The Left Hand of God

21

The next day IdrisPukke would not start until it was light enough to see clearly. Cale argued it was necessary to take the risk, but IdrisPukke would not budge.

“If one of these horses goes lame blundering about in the dark, we’re stuck.”

Cale realized he was right, but he was desperate to be on the move and groaned in dismissive irritation. IdrisPukke ignored him for a further twenty minutes and then they were on their way.

For the next two days they stopped only to rest the horses and eat. Cale continually urged IdrisPukke to go faster. IdrisPukke calmly insisted that the horses, and he himself, could not take it even if Cale could. All four of them needed to catch the Redeemers, if indeed they were to be caught. And they had to have one of the horses at least in a fit state to ride quickly back to the Materazzi to give the information about numbers and direction.

“You don’t seem worried about the girl,” said Cale.

“It’s precisely because I am worried that we’re doing this my way-because I’m right. Besides, what’s Arbell Swan-Neck to you?”

“Nothing at all. But if I can help to stop the Redeemers, then the Marshal will have a good reason to feel more generous to me than he does. I have friends in Memphis who are hostages, too.”

“I didn’t think you had any friends-I thought it was just circumstances that brought you together.”

“I saved their lives-I’d have thought that was pretty friendly.”

“Oh,” said IdrisPukke. “I thought you were a reluctant hero in all of this.”

“So I was.”

“So what are you, then, Master Cale, noble by calling or merely by circumstance?”

“I’m not noble at all.”

“So you say. But I wonder if there isn’t an incipient hero growing in there somewhere.”

“What does ‘incipient’ mean?”

“Something beginning to appear, something beginning to exist.” Cale laughed, but not pleasantly.

“If that’s what you think, let’s hope you aren’t in the position where you’re going to find out.”

And with this, IdrisPukke decided to be quiet.

On the second day, they descended onto the main road to the Cortina pass. It wasn’t much of a road.

“No one uses it these days and they haven’t for sixty years-not since the Redeemers shut the borders.”

“How far to the Sanctuary from the pass?” asked Cale.

“You don’t know?”

“The Redeemers didn’t leave maps lying around-nothing to make it easier for us to escape. Until a few months ago I used to think Memphis was thousands of miles away.”

Had IdrisPukke not been distracted by a beautiful vermilion and gold dragonfly, he would have seen a liar’s expression on Cale’s face, just in the moment he thinks he’s given himself away. “I mean,” added Cale, “before I came here and realized it wasn’t.” Now IdrisPukke noticed the awkward tone.

“What’s the matter?”

“Nothing’s the matter.”

“If you say so.”

Terrified that he had revealed something he was very anxious not to reveal, Cale stayed wrapped in alarmed silence for the next ten minutes. When IdrisPukke next spoke, it was as if he had forgotten the whole thing-which indeed he had.

“The Sanctuary is a good two hundred miles from the pass-but they don’t need to get that far. There’s a garrison twenty miles from the border-Martyr Town.”

“I’ve never heard of it.”

“Well, it’s not so big, but its walls are thick. It would need an army to take it.”

“What then?”

“Nothing. Materazzi adores the girl. He’ll give them what they want.”

“How do you know they want something?”

“It doesn’t make sense otherwise.”

“What makes sense to you and what makes sense to the Redeemers is a white horse of a different color.”

“So, you’ve come up with an idea-I mean about what they’re doing?”

“No.”

“It doesn’t have anything to do with you?”

Cale laughed. “The Redeemers are a bunch of bastards-but do you really think they’d start a war with Memphis over three kids and a fat girl?”

IdrisPukke grunted. “Not if you put it like that. On the other hand, you’ve been lying to me for the past two months.”

“And who are you to be demanding the truth?”

“The best friend you’ve got.”

“Is that so?”

“Yes-as it happens. So there’s nothing you want to tell me?”

“No.” And that was that.

Twenty minutes later they came across the remains of a fire.

“What do you think?” asked Cale, as IdrisPukke sifted the remains of the ashes through his fingers.

“Still hot. A few hours, that’s all.” He nodded at the flattened grass and lightly scuffed earth. “How many?”

