A battle, for all the efforts of Redeemer General Princeps to avoid it, was now inevitable. But not that day. It was now nearly dark, and the Materazzi, having put the fear of death and damnation into the watching Redeemers, stood down and withdrew a little to the north. Seeing this, the Redeemers also drew back a short distance and found what little shelter was available to them, though not before Princeps had ordered each of his archers to cut himself a six-foot-long defensive stake from the trees on either side. Fearing that the Materazzi might attack by night, Princeps decreed that no fires be lit, in order to prevent any such attackers from making out their camp. Wet and cold and hungry, the Redeemers lay where they were, taking confession, hearing Mass, praying and waiting for death. Princeps walked among them handing out holy medals of Saint Jude, patron saint of lost causes. He prayed for his soul and the souls of his men with everyone from the specialist cesspit diggers to the two archbishops charged with commanding the men-at-arms. “Remember, men,” he said cheerfully to each priest and soldier, “that we are dust and unto dust we shall return.”
“And we’ll all be returning by this time tomorrow,” said one of the monks, at which, much to his archdeacon’s surprise, Princeps laughed.
“Is that you, Dunbar?”
“It is,” replied Dunbar.
“Well, you’re not wrong there.”
Most of the Materazzi were less than half a mile away; their fires were burning bright and the Redeemers could hear snatches of songs, assorted shouts of abuse at the Redeemers themselves and, in the still air as the night wore on, the odd phrase of ordinary conversation. Master-Sergeant Trevor Beale was even closer. Seconded to Narcisse’s staff, he was lying low less than fifty yards away and looking to see what he might profitably do.
Miserable, wet, cold, hungry and full of fear at what was to come, Redeemer Colm Malik made his way to one of the few tents the Fourth Army had brought with them. Still, he thought, it’s your own fault. You insisted on volunteering when you could have been safe in the Sanctuary, arse-kicking acolytes.
He ducked in through the flap of the tent to find Redeemer Petar Brzica looking down at a boy, perhaps fourteen, sitting on the floor with his hands tied behind his back. The boy had an odd expression on his face-pale-faced terror, which was understandable, but something else also that Malik couldn’t quite put his finger on. Hatred, perhaps.
“You asked to see me, Redeemer.”
“Malik, yes,” said Brzica. “I wonder if you might do me a service.”
Malik nodded with as much of a lack of eagerness as he thought he could get away with.
“This boy here is a spy or an assassin chosen by the Materazzi, because he tells me he was a witness to the action at Mount Nugent. He needs dealing with.”
“Yes?” Malik was puzzled and not merely being obstructive.
“Just before the pickets caught him and brought him to me, I received a full absolution for all my sins from the archbishop himself.”
“I see.”
“Obviously you don’t. Killing an unarmed person, however much deserved, subsequently requires a formal absolution. I can’t kill him myself and then ask the archbishop for another shriving-he’ll think I’m an idiot. Have you confessed?”
“Not yet.”
“Then what’s the problem? Take him into the woods and get rid of him.”
“Can’t you get somebody else?”
“No. Now get on with it.”
So it was that Malik led the terrified young boy through the drizzle-sodden camp, past the numerous mumbled Masses the monks were giving for each other and out past the picket lines into the close-at-hand woods. With each step Malik’s heart sank deeper into his wet boots: arse-kickings and beatings were one thing, but to cut the throat of a boy who had already been witness to something that had sickened Malik to be a part of was more than he could bear. Tomorrow he would have a personal meeting with his maker. Once they were out of sight and into the bushes, he grabbed the boy and whispered, “I’m going to let you go. You keep running in that direction, you hear, and you never look back. Understand?”
“Yes,” said the terrified boy. Malik cut the rope at the boy’s wrist and watched as he stumbled, weeping, away into the dark. Malik waited for several minutes to be sure that in his terror the boy didn’t blunder back into the picket line. By tomorrow, if anyone found out, it wouldn’t matter. And so, hoping that this act of charity might weigh against his many other sins against the young, Malik turned back to the camp and straight onto the knife of Master-Sergeant Trevor Beale.
