The Beating of His Wings Read Online Free PDF Page A

Henri’s suspicions by pressing him. Instead of asking questions he offered help – a winning strategy in all circumstances.
    Now Kitty had an influence over someone who knew and understood the Purgators and who possessed information about the whereabouts of Thomas Cale. This information might become important in due course and now he knew where to get it should this prove necessary. Kitty the Hare was a person of intelligence but also considerable instinct. When it came to Cale, he shared Bosco’s belief in hisremarkable possibilities, if not their supernatural origin; but news of Cale’s illness, however vague, meant that Kitty’s plans for him might have to be revised. On the other hand, they might not. It would depend on what kind of sickness was at issue. Desperate and dangerous times were coming and Kitty the Hare needed to prepare for them. The potential usefulness of Thomas Cale was too great to let the question of his current ill-health entirely diminish Kitty’s interest in what became of him.
    A thumb on every scale and a finger in every pie was Kitty’s reputation, but these days most of his concentration was on what was being weighed and cooked in Leeds Castle, the great keep that scraped the skies above the city. Its fame for not having required a defence in over four hundred years was now threatened, and King Zog of Switzerland and Albania had arrived to discuss its defence with his chancellor, Bose Ikard, a man he disliked (his great-grandfather had been in trade) but knew he could not do without. It was said of Zog that he was wise about everything except anything of importance – a worse insult than it appeared, in that his wisdom was confined to skill at setting his favourites against one another, reneging on promises and a talent for taking bribes through his minions. If they were caught, however, he made such a show of punishing them and expressing complete outrage at their crimes that he was generally more renowned for his honesty than otherwise.
    All the posh with power, the who whom, the nobs who had gathered in Leeds Castle to discuss the possibility of staying out of the coming war were anxious to become favourites, if they were not already, and to stay that way if they were. Nevertheless, there were many who disliked Zog on a matter of principle. They were particularly agitated at the great gathering because on his way to Leeds hehad stuck his royal nose into a village council inquiry (he was a relentless busybody in minor affairs of state) regarding an accusation that a recently arrived refugee from the war was, in fact, a Redeemer spy. Convinced of the man’s guilt, Zog had stopped the proceedings and ordered his execution. This upset many of the great and good because it brought home to them the fragile nature of the laws that protected them: if, as one of them said, a man can be hanged before he has been tried, how long before a man can be hanged before he has offended? Besides, even if he were guilty it was obviously foolish to upset the Redeemers by hanging one of them while there was still, they hoped, a chance of peace. His actions were both illegal and thoughtlessly provocative.
    Zog was of a fearful disposition and the news from his informers that a notorious pair of assassins had been seen in the city had unnerved him to the extent that he had come into the great meeting hall wearing a jacket reinforced with a leather lining as protection against a knife attack. It was said that his fear of knives came from the fact that his mother’s lover had been stabbed in her presence while she was pregnant with Zog, which was also the reason for his bandy legs. This particular weakness also caused him to lean on the shoulders of his chief favourite, at that time the much despised Lord Harwood.
    There were perhaps fifty
hoi oligoi
of Swiss society present, most of them beaming with witless subservience as is the way of people in the presence of royalty. The remainder looked at their monarch