Paul Hoffman - The Left Hand of God

“To go back to the assault on you by this Redeemer. You’d never seen him before?”

“No, nor any man.”

“How,” asked Vipond, “did you practice your… tenderness? If you had no men.”

“On each other, sir.” This startled the two men even more.

“We would take it in turns and pretend to be tired and bad-tempered and shout a lot and bang doors, and one of the others would calm us down and be kind until we were happy.” She looked at them and realized that her answer had fallen short in some way. “Then there were the dolls.”

“The dolls?”

“Yes, the man dolls. We dressed them and massaged them and treated them like kings.”

“I see,” said Vipond.

“Me and Lena…” She stopped for a moment. “Lena was the girl the Redeemer killed-we were told we had been chosen to be sent to be married and live happily ever after. But then we were taken to that man’s room by our aunties-that’s what we called the women who brought us up and told us we were going to be married. But then that man came and he killed Lena.”

“Your aunties, they knew about what would happen to you?”

“Why would they do that, having been so kind to us? They must have been tricked.”

“Wasn’t it a strange coincidence,” said Albin, not now sure if they weren’t being led up the garden path, though she was, he thought, a brilliant liar if this was so, “that you should have come across this Redeemer and Cale all in twenty-four hours and that Cale should have arrived in the nick of time to save you?”

“Yes. I thought that-even at the time. How strange to come across four men at the same time after all those years-and one so cruel and the others risking their lives for me, for someone they didn’t know. Are such things common?”

“No,” said Vipond. “Not common. Thank you, Riba. That will be all for the moment.” He rang a bell in front of him. The door opened and in walked a young woman. She had about her the air of cool pride of any sixteen-year-old member of the aristocracy, as if she had seen everything and little of it held interest. But her eyes goggled when she saw Riba with her dark hair and enormous plump curves. Standing next to one another, they seemed to be creatures only distantly related.

“Riba, this is Mademoiselle Jane Weld, my niece. She is going to be looking after you for the next few days.”

Mademoiselle Jane, still boggled, nodded slightly. Riba just smiled nervously.

“Albin. Would you wait outside with Riba while I have a word with Mademoiselle Jane?”

Albin ushered Riba outside and closed the door. Vipond looked at his startled niece.

“Close your mouth, Jane. The wind may change and you’ll have to stay like that.”

Mademoiselle Jane’s mouth shut with a snap that was almost audible, only for her to open it again almost immediately.

“Who on earth was that creature?”

“Sit down and listen and for once try and do as you’re told!”

Resentfully Mademoiselle Jane did so. “You are to befriend Riba and to get her to tell you again everything she has already told me and anything else. Write it down and send it to me, omitting no detail, however trivial or strange…” He looked at the young girl. “And it will be strange.

“When you have heard her story, you will see if she can be trained to keep quiet about it and pretend she comes from the Southern Isles or some such. She has manners enough of her own, but you will teach her ours. Perhaps if she does well, she will make a personal maid or even a companion.”

“You expect me to train a maid?” said Mademoiselle Jane indignantly.

“I expect you to do whatever I tell you. Now get out.”

Redeemer Stape Roy, pathfinder of the southern hunting party, rode into Memphis having left his hundred men and dogs in a town thirty miles away, his mind as uneasy as at any time in his life. This unease was no mean thing, given that Stape Roy had undergone many hellish experiences, and caused a fair number too. But now as he approached Kitty Town, he felt he was coming as close to hell itself as could ever be found on earth. As he approached the gaudily lit entrance to the nightmarish suburb of Memphis, he stopped, got down off his horse and led him the last few yards. Even this late there were still tourists and locals streaming past the guards, who ignored most, searched some.

“You can’t bring that in here,” said one of the guards, gesturing to the horse. “Are you armed?”

To the teeth, thought Stape Roy. “I don’t want to come in. I have a letter for Kitty the Hare,” he said.

“Never heard of him. Now bugger off!”

Slowly, watched intently by the guards, Stape Roy reached into his saddlebags and brought out two purses, one much bigger than the other. He reached out with the smaller one. “This is for you to share. The other one is for Kitty the Hare.”

“Hand them over. I’ll see he gets them.” The guards, five of them, huge and carefully chosen for their lack of charm, began to move to encircle Stape Roy. “You come back tomorrow or, better still, the day after.”

“I’ll keep my money till then.”

“No. I don’t think so,” said the guard. “It’ll be safe with us.”

He moved toward Stape Roy as quickly as any man of twenty stone could and reached for the money. Stape Roy seemed to have given in. His shoulders sagged as if in utter defeat. Then, as the guard pushed him in the chest, he simply folded his own hands across the guard’s and pushed them down. There was a not particularly loud crack! and a scream of agony as the guard fell to his knees. The others, taken aback at the suddenness of this, now rushed forward. But they had hardly moved when they saw that Stape Roy was holding a shortsword point at the guard’s neck. The scream from the guard to tell them to step back was hardly necessary.

“Now bring me someone in authority and be quick about it. I have no intention of staying in this cesspit any longer than I have to.”

Twenty minutes later Stape Roy was sitting in an anteroom, and despite the fact that it was one of the most pleasant rooms he had ever been in-lined with cedar and sandalwood, it spoke of rich simplicity and smelled of something so subtle and easing to the senses he considered trying to cut some of it out and take it with him-he remained uneasy. Not because of the fight at the gates of Kitty Town but because of what he had seen after he had been allowed inside. The man who had supervised the massacres at Odessa and Polish Wood, notorious even in the roll call of malice that characterized the wars in the Eastern Breaks, was unnerved by the things he had seen in the last few minutes. Then a door opened at the far end of the room and an old man stepped forward and said politely, “Kitty the Hare will see you now.”

Even as the door slid open, a curious odor wafted toward him. It was only slightly unpleasant and even sweet, though a sweetness that raised the hairs on Stape Roy’s neck. He was certain he had never smelled it before, and yet something was warning Stape Roy, something was signaling and making him uneasy for all his vicious courage. Already deeply upset by the scenes in Kitty Town, he walked toward the door and then the old man, staying in the anteroom, closed it behind him.

The room was dark but carefully lit so that the floor was easy to see. Above waist height nothing was properly visible except as the dimmest shape. There was someone sitting at a desk in the center of the room, but it was as if that person were made of shadow.

“Please make yourself comfortable, Redeemer.”

That voice. It was like nothing he had ever experienced. There was no cruel edge, no hissing sibilance of malice, no threat or menace, all tones of voice he was familiar with time out of mind. This was like the cooing of a dove, a sighing note as if of great sadness, a deep mewling. It was, by some way, the most horrible thing he had ever heard. The sound seemed to resonate in his stomach like the deepest unheard note of the organ in the great cathedral at Kiev. He felt that he was going to be sick.