27

Well, Redeemer,” cooed Kitty the Hare, the nails of his hand stroking the wood on the table on which stood the golden statue of the Lustful Venus of Strabo. The faint sound of his voice felt to Redeemer Stape Roy as if something worse than you could possibly imagine was just about to softly crawl its way inside his ear. “This is all very strange,” continued Kitty the Hare, staring at the statue. Or at least Redeemer Stape Roy thought he was staring-as always Kitty the Hare’s face was covered by his gray hood, something for which the Redeemer was very grateful.

“The statue is yours if you help us. What do our reasons matter?”

The vague scraping of the nails along the wood continued, and then the Redeemer almost jumped as the scraping stopped and the covered hand reached forward to the statue and the gray cloth slid away from Kitty the Hare’s hand-only it was not a hand. Think of something gray and furred, though lightly, a dog’s paw but longer, very much longer, and with mottled nails, and yet this would not be close enough. The nails, softly, like a mother’s stroking her baby’s face, gently caressed the statue for a few moments and then withdrew.

“A beautiful piece,” gurgled Kitty the Hare. “But I was told that it had been broken into ten pieces and thrown into the volcano at Delphi.”

“Obviously not.”

There was a long sigh that he could feel on his face, like the hot and wet bad breath of a large and unfriendly dog.

“You will not succeed,” cooed Kitty the Hare.

“That’s a matter of opinion.”

“It is a matter of fact,” said Kitty the Hare sharply.

“This is our business.”

“You are trying to start a war and so it’s my business also.”

There was a long pause.

“As it happens,” continued Kitty the Hare, “I have no objections to a war. They’ve always done well by me in the past. You’d be amazed, my dear Redeemer, at just how much money can be made from supplying poor quality food and drink and pots and pans for even the teensiest war. I will want a guarantee, written, that should you win, none of my possessions will be damaged and I will be given a protected passage to anywhere I choose.”

“Agreed.”

Neither believed the other. Kitty the Hare was certainly happy to make money from a war, but his plans went a good deal deeper than that.

“It will take some time,” sighed Kitty the Hare, with another gush of hot, wet breath. “But I will have the plans ready within three weeks.”

“That’s too long.”

“Perhaps, but that’s how long it will take. Good-bye.”

With that, Redeemer Stape Roy was led out of Kitty the Hare’s private rooms and into the courtyard, then out into the town itself. A crowd had gathered to watch two men no older than sixteen being hanged from a gallows. Around each of their terrified necks was a sign that read: RAPIST.

“What’s a rapist?” asked Redeemer Stape Roy of his guard, innocence and evil living quite contentedly together.

“Anyone who tries to get away without paying,” came the reply.

It was a reflective Cale who made his way toward Arbell Swan-Neck’s now carefully cordoned-off chambers. Despite his deep suspicion and resentment of her, even he had begun to detect a softening toward him. She no longer glared at him or flinched every time he came near her. At times he even asked himself if the look in her eyes (although he could not, of course, recognize it as pity and desire) might be of some significance. But he quickly dismissed such ideas because they made no sense. Still, something confusing was happening. Lost in these thoughts, he was barely aware of a group of boys about ten years old, at the edge of the practice field, looking shady and throwing stones at each other. As he came closer, he realized that one of them was much older, fourteen or so, as tall and slender and handsome as Materazzi boys were prone to be at that age. What was so odd was that the younger boys were throwing stones not at each other but at the older boy and that they were also shouting at him. “Pillock! Half-wit! Drooling gobshite! Flap-mouthed turd!” Then the stones. But despite his size, the bigger boy simply whirled around in fear and confusion as each stone struck him. Then one took him on the forehead and he collapsed in a heap. As the younger boys started to run forward to give him a kick, Cale arrived, clipped one of them round the ear, tripped up another and gave him a light kick as he lay on the ground. In a moment the gang were on the run, screaming insults as they went.

“If I see you little scum again,” Cale called out after them, “you’ll get the full benefit of my boot up your shiv!”

Cale bent down over the fallen boy.

“It’s all right, they’ve gone,” he said to the weeping lump beside him, his hand covering his face and curled up into a ball. There was no reaction. The boy just kept whimpering. “I won’t hurt you. They’ve gone.” Still there was no reaction. Somewhat irritated now, Cale touched him on the shoulder. The boy burst into life, lashing out with such speed that his hand cracked Cale on the forehead. With a cry of astonishment and pain, Cale leapt back as the boy looked at him in utter astonishment and scrabbled backward toward a wall, looking around, terrified, for his tormentors.

“Shit!” said Cale. “Shit! Shit! Shit!” The boy had knuckles of iron, and it was as if he’d taken a glancing blow from a hammer. “What’s the matter with you, you bloody maniac?” he shouted at the wild-eyed boy. “I was trying to help you and you nearly take my head off.”

The boy kept on staring at him but finally spoke; only it was not speech but a series of grunts.

Because he was not used to the lame and the blind-they didn’t live long at the Sanctuary-it took a while for Cale to realize that the boy was dumb. He held out his hand. Slowly the boy took it and Cale pulled him to his feet. “Come with me,” he said. The boy stared at him. Deaf as well as dumb. Cale gestured to him to follow, and slowly, weeping with pain and humiliation, he did so.

Ten minutes later Cale was cleaning the boy up in the temporary guardhouse in Arbell Swan-Neck’s quarters, when she came rushing in, attended by Riba. She gasped on seeing the bleeding boy sitting in front of Cale, and cried out, “What have you done to him?”

“What are you talking about, you mad bitch?” he shouted back. “He was being given a hammering by a gang of your little charmers and I ran them off.”

She stared at him, full of remorse for having undone the good work of the last few days.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” she said, so pitifully and clearly stricken with regret that Cale felt an intense pleasure. For once he had an advantage in her presence. He gasped with dismissal, however. “I am so very sorry,” she repeated, then went up to the boy, all anxiety and worry, and kissed him. Cale had never seen her show this kind of concern for anyone. He looked on, amazed. The boy almost instantly began to calm down. Arbell Swan-Neck looked at Cale as she stroked the boy’s hair.

“This is my brother, Simon,” she said. “Most people call him Simon Half-Wit-though never in front of me. He’s deaf and dumb. What happened?”

“He was on the practice field. A group of younger boys were throwing stones at him.”

“Monsters!” she said, turning back to her brother. “They think they can get away with anything because he can’t tell on them.”

“Doesn’t he have a guardian?”

“Yes, but he wants to be on his own, and he’s always escaping to the practice field because he wants to be like the others. But they hate and fear him because he’s slow. They say he’s possessed by a devil.”

Happier now, Simon began pointing at Cale and grunting, acting out the stone throwing and his rescue.

“He wants to thank you.”

“How do you know?” replied Cale, rather too bluntly.