‘You are, if you dare, able to be the voice of God on earth. Whatever you loose on earth would be loosed in heaven. Yet his current proxy sleeps a dozen rooms from here, babbling into his pillow and dreaming of rainbows and warm milk.’
‘What of it? He is the Pontiff.’
‘This feeble-minded creature is in the palm of your hand. Let me close it for you.’
Who knows what thoughts hammered away in Bosco’s extraordinary mind, the delicate and the gross together mixed. He did not say anything for some time.
‘You should have just done it,’ he said to Gil at last, ‘and said nothing. I am sorry that you blabbed and gave away an act that being done unasked I should have found it afterwards well done. I must sleep.’
He left the room closing the door softly behind him. Gil helped himself to a large glass of sweet sherry.
‘And found myself no doubt,’ he said loudly to no one, ‘rewarded with a command in the forefront of the hottest battle like Uriah the Hittite.’ He took a deep swig of the hideous wine and sang softly.
‘Everyone knows it, even a dunce,
Opportunity knocks once.’
But, as we all know, there is never an end to garboils.
22
At the Golan Heights the victorious Redeemers celebrated even more grimly than was their custom. It had been hard, shoving, hacking, killing work and they were exhausted. Tired as he was, Cale could not sleep and he called a pair of guards to bring a captive he had noticed being brought into the camp, the jovial scout he had met out on the plains three weeks, but what felt like a thousand years, before. He left his hands tied in front of him and his feet tied to the chair then told the guards to leave completely – he didn’t want any earwigging to what he was about to say.
‘What about loosening my hands?’ said Fanshawe. ‘It’s not very relaxing talking to someone with your hands tied.’
‘I don’t care whether you’re relaxed or not. I want to make an indent with you.’
‘Sorry?’
‘A deal – an agreement.’
‘About?’
‘We have five hundred prisoners. Their outlook is gloomy. I want to let you take two hundred and fifty out of here and try to escape and make your way home.’
‘Sounds like a trap.’
‘I suppose so. It isn’t.’
‘Why should I trust you?’
‘What you can trust, Fanshawe, is that by midday tomorrow there’ll be two types of Laconic prisoners: the dead ones and the ones going to die.’
He let Fanshawe consider this.
‘Some people would say it’s as well to die facing up to it as it is acting the goat in some game.’
‘It’s not a game.’
‘How do I know that?’
‘Do I seem playful to you?’
‘Not really.’
‘I have my reasons you don’t need to know anything about. How long will it take to get to the border?’
‘Four days, unopposed.’
‘You won’t be opposed because I’ll be following you – a few miles behind.’
‘Why?’
‘There you go again.’
‘You have to admit it sounds pretty fishy.’
‘It sounds pretty fishy.’
Fanshawe sat back and sighed.
‘No.’
‘What?’ For the first time in their conversation Cale was on the back foot.
‘They won’t leave half their number behind.’
‘Let me persuade you to change your mind. You will be executed tomorrow and I can’t stop it. You should already be dead.’
‘Me?’ said Fanshawe, smiling. ‘I was convinced when you mentioned the word execution. But the other Laconics won’t see it like that. It’s not in their nature – and if I try to persuade them to betray each other I won’t be making it as far as tomorrow. You don’t have something to drink, do you?’
Cale poured a mug of water and held it to Fanshawe’s lips. ‘Another would be luverly.’ Again Cale did as asked.
‘How do I know I can trust you to keep going and not to try to make a fight of it once you’re free of the camp?’
‘We haven’t been paid to take on a guerrilla war,’ said Fanshawe. ‘As long as we can leave honourably, which is to say not one half leaving the other half in the lurch, we’re duty-bound to return home as quickly as possible. We are possessions of the state, and very expensive ones.’
He said nothing for a moment.
‘How many of us died today?’
Cale considered lying.
‘Eight thousand. Roughly.’
This seemed to shock even Fanshawe. He went pale and did not speak for a while.
‘I’ll be straight with you.’
Cale laughed.
‘No, I will.’
‘We cannot replace so many in twenty years. We need this five hundred, every one of them, back home. There won’t be any revenge attacks.’
‘I couldn’t care less what you do once you’re over the border and arrange to bring me and up to two hundred of my men with you. That’s what we’re agreeing. I release all of the prisoners. You make sure we get safely across the border.’
‘If my hands were free I’d shake on it.’
‘Not a chance.’
‘I agree,’ lied Fanshawe.
‘I agree,’ lied Cale, in return. They discussed the details and within an hour Fanshawe was back with the other Laconics.
Cale went through the deal with Vague Henri and left him to stand down the Purgators guarding the Laconics, tied hand and foot in a small stockade built for no more than fifty captives – prisoners not normally being a problem for the Redeemers. The Purgators were replaced with an assortment of cooks, clerks and other highly unsuitable persons and the same was done with the soldiers guarding the horses the Laconics would need to make their escape; Cale announced a celebration to be held as far from the stockade as was feasible and supplied it with enough sweet sherry as could be got.
The escape itself was as undramatic as could be hoped except for the poor cooks and bottle-washers about whose fate no more sadly needs to be said. Vague Henri met Fanshawe as he came over the wall of the stockade with the five hundred-odd Laconics he had released from the ropes that bound them using the knife Cale had given him. As silently as an exaltation of swans they made their way to the hapless guardians of the horses and in ten minutes were leading their stolen mounts away from the Redeemer camp and on their way towards the Golan Heights and through the site of their recent so disastrous defeat.
By virtue of a deliberate failure to make it clear who was responsible for taking over the following watch of the stockade and the horses, it was daylight before the escape was discovered. On being informed, Cale pretended to threaten every kind of death and torture for those responsible before ordering instant preparations for pursuit of the Laconics by the Purgators, led by himself swearing to undo this blot on his reputation personally. If there were awkward questions to be asked no one asked them and by nine o’clock Cale, Vague Henri and some two hundred or so Purgators were off in pursuit weighed down with what might in other circumstances be considered a suspiciously excessive quantity of supplies for a chase of this kind.
Gil or Bosco would also have asked why Cale was taking along Hooke, someone who could be of no possible value in such circumstances. Just before he left, a message arrived from Bosco congratulating him on his victory, setting out briefly the events in Chartres and ordering him to return immediately if the victory permitted. He handed the letter to Vague Henri.
‘Odd. I wonder what’s going on.’
‘Let’s hope we never get the chance to find out.’
‘Will you reply?’
‘Best.’
Instructing the messenger not to leave until the following day, Cale wrote a quick response lying, as was his usual habit, with as much of the truth as possible – that a number of Laconics had escaped and he feared that they might meet up with those who had fled the battle and possibly make a counter-attack. With this in mind he had ordered trenches dug for a major defence and decided to pursue the escaped either to destroy them or at least be sure that they were returning to the border and not planning further attacks on Chartres. With luck it would be several days before Bosco worked out what was happening and he, Vague Henri and Hooke would be well clear. There remained two problems: the danger of pursuing twice their number of troops and ones with a powerful reason to turn on them if they learned the truth; and what he would say to the Purgators once they realized they had, instead of being welcomed back into the fold of the Redeemers, become outcasts again?