The Last Benediction in Steel

by Wright, Kevin

  Von Madbury drew a sharp breath, stiffening, but didn’t turn.

  “No. I … I’m alright.” The door didn’t open.

  I stood there, dagger point aimed at von Madbury’s lone eye. “You heard what I said.”

  Von Madbury stood there seething as I backed out.

  Near the top of the stairs, I found a sliver of dark to hunker in and waited, watching mute and motionless as one of Sir Alaric’s portraits. Not long later, von Madbury emerged from the stairwell. And, not surprisingly, so too did the maid, though she looked an awful lot like the Queen.

  …the accusation doubtless was true, indeed, for I had witnessed the deed.

  Yet Sir Kragen was a knight, and she but a God-less savage, so I amended my testimony accordingly…

  —War-Journal of Prince Ulrich of Haeskenburg

  Chapter 28.

  SIR LUTHER?” Prince Palatine glanced up as I poked my head into the library. “Oh, hello.” It was a long thin room, practically a hallway, with barely enough space for the bookshelf let alone table. A book lay in the Prince’s lap, his deformed hand steadying it, the other poised carefully, mid-turn of a page.

  “My Prince.” I offered a brusque bow. “Have you seen Sir Alaric?”

  “No, I’ve not.” Prince Palatine marked his page and closed the book, wincing as he readjusted himself in his high-backed chair. “Is everything alright? I … I had heard there were more killings.” He crossed himself.

  “Yeah. The Carvers. Family of squatters down on Pine Street. We’re heading out as soon as we get our shit together.” It’d been days since we’d heeled Rudiger. Seven days of hoping there’d be no more disappearances. No more killings.

  A forlorn hope, it turned out. A vagabond had been found strewn across an old abandoned wood-shop. Two more on top of those searching derelict buildings across Husk. Two days of following and in turn dodging the Nazarene and his madmen. Two days of fumbling. Two days of failure. But then, I was an old hand at failure and could pull a week’s worth of it standing on my head. “Sorry to bother you.” I turned.

  “Wait. Please. Sir Luther—” Prince Palatine struggled to stand, his useless chicken-wing arm folded awkwardly across his midsection. I caught myself staring as he unconsciously worked down his sleeve. “I-Is there anything I could do to help?”

  “Sorry, kid.” I shook my head. “I don’t think so.”

  “Oh…” Prince Palatine settled back, crestfallen, and gazed out the window. “Alright.”

  I paused at the door. “Well, actually, if there’s any books you’ve got that the kids might like that you could part with for a stretch…? I, uh, borrowed Sir Gawain and The Canterbury Tales for them. A few others, too.” I ran a hand through my hair. “Hope you don’t mind. I can get them back to you if—”

  “Oh no, it’s my pleasure.” Prince Palatine straightened. “I’m glad to share my meager store. And Sir Gawain is a wonderful tale. One of my — wait. The Canterbury Tales?”

  “Uh … yeah.”

  “Sir Luther,” Prince Palatine pursed his lips, “I’m afraid The Canterbury Tales are not wholly appropriate fare for young and impressionable—”

  “Yeah… Yeah, I know.” I’d groveled like a swatted dog when Lady Mary’d blasted me over The Miller’s Tale. She’d had to do some crude quick-stitch tailoring to patch the tears she’d made over the truly prurient parts. Which were also the best. “Got anything that doesn’t involve fornicating in trees? Or bare-arsed Frenching? Something with pictures?” I scanned the bookshelves. “Hmm…?”

  Prince Palatine wrestled himself out of the chair. “Piers Plowman is measured, staid. Fertile soil for young minds.”

  “With all due respect,” I waved a hand, “Piers Plowman sucks balls.”

  The Prince stifled a smirk. “Hah… Yes, well, quite right. I suppose I can but only agree. My mother made me read it when I was young. I suppose I equated it to some form of torture at the time. Now … what would I have wanted to read?” Prince Palatine rubbed his chin. “Hmmm? Something with action, perhaps? Adventure? Dashing heroics?”

  “Now you’re talking.”

  “Here.” Prince Palatine angled awkwardly up on tiptoe, reaching, wincing, and wiggled out a book, inch by inch, til it fell and he caught it in the crook of his bad arm. “How about this?” He held it up, waggling it. “The Song of Roland.”

