Updated_PerilInTheOldCountry_SamHooker_EbookFormatting_Nook

by Peril in the Old Country (retail) (epub)

  “Don’t tell me you enjoy the taste of that.”

  “It’s an acquired taste,” said Roman. He took another sip, and his jaw attempted to retreat upward into his brain. “Had you been raised up north, your parents would have forced you to acquire it as well.”

  “And what does up north have to do with Willie’s money?”

  “Plans are already in motion. That reminds me, we’ve got to go see Winking Bob.”

  “Winking Bob? So we’re regularly cavorting with the criminal underworld now? And since when are plans set in motion without my knowing about them?”

  “Since I became your spymaster,” said Roman. “Your accounting skills aren’t going to get us out of this one, Sloot. We’ve got to rely on other means.”

  “Oh, right. And just how many of Lord Hapsgalt’s staff have you involved in your northern schemes? Is it just Myrtle and myself, or can we speak freely around the stable boys as well?”

  “Drink.” Roman shoved the cup back into Sloot’s hand. He did so without thinking, then coughed and cursed his own talent for obedience. “Just you and Myrtle. That’s all we needed. Blood and honor!”

  “Blood and honor,” mumbled Sloot. “Where is Myrtle, anyway?”

  “Have another drink.”

  Sloot obeyed. Fortune smiled on him, robbing him of his sense of taste. He started seeing double.

  “Where is Myrtle?”

  “Gone.”

  “Gone? What do you mean, gone?”

  “You’re not going to like it.”

  “I haven’t liked anything else that’s happened today,” said Sloot, punctuating the thought by handing the virulent mug of viscous unpleasantness back to Roman.

  “The robbery …” Roman took a sip from the mug, winced, and exhaled heavily. “It was her doing.”

  Sloot said a swear word, and he said it with gusto. A pair of goblins popped into existence, congratulated each other, then ran off cackling.

  “Rein it in, my boy,” said Roman. He’d taken another sip of the blood brandy and was starting to wobble.

  “You take it back!” Sloot spoke more slowly than usual, slower even than he would have if he’d spent most of the night in a pub.

  “Won’t change anything if I do.” Roman’s speech was slowing as well, though he had the benefit of experience when it came to fermented bear’s blood.

  “You’re a liar!” shouted Sloot, in the particular way that seriously inebriated people are wont to do. They’re generally unable to tell when someone is lying to them, and this is their means of tricking sneaky liars into revealing themselves. At least that’s what psychiatrists have concluded, and then billed by the hour for having done.

  “I am not! You’ve come unhinged and started shouting at dashing older gentlemen! You think I’m going to take this from an accountant?”

  “I do! And you are!”

  That, as they say, tore it. In a single maneuver lacking wisdom and grace in equal measure, Roman lunged at Sloot with a haymaker so poorly aimed it got lost on the way over. Even Sloot had time to dodge it, or he may have gotten woozy and fallen out of its path. Either way, it still counted as a punch. Enough goblins to field a decent game of boulderchuck popped in, and ran cackling toward the house.

  “Oh, that’s bad,” said Roman.

  “Not as bad as … as your … stupid …” Sloot trailed off, as so many drunks nowhere near the verge of a really biting insult have done before him.

  “That’s it,” said Roman through clenched teeth. “Tuck your shirt back in and follow me.”

  “Where are we going?” Sloot was following out of habit. It was what he did when it was implied with authority that he should.

  “To the crags.”

  “Oh,” said Sloot, a chill running down his spine. “I’ve never been to there before.”

  “Well, it’s high time you did. We’ve got precious little time, and we can’t waste it squabbling. Besides, if I punch you again, it could kill you.”

  The crags were a rocky outcropping on the southwestern coast of the Old Country, where the great wall that kept Salzstadt secure against the hordes of foreign invaders ended. If one were to listen to the Ministry of Propaganda, one would know that everyone north of the Old Country was a member of some foreign horde or another, all of whom passed the time from birth until death by salivating over the tender organs of those living south of the wall.

