Cale genuinely believed he was the only person who could stop Bosco and that without his New Model Army everyone in the city, possibly including Cale, would be dead inside twelve months. It was not just idle and futile to defend Conn, it was wrong. So it was hard for him to explain why he could not bring himself to lie directly in order to ensure a good thing was done as opposed to beating about the bush and risking that good thing. He realized the stupidity of what he was doing and, given a few minutes to think about it, he would have demonstrated to himself that risking the lives of millions to save the life of a shit-bag like Conn Materazzi, however admirably he had behaved at Bex, was wicked, evil, wrong and, worse than all of this, bad for Thomas Cale.
‘He had done all the things that any commander in such a battle might have considered, given the circumstances. Although he might have considered other actions.’
‘Actions that would have been more effective – that’s what you’re saying?’
‘More effective?’
‘Yes – you’re saying he could probably have chosen to behave otherwise and so win the battle.’
A pause.
‘Um. Yes.’
‘Mr Cale,’ interrupted Justice Popham. ‘We come to the heart of the matter here. Are you saying that if the accused had acted differently then defeat would have been averted and victory achieved?’
‘I can definitely say that,’ said Cale, relieved. ‘Yes. Had he acted differently the battle might have been won.’
‘I want …’ What Coke wanted was to get a plain assertion, as had been agreed, that Cale would state unequivocally that Conn had deliberately lost the battle. Popham realized that, for whatever reason, the creature in the witness box had changed his mind, and that by trying to wring an assertion of Conn’s guilt out of Cale, Coke was making things look bad. There were plenty of others to state Conn had lost deliberately and that he had personally set fire to the bridge. This was a horse that wouldn’t run.
‘I think we’ve troubled the witness long enough.’
‘One more question,’ demanded Coke, temple muscles twitching again, and asked it before permission was refused. ‘Did you witness Conn Materazzi setting fire to the bridge over the River Gar?’
‘No. I wasn’t anywhere near it.’
22
Along the banks of the River Imprevu one of its greatest oaks had fallen into the river, its roots undermined by the current created by the rocks that had fallen a few months earlier from the bridge above. A hazard to shipping, the local mayor had ordered the branches to be stripped as far as possible so that it could be hauled to lie flush with the bank. They were lucky in that once the branches had been cut from the tree above the water a flash surge of water from rain in the mountains pushed it over so that the other side could also have its branches removed. Unfortunately, when they were almost finished, a second surge jerked it free of its temporary moorings and flushed the great trunk down the river towards the Mississippi where it would now become someone else’s problem.
That night, after the trial, IdrisPukke cooked dinner, a morose affair. The guests consisted of Cale, Artemisia, Vague Henri, Kleist and Cadbury.
‘Is Vipond angry with me?’ asked Cale.
‘Would you blame him?’ said Cadbury. ‘Isn’t Conn his great nephew or something?’ He looked at IdrisPukke, taunting. ‘He’s even related to you, isn’t he? How’s that work?’
IdrisPukke ignored him. ‘Vipond isn’t a hypocrite. He understands why you felt obliged to give evidence. But he is puzzled.’
‘Include the rest of us,’ said Vague Henri. ‘I never saw anything so stupid in my entire life.’
Kleist said nothing. He hardly seemed to be in the room at all.
‘God,’ said Artemisia, clearly shocked by her lover’s behaviour, ‘has a particular punishment for perjurers.’ It was a sign of her failing affection for Cale that this was a harsher way of construing the events of the day than was strictly fair. Why were her affections failing and so suddenly? Why do they ever? Perhaps she had been impressed by Conn’s lonely courage and compared him, as they stood opposite one another, to Cale, so unblond, so strange and so lacking in nobility or grace.
‘He sends them to bed without any pudding?’ offered Cale.
‘No.’
‘I didn’t think so. God always has something nasty lying in wait for naughty boys.’
‘He’s got a devil put aside to torment you through all eternity by shoving a red hot poker up your bottom.’ This was from Vague Henri.
‘Sorry,’ said Cale. ‘He’ll have to go to the back of the queue. Besides, the devil they’ve put aside for me for poisoning wells is supposed to shove a pipe down my throat to fill my stomach full of shit-water. They’ll just cancel each other out.’
‘Going under oath isn’t a joke. He’s going to die because of you.’
‘The only reason he’s alive to be sentenced to death is because of me – so we’re even.’
‘I think we should all calm down,’ said IdrisPukke. ‘Wine, anyone?’
No one seemed interested in wine so he started handing out what looked like small crackers wrapped into a small thumb-sized parcel. There was one each and they all stared unenthusiastically at the hard and unappetizing pastries.
‘You’re not supposed to eat them, just break them open. I’ve decided to publish a short collection of my ideas carefully reduced to their essence in one sentence. It’s to be called The Maxims of IdrisPukke. I thought these would amuse you.’ He gestured them to break them open. ‘Now read them out: Cadbury.’
Cadbury, who was becoming longsighted, had to hold the small roll of paper at some distance.
‘It says nothing against the ripeness of a man’s soul if it has a few worms.’
Cadbury suspected, wrongly as it happened, that this particular maxim was supposed to be about him.
IdrisPukke realized his attempt to lighten the mood of the evening had started badly. He gestured to Artemisia. She cracked open the pastry.
‘I would believe only in a god who knows how to dance.’
She smiled weakly but as she grasped what he was driving at her smile broadened a little.
IdrisPukke’s heart sank – but ploughed on as if his plan wasn’t deflating like a child’s balloon. It was Vague Henri’s turn.
‘To act in the world is the only way to understand it. In this life it is given only to God and his angels and poets to be lookers-on.’
Like Cadbury, Vague Henri wondered if IdrisPukke had chosen this especially for him. Was he accusing him of something?
Next it was Kleist, who crumbled the pastry with unnecessary force in the palm of one hand.
‘To live is to suffer, to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering.’
Then it was Cale’s turn. What he read out seemed only to confirm that IdrisPukke was smugly having a laugh at their expense.
‘Whoever battles with monsters had better see that it does not turn him into a monster. If you gaze long enough into the abyss, the abyss will start to gaze back into you.’
A silence followed. ‘How about you?’ said Cale. IdrisPukke’s heart sank just a little – having heard the others he knew the only saying that was left. He crumbled the pastry and read it out.
‘If there exist men whose ridiculous side has never been seen it is because it has never been properly looked for.’
‘Spot on,’ said Cadbury but he still wanted his own back for what he took to be the criticism of the word-pastry.