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

executioners.’
    Bosco smiled.
    â€˜Guido Hooke is very far from stupid, although he is eccentric. And he is right about the moon.’
    There was a snort of dismissal from Cale.
    â€˜Anyone can see on any unclouded night that the moon is round.’
    â€˜That is an illusion created by the moon’s distance from the earth. Consider Tiger Mountain – from a distance its slopes seem smooth as butter, close to it’s as wrinkled as an old man’s sack.’
    â€˜How do you know? About the moon, I mean.’
    â€˜I’ll show you tonight if you wish.’
    â€˜If Hooke is right, why is he going to die for telling the truth?’
    â€˜It’s a matter of authority. The Pope has ruled that the moon is precisely round – an expression of the perfect creation of God. Guido Hooke has contradicted him.’
    â€˜But you say he’s right.’
    â€˜What does that matter? He’s contradicted the rock on which the One True Faith is built: the right to the last word. If he is allowed to do so, consider where it will end: the death of authority. Without authority there is no church, without the church no salvation.’ He smiled. ‘Hooke speaks for the lower truth, the Pope for a higher one.’
    â€˜But you don’t believe in salvation.’
    â€˜Which is why I must become Pope so that what is true and what I believe become the same thing. Why are you so interested in the Purgators?’

5
    Kleist was singing wildly, happily off-key.
    â€˜The buzzing of the trees and the cigarette bees
    The soda water fountains
    Where the bluebell rings
    And the lemonade sings
    On the big rock candy mountain
    In the big rock candy mountain
    The priests all quack like ducks
    There’s a five-cent whore at every door
    At dinner there is always more
    And never was heard a discouraging word
    In the big rock candy mountain.’
    He reached down, casual like, to check the knife sheathed in a pocket of the horse’s saddle and went on bawling not with much respect for tunefulness.
    â€˜There’s a lake of stew and whisky too
    You can paddle all around it in a big canoe
    In the big rock –’
    Then he was off, pulling the knife with him and running for a patch of blackberry briars. He leapt into the middle, his speed and weight carrying him, thorns scraping his skin red as he went. But the tangle of shoots was thicker than he’d realized and the older suckers in the middle were toughand thick-barbed and his headlong flight was painfully brought to a halt.
    Powerful hands grabbed him by the heels and dragged him backwards out of the briars. They had to tug hard and it gave Kleist a couple of seconds to decide. He dropped the knife in the briars and then he was free and being dragged into the open.
    Other hands grabbed his wrists as he kicked and wriggled. Once he was held fast he knew there was no point and stopped struggling.
    One man stood in front of him, his precise features hidden by the sun in Kleist’s eyes.
    â€˜We’re going to search you, so don’t move. Any weapons?’
    â€˜No.’
    Two hands, swiftly and cleanly, skilfully frisked him.
    â€˜Good. If you had lied to us it would have been the last thing you ever did. Get him up.’
    Kleist was pulled roughly into a sitting position and all five men, knives and short swords pulled, let him go in disciplined order. These people knew what they were doing.
    â€˜What’s your name?’
    â€˜Thomas Cale.’
    â€˜What are you up to out here on your own?’
    â€˜I was heading for Post Moresby.’ A hefty blow landed on the side of his head.
    â€˜Say “Lord Dunbar” when you speak to Lord Dunbar.’
    â€˜All right. How was I supposed to know?’
    Another blow to teach him not to be lippy.
    â€˜What would you do there?’ said Lord Dunbar.
    Kleist looked at him – he was scruffy, dirty and badly dressed in an ugly-looking tartan. He didn’t