by Paul Hoffman
‘You might have noticed,’ he said at last, blowing a long stream of smoke into the room, ‘that I’m the person who tells people what to do.’
‘Oh, so what will you do, Your Enormity, have me arrested? Will you hang me up outside the Prada as an example?’
‘You’re raving. You need to take something.’
‘I’m going.’
He looked at her.
‘Go then.’
This took some of the wind out of her sails.
‘Is this one of your little swindles?’ she said at last.
‘No.’
She stood up, quite naked, almost like a miniature woman compared to Riba.
‘I understand. I see right through you to the other side. This is a good way to get rid of me.’
‘So I’m the villain if I let you go and the villain if I stop you from going.’
‘You’re prepared to let me risk my life and the lives of hundreds because you haven’t got the guts to finish with me. Let me save you the trouble – I don’t want anything more to do with you. You’re a liar, and a murderer.’
The insults had let him off the hook. She had made the decision for him and a wonderful sense of relief flooded through him. ‘Well?’ he said, as she put on her clothes.
‘I’m going.’
‘You mean you’re going now or you’re going to cross the Mississippi?’
‘Both.’ She stood up, put on her shoes, walked through the door and took care not to slam it shut.
‘What do you want me to do about it?’ said Cale to IdrisPukke after he’d told him he’d given Artemisia permission to cross the Mississippi. ‘Should I have her killed?’
‘You were brought up very careless. Why does your mind always turn so quickly to murder?’
Cale laughed. ‘I was, yes. But now I have you to tell me right from wrong.’
‘You misunderstand me if that’s what you think. It’s true that sometimes, not very often, moral rules collide and you offend no matter what decision you make. But the world isn’t a wicked place because people don’t know the difference between right and wrong. Nine times out of ten the right course of action is clear enough but for one thing.’
‘Which is?’
‘That it doesn’t suit people’s interests or desires to do what’s right. Granted they have impressive ways of dealing with the anxiety that results – by burying it deep at the back of their minds, or better still, telling themselves that the bad course of action they’re about to take is really the best course of action. The moralist never lived who could tell you anything clearer than the Golden Rule.’
‘There’s a Golden Rule?’ mocked Cale.
‘There is indeed, sarcastic boy: treat others as you would want to be treated. Everything else in morality is just embroidery or lies.’
Cale didn’t say anything for a while.
‘How,’ he said, at last, ‘am I supposed to apply that to sending tens of thousands of people either to die or to kill tens of thousands of other people? In order to survive I’ve had to lie, cheat, murder and destroy. Now I have to do the same so that millions of others can survive with me. How does your Golden Rule help me there? Tell me, because I’d like to know.’
‘But I concede there are other times when morality is very tricky. That’s why we have so many moralists to tell us what to do.’
‘Anyway,’ said Cale, ‘I have my own Golden Rule.’
‘Which is?’ said IdrisPukke, smiling as well as curious.
‘Treat others as you would expect to be treated by them. It always works for me.’ He helped himself to another cup of tea. ‘So why are you against the attack over the Mississippi?’
‘I wouldn’t say I was against it. To be honest, I’m not sure. The thing is that if she fails …’
‘And she might not.’
‘She might not. But if she does, then her failure weakens you at the exact point you need a failure least.’
‘But if she succeeds?’
‘That might not be such good news as first it seems.’
‘A massive blow to the Redeemers and an extra year to prepare – not good news?’
‘Nobody likes you. You agree?’
‘They’ll like me if I’m a success.’
‘Will they? They’ve put you in a position of such power because they’re afraid …’
‘Terrified.’
‘Yes. Terrified is better. While they’re scared witless they’ll put up with you. But now Artemisia is one of them, not any longer one of you.’
‘Is she? They didn’t think so when she was the only one to crimp the Redeemers six months ago.’
‘That was when the alternative was themselves – now the alternative is you.’ He laughed.
‘You think they’ll put her in charge?’
