by Peter David
He was not amused. Nor was Stroker when he found out when the irate customer told him moments later.
He dragged her into the back room. There was something of a sick irony to that considering that’s where it had all started. “Who’s the father, you damned trollop!” he shouted.
His wrath had worked on her before, nicely cowing her or prompting her to turn away in fear. But that didn’t happen this time. It was as if, with the revelation of her secret, she felt strengthened rather than exposed. The angrier he became, the calmer she was. “I don’t know who the father is,” she said. “And it’s odd that you would call me a ‘damned’ trollop. You made money off me and contributed nothing.”
“I gave you a roof over your head!”
“Men who seek my services aren’t concerned about architecture. I could ply my trade in a tent. If I’m damned, Stroker, you’re twice damned.”
He backhanded her then. He wore a large ring with a dragon on it for luck, and the thing tore at her lower lip. But she didn’t flinch. As blood trickled down her chin, she didn’t even reach to wipe it off. She just stood there, with a level and unwavering gaze. There was no contempt in that stare, or pity. There was, at most, vague disinterest.
He hit her twice more, trying to elicit some sort of response from her. Still there was nothing. He clearly considered doing it again, but it wasn’t having the desired effect and he didn’t have the will or the attention span to continue with the futility of browbeating someone who simply wasn’t responding. So with an irritated grunt, which was what usually passed for pithy conversation from Stroker, he turned and headed for the door.
Just before he reached it, though, something seemed to click in his tiny little brain. Perhaps he was able to do something as simple as basic mathematics, but he suddenly appeared to figure out just precisely when it must have been that the conception occurred. He turned back to her, his hand still on the door handle, and he said, “The knights. The knights did this.”
She said nothing, but there must have been something in her eyes—a fleeting look—that convinced him of the accuracy of his surmise.
“A child borne of rape.” Amazingly, even the seemingly unflappable Stroker appeared daunted by that. “An ill-omened thing. You would have been wise to try and stop it from blossoming in your belly the moment you realized it.” Such a thing would easily have been possible, and they both knew it. There were certain mixtures of herbs that, when consumed, could flush an unborn child from its resting place with alacrity, at least in the early stages.
“It’s not an ill omen,” she said sharply.
“It is. A child of violence only begets violence, and brings disaster to whatever it touches.”
“I saw my own omen,” she informed him, and for the first time, she spoke of the phoenix bird.
He stared at her skeptically, and when she finally told the tale, he said, “Even assuming it’s true … of what interest is that? Of what moment?”
“It was a sign to me,” she said firmly. “A sign of birth and rebirth. A sign of great things that were going to happen to me as a result of a birth. I asked a soothsayer about it,” which was a flat-out lie, but she wanted to bolster her credibility.
“A soothsayer,” he said with a snort. “A soothsayer will say whatever sooth you desire to hear if the money’s right.” But he didn’t appear to want to press the point after that, settling for walking out with a final look of cold disdain, the loud banging of the door intended to signal his annoyance and opinion of the entire matter.
The thing was, even though she was lying about the soothsayer, my mother spoke the truth about her beliefs. She was of the firm conviction that her pregnancy was part of some grand plan. That her having witnessed the birth of the phoenix was indeed an omen, and that I was the centerpiece, the payoff, of that omen. In a sick sort of way, it’s almost amusing.
My mother’s carnal activities were curtailed after that. I was an active sort, you see, and since I had stumbled upon my motor skills, I became rather adept at letting my presence be known at inopportune times. Plus, several weeks after that, it became a moot point as my mother’s belly began to swell in a distinctive manner, so much so that even a blind man would have seen the truth of things. So my mother restricted her activities to serving drinks and waiting for me to make my arrival upon the scene.
