The Beating of His Wings

by Paul Hoffman

  ‘You must persuade him,’ said Vipond.

  ‘He won’t be told and that’s that. If I tried to persuade him I’d make him a good deal angrier at me than he is at you – and he’s pissed off with you, I can tell you.’

  ‘Don’t be so vulgar.’

  ‘Then don’t tell me to make an enemy out of my own husband.’

  ‘She has a point,’ said IdrisPukke. ‘We don’t want to send him where we can’t get him back.’

  ‘He’s not at your beck and call anyway,’ she said, angry now herself. ‘He’s not a pipe for you to play on.’

  ‘I stand corrected,’ said IdrisPukke, touchy himself.

  ‘Besides, you think Thomas Cale is your saviour and ours. Are you so sure?’

  ‘You did pretty well out of him, you ungrateful madam.’

  ‘If he hadn’t come to Memphis I’d never have needed rescuing. I’m not ungrateful.’

  ‘I’ve never understood the “not” in front of “ungrateful”,’ said IdrisPukke. ‘It doesn’t mean grateful, does it?’

  ‘All right,’ she said, ‘I’m a thankless bitch. But wherever he goes, everyone says it, a funeral follows. He was the cause of us losing everything. You think you’re clever enough to make use of him to destroy the people you hate – and he’ll do it. And he’ll take you with him. And my husband and my son.’ She stopped for a moment. The two men said nothing because there was no point. ‘You should have more trust in Conn. He can be a great man if you can make friends with him again.’

  ‘It doesn’t look like we have much choice,’ said Vipond the next day when they met up with Cale and Vague Henri to discuss what should be done next. ‘We must let the pig pass through the python.’

  The two of them started sniggering at this like two naughty schoolboys at the back of the class. ‘Grow up!’ he said to them, but it only made them worse. When they eventually stopped, Cale told them what he thought.

  ‘I know everyone thinks I’m not good for anything but murder – but this is a wicked thing we’re doing here.’

  ‘So I’m told,’ said Vipond.

  ‘What if we’re wrong? What if someone finds out?’

  ‘You think you’re the only one with reservations? I have the reputation for being a wise man, despite the fact that I lost an entire empire while I was supposed to be its steward. But my experience is still worth something, I think. Great powers, and the men who rule them, are like blind men feeling their way around a room, each believing himself in deadly peril from the other whom he assumes to have perfect vision. They ought to know that all the policies of great powers are made of uncertainty and confusion. Yet each power fears that the other has greater wisdom, clarity and foresight – although they never do. You and I and Bosco are three blind men and before we’re finished we’re probably going to do a great deal of damage to each other and to the room.’

  Twelve days later the Redeemers raced across Arnhemland in less than thirty-six hours and destroyed the first army of the Axis in five days, the eighth army of the Axis in six days and the fourth army of the Axis in two days. The problem was that all the armies guarding Arnhemland and those backing it were increasingly poorly equipped in terms of experience and weaponry, all the best soldiers and equipment having been reserved for the expected line of attack on the impressively well-guarded Maginot Line. These were soldiers who would have had a good chance of either checking or at least slowing the advance of the lightly armed first attack by the Redeemers but having been cut off from all means of resupply were obliged to surrender without much more than a cross word. This all happened with such speed that Vipond had every reason to fear that he had indeed been too clever by half and that his decision to say nothing was not only wicked but foolish. Temporary rescue of a sort came from an unexpected source.

  Artemisia Halicarnassus is already a name long forgotten – but of all great men of military genius never given the credit they deserved she was, perhaps, the greatest. Artemisia was no Amazon or Valkyrie – she was barely five foot tall and was so concerned with her appearance, with her banded painted toenails and elaborately curled hair, that one surly diplomat had described her as more pansy than feminine. In addition she spoke with a slight lisp, which many thought to be an affectation but was not. Along with her tendency to seem easily distracted (due to boredom at the dullness or stupidity of what she was listening to), and her habit of interjecting ideas that seemed merely to have drifted across her mind in the way soft clouds move with a light breeze, there was no one who could look past her appearance and manner to recognize her original and penetrating intelligence. As it happened, the collapse of the armies of the Flag, and the almost as quick defeat of the Regime of the 14th of August that lay in reserve behind, created an extraordinary and definitely once in a lifetime chance for Artemisia to show what she was made of.

