Vague Henri looked around, working out what he would use to build the tower and protect it. It would succeed up to a point. It wouldn’t make much difference if all his riders had been stopped.
‘You look terrible,’ he said to Cale.
In fact he could barely stand. ‘I need to sleep.’
‘What about that stuff Sister Wray gave you?’
‘She said it could kill me.’
‘What? And they’re not going to?’
Cale laughed. ‘Not if they know it’s me. I’m probably all right.’
‘But they don’t know it’s you.’
‘It might buy us time if they did.’
‘Too clever.’
‘Probably. I’ll sleep on it. Sort out the experienced men and divide them into the good and the better. Of the best I’ll need seven groups of ten. Put the weakest in the first group of wagons and wake me an hour before you think the Redeemers are going to break in. Now walk me slowly to my carriage so they don’t see their Exterminating Angel fall over on his face.’
On the way, a terrified-looking quartermaster walked over to them and reported there had been a mistake with the boxes of villainous saltpetre used to charge the handguns. Three-quarters of their supply turned out to be bacon, which was packed in identical crates. The quartermaster was surprised to be calmly dismissed. There was a reason.
‘This is your fault,’ said Vague Henri to Cale.
It was true, it was Cale’s fault – months before he’d realized they were spending a fortune and huge amounts of time making crates of every different size and shape for their supplies, so he’d standardized them. A simple but clever idea promised to destroy them all.
Cale had expected he might, if he was lucky, get two or three hours. Vague Henri woke him after seven. It always took him a couple of minutes to become wakeful in any way but he could see immediately that there was something different about Vague Henri. More than Kleist, and very much more than Cale, he’d always retained something of the boy about him. Not now, though. There was no point in delaying so he took the tiny packet of Phedra and Morphine out of his drawer and poured the dose straight into his mouth. Sister Wray’s dire warnings whispered in his ear. But she’d given it to him because she knew there would be days like this.
Cale followed Vague Henri outside. In the hours he’d been asleep hell had arrived. All the wagons in the first wall were in a terrible state – walls broken, wheels smashed; half were pulled to the ground by Redeemer ropes and six of them were on fire. In the inner semi-circle the dead and the wounded lay in ragged lines of around two hundred – and though there were screams, mostly it was the horrible silence of those in the kind of pain that was going to kill. And yet Cale could see Vague Henri had preserved the line without using two hundred of the most skilled and experienced. Cale looked directly at him and Vague Henri stared back: something, something had changed.
‘What you’ve managed here,’ said Cale, ‘not even I could have done it.’ If they ever praised each other, which was rare, it was always with an edge of mockery. But not this time. Vague Henri felt the effect of this praise as deeply as it was possible to be affected by the deep admiration of someone you love. A short silence. ‘A pity,’ said Cale, ‘you let it happen in the first place.’
‘Well, it’s a pity,’ replied Vague Henri, ‘that because of your stupid boxes we’re all going to die.’
The first wall of wagons was still holding, if not for much longer – already the Redeemers were pulling at the burning wrecks. Cale thought he had about ten minutes. He shouted the fresh troops forward and gathered them in their prearranged groups of seven.
He gave them, of course, the speech he’d stolen from the library in the Sanctuary.
‘What’s the name of this place?’ he asked.
‘Saint Crispin’s Tarn,’ said one of the soldiers.
‘Well, he that outlives this day, and comes safe home, will strip his sleeves and show his scars and say “These wounds I had at Crispin’s Tarn.” And then he’ll tell what feats he did that day. Then shall our names be as familiar in the mouths of everyone as household words from this day to the ending of the world. We few, we happy few, we band of brothers; for he today that sheds his blood with me shall be my brother.’
Cale did not make the usual offer to let any man go who did not wish to fight – no one that day was going anywhere. One day his trick speech would fail to work but not today. ‘Each one of you,’ he shouted, and the drug was beginning to do its work, his voice was strong and carried above the noise behind, ‘belongs to a group of seven named after the days of the week because I’ve not had the time and the privilege to know you better. But each one of you is now responsible for whether the future lives or dies. Keep your shields touching. I want you close enough to smell each other’s breath. Don’t lag behind, don’t charge ahead – that’s the style I want and the spirit. You know the calls – listen as well as I know you can fight and you’ll do well.’
He stood forward and pointed to either side of the semi-circle.
‘Monday there. Sunday at the far end. Everyone in order in between.’ He waved at them to go.
Vague Henri meanwhile had gathered up the remaining weakest fighters and now led them forward to reinforce the wagons not on fire.
A few minutes more of the tug-of-war with the burning wagons and then they collapsed; the Redeemers pulled what was hooked to their chains back and away to leave what now looked like gaps in a row of broken teeth. Vague Henri had just enough time to return and enter the small semi-circle in front of the tarn and organize his crossbowmen on the stumpy ragged tower of earth and stones and wood.
Five minutes and then the first Redeemers entered through the largest gap to Cale’s left. Now he could feel the poison pumping in his veins – not real strength or courage but jumpy, edgy and overstrung. But it would have to do. He realized his judgement was twitchy too; part of him wanted to rush the Redeemers in the breach and fight. Vague Henri had been instructed to save what remained of their failing supply of crossbow bolts and only try to hit the centenars. The centenars dressed exactly like other Redeemers for precisely this reason but Vague Henri could tell them even through the smoke. One went down, hit in the stomach, and then another.
‘Wednesday!’ called out Cale. ‘Walk on!’ They moved forward in a line – the Redeemers waited – clear now for them what attitude to take.
‘That’ll do!’ called out Cale and the Wednesdays stopped, leaving the Redeemers confused – they’d expected to defend the breach but they were being encouraged in. This wasn’t right. Cale raised his left hand to Vague Henri and five bolts from his overstrungs encouraged the Redeemers to do the right thing – or the wrong one – and advance.
However bad things looked for the wagon-train, the Redeemers were worried too. It had taken them too long to get this far. With such odds they’d expected to overrun the wagons and be on their way before reinforcements came. They knew that if they’d got all the New Model Army outriders they had all the time in the world. But they couldn’t be sure. So, fearing they were pressed for time, they moved past the wagons and into the half circle.
‘Tuesdays!’ shouted Cale. ‘Come by! Come by! Quickly. Quickly.’ The Tuesdays moved forward, the left edge slightly faster, taking the group in an anti-clockwise move to seal the space to the Redeemer right. ‘Thursdays! Away to me! Quickly!’ The Thursdays moved anti-clockwise and blocked the moving Redeemers from spreading to their right. The replacement centenars would have withdrawn at this to the breach but they’d been told to push on.
‘Alleluia! Alleluia!’ they screamed and hit the New Model Army lines of shields with their own – here it was mostly cut and shove and the crash of sword and mallet against shield with everyone trying to get in a blow without being caught themselves. But the problem was that the Redeemers were by far the better soldiers in an open fight and it was telling much quicker than Cale had hoped. But he’d planned for it – hoping to stall them here to get time for reinforcements to arrive – if they were on their way. But too soon his men were beginning to fall back. Cale, in his fifteen-year-old pomp, would have used the rest of the days of the week to support the retreat back to the semi-circle around the tarn. He would have seen that he’d got it wrong and backed away in as good order as was possible. The only reason he was able to take to the fight was because of Sister Wray’s drugs – but she would have seen almost immediately that he was reacting badly: his face was flushed, his pulse racing and his eyes like pin-holes. Seeing the three days of the week were being pushed back and about to collapse he raced forward, picked up a hideous looking poleaxe from a wounded soldier and grabbed a short mallet abandoned in the ground then burst through the line of the Wednesdays and launched himself into the astonished Redeemers.