In a perverse sort of way, a family almost formed around her. There was another serving wench, named Astel, and she was a kindhearted young thing. Surprisingly bright for a mere server, Astel was younger than Madelyne, and yet seemed to take her under her wing. Astel had thick curly blond hair and a musical laugh, which I would have cause to hear later on in my life any number of times. She also had wide hips and an ample bosom, but when she ran she did it so lightly that it seemed she was made of mist. She heard of my mother’s tale about the phoenix, and seemed entranced by it. She fancied herself a diviner of mythic matters, and told my mother that as far as she was concerned, Madelyne’s reading of the situation was absolutely on target. This excited Astel somewhat, for she said she had never been in the presence of future greatness, and appreciated the opportunity that fate had afforded her.
She was the midwife the night that I was born.
When Madelyne went into labor, it was not a quiet affair. Oh, she described herself as being brave and silent, but that wasn’t how Astel described it to me in later years. In point of fact, Madelyne howled like a tornado. Her caterwauling was so loud that it supremely disturbed the customers. So Stroker exiled her to the stable for the duration of the labor in order to spare the delicate sensibilities of his usual crowd of drunkards, layabouts, and petty criminals.
Considering the set of lungs Madelyne possessed, they likely would have heard her from the damned moon, if not for the fact that a hellacious storm showed its face that night. Astel told me that it was one of the most terrifying nights of her life, and I do not doubt it. Horses belonging to various patrons reared up in their stalls, whinnying fearfully, as Madelyne lay sprawled on a bed of straw and huffed and puffed away.
The calm that she had displayed all during the pregnancy, the quiet certainty that she was fulfilling some magnificent part of a greater plan, all evaporated during that stressful night. She bellowed profanities, she cried out for mercy, she cursed the knights who had done this to her, she cursed my name and she didn’t even know what my name was. She just cursed it in spirit.
During all that, the dedicated Astel stayed by her side. Madelyne clutched Astel’s hand so tightly that she nearly broke her fingers, but that didn’t stop Astel from remaining right where she was, determined to help Madelyne see it through. She wiped the sweat from her brow, gave her small drops of liquid, spoke gentle words of support and endearment even though there were times that she was convinced Madelyne didn’t hear a word.
Madelyne thrashed and screeched some more, and the horses were going mad with fear. It was a damned good thing they were tied to their place, otherwise they might have stampeded and my existence on this sphere would have been abruptly truncated as my newborn form was ground to pulp beneath panicky horses’ hooves. Thunder smashed overhead, God apparently desiring to make a personal statement about the agonizing birth process that he had chosen to inflict upon humanity. Sort of like affixing one’s signature to a particularly grisly masterpiece.
With one final, hair-raising howl that she seemed to be channeling from damned souls confined to the lowest recesses of hell, Madelyne’s muscles convulsed and I was spat out of her nether regions into Astel’s waiting arms.
It was not an auspicious debut.
Apparently not satisfied having exiled a woman in need to a stable filled with the pungent smell of sweaty animals and their droppings, Stroker felt the need—moments after my birth—to see for himself why something as simple as a woman trying to force something the size of a grapefruit through a bodily orifice the size of a grape should be causing such a hullabaloo. The door to the stable banged open, thunder cracking to accen
tuate the nominal drama of his arrival, and he stared at the scene in front of him.
My mother was gasping, covered with sweat, still not having quite recovered her senses. Astel was cradling me in her arms and cooing softly. She looked up at Stroker and, apparently expecting him to share in the joy of the moment, said, “It’s a boy.”
“Good. He can pull his weight around here—” Stroker started to say, and then he caught sight of me. “It’s deformed!” he snarled.
“He’s a he, not an it,” Astel said, but she didn’t dispute his observation.
“Look at him!” said the angry Stroker, standing over me. “His right leg! It’s withered and twisted! He’ll never walk properly! And he’s underweight! He’s a runt, all shriveled and no meat on him! The first good cold snap will kill him!”
“He’ll fill out … he’ll be fine,” said Astel.
“My baby …” It was Madelyne, speaking in a coherent and relatively calm manner. Her arms were weak but still half-raised, her fingers fluttering. “Let me hold him … .”
Astel started to hand me over to Madelyne … and then Stroker intercepted her and snatched me out of her arms.
“I’m exposing him,” Stroker announced.
