“We won’t take the mule,” Kite said. “Nor most of what she bears.”
Ali went rigid; it was no secret he’d developed an affection for Cross. Truth be told, I had similar feelings and was sickened at the prospect of losing Cross. But I knew Kite was right. We’d be lucky to make it through the crowd on our own, let alone dragging an irresistible prize like Cross with us.
“The boys will each take their possessions and one short sword,” Kite said. “The rest is yours.”
This seemed to spark the major’s interest.
“Perhaps,” he said, “I might spare one man.” He stepped over to Cross and examined the contents of her packs. Ignatius had provisioned us well, and with a quality of food unlikely to be found in the camp. Certainly better than the remnants on the table. The major turned back to Kite. “However, I cannot allow the weapons.” He pointed to a pile of rusty swords, picks, axes, and knives in a corner. “We are also charged with disarming those in the camp. Weapons are forbidden to Petitioners.”
I had tucked the dirk Kite had given me inside my pants and shirt to hide it from Lark and Ali; its wooden handle pressed insistently against my ribs.
“We are not Petitioners,” Kite said.
“Civilians, then.”
“I am not a civilian,” Kite said.
Despite its ragged appearance, the uniform of the Cent Suisse still seemed to command respect, and the major didn’t challenge his assertion, even if he did look slightly dubious. “Be that as it may, I cannot allow your boys weapons. There are many patrols in this camp. Too many to avoid. And they will not find your letter as—” he glanced at the fat packs “—as palatable as I do. Martial law prevails in the camp, and it is a capital offence for all but the Gardes to bear arms.”
“Then,” Kite said, “we must be Gardes.”
The major looked perplexed.
“We are in the service of the Church,” Kite said. “As much as you and your men. We only lack the trappings.”
“The trappings?”
“Uniforms,” Kite said.
“You want your boys to pass as Gardes?” the major said, astonished.
“There are only a few years between my boys and your youngest. The uniforms will fit. In a few hours it will be dark and difficult to make out their ages.”
“What you ask is impossible. My men will not part with their kit.”
“They do not have to. Once at the Assumption, we will return their uniforms with your man.”
“No,” the major said, “too risky. If you are stopped . . . or my man doesn’t make it back . . .” He shook his head.
“The letter exonerates you.”
“Perhaps,” the major said. “But I’d prefer not to find out how much weight your letter really carries at my court martial.”
“If the letter alone will not suffice,” Kite said, pulling a gold pope from his pocket, “will this help buy our commissions?”
The major’s eyes widened; he nodded slowly. “It would.” He paused. “For my part.”
“A silver bishop for each man who lends a uniform, and one for our escort.”
“In that case,” the major said, taking the gold piece from the cup of Kite’s palm and slipping it under his belt, “who am I to refuse those who serve the Church?”
Amongst the Meek
Ali and Lark were taller than me by a hand, and we quickly found uniforms for them which required only minor adjustments—in Ali’s case, this meant he wore the borrowed uniform over his other clothes to make it look like he had more meat on his slender frame. However, none of the Gardes were near as small as me. I had to roll my shirt sleeves and pants legs up, and tuck them in so their ill fit wouldn’t look too obvious; I slipped the end of my belt into the side of my pants and tried to conceal it with a fold of the overflowing shirt. Kite even stuffed rags in my over-sized boots to add another few precious centimetres to my height; still, my short sword looked like a long sword at my side, the tip of its scabbard almost scraping the ground. I was implausibly small, but at night, surrounded by the others, I might go unremarked. The boys whose uniforms we wore sat at the table, in varying degrees of nakedness. If they were dubious about the bargain, it didn’t seem to have affected their appetites—they gorged themselves on food they’d liberated from Cross’s packs, eating with gusto.