  Halicarnassus, which had its northern boundary formed by the Mississippi, was unusual in its geography in that, unlike the other countries that bordered that great river, Halicarnassus was a place of limestone gorges and awkward hills. Seeing the terrible collapse in front of her and realizing the vast numbers of retreating soldiers would be slaughtered as they were pinned up against the northern bank of such a difficult to cross river, she emerged from Halicarnassus with the small army left to her by her husband and, spreading her troops like a funnel, managed to guide large numbers of fleeing soldiers into the temporary safety of Halicarnassus. There she re-organized the terrified troops and arranged for as many as a hundred and fifty thousand to be evacuated across the Mississippi – a mile wide at that point. In the ten days that the rescue took she fought in Halicarnassus itself to slow down the advancing Redeemers. For three weeks Halicarnassus bulged alone into the Redeemer army as it reached the banks of the Mississippi and murdered the thousands of soldiers she had not been able to protect who were trapped by the river around Halicarnassus. Eventually Artemisia was forced to withdraw and cross the river herself. It is not recorded if she expected to be greeted by cheering crowds, the ringing of church bells and the holding of many banquets in her honour. If so, she was to be disappointed.

  On her arrival in Spanish Leeds, having been more than anyone else responsible for stopping the Redeemers at the Mississippi, and therefore preventing them from swarming into Switzerland to begin the first stage of the end of the world, she was greeted with polite, if brief, applause and a place at the bottom of the table, like a wedding guest who’d been invited for form’s sake but no one wanted to talk to. She was being ignored not just because she was a woman, although it was partly that; even if Artemisia had been a man it would have been hard to place her in the scheme of things. No one whose judgement they especially trusted had actually seen her in action. Perhaps her successes were just good luck or exaggerated. History was full of striking successes by people who either never repeated that success or who spectacularly failed when they attempted to do so. There’s a reason why we feel that trust has to be earned – by and large it’s the product of repeated success. But Artemisia had emerged from nowhere and her manner would not necessarily have inspired confidence even in an open-minded person. She deserved that confidence but it was not impossible to understand why she didn’t have it. She had asked to be put in charge of the defence of the South Bank of the Mississippi but this had not been so much refused as simply referred to various war committees where her request would evaporate like a shallow puddle in Arnhemland. She could have returned to command her own small private army, but only on the banks opposite Halicarnassus where no one, certainly not Artemisia, thought the Redeemers would cross because there were so many better places to do so. So she decided to stay in Spanish Leeds and see what she could do to find a position where she could properly influence events.

  Five days after arriving she was already in despair. Whenever she spoke at the interminable meetings to discuss the war her observations were followed by a short, slightly puzzled, silence and then the arguments continued as if she had never spoken. It w
as at a garden party on the sixth day that she first met Thomas Cale. She had been trying to insert herself in the discussion around various military advisors without success – once she offered an opinion it acted like soap on oil – the group quickly dispersed, leaving her holding a glass of wine and an amuse bouche of toasted bread and anchovies and feeling like an idiot. Eventually, in high frustration, she went up to a young man, not much more than a boy, who was leaning against a wall and eating a vol-au-vent with his right hand, while holding two others in his left.

  ‘Hello,’ she said. ‘I’m Artemisia Halicarnassus.’

  The boy looked her over while continuing to chew slowly like, she thought, an unusually intelligent goat.

  ‘Big name for such a little girl.’

  ‘Well,’ she replied, ‘after you tell me your name perhaps you can give me a list of your achievements.’

