As Flies to Wanton Boys (Immortal Treachery Book 2)

by Allan Batchelder

  Spirk looked over at his master in shock. “Killed her? Me? No, no. I dint do nothing. Anything.”

  Titus’ ‘laughter’ intensified until it overwhelmed the little man, dissolved into an uncontrollable hacking cough. Forgetting about the lovely young thing asleep on the floor, his manservant rushed to his side and gently elevated his head and torso so that he might spit up or swallow whatever it was that was troubling his lungs. After several long and (for Spirk) terrifying moments, His Lordship’s breathing eased.

  “Would have been a fine way to go out, laughing.”

  Spirk frowned. “Don’t say such things, milord.”

  “Long,” said Titus irritably, “I never know whether to smack you or laugh at you.” This was quite a speech for His Lordship, and required several deep breaths before continuing. “There’s none here cares for me. And none anywhere cares you for, I don’t doubt.” At Spirk’s dismayed expression, Titus add, “But you make my passing easier, and I…thank you for it.”

  Now, it was applause coming from the other side of the room that caught Spirk off-guard. Before he could look over, His Lordship grabbed his ear and pulled him closer. “Don’t. Even. Acknowledge. Her,” he wheezed.

  “A touching, touching performance!” Faenia called out. She must have awakened during her uncle’s coughing fit and climbed to her feet in the commotion. “But, sadly, only a performance. You’ve never known gratitude a day in your life, uncle!”

  Titus hadn’t the strength or the breath to respond.

  “And you!” Faenia called over to Spirk. “What sort of a trick was that to play upon a lady? Or do you dislike women, eh?”

  “Watch your tongue, wench!” said Titus at last. “Or my Shaper here will fry your innards!”

  It was a ludicrous gambit, of course. Spirk, a Shaper?

  Faenia bought it, or seemed to. Something had caused her to collapse, after all, and just when she’d been about to pounce. She stared warily at Spirk. “There’s never been a Shaper yet who could withstand a knife in the back.”

  “Or a harlot!” Titus parried.

  Faenia sneered at both men a final time, turned on her heel, and headed out of the room much more noisily than she’d entered.

  “Clodpole,” His Lordship whispered in Spirk’s direction, “send for my notary.”

  “Your what?”

  Titus rolled his eyes and sighed. “My notary. Look, cockscomb, do you know who the House Steward is?”

  Spirk nodded.

  “Progress! Find out the Steward and tell him to send the notary to my chambers forthwith. And you’d better ask for the captain of my guard, as well.”

  “Is there trouble?” asked Spirk.

  “Oh,” the ancient little man smiled, “there’s always trouble.”

  ~SIX~

  Long, House Thornton

  It was as authentic a dungeon cell as could be imagined, if only Long had merely imagined it. The wall at his back was every bit as cold and dank as common mythology made such walls out to be; the chains attaching him to said wall were as heavy, rusted and unforgiving, and even the floor on which he sat was as damp and filthy. The air was both chilly and putrescent, a sickening miasma of sweat, urine, feces, lime, calcite and other, less identifiable odors. If Long had had anything in his stomach, he might have vomited, save that fear of adding to the general stench discouraged such behavior. If all of this weren’t bad enough, there was the darkness, such darkness as Long had never experienced. His eyes could not adjust to it, and he could see nothing at any distance. He even punched himself in the mouth once accidentally, waving his hands about in attempt to spot them in the blackness. Here, again, was the despair he’d forgotten when the End-of-All-Things was destroyed.

  How long had he been here? Long couldn’t begin to guess. It felt like days, at the very least. It might have been weeks. He remembered being struck across the back of his head. And then he’d woken up in blackness – cold, stiff, sore and hungry. Once in a while, he heard a faint babbling from the cell next door, which made him wonder if there wasn’t a hole or crack in the wall between his own cell and its neighbor. He would have liked to find it, were he not chained in place, so that he might listen more closely to his unseen companion in misery.

  And he thought of Mardine and little – relatively little – Esmine. Long had been in worse scrapes. Or closer to death, anyway. Since he couldn’t see a way out of his current predicament, he was perhaps as good as dead. What in Mahnus’ name had possessed him to take this cursed assignment? And why-oh-why had he attempted to sneak off into the mansion by himself? He’d stolen the life meant for Short Pete, he figured, and Short Pete had stolen Long’s death. At all events, he’d probably never see his beloved wife and daughter again.

  Long sagged in his chains, allowed his thoughts to wander to things less painful. Although his prison was precise in every detail, it lacked rats, so far as he’d been able to tell. That was an oversight on his captors’ part, surely. Or it might have been that the rats of House Thornton were of a better sort, too refined for skulking about in such undignified surroundings. Long envied them.

  The Babbler started up again, and Long Pete called out to him, at least as well as his ruined voice would allow.

  “Hello!” he croaked.

  The babbling continued without pause.

  “You there, neighbor!” Long yelled. It was a horrific sound, like that of a table being dragged across a rough stone floor.