Ali removed Cross’s packs and harness, then brushed her down one last time while we waited for sun-off (when the patrols, the major told us, were less frequent, and those that were out, were less likely to confront or be confronted). Each night, the major himself would send out two of his own patrols, and we were to depart with the first, a contingent of six men, around midnight. Kite bid us try to get what sleep we could in the interim.
I slept fitfully, Kite sitting next to me. It seemed only a few minutes, but must have been several hours, when something dragged me back to wakefulness. I opened my eyes a sliver to see the lamps had been lit; on the other side of the tent the major was sitting by himself, turning Kite’s coin over and over in his hand. He seemed discomfited. Abruptly, he rose and walked over to Kite, who sat on a barrel a few feet away from me, sharpening his halberd.
“I am shamed,” he said to Kite. “I like to think myself a man of faith and honour. But I have shown you neither. If your letter be real, as I believe it to be, an honourable man would not take your coin.” He held out the gold pope.
Kite refused to take it back. “Keep it,” he said. “Or use it to buy food for these people.”
The major considered for a moment, then tucked it away. “Nor can I take your mule. I will hold her for you as long as I can. If we are ordered to go, I may have to press her into service. Or leave her behind.”
“I do not know if or when I will return,” Kite said. “But I thank you, Major.”
“Abraham,” the major said. “My name is Abraham Osei.”
“Kite.”
They shook hands.
After the major had walked away, Kite looked at me; he waited until I opened my eyes fully, then returned to sharpening his halberd. From the manner in which he had regarded me, though, I knew he meant it to be another lesson. On honour? Perhaps. Or maybe a much more practical one on the guilt that consumes honourable men. I never found out, because moments later our patrol began forming up, and I became occupied with rousing myself and pulling my gear together. As I was doing so, Ali folded his arms around Cross and hugged her one last time, his silent tears falling on her neck. I longed to do the same, but felt doing so would diminish Ali’s gesture, so I contented myself with offering up a silent prayer as farewell. (Of course, animals have no souls, but I like to think they might have their own sort of heaven, one in which my prayer might have been heard.)
The major had picked his smallest remaining men, and had them cluster around us so that we stood a decent chance of blending in. We filed out of the tent into the darkness and marched down a narrow, hard-packed path, the lead man carrying a lantern. We moved, more or less, in the direction of the Assumption, which was no longer visible save as a large square absence on the hilltop. Like everything else, firewood was in short supply, so the few fires we’d seen earlier had burned out. In some places, I could make out hunched figures staring silently at dying embers. For such a large gathering, the silence was eerie, the only sounds throat-clearing coughs, the buzzing of snores, and murmured words too indistinct to make out, and too intermittent to determine whether they were part of a troubled sleep or a whispered conversation. Twice a dark shadow darted across the path ahead of us, and once, a lump of night soil fell in our midst, narrowly missing Kite. It’s origin was impossible to determine, and it seemed our assailant was more intent on blending into the darkness than on launching a second volley. Still, it worried me; the ground was peppered with stones that would make much more effective projectiles.
Half an hour on, we came to a small stone bridge that spanned a dried stream bed; the patrol, having reached the limits of its territory, did an about-face, and marched
off into the dark, parting company without a word. The man who was to act as our guide, the company’s sergeant, led us across the bridge, the three boys following closely—Lark, then Ali, then me—our berets pulled low over our eyes. Kite brought up the rear. Although it seemed impossible, the petitioners’ crude dwellings were even more crowded on this side. Now we travelled without the benefit of a lantern; however, the sergeant seemed sure of his way, and quickened the pace.
When a torch flared several hundred metres ahead, the sergeant broke left onto a path so narrow we were forced to go single file between makeshift hovels and ragged tents—even my narrow shoulders brushed against canvas as we squeezed through. Although our progress slowed, we encountered no one. Soon, the ragged tents gave way to a mixture of more robust structures, cobbled together out of wood and string and canvas, and we found ourselves slogging through muck. Small things, hidden in the mud and filth, cracked under the soles of my boots. And with the more treacherous footing, my too-large boots had also begun shifting on my feet, and I could feel blisters forming on my soles, fluid filling them. Each step became agonizing. I grit my teeth and ignored the pain.
