“You made that boeuf bongolaise?”
“We dids though it was more bongolaise than boeuf, to be honest. Boeuf being hard to get hold of in a garrison town.”
There was no denying it had been delicious, whatever meat it contained. Yes, hard though it was to accept, it seemed this creature before him was the notorious Maestro. “Why did you volunteer?”
The kobold shrugged. “I bored. Time to use my knife skills and, maybe, try some new meats.”
Well, at least he’d be good in a fight. Though Chortley wasn’t entirely sure the kobold could be trusted. “Very well, what do we call you?”
“Oh, Maestro will do, sir.”
“Will it indeed?” Chortley said, his sense of humour finally at an end, “Minito it is then.”
Chapter 11
The prisoner didn’t look up as the holding cell door opened and Gramma stepped in. A short guard with a long dagger went to follow her and then stopped abruptly.
“It’s alright, cock, I don’t need no chappyrone, this lad’s goin’ to be nice and friendly, like,” she said, pushing the door shut with a clank, “and if he ain’t then, I’ll shout for you to come and rescue me, being a poor lickle old lady.” Gramma rarely indulged in sarcasm, but when she did, she used it with relish.
The cell was small and dark and smelled of putrid water. The prisoner sitting at the table was also small and dark but he smelled of being a prisoner.
“Are you alright, cock?” Gramma said, cheerily, as she sat down on the chair opposite him.
The prisoner looked up. Gramma suspected that he had once possessed a few more teeth and at least one extra working eye. “Have they harmed you, lad?” she asked.
“Who are you?” said the prisoner, peering through a bloodshot eye that was partially hidden behind a greasy fringe of hair that lay plastered across his face.
“I am Gramma Tickle and I hear you’re a troublemaker,” she said, “though it seems to me you’ve found plenty for yourself.”
The prisoner squinted at her. “You’re not a dwarf. Why have they brought in a human?”
“Well, it seems it’s traditional for the local witch to be involved in, err, situations like this.”
“You’re a witch?”
Gramma smiled. “Aye, lad. Now, tell me what’s happened. But first, tell me your name and where you’re from.”
The prisoner paused for a moment then, perhaps having made his mind up, he spoke. “My name is Lackadaisical Snorsson, though you can call me Lax, and I am, or was, one of the founders of the Paleos, a group of dwarfs…”
“I know who you are,” Gramma interrupted, “you’re the dwarfs what like to get their ‘ands dirty.”
Lax gave a weak smile. “Yes, that’s right, and for that we are hated equally by our own people and the little folk.”
“So, what are you doin’ in here?” Gramma asked, keeping her voice low enough so that the inevitable eavesdroppers at the door couldn’t hear.
The dwarf shrugged. “As for the true reason, I can only assume that some dwarfs are using the current troubles as a way of stamping down on us, as well as the little folk.”
It took Gramma, whose deafness meant she was forced to lip-read, a few seconds to catch up.
“So, were you attacked when you was down the mine, or not?” asked Gramma.
Lax nodded. “Yes, we were following a seam down - not the main one, you know, but an offshoot that others hadn’t bothered with - and we were set upon without warning. Two were killed, the rest of us ran up to the main galleries. When we got to the city, we were arrested. ”
“So, you’re bein’ blamed for bein’ attacked?”
“I think so, though I’ve not been charged,” Lax said, “they just keep asking me who’s behind the attacks if it isn’t me.”
Gramma leaned forward and whispered. “And do you ‘ave any ideas, lad? Did you ‘ear any mutterins?”
Lax looked at her appraisingly. It occurred to him that he might have walked into a trap by opening up to this little old woman. He wondered whether she’d been sent in to extract the information that torture had failed to uncover. But then he thought about the sorts of dwarfs who were running Tinceltown and shook his head. No, if he were to ask one of them what subtle meant, he’d be met with a quizzical look, a fingering of a blunt axe blade and a suggestion that perhaps it’s a type of shellfish22.