  On the other hand, if one were to not listen to the Ministry of Propaganda, they’d know about it. The Ministry, that is. One’s file would then be turned over to the Ministry of Scrutiny, which everyone knows is simply a middleman who, in turn, turns files over to the Ministry of Comeuppance, who had received new appropriations for dungeons that year.

  The crags were the only place in the Old Country where goblins dared not go. No one had ever found a reason why, but then the practice of asking lots of questions was discouraged by the Ministry of Information Defense, who likewise referred files to the Ministry of Scrutiny.

  So it was that the crags were a favorite place among the residents for airing their grievances. One could snarl any number of swear words without fear of bringing down a congress to infest it.

  People did, however, tend to refrain from using the one that rhymes with “doorknob” and suggested what one’s mother might be doing in the company of lawyers behind a church. They still had to look their own mothers in the eye, and it’s a well-known fact that mothers know everything their children have ever done and said.

  Sloot and Roman arrived at sunset, and fortunately, there wasn’t much of a line. Nary a kick was thrown while they were in the most heated parts of it, but they must have been determined to wear out all of the worst swear words they knew.

  In the end, if anyone had been keeping score, they’d have reported that Sloot favored the one that literally meant “Carpathian banjo player,” and was an allegory for people who tickle their attractive cousins at family reunions for so long it gets weird.

  Roman, on the other hand, was all over the place. He used several that Sloot had never heard before, including the one that means the same as eating beans in a canoe, the one that implies Sloot has hairy feet from sleeping in a barn too often, and the one that means the same thing coming and going.

  “Do we have a deal?” Roman was lying on the ground, out of breath and covered in sweat.

  “O-okay,” stuttered Sloot, who’d only just stopped crying.

  “Good. You’re promoted to Agent Ninth Class in Carpathian Intelligence. It’s still not a paid position, but I can share a bit more information with you.”

  “All right.” Sloot wiped his nose on his sleeve. “Now tell me what happened with Myrtle.”

  “On yer own time!”

  Sloot looked to see that a line had formed in their wake. He could only make out their silhouettes because the rising sun was behind them, but all of them had their hands on their hips. They were angry.

  “We’ve been at it all night,” said Sloot.

  “We know!” yelled the angry shadow at the head of the line. “Now do yer makin’ up elsewhere, my wife’s been waiting for hours to give me what for!”

  “Sorry, folks,” said Roman. He motioned to Sloot, and the two of them started walking toward the seashore.

  “Oh, Myrtle,” Sloot cried, his face in his hands.

  “Tough luck, that.”

  “I really liked her, Roman.”

  “I know.”

  “How could she do that to us?”

  “Try not to think about it.”

  But it was all that he could think about. His career was destined for ruin, but he’d been worried about his career since he could remember. He’d never been this fond of a woman before, and he’d not even had a chance to fret over his deficiencies as a lover, or his incapacity to say the word “love” with intent. Their ro
mance had been snuffed out before he’d had a chance to ruin it.

  “You said you had a good feeling about the two of us,” said Sloot.

  “That’s the funny thing,” replied Roman. “I still do. And I’m never wrong about these things.”

  “You can’t possibly be right about this one though. Can you?”

  Roman shrugged. “Time will tell, or it won’t. All we can do is get on with it. Come on, it’s time you got your hands dirty.”

  Alleged Hypotheticals

  Sloot was rapidly running out of preconceived notions. This one in particular, in which the black market was a metaphor for the platform upon which illicit items were exchanged—not an actual market with handcarts and everything—was one which he’d felt very certain he’d gotten right; however, one secret knock on a door he’d have missed entirely if Roman hadn’t pointed it out, a mumbled passphrase he didn’t quite catch, and there they were.

