The Left Hand of God

17

Two days later IdrisPukke and Cale were slowly making their way along Highway Seven, one of the broad stone roads that led from Memphis, which, day and night, were packed with goods going in and out of this greatest of all centers of trade. After several hours of silence Cale asked a question.

“Were you put into the cells to spy on me?”

“Yes,” said IdrisPukke.

“No, you weren’t.”

“Why did you ask, then?”

“I wanted to see if I could trust you.”

“Well, you can’t.”

“Does Chancellor Vipond trust you?”

“About as far as he could throw me.”

“So why did he make it a condition for keeping my friends safe that I have to stay with you?”

“You should have asked him.”

“I did.”

“And what did he say?”

“ ‘Curiosity killed the cat.’ ”

“There you are, then.”

Cale stayed silent for a moment. “What did he do to make sure you’d stay with me?”

“He paid me.”

This wasn’t entirely a lie, but what bound IdrisPukke to Cale was much more than money. For money to be of any use you had to have somewhere to spend it. And there was nowhere it was worth being that also didn’t have a sentence on his life, or worse. Vipond had simply laid out the facts of IdrisPukke’s future-which is to say that there wasn’t one-and then offered him a possible way out. Firstly a reasonably comfortable place to hide for a few months and then, if he did as he was told, the chance of a series of temporary pardons that would at least keep him safe from execution by any official government under the rule of the Materazzi.

“What about the ones who want to kill me who aren’t official?” he’d asked Vipond.

“That’s your problem. But if you get close to the boy and learn something useful and keep him out of trouble, I might have something for you.”

“It’s a little thin, my lord.”

“For a man in your position, which is to say no position at all, I think it’s very generous,” replied Vipond, waving him away. “If you have a better offer, my advice is that you take it.”

“What,” said Cale after another hour of silence, “are we going to do at wherever this place is we’re going to?”

“Stay out of trouble-put you straight about a few things.”

“Such as?”

“Wait till we get there.”

“Did you know,” said Cale, “we’re being followed?”

“The ugly-looking brute in the green jacket?”

“Yes,” said a disappointed Cale.

“A bit obvious, don’t you think?”

Cale turned to look, as if the obviousness of their follower was also clear to him. IdrisPukke laughed.

“Whoever’s behind this expects us to catch laughing boy and leave him in a ditch somewhere. The real tail is about two hundred yards back.”

“What’s he look like?”

“There’s your first lesson. See if you spot him before I deal with him.”

“You mean kill him?”

IdrisPukke looked at Cale.

“What a bloodthirsty little cutthroat you are. Vipond made it clear we should make ourselves invisible, and I don’t think leaving a trail of dead bodies behind us counts.”

“So what are you going to do?”

“Watch and learn, sonny.”

Every five miles along the roads leading to Memphis there were small guardhouses manned by no more than half a dozen soldiers. It was at one of these that IdrisPukke, watched by an amused Cale, found himself in an argument with a corporal.

“For God’s sake, man, this is a warrant signed by Chancellor Vipond himself.”

The corporal was apologetic but firm.

“I’m sorry, sir. It looks official, but I’ve never seen one of these before. The C-in-C usually signs these kinds of warrants. I know what they look like and I know his signature. Try to see it from my point of view. I’ll send for Lieutenant Webster.”

“How long will that take?” said an exasperated IdrisPukke.

“Tomorrow, probably.”

IdrisPukke groaned with frustration, then walked over to the window. After a minute or so he signaled Cale to come to him. “Wait outside,” he whispered.

“I thought I was supposed to watch and learn?”

“Don’t bloody well argue-just do it. Go out the back and don’t let anybody see you.”

Smiling, Cale did as he was told. At the back of the guardhouse were four soldiers sitting on a wall, smoking and looking bored. Five minutes later IdrisPukke emerged and nodded to Cale to join him as he led the horses down a back alley away from the main road.

“So,” said Cale, “what’s going on?”

“He’s going to arrest them and keep them in the cells for a couple of days.”

“What changed his mind?”

“What do you think?”

“I don’t know, that’s why I’m asking you.”

“I bribed him. Fifteen dollars for him and five for each of his men.”

Cale was genuinely shocked by this. Vicious, cruel and small-minded as the Redeemers might be, the idea that they would neglect their duty for money was unthinkable.

“We had a warrant,” he said, indignant. “Why should we have to bribe them?”

“There’s no point in getting bent out of shape about it,” said IdrisPukke irritably. “Just look on it as a part of your education-a new fact to take on board in getting to know what people are really like. Don’t imagine,” he continued crossly, “that just because the Redeemers treated you like a dog that you know everything about what a rotten, corrupt bunch of bastards the human race are.”

And on this bad-tempered note he walked on ahead and did not speak again for the rest of the day.

Perhaps it is easy to say why IdrisPukke was so annoyed, given that he was used to very much worse than being shaken down by a cynical grunt like the corporal. How many of us necessarily require a great disaster to put us in a fit of pique? To lose a key, step on a sharp stone or be contradicted in a matter of no importance is enough to send even a reasonable man or woman into a rage if they’re in the mood for it. That’s all there is to it-and whatever the limits to Cale’s grasp of human nature as it applied to people who were not vicious fanatics, he had enough sense to leave IdrisPukke to himself until such time as he calmed down.

Nevertheless, if IdrisPukke had realized who was behind their being followed he would have been perfectly justified in feeling enraged-and scared as well, because he would have known that Kitty the Hare would not have allowed his spies to have been so easily discovered. Despite the fact that the two men spotted by IdrisPukke were locked up in a cell within an hour, they were decoys expressly sent out in order to be caught. As Cale and IdrisPukke made their way back onto the main road, and a day later turned off it and headed toward the White Forest, there were two more pairs of eyes following them, and this time with a great deal more cunning.

