‘You’re Thomas Cale. Chancellor Bose Ikard has bet me fifty dollars that I won’t get more than two words out of you.’
There was, of course, no such bet and she did not expect him to believe her. Cale looked at Dorothy thoughtfully for a moment.
‘You lose.’
32
Perhaps one day a great mind will discover the exact point in any given situation when the person who has to make the decision ought to stop listening. Until that day it’s no wonder that prayer, divination, or the disembowelling of cats are as useful strategies as any. Stupid advice sometimes works; intelligent advice sometimes fails. The appearance of Cale’s puppets had been a surprising success. Everyone agreed that the will of the New Model Army to fight had improved beyond measure – a will as important, perhaps, as weapons, food or numbers. It was so successful that it was decided the troops needed even more of it. The problem was that the Redeemers also had a will to fight that was founded on more than clever illusions: death for them was merely a door to a better life. So it was argued – not unreasonably – that if fake Cales could do so much good, how much more would the troops benefit from the presence of the real one. Mysteriously, morale amongst the New Model Army had increased as much in areas where the puppets hadn’t been seen as where they had. Clearly then just a few short appearances by Cale himself might tip the balance.
Vague Henri was begged and cajoled and nagged until news arrived of another hideous victory by the Redeemers at Maldon. Everyone was shaken by this defeat, even Vague Henri, so he agreed to approach Cale. Had he known all the facts of the loss at Maldon he wouldn’t have done so. A few weeks later it became clear that the rout had not been the result of Redeemer superiority but was entirely due to the stupidity of the New Model Army commander, who had allowed the Redeemers to escape to high ground and ensured defeat from a position where victory would have been inevitable.
In fact, if anything, the flow of victories was moving slightly in favour of the New Model Army, except nobody knew it. So it was that, based on a false proposition reasonably arrived at in the face of compelling evidence that was completely mistaken, Vague Henri persuaded Cale to tour the battlefield in person. Cale was deeply reluctant but Vague Henri said it wouldn’t be for long and they’d travel in a wagon-train much bigger than the standard one. Cale had been feeling a little better and his personal carriage had been fitted with springs so that it was much easier for him to rest on the move. Things were critical, apparently. It was a crisis. Something Must Be Done. What choice did he have?
The first five days of the seven-day tour went well. Cale’s presence – away from anywhere dangerous – was a tonic for the troops far beyond expectations. It continued to be a great success right up until the moment when it turned into an appalling disaster – one that was set to deliver absolute victory into the hands of the Redeemers by means of the deaths of Cale and Vague Henri on the same day.
To avoid an unseasonably heavy storm coming down from the north, Vague Henri had halted the train. Unfortunately the same storm had also threatened a large expeditionary column of Redeemers, who had decided to avoid it by turning for the safety of their own lines. It was this coincidence of circumstances that brought a force of some fifteen hundred Redeemers, chosen to go this far because of their skill and experience, to blunder into Vague Henri’s unready wagon-train which, big as it was, had only some six hundred soldiers. Worse than that, many of them were not so skilled and experienced: Vague Henri had made the mistake, pressed as he always was for time, of handing the choice of soldiers over to someone too easily bribed to allow persons of rank and influence (already the New Model Army was falling into bad habits) to buy the great status offered by being able to boast they had served with the Exterminating Angel himself.
Vague Henri immediately ordered the wagons circled. As soon as Cale emerged to investigate the noise he spent five minutes looking over the Redeemers, who were putting themselves in order about eight hundred yards away, and told Vague Henri to stop.
‘Why?’
‘That small lake there.’ It was a tarn about three hundred yards away. ‘Form a semi-circle against the lake shore, same size as here – then with the wagons left over form another semi-circle inside.’
Vague Henri was able to catch the wagons still on the move so there was no delay putting the horses back in harness or digging up the pegs used to fasten the wheels firmly to the ground. The Redeemer in charge realized that now was a good time to attack but he was a cautious man and delayed too long, wary of being drawn into a mysteriously cunning trap. By the time he decided to move, the New Model Army formation was in place, the horses being uncoupled and the wheels hammered.
The central question for both sides was the same and neither knew the answer. Was help on the way? Vague Henri had sent out four riders for help as soon as he saw the Redeemers. For the Redeemers the question was whether they’d caught all of them. Without help or extraordinary luck it was only a question of time before they overran the stockade – unless they’d failed to catch all of the New Model Army riders. If so, help might be on the way eventually. Even then they were in a good position, with odds of better than two to one in their favour. They were also in a better position than they knew, given that half the soldiers in the wagon-train were made up of inexperienced administrators of one kind or another. Cale, more than anyone, believed in the importance of good administrators but not here and not now. It took about twenty minutes for Cale and Vague Henri to realize that they were not being protected by the engine of violence they’d worked so hard to create.
‘This is your fault,’ said Cale.
‘Put me on trial when it’s over.’
‘You’re only saying that because you know you’re going to die here.’
‘And you’re not?’
‘Now you’re worrying about me? It’s a bit late.’
‘Stop whining.’
There was a bad-tempered silence – then they got on with it.
‘We need height,’ said Cale.
‘What?’
‘We need a platform in the middle of that,’ he said, pointing at the small semi-circle of wagons. ‘It doesn’t need to be more than about six feet up – but we’ll need room for twenty crossbowmen and as many loaders as you can. The Redeemers are going to break through the first wall so we’ve got to turn the space between the two into a slaughterhouse – that’s all I can think of to keep them back.’