The Beating of His Wings

  ‘“Conn Materazzi would never let me alone.”’

  Coke looked around the room, nodding his head ingrim triumph. SHAME! called out the crowd. SHAME! TRAITOR!

  ‘Is this,’ shouted Conn, above the noise, ‘is this … is this all the evidence you can bring against me? A more suspicious person than I might suggest that Sir Edward can recite this nonsense so well, because it was he that wrote it.’

  ‘You are an odious fellow. I lack the words to express your viperous treason.’

  ‘Indeed you do lack works, Sir Edward – you’ve said the same thing half a dozen times.’

  Coke stared, eyes bulging with a spasm of fury.

  ‘You are the most hated man in Switzerland!’

  ‘As to that honour, Sir Edward, there isn’t a gnat’s wing between you and me.’ From one side of the court, those who knew Coke well and therefore loathed him, there was laughter.

  ‘If Fauconberg was a traitor,’ said Conn (although he knew he was not), ‘I knew nothing about it. I trusted him in the same way that the King and his counsellors trusted him when they, not me, appointed him as my second-in-command.’

  ‘You are the most vile traitor that ever lived.’

  ‘So you keep saying, Sir Edward, but where’s your proof? The law states there must be two witnesses to treason. You don’t even have one.’

  An enormous bilious smile from Coke, that made him look like a smirking toad.

  ‘You have read the law, Conn Materazzi, but you don’t understand it.’

  Popham cleared his throat. ‘The law you speak of that used to require two witnesses in cases of treason has been deemed to be inconvenient. On Monday another law was passed to repeal it.’

  Perhaps in the thrill of answering his accusers Conn had forgotten that the verdict was always certain. If so, he now remembered. But he was rattled all the same.

  ‘I don’t know how you conceive the law,’ he said quietly.

  ‘We don’t conceive the law, Conn Materazzi,’ boasted a triumphant Coke, ‘we know the law.’

  During the next two hours there was more evidence produced as assorted liars, falsifiers, inventors, actors and bullshitters were brought in to testify to the traitorous remarks before the fight and traitorous tactics during it that proved beyond question that Conn had deliberately lost the battle. ‘I never saw the like case,’ declaimed Coke, ‘and I hope I shall never see the like again.’ In the last hour they moved on to the second charge: that Conn had set fire to the bridge at Glane to preserve his own life at the cost of thousands of his men. Six witnesses were called who swore they had seen him, without his helmet, light the fire himself. The seventh witness was Thomas Cale. It had been made clear to him that the golden opinions he had won had made his evidence particularly valuable and that telling the court what he had seen of Conn’s actions during the battle, and his subsequent setting fire to the bridge over the river was essential if those who still wavered over the granting of money towards his New Model Army were to be persuaded as to the true depth of his devotion to the interests of the state.

  ‘Your name.’

  ‘Thomas Cale.’

  ‘Put your right hand on the Good Book and repeat after me: “I swear that what I am about to say is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.”’

  ‘It is.’

  ‘You have to say it.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You have to repeat the words.’

  A pause.

  ‘I swear that what I am about to say is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.’

  ‘So help me God.’

  ‘So help me God.’

  By now he was barely audible.

  Just as they had rehearsed it the day before, Coke fed Cale the questions and Cale fed back the answers as if they were a conjuror and his amazing dancing bear passing a ball to each other. The questions and answers were designed to demonstrate one thing: that, youthful as he was, Thomas Cale was an experienced soldier, utterly versed in the battle tactics of the Redeemers. He was also asked in detail to set out his heroic and skilful actions in saving the lives of fifteen hundred Swiss soldiers and their noble allies so miserably betrayed by Conn Materazzi.

  ‘At one point, Mr Cale, you were able to observe the battle from a tree in the nearby woods?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Did this give you a complete view of the battle?’

  ‘I don’t know about complete – but as good as you were likely to get.’

  Coke stared at Cale. This was not the straightforward line they’d agreed.

  ‘Why was someone of your experience not involved directly?’

  ‘It was prevented.’

  ‘By the defendant?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  Coke stared at him. Yet again the bear was not returning the ball as he’d been taught.

  ‘Is it not the case,’ said Coke, offering him an opportunity to do better, ‘that Sir Harry Beauchamp, at Conn Materazzi’s instruction, told you not to involve yourself in the battle directly, on pain of death?’

  ‘He told me to stay out of it or suffer the consequence – yes. But he didn’t mention anyone by name.’