Cale sighed. “Probably not less than ten-not more than twenty. Sorry, I’m not much good at this kind of thing.”

“Neither am I.” He looked around, thoughtful and uncertain.

“I think one of us should ride back and tell the Materazzi what the score is.”

“Why? Will it make them ride quicker? And even if it does, what are they going to do when they get here? Any kind of pitched battle and the Redeemers will kill her. They won’t surrender, I can tell you that.”

IdrisPukke sighed. “So what are you suggesting?”

“Catch them up, stay out of sight. Once we know the notch-up, we can work out what to do. Bring in a small number of Materazzi and do it quietly. That’s what I think until we catch them up. Things might be different then.”

IdrisPukke sniffed and spat on the ground.

“All right. You know them best.”

Five hours later, as it was getting dark, Cale and IdrisPukke crept toward the top of a small hill just before the entrance of the Cortina pass-a huge cleft in the granite mountain that marked out the northern border between the Redeemers and the Materazzi.

The hill overlooked a depression about twenty feet deep and eighty yards long in which they could see six Redeemers preparing camp. In the middle of the group sat Arbell Materazzi, presumably tied because she did not move once while they watched. After five minutes the two of them drew back to a clump of bushes about two hundred yards away.

“Just in case you were wondering why there are only six, there’ll be another four guarding the rim at least,” said Cale. “They’ll have sent a rider ahead to the garrison to meet them on the other side.”

“I’ll ride back and try and get the Materazzi,” said IdrisPukke.

“What for?”

“If they’re close, they’ll take the risk of riding in the dark. Even if the Materazzi lose half the horses on the way, there are only a dozen Redeemers at most.”

“And if you aren’t here and deployed before dawn, they’ll be into the pass and out of reach. And even if they’re not-an attack in daylight means the girl is dead. We stop them before they leave or not at all.”

“There are only two of us,” pointed out IdrisPukke.

“Yes,” replied Cale. “But one of the two of us is me.”

“It’s suicide.”

“If it was suicide, I wouldn’t do it.”

“Then why are you?”

Cale shrugged. “If I rescue the girl then His Enormity, the Marshal will be undyingly grateful. Grateful enough to give me money-a lot of money-and safe passage.”

“Where to?”

“Somewhere it’s warm, the food is good, and as far away from the Redeemers as you can get without falling off the edge of the world.”

“And your friends?”

“Friends? Oh, they can come too. Why not?”

“The risk is too great. Better let her be a hostage, and Materazzi can buy her out with whatever it is the Redeemers want.”

“What makes you so sure she’s a hostage?” said Cale, his voice cold and irritable. IdrisPukke looked at him.

“So-now perhaps we get the truth.”

“The truth is that you think the Redeemers are like you-nastier, madder-but that what you want and they want, well, it’s the same underneath. But it isn’t.” He sighed. “It’s not that I understand them, because I don’t. I thought I did until what happened before I killed that shit-bag Picarbo-the Redeemer. I told you that I did it to stop him, you know, raking her.”

“Raping.”

Cale reddened, hating to be corrected. “Whatever it’s called doesn’t matter-that’s not what he was doing. He was cutting her up.” Then he told IdrisPukke exactly what happened that night.

“My God!” said an appalled IdrisPukke when he’d finished. “Why?”

“No idea. That’s what I meant when I said I’d stopped thinking I knew what was going on in their nasty little minds.”

“Why would they do that to Arbell Materazzi?”

“I told you, I don’t know. Maybe they want to see what a Materazzi woman is like, you know…” He paused, awkward for once. “Inside. I don’t know. But it doesn’t make sense that they want her for money. That isn’t their way.”

“It makes even more sense if they want you back.”

Cale gasped, almost laughing.

“They’d like to make an instance of me-a bonfire with all the trimmings. And I don’t deny they’d go to extreme lengths to do it-but starting a war with the Materazzi over an acolyte? Not in a thousand years.” He smiled, grim. “I guess the same thought has crossed the Marshal’s mind. I’m prepared to bet the four of us would be on our way to the Sanctuary in two shakes of a lamb’s tail just as a gesture of his goodwill. Don’t you think so?”

