The Redeemers on the platform were heartily sick of the whole process by now and some had the grace to be guilty and ashamed for what they had done. However it was not over yet. It was the task of the Arrabiate to humiliate the corpses of heretics and ten of them duly marched out dragging a heavy bag of the stones of repentance and remorse. In a line in front of the now much-burnt body, they immediately set about pelting the corpse with their fist-sized rocks so that from time to time fragments of the half-consumed body fell down in the fire. ‘It rained,’ wrote Solerine, ‘blood and entrails.’
Few people outside the hegemon of the Redeemers or Antagonists will have seen a live burning. In the popular imagination of those who live in the four quarters, their experience is shaped by the vast pyres of winter festivals where the dummy of Guy Fawkes or General Curly Wurly is set on fire on top of a mountain of wood. The reality is more mundane and so by many degrees more horrible. Imagine if you would the bonfire at the bottom of the garden of a moderately well-off merchant. Then imagine burning alive an adult pig on such a modest pile.
You will understand why then I will not speak of the fifteen minutes it took the Maid of Blackbird Leys to die, of the screams beyond a pitch and sound you could ever expect to hear from a human throat, and the smell and, good God, the time it took. And throughout Cale watched and watched and did not look away, not once. And, after all, even the most dreadful martyrdom must run its course.
‘What was it like?’ asked Vague Henri.
‘If you wanted to know you should have come.’
‘Tell me it was quick.’
‘It was very far from quick.’
‘It wasn’t your fault.’
‘But you blame me anyway.’
‘No.’
‘Yes. You think I should have used my power to magic her away to somewhere safe – wherever that would be. If I knew a place of safety I’d go there myself. Perhaps you think I should have leapt from the platform of the Blessed and cut her hands and sprouted wings and flown away.’
‘I didn’t say that.’
‘I rescued an innocent maiden in peril of her life twice before and look at how many thousands died as a result of me sticking my big nose into things I had no business trying to change.’
‘I know it’s not your fault. I feel bad, that’s all.’
‘Not bad enough to come and watch with her.’
Vague Henri said nothing. And after all what was there to say?
Within a few hours they were out of Chartres and approaching the swiftly emerging camp of the quickly formed Eighth Army, already protected by ditches, banks and wooden palisades. Within minutes of his arrival he was examining the new Laconic swords that had caused such devastation to the ranks of the Black Cordelias. He tried its curved angle on several Redeemer helmets stuck on some wooden heads. All but one split open with the first blow. He went back to his tent and had a think for twenty minutes and then turned to Vague Henri.
‘I want you to take thirty wagons over to the dump where they’re keeping the Materazzi armour and bring me all the helmets you can find. Take fifty men, order more if you need them. Send a rider back as soon as you get there with half a dozen so I can test them.’
‘Too late to go now.’
‘Then go tomorrow. I want to see Gil.’ Gil was there within five minutes.
‘I want you to get me a dozen dead dogs,’ said Cale.
‘Where am I going to get dead dogs out here?’
‘They don’t have to be dogs and there don’t have to be twelve. Twenty-four dead cats will do. Understand?’
‘Yes.’
‘I don’t want you cutting the throats of some peasant’s family pet. I need them rotten. I need them falling off the bone.’
‘Redeemer Bosco would like to see you.’
Cale smiled.
‘Always. Show him in.’
They talked around the houses for a few minutes and Cale went to every polite length he could not to raise the subject on both their minds so that his old mentor would be forced to raise the subject first.
‘So,’ said Bosco, at last. ‘May I see your plans?’
‘I don’t have any plans. Not written down, as such.’
‘And, as such, what do you have?’
‘I’m still thinking.’
‘And will you share your thoughts?’
‘I need a day or two.’
‘One or two?’
‘Two. Probably.’
‘And what if they attack before then?’
‘It will be Plan B I suppose.’
‘Which is?’
‘Don’t know, Redeemer. Don’t even have a Plan A yet.’
‘Taunting me is childish.’
‘If I was taunting you, it would be. You have questions. But I don’t have answers.’
‘I understand these would be approximate.’
‘No. You say you understand but you won’t understand when I tell you.’
‘I will.’
‘No, you won’t. You just think you will.’
‘So the answer is, “No”.’
‘The answer is yes – but not yet.’
Five minutes later, as Cale knew he would be, Gil was in Bosco’s tent and reporting to his master.
‘He wants two thousand rusty helmets and twelve dead dogs.’
18
Within two weeks, by means of a traveller in medicines whose drugs were, if you were lucky, completely useless, Kleist and his heavily pregnant wife had news of the great events in the Golan.
There had been a great battle between the Redeemers and the Laconics – terrible slaughter had been done and the army of the Redeemers had been destroyed almost to the last man. Needless to say this delighted Kleist, although not for long. He nearly swallowed his tongue when he heard the story, much embroidered for the mountain yokels, of how the day had been rescued by a mere boy, and that this boy, Cale, was now being hailed as the Angel of Death capable of raising his own spirit a mile high.
‘So this friend of yours,’ said Daisy later when they were lying in bed as she rested her aching back and terrible piles and tried to untangle the garbled news they’d heard.
‘He’s not my friend ...’
‘This friend of yours, he is not the Angel of Death capable of raising his spirit a mile high?’
‘Oh, he’s the Angel of Death all right – wherever Cale goes a funeral follows. He’s got funerals in his brain.’
‘But he can’t conjure spirits?’
‘No.’
‘Pity – a friend who could conjure spirits a mile high would be pretty useful.’
‘Well, he can’t. And I told you, wherever he goes a lot of screaming goes with him. That’s why I was trying to put as much distance between him and me as I could. If I hadn’t met you I’d be on the far side of the moon if I knew how to get there.’
‘Oh,’ she sighed, full of sorrow. ‘My poor arsehole.’
She said nothing further until the pain had subsided then handed him a jar with the cream the medicaster had sold her. ‘Put it on for me.’
‘What?’
‘Put it on for me.’
He looked at her.
‘You do it.’
‘I’m too fat. I can’t reach that far. It’s easier for you to do it.’
‘Can’t you get your sister?’
‘Don’t be disgusting. Get on with it.’
He knew well enough by now when she was not to be argued with. It was not that he lacked medical skill. The Redeemers were famously good at tending injuries on account of the fact that people were always trying to kill them. Treating piles was not an injury as set out in the Manifesto Catholico, their medical handbook, but at least being gentle with injuries was not unknown to him. Still there was a sharp intake of breath from the unfortunate girl.
‘Sorry.’
‘It’s all right.’