“Have the Marshal’s half-wit taken to the rear immediately and keep him under guard until this is all over. All I need is for him to start wandering into the battle and getting himself killed.” To be on the safe side he even waited to see it done, to Simon’s incandescent but impotent fury. Koolhaus had gone to get himself a drink of water and saw nothing of this.
Cale and Vague Henri stayed watching and figuring, but however much they discussed what they would do in Princeps’s place, neither of them could fault IdrisPukke’s summary of the case. Their anxieties began to ease.
“It’s your plan really,” said Vague Henri as he looked admiringly over the splendidly laid out ranks of armored men and colorful pennants.
“It’s my idea. What’s down there is Narcisse’s doing. It looks all right. Bit crowded, though. Still.” He considered with satisfaction the dismal future that lay ahead of the Redeemers below.
Nevertheless, it was with unwelcome feelings of hatred mixed with fear that the two of them continued looking out over the Redeemer army as it began shaping itself into blocks of men-at-arms, cut into three separate units by two small blocks of cavalry. On either side, left and right, were two further blocks of archers.
For all their grim feelings about the Redeemers, Cale and Vague Henri could see how bad their position was. By now they had little or no food and they were cold and wet-as the sun shone a little and they began to move about, you could see the steam rising off them. For those suffering the squits, matters would have been worse-there was no chance to leave the field and they must shit where they stood. And all of this in front of an army that was well supplied, well fed and vastly outnumbered them. It was a satisfyingly unpleasant prospect.
Below them the Materazzi had been very roughly drawn into four groups of men-at-arms, fully armored (though many were not yet fitted) and each group eight thousand strong. On either side and behind these four lines were armored cavalry numbering about twelve hundred. The front lines of the Materazzi were still unformed-many had sat down to eat and drink, and there was a good deal of shouting, cheering and laughing as well as a good deal of unofficial pushing in and jockeying for position in the front line. Sheep were being roasted as well as a horse, with long lines of steam coming from the boiling kettles. Those too excited to sit and eat, with their still unarmored legs tucked under them on the light yellow stubble, buckled up, took up their position and tried to get closer to the front with more heavy shoving, though none of it was so undisciplined as to descend into anything more violent.
Two hours later and nothing had happened. A pale Arbell Swan-Neck joined them, accompanied by the now well-fed IdrisPukke, Kleist and also Riba. For all her loss of plumpitude during the preceding months, she was still and always would be a striking contrast to her mistress. She was shorter by nearly eight inches, dark, with brown eyes, and still as curved and abundant as Arbell was sinuous and blond and slim. They were as different to look at as a dove and a swan.
An anxious Arbell asked them what they thought would happen, and all agreed that the Materazzi were right to stay put because sooner or later Princeps would be forced to attack. However Cale looked at it, the Redeemers’ position was satisfyingly desperate.
“Has anyone seen Simon?” said Arbell.
“He’ll be with the Marshal,” said IdrisPukke. These days Simon and the Marshal were inseparable. “Almost like father and son,” joked Kleist, out of Arbell’s hearing. Still worried, she was about to dispatch two servants to check on her brother when a group of five mounted soldiers approached them. One of them was Conn Materazzi. He had not been this close to Cale since their fight.
“I have been sent by Field General Narcisse to see if you’re safe.”
“Quite safe. Have you seen my brother?”
“Yes. I think so-about an hour since. He was in the White Tent with the nerk who translates for him.”
“You’ve no right to talk about Koolhaus in that way. Look for Simon and please make sure he’s sent here.” Then she turned to her two servants and sent them down to the White Tent with the same instructions.
For the first time Conn Materazzi looked at Cale.
“You should be safe up here, I’d say.”
Cale said nothing. Conn turned his attention to Kleist. “How about you? If you’ve got more courage than to sit up here and let us do your fighting for you, I’ll arrange a place for you in the front line.”
Kleist looked interested.
“All right,” he replied agreeably. “There’s one or two things I have to do here, but you go ahead and I’ll join you in a few minutes.”
Conn lacked much of a sense of humor, but even he realized he was being made fun of.
“At least your soapysam friends out there have the courage to fight for themselves. The three of you are just standing up here and letting us do it for you.”
“What’s the point,” replied Kleist, as if explaining to someone of diminished understanding, “of having a dog and barking yourself?”
But Conn wasn’t so easy to mock, or rather it made less impression on him because he had been born to regard himself as of immense worth.
“You’ve more reason to be in this fight today than any of us. If you think that’s amusing, then I don’t need some buffoon’s last word for anyone to see what you really are.”
And having had the last word himself, he turned his horse away and was gone. The truth was that this had little effect on Vague Henri, none at all on Kleist, but scraped a sore spot on Cale. His victory over Solomon Solomon had shown him that his skill was dependent on a terror that might come and go at any moment. What was the good of such gifts if panic could obliterate them? He knew that what kept him on top of the hill was that it was not, strictly speaking, his fight, that he was bound by duty as well as love to protect Arbell Materazzi, but also the remembrance of the trembling, the weakness and his dissolving guts-the horrible funk of being afraid and weak.