IdrisPukke did not reply, because that was exactly what he’d been thinking. Both were silent for a couple of minutes.

“It is a risk. But it can be done,” said Cale. “She’s nothing to me,” he lied. “I wouldn’t throw my life away for some spoiled Materazzi brat. If the Redeemers take her, I’ve got everything to lose. If we get her back, everything to gain. You too, just as much as me. All you have to do is cover me. Even if I fail you’ve got a better than even chance of getting away. And nobody, let’s face it, is going to thank you if they find out you caught up with her and let them go without doing anything.”

IdrisPukke smiled. “The unfairness of life-always the best argument. Very well. Tell me your plan.”

“There were three words Bosco beat into me nearly every day of my life-surprise, violence, momentum. Now he’s going to wish he hadn’t.” Cale drew a circle in the dead pine needles that covered the forest floor.

“There’ll be four guards around the circle-east, west, south, north. There’s no moon tonight, so we can’t move until first light. That’s when you’ll have to kill the guard at the west-as soon as you can make him out. Then I’ll take the south guard. You have to hold the west guard’s position because it’s the only one where it’s possible to get in a shot behind the rock the girl is next to. That’s where I’m going to take her as soon as I cut her free. Do you know any birdcalls?”

“I can do an owl,” said IdrisPukke doubtfully. “But there aren’t any owls in this part of the world.”

“The Redeemers probably don’t know that.” Cale paused. “What does an owl sound like?”

IdrisPukke gave him a demonstration. “What if the guard makes a noise while I’m trying to kill him?”

“Trying?” said Cale, appalled. “There won’t be any trying. I don’t want to hear anything about doing your best. Bungle it and I’m dead. Understand?”

IdrisPukke looked at Cale, piqued. “Don’t worry about me, boy.” “Well, I do worry. So once I hear your signal, I’ll kill the south guard. I’ll need a minute to put on his cassock. Then I’ll just walk into the camp as quietly as I can. Once the remaining guards work out what’s happening…”

“Why don’t we kill all the lookouts first?”

“There’s no chance you’ll be able to crawl around here for long without giving yourself away. This is the safest it’s going to be. They’ll be confused and I’ll look just like the others in camp. It’ll still be near dark. If you do your job properly, one way or the other, it isn’t going to take long.”

“So what do I do then?”

“You won’t see where the lookouts are on the north and east unless they start shooting-if they do, then you shoot back-keep their heads down. I’ll take the girl behind the rock here. They can’t get us from anywhere but directly above.” Cale smiled. “That’s when this gets tricky. You have to stop them getting directly above and behind us until I can make a run for it. She’ll be safe there as long as you can keep them from taking your position. Once I’m over the lip, it’s two against two.”

“That’s forty yards in the open and up a steep climb for the last fifteen. If they’re any good, I don’t think much of your chances.”

“They’ll be good.”

“Anyway, I can’t see why I’m worrying about a suicidal dash-after all, you’ve got to kill six armed men single-handed first. This whole idea is ridiculous. We should wait for the Materazzi.”

“They’ll kill her before the Materazzi get to her. This is the only chance she has. Depend on it-I can do this quicker than I can tell you about it. They won’t expect it so close to dawn, and they won’t be able to tell me from one of their own in the dark. Once they’ve realized it’s an attack, they’ll be expecting Materazzi all over the place, they’re not going to be expecting anything like this.”

“Because it’s too stupid to believe.”

“It’s my life here, not yours.”

“And the girl’s.”

“The girl is worth something only if we’re the ones who save her. Without this, you descend to a kind of nothing-or worse. The choice is simple enough, I’d say.”

Six hours later IdrisPukke was standing over the body of the dead west guard.

In times gone by IdrisPukke had commanded numerous battles in which many thousands had died. But it had been a long time since he had killed a man face-to-face. He stood for a moment looking down at the glassy eyes and open mouth, lips pulled back over his teeth, and he could feel his whole body begin to shake.