  “Not a bad price on molotovs,” said Roman as they walked down an aisle with improvised incendiaries on one side and a variety of stilettos and blackjacks on the other. One prominent display implied that Sloot’s manhood might be seriously called into question if he were to strangle a person with anything other than genuine Malstruchen Garotte Wire, owing its quality to its “specially patented strand weaving technique” which was “preferred by nine of eleven professional assassins.”

  There were stages where dubious-looking characters employed all manner of showmanship, from dancing monkeys to scantily-clad ladies who didn’t seem to mind being narrowly missed by knives. There was a man in a top hat festooned with black feathers selling a sickly green ichor in glass bottles from a brightly painted wagon. He was next to a desk where a woman was selling goblin insurance.

  “It’s the same people in line to buy insurance every day,” said Roman. “Everybody walks into a crowded line. Works like a charm with the rubes.”

  “I can’t imagine the UQPE is pleased about them.”

  “Who?”

  “The queuers’ union.”

  “Oh. They’ve probably blackballed every one of this lot, standards and all. Still, everybody’s got to work, right?”

  The entire black market was housed in what appeared to be a cavernous confluence of sewer tunnels, which were thankfully free of the gallons of flowing excrement one might expect to find in such a place.

  “How is this place here?” asked Sloot, as they walked past bargain bins filled with three-for-a-silver brass knuckles, complete sets of lock picks, bags of caltrops, and other implements of assorted treachery to give one the edge in the course of less-than-savory pursuits.

  “I’m no philosopher,” said Roman. Sloot’s heart sank a bit as he thought of Arthur—Doctor Widdershins, rather—which, of course, made him think of Myrtle. He wished he could talk to her, ask her why she’d done it; then again, that sounded awfully like engaging conflict head-on, and he was more of an avoider in that arena. He pushed it out of his mind to focus on the market.

  “I mean it seems like a permanent arrangement,” said Sloot.

  “It’s well-hidden,” Roman replied.

  “Yes, but with Uncle on the prowl for places like this, you’d think they’d eventually―”

  “You’d think,” interrupted Roman, “and yet here we are.”

  “And yet here we are. I’ll bet you could get a really decent belt down here.”

  “Stop staring at the ceiling with your mouth open.” Roman nudged his shoulder. “That’s practically an invitation for every hoodlum within fifty feet to pick your pockets clean and sell you to a fellow they know down by the docks.”

  Sloot’s mouth snapped shut and, in a fit of improvisational genius, he adopted a scowl with one eye squinting and the other wide open.

  “Eh, better. But really, a belt? All the utensils of skullduggery at your disposal, at very competitive prices, I might add, and the first thing you’d think to buy is a belt?”

  “A nice leather one,” said Sloot. “Schlegelmann’s on Prancing Row is the only shop that’s got permits to sell them to civilians, so they cost five times what they should, and their craftsmanship is horrid. I’ve had wool belts my whole life because I won’t give in to their highway robbery. I’d really love a nice leather one, though.”

  “We’ll see what we can do,” said Roman. Sloot followed him through a low archway, past the palest woman he’d ever seen in his life, who was selling an assortment of bones that he convinced himself belonged to animals who’d died of natural causes. Next to her was a steel door with a wheel in the center. Roman picked up a hammer lying next to the door and gave it three solid thunks.

  “Wossat?” The voice belonged to the bloodshot pair of eyes lurking behind the little panel in the door that slid open. Sloot imagined that there must be a mouth below them to which the voice actually belonged, but the way his week was going, he wasn’t quite ready to risk one of his endangered preconceived notions.

  “We seek an audience.” Roman patted a pouch on his belt that made a meek little jingling noise.

  “With who?”

  “With whom,” said Sloot.

  The little portal slammed shut.

  “What’d you do that for?” asked Roman.

  “Because it was correct!”

  “If you’re done being smug, there’s more at stake down here than proper grammar!”

  “Sorry,” said Sloot. He then silently retracted the apology. A gentleman should never apologize for defending the Domnitor’s rules on grammar, long may he reign.

