The Left Hand of God

28

In the history of duels there must often have been pressing reasons that led to the slaughtering of one man by another. What they were, however, is rarely recorded. Those reasons that are known to us consist of minor insults, real or imagined, differences of opinion over the beauty of a woman’s eyes, remarks held to have slighted the honesty of another’s dealing at cards and so on. The notorious duel between Solomon Solomon and Thomas Cale began over the question of precedence in choosing cuts of beef.

Cale had become involved with this matter because the cook hired to feed the thirty men needed to guard Arbell Swan-Neck night and day had complained about the terrible quality of the meat being delivered. Raised on dead men’s feet, the three boys had not really noticed that the meals they’d been eating were not very good. The soldiers had complained to the cook, and the cook then complained to Cale.

The next day Cale went to see the supplier, and for want of anything better to do, Vague Henri went with him. If Kleist hadn’t been on duty, even he would have gone. The thing is that guarding a woman twenty-four hours a day, however beautiful the woman, was extremely boring, especially if you knew that the danger she was in was almost entirely invented. It was different for Cale because he was in love and spent the hours with Arbell Swan-Neck either just looking at her or putting into action his plan to make her feel the same.

His plan was working-even as Cale and Vague Henri wandered into the market to sort out the meat supplier. Back in her quarters Arbell Swan-Neck was trying to prize stories about Cale from a reluctant Kleist. This reluctance flowed from the fact that he was perfectly aware that she wanted desperately to hear anecdotes of Cale’s past that showed him in a pitiable or generous light, and he, almost as desperately, didn’t want to give Cale the satisfaction of providing them for her. She was, however, an extremely capable and charming interrogator and very determined. Over several weeks she had winkled out of Kleist, and the much more cooperative Vague Henri, a great deal about Cale and his history. In fact Kleist’s reticence served only to convince her more of the truly terrible past of the young man with whom she was falling in love-his tense and reluctant confirmations of Vague Henri’s stories acting only to make them more plausible.

“Was it true about the brutality of that man Bosco?”

“Yes.”

“Why did he pick on Cale?”

“I suppose he had his number.”

“Please tell me the truth. Why was he so cruel to him?”

“He’s a lunatic, specially where Cale was concerned. I don’t mean he was like your usual lunatic, raving and ranting-in all the years at the Sanctuary I never heard him raise his voice once. But he’s as mad as a sack of cats for all that.”

“Is it true that he made him fight to the death with four men?”

“Yes-but the reason he won is just because of how that hole in his head means he can tell what you’re going to do.”

“You don’t like Cale, do you?”

“What’s there to like?”

“Riba told me he saved your life.”

“Seeing he was the one who put it in danger in the first place, I’d say we were even.”

“What can I do you for, young man?” asked the cheery butcher, shouting above the racket of the marketplace.

Cale shouted back equally cheerfully: “You can stop sending the meat from dead dogs and cats up to the guardroom in the West Palazzo.”

The butcher, now very much less cheery, picked up a vicious-looking club from under the counter and started to walk round it toward Cale. “Who do you think you are, you little shite, talking to me like that?”

He moved toward Cale surprisingly quickly, given his size, swinging the club as he came. Cale ducked as the club lashed past the top of his head, unbalancing the butcher, who was helped on his way into the mud as Cale clipped his heels. Then he stood on the butcher’s wrist and twisted the club out of his hands.

“Now,” said Cale, bouncing the end of the club gently up and down on the back of his attacker’s head. “You and me are going to go into wherever it is you store the meat and you’re going to choose the very best, and every week you’re going to send me stuff just as good. Do we understand each other?”

“Yes!”

“Good.” Cale stopped bouncing the club on the butcher’s head and allowed him to get to his feet.

“This way,” he said, his voice full of repressed bile.

The three of them made their way into a storeroom behind the stall full of haunches and sides of meat, beef and pork and lamb as well as a corner devoted to the smaller carcasses of cats, dogs and other creatures Cale did not recognize.

“Choose the best,” said Vague Henri.

The butcher had started lifting the best of the rump and sirloin from their hooks when a familiar voice called out, “Stop!”

It was Solomon Solomon with four of his most experienced soldiers. If it seems odd that a man of Solomon Solomon’s rank should be out choosing meat for his men, it should be pointed out that soldiers will endure death, injury, privation and disease much more readily than bad food. Solomon Solomon made a great deal of the business of providing his men with the best eats when such was possible, and he made sure his soldiers knew it.

“What do you think you’re doing?” he asked the butcher.

“I’m setting aside cuts for the new guard at the palazzo,” he replied, nodding at Cale and Vague Henri, both of whom Solomon Solomon pretended not to see. He walked over and curiously inspected the sides of meat and then looked around the storeroom.

“I want everything here delivered to the Tolland Barracks by this afternoon. Though not that shit in the corner.” Then he looked down at the meat intended for Cale. “This is to be included.”

“We were here first,” said Cale. “This is already spoken for.”

Solomon Solomon looked at Cale as if he had never seen him before.

“I have precedence in this matter. Do you dispute that?”

Though warm outside, it was cold in the storeroom, built deep into the rock, with the corners stacked high with thick slabs of ice-but the temperature fell still further with Solomon Solomon’s question. There could be no doubt that something dreadful hung on Cale’s reply. Seeing this, Vague Henri tried to be sweetly reasonable with Solomon Solomon.

“We don’t need much, sir, only enough for thirty men.”

Solomon Solomon did not look at Vague Henri, and indeed seemed not to have heard him.

“I have precedence in this matter,” he repeated to Cale. “Do you dispute that?”

“If you like,” replied Cale.

Very slowly, letting Cale see exactly what he was doing, Solomon Solomon raised his right hand in what was clearly a ritual, and with the palm open struck Cale almost tenderly on the cheek. Then he lowered his hand and waited. Cale also then raised his hand, again slowly, and brought it carefully to Solomon Solomon’s face, but at the last moment he flicked his wrist with all his strength so that there was a clap! that rang in the intense silence like a holy book slammed shut in a church.

The four guards, furious at Cale’s blow, started forward.

“Stop!” said Solomon Solomon. “Captain Gray will call on you this evening.”

“Oh yes?” said Cale. “Why’s that?”

“You’ll see.”

With that he turned and left.

“What about our meat?” called out Cale jovially as he left.

He looked at the wide-eyed butcher, astonished and afraid at the murderous drama that had just played out in his storeroom. “I don’t suppose you can be relied on to deliver my order.”

“It’s more than my life’s worth, sir.”

“Then we’d best take some of it with us.” He lifted a huge side of beef onto his shoulder and walked out.