“Tell me, young lady, for all your love for this young man, a love I can see now is certainly genuine…” He paused to let her swallow this sugary poison. “Haven’t you felt something…” He paused again, searching carefully for the right word, “Something fatal.”

“You made him like that with your cruelty.”

“Not so,” replied Bosco reasonably, as if he understood the accusation. “The first moment I saw him when he was very young, there was something shocking about him. It took me a long time to put my finger on what it was because it simply didn’t make sense. It was dread. I dreaded this little boy. Certainly it was necessary to mold and discipline what was already there, but no human being could make Cale what he is. I am not so boastful. I was merely an agent of the Lord to incline his nature for our common good and in God’s service. But you have seen this in him and it frightens you-as well it might. The kindnesses in him that you have sometimes seen are like the wings of the ostrich-they beat but will not fly. Leave him to us and save your father, your people and yourself.” He paused a moment for effect. “And Cale.”

Arbell started to speak, but Bosco held up his hand to silence her. “I’ve nothing more to say. Consider it and make your decision. I will send the details of the time and place when we will meet Cale. You will either write the letter or you will not.”

Two Redeemers who had been standing by the door moved forward and gestured for Arbell and her father both to leave. As she went through the door, Bosco called out to her as if reluctantly sympathetic to her plight. “Remember that you are responsible for the lives of thousands. And I promise never to raise my hand to him again, nor allow anyone else to do so.” The door closed and Bosco said softly to himself: “For the lips that to him now are as luscious as honeycomb, shall be to him shortly as bitter as wormwood, and as sharp as a two-edged sword.”

The Lord Militant turned and gestured Cale forward into the light. The guard removed the gag and led him over to Bosco.

“Do you really think she’ll believe you?” said Cale.

“I can’t think why not: it’s mostly true, even if it’s not the whole truth.”

“Which is?”

Bosco looked at him as if trying to read something in his face, but with an uncertainty Cale had never seen before.

“No,” Bosco said, at last. “We’ll wait for her reply.”

“What are you afraid of?”

Bosco smiled. “Well, perhaps a little honesty between us would be no bad thing at this stage. I fear, of course, that true love will conquer all and she will refuse to deliver you into my hands.”

Back in her palazzo, Arbell Swan-Neck was suffering the terrible pangs of private desire and public obligation, the dreadful and impossible betrayal involved in either choice. But it was worse than it seemed because in her heart of hearts (and the yet more secret one that lay within that heart) she had already decided to betray Thomas Cale. Understand her loss, the numbing shock of witnessing all she had ever known collapse in front of her. Then understand the dreadful power of Bosco’s words that echoed her most fearful thoughts in almost every way. Thrilling though Cale was to her, it was the same strangeness that roused her that also roused distaste for him. He was so violent, so angry, so deadly. Bosco had seen right through her to the other side. How, given who she was, could she be other than refined and delicate? And, make no mistake, this refinement and delicacy were what Cale adored; but Cale had been beaten into shape, hammered in dreadful fires of fear and pain. How could she be with him for long? A secret part of Arbell had been searching for some time for a way to leave her lover-although she was unaware of this, it is only fair to record. And so as Cale waited for her to save him while he worked out a way of saving her, she had already chosen the bitter but reasonable path of the good, of the many over the one. Who was there, after all, to say otherwise? Not she. Surely even Cale himself would understand in time.

36

Nearly six hours later Bosco entered the locked room in which Cale had been confined. He was carrying two letters. He handed one of them to Cale. Cale read it without expression, apparently twice. Then Bosco offered him the second.

“She asked me, tearfully, to give this to you after we had taken you prisoner. It asks you to believe how hard it was to deliver you into my hands and to try and forgive her.”

Cale took the offered letter and threw it on the fire.

“I dreamt something wonderful,” said Cale. “Now I’m awake I’m angry at myself. Say what you have to say.”

Bosco sat down behind a table that made up the only other furniture in the room.

“Thirty years ago, when I went into the wilderness to fast and pray before I became a priest, the Hanged Redeemer’s mother, peace be upon her, appeared to me in three visions. In the first, she told me that God had waited in vain for mankind to repent for killing His son and had now despaired of its nature. The wickedness of man was great in the earth, and every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was continually evil. He repents that He had ever made him. In the second vision, she told me that God had said: ‘The end of all flesh is come before me; every living man and woman that I have made you will destroy from the face of the earth. When you have accomplished this the world will end, the saved will enter paradise, and men and women will exist no more.’ I asked her how it would be possible to do this, and she told me to fast and wait for a third and final vision. In the third and final vision, she brought with her a small boy carrying a hawthorn stick, and from the end of that stick dripped vinegar. ‘Look for this child, and when you see him, prepare him for his work. He is the left hand of God, also called the Angel of Death, and he will bring about all these things.’ ”

Throughout all this it seemed as if Bosco had become transfixed, as if he were not in a room in Memphis but back in the deserts of Fatima thirty years before, listening to the Mother of God. Then it was as if some light had been put out and he was back. He looked at Cale.

“As soon as I saw that boy brought into the Sanctuary ten years ago, I knew him.” He smiled at Cale in the strangest way, a smile of love and tenderness. “It was you.”

A week later a procession paused briefly in the keep. Among those on horseback were Lord Militant Redeemer Bosco and by his side was Cale. Among those gathered to watch them leave were Marshal Materazzi, Chancellor Vipond and such of his senior men who had survived the battle at Silbury Hill. Between them were two lines of Redeemer soldiers, there to make sure that the now free but unarmed Cale did nothing untoward. It suited Bosco for the time being to keep the Marshal where he was. However, he thought wiser of provoking Cale by having the girl present, and he had ordered her in person, much to her relief, to stay away from the official humiliation being handed out to her father and everyone else in Memphis. Instead she was to watch and listen from a nearby window. She needed no warning not to make her presence known. Despite his precautions, Bosco wondered if he had been wise to let Cale go unrestrained. Cale pulled his horse up and stared at the Marshal over the heads of the guards. Standing next to him, distraught, was Simon. Cale did not seem to be aware of him. When he began speaking, it was so softly he could barely be heard over the noise of the restless horses.

“I have a message for your daughter,” said Cale. “I am bound to her with cables that not even God can break. One day, if there is a soft breeze on her cheek, it may be my breath; one night, if the cool wind plays with her hair, it may be my shadow passing by.”