NaNoWriMo 2022

Shoddy Law

American Kingdom: Day 19

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“Oh come now!” Annie said. “Surely the Ten Commandments are the basis of all law, at least in the Christian world? Thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal…”

Oscar held up a finger. “Let us hear it from Our Lord himself. The Gospel of Matthew says that Jesus was asked — by a lawyer, as it happens — which of the commandments was the greatest. He replied, ’You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’

“My question is this: where in the Ten Commandments do I find these two commandments which we are told are not only the greatest, but the foundation of all the law?”

“Doesn’t the First Commandment talk of loving God?”

“‘Thou shall have no other god before me’. I wouldn’t say that loving God with heart, mind, and soul comes into that at all. It’s a matter of precedence, not love. And where do we find the second commandment mentioned by Jesus? We are instructed not to covet our neighbor’s wife but there is nothing in Exodus or Deuteronomy about loving our neighbor.”

“We could love our neighbor’s wife without coveting her, maybe?” Nathan said.

“Of course we could. And in fact we should, at least in a way that involves respect and kindness, rather than whatever you might have in mind, my friend.”

“Maybe,” I said “Jesus is adding to the Jewish commandments. Perhaps there are Twelve Commandments, not Ten?”

“Jesus was asked about this in Matthew. He lists only six. Paul repeats His answer in Romans, but does not give the same six. And, if you look at the Ten Commandments listed in Exodus, there are actually twelve, possibly fourteen depending on how you count them. So maybe there are Sixteen Commandments?”

“See?” Nathan said. “This is what I was talking about. He knows things.”

“I’m a lawyer. It’s important to know the law. It can be the difference between life and death, freedom and captivity, wealth and poverty.”

“But,” Annie said, “If God’s Law does not rule above all other law, then what does?”

“Oh,” Oscar replied, “I’m not saying that at all. What I’m saying is that our texts of God’s Law do not have the certainty and precision that we might wish. For one thing, we do not have access to the original text. In Exodus we are told that they were divinely proclaimed and recorded four times; directly from the voice of God, written down by Moses, divinely written on sapphire stone by God, and when Moses broke those tablets, they were written again by God on tablets of stone prepared by Moses and later stored in the Ark of the Covenant which has apparently been lost.”

“I saw that movie.”

“Yes, I think we may safely discount Steven Spielberg’s narrative as fanciful. Nevertheless, we cannot check the original wording, and of course, the Ten Commandments would not have been written in English, so we must be dealing with translated law which always lends itself to imprecision.”

Nathan and I exchanged glances. Our beers had somehow evaporated. I would need another one if I had any hope of understanding Oscar and Nathan obviously regarded conversation as getting in the way of the consumption of alcohol.

“Another round?” I asked.

“Same again,” Nathan said.

Annie held up her gin and tonic that had weathered the conversation very well. “I’m good for now.”

“Another Lagavulin would hit the spot nicely,” Oscar said.

“A what?”

“Scotch. Just tell the barman I want the same as before. Put it on my tab if you wish.”

“No, that’s okay.”

The bartender was likely to have a pretty thin time of it if he was working on commission, let alone tips.

“Hi, I’m Molly.”

“David. What can I get you?”

“Just wondering what beers you have?”

“Bud, and Bud Light.”

“Ah. Two Buds and a Lavagoo-something.”

He smiled. “Lagavulin 16.”

“Hmm. Whatever. How much?”

“Four dollars. Just sign here.”

Not a bad price for a beer. “And the Scotch?”

“That’s the total.”

Wow. I smiled at him. “Plus three bucks tip.”

“Sorry, we don’t accept tips here.”

He poured the draft beers, carefully measured out a jigger of golden fluid into a small tulip-shaped glass and set them on a tray. Something screwy here. I could get royally sloshed, hell I could get the four of us over the limit on a twenty.

“I believe Molly has just discovered the value of lawyers and accountants to an organisation,” Oscar said as I set the drinks down.

“You’re not here for God’s Law, are you?” I looked at Oscar, swirling his Scotch in its tiny tumbler.

“I’m not here to get you drunk for pocket change, either. My job will be to put secular law to the service of our King.”

“For the good of humanity as a whole,” Annie said, lifting her glass, “of course.”

“Of course,” echoed Oscar.

Clearly, they had had this discussion previously.

“Why are they training a lawyer to fire weapons?” I asked.

“They aren't. They are testing our military skills. We’ve all served in a combat zone, even if you two beer-drinkers are the only ones here who have ever fired an angry shot. Or taken one.” He nodded at me.

“Yes, but we aren’t going to be fighting a war, are we?”

“We need to defend ourselves and others, Molly,” Annie said. “If I’m taking care of wounded and the enemy is attacking — no, not in massed battalions of tanks and artillery, but in terrorist squads or suicide bombers — then I should be able to have a fighting chance of protecting those who cannot defend themselves.”

“And Oscar may find it convenient to gun down an opponent instead of destroying him in court,” Nathan added.

“It depends on the opponent, Nathan. One chooses one’s battles, and I wouldn’t try to demolish you in a gunfight.”

“Damn straight,” Nathan said, apparently missing the well-aimed shot that had whizzed over his buzzcut.

“Well then,” I said, “just what sort of battle are we fighting right here? I’ve been told that there are winners and losers.”

“I’ve heard that whisper too,” Annie said. “They are being cagey about assessment and our future.”

“Winner gets to serve the Regent directly,” Nathan said. “Start your career with a medal and a good page in your service jacket.”

I thought back to my conversation with Princess Dee. Did I really want to be holding my farts in twenty-three and a half hours every day? Watching my language?

How would Nathan fare in such an environment, presumably as some sort of ceremonial guard in a dress uniform,

Then again, what were the alternatives? I didn’t really have enough information to make long-term decisions.

Perhaps it was enough that I wasn’t living on the streets, I was out of reach of an untrustworthy ex-partner, I had people looking after me. Anything else was dust in the wind.

I raised my glass. “To good company.”

Next chapter:

The whole story:

Notes

I’ve had life — and well, death — intrude into my writing time over the weekend, putting me behind by about a thousand words a day since the 18th. Going by my spreadsheet this means that I must now write 1835 words each remaining day of November rather than 1666, so the effective difference is small and eminently practical and I fully intend to make up the shortfall over the next few days.

However, the practical effect of losing time isn’t the words so much as seeing the plot appear before me so that I may write it down. For this, I need calm and reflection, as well as checking back to previous chapters to ensure that I remain consistent with what I have already written; or alternatively rewriting previous chapters to reflect what later inspiration has provided.

Losing time has an effect on my writing that I cannot easily recover.

Then there is the matter of research. Oscar’s comments on divine law are based on the unhappy reality of confusion amongst our sources. We do not have direct access to the original words of either God the Father in the Old Testament or God the Son in the New Testament. As one commentator assures me, they are the same, insisting that Moses must have been preaching the Gospel and that the Jews he led were actually Christians. I find this line of argument unconvincing, though I do acknowledge its logical force.

Taking time to check out exact wording and sources and read some commentary is time spent not writing.

Or more particularly, not working out what comes next. I could easily write 50,000 words in a month talking about this and that, or simply writing notes like these.

My own personal limiting factor is that I only have so much imagination and quiet, unhurried, undistracted time to think about what comes next and have my subconscious chew over it before I begin writing it down is a strictly limited quantity. So far I’ve been lucky.

But if I were to skimp on the thinking part and race ahead on the writing, then I would inevitably write myself into a corner, push out too far in some direction that sounds promising at the time but leads nowhere, forcing me to backtrack and either discard or modify what I so blithely wrote in haste.

Molly