Was he all right?
“Yes.”
Did he need anything?
“No. Thank you.”
And then the silence of the sickbed descended. IdrisPukke, witness to the terrible slaughter of the Redeemers against all odds at the Cortina pass, was baffled. Chancellor Vipond, so wise and crafty, who knew he had never met such a creature as Cale before, saw now a young boy going to a hideous death in front of a bellowing crowd. These duels had always seemed to him merely reckless and unwarranted; now they were grotesque and impossible to accept.
“Let me go and talk to Solomon Solomon,” he said to Cale. “This is criminally stupid. I’ll make up an apology. Just leave it to me.”
He stood up to leave, and something surged in Cale, something to him that was astonishing and that he’d thought he could never feel again. Yes, let it stop. I don’t want this. I don’t. But as Vipond reached the door, something else, not pride, but his deep grasp of the reality of things, caused him to call out.
“Please. Chancellor Vipond. It won’t do any good. He wants my hide more than life itself. Nothing you can say will make any difference. You’ll give him the advantage over me for no gain.”
Vipond did not argue with him, because he knew he was right. There was a loud rap on the door.
“Fifteen minutes!”
Then it opened. “Oh, the vicar’s here to see you.”
A strikingly small man with a gentle smile entered the room dressed in a black suit and with a white band around his neck that looked something like a dog collar.
“I’ve come,” said the vicar, “to give you a blessing.” He paused. “If you’d like me to.”
Cale looked at IdrisPukke, who fully expected him to throw the man out. Seeing this, Cale smiled and said, “It can’t do any harm.” He held out his hand and IdrisPukke took it.
“Good luck, boy,” he said and left quickly. Cale nodded at Vipond and the chancellor nodded back, leaving just the three boys and the vicar.
“Shall we get on?” said the vicar pleasantly, as if he were officiating at a marriage or a baptism. He reached into his pocket and took out a small silver container. He opened the lid and showed Cale the powdery contents. “The ashes from the burned bark of an oak tree,” he said. “It’s thought to symbolize immortality,” he added, as if this was a view to which he, of course, attached little credibility. “May I?” He dipped his forefinger in the ash and spread it in a short line on Cale’s forehead.
“Remember, man, that thou art dust and unto dust thou shalt return,” he intoned cheerfully. “But remember also that though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be white as snow, though they be as red like crimson, they shall be like wool.” He snapped the lid of the silver container shut and put it back in his pocket with the air of a job well done.
“Um… oh… good luck.”
As he made for the door, Kleist called after him. “Did you say the same to Solomon Solomon?”
The vicar turned and looked at Kleist as if trying to remember.
“Do you know,” he said, smiling oddly, “I don’t think I did.” And with that he was gone.
There was one more visitor. There was a faint knock, Henri opened the door, and Riba slipped into the room. Henri flushed as she briefly squeezed his hand before passing on into the room. Cale was staring at the ground and appeared lost. She waited for a few moments before he looked up, surprised.
“I came to wish you good luck,” she said, speaking quickly and nervously, “and to say sorry and to give you this.” She held out a note. He took it and broke the elegant seal.
I love you. Please come back to me.
No one spoke for a minute.
“What do mean about being sorry?” asked Cale.
“It’s my fault you’re here.”
There was a snort of derision from Kleist, but he didn’t say anything. Cale looked at her as he handed the note to Vague Henri for safekeeping.
“What my friend here is trying to say is that this is all my own doing. I’m not being kind. It’s the truth.”
As might any of us in her situation, she wanted to be sure of her absolution and so she pushed her anxiety too far. “I still think it’s my fault.”
“Have it your own way.”
She looked so crestfallen at this that Vague Henri instantly took pity on her, put his hand in hers again and led her out of the room into the even darker corridor outside.
“I’m such an idiot,” she said, in tears and angry at herself.
“Don’t worry. He meant it about it not being your fault. He’s just got to give his attention to this now.”
“What’s going to happen?”
“Cale’s going to win. He always wins. I have to go.” She squeezed his hand again and kissed him on the cheek. Henri stared after her, feeling many strange things, then went back into the waiting room.
With ten minutes left, Cale had begun, silent and automatic, to do his exercises before a fight. Kleist and Vague Henri joined in-arms milling, legs stretching, grunting softly with the exertion in the dim light. Then the loud knock on the door.
“Time, gentleman, pleeeease!”
The boys looked at each other. There was a short pause then a loud rap! as the bolt slid across a second door at the far end of the room. It groaned open slowly, and a ray of light bit through the gloom as if the sun itself waited just outside for Cale, the bright light arcing across the once dim room with all the weight of a blast of wind wanting to push them back into the safety of the dark.
As he started forward, Cale could hear her last words. “Run away. Leave. Please. What does any of this mean to you? Run away.”
In a few strides he was at the threshold and then out into the two o’clock sun.
Along with the second blast of light, the bear-pit roar of the crowd, like the end of the world, assaulted his eyes and ears. As he moved forward ten, then fifteen, then twenty feet and his eyes adjusted, he made out not the wall of the faces of the thirty thousand moving and booing, cheering and singing, but at first only the man waiting in the center of the arena holding two swords in their scabbards. He tried not to look across to Solomon Solomon, but he could not stop himself. Solomon Solomon, thirty yards to his left, walked straight, eyes fixed on the man in the center of the arena. He was huge, far taller and broader than Cale remembered, as if he had doubled in size since Cale had last seen him. Cale was astonished at himself as terror drained him of the strength that had made him invincible for nearly half his life. His tongue, dry as sand, stuck to the roof of his mouth; the muscles in his thighs hurt, barely able to support him; his arms, oak strong, felt as if to lift them would be an impossible feat; and there was a strange burning in his ears, louder even than the noise of the crowd, the booing and cheering and snatches of song. Along the amphitheater wall several hundred soldiers were standing at attention every four yards or so, alternately looking in at the crowd and out into the great ring itself.
The high-hatted hooligans sang joyfully:
NOBODY LIKES US, WE DON’T CARE
NOBODY LIKES US, WE DON’T CARE
BUT WE LOVE LOLLARDS AND HUGUENOTS
DO WE? DO WE? DO WE? DO?
OOOOOOOH NO, I DON’T THINK SO
BUT WE DO LOVE THE MEMPHIS AGGRO…
Then they raised their hands high over their heads and clapped in time to the beat of a new song, raising their knees up and down as they did so:
YOU’LL HAVE TO LIVE,
OR ELSE YOU’LL DIE
YOU’LL HAVE TO LIVE,
OR ELSE YOU’LL DIE
YOU’LL HAVE TO LIVE,
OR ELSE YOU’LL DIE
YOU’LL HAVE TO LIVE,
OR ELSE YOU’LL DIE
Trying to outperform them and taunt the participants at the same time, the baldy Lollards chanted happily:
HELLO, HELLO, WHO ARE YOU?
HELLO, HELLO, WHO ARE YOU?
ARE YOU A RUPERT? ARE YOU A FRED?
IN A MINUTE YOU’LL BE DEAD.
WHO ARE YOU?