“No! You can’t!” Astel said, horrified. She started to move toward Stroker to try and snatch me back, but he drew back a meaty hand and Astel, who wasn’t always the most stalwart of things, retreated before the anticipated blow could land.
“I’m doing it a favor,” Stroker informed her. “Better a quick death before Madelyne becomes too attached to something that won’t survive anyway.”
Madelyne was still confused, still not fully understanding what was happening around her, but she was able to grasp enough of it to realize what Stroker’s intentions were. He was going to lay me out on a rock somewhere, or deposit me in the forest, leaving me to die from the elements or—just as likely—to be killed and devoured by the first passing predator looking for a light snack.
At that point, I started to mewl as infants generally do shortly upon birth, waxing nostalgic for the safety and warmth they have just left behind. This pitiful wailing was enough to spur Madelyne and, weak as she was, she still managed to lunge forward and grab at Stroker’s leg. “No! He’s mine! Mine! Give him to me! I’m his mother! Give him to me!”
“Stop your yowling, shrew!” he snapped, and he kicked at her with his free leg. He caught her squarely in her still weak stomach, and she lost her grip on him and rolled up in pain. But she didn’t stop shouting, didn’t stop demanding that he give me back to her at that very instant.
“I’m doing what’s best for all concerned!” Stroker said, and he slung me over his shoulder like a sack of wheat.
My little mouth was right at the base of his throat.
And I sunk my teeth into him.
Teeth? I hear you say. Yes, that is correct: teeth. A right leg worth a damn, I did not have. Body weight, there was none. But God—in his infinite perverse wisdom—had chosen to endow me with a full set of teeth the moment I sprang from the womb. And they were, so I’m told, sharp little things, and powerful jaw muscles accompanied them.
My teeth crunched down into his neck as if I were a tiny vampire. I was probably just hungry. If so, the first liquid to cross my lips was not mother’s milk, but blood, for that was what I drew when I bit him.
Stroker let out a startled yelp that was so high-pitched one might have mistaken him for a woman. “Get it off!” he shouted and, matching deed to words, he shoved me off him and sent me tumbling through the air. Had I landed on my head that might well have been the end of me, but Madelyne rolled across the floor and caught me.
“It bit me! It bit me!” Stroker cried out, waving an outraged finger at Madelyne.
To which Astel replied, trying her best to maintain a reasonable tone of voice, “Consider you were trying to kill him, Stroker. And consider who his mother is … and the violence of his conception. So he’s born with teeth and bites you? That’s certainly apropos.”
And to the astonishment of both Astel and Madelyne … Stroker laughed. It didn’t seem like something that was part of his character. He had appeared all bluff, bluster, and arrogance. He never seemed to have any sense of humor at all. But there was something about the insanity of being chomped upon by a newborn that appealed to his sense of the ironic … whatever that might have been.
“Yes,” he growled. “That is most certainly apropos. That’s the child’s name.”
“What?” Astel looked confused. “You … you can’t name the child …”
“It’s my stable, my inn. And I’ve never given a child a name before. Besides, you came up with the name, not me.”
“But I … that’s … but …” Astel, now completely befuddled, turned to Madelyne.
Madelyne, for her part, simply lay there and gently stroked my hair, which was already coming in as a fuzz of red. “It’s all right, Astel,” she said softly. “One name is as good as another, and ‘Apropos’ is as good as any.”
“He’s still going to be bad luck,” Stroker said, and he rubbed the base of his neck and glowered at Madelyne, cradling her child in her arms. “At least now we’ll have a name to curse when misfortune befalls us.” Then he turned on his heel and walked out.
“I thought the child was finished for sure,” Astel said. She looked wonderingly at Madelyne. “It’s amazing how he changed his mind.”
“Not amazing,” Madelyne replied with a knowing smile. “It’s … Apropos.”
“It certainly is.” Astel craned her neck slightly, trying to get a better look at me. My mother had used a wet cloth to remove the normal blood and slime that one accrues while being born. “He’s certainly well on his way to having a head of flaming red hair.”
“That’s also apropos.”
“What do you mean?”