  “A personal favorite.” I took it, patted the cover, cracked it open, taking in the glorious illuminations of armored knights going toe-to-toe with the Saracen menace. “Thanks.”

  “You’re most welcome.” The Prince grimaced as he settled back into his chair, willing his body to bend.

  “What are you reading?”

  “Oh.” Prince Palatine lifted his book, exposing the spine. “Ockham. William.”

  “Ockham?” I rolled my eyes. “Jesus.”

  “You’ve read him?” Prince Palatine smirked.

  “Talk about torture,” I scowled. “I’d rather slit my wrists than suffer through his razor. It’d be more humane. Quicker, too.”

  “I don’t know…” Prince Palatine shrugged awkwardly. “He speaks to me. Less is more. A crystalized simplicity lying unimpeachable at the heart of all things.” He smoothed his hair and glanced out over the breaking-wheel. “Besides, it’s quiet at night. Quiet and peaceful.”

  “No jackasses in the lists smashing the bag out of each other?”

  “Yes,” Prince Palatine smiled, shaking his head, “something to that effect.”

  I nodded up to the stacks. “You’ve a fair collection for a small town.”

  “Merchants know I’ll pay good coin for any books traveling up and down the river.” Palatine laid a hand on the book’s cover. “Books about anything. Adventures. Stories. Histories. Anything and everything.”

  “No clear preference?”

  “Preference? Escape is my preference.” Palatine held out a hand. “Escape from all this. All … them.”

  “You should try whiskey,” I said. “It’s less effort. Less time-consuming. And Ockham’ll tie your brain in knots.”

  “And whiskey shall untie them?”

  “No,” my fingers flitted off toward the stars, “it’ll just melt them away.”

  “Sir Luther, forgive me but…” Prince Palatine pressed his lips together, “I … I think you should stride with care. I mean with von Madbury. Sir Gustav. Along with the whole cohort. There’s been talk.”

  “They’ve done more than talk, kid,” I said.

  “Ah, the church incident, yes. Forgive me. I meant simply that I’ve heard recent rumblings.”

  “They scheming out in broad daylight now?”

  “Nay.” Prince Palatine shook his head. “But we cripples along with children and the mentally bereft share the ignominious trait that men will divulge their darkest plots in their company and believe them blind. Or deaf. Or dumb. Please, watch you back.”

  “I appreciate the advice,” I said. “And I might offer you the same? That song you concocted at dinner? Like to get a man’s throat cut.”

  “Song? Nay.” Prince Palatine winced. “But a few rough-hewn stanzas. Von Madbury doesn’t warrant the time and effort a full piece would require. Half-arsed jibes, though? Certainly.”

  “Fair enough.”

  “Besides, I can handle von Madbury in my own crippled way.”

  “Apologies.” I raised both hands. “Sure you can.”

  “My infirmity is my aegis, you understand? A strange dichotomy. Not one to be admired or sung dirges of, but proof against poison, as it were.” Prince Palatine grimaced. “And in any case, I don’t fear death, Sir Luther.” He patted his bad arm. “How can I fear death when life is so cruel? So abominably unfair. Did you know,” he laughed, “there are rumors that I was the firstborn?”

  “Yeah. Sure. I’ve heard it.”

  Palatine frowned. “I queried Mother about it once.”

  “And what’d she say?”

  “Nothing. But her silence was deafening,”
Palatine sighed. “I suppose it was correct. The image of a crippled king having a fit? Soiling himself in front of his entire court? Too low a bar set even for Haeskenburg.” He adjusted his crippled arm. “Lord. The small places of the world.”

  “Not much difference anywhere, kid, truth be told.”

  “Well, I wouldn’t know.” Prince Palatine frowned.

  “Most places are small at heart. Shitty. Self-serving. Like most of the people. You find someone who thinks otherwise, some idealistic prick believes in the inherent goodness of man, run the other way.”

  Palatine squinted up. “You mean someone like your brother?”

  “Yeah. Exactly like my brother.”

  “He’s brave, though, is he not?”

  “Stupid would be my word.”

  “He, too, is crippled and yet fears no retribution.” Prince Palatine sighed. “He stood up to Sir Gustav that first night. I saw him from this very window. I admire him for that. For dwelling amongst them. I admire him for trying.”

