28


Unusually for medicine men, who generally suspected each other of stealing their cures, Hooke and Bradmore got on like brothers, no doubt because the lines between their skills were so plain. It was clear that the wound must be correctly enlarged to make Hooke’s idea possible. He intended to build a set of hollow tongs in reverse and the width of the arrow. This would then be inserted into the wound and inside the hollow metal head of the arrow. Then by means of a screw the tip of the device already divided in two would slowly be forced apart inside the arrow shaft which it would grip tightly. The arrowhead could then be pulled out the way it had gone in. While Hooke went off to the foundry to make this subtle and tiny device, Bradmore set about enlarging the wound so that it could be introduced. First he made a set of probes from elder wood also the thickness of an arrow shaft, dried them and covered them in linen soaked in rose honey to prevent infection. The shortest probe first, he inserted them into Vague Henri’s wound and then progressively introduced longer probes until he was satisfied he had made a clear run to the bottom of the wound. This took three days and by the end of this hideously painful process, Hooke, through great trial and error, arrived with a device that he was satisfied would do the job. Coming to Vague Henri’s face he presented the mechanism at the same angle the arrowhead had first entered and, placing the tip of the mechanism in the centre of the wound, slowly pushed it the six inches inside necessary for the tip of the tongs to fit inside the socket of the arrowhead. They were obliged to move it about backwards and forwards a good deal. Then Hooke turned the screw at the top of the device hoping it would open at the far tip, grip the head and stay firm enough for them to extract it.

They again began moving the device back and forth tugging firmly and, little by little, finally pulled the offending arrow out of Vague Henri’s face. Of the agony the poor boy endured it need only be said that the opium has not been grown that could dull the pain of that exercise.

His suffering was not over anyway. The danger of such a wound was the terrible risk of infection, something concerning which Bradmore was a great genius. Once the arrowhead was out – and big enough it was once it was lying on a plate – Bradmore took a squirtillo and filled it with white wine and flushed it into the wound. Then he placed in new probes made of wads of flax soaked in finely sieved bread, turpentine and honey. He left this for a day and then replaced the flax wads with shorter wads and so on for another twenty days. Afterwards he covered the wound in a dark ointment called Unguetum Fuscum and concerning which he was very secretive. After this treatment had stopped hell no longer held quite the terror it used to have for Vague Henri.

Bradmore had been appalled by the amount of opium Cale had been feeding Vague Henri and demanded he hand it over before he killed him, not least by causing him to explode – a terrible constipation having afflicted him as a result. He spent as much time as he could sitting with his friend, who was often in too much pain to reply or hallucinating even on the much more limited supply of opium Bradmore was prepared to give him. He instructed Cale to go into the market, almost as famous as that formerly of Memphis, and buy various types of food that he had never heard of and nearly all of which was extremely expensive.

‘You’ve bunged him up, you sort him out.’

The trouble was that no one had any money – the question of Bradmore’s fee having been carefully avoided. Bradmore had assumed that the Materazzi had escaped with at least some of their renowned wealth. This was not the case, as Cale well knew, and what they did have was not going to be spent on ruinous medical fees for some boy. They had troubles enough of their own. Vipond agreed to create the impression to Bradmore that money was no object when it came to the treatment of Vague Henri but paying was going to be Cale’s problem. Cale’s one option was to sell a small ruby he had stolen from the diadem of a statue of the Redeemer’s Mother in the anteroom at Chartres. At least he hoped it was a ruby, or at least valuable.

It was not his only financial problem. He had the Purgators as well as Vague Henri’s future to pay for. Part of him wished they just vanish but he knew this wasn’t going to happen. Not only were they devoted to him but he knew that having control of a hundred and sixty experienced fighting men would give him a good deal of heft in what was to come. But they had to be paid for and kept out of sight. If any of the Materazzi found out who they were there would be trouble.

