The Left Hand of God

  The fifth and sixth of the sleepers woke—experienced men, hardened by battle and many surprises. The first shouted at Cale and came directly at him thrusting a short spear at his face. Cale aimed a blow at his neck but missed and struck him through the ear. The Redeemer screamed and went down bellowing in pain. The last of the sleepers lost his habitual presence of mind, the years of fighting no use to him now, and gazed in horror at his friend clutching the dead leaves of the forest covered in blood. He silently watched, stock-still as a tree stump, as Cale in a trance struck through his breastbone. A single gasp and then he fell, the man on the ground still roaring.

  For the first time Cale started running, heading toward the girl, who had woken to see the last three killings. She was bound hand and foot, and he lifted her in one movement over his shoulder and ran to cover behind the great boulder against which she had been sleeping. An arrow zipped past his left ear and ricocheted among the rocks.

  From directly over their heads IdrisPukke answered with an arrow of his own. There was an immediate reply from the second guard, zipping into the trees that hid IdrisPukke.

  For the next few minutes arrows shot back and forth but IdrisPukke could see the pattern—one of the guards was stalking him while the other provided covering fire. It was getting lighter now with every passing second, and with the rising dawn any chance of Cale making a successful break was fading. IdrisPukke would have to move soon or be cornered.

  Cale gestured to Arbell to stay put and keep quiet, then he was moving, running out from behind the rock and toward the rise out of the hollow. IdrisPukke, bow drawn, hoped for a too-quick shot that would give away the bowman’s position as soon as he saw Cale on the move. But the bowman was cool—he was going to wait until Cale reached the rise that must slow him down, and catch him then. It took the young boy only four seconds or so, and then he was climbing, his feet and hands sinking into the surface layer of loose and dry pine needles—and slowing all the time. Then three-quarters of the way up, he slipped on a tree root covered by loam and slid to a halt, scrabbling for a foothold. It was only a second, but it stopped his momentum and gave the archer as much time as he needed. The shot came, zipping like a wasp across the bowl, and struck Cale even as he made it over the lip.

  IdrisPukke’s heart leapt—in the gloom it was hard to see where it had hit, but the sound was unmistakable—a thwack! at once soft and hard.

  Now he was in trouble himself. The two guards had only him to worry about now—if he stayed, his chances were poor, but if he moved away, they could take his present ground and merely lean over the lip of the bowl and finish the girl—something that now there were only two of them, they’d be sure to do. The bushes around him were dense, and while this gave him cover, it would do the same for the guards. Everything was now in their favor, nothing in his.

  During the following five minutes many unpleasant thoughts crossed his mind. The dreadful fact of approaching death and the temptation to cut and run. If he died here—as he surely would, his conscience devil pointed out—it would do the girl no good: two of them would die instead of one. But then, of course, he would have to live with himself. But you could manage that, said his devil conscience. Better a live dog than a dead lion.

  And so IdrisPukke, sword stuck in the ground in front of him and a bow at the ready, waited and endured the thoughts hammering in his brains. And he waited. And he waited.

  Pain was nothing new to Cale, but the arrow that had taken him just above his shoulder blade was an agony far beyond anything he had ever felt before. The sound he let out through gritted teeth was a whining noise, as unstoppable by courage or an act of will as the blood he could feel warmly pouring down his back. His body began shaking with the pain as if he were having a fit. He tried to breathe deeply but the pain kept hitting him and drew out a spasm of short gasps. He had to sit upright and bring it under control. He stated crawling and whining, crawling and whining. Then he passed out. He woke up unsure how long he had been unconscious—seconds, minutes? They were coming for him and he had to get to his feet. He crawled to a pine tree and started to pull himself up. Too much. He stopped, then pushed on. Get on your feet or die. But it was as much as he could do to turn himself around and lean the unwounded part of his back against the tree. He vomited and passed out again. When he woke up, it was with a start and a grunt of pain, but this time from a fist-sized rock that a Redeemer standing about ten yards away had just thrown at him.

  “Thought you might be playing possum,” said the Redeemer. “Where are the others?”

  “What did you say?” Cale knew he had to stay awake and keep talking.

  “Where are the others?”

  “They’re over there.” He tried to raise his hand to point away from IdrisPukke, but he lost consciousness again. Another rock, another start awake.

