Paul Hoffman - The Left Hand of God

“Yes, I’m awake,” groaned IdrisPukke. “Where am I going?”

“Shut your gob. They told me I wasn’t to talk to you, not on any account, but I don’t see why. You don’t look like much to me.” And with another jab to his stomach with the spear butt, the soldier sat back and did not speak again.

What do you want me to do with them?” asked Albin.

Vipond looked up from his desk and considered. “They interest me. But I think it’s time we squeezed them a little more. I want you to oversee their questioning about the Redeemers. We need to create a better picture of the Sanctuary and whether what the Redeemers are up to has any significance for us. In the meantime put the boys out as apprentices to the Mond.”

“Solomon Solomon won’t be happy about that.”

“Good God,” gasped Vipond. “Doesn’t anyone do as they’re told anymore? If he doesn’t like it, he can lump it.”

“The Mond are an arrogant collection, Chancellor. It won’t be easy for the three of them.”

“I realize. But I want you to keep a close eye on them. I want to know how they react to their treatment. I don’t blame them for lying to me-I’d do the same in their place-but I want to get to the bottom of this business.”

And that was how two days later Cale, Kleist, and Vague Henri found themselves in the Square of the Field of Excellence, along with forty-seven other apprentices, watching the same number of young Materazzi aristocrats warming up in front of Solomon Solomon, comptroller of martial arts at the Mond. He was a big man with a shaved head and bad-tempered eyes.

The new apprentices stood and admired the young men, fourteen-and fifteen-year-olds, as they stretched and eased their muscles on the field. In general their appearance was uniform-they were tall, astonishingly supple, blond and slim. Confidence and self-belief shimmered in the air about them as they stretched their long limbs into impossible contortions or performed one-handed push-ups as if magical engines powered their lithe arms. Forty-seven of the apprentices looked on awestruck, the sons of wealthy merchants who had paid Solomon Solomon a good deal of money to allow mere trade the opportunity to have daily contact with the Materazzi. The late substitution of the three yobs from the Scablands had cost Solomon Solomon more than a thousand dollars a year. This was why his icy heart was very much icier than usual.

Each of the apprentices had been placed under a different shield of arms, and while Cale had no idea what these were, he could see from the Materazzi warming up near him that each one had a badge on his chest and that they were the same as the coat of arms he could see behind some of the apprentices. It was a while before he could make out the owner of the badge that matched his own shield. He was like the others, only much more so: taller, blonder, more graceful, stronger. He moved with great speed as he mock-fought several opponents, pulling his blows but still putting each one on his backside. Cale took a few seconds to look back and scan the vast array of weapons for each one of the Mond-half a dozen kinds of sword, short, medium and long spears, axes, as well as several other kinds of weapons he had never seen before.

“You! YOU! STAND WHERE YOU ARE!” It was Solomon Solomon and he was staring at Cale. Solomon Solomon stepped down from the rough stage filled with combat dummies, from which he had been surveying the warm-up, and marched directly over to Cale, not taking his eyes from him for a moment, until he stood directly in front of him. On the field the warm-up came to a halt as the young Materazzi watched to see what would happen. They did not have to wait long. As soon as Solomon Solomon reached Cale, he fetched him a huge palm-open blow across the side of his head. Some of the Mond laughed in a kind of heartless sympathy, as you might on seeing an athlete take a terrible tumble in a race or a weak boxer walk into a punch that would knock him unconscious for hours.

Although Cale staggered, he did not go down as Solomon Solomon expected. Nor, as his head came back into line, did he protest or look Solomon Solomon angrily in the face-Cale had too much experience of arbitrary acts of violence and the incomprehensible bad temper of those in authority over him to make either mistake.

“Do you know what you’ve done?”

“No, sir,” said Cale.

“No, sir? You dare to tell me that you don’t know?” This was said with all the pent-up fury of a miser who had lost a thousand dollars a year without an acceptable explanation. He hit Cale again. When the third blow came, Cale realized his mistake. At the Sanctuary, falling down under a blow was only cause for another blow; here it was now clear that the opposite was true. He duly fell to the floor. “In future,” screamed Solomon Solomon, “you keep your eyes to the front, you watch your master and do not take your eyes from him. DO YOU UNDERSTAND?”

“Yes, sir.”

With that, Solomon Solomon turned and marched back to his podium. Cale slowly got to his feet, his head ringing. All of the other apprentices were staring ahead in terror, except for Vague Henri and Kleist, who stared ahead because they knew what was required. One person, however, was looking at him: the tallest and most graceful of the Materazzi, the one in front of whose shield Cale was standing. Those around him were laughing, but the blond Materazzi was not. He was almost bright red with anger.

Not even the beating he had handed out to Cale improved Solomon Solomon’s temper; the loss of so much money had been a deep blow to the heart. “Attend to your apprentices. Shortswords.”

The Mond walked toward the line of apprentices and stood opposite. The tall young Materazzi looked at Cale and spoke softly. “Make an exhibition of yourself like that again and I’ll make you wish you’d never been born. Do you hear?”

“Yes, I hear,” replied Cale.

“I am Conn Materazzi. You call me Boss from now on.”

“Yes, Boss, I hear.”

“Give me the shortsword.”

Cale turned around. There were three swords hanging from a wooden bar, with blades of equal length but different shapes, from straight to curved. To Cale, a sword was a sword. He picked one.

“Not that one.” This was followed by a kick in the arse. “The other one.” Cale reached for the sword next to it. He took another kick. There was much laughter from Conn Materazzi’s cronies and some of the apprentices. “The other one,” said Conn. Cale picked it out and handed it to the smiling young man. “Good. Now say thank you for that instructional kick.” There was quiet at this, the quiet of expectation that perhaps the apprentice might be foolish enough to protest or, even better, strike back.

“Thank me,” repeated Conn.

“Thank you, Boss,” said Cale, almost pleasantly, much to the relief of Vague Henri and even Kleist.

“Excellent,” said Conn, looking at his pals. “A lack of backbone, I like to see that in a servant.” The ingratiating laughter was cut short by another barked order from Solomon Solomon. For the next two hours Cale watched, head aching, as the Mond went through their training routines. When it was over, they left the field, laughing, to bathe and eat. Then several older men, the scouts, came out and instructed the apprentices in the use and care of the weapons stacked behind them.

Later, the three sat and talked, Vague Henri and Kleist surprisingly more miserable than Cale.

“God,” said Kleist, “I thought we’d finally had a bit of luck turning up here.” He looked at Cale bitterly. “You have a real talent, Cale, for getting under people’s skin. It took you, what, twenty minutes to pick a fight with the two biggest smells in what looked like being a really cushy number.”