by Duncan, Hal
Fabbles: 0.5
Hal Duncan
Copyright © 2013 by Hal Duncan
All rights reserved.
New Sodom Press
www.halduncan.com
"A Scruffian Christmas" first published 2009 in a limited edition PDF ebook gift release for sponsors of The Scruffians Project.
"The Beast of Buskerville" first published 2010 in PDF ebook edition via the author's website as part of The Scruffians Project.
Audio editions of "A Scruffian Christmas" and other Scruffians stories are available via the author's website at: www.halduncan.com. From the menu bar, select Take > Audio Downloads > MP3 Readings Service.
Print edition: these two stories together with "The Taking of the Stamp" can be found in the FABBLES: 1 chapbook, available in a trade edition or in a personalised speshul edition. See www.halduncan.com for details.
An ebook edition of "The Taking of the Stamp" is out now from Popcorn, an imprint of La Case Books, available on all major platforms. For more Scruffians fabbles, and sundry other tales of sprites and sodomites, see the forthcoming collection from Lethe Press, SCRUFFIANS! Contact the author at [email protected] to join the Scruffians mailing list, for news on future releases.
Also available from the author:
VELLUM: THE BOOK OF ALL HOURS 1
INK: THE BOOK OF ALL HOURS 2
ESCAPE FROM HELL!
AN A-Z OF THE FANTASTIC CITY
SONGS FOR THE DEVIL AND DEATH
Forthcoming works:
SCRUFFIANS! (Lethe Press, April 2014)
TESTAMENT (TBA)
RHAPSODY (TBA)
New Sodom Press
www.halduncan.com
A Scruffian Christmas
Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the workhouse not a creature was stirring… on account of any stirring’d most likely lead to a sound thrashing and a night in the mortuary, like, if the master heard a peep of it. No, if there’d been a mouse in the workhouse even he’d have kept his squeaker shut for fear of a master crueller than any cat. Not that a mouse could’ve lived off the crumbs in that workhouse, mind, where the paupers were eating the peelings for the pigs, and sucking the bones as they were grinding for fertiliser.
•
No, not one little waif in the kiddies’ dormitories give even a snottery sob into a scrap of sleeve. They all knowed what anyone ascertained to be an agitant was in for, yeah? A guinea for a gamin, the overseers’d say. You mind yer manners and make yer money, or you’ll be sold for a Scruffian, you hear? They’ll put the Stamp on yer, Fix yer forever, and all ye’ll be is meat in the machine!
They didn’t know ’xactly what Fixed meant, the littl’uns—not like us what’s had it done, eh, scamps?—but they knowed it was bad.
•
No, the Waiftaker General, he were as strange a story to them as Father Christmas. And the Institute—yeah, that Bad Place where he put the thingy on yer chest and it hurt summat hellish, then he cut yer pinky off and it grew right back—the Institute were as far away as the North Pole to them. Indentured means enslaved, they knowed. But they didn’t know how the Stamp makes yer Scruffian, so’s however yer starved or maimed by a master, well, ye’ll always return to how yer Fixed. They just knowed enough to fear it.
Most of em.
•
See, there were one waif in the workhouse that Christmas Eve, and he were quiet as the rest of em—quieter even—but he were quiet in another way. Puckerscruff, you mind how Rake Jake Scallion looked as the stickmen carted him off to Newgate? All slyly smiling even in his chains, like it were all part of his plan? That were this unruffled lad as they led him to his bed and blanket. Oh, the soot that smeared every inch of him hid the look on his face a little, but them waifs saw the rebel in his eye.
•
A sweep’s lad, so’s his sad story went, when he turned up at the iron gates, bells ringing evenfall, night closing in, him shivering in the snow. A chimney-sweep’s boy, only his master up and drinked himself to death, it being the season of celebrations. May the Good Lord punish this ungrateful wretch, sobs the urchin, but he’d whip me for saying my prayers, sir, even when I blessed him for his Christian charity. And now he’s poisoned by gin, and I’ve nowhere to go, and… and…
Peter Black, he said his name was as they brung him in.