‘No. But they’ll start thinking that they over-estimated you. They’d like that. Don’t forget they’re already thinking about what to do with you, not just if you fail but also if you succeed. If a man threatens the state, kill the man.’
‘It works just as well the other way round: if the state threatens the man, kill the state.’
‘Exactly … that’s exactly what they fear … that you’re going to kill the state if you get too powerful. So a great success by Artemisia, which gives them another year for preparation … they’ll have the time to be a lot less terrified of the Redeemers who are now beatable by someone who isn’t Thomas Cale, beatable by just a woman, in fact. You need her to succeed like you need a hole in the head.’
Cale sighed.
‘You’re sure you’re not making this more complicated than it is?’
IdrisPukke laughed.
‘No, I’m not sure at all. When I heard that Richelieu was dead – now there was a subtle mind – I didn’t think: Oh, Richelieu is dead. What I thought was: I wonder what he meant by that? To be a politician is to see there might be a disadvantage to the sun coming up in the morning. Do you mind if I have the last Eccles cake?’
Cale had been looking forward to eating it himself. IdrisPukke had already had one.
‘No,’ he said. IdrisPukke, like all great diplomats, assumed that this meant No, you have the last cake and not otherwise. He took a large bite. They sat in silence for a moment.
‘Kant,’ said IdrisPukke.
‘What?’
‘Imamuel Kant. Philosopher. Now dead. He said that if you want to know whether your actions are moral you should universalize them.’
‘I don’t know what that means.’
‘If you want to know if a course of action you’re about to undertake is wrong you should ask yourself: what if everyone behaved like that?’
This seemed to intrigue Cale. IdrisPukke could see him thinking back over his past: the men killed in their sleep, the poisoned wells, the execution of prisoners, signing the death warrant of the Maid of Blackbird Leys, killing Kitty the Hare, the death of factory owners hung up outside the houses of hoi aristoi. It took some time.
‘Well?’ asked IdrisPukke at last.
‘The Maid of Blackbird Leys was a good person … courageous, but a dope like Imamuel Kant. What if you ask the same question about your good actions? What if everyone behaved like that? What if everyone took on the Redeemers like her by putting up posters and preaching? They’d end up exactly the way she did – in a pile of ashes. If you fight cruelty with kindness it’s the kindness that goes away not the cruelty. I’m sorry about the camps and what happened to the women and children of the Folk. I have bad dreams. But I didn’t mean it to happen.’
‘Traditionally the road to hell is paved with good intentions.’
‘Well, it wasn’t a good intention, exactly. If I had to do it again I’d do it differently – but I don’t. I have bad dreams instead. But not every night. If you do something terrible you either throw yourself over a cliff or get on with it.’
They sat in silence for a while.
‘Except for that shit-bag Solomon Solomon, I never acted out of malice
. Well, him and a few other people.’
‘You laughed when they killed Conn Materazzi – and you cut off a man’s head for telling you to bring him a glass of water.’
Cale smiled, not needing to point out neither was true.
‘It’s only fair to tell you,’ added IdrisPukke after a short silence, ‘that Imamuel Kant also said it was always wrong to tell lies. He said that if you decided to hide a friend who’d come to your house and said a murderer was after him, and then that murderer came to your door and asked if your friend was there because he had to kill him – well, then it would be wrong to tell a lie. You’d have to do the right thing and give him up.’
‘You’re making fun of me.’
‘No. I promise. He really said that.’
‘Tell me, IdrisPukke, if you faced the extermination of you and yours at the hands of the Redeemers, who would you want standing between you and them – me or Imamuel Kant?’
