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Although Cale staggered, he did not go down as Solomon Solomon expected. Nor, as his head came back into line, did he protest or look Solomon Solomon angrily in the face-Cale had too much experience of arbitrary acts of violence and the incomprehensible bad temper of those in authority over him to make either mistake.
“Do you know what you’ve done?”
“No, sir,” said Cale.
“No, sir? You dare to tell me that you don’t know?” This was said with all the pent-up fury of a miser who had lost a thousand dollars a year without an acceptable explanation. He hit Cale again. When the third blow came, Cale realized his mistake. At the Sanctuary, falling down under a blow was only cause for another blow; here it was now clear that the opposite was true. He duly fell to the floor. “In future,” screamed Solomon Solomon, “you keep your eyes to the front, you watch your master and do not take your eyes from him. DO YOU UNDERSTAND?”
“Yes, sir.”
With that, Solomon Solomon turned and marched back to his podium. Cale slowly got to his feet, his head ringing. All of the other apprentices were staring ahead in terror, except for Vague Henri and Kleist, who stared ahead because they knew what was required. One person, however, was looking at him: the tallest and most graceful of the Materazzi, the one in front of whose shield Cale was standing. Those around him were laughing, but the blond Materazzi was not. He was almost bright red with anger.
Not even the beating he had handed out to Cale improved Solomon Solomon’s temper; the loss of so much money had been a deep blow to the heart. “Attend to your apprentices. Shortswords.”
The Mond walked toward the line of apprentices and stood opposite. The tall young Materazzi looked at Cale and spoke softly. “Make an exhibition of yourself like that again and I’ll make you wish you’d never been born. Do you hear?”
“Yes, I hear,” replied Cale.
“I am Co
“Yes, Boss, I hear.”
“Give me the shortsword.”
Cale turned around. There were three swords hanging from a wooden bar, with blades of equal length but different shapes, from straight to curved. To Cale, a sword was a sword. He picked one.
“Not that one.” This was followed by a kick in the arse. “The other one.” Cale reached for the sword next to it. He took another kick. There was much laughter from Co
“Thank me,” repeated Co
“Thank you, Boss,” said Cale, almost pleasantly, much to the relief of Vague Henri and even Kleist.
“Excellent,” said Co
Later, the three sat and talked, Vague Henri and Kleist surprisingly more miserable than Cale.
“God,” said Kleist, “I thought we’d finally had a bit of luck turning up here.” He looked at Cale bitterly. “You have a real talent, Cale, for getting under people’s skin. It took you, what, twenty minutes to pick a fight with the two biggest smells in what looked like being a really cushy number.”
Cale considered this thoughtfully, but said nothing.
“Do you want to leave tonight?” asked Vague Henri.
“No,” replied Cale, still thoughtful. “I’ll need time to steal as much stuff as I can.”
“It isn’t wise to wait. Think what might happen.”
“It’ll be all right. Besides, there’s no need for you two to leave. Kleist is right, you’ve landed on your feet here.”
“Hah!” said Vague Henri. “Once you’re gone, they’ll move on to us anyway.”
“They might, they might not. Perhaps Kleist is right-it’s something about me that makes people angry.”
“I’ll come with you,” said Vague Henri.
“Don’t.”
“I said I’ll come.”
There was a long silence, finally broken by Kleist. “Well, I’m not staying here on my own,” he said, and stormed off in a sulk.
“Perhaps,” said Cale, “we could leave before he gets back.”
“It makes sense for us to stick together.”
“I suppose so, but why does he have to whinge so much?”
“He just does. It’s his way. He’s OK.”
“Really?” asked Cale, as if only mildly curious.
“When do you want to leave?”
“A week-there’s a lot of stuff worth filching here. We need to stock up.”
“It’s too dangerous.”
“It’ll be fine.”
“I don’t agree.”
“Well, it’s my head and my arse, so it’s my decision.”
Vague Henri shrugged. “I suppose so.” He changed the conversation. “What did you think of the Mond-full of themselves, wouldn’t you say?”
“Pretty good, though.”
“Well,” said Vague Henri, smiling, “pretty, anyway.” After a pause he said, “Do you think Riba will be all right?”
“Why shouldn’t she be?”
It was clear that Vague Henri was truly worried. “The thing is,” he said, “she’s not like you and me. She couldn’t take a beating or anything. She wasn’t brought up to that.”
“She’ll be fine. Vipond has seen us all right, hasn’t he? What Kleist said is true-if it wasn’t for me, you’d be in clover here.” He didn’t in fact know what clover was, but he’d heard the saying a couple of times and liked the sound of it. “Riba knows how to get on with people. She’ll be all right.”
“Why can’t you get on with people, then?”
“I don’t know.”
“Just try and stay out the way, and if you can’t, stop looking like you want to slit their throats and feed them to the dogs.”
But the next day Vague Henri’s hope that things might blow over with Solomon Solomon and Co
“He seems calmer than ever to me,” said Kleist as Vague Henri sat beside him worrying.
“As quiet as a haunted house until its demon be up.” They both laughed at this often-repeated line from the Redeemers.
“Just two more days.”
“Let’s get him to leave tomorrow.”
“All right.”
Co