Paul Hoffman - The Left Hand of God

The field was never empty during the day now. The huge increase in the number of acolytes under instruction in the last five years had meant that almost everything now was done in shifts: training, eating, washing, worship. For those thought to be falling behind, training took place even at night, when it was particularly hated because of the terrible cold, the wind off the Scablands like a knife even in summer. It was no secret that this increase in acolytes was to provide more troops for the war against the Antagonists. Cale knew that many of those who left the Sanctuary were not going permanently to the Eastern Front but were being held most of the time in reserve and rotated for six months to either front, with up to a year or longer back in reserve in between. He knew this because Bosco had told him.

“You may ask two questions,” said Bosco after he had informed him about this strange deployment. Cale had considered for a moment.

“The time they spend in reserve, Lord-do you plan to increase it and keep on increasing it?”

“Yes,” said Bosco. “Second question.”

“I don’t need a second question,” replied Cale.

“Really? You’d better be right, then, hadn’t you?”

“I heard Redeemer Compton say to you that there was stalemate at the fronts.”

“Yes, I could see you earwigging at the time.”

“And yet you both talked around it as if it wasn’t a problem.”

“Go on.”

“You’ve trained a girt number of priests militant in the last five years-too many. You’re trying to give them a go at the fighting, but you don’t want the Antagonists to know that you’ve been building up your forces. That’s why the time in reserve has been increasing. We’re always being told that there are Antagonist traitors everywhere at the fronts. Is that true?”

“Ah.” Bosco smiled, not a pleasant sight. “A second question while all the time boasting that you needed only one. Your vanity will destroy you, boy, and I don’t mean that for the good of your soul. I have…” He stopped, and it was as if he were uncertain what to say next, something that Cale had never seen before. It was disturbing. “I have expectations of you. Demands will be made. It would be much better if you were thrown off the walls of this place with a millstone round your neck than if you failed to meet those demands and those expectations. And it is your pride that most worries me. Every other Redeemer from here to eternity will tell you that pride is the cause of all the other twenty-eight deadly sins, but I have bigger fish to fry than your soul. It distorts your judgment and makes you put yourself in situations that you could have avoided. I gave you two questions, and for no reason but vain superbia you wanted to best me and risked a punishment for failing that you need not have risked. It makes you weak in such a way that I wonder whether you have deserved my protection all these years.” He stared at Cale, and Cale stared at the floor, all the while hating and sneering at the idea of Bosco protecting him. Strange and perilous thoughts went through his mind as he waited.

“The answer to your second question is that there are Antagonist spies and intelligencers at the fronts, but only a few. Enough, however.”

Cale kept his eyes on the floor. Pretend not to resist. Minimize the punishment. Yet all the while the raging resentment that Bosco was right and that he might have avoided what was coming.

“You are building up reserves for a great attack on both fronts, and yet you must keep numbers there at more or less the same level or they’ll see what’s coming. You want the reserves to get experience, but there are now too many-so they have to spend more time away from the front. And yet you need many more soldiers to finish off the Antagonists, but they must be battle-hardened and there aren’t enough battles. You’re in a bind, Lord.”

“Your solution?”

“I’ll need time, Redeemer. There may not be a solution that isn’t another problem.”

Bosco laughed.

“Let me tell you, boy, the solution to every problem is always another problem.”

Then, without warning, Bosco lashed out at Cale. Cale blocked it as easily as if it were aimed by an old man. They looked at each other.

“Put your hand down.”

Cale did as he was told.

“I will hit you again in a moment,” said Bosco softly, “and when I do you will not move your hands and you will not move your head. You will let me strike you. You will allow it. You will consent.”

Cale waited. Bosco this time made a clear show of his preparations for the blow. Then he hit out again. Cale flinched, but the blow did not land. Bosco’s hand stopped a fraction from Cale’s face. “Don’t you move, boy.” Bosco drew his hand back and again lashed out. Yet again Cale flinched. “DON’T YOU MOVE!” screamed Bosco, his face red with rage except for two very small white spots in the center of his cheeks that grew whiter as the skin on his face went ever darker. Then another blow, but this one landed as Cale stood still as stone. Then another and another. Then a blow so hard it dropped a stunned Cale to the floor. “Get up,” so softly that he was barely audible. Cale got to his feet, shaking as if from intense cold. Then the blow. He fell again, stood up; another blow, and then he got to his feet again. Bosco changed hands. With his weaker left it took five more blows before Cale fell to the floor again. Bosco stared down at him as he started to get to his feet. Both of them were shaking now. “Stay where you are.” Bosco was almost whispering. “If you get up, I won’t answer for what will happen. I’m going.” He seemed almost bewildered, exhausted by the dreadful intensity of his anger. “Wait for five minutes and then leave.” Then Bosco went to the door and was gone.

For a full minute Cale did not move. Then he was sick. It took another minute of rest and then three more to clean up the mess. Then, slowly, shaking as if he might never reach it, he got out into the corridor and, supporting himself by feeling his way along the wall, made his way out into one of the blind alleys off a courtyard and sat down.

“KEEP YOUR WAIST STRAIGHT! NO! NO! NO!” Cale snapped back from what had become almost a trance. The noises and sights of the training field had vanished as he’d gone missing in his memories of the past. It was something that was happening to him more often, but it was not a good idea to become so distracted in a place like the Sanctuary. You paid attention here or pretty quickly something unpleasant happened. All around him the sights and sounds of training were vivid now. A line of twenty acolytes, soon to leave, were practicing an attack in formation. Redeemer Gil, known as Gil the Gorilla because of his ugliness and terrible strength, was complaining routinely about the sloppiness of his trainees: “Have the gates of death been shown to you, Gavin?” he said wearily. “They will be if you keep exposing your left side like that.” The acolytes in the line smiled at Gavin’s discomfort. For all his physical power and brute ugliness, Redeemer Gil was as close to being a decent man as a Redeemer ever got. Except for Redeemer Navratil, and he was a peculiar case. “Night training for you,” Gil said to the hapless Gavin. The boy next to him laughed. “And you can join him, Gregor. And you, Holdaway.”

Just beyond the line a small boy, no more than seven years old, was hanging by his arms from a wooden frame about seven feet off the ground. A belt of heavy weights in canvas was strapped around his shins and he was grimacing, tears of pain rolling down his contorted face. The Under Redeemer beneath him kept insisting that unless he raised his weighted feet to make a perfect L-shape every time, none of his efforts would count. “Crying won’t do any good; only doing it right will do any good.” As the child struggled to do as he was told, Cale noticed the extreme definition of the six muscles of his stomach as he strained, bulging and powerful as those of a grown man. “Four!” counted the Under Redeemer.