•
He’s blessed, says they—leastways, there’s a lot of blessings in their words—cause those iron gates was near locked for the night; a minute later and he would’ve been on a hiding to nothing. They don’t hear him muttering how he’s used to hiding and used to nothing; they’s too busy ensuring his education in the Christmas spirit they’re exemplifying, charitable Christians what they are, ’specially seeing as how it’s well past supper and scrubbing-up time, with festive fun awaiting them as has families to be getting home to. Oh, they’s most eloquent as regards his good fortune.
•
So now, here’s this soot-covered sweep’s lad, sat on a mouldy mattress, on a bed what stinks of the foundling as has recently vacated it, vacated the world in general, actually. Kicked into the room with a good-natured laugh and a gracious promise—breakfast and a good bath in the morning being, as they puts it, the only gifts a filthy guttersnipe like you’ll be getting, and be grateful even for that, wretch. So here’s he sits, this Peter Black, with all them other waifs laying in their beds but awake, peering at his shadow in the dark.
•
When he stands up, they all starts to fret, like. When he walks to the window, they all sits up in their beds. When the floorboard under his foot gives a squeak, one of em’s bold enough to hiss a shush at him, finger to his lips. There’s panic in all of their eyes as the lad just smiles, his teeth so white in the pitch-black. Not one of em’s brave enough to whisper him to stop though, as he fetches a match and a stub of candle from his ragged shirt, strikes the one and lights the other.
•
He moves the candle to the left, then to the right. He covers it with a hand, then he takes his hand away. Goes through this strange routine three times, so he does, before sauntering back to the middle of the room, cocky as can be, like as he’d have his paws in his pockets if his breeches only had em. Sets the candle down on the floor, yeah? Then sets himself down cross-pinned, with a glance of his glinting rebel eye around the room.
—Blimey, says he. I ain’t never seen such timid tykes in all me natural.
•
—Hush! whispers one, his eyes as wide as a Whitechapel tart’s snapper. The master’ll hear yer and—
—It’s Christmas Eve, says this saucy sweep’s lad. Trust me, Tiny Timid, a Scruffian don’t do nothing lest he’s sure it’s safe. Unless it’s fun. Or he’s got a good reason. Or leastways a reason. Well… never mind, in this here case, we’s sent him a pressie—from the parishioners, so’s he thinks. By now, the bugger should have polished off the port and be guggling out a glass of the finest brandy Lightfinger Larker ever half-inched. Laced with laudanum now, like.
•
Well, if there was ever a room of workhouse waifs as wonder-struck as them, I ain’t never heard of it. Half of em was blowed over by the balls of this lad in speaking at all. Half of em was blowed over by that word what weren’t bleeder or blighter or blackguard—and aimed at the workhouse master too, of all men! But half of em, all’s they heard were the word Scruffian and that struck fear into their hearts. Why, if their ears weren’t deceiving em, if they weren’t bonkers to even believe in Scruffians, this were one!
•
—You’re a Scruffian? whispers one.
—What’s a Scruffians? hisses another.
—Is it true? asks a third. Is it true they cuts yer soul out and puts it in a box and then even fire can’t burn yer
and—
—Nah, most of that’s a load of bollocks, says the lad. But come cosy up round this here glim and I’ll show yer what I am.
And as he says this, he reaches his hand inside his shirt, stretching right round the back and down, as if to get summat tucked into his breeches. And out comes his hand holding a shiv.
•
The first waif comes tiptoeing timorously from his bed as our lad takes the edge of that shiv to the wrist of his left fam, cuts deep enough to spurt. The second and third come creeping, silent, as he puts that hand to his chest, starts rubbing at the soot there, using that squirting blood to wet and wipe the black. More of em come then, horrified by the gory muck, by the fact he’s washing it crimson now. All of em’s crowded round by the time’s he wipes the blood off with his shirt, to show em the Stamp.
