Paul Hoffman - The Left Hand of God

“I feel sick,” said Kleist.

“Me too,” whispered Vague Henri.

“Nearly threw up,” admitted Cale.

“We’re going to have to hide it.”

“Or throw it away.”

“You’ll get used to it,” said Cale. “Anyway, I’ll have yours if you don’t want it.”

“I have to fold the vestments after practice,” said Vague Henri.

“Give me the food and I’ll hide it in there.”

“Talking. You boys. Talking.” In his usual, almost miraculous, way Redeemer Malik had appeared behind them. It was unwise to be doing anything wrong when Malik was around, because of his strange ability to creep up on people. His unannounced taking over of the training session from Redeemer Fitzsimmons, known universally as Fitz the Shits because of the dysentery that had plagued him since his time in the Fen campaigns, was just bad luck. “I want two hundred,” said Malik, fetching Kleist a hefty clip round the back of his head. He made the entire line, not just the three of them, get down on their knuckles and start to do their allotted press-ups. “Not you, Cale,” said Malik. “Balance on your hands.” Cale moved easily into a handstand and started to push up and down, up and down. With the exception of Kleist, the faces of the others in the line were already frowning under the strain, but Cale kept moving up and down as if he might never stop, his eyes blank, a thousand miles away. Kleist merely looked bored, though completely at ease, while moving twice as fast as the others. When the last of them had finished, exhausted and in pain, Malik made Cale do twenty more for showing bodily pride. “I told you to balance on your hands, not do press-ups as well. The pride of a boy is a tasty snack for the devil.” This was a moral lesson lost on the acolytes in front of him, who stared at him blankly: the experience of a light but refreshing meal between other meals, tasty or otherwise, was something they had never imagined, let alone experienced.

When the bell went to signal the end of practice, five hundred boys walked as slowly as they dared back to the basilica for morning prayers. As they passed by the alley leading into the back of the great building, the three boys slipped away. They gave all the food in their pockets to Vague Henri, and then Kleist and Cale rejoined the long queue that jammed the square in front of the basilica.

Meanwhile, Vague Henri shoved the latch on the sacristy door with his shoulders, his hands being full of bread, meat and cake. He pushed it open and listened out for Redeemers. He moved into the dark brown of the dressing place, ready to back out if he saw anything. It seemed to be empty. Now he rushed over to one of the cupboards, but he had to dump some of the food onto the floor in order to open it. A bit of dirt, he reflected, never harmed anyone. With the door open, he reached inside the cupboard and lifted a plank of wood from the floor. Underneath was a large space in which Vague Henri kept his belongings-all of them forbidden. The acolytes were not permitted to own anything, in case it made them, as Redeemer Pig put it, “lust after the material things of this world.” (Pig, it should be added, was not his real name, which was Redeemer Glebe.)

It was Glebe’s voice that now rang out behind him.

“Who’s that?”

Three-quarters hidden by the cupboard door, Vague Henri shoveled the food in his arms and the chicken legs and cake from the floor into the cupboard and, standing up, shut the door.

“I beg your pardon, Redeemer?”

“Oh, it’s you,” said Glebe. “What are you doing?”

“What am I doing, Redeemer?”

“Yes,” said Glebe irritably.

“I… uh… well.” Vague Henri looked round as if for inspiration. He seemed to find it somewhere up in the roof.

“I was… putting away the long habiliment left by Redeemer Bent.” Redeemer Bent was certainly mad, but his reputation for forgetfulness was largely due to the fact that whenever they got the chance the acolytes blamed him for everything that was misplaced or was questionable about whatever they were doing. If ever they were caught doing something or being somewhere that they shouldn’t, the acolytes’ first line of defense was that they were there at the command of Redeemer Bent, whose poor short-term memory could be relied upon not to contradict them.

“Bring me my habiliments.”

Vague Henri looked at Glebe as if he had never heard of such things.

“Well? What?” said Glebe.

“Habiliments?” asked Vague Henri. As Glebe was about to step forward and give him a clout, Vague Henri said brightly, “Of course, Redeemer.” He turned and walked over to another of the cupboards and flung it open as if with huge enthusiasm.

“Black or white, Redeemer?”

“What’s the matter with you?”

“The matter, Redeemer?”

“Yes, you idiot. Why would I wear black habiliments on a weekday during the month of the dead?”

“On a weekday?” said Vague Henri as if astonished by such a notion. “Of course not, Redeemer. You’ll need a thrannock, though.”

“What are you talking about?” Glebe’s querulous tone was also uncertain. There were hundreds of ceremonial robes and ornaments, many having fallen into disuse over the thousand years since the founding of the Sanctuary. He had, it was clear, never heard of the thrannock, but that didn’t mean such a thing did not exist.

Vague Henri went over to a drawer and pulled it open, watched by Redeemer Glebe. He searched for a moment and then pulled out a necklace made of tiny beads, on the end of which was a small square made out of sacking. “It’s to be worn on Martyr Fulton’s day.”

“I’ve never worn anything like that before,” said Glebe, still uncertain. He walked over to the Ecclesiasticum and opened it at that day’s date. It was, indeed, Martyr Fulton’s day, but then there were so many martyrs and not enough days-as a result, some of the minor ones were celebrated only every twenty years or so. Glebe sniffed irritably.

“Get a move on, we’re late.”

With due solemnity, Vague Henri placed the thrannock around Glebe’s neck and helped him into the long, white, elaborately decorated habiliment. This done, he followed Glebe out into the basilica proper for morning prayers, and spent the next half an hour pleasurably reliving the episode with the thrannock, something that did not exist outside Vague Henri’s imagination. He had no idea what the square of sack on the end of the beaded string was for, but there were numerous such unknown bits and bobs in the sacristy whose religious significance had been long forgotten. Nevertheless, he had, and not for the first time, taken an enormous risk just for the pleasure of making a fool out of a Redeemer. If he were ever found out, they would have the hide off his back. And this was no figure of speech.

His nickname, given to him by Cale, had caught on, but only the two of them realized what it truly meant. No one except Cale realized that Henri’s elusive way of answering or repeating any question he was asked was not due to his inability to understand what was said to him, or to give clear replies, but merely a way of defying the Redeemers by pushing his response to them to the very limit of their not very great tolerance. It was because Cale had come to see what Henri was up to and admire its spectacular recklessness that he had broken one of his most important rules: make no friends, allow no one to make friends with you.

At that moment Cale was making his way into a spare pew in Basilica Number Four, looking forward to catching up on his sleep during the Prayers of Abasement. He had perfected the art of dozing while lambasting himself for his sins, sins of turpitude, of delectatio morosa, sins of gaudium, of desiderium, sins of desire efficacious and inefficacious. In unison the five hundred children in Basilica Four vowed never to commit transgressions that would have been impossible for them even if they had known what they were: five-year-olds swore solemnly never to covet their neighbor’s wife, nine-year-olds vowed that under no circumstances would they carve graven images and fourteen-year-olds promised not to worship these images even if they did carve them. All of this under pain of God punishing their children even to the third or fourth generation. After a satisfying forty-five-minute doze, the Mass ended and Cale filed out silently with the others and made his way back to the far end of the training field.