  Then again, as Roman repeated his hammering on the door, the peculiar realization dawned on Sloot that wielding his grammatical prowess had never won him a single friend. It was awfully lonely, being right all the time.

  “You again?”

  “Pardon the professor,” Roman apologized. “We seek an audience.”

  “Having trouble hearing you.”

  Roman sighed and glared at Sloot. He moved a handful of silver coins from a different pouch to the one he’d jingled before, then held it up and shook it with reluctant vigor.

  “With … with what person?”

  “With Auntie, if she’s not gone to bed.”

  The little panel slammed shut.

  “I thought we were here to see―”

  “My auntie, that’s right!” said Roman. “Probably best if you let me do all of the talking then, all right?”

  After a series of clanks and rattles, the great steel door eventually opened. They were waved through by a man who must’ve been half-ogre. The other half was some sort of scientific experiment, likely an attempt to answer the question “how many muscles are too many?” He snarled at Sloot as he passed, his throat thundering a grumble that dared Sloot to correct its tense. Sloot refrained.

  The sizes of both the door and the doorman had given Sloot the impression that there would be a lot more behind it, yet there they were, inching and shouldering their way around the little table that occupied most of the room. Calling it a “room” was generous. It made the closet in Sloot’s apartment seem palatial by comparison.

  Roman and Sloot sat on two of the three wooden stools around the little table just as a knock came from the identical steel door on the wall opposite the one they’d used.

  “Pardon me.” The ogre reached across to the other door with an arm that was so severely overpopulated with muscles it qualified as a humanitarian crisis. It showed no sign of exertion in spinning the big wheel in the door and pulling it open.

  “Hello boys,” said an older woman, who only could have been Winking Bob. She nodded to the ogre and took the final seat at the table. The ogre pushed the door closed behind her, then folded his arms and stared off into space, which the room lacked entirely.

  “Will he be staying?” Roman made a tiny nod toward the ogre.

  “Don’t worry about Edmund,” sa
id Bob. “He’s just here in case voices are raised. Not that he’s technically here, mind you. None of us are, as far as anything outside this room—which may or may not exist—is concerned. Agreed?”

  “Insofar as there is anything to agree to, yes,” Roman replied. He and Bob smiled at each other with their mouths, but it didn’t appear that their eyes were joining in the festivities.

  Bob wore a simple yet elegant black dress with a corset that defied even the smallest of meals. She looked to be about as old as Roman, though in terms of his abject failure to age with a shred of grace, the two could not have been more different. She flashed Sloot the same dead-eyed smile, both alluring and unnerving.

  “I don’t believe we’ve met,” said Bob, “not that it’s happening now, of course.”

  “Of course,” said Sloot.

  “This is Sloot Peril,” said Roman. “Financier to Lord Wilhelm Hapsgalt. Sloot, if you were meeting anyone at the moment, there’s a chance that she might be Winking Bob.”

  “How do you do?” asked Sloot.

  “Busy,” said Bob, “I’m always busy. Too busy to be here, of course, which is why I’ve got a rock-solid alibi that places me across town. What can I do for you gentlemen, in theory?”

  “We’d like to discuss the burgling of Whitewood,” answered Roman.

  “The alleged burgling, don’t you mean?”

  “Oh, the burgling is a matter of fact,” stated Roman. “The alleging has to do with what person or persons, who may or may not be in this very room at the moment, may or may not have been involved in such.”

  Sloot was bewildered. Wasn’t Myrtle responsible for the burglary? She wasn’t in the room, was she? He looked under the table but saw nothing but an arrangement of knees.

  “A matter of fact? Then there’s a report on file with the constabulary?”

  “You know perfectly well there isn’t,” said Roman. “People as wealthy as the Hapsgalts don’t go running to constables when they’re burgled. It would be a scandal, a sign of weakness! ‘Just wait a few weeks until we’ve trucked a few new piles of money into the vault,’ you may as well shout to the local villains, ‘and do bring your own sacks, ours have been burgled!’”