•
Even streaked with blood, now’s the soot’s gone it ain’t hard to see the scars on him, criss-crossing this way and that, circling and spiraling, like the strangest script written in his skin. It’s who he is, what’s writ on him, says he, stamped into his flesh to Fix him forever. He was once a workhouse waif like them. He stops a second, gives a queer little smile, sorta sad. In a way, he is a workhouse waif like them, he says. Always will be.
—Still. It has it’s perks, says he.
He holds up a wrist already healed.
•
As them waifs all sit in awe, he clambers to his pins, saunters to the door. He tells em to wait here for… half an hour or so, he reckons. Shouldn’t take too long to sneak his way through the workhouse, do what has to be done. He don’t say what that is, but his impish grin and the wink he tips em says it’s all in the name of festive fun.
—Bless yer sweet souls, says he. It’s a crime as waifs should want at Christmas.
Then off he slips, so softly, quiet as a thief in the night.
•
They waits then, the waifs. They waits for minutes and minutes. Ain’t none of em as can imagine what might be in store, but every one of em is whipped up to whispers, and counting those minutes, the seconds, the beats of their hearts. Why, if it ain’t a true Christmas Eve for em! All the anticipation they ain’t never had before, on a night as only ever minded em of their motherless misery! One nipper peers out the window, pipes up that the gates is open now. Whatever could be happening?
—Come see, says the Scruffian at the door.
•
Now he leads em out the room. They’re terrified at first, thinking what if the master catches em out, what if there’s an overseer about, what if, what if! But our black-faced Scruffian seems so sure as he struts ahead that it ain’t too long before their whispers become murmurs, and their murmurs become chatter, and their chatter becomes excited. And there’s another Scruffian leading the girls from their dormitory. And they’re all babbling chipper as chaffinches, like life’d never ground em down at all, as they piles into the refectory. And they hushes.
—Grub’s up, says the Scruffian.
•
Now, us Scruffians learn to live with starving, Fixed with hunger in our bellies. It’s a cruel thing, innit? Cause even when yer have a bang up feast—like what we had after yer liberation, mind, when Flashjack and Joey sprung yer from the Institute?—well it’s barely over than yer tummy’s torturing yer again. But it works both ways for us, that hunger Fixed so’s it can’t get worse. But think how’s it is for them waifs what’s wasting, wasting to the grave as the workhouse master gobbles up his roast goose. Maybes yer might even mind that misery.
•
Well, that’s why, when them waifs walked into the refectory, well, most of em near wept for joy, cause what did they see but a score of Scruffians with pots of stew, and pies, and sausages—and was that rashers of bacon all piled up on a plate, and another with—could it be?—roast ham? Oh, the smell of that roast ham, it filled the very air! There weren’t much in the way of veg, like, but bollocks to veg when there’s meat on the table, eh? Meat, meat and more meat! They hadn’t never seen such a thing!
•
I tell yer, there were a few of the Scruffians as didn’t have dry eyes themselves, watching them tykes tuck in, smiling proudly whiles they nibbled on a sausage themselves or munched on a pie. It’s a glorious feeling to give such a gift; that’s why we does it, sore as it is on us.
What’s that, scamp?
Every year. Different workhouse, natch. They tends to up the security afters, but they has to hush it up, cause they knows it’s us. Can’t exactly blab to the Bow Street Runners, fingering them as they sold for Scruffian slaves. Not officially.
•
Oh, but the best is still to come. Yeah, stick that in the pot, scamp; good lad. No, Flashjack, not that. Scrape the meat off it for the sausage mince; don’t want no bones in the stew. Where was I? Yeah, the best bit of the story! Cause that feast were only for Christmas Eve, to fill the bellies of them ravenous ragamuffins, give em a taste of happiness, so’s they’d meet the morning with smiles on their faces. Grub as a gift’s all fine and dandy, but bollocks to getting what yer need for Christmas. That’s just shite, eh?
•
So, by some happy coincidence of timing—what might seem unlikely and invented, if one was a sour-faced sodding scofflaw as picks holes in stories, Joey—by some fluke of fate, as it happened, the last morsel of meat got its last munch in a waif’s mouth, and was swallowed down on the very moment that, out in the cold, December night, Bow Bells began to chime.
