Read Online The Last Four Things by Paul Hoffman - Free Book Online

an hour,’ said Cale.
    â€˜I think …’
    â€˜I don’t need an hour.’
    Bosco moved his head, just a slight move. He turned to leave and Cale followed up the winding steps known as the Stairway to Heaven going up and, for reasons lost in time, Yummity’s Steps going down. They moved slowly up past the Rotunda, Bosco’s knees not being what they once were, and up into the Bourse, the hall that led off into the variousdepartments of the House of Special Purpose.
    Towards the back of the Bourse a man, a Redeemer, stripped of his robes, was being led towards an open courtyard. He was wailing quietly, a drizzly sobbing like a tired and unhappy child. Cale watched as the three attending Redeemers ushered him forward. Cale watched them as if he might be a buzzard or one of the more thoughtful Falconidae.
    â€˜Stop them.’
    â€˜Pity is nothing of …’
    â€˜Stop them and tell them to take him back to his cell.’
    Bosco walked over to the execution party as they stalled, trying to push the prisoner through the doorway and out into the bright sunshine of the courtyard.
    â€˜Hold on a moment.’
    Ten minutes later Cale, followed by a wary Bosco, was walking silently through the cells where the Purgators, those whose sins of blasphemy, heresy, offences against the Holy Ghost and a long list of others, were kept while they waited for their fate to be decided, usually a very simple and uniform fate. Cale walked up and down carefully looking over the waiting prisoners – the terrified, the despairing, the bewildered, the fanatical and the clearly mad.
    â€˜How many?’
    â€˜Two hundred and fifty six,’ said the jailer.
    â€˜What’s in there?’ said Cale, nodding towards a locked door. The jailer looked at Bosco and then back at Cale. Was this the promised Grimperson? He didn’t look like much.
    â€˜Behind that door we keep those condemned to an Act of Faith.’
    Cale looked at the jailer.
    â€˜Unlock the door and go away.’
    â€˜Do as you’re told,’ said Bosco.
    He did so, face red with resentment. Cale pushed the door and it swung open easily. There were ten cells, five on each side of the corridor. Eight were Redeemers whose crimes required a public execution to encourage and support the morale of the witnessing faithful. Of the other two, one was a man, clearly not a priest because he had a beard and was dressed in civvies. The other was a woman.
    â€˜The Maid of Blackbird Leys,’ said Bosco, when they returned to his rooms. ‘She has been prophesying blasphemies concerning the Hanged Redeemer.’
    â€˜What sort of blasphemies?’
    â€˜How can I repeat them?’ said Bosco. ‘They’re blasphemies.’
    â€˜How was she charged then, at her trial?’
    â€˜The case was heard in camera . Only a single judge was present when she repeated her claims and condemned herself.’
    â€˜But the judge knows.’
    â€˜Unfortunately, may peace be upon him, the judge died of a stroke immediately afterwards, clearly brought on by the Maid’s heresy.’
    â€˜Bad luck.’
    â€˜Luck had nothing to do with it. He has gone to a better place – or at least a place from which no traveller returns, nor anything the traveller might have learned before his departure. It’s all in the paperwork.’
    â€˜And I can read it?’
    â€˜You are not a person to be tainted, you are the anger of God made flesh. It doesn’t matter what you read, what you hear, you are the sea-green incorruptible.’
    Cale thought about this for a few moments.
    â€˜And the beardy man?’
    â€˜Guido Hooke.’
    â€˜Yes?’
    â€˜He is a natural philosopher who claims that the moon is not perfectly round.’
    â€˜But it is round,’ said Cale. ‘All you need to do is look at it. If you’re going to kill people for being stupid you’re going to need a lot more