  “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?”

  “The pus has gone—and the redness too—most of it, anyway.” He eased the bandage back more, though this time the now fat maggots dropped in twos and threes into the bedding. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  Cale sighed—immense relief.

  “Get rid of them—the maggots—then bring me some more. Same again.” And with that he fell into a deep sleep.

  22

  Three weeks later IdrisPukke and a still yellow-looking Cale made their way up to the great keep of Memphis.

  Secretly Cale had expected some sort of official welcome and—though he denied this to himself—he wanted one. He had, after all, killed eight men single-handed and saved Arbell Swan-Neck from a hideous death. It was not that he required much for enduring such dangers: a parade of several thousands throwing flowers and cheering his name, capped off by the tearful welcome of the beautiful Arbell, standing on a dais decorated in silk and beside a desperately grateful father so overcome with emotion that he could not speak would be enough.

  Instead there was nothing, just Memphis going about its relentless pursuit of making and spending money—today under looming skies as a thunderstorm approached. As they were about to enter through the great gates of the keep, Cale’s heart leapt as a sudden loud peal of bells rang out from the great cathedral, which was caught up in a wonderful ringing echo across the great city as the other churches followed suit. But his hopes were dashed by IdrisPukke.

  “They ring the bells,” he said, nodding at the approaching storm, “to keep the lightning away.”

  Ten minutes later and they were dismounting at Lord Vipond’s manor house. A single servant was there to greet them.

  “Hello, Stillnoch,” said IdrisPukke to the servant.

  “Welcome back, sir,” said Stillnoch, a man whose face was so deeply lined and creviced that it reminded Cale of an old man’s testicles. IdrisPukke turned to the exhausted but deeply disgruntled boy. “I’ll have to go and see Vipond. Stillnoch will take you to your room. We’ll have dinner tonight. I’ll see you then.” And with that he walked over to the main door. Stillnoch motioned Cale toward a smaller door at the far end of the manor.

  Some stinking hovel, thought Cale to himself as his resentment blossomed.

  But in fact his room, or rooms, turned out to be extremely pleasant. There was a sitting area with a soft couch and an oak dining table, a bathroom with its own jakes, something he had heard about but dismissed as a wild fantasy. And, of course, a bedroom with a large bed and a mattress stuffed with feathers.

  “Would you care for luncheon, sir?” asked Stillnoch.

  “Yes,” said Cale, on the basis that it sounded as if it might be food. Stillnoch bowed. When he came back twenty minutes later with a tray of beer, pork pie, boiled egg and fried potatoes, Cale was asleep on the bed.

  Stillnoch had heard the rumors. He put down the tray and looked the sleeping boy over carefully. With his yellow skin and drawn features caused by the infection that had so nearly killed him, he did not, thought Stillnoch, look up to much. But if he had given tha
t cocky little bastard Conn Materazzi a bloody good hiding, then he deserved respect and admiration. And on this thought he drew the covers up over the sleeping boy, closed the curtains and left.

  “He walked through their camp like Vile Death himself. I’ve seen some killers in my time, but nothing like this boy.”

  IdrisPukke was sitting opposite his half brother and drinking a cup of tea, and was clearly a troubled man.

  “And is that all he is—a killer?”

  “To be honest, if all I’d seen of him was that—well, I’d have got away from him as fast as I could. And I’d have told you to pay him off and get rid of him.”

  Vipond looked surprised.

  “Good God, you’ve got very sentimental in your old age. Such people are useful—of course they are. But I’m asking you if he’s more than a homicidal thug.”

  IdrisPukke sighed.

  “Very much more, I’d say. And if you’d asked me before the fight at the Cortina pass, if you can call it a fight, I’d have told you he was a great find. He has suffered much, but he has wit and brains—though woefully ignorant about some things—and I would have said that there was a good heart in there. But I was shocked by what happened. There, that’s all there is to it. I don’t know what to make of him. I like him, but—to be blunt—he scares me.”

  Vipond sat back, thoughtful. “Well,” he said at last, “he’s won you golden opinions whatever your doubts and—to be fair—me also. And, God knows, you could do with them. Marshal Materazzi has forgiven all your sins and now you hang in his good favor like an icicle on a Dutchman’s beard.” He smiled at IdrisPukke.