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in the dozen churches praying – the acolytes for forgiveness of their sins, the Redeemers for the forgiveness of the acolytes’ sins.
    Had he been less miserable, Cale might have noticed that he was helped down from his horse not even by a common Redeemer but by the Prelate of the Horse himself and with extraordinary deference. Bosco, making do for the dismount with an Ostler of the vulgar kind, walked forward and gestured him towards a door that Cale had barely noticed in all his years at the Sanctuary, because it was forbidden for an acolyte to go anywhere near it. It was opened for him by the Prelate of Horses and he led the way not as his superior but, as it were, as a guide. They walked on in the brown gloom that was the common feature of the Sanctuary everywhere, but even in the depths of misery Cale began to be aware of the oddness of having lived in a place all his life and then in a moment being shown there were vast areas of that place he had no idea existed. Brown it still was, butdifferent. There were doors! There were doors everywhere. They stopped
at one. It was opened and he was gestured inside, but this time no one went ahead of him and only Bosco followed. The chamber was large and furnished with brown furniture and lots of it. And it was disturbingly familiar. It was the same layout as the room in which he had killed Redeemer Picarbo. It even had a bedroom. This was a place only for the powerful.
    â€˜It will be necessary for you to stay here for two days, perhaps three. There are preparations, I am sure you understand. Your food will be brought to you and anything you need, just knock on the door and your …’ He wasn’t quite sure of the correct word. ‘… your guardian will arrange for it to be brought to you.’ Bosco nodded, almost a bow, and left closing the door behind him. Cale stared after him, astonished not just by the notion that he had a guardian, but more by the idea that he could ask for what he wanted. What could possibly be in the Sanctuary that anyone would want? As it turned out, Cale’s justified assumption that there was indeed nothing turned out to be entirely wrong.
    Meanwhile, Bosco had a great many pressing problems to deal with. In the eyes of Cale, Vague Henri and Kleist, Bosco appeared to be a figure of absolute authority among the Redeemers. This was far from the case. It might have been true concerning acolytes and even many senior Redeemers. His writ might now run in the Sanctuary but, however important it was, the centre of power for the faith lay with Pope Bento XVI in the holy city of Chartres. For twenty years a formidable bastion of power and orthodoxy, he had spent those two decades rolling back the changes of the previous hundred years in search of a renewed purity for the One True Faith. However, for some time he hadbeen prey to that great affliction of age, Mens Vermis, first as a great tendency to forget, then to wander, then to wander and not return except for brief flashes of a few hours where his old grasp seemed to return in its entirety. From where, who knows? In the
three years during which the Vermis had ruined his mind many cabals and juntos, cliques and coteries, had emerged preparing for the moment when death might release him from his duties. The two most important of these were the Redeemers Triumphant, run by Redeemer Cardinal Gant – responsible for religious orthodoxy – and the Office of the Holy See controlled by Redeemer Cardinal Parsi. Whoever controlled the Holy See and the Redeemers Triumphant controlled access to the Holy Father, and as the Holy Father was so ill, between them they controlled a very great deal. As for Gant and Parsi there was the difference between a gnat and a flea as to which of them hated Bosco most. Bosco’s view of either went a long way beyond hatred. This longstanding animosity was a matter of design by Pope Bento, who believed as much in the principle of divide and