  In most other circumstances this would have been successful at putting such an obvious nobody in his place. ‘I’m Thomas Cale,’ he said, and set out all his great deeds in a boastfully matter-of-fact way.

  ‘I’ve heard of you,’ she said.

  ‘Everyone’s heard of me.’

  ‘I’ve heard that you’re a well-poisoning yob who lets children and women starve and brings carnage and massacre wherever he goes.’

  ‘I’ve done my fair share of well-poisoning and murder. But I’m not all bad.’

  He was used to hearing abuse like this, if not directly. What was strange about it this time was not just that it was said to his face, but that it was done in a slightly distracted manner, her blue eyes fluttering, and in a tone that if she were not accusing him of dreadful infamies would have been almost sickly sweet. She was looking at her fingernails as if they were an object of total fascination.

  ‘I’ve heard of you, too.’

  She looked up at him, eyes fluttering, for all the world like some fabulous social butterfly about to receive yet another compliment about her refulgent beauty. She knew, of course, an insult was coming. Cale spun the moment out. ‘Not bad,’ he said at last. ‘If what I heard was true.’

  ‘It is true.’

  She had not meant to show she cared for other people’s good opinion so much. And indeed she didn’t. At least not so much. But she did care for it. And she had been so cross about not being given her due that this surprising compliment caught her out.

  ‘Then tell me about it,’ said Cale.

  Perhaps not even girls or cake can equal the pleasures offered by someone of the highest reputation informing you of your unique brilliance. Cale may have been a well-poisoning murderer but Artemisia found these unhappy qualities receding into the background as it became clear both that he knew what he was talking about and that he admired her enormously. It was not just his flattery that warmed her. His questions, scepticism and doubts, all of which she was able to answer, gave as much delight as having the sore muscles of her delicate neck and shoulders massaged by expert hands. She was, by this time, nearly thirty years old and while she had liked her late husband, who had adored her and indulged her in her peculiar interest, she had not loved him or any man. Men desired her not because she was beautiful in any conventional way, but because of the very quality of otherworldly distraction and a lack of interest in them that also perplexed them. In short, they found her excitingly enigmatic but what they failed to realize as they praised her mysteriousness was that she did not want to be mysterious. She wanted to be admired for her abilities, appreciated for her good judgement, cunning and brains. Cale, without showing any apparent interest in her as a woman, understood her brilliance and set it out to her in adorable detail, and for several hours.

  By the end of the evening she was (how could she not be?) already half in love. Both were equally astonished that the other was not in some position of great importance, given how wonderful they were. Neither of them, perhaps for similar reasons, had any idea how galling and irritating it was to be around them. They could not easily grasp that no one, especially if they were untalented, wanted to have their lack of ability made plain. He arranged to meet her the next day at the wine garden in Roundhay Park, which delighted her, and said that he would bring a friend of his if he was well enough, which did not delight her quite so much. Then he was gone. His sudden departure made him seem mysterious to her and it also left her off-balance; he had seemed so fascinated by her but had then left suddenly and in an almost off-hand way. She was somewhat put out that this only made him seem more attractive. The truth was he’d left so suddenly because he felt as if he was going to throw up. Anxious to avoid the bad impression this might make he left abruptly and only made it to the street outside before he started retching.

  ‘Artemisia Whasername?’ said IdrisPukke, the next morning. ‘I wouldn’t have thought she was your type at all.’

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘A bit winsome.’

  ‘Windsom?’

  ‘Affected.’

  ‘Affected?’

  ‘Making a show of being endearing and mysterious – all those fluttering eyelashes and staring into the distance.’

  ‘She wasn’t making a show – she was just bored. She’s a brilliant woman.’

  ‘You don’t think all that stuff about her is exaggerated?’

  ‘If I say it wasn’t exaggerated, then it wasn’t. I went through everything, tried to dismantle her head to foot, but she stood it up. As it happens, she’s a marvel.’

  ‘Well if the Great Bighead thinks so well of her we must take a look.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Someone with such a great ability but less full of herself than you could be very useful.’