As a result, his effort at impersonating an owl stuck in his throat and might have alarmed anyone who ever heard one before. But within less than a minute he could just make out the figure of Cale moving slowly down the slope, being careful not to make a noise or, if he was seen by the remaining two guards, to be in any kind of a hurry.

A profound dread began to fill IdrisPukke as he watched what, after all, was no more than a boy walk easily up to the six sleeping men and begin.

He had not been sure what to expect, but it was nothing like this. Cale drew his shortsword and in one movement stabbed downward at the first sleeping figure; the man neither moved nor cried out. Still unhurried, Cale moved on to the second man. Again the powerful downward strike and the lack of a cry. As he moved, the third Redeemer began to stir and even raised his head. Another strike-if he called out, IdrisPukke could not hear. Cale moved to the fourth man, who now sat upright and sleepily gazed at Cale, puzzled but not afraid. A downward jab into his throat and he fell back with a cry, strangled but loud.

The fifth and sixth of the sleepers woke-experienced men, hardened by battle and many surprises. The first shouted at Cale and came directly at him thrusting a short spear at his face. Cale aimed a blow at his neck but missed and struck him through the ear. The Redeemer screamed and went down bellowing in pain. The last of the sleepers lost his habitual presence of mind, the years of fighting no use to him now, and gazed in horror at his friend clutching the dead leaves of the forest covered in blood. He silently watched, stock-still as a tree stump, as Cale in a trance struck through his breastbone. A single gasp and then he fell, the man on the ground still roaring.

For the first time Cale started running, heading toward the girl, who had woken to see the last three killings. She was bound hand and foot, and he lifted her in one movement over his shoulder and ran to cover behind the great boulder against which she had been sleeping. An arrow zipped past his left ear and ricocheted among the rocks.

From directly over their heads IdrisPukke answered with an arrow of his own. There was an immediate reply from the second guard, zipping into the trees that hid IdrisPukke.

For the next few minutes arrows shot back and forth but IdrisPukke could see the pattern-one of the guards was stalking him while the other provided covering fire. It was getting lighter now with every passing second, and with the rising dawn any chance of Cale making a successful break was fading. IdrisPukke would have to move soon or be cornered.

Cale gestured to Arbell to stay put and keep quiet, then he was moving, running out from behind the rock and toward the rise out of the hollow. IdrisPukke, bow drawn, hoped for a too-quick shot that would give away the bowman’s position as soon as he saw Cale on the move. But the bowman was cool-he was going to wait until Cale reached the rise that must slow him down, and catch him then. It took the young boy only four seconds or so, and then he was climbing, his feet and hands sinking into the surface layer of loose and dry pine needles-and slowing all the time. Then three-quarters of the way up, he slipped on a tree root covered by loam and slid to a halt, scrabbling for a foothold. It was only a second, but it stopped his momentum and gave the archer as much time as he needed. The shot came, zipping like a wasp across the bowl, and struck Cale even as he made it over the lip.

IdrisPukke’s heart leapt-in the gloom it was hard to see where it had hit, but the sound was unmistakable-a thwack! at once soft and hard.

Now he was in trouble himself. The two guards had only him to worry about now-if he stayed, his chances were poor, but if he moved away, they could take his present ground and merely lean over the lip of the bowl and finish the girl-something that now there were only two of them, they’d be sure to do. The bushes around him were dense, and while this gave him cover, it would do the same for the guards. Everything was now in their favor, nothing in his.

During the following five minutes many unpleasant thoughts crossed his mind. The dreadful fact of approaching death and the temptation to cut and run. If he died here-as he surely would, his conscience devil pointed out-it would do the girl no good: two of them would die instead of one. But then, of course, he would have to live with himself. But you could manage that, said his devil conscience. Better a live dog than a dead lion.

And so IdrisPukke, sword stuck in the ground in front of him and a bow at the ready, waited and endured the thoughts hammering in his brains. And he waited. And he waited.

