The Last Four Things Read Free Page B

parents.’ With that he walked down the rough granite of the Great Jut. Cale watched him for a moment, shocked, as he was meant to be, by what Bosco had said. It is not easy to imagine the feelings of someone like Cale for whom the notion of mother and father was as notional as the sea to the landlocked. What would such a person feel in the moment they were told the ocean was just over the next hill? Cale walked out onto the Jut, a good deal more warily than Bosco – he was not afraid of heights but he did not love them. Besides, walking on the Jut proper it seemed a good deal more fragile than
standing in front of it. As he came up behind Bosco his former master stepped aside as carelessly as if he were in the middle of the training field of the Sanctuary and gestured Cale up beside him, a few inches away from the dreadful spaceless fall below.
    Cale looked out over the world feeling as if he was being held in the middle of the sky itself; heart pumping, eyes astonished, he could see around for miles with the vast blue sky above and the yellow earth beneath bending to meet it in an arc of shimmering purple haze. It seemed as if it wasthe entire world he was looking at and not just a crescent of fifty miles or so. Bosco said nothing for several minutes as Cale was battered by the vastness. Finally Cale turned to face him.
    â€˜So?’
    â€˜Firstly – your parents. I heard the rumours …’ He paused for a moment. ‘… the rumours from Memphis not long after your slaughter of Solomon Solomon.’
    â€˜He got what he deserved, which is more than can be said for the men you had me kill.’ Of all the many unpleasant memories the two of them shared this was the worst. Convinced that Cale’s murderous gifts were divinely inspired it had barely occurred to Bosco that being obliged to fight half a dozen experienced, if disgraced, soldiers to the death might have been deeply traumatic for a boy of twelve or thirteen, however skilled or callous.
    â€˜My heart was in my mouth for every second I thought you were in danger.’ This was not quite the lie it seemed. At first he had been ecstatic at the murderous proof of the boy’s talent for killing. It was of an excellence that only religious inspiration could explain. But after the sixth death Bosco realized that God might resent his desire for proof and punish his presumption by allowing Cale to be hurt. It was realizing his presumption that suddenly made Bosco afraid for Cale and caused him to put an end to the slaughter.
    It was more astonishment than restraint that prevented Cale from throwing him off the Jut there and then. The man who had beaten him for every reason that malice could devise, and half as many times again for none at all, was professing concern for him all along in tones that would have penetrated the hardest heart. But Cale’s heart was agood deal harder than that. If he let Bosco live it was only because his curiosity was even greater than his hatred. And besides, there were thirty evil bastards still waiting for him below.
    â€˜Tell me about the rumours.’
    â€˜After you killed him it was bruited about that the Redeemers had taken you while you were a baby from a family related directly to the Doge of Memphis – that you are a Materazzi and not an inconsiderable one.’ Can silence be stunned? You would believe it can had you been standing there on the Great Jut.
    â€˜Is it true?’ Cale’s voice was only a whisper despite himself. There was a brief pause.
    â€˜Absolutely not. Your parents were illiterate peasants of no importance in any way.’
    â€˜Did you kill them?’
    â€˜No. They sold you to us, and happily, for sixpence.’
    Even Bosco was surprised by the bark of laughter that followed this.
    â€˜I thought you might have been disappointed – about the Materazzi I mean – but it pleases you to have been bought for sixpence?’
    â€˜Never you