“There’s rumours about the kobolds,” Lax whispered, “it’s not like them to be revolting. Unpleasant at times and awful grumblers, but they don’t, as a rule, follow through with anything.”
“What do the rumours say?”
“The word is, they got a new leader,” he said, “about five months ago. Came from outside, he did, and started stirring up trouble as soon as he’d got in with the elder kobolds. In the last month, though, it’s been one thing after another and I don’t think the city’s safe any more.”
“And did you tell that to the guards when they was torturing you?”
The dwarf nodded sadly. “I did, and I think they know it already but they want to use this whole thing as an excuse to crush us.”
“But why, what harm do you do?”
“Perhaps we show that it is possible for a dwarf to do an honest day’s work as the legends say our forebears did. We don’t have to hire little folk for everything; especially since, when we bring more of them in, the city dwarfs complain that they’re overrunning the place. Seems to me they might be right, in the end, but only because they ignored the danger.”
Lax sat back in his chair and wiped his forehead, revealing his blackened eye. “Look, I don’t know what you can do, but try to make the mayor see sense, she seems a reasonable sort.”
“But lad, you ‘aven’t told me what the kobolds and their new leader are fightin’ for. What do they want, cock?”
“Everything,” said Lax.
#
It was a lot easier to get out of Varma than to get in. Bill and Brianna had found an access point to street level that brought them out near the basilica and so they were able to quickly find their way back to the guesthouse. As it was after dark by the time they returned, they’d spent an uncomfortable and chilly night sheltering under a market stall nearby. How much of his discomfort was due to the cold, hard, smelly stone surface he was sitting on and how much was because of Brianna’s continued silence, Bill wasn’t sure. He also wasn’t certain he wanted to speak to her anyway or, indeed, how he felt about her at all.
As he sat, back to back with her in the street, his mind wandered from their current danger to the seemingly trivial matter of him and Brianna. But it always settled, finally, on Rasha. What had the little bastard done down there?
“Sorry,” Brianna said, to the wall.
“What?”
She shuffled around. “I’m sorry. Now, don’t make me say it again.”
“For what?” Bill asked, deliberately avoiding her eyes.
“Would you like to make a list?” she said. “It might help while away the hour or so until dawn.”
Bill sat in silence. He wasn’t going to let her off the hook.
“I’m sorry I was angry with you…”
“Repeatedly,” muttered Bill.
“Yes. It’s hard to accept that, sometimes, when shitty things happen they’re no-one’s fault.”
Bill felt himself beginning to thaw. “In fairness, sometimes it is my fault.”
“Will you shut up and let me apologise?” Brianna snapped. “I’m sorry, again. It’s not your fault, usually, but I struggle with the thought that crap happens and there’s nothing I can do about it. Makes me feel powerless.”
Bill looked up at her. If he wasn’t completely mistaken, there was a hint of moistness to her eyes. “Look, I’m a control freak too. Maybe that’s why we get on so well.”
“Do we get on well, do you think?” she asked.
“Better than most. We’re both under a lot of strain, so perhaps we should give each other a little slack,” Bill said,
whilst silently ashamed of his own hypocrisy.
As if by some silent command, they both reached out at the same moment and fell into an exhausted hug.
“It’s me I’m most angry with,” said Brianna from somewhere in the vicinity of Bill’s left nipple, “for trusting that loathsome little shit.”
And the moment was gone.
“I did too.”
Brianna extricated herself and looked at him. “Did you? I always had the feeling you held something back. I, on the other hand, trusted him almost from the moment I met him. He looked so pathetic and alone, a lost goblin child with a plausible story.”
“Story?”
“Well, yes, obviously,” Brianna said, fixing Bill with a glare that warmed his heart with its familiar contempt, “he was sent to this side to stir things up. I found him in the passes to the Butterlins Mountains so I imagine he was on his way to foment revolt in one of the dwarf kingdoms. But he took his chance when he met me and found himself here, at the centre of the civilised world. Jackpot.”