  ‘IdrisPukke wants to meet you, and Vipond.’

  Artemisia was excited by this and was not someone able to hide her enthusiasm – her eyes widened, her eyelashes, long as a spaniel’s, fluttered away as if signalling desperately to a distant shore. There was something about her; perhaps most importantly, she was not Thomas Cale. He was very sick of himself indeed. Being in the company of a sick person all the time was a strain even if you were the sick person: always feeling horrible, never wanting to go anywhere, always asleep or, when awake, wanting to go back to sleep. She liked him a great deal, which was a considerable help, as girls seemed mostly to be afraid of him or sometimes, more worryingly, they imagined that this enticingly bad reputation was a mask that could be removed by a sensitive woman to reveal the soulmate beneath. They didn’t appreciate that there are some souls, not necessarily the cruel or the bad, with which it might be better not to join.

  Another thing that fascinated Cale about Artemisia was that for the first time he had met someone whose story was odder than his own. Artemisia had always been a puzzle because she was no tomboy. In fact, she had been considered the girliest of little girls – not at all like her older sister, who was notorious for her rough and noisy habits. Artemisia liked pink and feminine colours that made your eyes ache to look at them, wore so many frills and flounces that it could be hard to find the little girl hidden inside them and had a collection of red-lipped dress-me-up dolls that numbered in the hundreds. Courtiers began to notice that in the morning she would dress and undress the dolls, babbling away like the lunatic so many small children resemble, scolding her dolls for getting dirty or squabbling with each other or wearing the wrong gloves for a Tuesday – but in the afternoon she would arrange them in great effeminate phalanxes of pink and cerulean and work out the best way of slaughtering them. Soldiers in mulberry petticoats fought to the death with irregulars in lavender pastel bonnets and cavalry riding on cotton reels in bloomers coloured baby blue.

  It was assumed that in time her taste for these mincingly effeminate soldiering games would fade but her interest in everything military seemed only to grow more intense the older she got. She had no interest in any form of personal violence at all. She did not want to practise with swords or knives or, God forbid, wrestle with boys like her older sister. She did not have to be ordered not to box (like her
sister), any more than she had to be ordered not to fly. She was an excellent horsewoman but no one tried to prevent this because Halicarnassus was famous for its horses and riding was considered perfectly acceptable for girls.

  ‘You don’t know how to fight?’ Cale asked.

  ‘No. My arms are so weak I get out of breath lifting up a powder puff.’

  ‘I could teach you,’ he offered.

  ‘Only if you let me teach you how to wear a corset.’

  ‘Why would I want to do that?’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘Not exactly at all. I don’t want to be a girl.’

  ‘And I don’t want to be a soldier. I want to be a general. And that’s what I am. You can carry on cutting people’s heads off and spilling their insides on the ground in great piles of giblets the size of Mount Geneva. But you don’t have to – there are plenty of people who are good at that.’

  He wondered if he should tell his new friend that, without a snort of a drug powerful enough to kill, his days as a scourge of the battlefield were long gone. But he thought better of it for now. How did he know she could be trusted? However, it had to be said that something in him longed to tell her the truth.

  She finished her story. She had been married off at fourteen, protesting noisily at the age of the man, his obscurity, and that where the country was flat it was too flat and where it was mountainous it was hideously so. In addition it was too hot in the summer and too cold in the winter. It took nearly four years of petulance and general disagreeableness before she began to appreciate her good fortune. Daniel, fortieth Margrave of Halicarnassus, was an intelligent, wise and unconventional man, though it was an unconventionality he had carefully hidden lest it frighten his family and neighbours. In addition, he adored and was amused by Artemisia rather than irritated, which he had every right to be given how awkward and rude she was to him at first. While he didn’t always indulge her, he did encourage her in her peculiar interests, in part out of affection and to win her heart and in part out of curiosity to see where it would lead. He wasn’t interested in war but he recognized his small militia was almost completely useless and so there was no harm in letting her loose on them.