Pain was nothing new to Cale, but the arrow that had taken him just above his shoulder blade was an agony far beyond anything he had ever felt before. The sound he let out through gritted teeth was a whining noise, as unstoppable by courage or an act of will as the blood he could feel warmly pouring down his back. His body began shaking with the pain as if he were having a fit. He tried to breathe deeply but the pain kept hitting him and drew out a spasm of short gasps. He had to sit upright and bring it under control. He stated crawling and whining, crawling and whining. Then he passed out. He woke up unsure how long he had been unconscious-seconds, minutes? They were coming for him and he had to get to his feet. He crawled to a pine tree and started to pull himself up. Too much. He stopped, then pushed on. Get on your feet or die. But it was as much as he could do to turn himself around and lean the unwounded part of his back against the tree. He vomited and passed out again. When he woke up, it was with a start and a grunt of pain, but this time from a fist-sized rock that a Redeemer standing about ten yards away had just thrown at him.

“Thought you might be playing possum,” said the Redeemer. “Where are the others?”

“What did you say?” Cale knew he had to stay awake and keep talking.

“Where are the others?”

“They’re over there.” He tried to raise his hand to point away from IdrisPukke, but he lost consciousness again. Another rock, another start awake.

“What? What?”

“Tell me where they are or I’ll put the next arrow in your groin.”

“There are twenty… I know Redeemer Bosco… He sent me.” The Redeemer had drawn back his bow, deciding that he’d get no sense from Cale, but the mention of Bosco astonished him. How could anyone here know about the great Lord Militant? He lowered the bow and it was enough.

“Bosco says…” and Cale started to mumble his words as if he was going to pass out again, and the Redeemer, without really thinking, made a few steps forward to hear what he was saying. Then Cale lashed out with his good left arm, launching the rock so it took the Redeemer high on the forehead. His eyes rolled back in his head, mouth gaping, and he slumped to the ground. Cale fainted again.

IdrisPukke still waited in the small, roughly circular space surrounded on three sides by bushes so dense that he could not see out and no one else could see in. Behind him was the thirty-foot steep drop at the bottom of which still waited, he hoped, Arbell Materazzi. There was a faint rustle from beyond the bushes. He raised his bow, fully drawn, and waited. A stone dropped into the circle. He almost let loose the shot the thrower had hoped for. Moving the arc of the bow back and forth to cover a rushed entry he called out, voice shaking.

“Come in here and it’s fifty-fifty you’ll get an arrow in the gut!” He moved sideways three steps so as not to give away his position. An arrow zipped through the bushes and out over the edge of the bowl, missing IdrisPukke by the same three steps. “Leave now and we won’t come after you.” He ducked and shuffled again to one side. Another arrow. Again buzzing through almost exactly at the point he had been standing. Talking had been a mistake. Twenty seconds passed. Idris-Pukke’s breathing sounded so loud in his ears that he was sure the Redeemer knew exactly where he was.

From about two hundred yards away there was a high-pitched skirling cry of pain and terror. Then it was silenced. Everything seemed to stop, only the wind hurrying through the leaves for what seemed like minutes.

“That was your friend, Redeemer. Now it’s only you.” Another arrow, another miss. “Run now and we won’t come after you. That’s the deal and you have my word.”

“Why should I trust you?”

“It’ll take my oppo about two or three minutes to get here-he’ll vouch for me.”

“All right. I agree to a covenant-but come after me and I swear to God I’ll take one of you with me before I go.”

IdrisPukke decided to stay quiet. With Cale out there, clearly alive and in a bad mood, all he had to do was wait. In fact, Cale had fainted again directly after he had killed the Redeemer just as he regained consciousness, and was in no state to do anything very much, let alone rescue IdrisPukke. But after ten minutes waiting, his anxiety slowly increasing, Cale spoke to him softly from beyond the bushes to his right.

“IdrisPukke, I’m coming in and I don’t want you taking my head off when I do.”

“Thank God,” said IdrisPukke to himself, letting the bow sink downward and easing the bowstring.

There was a good deal of clumsy rustling and then Cale emerged in front of him.

IdrisPukke sat down, let out a long deep breath and started fiddling inside his pocket for his tobacco.

“I thought you might be dead.”

“No,” replied Cale.

“What about the guard?”

“He’s dead, yes.”

There was a grim laugh from IdrisPukke.

“You’re a caution, and no mistake.”

“I don’t know what that means.”

