Throughout dinner Arbell Swan-Neck did not once look up from her plate, though neither did she eat much. From time to time Cale shot her a look, and on each occasion she seemed more beautiful than the last-the long blond hair, the green and almond-shaped eyes and the lips! Red as a rosebud against her pale skin, a neck so long and slender that words and looks failed him. He turned back to his dinner, his soul ringing like a well-struck bell. But it was a bell that rang with more than joy and adoration-there was the sound there too of anger and resentment. She would not look at him because she did not want to be in his presence. She hated him and he (how could he not?) hated her in return.
As soon as the last dish was served-strawberries and cream-Arbell Swan-Neck stopped and said, “I’m sorry, I’m feeling unwell. May I leave?”
Her father looked at her, hiding his fury only for the sake of his guests. He merely nodded, hoping the irritable shake of his head made it clear: I’ll talk to you later.
She quickly glanced around at the others, though not Cale, and then she was gone. Cale sat and seethed. What mountainous seas of feeling-of love and bitterness and wrath-burst and dashed upon this young man’s rocky soul.
However, with the girl gone, there was no need to be careful about the matter of her kidnapping and its mysterious purpose. And it also became clear why there was a lack of crowds roaring their eternal gratitude for Cale’s amazing bravery in rescuing Arbell Materazzi. Hardly anyone knew. The Marshal apologized to Cale but explained that had the kidnapping become known, the demand for war would have been irresistible. He and Lord Vipond were in agreement that they must know as much as they could about the Redeemers’ unfathomable act before they took such a drastic step.
“We are blind,” said Vipond to Cale. “And in being so are apt to stumble into such a great enterprise. IdrisPukke tells me you have no idea why they would do something so provocative?”
“No.”
“You’re sure?”
“Why would I lie? It makes no more sense to me than it does to you. All the Redeemers ever talked about was the war against the Antagonists. And all they said even then was that the Antagonists worshipped the Anti-Redeemer and were heretics who should be wiped from the face of the earth.”
“And Memphis?”
“With disgust and hardly ever-it was a place of perversion and sin where anything at all could be bought and sold.”
“Harsh,” said IdrisPukke, “but you can see what they’re driving at.”
The Marshal and Vipond pointedly ignored him.
“So there’s nothing you can tell us?” asked the Doge.
Cale realized he was about to be dismissed and that this was his only chance to shape his future among the powerful.
“Only this. If they’ve decided to do something, the Redeemers will not stop. I don’t know why they want your daughter, but they’ll keep coming for her no matter what it costs them.”
At this the Marshal went pale. Cale kept his advantage.
“Your daughter, she’s a very…” He paused, as if searching for the right word. “Prestigious person.” He had liked the word when he heard it but had not quite got the hang of it. “I mean, everywhere in the empire they look on her-I’ve heard people say it-as its richest ornament. Everything that is to be admired about her is to be admired about the Materazzi. She stands for you, is that right?”
“What do you mean?” said the Marshal.
“If they wanted to send a message…” He let his voice trail.
“What kind of message?” asked the Marshal, more and more anxious.
“Kidnap Arbell Materazzi or kill her and show your subjects that the Redeemers can reach even the highest in the land.” He paused, again only for effect. “They’ll know that a second kidnapping will be impossible, probably, but in my opinion they won’t let this go. They always finish what they start. It’s as important for them to make that clear as letting you know they can reach anyone. They’re trying to tell you that they absolutely will not stop.”
By now the Marshal had gone white.
“She’ll be safe here. We’ll put a ring around her. No one will be able to enter.”
Cale tried to look more awkward than he felt.
“She was protected, I was told, by a guard of forty when she was taken from the castle at Lake Constanz. Were there any survivors?”
“No,” said the Marshal.
“And this time-it’s just my opinion, I can’t be sure-they’ll only come to kill. Will eighty men or a hundred and eighty be sure to stop them?”
“If history teaches us one thing, my lord,” said IdrisPukke, “it’s that if you’re prepared to sacrifice your own life, you can kill anyone.”
Vipond had not seen the Marshal so uneasy and alarmed at any time in his life.
“Can you stop them?” said the Marshal to Cale.
“Me?” Cale looked as if the idea had not occurred to him. He thought for a moment. “Better than anyone else, I’d say. And I have Vague Henri and Kleist.”
“Who?” said the Marshal.
“Cale’s friends,” observed Vipond, increasingly interested in what Cale was up to.
“They have your talents?” asked the Marshal.
“They have their own particular skills. Between us we can deal with anything the Redeemers send.”
“You’re very confident of your powers, Cale,” said Vipond. “Given you’ve spent the last ten minutes telling us how invulnerable the Redeemers are.”
Cale looked at him.
“I said their assassins were invulnerable to you.” He smiled. “I didn’t say they were invulnerable to me. I’m better than any soldier the Redeemers have ever produced. I’m not boasting; it’s just a fact. If you don’t believe me, sir,” he said, looking at the Marshal, “then ask your daughter and IdrisPukke. And if they’re not enough, then ask Conn Materazzi.”
“Hold your tongue, you young pup,” said Vipond, anger replacing his curiosity. “You never speak to Marshal Materazzi in such a manner.”
“I’ve had worse things said to me,” said the Marshal. “If you can keep my daughter safe, then I will make you rich and you can talk to me in private however you damn well please. But what you say had better be true.” He stood up. “By tomorrow afternoon I want a written plan for her protection in front of me. Yes?”
Cale nodded.
“For now every soldier in the city is on duty. Now, if you wouldn’t mind leaving us. You too, IdrisPukke.”
The two of them stood up, nodded and left.
“That was quite a performance,” said IdrisPukke as he shut the door. “Was any of it true?”
Cale laughed but did not reply.
Had he given IdrisPukke an answer, it would have been that very little of his dire warning was rooted in anything but his desire to force Arbell Swan-Neck to pay attention to him. He was furious at her ingratitude and more than ever in love with her. But she deserved to be punished for treating him in the way she did, and what could be better than to be able to decide when he wanted to see her and have endless opportunities to make her life a misery by his presence? Of course, the fact that his presence was so distasteful to her was a blow to the heart, but he was no less able to live with such painful contradictions than anyone else.
Anxiety for his daughter made the Marshal fear the worst, and he was an easy prey for Cale’s ominous predictions. Vipond was no more convinced than IdrisPukke. On the other hand, he could see no harm in what Cale proposed. And the notion that the Redeemers might try to kill her was clearly not implausible. At any rate, it would allow the Marshal to think that something was being done while Vipond worked day and night to get to the root of the Redeemers’ intentions. He was sure that war of some kind was inevitable and was resigned to preparing for it, however surreptitiously. But for Vipond, to fight any war without knowing what precisely your enemy wanted was a disaster in the making. And so he was content for Cale to get up to whatever it was he was getting up to-though it was not difficult to see what it was. Cale clearly knew nothing of the motive behind the kidnapping, but having him as bodyguard to Arbell Materazzi would keep her safe. Vipond was, in his own less paternal way, as grateful to Cale for his rescue as her father: the political implications of having the most adored member of the royal family in the hands of such a murderous and brutal regime as that of the Redeemers did not bear thinking about. The news coming from the Eastern Front about the Redeemers’ bitter stalemate with the Antagonists was terrible, so terrible indeed that it was hard to believe-except that the pitifully small number of those who had escaped over the borders into Materazzi territory all gave an alarmingly consistent story, one that gave the horrible ring of truth to the accounts Vipond’s agents had been recording and sending him. If war was coming against the Redeemers, it promised to be like no other.