  The babbling stopped. Before Long could muster another call, the babbling resumed.

  Finally, Long rattled his chains and roared incoherently. The babbling and the Babbler stopped.

  “Eh?” someone ventured from beyond the wall. So, there was a hole somewhere.

  “Have you got a name, friend?” Long asked of the darkness.

  “Name?” Lunatic laughter. “My name’s a shame, my claim to fame. I’m not to blame if you touch the flame. You’ll come up lame, all the same.”

  Ugh. A madman. Still, Long supposed, in his desperate situation, a madman’s company had to be better than no company at all. “A poet, are you? You got a name, poet?”

  “My name’s a shame,” the Babbler said again. “They call me ‘Peppers,’ a name I wouldn’t give to lepers. ‘Peppers,’ they call me, spicy and hot, it says what I am, but it hides what I’m not.”

  “Peppers,” Long echoed. “Peppers.”

  “Peppers, Peppers, that’s how I’m known, a spicy name is all I own. You can bitch, and I can moan, but it’s still the same: my name’s a shame.”

  With little else to do, Long indulged the man. “How a shame?”

  “How a shame? It’s just the frame, it’s not the painting. It’s says what I am, but not what I ainting. Nobody knows the man I was, nobody does, and that’s because that man I am is just a sham.”

  Long debated the wisdom in continuing the conversation. In the end, he pressed on. “Why did they put you in here, Peppers?” he rasped.

  “In the huggermugger was I taken, to make me know I was mistaken, I played my game, I sullied their name, they took it amiss and this and this, down into the black, alas, alack! Will no one ever fetch me back?”

  If there was method in this madness, Long could not see it. But then, he could see nothing else, either. He grew both frustrated and bored trying to decipher Pepper’s strange jabbering, and it was not long before he fell asleep from the effort.

  Sometime later, he drifted awake and miraculously understood at least a small part of Pepper’s riddling: the fellow had insulted House Thornton and they’d imprisoned him for it. Or maybe they’d just imprisoned him for his bad poetry. Long could hardly blame them. It was a strange kind of verse, really. Less about meaning than rhythm, it pounded its way into one’s mind like a drum beat. Before he knew what he was doing, Long found himself repeating some of the phrases.

  “I sullied their name, they took it amiss and this and this…” He ought to have known he’d rouse the poet.

  “I coulda
stayed out, I coulda been free, not here in the dark, in the damp, in the dank with thee. But I spoke my piece, I said what I must, now I’m down in the dark, in the damp, in the dust.”

  “Peppers!” Long yelled (as best he was able).

  Silence.

  “Can you speak to me, man-to-man, without all that rhyming?”

  A pause.

  “No.”

  And Peppers said nothing else. Minutes went by, perhaps even an hour, and Long decided to let the matter drop for the time being.

  *****

  There was a mechanical grinding in what Long took to be the lock of the cell’s door, followed by a painful screeching from its hinges, and then light, lantern light, leapt into the cell, temporarily dazing the prisoner. The shapes of two men stomped heavily in his direction; the lantern swung round ‘til it was right in his face. He winced and turned his head away.

  “Still alive, then? Good.” Said the man whose voice Long recognized as belonging to the Steward. To his companion, the Steward said “Unlock the wall chain, but leave the manacles. Sometimes, these bastards get stupid and we have to kill them.”

  Oh, Long heard that. He was in no condition to put up a fight, anyway.

  “We’ll take him to Master Dorrick’s study,” the Steward continued.

  From the next cell, “Master Dorrick, worthless prick, perfect Fyne, asinine.”

  “You want me to piss in your water, Peppers, I will!” the Steward yelled back.

  “Again?” Peppers cackled. “What men, what men! They piss in my drink, they spit on my bread, they shit on my spirit, I’m still not dead!”

  The Steward’s companion violently yanked Long to his feet. He barely noticed. He was thinking of Peppers. Madman he may be, but he was also undeniably quick. Long supposed it a natural consequence of living in rhyme. What purpose did this serve? That was harder to reason out.

  An exhausting series of passageways and then hallways flew by as Long was roughly hustled through the dungeons and ultimately into a large, well-lit, sparsely furnished chamber that must have been on the other side of the world from his cell. A sturdy, solitary chair stood in the middle of the room, and Long understood its purpose immediately.

  “So,” he gasped, “it’s torture, is it?”

  The Steward slapped him across the face, whilst the other man secured his chains to the chair and floor. “No torture today, we’re too far behind schedule. But I wanted to make sure you tasted a little pain, so you wouldn’t be disappointed.”

  None of which made the least bit of sense to Long.

  “Watch him,” the Steward told his companion. “I’ll be right back with Master Dorrick.” Long listened to the sound of the Steward’s footsteps on the stone floor, reckoned the door was some fourteen paces away – fourteen paces he barely remembered taking himself. The door opened and closed and silence followed. The second man stood nearby, smelling of fish oil.

  Long tried again. “You’re behind schedule, then?”