So the day after Bradmore’s removal of the arrow, Cale went off on his own to buy food to treat Vague Henri’s terrible constipation but also to see if he could get something for his ruby. While he was making his way among the numerous stalls and the incomprehensible cries of the sellers (‘Bompos! Bompos! Bompos! Tufradoluh! Chiliwillis luvilanascarleta! Mushrumps cheap enough, luvli, to cook for someone yu don even like!’), he noticed three shops together opposite a stall of carrots and parsnips and cauliflowers artfully composed in the shape of a face. In each shop was a woman at a table stitching clothes. He watched the first two for a couple of minutes but lingered at the last of the three, partly because the woman was much younger than the others but also because she was working at such an astonishing rate. He watched for several more minutes now, fascinated not so much by her speed as the almost magical skill with which she was stitching a collar to a jacket. He liked watching skilled people work. She looked up a couple of times at Cale – there was no glass in the window – and finally spoke.

‘Want a suit?’

‘No.’

‘Then bugger off.’

It was not his way these days to let anyone these days have the last word, even a girl in a shop, but he felt tired and ill. Coming down with something, he thought, best get on. He left and she did not look up from her work. After a ten-minute walk that would usually have taken five he made it to Wallbow Gardens. Unlike the usual commercial squares of Spanish Leeds there were half a dozen extravagantly liveried guards wandering about to warn off criminals from the twenty or so gold and jewellery shops that made up the square and which had now replaced Memphis as the centre of trade in the four quarters for dealings in precious metals.

The first jeweller told him it was only semi-precious and worth about fifty dollars. This pleased Cale because it was clear the jeweller was lying and this must mean it was worth considerably more. When he told him he wanted it back the jeweller offered more but Cale thought it best to move on. The next claimed it was glass. The one after that again claimed it was only semi-precious and offered him a hundred and fifty dollars.

Finally, and somewhat dispirited because he knew it was worth something but not how much, he went into Carcaterra’s House of Precious Metals. The man behind the counter was perhaps in his mid-thirties and probably a Jew thought Cale because the only people he had seen before wearing skull caps were Jews.

‘Can I help you,’ said the man, a little warily. Cale put the ruby or whatever it was down on the table. The man picked it up, interested, and held it over a candle, examining the light refracted through it with the quiet care of someone who knew what he was doing. After a minute he looked at Cale.

‘You don’t look well, young man. Would you care to sit down?’

‘I just want to know what it’s worth. I know already, mind, I just want to know whether or not you’re going to try and steal from me.’

‘I can try and steal from you just as easily if you’re sitting down as if you’re standing up.’

As it happened Cale was feeling not just tired but exhausted. The black circles around his eyes were as bad as those belonging to the tragopan in the Memphis Zoo. There was a bench behind him and as he sat his legs almost gave way.

‘Would you care for a cup of tea?’

‘I want to know what it’s worth.’

‘I can tell you what it’s worth and give you a cup of tea.’

Cale felt too shattered to be awkward. ‘Thanks.’

‘David!’ called out the jeweller. ‘Would you be kind enough to bring me a cup of tea – builder’s tea if you please.’

There was a shout of acknowledgement and the jeweller went back to looking at the gemstone. Eventually David, Cale presumed, brought in a cup and saucer and was waved over to Cale by the jeweller. All three noticed that as he took it the cup and saucer began to jangle as if it was being held by an old man. David, puzzled, left them to it.

‘Do you know what this is?’ said the jeweller.

‘I know it’s worth a lot.’

‘That depends on your idea of worth, I suppose. It’s a type of gemstone called Red Beryl. It’s from the Beskidy Mountains and I know this not only because I am very well informed when it comes to gemstones but because that’s the only place they can be found. Do you agree?’

‘If you say so.’

‘I do. And the thing is, the very interesting thing is, that time out of mind the Beskidy Mountains have been in control of the One True Faith of the Hanged Redeemer. Did you know that?’

‘I can honestly say that I didn’t.’

‘So this must either be very old – I’ve only seen two before today – or it’s been taken off the statue of the Mother of the Hanged Redeemer for whom this particular gem is, I understand, solely reserved.’

‘Sounds about right.’ Cale was too exhausted to try and invent anything and was impressed by the man’s knowledge and skill.

‘I’m afraid I don’t deal in looted religious artefacts.’

Cale finished his tea and, still jangling, put it down on the bench beside him.

‘I don’t suppose you know anyone who does?’

‘I’m not a fence, young man.’