Most of us experience days like this: from the moment the sun rises like a ribbon until it sets in rosy fingers everything goes wonderfully well, except for the things that go even better – money arrives unexpectedly in large amounts, beautiful women stroke your arm as if they thought nothing was more wonderful than the touch of your skin, a chance remark allows you to see that everyone who does not love you holds you still in high regard. Who is so unfortunate not to have had days like these? Cale was so fortunate that he’d been having these days for three months, pretty much, in a row – and this for someone who was held to have flocks of bad luck owls always hovering around his head. Not just funerals but disaster usually seemed to follow him everywhere. But not for the glorious ninety days in which everything he attempted nearly always worked. The Hanse administrators arrived within three weeks along with the geniuses of the order book, of freight deliveries, of incentive schemes for work of quality (backed up by threats of violence from Thomas Cale). They centralized the planning of transport so the bacon arrived maggot-free, the tack biscuits unshared with the weevils, and devised paperwork so that when wagons or weapons or blankets needed to be replaced there was something in the storehouses waiting to supply that need. The training of the peasants in their wooden forts staggered the hopes of them all as the peasants absorbed with eagerness the harshness of their instruction by the Laconics and the Purgators. No mutinous grumbles, only backbone and getting on with the job. Vague Henri and the miserable Kleist worked at every weakness the Redeemers might find in Cale’s design and tactics and seemed inspired at creating solutions to the limitations that they found. The atmosphere of breaking with the past, of revolution and metamorphosis, seemed to be in the air itself. Not yet aware that Cale had lied about helping the Helots, Fanshawe, an establishment maverick of the kind that every sensible rigid society looks to find a place for, discovered he very much enjoyed destroying entrenched attitudes as long as they weren’t his own.
Every decision seemed to turn out better than hoped: Koolhaus the sullen was as good as his ambition was enormous; he seemed to have the entire campaign down to the last round of cheese sorted in his brain. Within a month he was back with Cale and IdrisPukke. He either knew everything or knew how to find out about it. He seemed barely human, as if he was in possession of a magical device that could search a vast memory and provide an instant answer. Koolhaus was irritating and objectionable and had the imagination of a brick, but as a bureaucrat he was something of a genius. As for Simon Materazzi, he found war was a generous mother to those who were dismissed in more peaceful times. Anxious to be rid of his aristocratic burden, Koolhaus had spent many hours weaning Simon off the sign language and working out how he might learn to lipread. Yet again driven by self-interest, Koolhaus turned his considerable brain to the invention of an unheard-of skill. Just as anxious to be rid of Koolhaus as Koolhaus was to be rid of him, Simon worked for hours a day at perfecting this ability. The two of them had already been planning their divorce when Cale’s offer arrived and led to their final weeks together. But while Koolhaus was finally able to rub the faces of others in the superiority of his skill at almost everything (barring skill with people or anything original) Simon discovered the immense pleasure and even greater usefulness of having people ignore him while he listened to everything they had to say. The Laconics were in the habit of throwing children born lame or blind into a chasm outside the capital, so someone like Simon was a novelty and they treated him as if he were an amusing monkey. Simon took his revenge by making use of the complete ease with which they talked in front of him to keep Cale informed in surprising detail about what they were up to. Interestingly, even had Simon been born a Laconic he would have lived. There was one exception to their otherwise iron rule: a child of the Laconic royal family, no matter how sickly, would never make the long fall onto the rocks of that terrible place. So it was and ever shall be. It amused the Laconics to see Simon and Koolhaus chattering silently away, hand to hand, in the beautifully fluent way they had of speaking. They would gesture Simon over to them at night and write down words for him to teach them how to sign them. They enjoyed making a condescending fuss of him and they had no idea that if they spoke while facing him he could read nearly every word they were saying – including the light-hearted abuse directed at him. When Koolhaus was recalled to Spanish Leeds, Simon made a deal with him to become his replacement, leaving an old schoolfriend of Koolhaus to stay and pretend to translate for him so that the Laconics would not become suspicious.
‘Are you sure he can do the job?’ said Cale, when Koolhaus returned.
‘I thought you were his friend?’ said Koolhaus.
‘Can he do the job?’
‘Yes, he can do the job.’
Koolhaus decided that Simon’s skills – won with as much effort from him as from Simon – would be better kept to himself. The useful things he might, and indeed already was learning, would enhance Koolhaus’ reputation for being a man with all sorts of things at his fingertips. The preparations for the crossing of the Mississippi were also going well and waited only for the weather and Cale’s final say-so.
