But the old man’s thin lips, wetted by the words, haunted the lieutenant. He would as soon welcome a dying man’s kiss as see, once again, Higher Grace Skelenal grind out that invitation, in that wretched chamber of shadows, with winter creeping in under the doors and through the window joins, making dirty frost on floor and sill. Breath riding the chill air like smoke, the old man’s hands trembling where they feebly gripped the arms of the chair, and the avid thing in the deep pits of his eyes belonging in no temple, in no place proclaimed holy, in no realm of propriety or decency.
‘Lead unto me each and every child.’
He could remind himself that the old were useless in most ways. Their limbs were weak, their hearts frail, and their minds slipped and wallowed, or drifted along sordid streams few would call thought. Yet, for all of that, they could tend, severally, fecund gardens of desire.
Caplo would yield no pity in such places. He recoiled from plucking the luscious fruit, knowing well the poison juices each one harboured. Growth was no proof of health, and a garden made verdant with lust mocked every notion of virtue.
‘Your expression, friend,’ ventured Warlock Resh, ‘could turn a winter’s storm. I see a sky filling with fear as you bend your countenance upon the way before us, and that is not like you. Not like you at all.’
Caplo Dreem shook his head. They walked the rough, stony track side by side. The day was dull, the weather unobtrusive. The low hills to either side had lost all colour. ‘Winter,’ he said, ‘is the season that drains the life from the world, and the world from my eyes. There is something foul, Resh, in this denuded framework. I am not inclined to welcome the sight of shrivelled skin and raw bones.’
‘You shape only what you see, assassin, and see only what you would first shape. We cannot settle what it is that is inside with what it is that lies outside, and so toss them between our hands, as might a juggler with hot stones. Either way, our flesh burns.’
‘I would bless the blisters,’ said Caplo in a low growl, ‘and note the pain as real enough.’
‘What haunts you, my friend? Am I not the dour one between us? Tell me the source of your troubles.’
‘The hungers of old men,’ the assassin replied, shaking his head again.
‘We bend holy accord to profane need,’ Resh said. ‘Raw numbers. The Higher Grace spoke only what is written.’
‘And in so speaking, flayed the skin from pernicious appetites all his own. Is this the secret lure of holy words, warlock? Their precious pliability? I see them curl and twist like ropes. And all of this, no less, in the name of a god. Indeed, performed as ritual appeasement. How then to imagine that god’s regard as pleased, or approving? I confess to you on this road: my faith withers with the season.’
‘Faith I did not know you possessed.’ The warlock ran a hand through his heavy beard. ‘We are eager, it’s true, to confuse salvation with rebirth, and imagine a soul revived in its husk. But such flares are brief and easily ignored, Caplo. Skelenal and his appetites squirm in solitude – we have all made certain of that. Not a single child will come within his reach.’
Caplo shook his head. ‘Push on, then, through the centuries, and look once more upon our faith.’ He waved a hand, although the gesture faltered as his fingers made claws in the air. ‘Pliable words for the child’s pliable mind, which by prescription we knead and prod, and so make new shapes from old. And by this mishmash we cry out improvement!’ The breath gusted from him. ‘Nature yields its familiar patterns – those enfolding convolutions hiding under every skull, be it the cup of man, woman, child or beast. See our descendants, Resh, heavy in robes and brocaded wealth. See the solemn processions in flickering torchlight. I hear chants that have lost all meaning. I hear yearning in every inarticulate, guttural moan.
‘Heed me! I have found a truth. From the moment of revelation, of religion’s stunning birth, each generation to follow but moves farther away, step by passing step, and this journey down the centuries marks a pathetic transgression. From sacred to secular, from holy to profane, from glory to mummery. We end – our faith ends – in pastiche, the guffaw barely held in check, and among the parishioners a chorus of arrayed faces look on, helpless and bereft. While in the shadows behind the altar, foul-fingered men grope children.’ He paused to spit on the ground. ‘Beneath the eyes of a god? Truly, who will forgive them? And truer still, my friend, how sweet is the nectar of their abasement! I suspect, indeed, that this thirst lies at the core of their weakness. To revel in unforgivable guilt is their soul’s own reward.’
Resh was silent for a long while after that. Ten strides, and then fifteen. Twenty. Finally, he nodded. ‘Sheccanto lies as one already dead. Skelenal shakes his palsied limbs loose in anticipation. And the assassin of the Shake contemplates patricide.’
‘I would cut the shrivelled cock at its root,’ Caplo said. ‘Blunt the precedent in a welling of blood.’
‘Your confession is not for my ears, friend.’
‘Then stop them with blessed ignorance.’
‘Too late. But many who mourn a graveside in silence will harbour condign thoughts of the departed, with none to know the difference.’
Caplo grunted. ‘We wear grief like a shroud, and pray the weave is close enough to
hide our satisfied expressions.’
‘Just so, friend.’
‘Then you will not oppose me?’
‘Caplo Dreem, should such need arrive, I will guard your back on the night itself.’
‘In faith’s name?’
‘In faith’s name.’
The monastery and Skelenal were behind the two men now, shuttered away from the day’s steel light. Ahead, waiting on a low rise that seemed to bridge a pair of weathered hillocks, was Witch Ruvera. Ritually bound to Warlock Resh, assuming the role of wife to her husband, she wore a visage of cold stone, and its lines grew even more severe when she fixed her gaze on Caplo Dreem. As the two men drew nearer, she spoke. ‘Name me the company that welcomes an assassin.’
Sighing, Resh said, ‘Dear wife, Mother Sheccanto may be reduced to frail whispers, but we hear her desires nonetheless.’
‘Does the hag fear me now?’