‘Sorry.’

Cale stood up feeling not so much exhausted now as unutterably weary and walked over to the jeweller, who handed the gemstone back to him.

‘I didn’t steal it.’ He paused. ‘All right, I did steal it. But no one ever earnt something they stole more than me and Red Beryl here.’

He walked over to the door. As he left the jeweller called out: ‘Try not to sell it for less than six hundred.’ And with that Cale shut the door behind him and was off into the square wondering if he had the energy to make it to his room.

‘You Cale?’ asked a pleasant voice.

Cale ignored it and walked on not looking up.

He tried to keep moving but the way was blocked by two hard-looking types he would have been wary of at the best of times. This was not the best of times.

‘And there are another three of us as well,’ said the pleasant voice.

Cale looked at the man.

‘You’re the bloke from Silbury Hill.’

‘How gratifying you remember,’ said Cadbury.

‘Not dead then?’

‘Me? I was just passing by. IdrisPukke?’

‘Still alive.’

‘So it is true – only the good die young.’

‘And your owner – Hagfish Harry?’

‘It’s a coincidence – remarkable really – that you should ask. Kitty the Hare would like a word.’

‘I have a butler now. He’ll give you an appointment.’

‘That’s enough cheek, now, sonny. My owner doesn’t like being kept waiting. Besides, you look as if you could do with a sit down. You’ve disimproved since we last met. If Kitty the Hare meant any harm to you we wouldn’t be talking now.’ Cadbury gestured the way and Cale went as gracefully as he knew how.

Fortunately they didn’t have to go far. In a few turns they moved on to the rich houses of the canal district with their huge windows open to let the light in and along with it the envy of the passers-by. They stopped at one of the swankiest and were let in as if expected momentarily. Cadbury motioned him further into the house and into a large and airy room overlooking an elegant garden of box-tree mazes, espaliered fruit trees in vertical and horizontal cordons, cut knee and navel, nipple and nose.

‘Sit down before you fall down,’ said Cadbury pulling up a chair.

‘Is someone cooking onions?’ asked Cale.

‘No.’

The door opened and a servant came in and lit several candles. Then he pulled the curtains shut but with some effort because they were so thick and tall, more like those for a stage than a house. Shortly after, the door opened and Kitty the Hare passed into the room. No other word would do. The hood he wore was deep enough to cover his face in that poor light and the gown like a small boy’s too large dressing gown. There was, however, nothing of the priest about him. His smell was different too. The Redeemers had the body odour of too little washing and something indefinably sour; Kitty the Hare smelt of something not unpleasant exactly and not just odd but oddly odd. Cadbury held a chair for him all the while carefully watching Cale to see how he reacted to this unsettling creature. No one said anything and no one moved. There was only the different rhythm of Kitty’s breathing, something like a dog panting only not.

‘You wanted ...’ began Cale.

‘Move into the light so I can see you well,’ interrupted Kitty. The non-look of him, the great performance of his arrival in the almost dark made Cale expect a voice fit for all this portent – doom-filled dark and menacing. But it was the cooing and the lisping, the almost but not at all feminine liquid tone that raised the hair on his arms, damp as they were from sweat. ‘Please do as I ask,’ said Kitty.

Shaken and poorly Cale shuffled forward, not by much. He was cautious now because he felt so weak but it also left him feeling a certain freedom. He was in no state for any swashbuckling – he could barely walk to the door let alone dash for it. In his present state he would have had trouble wrestling a kitten to its knees.

‘So. This is what the wrath of God looks like,’ said Kitty. ‘Original. Don’t you think so, Cadbury?’

‘Yes, Kitty.’

‘But it makes sense, the more you think about it, to have a child represent the anger of the almighty – given what so many of his innocents must endure. You are not well, I think.’

‘Just a cold.’

‘Well, don’t give it to us, eh, Cadbury?’

It may have been jovial – it was impossible for Cale to tell.

‘I have heard a great deal about you, mister. Is half of it true?’

‘More.’

‘He’s vain, Cadbury, how I like that in a god.’

‘What do you want?’ The strange sweet smell that at first had not bothered Cale was becoming more and more unpleasant and was beginning to make him feel even worse.