Madelyne drew aside the blanket that she had wrapped around me, and exposed my hip. There, quite plainly, was a most unusual birthmark. It was in the shape of a small burst of flame. “You see? I was right. I witnessed the flaming death and rebirth of the phoenix … and here is a sign upon him. It’s more than a birthmark, I’ll wager. It’s a linemark, a sign of lineage. Of greatness. Could there be any more clear a sign than that? Oh look …” she said as I began to whimper and squirm, “I think he’s hungry.” She held me up to her breast so that I could nurse.
“You know … that mark might still be a plain old birthmark … it could just be coincidence,” Astel said doubtfully.
“No. No, Astel … there is no coincidence. There is simply …” She paused for dramatic effect. ” … destiny.”
I bit her.
It seemed apropos.
Chapter 4
The area around Stroker’s Inn was hardly a hive of industry, but nonetheless, after a period of time, a village started to develop. I suppose it shouldn’t have been much of a surprise. As near as I can tell, men were showing up in the evening, drinking well into the night, and then resenting the distance they had to stagger to get home (to say nothing of those who were drinking and riding, tumbling off their horses and being dragged behind when their feet snagged in the stirrups). Faced with the prospect of choosing between home and pub, a large number of men opted to combine the two, and relocated their homes to within easy staggering distance. Naturally their assorted businesses went with them, and that was more or less how the town was spawned.
There was some debate over what the town should be named. There was a sizable group of annoyed wives who advocated the name “Drunken Bastardville,” and believe it or not, a number of the men embraced it as well before someone explained to them that the women were making fun of them. Finally they called it “the Town,” so that even the most inebriated of men could remember it. As towns went, it wasn’t much. Then again, it was probably what you would expect from a town that was created and centered on a tavern. Fortunately, as it turned out, the Town was well positioned along some of the more traveled paths, and so did a fairly brisk t
rade from transients. Furthermore, people procreated as is their habit, and a decent next generation of Townies sprang from the diseased loins of the founders.
My mother continued to ply her trade with willingness, if not great abandon. She didn’t especially care one way or the other as some new passer-through huffed and puffed atop her. The only thing she was capable of feeling, really, was that she was helping to fulfill some sort of great destiny that awaited me, and she dedicated herself to that end. She told me about it repeatedly enough as I grew. She likely emphasized that for two reasons. First, she felt some sort of need to justify her activities to me, her son, since she probably felt that sooner or later I would judge her trade and find her wanting (a reasonable concern). And second, she wanted me to feel better about myself since I had to cope with my deformity.
A misshapen right leg is not something that one tends to grow out of. I was far slower to learn how to walk than the average child, and even when I finally did get the hang of it, it was only after a fashion. When other children would run, the most I was able to manage was a brisk limp. For the first years of my life, mother fashioned for me some crude crutches, which enabled me to get around with some vague efficiency. I disliked them intensely, however, mostly because they underscored my vulnerability. This was driven home by the tendency that patrons of the bar had to kick the crutches out from under me whenever I would happen by. Since there was a steady flow of new patrons, each one thought that he was clever enough to have been the first one to think of it. So down I would go, time and again. Madelyne would always let out an aggrieved yelp, help me to my feet, and scold whichever patron it was who had decided to show what a tough man he was by abusing a helpless child. Her ire would invariably be greeted with guffaws, and a patronizing slap on the rump or a squeezed breast. This scenario played itself out so often that I came to think of it as a sort of ritual and took no personal offense. Nonetheless, the banged-up knees were certainly no fun, and I stopped using the easily targeted crutch by the time I was five. Instead I substituted a stout cane. I didn’t get around as quickly as with the crutches, but it forced me to develop more strength in my left leg and a modicum of strength in my twisted right leg. Whenever possible, I would even disdain the cane and—in the tavern, most often—make my way by leaning on furniture or pulling myself around by clasping onto timbers in the wall. Consequently I gained some considerable upper-body power, although I didn’t think much of it as I watched other boys, both older and younger, sprinting down the street with an ease that I could only envy and they could only take for granted.