The Left Hand of God

By now the three soldiers had run over from the cloister where they had been trying to keep cool in their full armor.

“Let us deal with him, sir,” said the sergeant-at-arms.

“You’ll stay where you are,” said Co

This was true enough. The sergeant eased back but signaled one of the others to fetch more guards. I hope, thought the sergeant, that jumped-up little prick gets his arse kicked. But he knew this was not going to happen. Co

Co

“Stop it!” called out Swan-Neck.

Co

Then it began.

Co

Co

“You fight the way a dog bites,” he said to Cale. But Cale’s expression, flat and without emotion, did not change. It was as if he hadn’t heard.

Co

By now another twenty soldiers, archers among them, had come into the garden and had been drawn up by the sergeant-at-arms in a semicircle a few yards back from the fight. The sergeant could see, along with everyone else, where this was going. Despite Co

Get on with it, you little shit, thought the sergeant.

Then Co

Then, for the first time, Cale struck a blow himself. Co

Then Cale stopped.

He stepped back out of striking range and looked Co

With a cry of pain and shock, Co

“Keep still,” he whispered softly in Co

Throughout all this Cale had been squeezing Co

“Just before you go, Boss, something to take with you: fighting isn’t an art.”

With that Co

“He’s still alive, Sergeant, but he won’t be if you do anything courageous. I’m going to pick up the sword-so behave yourself.”

Taking Co

“Where are you going to go, son?” said the sergeant.

“You know,” said Cale, “I hadn’t really thought about it.”

It was then that Vague Henri shouted down from the roof.

“Promise you won’t hurt him and he’ll let him go.”

Startled, the soldiers responded to this first attempt at negotiation with three arrows in Henri’s direction. Vague Henri ducked and disappeared from view.

“Delay that!” shouted the sergeant. “Next one who moves without an order gets fifty and a year cleaning the shithouse!”

He turned back to Cale. “What about it, son? Let him go and you’ll come to no harm.”

“And after?”

“I can’t say. I’ll do what I can. I’ll tell them these boys were moithering you-whether they’ll listen… What choice do you have?”

“Cale! Do what he says,” shouted Vague Henri from the roof, careful this time to let only his head show over the roof’s edge.

Cale waited for a moment, although it was perfectly clear what he had to do. Taking The Edge away from Co

“What are you doing, boy?” called out the sergeant.

And with that Cale dropped the unconscious Co

There was a gasp from the soldiers as if from one person: Cale looked at the sergeant then calmly dropped the broken half of The Edge he was still holding. The sergeant walked toward him, taking a chain and lock from one of the soldiers next to him.

“Turn around, boy.”

Cale did as he was told. As the sergeant cuffed his hands, he said softly in Cale’s ear, “That’s the last stupid thing you’ll ever do, son.”

One of the physician soldiers-one to every sixty men in the Materazzi army-was checking the unconscious Co