Duke Grandfather- The Whole Story

by James Maxstadt

  TIME FOR A WALK

  Lilly refilled Dukes cup of coffee when the story was over, her face pensive. She put the pot back on the wood stove, turned to him, opened her mouth and then shut it again.

  “What?” Duke asked.

  Again, she started to speak and stopped.

  “Spit it out,” Duke said.

  The young man watched his grandparents with a quizzical expression, waiting to see what was going on between them.

  Lilly continued to frown at Duke, then looked away, before returning her gaze to him again. “You didn’t really watch my butt when I walked out of that alley!”

  Duke laughed. “Out of that whole thing, that’s what has you going?” He stopped laughing and looked at her, fondness evident in his eyes. “Lilly, my love, I watched you that day and every day I’ve seen you since. And never have I seen a sight that I enjoy more, from that day, to this one.”

  Lilly gazed back at her husband for a moment, a slight smile playing about her mouth. Her cheeks turned a rosy color, almost the same shade as her robes, which she still wore to this day.

  “Ridiculous,” she muttered, and began puttering about the kitchen, picking things up and setting them back down exactly where they had been. “We should go for a walk. It’s a nice morning. You can continue then. I’ll go get my cloak…”

  She bustled from the room, and true to his word, Duke watched her go. Then, he turned to his grandson. “Not often your grandmother gets rattled,” he said.

  “Umm, no,” the young man began to gather his stuff. “I guess you two are going to take a walk, so I’ll …”

  “Don’t be silly. You come along. I can walk and talk at the same time. I’m not that old yet.”

  Lilly returned, Duke helped her with her cloak, and then took her hand. The young man held the door, and smiled behind them as they passed through. It was a beautiful day, and sometimes, things happened that made it even more so.

  THE HORN OF THE UNICORN

  The dead were gone, which was a good thing, even if I did miss Dad all over again. He had made it to Mom’s too, and although she wouldn’t say much, I understood that it was a good visit. I’m sure it was hard on her, but Mom, being Mom, kept that under wraps too.

  Since the events of that time, I hadn’t heard anything from that mysterious voice, which was something that I was starting to get used to. It seemed that whenever something bad was happening, the voice went away, only to come back when the drama was over to make some lame excuse as to why it wasn’t able to help.

  Well, I had gotten along before, and I could do fine without it now. As far as I was concerned, the longer I went without hearing it, the better.

  It was a nice day, bright sunshine and a pleasant temperature. The perfect sort of day for taking a stroll after getting up and lingering over breakfast. Some people might have called it lunch, but just because they rose at an unnatural hour was no reason that I needed to. Early afternoon was the perfect time to take a little walk, see the sights and then meet a comrade for a convivial mug of ale.

  Jessup knew of yet another new place, The Horn of the Unicorn, which sounded a little too foo-foo for my tastes, but he assured me that I would like it. Still, I wasn’t in a huge hurry to get there, and took my time ambling along.

  The city seemed to be in great spirits after the invasion of the dead, no pun intended. People were out and about, many of them doing actual jobs, which made me shudder, but to each his own. For a change of pace, people were saying hello to each other, or at least nodding as they passed in the street, rather than staring straight ahead and pretending that no one else existed but them. I was sure it wasn’t going to last, but for the moment, it was nice.

  The Horn of the Unicorn wasn’t far from my neighborhood, which meant it was still in a working-class part of town. I was pretty far from places like Silvertree Lane or the Greenwood District. People in my area worked jobs, both day and night, raised families, and tried to watch out for each other and still mind their own business. There was no flair, but it was a place to call home.

  Which is why it was so odd that a tavern with a name like that would open up around there. Unicorns were fanciful creatures that didn’t actually exist, usually depicted as fluffy, white horses with a big spiral horn growing out of their forehead. They were rumored to be intensely magical and often granted wishes, mostly to special little girls on their birthdays.

  Not the sort of place, in other words, that one would think to go for a mug of ale.

