“My apologies, Marshal,” said Vipond with an insincere air of regret. “My injuries have perhaps made me more ill-tempered than I would like.”
“Exactly! My dear Vipond, you must be careful. It was a terrible ordeal, terrible. I have kept you for too long-unforgivably selfish of me. You must rest.”
Vipond stood up, nodded his acceptance of the Marshal’s concern and then went to leave. But as he approached the door, Materazzi called out pleasantly.
“So you’ll arrange for the repair of the sword at your expense and see to this other matter.”
17
Two days later IdrisPukke and Cale were slowly making their way along Highway Seven, one of the broad stone roads that led from Memphis, which, day and night, were packed with goods going in and out of this greatest of all centers of trade. After several hours of silence Cale asked a question.
“Were you put into the cells to spy on me?”
“Yes,” said IdrisPukke.
“No, you weren’t.”
“Why did you ask, then?”
“I wanted to see if I could trust you.”
“Well, you can’t.”
“Does Chancellor Vipond trust you?”
“About as far as he could throw me.”
“So why did he make it a condition for keeping my friends safe that I have to stay with you?”
“You should have asked him.”
“I did.”
“And what did he say?”
“ ‘Curiosity killed the cat.’ ”
“There you are, then.”
Cale stayed silent for a moment. “What did he do to make sure you’d stay with me?”
“He paid me.”
This wasn’t entirely a lie, but what bound IdrisPukke to Cale was much more than money. For money to be of any use you had to have somewhere to spend it. And there was nowhere it was worth being that also didn’t have a sentence on his life, or worse. Vipond had simply laid out the facts of IdrisPukke’s future-which is to say that there wasn’t one-and then offered him a possible way out. Firstly a reasonably comfortable place to hide for a few months and then, if he did as he was told, the chance of a series of temporary pardons that would at least keep him safe from execution by any official government under the rule of the Materazzi.
“What about the ones who want to kill me who aren’t official?” he’d asked Vipond.
“That’s your problem. But if you get close to the boy and learn something useful and keep him out of trouble, I might have something for you.”
“It’s a little thin, my lord.”
“For a man in your position, which is to say no position at all, I think it’s very generous,” replied Vipond, waving him away. “If you have a better offer, my advice is that you take it.”
“What,” said Cale after another hour of silence, “are we going to do at wherever this place is we’re going to?”
“Stay out of trouble-put you straight about a few things.”
“Such as?”
“Wait till we get there.”
“Did you know,” said Cale, “we’re being followed?”
“The ugly-looking brute in the green jacket?”
“Yes,” said a disappointed Cale.
“A bit obvious, don’t you think?”
Cale turned to look, as if the obviousness of their follower was also clear to him. IdrisPukke laughed.
“Whoever’s behind this expects us to catch laughing boy and leave him in a ditch somewhere. The real tail is about two hundred yards back.”
“What’s he look like?”
“There’s your first lesson. See if you spot him before I deal with him.”
“You mean kill him?”
IdrisPukke looked at Cale.
“What a bloodthirsty little cutthroat you are. Vipond made it clear we should make ourselves invisible, and I don’t think leaving a trail of dead bodies behind us counts.”
“So what are you going to do?”
“Watch and learn, sonny.”
Every five miles along the roads leading to Memphis there were small guardhouses manned by no more than half a dozen soldiers. It was at one of these that IdrisPukke, watched by an amused Cale, found himself in an argument with a corporal.
“For God’s sake, man, this is a warrant signed by Chancellor Vipond himself.”
The corporal was apologetic but firm.
“I’m sorry, sir. It looks official, but I’ve never seen one of these before. The C-in-C usually signs these kinds of warrants. I know what they look like and I know his signature. Try to see it from my point of view. I’ll send for Lieutenant Webster.”
“How long will that take?” said an exasperated IdrisPukke.
“Tomorrow, probably.”
IdrisPukke groaned with frustration, then walked over to the window. After a minute or so he signaled Cale to come to him. “Wait outside,” he whispered.
“I thought I was supposed to watch and learn?”
“Don’t bloody well argue-just do it. Go out the back and don’t let anybody see you.”
Smiling, Cale did as he was told. At the back of the guardhouse were four soldiers sitting on a wall, smoking and looking bored. Five minutes later IdrisPukke emerged and nodded to Cale to join him as he led the horses down a back alley away from the main road.
“So,” said Cale, “what’s going on?”
“He’s going to arrest them and keep them in the cells for a couple of days.”
“What changed his mind?”
“What do you think?”
“I don’t know, that’s why I’m asking you.”
“I bribed him. Fifteen dollars for him and five for each of his men.”
Cale was genuinely shocked by this. Vicious, cruel and small-minded as the Redeemers might be, the idea that they would neglect their duty for money was unthinkable.
“We had a warrant,” he said, indignant. “Why should we have to bribe them?”
“There’s no point in getting bent out of shape about it,” said IdrisPukke irritably. “Just look on it as a part of your education-a new fact to take on board in getting to know what people are really like. Don’t imagine,” he continued crossly, “that just because the Redeemers treated you like a dog that you know everything about what a rotten, corrupt bunch of bastards the human race are.”
And on this bad-tempered note he walked on ahead and did not speak again for the rest of the day.
Perhaps it is easy to say why IdrisPukke was so annoyed, given that he was used to very much worse than being shaken down by a cynical grunt like the corporal. How many of us necessarily require a great disaster to put us in a fit of pique? To lose a key, step on a sharp stone or be contradicted in a matter of no importance is enough to send even a reasonable man or woman into a rage if they’re in the mood for it. That’s all there is to it-and whatever the limits to Cale’s grasp of human nature as it applied to people who were not vicious fanatics, he had enough sense to leave IdrisPukke to himself until such time as he calmed down.
Nevertheless, if IdrisPukke had realized who was behind their being followed he would have been perfectly justified in feeling enraged-and scared as well, because he would have known that Kitty the Hare would not have allowed his spies to have been so easily discovered. Despite the fact that the two men spotted by IdrisPukke were locked up in a cell within an hour, they were decoys expressly sent out in order to be caught. As Cale and IdrisPukke made their way back onto the main road, and a day later turned off it and headed toward the White Forest, there were two more pairs of eyes following them, and this time with a great deal more cunning.
As they moved up into the mountains, the sun shone and the air was as clear as good water. IdrisPukke’s temper of the day before was forgotten, and he returned to his more expansive ways, telling Cale all about his life and adventures and his opinions-of which he had a great many. You might have thought that Cale, capable as he was of grim rage and fearful violence, would have been irked by his companion setting himself up as a mentor and Cale as a disciple-but you must appreciate that Cale was still a young man, for all his iron qualities, and the range and nature of IdrisPukke’s experience, his rises and falls, his loves and his opponents, would have enthralled even the most jaded listener. Not the least of his skills was in the way that IdrisPukke mocked himself and took responsibility for the majority of his falls from grace. An adult who laughed at himself was something more than unfamiliar to Cale: it was almost incomprehensible. Laughter to the Redeemers was an occasion of sin-a babbling inspired by the devil himself.