“Never mind.” IdrisPukke finished rolling his tobacco and lit up.

“Do you want one?” he said, gesturing with the cigarillo.

“To be honest,” said Cale, “I don’t feel very well.” And with that he slumped forward in a dead faint.

Cale did not wake up for another three weeks, during which time he came close to death on more than one occasion. Partly this was due to an infection caused by the arrowhead that had lodged in his shoulder, but mostly it was because of the medical treatment given him by the expensive physicians who had tended him night and day and whose ruinously stupid methods (bleeding, scraping and defusculating) had very nearly achieved what a lifetime of brutality at the Sanctuary had failed to do. And they would have succeeded if a temporary easing of his fever had not allowed Cale to recover consciousness for a few hours. Confused and disorientated on opening his eyes, Cale found himself staring at an old man in a red skullcap gazing down at him.

“Who are you?”

“I am Dr. Dee,” said the old man, who went back to placing a sharp and not especially clean knife to a vein in Cale’s forearm.

“What are you doing?” said Cale, pulling his arm away.

“Be calm,” said the old man reassuringly. “You have a bad wound in the shoulder and it has become infected. You need to be bled to let the poison out.” He took hold of Cale’s arm and tried to hold it still.

“Let go of me, you bloody old lunatic!” shouted Cale, though he was so weak it came out not much more than a whisper.

“Hold still, damn you!” shouted the doctor, and fortunately it was this that carried through the door and alerted IdrisPukke.

“What’s the matter?” he said from the doorway. Then, seeing Cale was awake, “Thank God!” He came to the bed and bent down low over the boy. “I’m glad to see you.”

“Tell this old fool to go away.”

“He’s your doctor-he’s here to help.”

Cale pulled his arm free again. Then winced at the pain in his shoulder.

“Get him away from me,” said Cale. “Or by God I’ll cut the old bastard’s throat.”

IdrisPukke signaled the doctor to leave, something he did with considerable show of hurt dignity.

“I want you to look at the wound.”

“I don’t know anything about medicine. Let the doctor come and look at you.”

“Did I lose much blood?”

“Yes.”

“Then I don’t need some half-wit to help me lose any more.” He rolled onto his right side. “Tell me what color it is.”

Gently, though not without causing Cale considerable pain, IdrisPukke eased back the stained and grubby-looking bandage.

“Its got a lot of pus-pale green-and the edges are red.” His face was grim now; he had seen killing wounds like this before.

Cale sighed.

“I need maggots.”

“What?”

“Maggots. I know what I’m doing. I need about twenty. Wash them five times in clean water, drinking water, and bring them to me.”

“Let me fetch another doctor.”

“Please, IdrisPukke. If you don’t do this for me, I’m finished. Please.”

And so twenty minutes later, full of misgiving, IdrisPukke returned with twenty carefully washed maggots skimmed from a dead crow found in a ditch outside. With the help of a maid he followed Cale’s detailed instructions: “Wash your hands clean, then wash with boiled water… Pour the maggots over the wound. Use a clean bandage and make the edges fast to the skin… Make sure to keep me on my stomach. Get as much water into me as you can…” With that, he lost consciousness again and did not wake up for another four days.

When he opened his eyes again, a relieved IdrisPukke was by his bed.

“How are you?”

Cale took in a few deep breaths.

“Not bad. Am I hot?”

IdrisPukke put his hand to his forehead.

“Not too bad. For the first two days you were burning.”

“How long have I been asleep?”

“Four days-though you weren’t resting for much of it. You were making a lot of noise. It was hard to keep you on your front.”

“Have a look under the bandage. It’s itching.”

Somewhat uncertainly IdrisPukke eased back the edge of the bandage, his nose twitching in disgusted anticipation of what he would find. He grunted in distaste.

“Is it bad?” asked an anxious Cale.

“Good God!”

“What?”

“The pus has gone-and the redness too-most of it, anyway.” He eased the bandage back more, though this time the now fat maggots dropped in twos and threes into the bedding. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Cale sighed-immense relief.

“Get rid of them-the maggots-then bring me some more. Same again.” And with that he fell into a deep sleep.