  “Everyone does.”

  “But not you?”

  “No. I do, too. But I’m close enough to see the cracks in the foundation holding up the ivory statue.”

  “Sir Luther,” Prince Palatine’s eyes narrowed, “I wonder what it is precisely that you’re doing here?”

  I scratched my head. “I’m working for Sir Alaric and your—”

  “That’s not what I mean. You’re a stranger, an interloper some would say, from a far land yet poised to strike out again, tonight, risking your life on account of what? Honor? Justice? The good folk of Haeskenburg?”

  “Jesus, no.” I picked a book up from off the table, The Ecclesiastical History of the English People. “Coin. This is straight up mercenary work. Anyways, you asked before if there was anything you could do to help.”

  Prince Palatine’s eyes grew wide. “Yes?”

  “Any other histories?” I patted the book. “Something local? Something that might … I don’t know, offer some insight. Anything into what’s going on?”

  “You mean the deaths? The disappearances?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Hmm…” Prince Palatine squinted up at the stacks, his lips moving as he read through titles. “I know every book here, Sir Luther. And there’s nothing that comes to mind. Haeskenburg seems never to have warranted any in-depth study. Unsurprisingly. But I shall endeavor to ask around. Perhaps Father Gregorius has some occult tome buried away in a dank cellar.”

  “Thanks, kid.” I turned to leave.

  “Sir Luther, I … I heard you were the one that killed that Rudiger fellow?”

  “Yeah, well, he needed a little killing.”

  “And … what does that feel like?” Palatine massaged his neck. “Killing someone?”

  “Hmm.” I shook my head. “Can be the best damn feeling in the world. Or it can be like a long, protracted kick to the gut. Like you’ve been hit so hard everything inside’s just … hammered up all broken into your throat. All coarse and jagged and off-kilter. Like you’re always on the verge of puking it up. Shards of bone and warm wet red. Can’t breathe for holding it back. Holding it down. Holding it in.” I rubbed my throat. “It’s usually the latter.”

  “That sounds awful.”

  “Yeah.”

  “But, what if they don’t warrant it?”

  “Who we talking about?” I fixed him through one eye.

  “Whoever it is you’re hunting.” Prince Palatine shrugged unevenly.

  “It’s an execution when the King sanctions it. And once he sanctions it?” I shrugged. “They warrant it.”

  “I always imagined laws were to protect people.”

  “Sure. They protect the folk who make them. And the threat of violence lies stark and naked behind every law, every edict, every writ ever conceived and brought to fruition by the will of man. To suspect otherwise? Folly.”

  “And you think that’s enough? That’s sufficient cause to act as judge, jury, executioner?”

  “As long as I don’t think on it too hard.”

  “Forgive me, but that smacks of shoddy reasoning.”

  “That’s generous, calling it reasoning.”

  “But you’re a justiciar.”

  “A while back I was. Sure. But now?” I shrugged. What the hell was I? An attack dog. At best. And at worst…?

  “Well, surely you must hold some opinion in matters of—”

  “Rudiger was a murderer. He had to die. That’s my opinion. The Nazarene’s the same. End of story.”

  “And this Grey-Lady?”

  “Myth, local legend, folk tale,” I said. “And I’ll find her or I won’t.”

  “How do you know the Nazarene deserves to die?”

  “Your father says he does.”

  “And one man’s opinion is enough?” Prince Palatine stared at me a moment, focusing hard as though my edges were getting fuzzy.

  “I’m just a hedge knight, kid. I do what I’m told.”

  …Hochmeister Gaunt and a clan-holt elder, a monstrous stoop-shouldered brute named Arboleth, argued the impromptu trial’s verdict. The Hochmeister demanded the bitch’s head on a pike while the elder demanded the Teutonic contingent depart in short shrift…

  —War-Journal of Prince Ulrich of Haeskenburg

  Chapter 29.

  WE’D COME at the bitch sideways. The slow way. The smart way. Sneaking like rats up the back alley, skittering in through the shattered back door. Was a fair-good thing, too. For us. The front door slammed open and a horde of footsteps pounded out and away. Company. Just leaving. And not the kind you sip tea with.

