‘This is Carmella Materazzi’s coat of arms.’ He nodded over to another helmet exactly the same – but even under the grime one that was clearly pretty new. ‘And that must be his son’s. I’d heard they were both killed but no one knew for sure. Kleist stole the kid’s wallet then got ten dollars when he gave it back and said he’d found it in the Sally Gardens.’ He placed the first helmet carefully on the ground and walked right to the edge of the pile and placed a foot high up as if he were going to climb. With a great heave he pulled out another helmet, this one with a filthily bedraggled plume, raggedy, all colour drained by exposure to the hard winter. ‘I thought I recognized it. This,’ he said, holding the helmet out to Cale, ‘belonged to that shit-bag Lascelles. He clipped me on the ear once for getting in his way.’
‘Well, that’ll teach him,’
Vague Henri laughed. ‘You’re right. Henri’s curse on everyone who does me a bad turn. Let’s hope he suffered.’ He opened and shut the visor the way he had seen the puppeteers in the Memphis market do. ‘Where are your jibes now, mate?’
He looked around the great heap. When all was said and done, Memphis had been a great joy for him. ‘Seems a pity,’ he said, at last, ‘not to make some use of this. God there’s a fortune here.’
The men carefully pretending not to listen could not contain themselves at this.
‘How much, mister?’
‘Ten thousand dollars? Fifteen?’
‘You lie.’
Both Cale and Vague Henri laughed aloud at this.
‘Sorry, mister. But that’s not possible.’
‘Suit yourself. But look at the state of it. Besides there’s hardly anyone left alive could wear this stuff. It takes years to learn to move in their integuments. Much good it did them anyway. Armour always comes with a price,’ replied Cale.
‘Still,’ said Vague Henri, ‘it’s mad to let it all be melted down.’
‘Why? It’ll be dark in three hours. We better go.’
As they walked away one of the men called out after them.
‘Where would we take it, mister? Just tell us and we’ll remember you in our prayers.’
In the great storeroom of Vittles of the Blessed Honoratus on the back slopes of the Golan, Cale ordered two sides of beef with a requisition stolen from Van Owen’s battle quarters and with his quartermaster’s forged signature.
‘What if he works out it was you?’
‘With any luck he’ll be dead before he does.’
‘What if he wins – or even if he lives?’
‘I don’t think he can do it – stop them, I mean.’
‘That’s what we thought at Silbury Hill.’
As you can imagine, it is no easy thing to bring two carcasses into a camp and not call attention to yourselves – but there was so much of the hive about the place and they had waited till near dark and gone around the long way that the food, along with the rutabagas for all, was delivered safely and received by the Purgators with awestruck gratitude. It was roasting and boiling in a minute. Cale had also taken a leaf out of Bosco’s book and put a cutting he had made from the wooden foundations of Van Owen’s battle quarters into a small brass box he had found on a body in the veldt and liked the look of. He claimed to the fuelbrother that it was a sliver of the true gallows on which the Hanged Redeemer had been sacrificed. In exchange he got fourteen sacks of coal and a fletch of wood. Cale and Vague Henri watched the blissful Purgators eat and warm themselves in front of the fires as if they were spoiled children.
‘Does your heart good,’ said Cale, smiling. But the trouble was that Vague Henri couldn’t help himself, despite everything in his heart screaming the opposite. The trouble was it did do his heart good to see men whose brothers in faith had bullied and harassed him all his life. Now as they took such deep pleasure in being warm and well fed, warmth and food that he had provided and for which they were so pathetically grateful, he started to feel some connection with them as if a line were being drawn between them binding them together. He did not want this. ‘How can I feel sorry for them?’ he whispered to Cale miserably as the great but badly made hut in which they sat hummed with light and pleasure and deep content that only warm feet and a full stomach can provide. Cale looked at him.
‘Careful with your tears – you might drown.’
The next morning both of them were ready to leave before dawn. As the sky began to lighten they were on their mounts and away from the Golan camp, now beginning to stretch like a great dog as the final day of preparations got cracking.
Used to seeing the two going in and out and with Cale much admired by reputation for his victories on the veldt, the guards nodded them through and out onto the heights leading down to the flat Machair. The sound of bells calling the Redeemers to mass began, the pi-dogs barking as the two of them picked their way downwards. In half an hour they were moving quickly but watchfully over the easy riding plain. Here and there were stubborn areas of snow but smaller and fewer as they moved away from the heights.
‘Still,’ said Vague Henri, as they stopped for a few minutes to rest the horses, ‘I don’t care how hard the Laconics are. Even if it’s warm enough now, six nights out in the open in cold like that – bound to put a crimp in your swagger.’
‘I suppose,’ replied Cale. With the horses rested they remounted and walked them on slowly. If they came across Laconic cavalry doing some scouting themselves they wanted the animals to be rested. What Cale wanted to get a sense of was the terrain, how the melt had affected the ground, if there were choke points to defend or attack. Muddy ground, only to be expected, would be a disadvantage and perhaps a big one for the Laconics who, whatever their other skills, always tried to close on their enemies and use their ability to fight in powerful blocks ten deep and overpower their opponents with their strength, ferocity and unique ability to move these blocks around as if they were dancers in a troupe rather than soldiers.
‘They do a lot of dancing, so it says in the testaments.’
‘When they’re not taking it up the chuff.’
‘You never know, according to the testaments they have these sorts of ceremonies – I mean in public – where they do all that Gomorrah business in a ritual like on holydays.’
‘You liar!’
‘I’m not saying it’s true, I’m just telling you what it said.’
‘Better not get caught then.’
‘Better not. Anyway, you’ll be all right.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘You’re too ugly.’
‘That’s not what the girls at the Sanctuary say.’
‘What’s that, then?’
‘They say I’m gorgeous, absolutely gorgeous.’
Laughing they rode on in silence for nearly ten minutes.
‘Do you see him?’
‘Yes. He’s not exactly taking much trouble to stay hid.’
For several minutes a horseman had been tracking them from a couple of hundred yards away having emerged from behind a rise, a shallow one, but high enough to have hidden him if he’d wanted not to be seen.
There was a loud click! as Vague Henri started to ratchet back the light crossbow that had been hanging from his saddle in such a way that the rider could not see that he was arming himself.
‘Let’s turn back.’
Cale nodded and they began easing the horses around. The rider stopped for a moment and then began to follow.
‘If he gets any closer to you, reload time – send one past him.’
‘Why don’t I just put one in him?’
‘What for? Just warn him off.’
Vague Henri raised the bow, steadied and fired a warning. The horse kicked as the bolt shot past, closer than Vague Henri had intended. But, after all, he was on a horse himself and out of practice. The two boys stopped and watched.