As they moved up into the mountains, the sun shone and the air was as clear as good water. IdrisPukke’s temper of the day before was forgotten, and he returned to his more expansive ways, telling Cale all about his life and adventures and his opinions-of which he had a great many. You might have thought that Cale, capable as he was of grim rage and fearful violence, would have been irked by his companion setting himself up as a mentor and Cale as a disciple-but you must appreciate that Cale was still a young man, for all his iron qualities, and the range and nature of IdrisPukke’s experience, his rises and falls, his loves and his opponents, would have enthralled even the most jaded listener. Not the least of his skills was in the way that IdrisPukke mocked himself and took responsibility for the majority of his falls from grace. An adult who laughed at himself was something more than unfamiliar to Cale: it was almost incomprehensible. Laughter to the Redeemers was an occasion of sin-a babbling inspired by the devil himself.

It was not that IdrisPukke had a cheerful view of the world in any way, but that his pessimism was expressed with a knowing delight and a willingness to include himself in his witty cynicism, a willingness that Cale found oddly comforting as well as amusing. Cale was not of a mind to listen to anyone who had a happy view of human beings-such a temperament could never chime with his daily experience. But he found his anger was easier to bear and even soothed by listening to someone who laughed at human cruelty and stupidity.

“There are few ways,” IdrisPukke would proclaim, as if from nowhere, “of putting people in a good humor other than by telling them of some terrible misfortune that has recently befallen you.”

Or again: “Life’s a journey for people like you and me-one where we’re never sure where we’re going along the way. You see a new destination as you travel and a better one and so on until the place you had originally decided on is completely forgotten. We are like alchemists-starting out searching for gold-who along the way discover useful medicines, a sensible way of ordering things, and fireworks-the only thing they never discover is gold!”

Cale laughed. “Why should I listen to anything you say? The first time I met you, you fell over my feet, and both times after that you were a prisoner.”

An expression of mild disdain crossed IdrisPukke’s face, as if this were a familiar objection barely worth answering.

“Then learn from my mistakes, Master Wet-Behind-the-Ears-and then learn from the fact that while I’ve walked the corridors of power for forty years I’m still alive-which is a lot more than you can say about most of the people I’ve walked them with. And I daresay unless you show a good deal more sense than you have done until now-the same will be true of you.”

“I’ve done all right so far.”

“Have you?”

“Yes.”

“You’ve been lucky, sonny, and very. And I don’t care how good you are with your fists. That you’ve made it this far without swinging on the end of a rope is as much luck as judgment.” He paused and sighed. “Do you trust Vipond?”

“I don’t trust anybody.”

“Any fool can say they don’t rely on anyone. The trouble is that sometimes you have to. People can be noble and self-sacrificing and all those admirable qualities-they do exist, but the trouble is that these noble virtues tend to come and go in people. No one expects a good-humored man or a kind woman to be good-humored or kind every day and every moment-yet they’re appalled when people are trustworthy for a month or a year and then they aren’t for an hour or a day.”

“If they’re not to be relied on all the time, then you don’t trust them.”

“And can you be relied on?”

“No-I’ve learned, IdrisPukke, that I can do noble things. I can rescue the innocent,” he smiled, mocking, “rescue them from the wicked and the unrighteous. But it’s out of character-it was a good day, or a bad day, when I saved Riba. But it won’t happen again in a hurry.”

“Can you be sure of that?”

“No-but I’ll do my best.” They rode on in silence for another half hour. “Do you trust Vipond?” said Cale at last.

“It depends. What about?”

Cale shifted uncomfortably in his saddle.

“He promised that if I stayed with you and behaved myself then Vague Henri and Kleist would be all right. He’d protect them. Will he?”

“So… worried about your friends? Not as heartless as you try to pretend.”

“Is that what you think? Try depending on my heart-see where it gets you.”

IdrisPukke laughed. “The thing about Vipond is to remember that he’s a great man and that great men have great responsibilities, and not keeping his promises is one of them.”

“You’re just trying to sound clever.”

“Not at all. Vipond has a great many big fish to fry, and you and your friends are not very big fish at all. What if a hundred lives or the future safety of Memphis and all its million souls depended on breaking his word to three little tiddlers like you and your friends? What would you do in his place? You think you’re such a hard case, tell me.”

“Kleist isn’t my friend.”

“What do you think Vipond wants from you?”

“He wants me to learn to trust you, to tell you the whole truth about what happened with the Redeemers. He thinks they might be a threat.”

“And is he right?”

Cale looked at him. “The Redeemers are a poxy curse on the face of the earth…” He looked as if he wanted to continue but with an effort had stopped himself.

“You were going to say something else.”

“Yes, I was.”

“What?”

“That’s for me to know and you to find out.”

“Suit yourself. As for trusting Vipond… you can, up to a point. He’ll go out of his way to watch over your friend and the other one who isn’t your friend unless it becomes important not to. Until they become significant in the wrong way, they’re as safe as houses.”

And as they rode on in silence, still neither of them realized that Kitty the Hare’s eyes were watching and his ears listening.

At four that afternoon IdrisPukke dismounted and, signaling Cale to do the same, he turned off the trail into what looked like virgin forest. The going would have been tough even without the horses, and it took them the best part of two hours before the density of trees and bushes eased and then opened onto another clearly little-used track.

“I’d say you knew the way,” observed Cale to IdrisPukke’s back.

“I can see there’s no hiding anything from you, Mister Know-It-All.”

“How’s that, then?”

“I used to come here to Treetops all the time with my brother when I was a boy.”

“And who’s he?”

“Chancellor Leopold Vipond.”