And with this, IdrisPukke decided to be quiet.

On the second day, they descended onto the main road to the Cortina pass. It wasn’t much of a road.

“No one uses it these days and they haven’t for sixty years-not since the Redeemers shut the borders.”

“How far to the Sanctuary from the pass?” asked Cale.

“You don’t know?”

“The Redeemers didn’t leave maps lying around-nothing to make it easier for us to escape. Until a few months ago I used to think Memphis was thousands of miles away.”

Had IdrisPukke not been distracted by a beautiful vermilion and gold dragonfly, he would have seen a liar’s expression on Cale’s face, just in the moment he thinks he’s given himself away. “I mean,” added Cale, “before I came here and realized it wasn’t.” Now IdrisPukke noticed the awkward tone.

“What’s the matter?”

“Nothing’s the matter.”

“If you say so.”

Terrified that he had revealed something he was very anxious not to reveal, Cale stayed wrapped in alarmed silence for the next ten minutes. When IdrisPukke next spoke, it was as if he had forgotten the whole thing-which indeed he had.

“The Sanctuary is a good two hundred miles from the pass-but they don’t need to get that far. There’s a garrison twenty miles from the border-Martyr Town.”

“I’ve never heard of it.”

“Well, it’s not so big, but its walls are thick. It would need an army to take it.”

“What then?”

“Nothing. Materazzi adores the girl. He’ll give them what they want.”

“How do you know they want something?”

“It doesn’t make sense otherwise.”

“What makes sense to you and what makes sense to the Redeemers is a white horse of a different color.”

“So, you’ve come up with an idea-I mean about what they’re doing?”

“No.”

“It doesn’t have anything to do with you?”

Cale laughed. “The Redeemers are a bunch of bastards-but do you really think they’d start a war with Memphis over three kids and a fat girl?”

IdrisPukke grunted. “Not if you put it like that. On the other hand, you’ve been lying to me for the past two months.”

“And who are you to be demanding the truth?”

“The best friend you’ve got.”

“Is that so?”

“Yes-as it happens. So there’s nothing you want to tell me?”

“No.” And that was that.

Twenty minutes later they came across the remains of a fire.

“What do you think?” asked Cale, as IdrisPukke sifted the remains of the ashes through his fingers.

“Still hot. A few hours, that’s all.” He nodded at the flattened grass and lightly scuffed earth. “How many?”

Cale sighed. “Probably not less than ten-not more than twenty. Sorry, I’m not much good at this kind of thing.”

“Neither am I.” He looked around, thoughtful and uncertain.

“I think one of us should ride back and tell the Materazzi what the score is.”

“Why? Will it make them ride quicker? And even if it does, what are they going to do when they get here? Any kind of pitched battle and the Redeemers will kill her. They won’t surrender, I can tell you that.”

IdrisPukke sighed. “So what are you suggesting?”

“Catch them up, stay out of sight. Once we know the notch-up, we can work out what to do. Bring in a small number of Materazzi and do it quietly. That’s what I think until we catch them up. Things might be different then.”

IdrisPukke sniffed and spat on the ground.

“All right. You know them best.”

Five hours later, as it was getting dark, Cale and IdrisPukke crept toward the top of a small hill just before the entrance of the Cortina pass-a huge cleft in the granite mountain that marked out the northern border between the Redeemers and the Materazzi.

The hill overlooked a depression about twenty feet deep and eighty yards long in which they could see six Redeemers preparing camp. In the middle of the group sat Arbell Materazzi, presumably tied because she did not move once while they watched. After five minutes the two of them drew back to a clump of bushes about two hundred yards away.

“Just in case you were wondering why there are only six, there’ll be another four guarding the rim at least,” said Cale. “They’ll have sent a rider ahead to the garrison to meet them on the other side.”

“I’ll ride back and try and get the Materazzi,” said IdrisPukke.

“What for?”

“If they’re close, they’ll take the risk of riding in the dark. Even if the Materazzi lose half the horses on the way, there are only a dozen Redeemers at most.”

“And if you aren’t here and deployed before dawn, they’ll be into the pass and out of reach. And even if they’re not-an attack in daylight means the girl is dead. We stop them before they leave or not at all.”

“There are only two of us,” pointed out IdrisPukke.

“Yes,” replied Cale. “But one of the two of us is me.”

“It’s suicide.”

“If it was suicide, I wouldn’t do it.”

“Then why are you?”

Cale shrugged. “If I rescue the girl then His Enormity, the Marshal will be undyingly grateful. Grateful enough to give me money-a lot of money-and safe passage.”

“Where to?”

“Somewhere it’s warm, the food is good, and as far away from the Redeemers as you can get without falling off the edge of the world.”

“And your friends?”

“Friends? Oh, they can come too. Why not?”

“The risk is too great. Better let her be a hostage, and Materazzi can buy her out with whatever it is the Redeemers want.”

“What makes you so sure she’s a hostage?” said Cale, his voice cold and irritable. IdrisPukke looked at him.

“So-now perhaps we get the truth.”

“The truth is that you think the Redeemers are like you-nastier, madder-but that what you want and they want, well, it’s the same underneath. But it isn’t.” He sighed. “It’s not that I understand them, because I don’t. I thought I did until what happened before I killed that shit-bag Picarbo-the Redeemer. I told you that I did it to stop him, you know, raking her.”

“Raping.”

Cale reddened, hating to be corrected. “Whatever it’s called doesn’t matter-that’s not what he was doing. He was cutting her up.” Then he told IdrisPukke exactly what happened that night.

“My God!” said an appalled IdrisPukke when he’d finished. “Why?”

“No idea. That’s what I meant when I said I’d stopped thinking I knew what was going on in their nasty little minds.”

“Why would they do that to Arbell Materazzi?”

“I told you, I don’t know. Maybe they want to see what a Materazzi woman is like, you know…” He paused, awkward for once. “Inside. I don’t know. But it doesn’t make sense that they want her for money. That isn’t their way.”

“It makes even more sense if they want you back.”

Cale gasped, almost laughing.

“They’d like to make an instance of me-a bonfire with all the trimmings. And I don’t deny they’d go to extreme lengths to do it-but starting a war with the Materazzi over an acolyte? Not in a thousand years.” He smiled, grim. “I guess the same thought has crossed the Marshal’s mind. I’m prepared to bet the four of us would be on our way to the Sanctuary in two shakes of a lamb’s tail just as a gesture of his goodwill. Don’t you think so?”

IdrisPukke did not reply, because that was exactly what he’d been thinking. Both were silent for a couple of minutes.

“It is a risk. But it can be done,” said Cale. “She’s nothing to me,” he lied. “I wouldn’t throw my life away for some spoiled Materazzi brat. If the Redeemers take her, I’ve got everything to lose. If we get her back, everything to gain. You too, just as much as me. All you have to do is cover me. Even if I fail you’ve got a better than even chance of getting away. And nobody, let’s face it, is going to thank you if they find out you caught up with her and let them go without doing anything.”

IdrisPukke smiled. “The unfairness of life-always the best argument. Very well. Tell me your plan.”