‘I say,’ shouted the Laconic scout. ‘Would you mind if I had a word?’
Cale stopped and turned his horse as Vague Henri finished reloading.
‘You set?’ he said.
‘What are you doing? This isn’t the time for a little chat.’
‘I don’t agree. We might not get another chance.’
‘Come forward!’ shouted Cale. ‘And keep your hands where we can see them. My friend here didn’t miss the last time and he won’t miss this time either.’
‘My word of honour,’ shouted the rider, laughing.
‘Do Sodomites have any honour?’ asked Vague Henri.
‘Why are you asking me?’
‘Come forward. Slowly,’ shouted Cale. ‘Try anything and you’ll be laughing on the other side of your face.’
The rider moved forwards as he was told until he was about ten yards away.
‘That’ll do.’
The rider stopped. ‘Lovely morning,’ he said. ‘Makes you glad to be alive.’
‘Which you won’t be,’ said Vague Henri, ‘if you’ve got any little friends planning to join us. I can put one in you and we can be back to our patrol before you hit the ground.’
‘There’s no need for all that, my dear,’ said the young man, clean-shaven and with elaborately beaded hair.
‘What do you want?’ said Cale.
‘I thought we might talk.’
‘About?’
‘You’re Redeemers, aren’t you?’
‘Might be. What’s it to you?’
‘Forgive me for saying so but aren’t you a bit young to be out and about when there’s going to be so much blood and screaming.’
‘I thought Laconics were supposed to be brief of speech,’ said Cale.
‘They are, that’s true, usually. But it would be a sad world, wouldn’t it, if we were all the same?’
‘Are you Krypteia?’
The man’s eyelashes flicked and he moved his head to one side. He smiled.
‘Might be. You’re very well informed, if I may say so.’
Cale took a quick look behind and to either side to check what might be about and knowing that Vague Henri had his mark fixed on the man’s chest.
‘Does your friend with the crossbow have a steady nerve?’
‘I can’t say that he does, to be honest,’ replied Cale. ‘So I’d stay still if I were you. I asked you already – what do you want?’
‘I just thought we might have a chat.’
‘Is that what they’re calling it now?’ asked Vague Henri.
‘I’m not sure I understand you,’ replied the young man although he clearly knew mockery when he heard it.
‘I wouldn’t distract him, if I were you,’ said Cale, ‘not while he’s got that thing pointed at your chest.’ The young man looked at Cale, amused and not at all nervous.
‘Your name, young man?’
‘You first.’
‘Robert Fanshawe.’ He dropped his head, all the while keeping his eyes on Vague Henri. ‘Yours to the lowest pit of hell.’
‘Dominic Savio,’ said Cale his return nod unnoticeable to all but an eagle blessed with particularly sharp sight. ‘And that’s where you’re going if you do anything my friend here doesn’t like. I’m always going on at him about his jumpiness, by the way.’
‘Pleased to meet you, Dominic Savio.’
‘The pleasure’s all yours.’
But then something odd, a flicker of something in Fanshawe’s eyes. Cale’s horse, restless for some reason, had begun drifting to one side. He took one more step.
‘Steady!’ But Cale was no great horseman and the horse moved anyway. The hoof seemed to sink impossibly into the heather mix of sedge and wild grass and then the ground itself rose up as if it were some creature looking for its prey. Screaming with terror and off balance the horse reared up throwing Cale with a hefty thud back onto the ground, winding him so badly he just lay on his back groaning. Then a blur of movement as a man rolled out from under the sedge and grabbed the stunned Cale, turned him over on top of himself as a shield and had a knife at his throat.
‘Easy! Easy!’ shouted Fanshawe at Vague Henri, who, startled as much by the event as the speed of it, had not fired. This was as welclass="underline" had he done so it would have certainly killed Fanshawe but also Cale.
‘Easy! Easy!’ said Fanshawe again. ‘We can all live through this. Let me explain.’
Vague Henri, shaking, said, ‘Go on.’
‘I’d just left my man here under that,’ he looked over at the six-by-four sheet of cloth covered in sedge and grass stitched to the surface, ‘when I saw you heading straight for him. Thought I’d track you to make sure you went by – but you got too close. By then I’d realized you weren’t old enough to be soldiers. Thought I’d lead you away. Wrong again, eh?’ He smiled, hoping to calm Vague Henri down. He looked, thought Fanshawe, a dangerous combination: jumpy but knew what he was doing.
‘We can all walk away from this,’ repeated Fanshawe. ‘Just lower the crossbow and my friend here will let Dominic go.’
‘You first,’ said Cale. ‘I told you.’
‘I’ll cut this little boy’s throat and then come for you!’ said the man holding Cale.
‘Let’s all calm down. Now I’m going to ask my chum here to bring Dominic to his feet and then we can go from there. All right?’
Vague Henri nodded.
‘Going to count to three. One, two, three.’
With that the man holding Cale pulled him upwards till they were both standing – the knife at his throat never giving a smidgeon or a jot.
‘Jolly good,’ said Fanshawe. ‘We’re all getting along famously.’
‘Now what?’ said Vague Henri.
‘Tricky, I admit. What if we ...’ With that Cale raised his right foot, scraped it down the shin of the man holding him while driving his elbow into his ribs and grabbing the man’s wrist and twisting with all his strength. The man’s shout was smothered by the air leaving his lungs. Whippet quick, Cale squirmed away, cracked his elbow again to the forearm of the man and had the knife from his fingers. To Cale’s astonishment the man could still move. He blocked the blow Cale struck with the knife and lashing out with his fist caught Cale on the side of his head. With a cry of pain, Cale stepped back to give himself room for another blow. As he lashed at his chest the man dodged once, twice and then kicked out at Cale’s left shin, knocking one foot off the ground so that he fell to one knee. Another hefty blow from the man, which had it landed would have smashed every tooth in Cale’s head, but he dodged back, his knuckles taking him at the lowest point of his chin and glancing away. Cale was on both feet now as his opponent overbalanced at the missed strike and scrambled away. They stood, Cale with the knife and the advantage, staring at each other and waiting for a chance to strike.
‘Stop! We can stop here! Tell him!’ shouted Fanshawe to Vague Henri. ‘We can all go free. Nobody needs to die here.’
‘It’s all one to me,’ said the man, glaring at Cale.
‘Not me, it isn’t,’ shouted Fanshawe. ‘Do as you’re bloody well told and back away. Do it or by God I’ll come over and help him.’
Trained to obedience even more than to slaughter, slowly the man eased back step by step as wary as you like.
‘Congratulations. Every one of us. Get up behind me, Mawson.’ He looked over at Vague Henri. ‘May I, dear boy?’
‘I’m not your dear boy.’
Fanshawe reached for the reins and eased his horse over to Mawson, who was still looking at Cale as if he were wondering whether to eat his heart first or his liver.
‘Get on behind me, Mawson.’
‘My knife,’ said Mawson. Fanshawe sighed and looked at Cale with a weary what-can-you-do-with-them look.
Cale stood back then raised the knife and threw it with considerable force some forty yards in the direction he wanted them to take.