Bill sat up, fully alert now. “Hold on a minute, are you saying that when the Faerie Army came through, they brought along Rasha to upset some dwarfs?”
“Not only him, there could have been any number of them. I guess their job was to weaken the forces that might oppose Humunculus once he’d brought the local area under his control.”
“Like a gorilla23 army?”
“Well, more like a bunch of baboons, if you ask me. Small, ugly and sly.”
Bill chuckled, then thought for a moment. “Are baboons sly?”
“Have you ever met one you’d trust?”
There was another pause.
“What’s a baboon?”
Their landlady, Natana, was unamused to find them standing on her doorstep as dawn finally broke.
“I thought you’d been arrested,” she said, sleepily, “so I re-let your room.”
“Charming; where’s our stuff? Or did you also ‘re-let’ that?” snapped Brianna.
Natana stiffened. “Of course not, your stuff is in the storeroom.” She pointed to a door at the back of the house.
“On its way to the market, I don’t doubt,” Briana mumbled as she pulled the door open and scanned the room for their belongings. “There.”
“Our food’s gone,” Bill said, rummaging through his pack “shall we get some before we leave?”
Brianna shook her head. “No, I think we should get out of here as soon as possible. They may shut the gates when the word gets out.”
“You think they’d seal up the city on account of us?”
“You’re the boy with fire in his hands, you tell me if they’d want us to escape.”
Bill lifted his pack over his shoulder and headed for the door. “Let’s go,” he said.
The streets were only just beginning to come to life as windows were thrown open and the traders and costermongers rolled their carts over the cobbles. Bill and Brianna were able to slip their way back to the gate they’d entered through with no trouble.
“Oh no,” Bill moaned as they neared the gate.
There, beneath the archway that led to the barred portal, stood Simel. Before they could dart away, he saw them, lowered his spear and beckoned them over.
“What do we do?” Brianna hissed.
Bill shrugged. “I don’t think we have a choice, I can’t blast a way through without setting the whole city guard after us.” Magical skills, it turned out, were not as useful as he’d imagined.
Bill and Brianna flitted across the street to where Simel waited. His face was grim as he looked first at them and then scanned the area.
“At last,” he said, “quickly, we have little time. I have sent my colleague to fetch us a drink but he’ll be back very soon. Here, take this.” He held out a large leather bag and again looked up and down the street.
“What’s in it?” Brianna asked, before grabbing the strap.
“Food, drink and a map, on Marcello’s orders,” he said, “you’ll also find two horses tethered to the wall on the other side of the gate. I was told to tell you to hurry, there is no time to lose.”
Bill opened the bag. There was a roll of parchment and, beneath it, a mix of fresh and dried fruits along with, some turkey jerky. Attached to the outside of the pack, and constituting much of its weight, were two canteens of water.
“Did he say where he wants us to go?” asked Bill.
Simel shook his head. “No, he told me you would know.”
“Why are you doing this? Helping Marcello, I mean?” Brianna asked as she swung her pack over her shoulder.
“I am a follower of Marcello. He is a man of reason and philosophy and it seems to me, though I am merely a soldier, that we need more people like him, making decisions through logic and evidence, rather than by examining goat entrails or consulting a book of myths. Now hurry, or we’re all finished.”
Bill shook his hand as he passed. “Thank you, Simel. You may be just a soldier but that’s the most sense I’ve heard in a few days.”
“Charming,” snorted Brianna.
“Farewell,” Simel said, pushing the heavy gate open and gesturing them through, “safe journey and success in whatever mission Marcello has set you. You can be sure it’s vital, after all the trouble and risk he, and others, have taken.”
Bill and Brianna stepped through the gate and turned as it was slammed shut behind them.
“No pressure, then,” Bill muttered.