  And from the outside, the place did nothing to dispel that image. The front door was painted a bright pink, and the sign hanging over it did indeed show a unicorn pretty much as I always heard them described. The pole the sign was hanging from was carved into the shape of a unicorn’s horn. I tried to look inside, but there were bright pink curtains drawn across the windows, making it impossible to see.

  “Weird,” I said to myself, beginning to doubt Jessup’s sanity, and opened the door.

  Inside was even worse. The place was all decked out in bright pink. The table clothes, the little place settings on those tablecloths and the chair cushions. There were pictures of unicorns adorning every available open space on the walls, in all different styles. And there was no bar that I could see, nor were there any serving girls.

  I stood there at a loss, with Jessup nowhere in sight. After a moment, a slim woman, dressed, not-surprisingly, in a long pink gown with a big frilly skirt came out from pink curtains at the back of the room.

  “Hellloooo,” she trilled in a high-pitched voice, her face beaming. “Welcome to the Horn of the Unicorn! How can we make your day magic, today?”

  I hoped my eyes weren’t really as wide as they felt like they were. The pink overload was getting to me, and her faux-fairy voice was pushing it over the edge.

  “Uh, well, I’m supposed to meet a friend of mine here…” I looked around again, waiting for Jessup to step out and end the joke. “But I’m not sure I’m in the right place…” I finished lamely.

  “Oh, now, I’m sure you’re exactly where you’re supposed to be! Welcome! Welcome! Please, sit, and allow us to magic your cares away! Anywhere you like is fine!”

  Her enthusiasm, while annoying, was also a little disarming. I didn’t have the heart to turn and walk out the door, or to tell her my thoughts on magic. I smiled wanly and took a seat at the table nearest to the door.

  With a curtsy, my hostess spun about and disappeared behind the curtains again. A moment later, I heard two voices whispering in sharp tones. Then, “I don’t care, Bethany! It’s a customer!”

  She reappeared with a teapot in the shape of, or course, a unicorn’s head, the spout of which was the horn. With it was a small tea cup, fashioned like a dainty white hoof.

  “Now,” she smiled sweetly at me. “I hope you enjoy our house brew. It’s steeped extra-long in wishes and star-dust!”

  She put the cup down and poured for me. Tea was coffee that hadn’t grown up yet, as far as I was concerned, but I picked it up and took a sip anyway, making appreciative noises. My host stood nearby, smiling broadly, if a touch nervously, at me.

  “Uh…nice place?” I tried. She nodded, still smiling. “Um, I’m Duke, by the way.”

  “Ohhh! What a grand name! How lucky for you!”

  “And you are?”

  She looked surprised. “Why, I’m Princess Featherbottom! Here from the land of….” She stopped. “Are you buying any of this?” she asked me, in a much deeper, more normal tone of voice.

  I smiled at the sudden change. “Not really, but I don’t think I’m really your target customer.”

  She sighed and collapsed into the seat across the table from me. “No, you’re not, but you’re the only customer we’ve had all week. I thought this would be fun, but….oh, I’m Rachel, by the way. Do you really like the tea?”

  “I have to admit, I’m not really a tea drinker, usually. But it’s good.”

  “What do you usually drink, then?”

 
“Honestly? Ale, or coffee, depending on what time of day it is.”

  She nodded glumly. “I told Bethany that we should have used the money to open a tavern, rather than this place.” She looked around and then lowered her voice, “But she’s so into unicorns. It’s a little weird.”

  Hey, what could I say? Everyone has their own things.

  “Hold on a minute,” Rachel said, brightening up and springing from her chair. She left the room in a rush, and I heard the back-door slam. A different face peered out of the curtains at me for a moment, one with heavy pink makeup smeared on it, and a very sparkly tiara on its head. She spotted me looking, squeaked and disappeared again.

  I sipped my tea, intrigued enough to sit for a few minutes and wait for Rachel. If nothing else, having any sort of good time would be a nice revenge for the little trick that Jessup had played on me.