  The other man punched him in the stomach so hard, Long would have puked, had he eaten recently. He had to admire the man’s choice of targets: a blow to the face or head was usually the popular option, but those left marks that sometimes frustrated higher ranking sadists, who invariably preferred a pristine canvas on which to work. Long wondered if he could goad the fellow into breaking his nose and thus bring punishment upon himself when the Steward returned. He decided he liked his nose more than he hated his nameless persecutor, so he said nothing further.

  In time, the door opened and two sets of footsteps made their way over to the chair.

  “Is this the spy?” a voice asked. But it was not just any voice.

  “That’s what we’re here to determine,” replied the Steward.

  “They’re always spies,” Janks answered, “in my experience.”

  *****

  Mardine, in the village

  Everyone knew Mardine, of course. How could they not? She was the only giant hereabouts and one of the few red-heads, to boot. She was also one of the friendliest folk you’d ever care to meet. But not today. Today, she came into town like a winter storm – cold, powerful and bent on damage. Those who called out to her in expectation of a warm greeting were mystified when she ignored them as she thundered past. Trouble was coming. Trouble was here. The only question was, was it wiser to secure the shutters and hide under the bed, or follow in the giantess’ wake and see where help was needed most? Another question occurred to a number of townsfolk: which of them had been stupid enough to anger Mardine?

  When the giantess reached the heart of the village, she grabbed the nearest thrall by the throat and lifted him high into the air. The rest of the villagers stared from a safe distance.

  “Where’s Nelby got to?”

  The thrall could hardly speak.

  Mardine loosened her grip. “Where’s Nelby?”

  “Nelby?” the man whined.

  Mardine gave him a vicious rattling and tossed him aside, fire in her eyes. She spotted a ‘Hire a Thrall’ bill on the side of the town grocery and tore it down. “Where is Nelby?” she roared. The only response she heard was the sound of doors slamming, windows shutting, bolts being thrown.

  Mardine kicked in the door of the grocery and squeezed into the shop. Several people were hiding behind the counter at the room’s far end.

  “N-now, M-Mardine, that’s my d-door you just busted. ‘S g-gonna c-cost me a few shims to f-fix that, I’ll w-warrant.”

  “I’m right sorry, Dyx,” said Mardine, “But I’ve no time for nonsense. Nelby’s ta’en my girl, and I mean to get her back before…before…” She couldn’t finish the sentence.

  Quickly, Dyx found his way to her side, completely unconcerned for his own welfare. “Nelby’s got Esmine, you say? Why ever would she do that?”

  “I’ve no idea, Dyx, and I don’t care, either. I just want my girl back.”

  “How can I help?”

  Mardine looked into the man’s kind, eternally rosy face. “Can you help? I need to know where the thralls go when they’re not working.”

  “Thought everyone knew that,” he said. “They’re down by the river, most days.”

  The river? Sweet Alheria, not the river. If Nelby boarded a barge, Mardine wasn’t like to find her again in this lifetime.

  Dyx put a hand on Mardine’s forearm. “C’mon, Em, I’ll show you,” he said. The giantess suspected he was really just trying to lead her away from his shop, but she could hardly refuse a little guidance at this point.

  Outside the shop, the constable pointed his sword at Mardine and Dyx.

  “Can’t have you attackin’ the thralls, Mardine. No matter what you think they done.”

  “They took my Esmine, Rannidge.”

  “You know for a fact it was this one?” he asked, indicating the injured thrall across the road.

  “I don’t. And I don’t care, either. One of ‘em did it, and they’re all going to pay.”

  “Don’t make me arrest you,” the little constable warned.

  “Go ahead and try, Rannidge. I’m in no mood.”

  Dyx said nothing.

  Rannidge shrugged. “Gotta enforce the law.”

  “And what about the mother’s law?” Mardine bellowed in his face. “What about a mother’s obligation to her child? I swear, constable, you get in my way, it’ll be the last thing you do in this life.”

  The constable lowered his weapon, stared at his feet. “They’ll have my job for this,” he said, more to himself than the giantess. “They might even put me behind bars.”

  “Mahnus’ll look out for you, Ran. I’m sure o’ that.” Mardine nodded to Dyx, who began walking towards River road. With a final glance at Rannidge, Mardine followed.

  Ten minutes later, the pair arrived at the boat landing, trailed by some twenty or twenty-five curious villagers who wanted to see what happened next. And what happened next was, Mardine went crazy. With a quick burst of speed, she closed on the nearest bunch of thralls �
�� who had somehow failed to mark her arrival – and grabbed three of them in her capacious hands. She had two by their shirts in her right hand and one by the hair in her left. All, she lifted into the air. If the other thralls spent even a moment considering some sort of resistance, it wasn’t obvious to anyone watching. Instead, they jumped into bushes, dove into the river, or ran up or downstream along its banks. Thralls were used to being treated with suspicion or contempt; they were accustomed to being abused by the Free Folk, as they called the natives. And so, when Mardine charged into action, they fled.

  In Mardine’s mind, however, this was evidence of their complicity in Esmine’s disappearance, and it only made her angrier.