There were a few wasps in Cale’s honey but the one that affected him the most directly was the introduction of rationing, a move demanded by the bureaucrats of the Hanse to prevent panic-buying, hoarding and shortages of goods that were vital for the New Model Army. Their arguments had been reviewed by Koolhaus at Cale’s instruction and he’d concluded their case was unanswerable – rationing was as vital to the defeat of the Redeemers as the provision of weapons.
‘It will, of course,’ said Koolhaus, reporting to the OAR, ‘be necessary for the sake of public morale that these restrictions apply to everyone. There can be no exceptions,’ he declared piously, ‘except, of course, for the Royal Family.’
As it happened, Koolhaus made his declaration while Vague Henri was in the room, having returned to Spanish Leeds briefly to discuss his preparations in the west with Cale. No sooner had the words ‘Royal Family’ passed his lips than Koolhaus, still inexperienced but a quick learner, realized he’d made a serious mistake. Perhaps worse than serious. ‘The temperature dropped so quickly,’ said a delighted IdrisPukke later to his brother, ‘I thought the North Pole had stopped by for a cup of tea. God, that Koolhaus is a cocky little sod.’
Cale stared at Koolhaus, while Vague Henri drew out a dagger he had specially made for himself based on the Danzig Shank and carved, for reasons he refused to explain, with the word ‘if’ on either side of the handle. He raised the dagger as if he were going to cut off Koolhaus’s head but only stabbed it down into the middle of the beautifully inlaid walnut table at which they were sitting. Vague Henri’s hatred of the aristos of Spanish Leeds had festered from a general disdain, born of the natural resentment of the nobody for the privileged, to a particular loathing based on the way he had been treated while Cale was in the lunatic asylum at The Priory. The idea that he would have to go without his beloved cucumber sandwiches while the Royal Family carried on unaffected was more than he could bear. So
he put his foot down. There was a short pause.
‘So,’ said IdrisPukke, ‘we’re agreed: rationing for all – the Royal Family and present company excepted.’
After Koolhaus and IdrisPukke left, which was almost immediately, Cale turned to Vague Henri and nodded at the knife firmly stuck in the middle of the table.
‘I’m not paying for that,’ said Cale.
‘Nobody asked you to,’ replied Vague Henri.
There was a peevish silence.
‘Why’, asked Cale, ‘couldn’t you have just banged your fist on the table? Look at it, it’s ruined.’
‘I said I’d pay.’
Another silence.
‘Bloody hooligan.’
30
Along the upper reaches of the icy Mississippi something stirred. Lower down the river something else stirred as well. Artemisia Halicarnassus was cursing the good weather that had been such a blessing for Cale during the training of the New Model Army. In a normal winter, as the temperature shifts back and forth between freezing and slightly above freezing, the river was hard to read, even for the experienced: the melting but still massive blocks of ice that had broken off upstream would jam together to form great dams which might stick for weeks and then, with a day of warmer temperatures, suddenly give way and flow down like a slow avalanche, sometimes for miles, until they hit more dammed ice, at which it might jam again or cause a great collapse and start an even bigger flow. But the unseasonal warmth this year had made this process even more treacherous and unstable than normal.
But Artemisia had men around her who had lived on the river for sixty years or more. There was a large field of unstable ice jammed about five miles upstream but the temperature had dropped to around freezing, lessening the chance of a break. The danger was from large river-bergs from upstream crashing into the groaning, cracking and unstable dam of ice. But for ten miles upstream of the blockage the skilled and experienced were sprawled along the bank, each man tied by a line of string and signalling with different kinds of tug to the next man down the size of the river-bergs as they passed them by. On the ice jam itself men were stationed to watch upstream and gauge the stability of the ice they were standing on. Once darkness had come the crossing soldiers, wrapped against the cold as thickly as an expensive present, endured an ecstasy of edgy waiting. Then the word to risk it came. Twenty boats, carrying seven hundred men armed like hedge pigs, were launched into the narrowest crossing for many miles in either direction.