Chapter 12
The military might of Crapplecreek fidgeted in the sun as Chortley walked his horse up and down the line. The cracked squad had assembled behind him, along with the two witches and Sergeant McGuff who’d arranged the squad in height order with Thun standing, mountain-like, in the middle.
“Men and women of Crapplecreek,” Chortley shouted, “I must, once again, ask you to be heroes.”
Unless he was very much mistaken, Chortley could hear a low moan echoing around the rock face they were parading in front of.
“I appreciate that the last time I exhorted you to battle, many made the ultimate sacrifice,” Chortley bellowed, selecting from the Big Book of Cliches, “and you received little enough reward…”
“We got nuffin!” echoed a voice, followed by affirmative groans.
“...except the satisfaction of knowing that you had saved the free world…”
“That don’t pay the bills!” said another voice.
“...and the knowledge that, had you not stuck to your posts and braved the faerie hordes,” Chortley continued, before lowering his voice a little, “I would have hunted each and every one of you down and pulled your cowardly guts out through your arses.”
This time there was a silence informed, no doubt, by mental recollections of their former commander and several officers whose parts had exceeded the sum of their whole24 by the time Fitzmichael had finished with them.
“Now, I can’t promise you riches or recognition in the hours and days ahead, but I can promise you my revenge if a single one of you shirks your duty”, Chortley continued, satisfied that he had their complete attention and, more importantly, compliance.
He gestured at the cracked squad behind him. “Now, these six volunteers from among your ranks, have demonstrated the brave, fighting spirit that so typifies the Crapplecreekers.”
At this, there was a silence broken only by the uncomfortable shuffling of sand beneath feet.
“They will have the honour of accompanying myself in tackling the labyrinth and, to them, will go any treasure that we encounter on the way25. That is the reward for bravery in my company. Now, as for the rest of you,” Chortley said, sweeping his arm across the dusty assemblage, “I suggest you consider the next few hours your proving ground. Those who hold their positions and fight with courage will be rewarded. The others will be dead. One way or another.”
Chortley nodded at Sergeant McGuff who bellowed, “FALL OUT!”, and then ran off to heckle the scattering soldiers.
“Well,
you certainly has a way with words,” Mother Hemlock said as Chortley dismounted beside her, “looked as though it might get nasty for a while there.”
Chortley smiled. “My father always said that, in a scary situation, the job of a Fitzmichael is to be the most frightening thing there.”
“It’s an odd sort of loyalty that gets scared into people,” Velicity said.
“At the moment, it’s the only tool I’ve got,” Chortley responded, trying hard to concentrate on what he was saying rather than the wind-swept beauty in front of him, “they were treated outrageously after winning the battle at the stones…”
“You mean you was treated badly,” Mother Hemlock interrupted.
Chortley had the good grace to flush. “Perhaps, but not just me. That rabble,” he jerked a finger over his shoulder, “held off the might of the faerie army and then helped destroy it. They performed like one of the Varman legions of old and yet what reward did they receive? Nothing, except that they avoided the punishments I handed out to the deserters. Beyond the borders of Fitzmichael County, I doubt anyone even knows the battle happened at all.”
“Oh, they knows, lad, those that hold power, they knows. But let me ask you, have you heard of the saying ‘the banana and the stick?’” Mother Hemlock asked.
Chortley nodded. “Of course. If you want a monkey to do something, you can use a banana to persuade him, or the stick to force him.
“But what, my lad, if it wasn’t a monkey but a bloody big gorilla?”
“Well, I suppose in that case, he’d probably grab the banana and break the stick.” Chortley guessed.
“He’d probably break the wielder of the stick too,” Mother Hemlock said. “So - it’s just a suggestion mind - now you’ve shown them the stick, why not wave a banana or two around?”
Chortley rubbed his chin in thought. “But, what have I got to offer them?”
“Well, to trot out another old sayin’, ‘Where there’s trolls, there’s…’”
“Treasure,” Chortley said, “but we’d have to beat them first.”
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