“What? What?”
“Tell me where they are or I’ll put the next arrow in your groin.”
“There are twenty… I know Redeemer Bosco… He sent me.” The Redeemer had drawn back his bow, deciding that he’d get no sense from Cale, but the mention of Bosco astonished him. How could anyone here know about the great Lord Militant? He lowered the bow and it was enough.
“Bosco says…” and Cale started to mumble his words as if he was going to pass out again, and the Redeemer, without really thinking, made a few steps forward to hear what he was saying. Then Cale lashed out with his good left arm, launching the rock so it took the Redeemer high on the forehead. His eyes rolled back in his head, mouth gaping, and he slumped to the ground. Cale fainted again.
IdrisPukke still waited in the small, roughly circular space surrounded on three sides by bushes so dense that he could not see out and no one else could see in. Behind him was the thirty-foot steep drop at the bottom of which still waited, he hoped, Arbell Materazzi. There was a faint rustle from beyond the bushes. He raised his bow, fully drawn, and waited. A stone dropped into the circle. He almost let loose the shot the thrower had hoped for. Moving the arc of the bow back and forth to cover a rushed entry he called out, voice shaking.
“Come in here and it’s fifty-fifty you’ll get an arrow in the gut!” He moved sideways three steps so as not to give away his position. An arrow zipped through the bushes and out over the edge of the bowl, missing IdrisPukke by the same three steps. “Leave now and we won’t come after you.” He ducked and shuffled again to one side. Another arrow. Again buzzing through almost exactly at the point he had been standing. Talking had been a mistake. Twenty seconds passed. Idris-Pukke’s breathing sounded so loud in his ears that he was sure the Redeemer knew exactly where he was.
From about two hundred yards away there was a high-pitched skirling cry of pain and terror. Then it was silenced. Everything seemed to stop, only the wind hurrying through the leaves for what seemed like minutes.
“That was your friend, Redeemer. Now it’s only you.” Another arrow, another miss. “Run now and we won’t come after you. That’s the deal and you have my word.”
“Why should I trust you?”
“It’ll take my oppo about two or three minutes to get here-he’ll vouch for me.”
“All right. I agree to a covenant-but come after me and I swear to God I’ll take one of you with me before I go.”
IdrisPukke decided to stay quiet. With Cale out there, clearly alive and in a bad mood, all he had to do was wait. In fact, Cale had fainted again directly after he had killed the Redeemer just as he regained consciousness, and was in no state to do anything very much, let alone rescue IdrisPukke. But after ten minutes waiting, his anxiety slowly increasing, Cale spoke to him softly from beyond the bushes to his right.
“IdrisPukke, I’m coming in and I don’t want you taking my head off when I do.”
“Thank God,” said IdrisPukke to himself, letting the bow sink downward and easing the bowstring.
There was a good deal of clumsy rustling and then Cale emerged in front of him.
IdrisPukke sat down, let out a long deep breath and started fiddling inside his pocket for his tobacco.
“I thought you might be dead.”
“No,” replied Cale.
“What about the guard?”
“He’s dead, yes.”
There was a grim laugh from IdrisPukke.
“You’re a caution, and no mistake.”
“I don’t know what that means.”
“Never mind.” IdrisPukke finished rolling his tobacco and lit up.
“Do you want one?” he said, gesturing with the cigarillo.
“To be honest,” said Cale, “I don’t feel very well.” And with that he slumped forward in a dead faint.
Cale did not wake up for another three weeks, during which time he came close to death on more than one occasion. Partly this was due to an infection caused by the arrowhead that had lodged in his shoulder, but mostly it was because of the medical treatment given him by the expensive physicians who had tended him night and day and whose ruinously stupid methods (bleeding, scraping and defusculating) had very nearly achieved what a lifetime of brutality at the Sanctuary had failed to do. And they would have succeeded if a temporary easing of his fever had not allowed Cale to recover consciousness for a few hours. Confused and disorientated on opening his eyes, Cale found himself staring at an old man in a red skullcap gazing down at him.
“Who are you?”
“I am Dr. Dee,” said the old man, who went back to placing a sharp and not especially clean knife to a vein in Cale’s forearm.
“What are you doing?” said Cale, pulling his arm away.
“Be calm,” said the old man reassuringly. “You have a bad wound in the shoulder and it has become infected. You need to be bled to let the poison out.” He took hold of Cale’s arm and tried to hold it still.
“Let go of me, you bloody old lunatic!” shouted Cale, though he was so weak it came out not much more than a whisper.
“Hold still, damn you!” shouted the doctor, and fortunately it was this that carried through the door and alerted IdrisPukke.
“What’s the matter?” he said from the doorway. Then, seeing Cale was awake, “Thank God!” He came to the bed and bent down low over the boy. “I’m glad to see you.”
“Tell this old fool to go away.”
“He’s your doctor-he’s here to help.”
Cale pulled his arm free again. Then winced at the pain in his shoulder.
“Get him away from me,” said Cale. “Or by God I’ll cut the old bastard’s throat.”
IdrisPukke signaled the doctor to leave, something he did with considerable show of hurt dignity.
“I want you to look at the wound.”
“I don’t know anything about medicine. Let the doctor come and look at you.”
“Did I lose much blood?”
“Yes.”
“Then I don’t need some half-wit to help me lose any more.” He rolled onto his right side. “Tell me what color it is.”
Gently, though not without causing Cale considerable pain, IdrisPukke eased back the stained and grubby-looking bandage.
“Its got a lot of pus-pale green-and the edges are red.” His face was grim now; he had seen killing wounds like this before.
Cale sighed.
“I need maggots.”
“What?”
“Maggots. I know what I’m doing. I need about twenty. Wash them five times in clean water, drinking water, and bring them to me.”
“Let me fetch another doctor.”
“Please, IdrisPukke. If you don’t do this for me, I’m finished. Please.”
And so twenty minutes later, full of misgiving, IdrisPukke returned with twenty carefully washed maggots skimmed from a dead crow found in a ditch outside. With the help of a maid he followed Cale’s detailed instructions: “Wash your hands clean, then wash with boiled water… Pour the maggots over the wound. Use a clean bandage and make the edges fast to the skin… Make sure to keep me on my stomach. Get as much water into me as you can…” With that, he lost consciousness again and did not wake up for another four days.
When he opened his eyes again, a relieved IdrisPukke was by his bed.
“How are you?”
Cale took in a few deep breaths.
“Not bad. Am I hot?”
IdrisPukke put his hand to his forehead.
“Not too bad. For the first two days you were burning.”
“How long have I been asleep?”
“Four days-though you weren’t resting for much of it. You were making a lot of noise. It was hard to keep you on your front.”
“Have a look under the bandage. It’s itching.”
Somewhat uncertainly IdrisPukke eased back the edge of the bandage, his nose twitching in disgusted anticipation of what he would find. He grunted in distaste.
“Is it bad?” asked an anxious Cale.
“Good God!”
“What?”