  I stepped through the kitchen carefully, gingerly, tiptoeing over the corpses. The scourgers had descended like locusts en masse on the joint. The floor was spattered with a collage of bare footprints coming in from every which way. Every door, every crevice, every window. Handprints slathered across the walls like some pagan temple.

  Bloody. Muddy. Bad.

  I paused by a window, Yolanda in hand, balanced, poised, reassuring against all the clandestine fuckery the world has to offer. Above, wood planks creaked under Karl’s delicate tread. The troll could be fair quiet when it suited him. The front door hung open, nigh on off its hinges, twitching back and forth, creaking in the breeze.

  Out on Pine Street, a woman’s screams devolved from slurred gurgle to hideous giggling laughter.

  A cold sweat seized me along with that iron band bound across my chest, contracting, squeezing, crushing. I stood in the cold, wreathed in darkness, watching, part of me incensed, the other part — the smarter part, the honest part — grateful. Grateful I was in here and she out there.

  Torch flames and chants led by the ragged Tome-Bearer all played to the overarching beat of scourge castigating flesh. The Nazarene’s scourgers holding court under the sable arch of night.

  I took a knee by the window.

  Stephan and Sir Alaric crept in. They’d seen the corpses in the kitchen. The Carver family. How could you miss them? A father, a mother, the little girl. All ruined. Ravaged. Raw.

  “Shhh…” I laid a finger to my lips, cocked my head toward the window. “We missed the party.” And by party, I meant the complete opposite. “Watch your step.” I glared down at a young scourger, peach fuzz spotted across his cheeks, leveled outside the kitchen door, his eyes gone, throat ripped out, mouth gaping frozen mid-scream, silent echoes ripping through my mind. Deep breath… His lash lay in a coagulated tangle matted across his smooth chest, steam still rising from his blood.

  “Rose of Sharon…” Crossing himself, Stephan gaped outside. “Good Lord.”

  “Two half-assed curses?” I scowled.

  Sir Alaric steadied himself against the wall, huffing. “What’s the word?”

  “Word is we’re too late.”

  He pointed toward the window. “Meant out there.”

  “Yeah. There, too.”

  The woman screamed again.

  “It her?” Sir Alaric pushed upright off the
wall and brandishing his sword, swearing through his teeth.

  “Fair sure.” I watched on.

  By torchlight, the horde chanted, more pouring down the road, a serpent of flame and fury, rounding up like a vortex in the square, forming a human redoubt. Bodies jostling, flesh red-raw from lesion and lash and who-the-hell-knew-what-else? Bare feet splashed through slush and puddle. In their midst crouched a woman. Maybe. Teeth bared, hissing like a cornered plague rat, she turned, the side of her face yet untouched illuminated by caustic moonlight. She’d been beautiful once.

  A lull in the chanting left the unsettling sound of the woman’s broken laughter echoing across the street.

  Sir Alaric snatched a peek out the window. “By the hound—” He gripped the sill and made to clamber out.

  Grunting, I caught him, stiff-arming him off-balance against the wall, hissing, “Stand. The fuck. Down.”

  “Brothe—” Stephan gripped my shoulder.

  “Rrrrg… He’s gonna … get us killed.” I shrugged Stephan’s hand off, still throttling Sir Alaric. “Take a bloody look. Close. Hard.”

  A faint hiss, Stephan’s intake, as he focused, as he saw.

  The woman should’ve been dead. Dead, and then some. Her back’d been scourged asunder, lash marks crisscrossing from neck to legs. But that was nothing. One of her arms was bone from shoulder to elbow, flesh rolled down like loose hose. The left side of her head was stove in like a broken eggshell. The scourger limp in her grasp should’ve been dead, too. He at least had the good grace to have his bags packed and one foot up on the wagon. Limp as a drowned kitten, he lay sprawled across the road, twitching, head twisted nigh on full around, neck wrung like a Beltane goose.

  “Back, you godless fiend!” a scourger jabbed with a lowered pike.

  Hissing, the woman, the thing, the Grey-Lady, ripped the fallen scourger’s head up, exposing his throat, her nightmare teeth bared black with blood. As she bit down, Lazarus stepped in, ripping his lash across her face.

  “Lou, ease up,” Stephan hissed, “you’re killing him.”