—Well, blow me! says that black-face Scruffian. Why, it’s never…
And as all the waifs look round at him, he grins.
—It ain’t never midnight, is it? That means…
—MERRY CHRISTMAS!
•
And fuck me up the cracker with a stickman’s cosh if the voice that bellows out that Yuletide blessing don’t belong to none other than Bold Nick Scantilaw. The oldest Rake what ever lived, and the most Scruffian of em all, for all his size and shape, a true Scruffian in his heart. Bold Nick Scantilaw, Fixed in his infirmity, fatter than Falstaff and fine with that. Oh, he’s a jolly old soul, with his beard and belly, his robes as red as the robin’s breast. When the stickmen’s bloodstains are fresh, that is. Mostly they’re sorta reddish-brown, like.
•
—MERRY CHRISTMAS! says he. Why, the night I’ve had, bashing in the brains of blackguards who’d sell waifs into slavery, ripping out the hearts of the rich and ruthless who’d buy em, lopping off limbs of factory-owners who’d throw scamps and scrags into the grinding gears. Oh, the stickmen are trembling in their beds tonight, my foundlings and furies! Bold Nick’s hellion crew’s abroad, and the Waiftaker General himself wouldn’t dare show his face on my streets. You can call me a fool, but I’m king for the night! This night is mine, and I call it MERRY CHRISTMAS!
•
And out he swaggers among the wide-eyed waifs, hauling presents from the sack unslung from his shoulder. Here’s a locket as once belonged to your mother, says he to one. And this wipe was swiped across your father’s brow, he says to another. This fob watch was your Uncle Jake’s, says he to a third. You didn’t know you had an Uncle Jake? he says. Ho ho ho! My boy, you did, and he so wanted you to have this.
Why, Bold Nick Scantilaw has gifts for all—better still, pressies only truly precious to them as gets em.
•
You should’ve seen the smiles on those waifs’ faces, scamps. A beauty to behold, it were. Well, ye’ll see it tonight. He always has pressies for the Scruffians too, you know, maybes a tarnished trinket, maybes the gaudiest gold, but always summat as only you would truly cherish. Where do he get them? He’s Bold Nick Scantilaw! He takes em back, from them powerful privileged fuckers as prised em from their rightful place.
What? Of course they really belonged to them waifs’ folks. Give me this very ticker last year, what I played with on me grandad’s knee. Gob’s truth!
•
Well, there ain’t much more to tell than tha
t, really. Bold Nick Scantilaw, he gives out them pressies, but he has to be offsky after, sharpish like, cause it’s Christmas, and that ain’t the only workhouse in the world, eh? And the Scruffians, they has to be offsky before the stickmen or the traps come. And the waifs? Well, we offers em to come with us if they wants, but ain’t more’n a handful of em ever does. Ain’t like it’s that much safer being an escaped slave, on the streets. No, most’re happy with just having had… a Christmas.
•
See, it’s the giving as matters, scamps. Course, ain’t much yer can give when ye’ve got fuck all yerselves; really, all’s we’ve got to give em is ourselves. But us Scruffians can give plenty of that, right?
Yeah, I know it hurts, but it’ll grow back. See? The stumps already sprouting. And don’t the stew taste scrummy? Now, you trot offsky, go get yer shivs from Flashjack.
Psst, Joey. How’s that Scantilaw costume coming along?
Yes, you have to. Yer the only one as can do the voice. And you loves it anyways.
Besides, it wouldn’t be Christmas without Scantilaw.
The Beast of Buskerville
• 1
The Beast of Buskerville? Now there’s a tale! Why, it’s only the tale of old Whelp, eh? The tale of the most frightsome hound as ever haunted London, and of Yapper, the Scruffian as learned to speak Dog, the Scruffian as tamed Whelp… well, as near to tamed him as that snarling, slavering, scurrilous cur of a canine ever could be tamed. But more’n that, scamps, this here’s a tale of the single most villainest villain ever to prey on the likes of us, the vulture of vagabonds, the buzzard of beggars, the scavenger of Scruffians… the Waiftaker General himself.