  ‘But it was what you understood?’

  This was too much, even for Popham. The forms might be bent but they could not be broken quite so grossly.

  ‘Sir Edward, I realize that you speak out of zeal for your duty and horror at the defendant’s crimes – but you must not lead the witness to repeat hearsay, particularly when there was none to repeat.’

  That Coke lacked a neck seemed to be confirmed by his habit of turning his whole body to look at whoever spoke to him, giving him the look of a statue of hideous aspect. The observant would have noticed a small muscle twitching on his right temple. If he was a bomb, thought Hooke, watching from the back of the court, he’d be ready to explode.

  ‘My apologies to the court.’ He turned back to Cale, the small muscle still twitching.

  ‘Is it true that at the Battle of Silbury Hill you saved the life of the defendant?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Clear proof, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, that the witness bears him no ill will. Is that so?’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Do you,’ said Coke, the muscle now twitching on his left temple, ‘bear the defendant any ill will?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Did you put your own life at risk when saving him?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Has he ever thanked you for this most courageous act?’

  ‘I can’t remember, to be honest.’

  ‘Does this make you angry?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why not, Mr Cale? I think most of us would be angry at such wretched ingratitude.’

  ‘The ingratitude of princes is a proverb, isn’t it?’

  ‘I have never found princes of any kind in this country to be ungrateful, but I believe it of Conn Materazzi.’

  ‘Well, that was why I wasn’t angry. I didn’t expect it.’

  For the first time since he’d come into court, Cale looked directly at Conn. What passed passed between them was odd stuff.

  ‘Would you tell us,’ said Coke, ‘what was your estimation of the conduct of the battle from your unique viewpoint?’

  ‘Do you mean from the tree or based on my experience?’

  ‘Both, Mr Cale, both.’

  ‘It was a good three hours into the battle, I’d say, maybe more. It looked like it could go either way.’

  ‘Did you see the defendant on the field?’

  ‘For a while. It was at a distance, though.’

  ‘You formed an opinion, based,’ he turned back to the jury, ‘based on your considerable experience, as to his conduct of that tragic engagement?’

  There was a pause as if Cale was thinking something over.

  ‘Yes.’

  The muscles in Coke’s forehead stopped twi
tching.

  ‘And what was that considered opinion?’

  If he was going to be true to his oath, something he had no intention of doing, Cale should have said that Conn had demonstrated outstanding personal and tactical courage. He could not have done better himself – or even as well. Mind you, he might have added he would never have fought the battle in the first place. But no one wanted to hear that. The simple truth – the facts-as-they-stood kind of truth, as opposed to the whole-and-nothing-but truth – was that Conn was a dead man. Defending him because it was the honest thing to do was idle and futile.

  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 Cadbur
y but he still wanted his own back for what he took to be the criticism of the word-pastry.

  ‘So, IdrisPukke, isn’t the unfortunate Conn Materazzi a relative of yours, then?’ From that day on Cadbury always mockingly referred to him as ‘the unfortunate Conn Materazzi.’

  ‘Of some kind – half a grand-nephew, I suppose. Couldn’t abide him myself. Though, to be fair, he was coming along pretty well.’

  ‘So explain why Vipond isn’t sweating for revenge,’ said Cadbury. ‘I thought the Materazzi were mad for their relations.’

  ‘My brother merely understands the impossible position Cale found himself in. Obviously he likes Conn and worked hard to support him – not with much gratitude, it has to be said, though there were other reasons for that. But he is neither a fool nor a hypocrite nor lacking in affection. He’s obliged for obvious reasons not to be seen to have anything to do with Cale, but he knows perfectly well that Conn has been a dead man since the line broke at Bex. What puzzles him is that Thomas,’ and here he looked pointedly at Cale, ‘should go to so much trouble to give evidence that neither condemned him nor helped to save him, so that he annoyed all sides for no obvious benefit.’

  Everyone looked at Cale.

  ‘It was a mistake. All right? I knew I couldn’t do Conn any good by telling the truth and that if I went along with the trial they’d give me what I need … what everyone needs. It was just that, when it came to it, I just lost it … for a bit. I had a worthless attack of the truth – I admit it.’

  ‘Why was it worthless?’ asked Artemisia.

  ‘Because telling the truth just isn’t going to do any good. There’s one thing standing between all of us and a lot of blood and screaming – the New Model Army. There’s nothing complicated about it.’