  The door slammed again, there was more whispered argument, and then Rachel reappeared, with four mugs of ale held expertly in one hand. She flounced in without spilling a drop and set them on the table, pushing two over to me and keeping two in front of her. She hiked up her skirt to get more comfortable, sat, and took a huge drink.

  “Ahhh. Yes. Better than tea.”

  She must have noticed my face. Her cheeks colored slightly, and she said, “I used to serve drinks at the Banded Krait, over on the docks. It was always easier to bring a bunch at once.”

  I picked up a mug, raised it in a salute, and matched her quaff with one of my own.

  We sat quietly, me looking around at the shockingly pink décor, and Rachel studying me.

  “So, what do you do?” she asked me.

  “I’m a Nuisance Man.”

  “Ohhh…that always sounded so interesting to me. You must have some of the craziest stories.”

  I thought back over the last several days.

  “Some more than others,” I said, and took another drink, warming up to start spinning a tale or two. Maybe I’d get another couple of mugs of ale out of it. But suddenly, there was a sharp, short scream from behind the curtain, and the other girl came running out, face flushed under her makeup.

  “What are you doing?” Her voice was high-pitched, but unlike Rachel’s fake one from earlier, Bethany’s sounded like it was her norm.

  “Oh, relax, Bethany,” Rachel said. “It’s not like we’ve got any customers.”

  “But you have ale! Ale, Rachel! No one will bring their girls in for magical parties if they see that we have ale!”

  Rachel sighed and drained her first mug. Then she pushed the other one over to an empty seat at the table. “Sit down. If someone comes in, we’ll carry them into the back quick and say that Mr. Duke here is scouting out a place for his niece’s birthday. Okay?”

  Bethany pouted, fluttered her hands, then sighed and plopped down into the chair. She picked up the mug and took a swig. “I just want this place to work so badly,” she said.

  I took Rachel’s empty mug and poured half of my second one into it. She smiled and nodded her head in thanks.

  “Mr. Duke…”

  “Just Duke,” I cut in. “My last name is Grandfather.”

  Rachel eyed me, and Bethany glanced at me over the rim of her mug. “Really,” I said.

  “Mr. Grandfather, then, was going to tell us a story about being a Nuisance Man. Come on, Bethany. Something to liven up the day, huh?”

  “Alright,” I said, warming to the subject. “Now, do you like dogs? Because I can tell you about…”

  The door slammed open, cutting me off. A man stumbled through it, slammed it behind him and slumped against it. He turned to us to say something, but his face drained of color and he sank to the floor, his back still against the door, eyes closing.

  The three of us sat in stunned silence. Not only did a man violently enter the place and collapse, but he was the wearing the uniform of the Watch.

  I sprang from my seat, the girls following closely behind. There was blood all over the front of the watchman. So much that it was hard to tell where it came from. I pulled his tunic open, only to find that his chest and stomach looked like so much meat. The crimson of the blood was everywhere, and I couldn’t tell where one cut began and another ended.

  There was a short squeal from one of the girls, but to her credit, she cut it off quickly.

  Whoever he was, he was in bad shape. “Bethany? Listen to me. Go out the back door, find a watchman and scream for help. Get someone in here quickly!”

  She didn’t hesitate, and a few seconds later I heard the back door open and her voice raised in alarm.

  “Get me something to try to stop some of this bleeding,” I said to Rachel. There was the clatter of dishes being scattered on the floor, and a moment later a large piece of bright pink cloth was passed over my shoulder. I took the table cloth, wadded it up, and gently pressed it against the watchman’s torso.

  He gasped, and his eyes fluttered open, rolling wildly before focusing on me. “The knife.” His voice came out in a whisper. “Tell them. The knife.”

  He sighed and went limp. Outside, I heard footsteps rapidly approaching, and I moved aside.