Cale was up long before first light, and as the sky slowly brightened he was joined by Vague Henri, then Kleist and, last of all, at dawn itself, by IdrisPukke. They were standing at the top of Silbury Hill, from where they had a clear sight of the battlefield. Silbury Hill was not a true hill but a huge mound that had been built for reasons now lost by a people long forgotten. Its flat top provided an excellent viewing platform, not just for lookouts to spy the movement of the enemy-though the field of battle was clear enough wherever you stood on the Materazzi side-but for the numerous hangers-on from the court: ambassadors, military attachés, important persons of a nonmilitary sort and even important Materazzi women. One of these was Arbell Swan-Neck, who had insisted on being present despite the deep opposition of her father and Cale, both of whom had pointed out that she was a prime target for the Redeemers and that in the fog and confusions of a battle, no one’s safety could be assured. She had argued that the presence of other Materazzi women would make her absence shameful, especially since this war was being fought to save her life. These men were risking death on her behalf, and only cowardice would explain her absence. This argument had continued right up until the day before the battle, the Marshal relenting only when Narcisse confirmed both the wretched condition and small size of the Redeemer army and the safety offered by Silbury Hill. It was too steep for an easy assault and simple to defend with a quick and safe line of escape. Cale was overruled, but he had already planned that at the first sign of danger he would remove her, and by force if necessary. Once he could see the battle lines drawn up early that morning, his anxieties were much relieved.
The field of battle was a triangle. He was on Silbury Hill at the left-hand corner of the base, and the Materazzi army of some forty-five thousand spread in a thick line to the right-hand corner. The Redeemers occupied the sharp end of the triangle. On either side were thick and almost impenetrable woods of bluish black and in between a large field, most of it recently plowed but with a strip of brilliant yellow stubble marking out the Materazzi position. They guessed the distance between the armies was about nine hundred yards.
“How many do you think?” said Cale to Vague Henri, nodding at the Redeemers.
He did not answer for a good thirty seconds.
“About five thousand archers. Maybe nineteen hundred men-at-arms.”
“You have to hand it to Narcisse,” said IdrisPukke, yawning. “The Redeemers can’t retreat, and if they attack against such odds he’ll cut them to pieces. I’m going to get some breakfast.” Kleist went with him over to an old servant blowing into a fire, his face as red as a lobster, next to him a plate of brown eggs and a smoked ham the size of a horse’s leg. As they stood and watched, a red setter belonging to one of the Materazzi women joined them, wagging its tail and hoping to be included in the coming meal.
In the Materazzi camp below, no one else was handing Narcisse anything except for a considerable amount of grief. While there was widespread support and admiration for his general plan, and this from men who were highly experienced and skillful warriors, for twenty years they had been used to Marshal Materazzi having the last say about matters of precedence in the line of attack. His unfortunate absence from the battlefield allowed the reemergence of long-buried rivalries with no very clear way of resolving them. In addition, Narcisse had been obliged to change his battle plan on three occasions-something that even great generals were often obliged to do. This meant that noblemen of royal blood who had once been assigned important roles in the front line were now being asked to accept undistinguished but still vital commands in the rear guard. To them it looked like a dishonorable demotion in lives that had been devoted to, and whose very meaning was defined in terms of, military glory and prowess. The cleverness of the plan in trapping the Redeemers in a narrow field now became itself the problem in that there were too many nobles of great experience, skill and courage and not enough places in which to put them all. Each one of them was convinced besides, and with good reason, that he was the best man for the job, that to step aside in order to merely preserve a consensus was a compromise too far that could harm the empire all were honor bound and willing to die to protect. Each man had his argument for inclusion, and there were few that were not good ones. It would have taken all of Marshal Materazzi’s diplomatic skill and years of authority to have forced a conclusion and, competent though he was, Narcisse had neither. In the end he decided that all the most powerful nobles could each lead a section in the front line, and only those he felt he could afford to offend were ordered into secondary roles. It made the chain of command horribly complicated, but it was the best solution he could come up with, and the situation was becoming more convoluted by the hour as large numbers of fresh arrivals also demanded their proper place in the great scheme of things. Narcisse comforted himself by considering that while Princeps’s problems were infinitely simpler, they were also infinitely worse. Pretending that he had to survey the deployment of the enemy, he left the White Tent and its arguments behind, but as he did so, he noticed Simon Materazzi dressed in full armor and being made a great fuss of by a dozen men-at-arms as he demonstrated his newly acquired sword strokes. Narcisse pulled one of his equerries to one side and whispered quietly to him.