We walked and walked.
Four times we crossed overflowing latrines on boards, one only a hand-span wide. The stench, always bad, was horrific in these places. I kept my eyes squarely on Ali’s feet, following him step for step, my blisters throbbing each time I planted a foot. Foolishly, I decided that if I broke the blisters, the pain might diminish, so for a few steps I slammed my feet down; I was rewarded with a tickle of warm, sticky fluid between the toes on both feet. But instead of the relief I sought, the agony intensified, almost beyond endurance, so much so that I had a notion to pull my boots off. However, I retained enough of my wits to realize it would be madness to discard them and walk barefoot through the filth. So I kept them on, more fluid seeming to seep between my toes with every step, my entire world collapsing into two searing points of pain that were my feet.
That’s probably why I missed the abrupt transition: the chaotic jumble of improvised shelters had fallen away and we were back on the semblance of a road at the foot of the hill. Above us, a kilometre distant, the Assumption brooded in the half-light of sun-on.
I hadn’t cried since the night my father died, but I almost cried then.
I struggled to contain myself, to push my agony to the back of my mind and keep step, for the sergeant had redoubled our pace.
Perhaps it was the pain or lack of sleep or that I had, for the past hours, focused only on the march of feet in front of me, but somehow I had also missed the camp stirring to life. All about us, in ones and twos and threes, petitioners shuffled slowly towards the gates of the Assumption, clutching their rolled petitions. A few glanced at our company, and there might have been a raised eyebrow or two, but for the most part their suffering was such that I don’t think it would brook distractions. The crowd thickened, and I heard a deep voice hollering “Postulants to the right!” over and over. Everyone surged right and slowed; we went left. The petitioners thinned out, and the few still in front of us came to an abrupt halt, looking uncertain. Blocking their way was a gated wall, and in front of that, a squad of Gardes with pikes, standing ready. Their sergeant, a rotund man with a red face, was bellowing directions. “Postulants to the right!”
A bewildered-looking fellow, torn petition in hand, stumbled up to them.
“Back,” growled the Garde directly in front of him, the tip of his pike inches from the man’s chest.
Despite this, the fellow raised the hand clutching his petition. “I—”
Before he could get out a second word, the Garde batted him on the temple with the side of his spike; the man went down like a sack of bricks. The other postulants backed off.
“You drop ’em, you drag ’em,” the sergeant said to the Garde who’d swung. He nodded to the side of the road. “Put ’im over there.” The Garde hustled out of line, dragged the fellow he’d cold-cocked to the side of the road, and rolled him into the ditch.
“Well,” the sergeant said turning his attention to us, “What’s this?” His eyes must have been bad because he squinted at us. The other Garde gaped at us, at three boys in their ill-fitting uniforms, but said nothing.
“It’s Maur,” said the sergeant who’d been leading us.
“Maur! God’s blood, is that you?”
“It is.”
“You’re not due for provisioning for another five days.”
“Got four going up.”
The sergeant raised his eyebrows.
Kite stepped past me and proffered his rolled vellum. He was close enough that his uniform seemed to register with the sergeant. He took Ignatius’s letter in his right hand and weighed it for a moment, then turned it upright; a silver bishop spilled out of the tube and into his left. Pocketing the coin, he passed the vellum to a corporal who stood behind him. After scanning it closely, the corporal said, “Looks real enough.”
“Major thought so, too,” said Maur with no trace of irony.
During this exchange, I’d forgotten about the postulants behind me, but now I felt a hand on my shoulder. I turned.
A sizable crowd had accumulated. At its fore was a woman of middle-age, clutching her petition. My mother.
I’d never seen her, but a fine portrait hung above her dusty piano.