‘You have information?’

‘About?’

‘A great many things no doubt but I won’t insult you by trying to buy news about your friends – curious though I am to know where Vipond and his brother are sticking their snouts, I want information that is valuable to me and which I think you will quite happily share.’

‘About?’

‘The Redeemers. Bosco. Now that he is Pope ...’

Had he been feeling less dreadful Cale might have hidden his surprise better.

‘You didn’t know.’ Kitty was clearly amused.

‘I left in a hurry while I had the chance. So you see I’m not worth what you thought.’

‘Not at all. News I can always get easily enough. Intelligence – that’s something else. You were more than close to Bosco, you can tell me about his plans for you and for his faith now that he is the rock on which it is built. These things are valuable to me. There will be war but a new kind, I think. If so, I need to know what it is.’ He leant back in his chair. ‘You will be well paid but just as useful is that you will have influence through me in a world that doesn’t as yet have very much time for you. Influence more precious than rubies. As for your Purgators – find an excuse for their presence pretty soon.’ He stood up as Cadbury quickly moved to pull away his chair. ‘In a couple of days when you’re feeling better we’ll talk at greater length. Cadbury will give you tea. Mint might give you a lift.’ With that he was moving to the door, which was opened from the outside by someone who must have been remarkable of hearing, and then Kitty the Hare was gone. The same servant as before came in, opened the curtains and to Cale’s intense relief, because he thought the smell would make him sick, also opened the window to clear the air. Cadbury ordered tea and Cale went to the casement, drawing in the sweet air as if he had been at the bottom of a dirty pond for the last ten minutes.

‘What you expected?’ said Cadbury.

Cale did not reply. Cadbury handed Cale a small jar whose label announced in grand lettering: MRS NOLTE’S CHRISM. ‘It’ll help if you stick it up your nose next time you come. Just don’t leave a trace round your nostrils. Kitty takes offence.’

When Cale got back to his room feeling stronger for his black, not mint, tea and two cream slices he fell asleep, making fourteen hours over the last twenty-four – this for someone who usually got by on six or seven. When he woke up he noticed a large envelope had been pushed under the door. It was an invitation to a dinner in the Great Hall of Spanish Leeds Castle. He had barely finished reading it for the third time when there was a knock on the door.

‘IdrisPukke.’

Cale opened it, invitation in his other hand. It was so pompously ornate and grand it could not be overlooked and IdrisPukke was not, in any case, an overlooking sort of person. ‘May I?’ he said, pulling the invitation out of Cale’s hand.

‘Help yourself.’ Cale was curious to know what this great dinner was about and why he was invited but before he had a chance to pump IdrisPukke for information he was offered some unequivocal advice.

‘You can’t go.’

‘Why?’

‘It’s a trap.’

‘It’s a dinner.’

‘For everyone else. For you it’s a trap.’

‘I’m all ears.’

‘The invitation is from Bose Ikard.’

‘It says the Lord Mayor.’

‘He wants there to be trouble so that he can persuade the King that it’s dangerous to have the remnants of an embittered empire filling his second-largest city and hoping for a war to get their broken fortunes back.’

‘He has a point.’

‘Indeed he has.’

‘What’s it got to do with me?’

‘Your reputation goes before you.’

‘Meaning?’

‘That wherever you go disaster follows you like a spaniel.’ Cale was not easily lost for the last word but even he was startled by this. ‘He wants to see a quarrel with you and the Materazzi and he has a pretty good idea how to start one. You’ll find yourself sitting opposite Arbell and her husband.’

This brought about a silence of an altogether different kind. ‘Does Vipond know about this?’

‘Vipond sent me.’

‘So he expects me to do as I’m told.’

‘Do you ever do as you’re told? These days we all know you’re a god and not a bad-tempered hooligan with a big fist.’

‘I’m the anger of God not a god. I explained that.’

‘Vipond is warning you not to do what someone who wishes you harm wants you to do. Show some sense.’ He paused. ‘Please.’

Cale had been excited by the idea of a grand dinner but he could see IdrisPukke was right. But he could no more stay away than he could have prevented himself from falling to earth after he had launched himself from the tallest tower in Spanish Leeds.


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