  Later, I sat in a chair at the watchhouse, flanked on each side by a grown woman wearing bright pinks gowns and glum expressions. We didn’t talk much. Rachel and Bethany never saw anyone die before, despite Rachel working in a pretty rough dock-side tavern. And we were all a little intimidated as we waited to be questioned in the death of a watchman.

  “Duke,” Sarge called from his desk, “come over here.”

  I stood, glanced back at the two women, and walked over.

  “What can you tell me?” Sarge asked. He wasn’t the official questioner, that was still to come. But even if he had no real use for me, Sarge knew me enough to know that I had nothing to do with the death of the watchman. I was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

  I told him about the watchman slamming through the door and collapsing. That I tried to staunch the flow of blood, but he was too far gone. Sarge didn’t say anything for a moment, then, “Alright. Go on back and sit down. I’ll vouch for you. What about them?” He indicated the women with a tip of his head.

  “Them? They didn’t do anything. They’re trying to open up some place for little girls. That’s all.”

  “Little girls? What were you doing there, then?”

  I told him about Jessup and the trick he had tried to play on me.

  “You need some new friends,” he said when I was finished.

  I turned to go back to my seat, but then remembered the last words of the watchman. “Oh, hey, your guy said something before he died.”

  “What?”

  “He said, ‘The knife. Tell them. The knife.’”

  “That’s it? What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “I have no idea. But it seemed important. Thought you should know.”

  Sarge nodded and wrote it down. “Thanks.”

  The questioning wasn’t that bad, considering. There was a Watch wizard there, who didn’t say much but stood to the side, and nodded whenever the questioner looked to him. I assume he was verifying that we were telling the truth somehow. The questioner himself was a captain of the Watch, a man who seemed several years too young for the job, but with that type of self-important air that comes from a life of wealth and privilege and was then out to prove that he got the job strictly on his own merits.

  “Don’t leave town,” he told me.

  I almost laughed in his face at that. For one, I had no intention of ever leaving town if I could help it. I’d no desire to visit the countryside or travel abroad. Everything I needed was right here in the city. And also, it was such a trite thing to say, like he read it somewhere and decided that now was a good time to spring it. Even the wizard had the grace to be slightly embarrassed by it when I looked at him.

  “Don’t worry,” I told him. “I’ll be around, and in here quite often. Nuisance Man. You know?”

  His sneer told me what he thought of those in my line
of work, but I didn’t let it bother me as I left the room, walked along the hallway and down the couple of flights of stairs to come out back in the main room of the watchhouse. I stopped at Sarge’s desk on the way out.

  “I’ll keep my eyes out,” I told him. “And I’m sorry.”

  For a moment, he looked like he was going to say something. Instead, he grunted at me, and turned back to his newssheet. If nothing else, at least we were back to normal.

  The watchman getting killed really bothered me. I was no stranger to violence and dealt my share of it over the years, but this felt different. This felt like butchery. And although some people had problems with the Watch, hell, I did myself at times, they were the good guys. Overall, they represented law and order in an otherwise chaotic city.

  I did meet up with Jessup later on and filled him in on what had happened. He was appropriately sorry for the joke he played and how it turned out. I forgave him, since it was a good prank, and the watchman was no fault of his, but I don’t think he believed me since I called it an evening at an early hour. But it really did have nothing to do with him. I was in a funk, and sitting in a crowded tavern, swigging down ale and laughing wasn’t doing it for me.

  When the next day came, I was out of bed early. And I do mean early. Not because I wanted to see the sun rise, but because I couldn’t sleep. All night long, the image of that watchman slumped against the door, his torso turned bright red, played in my head, over and over. There wasn’t much sleep, and finally, I thought that I might as well get up.

  I strapped on my sword, made sure I had a cudgel with me, since I’d left my old one shoved in that statue’s mouth, and hit the early morning streets. It was like a whole different city at this time of day. The streets were quiet, with few people on them, and those that were walked along with decidedly less hurry than those I was used to seeing, like they had all the time in the world to get to where they were going.