“Please,” she said, shoving the roll against my chest; I instinctively grabbed it. For a moment her eyes pinned me; they were startling, the colour of pure jade, and I thought, Those aren’t my mother’s eyes. In the the painting they’d been blue.
Maur raised his hand as if he made to strike her; she turned and fled.
And in good time. For the Garde had advanced to disperse the crowd, holding their pikes horizontally at chest height, forming a bristling picket. They swung wide, to swallow our party, and closed around us. Most of the petitioners managed to dance out of the way. But those at the back of the crowd, who probably couldn’t see what was happening, were pushing forward, hoping, perhaps, this might be a way to skirt the long line. Something light glanced off of my head, and fell to the ground. Then again and again: a rain of petitions. I could see arms over top of heads, flicking the rolls towards us, desperate for someone, anyone, to heed them. Where the crowd was the thickest, the mass of people surging forward overwhelmed those trying to retreat. I watched in horror as several people were pushed back towards us and impaled; directly in front of me the tip of a pike slowly pierced the back of a scrawny young man trying to squirm out of the way. He howled and thrashed, the barbs on the pike head keeping it firmly embedded, while the Garde held on to the other end of the pike for dear life, looking for all the world as if he was landing an enormous fish. Blood pooled under the young man’s jerkin and ran down his back and legs. He collapsed to his knees, then fell to his side. The Garde dropped his pike and stepped back, letting another pikeman take his place.
Over the general tumult, I heard a piercing cry: “They’re killin’ us!”
The crowd was thrown into a swivet; bodies heaved this way and that, and wordless screams rent the air.
“Take them to the Assumption,” the sergeant shouted over the melee. I looked down, thinking he meant the petitions at our feet. But strong hands grasped me, dragging me away. Dragging all of us away.
I craned my neck for one last look, searching the crowd for the woman with the green eyes; but all was a thrashing, panicked confusion. The only thing clear was that the Gardes had resumed their advance, the soles of their black, scuffed boots crushing the carpet of discarded petitions into the mud.
Assumption
Viewed from half a league distance, the Assumption appeared pristine. At the front gate, however, the alabaster stone blocks of its foundation were clearly stained and pitted with age, and there were deep grooves between the blocks where the mortar had spalled. I barely had time to take this in as we were hustled beneath a raised iron portcullis, the pointed teeth on its bottom flecked with rust. We found ourselves
in a narrow passageway in which three men could walk abreast. A dozen metres and the passage was barred by a second portcullis. On either side, smooth stone walls rose ten metres, and overhead was not the vaulted ceiling I had expected, but a flat wooden one, which had six closed hatches along its length. Spaced regularly along the walls were narrow vertical openings, no more than the width of my palm, behind which I sensed, more than saw, the movement of men. As we approached the far gate, I heard the rattle of abruptly untensioned chains and the rasp of sliding metal issuing from behind us; I turned in time to see the first portcullis clang down. Almost immediately the gate in front of us began to rise to the groaning of hidden winches. There were few fortifications in my Sphere, that of the Apostle Andrew; and the ones I had seen thus far in this Sphere had been hastily erected in the recent past. So it took me a moment to apprehend the reason behind this design: if the opening and closing of the two gates was managed right, attackers would be trapped; and the arrow-slits at the side and murderous holes above would allow the defenders to slaughter them.
We passed under the second gate, and immediately our escort fell back; the corporal, no doubt anxious to attend their comrades, barked out a command, and the winches went to work again, reversing the process.
In a low-ceilinged room illuminated by lanterns, we stood before a squad of Gardes. While the troops outside had looked bedraggled, half-beaten, and uncertain of their roles, one glance told me these men were hardened veterans. Their faces held none of the wariness or malice or anticipation I’d become accustomed to seeing in the Gardes and local patrols; rather, they appraised us with cool detachment, standing in disciplined formation, ready to execute with precision any command given.
The Book of Thomas - Volume One: Heaven Page 8