be sure the competition for this honour was not great but, unlike the popular romances already mentioned, real life has no consideration for the careful working up of a final climax that must be, after suitable loss and suffering, the high point of the story and come striding confidently at the end. How many men and women, how many children even, have only slowly realized that the high point of their lives is far behind? A melancholy thought whose only comfort is that you never know – things may look up, something may happen to save the day, the beautiful stranger, the successful child, the sudden recognition, the chance meeting, the happy return, all these are possible. The great and lasting comfort is that you never know. Cale, however, was not that night much in the mood for the consolations of philosophy. He was back in Arbell’s bed remembering what seemed to him like centuries ago. She was asleep and lying next to him, breathing gently and making the occasional delightful sound. For some reason that night he could not sleep, with easier times the talent for dropping in and out of sleep at will had deserted him. There were several candles burning at the other end of the room and in the dim warm light he got up and went to get himself a drink. As he did so, leaning his back against the wall, he looked at her sleeping face. He hated the sleeping face of men, the noise they made, the smell, the everything about them as they dreamt around him in the shed. The candlelight did her face no harm – the slightly too large nose that any smaller would have made her beauty shallow as a doll, the lips much thicker than they should have been but just exactly right on her. How could he possibly be here? How could it have happened? A sudden rush of joy beat in his chest, a sense of the wonderful, of all the possibilities of life. Slowly, carefully, he walked over to the bed and gently eased away the sheet that covered her. Naked she lay asleep in front of him, the long slim body with the little tummy, a touch of baby fat, the small breasts (how could anything be so beautiful?), the long legs, the slightly stubby toes. He looked her up and down, amazed and then almost reluctant, the dark and hidden hair between her legs, the catching of his breath. How could heaven itself be better than this astonishment of softly folded skin?