Wergild

by Boris L Slocum

  The man seemed piety quickened into life.

  Deirdre was so disarmed by the moment and by the verve of the preacher’s soliloquy that she didn’t think to be suspicious when he urged her and Isabel to go ahead to a new inn and wait for him there.

  “It’s been a long and weary trip,” he claimed, “and I haven’t had time for a proper confession from a senior prelate. If it’s all the same, ladies, I’ll tarry here and unburden my soul. There’s an inn down the High Road, yonder, called the Home of the Seven Saints. The owner is the most devout and delicious woman you could imagine.” The cleric slid Deirdre a small purse. “I’ll be along shortly.”

  It took the entire walk from the church to the inn for Deirdre to pull the wool from off her eyes. What had she been thinking? The Fiend wasn’t going for confession, communion, or any other rite. She and Isabel already were at the inn and sitting at a booth in the dining hall before Deirdre began swearing under her breath.

  “Tuppence!” was the young Gheet woman’s shocked whisper.

  “Oh, sorry. I just forgot something I needed to tell Reverend Ainsley. You don’t mind waiting here until I return? It shouldn’t be more than two shakes of a duck’s tail.”

  The young lass had by then already snaked out of the booth, and Isabel gave her a kind smile and a nod. Dashing out the door and striding up the street, Deirdre continued to scold herself. Really, what had she been thinking? If she reached the church and found…. She made a guttural sound and picked up her pace.

  She made it to the church in half the time it took her and Isabel to walk from it, and when she pulled open the nearest of the two great double doors that were the enormous structure’s front entrance, she should not have been surprised by what she saw. But she was, deeply.

  Within the church, she beheld a balding old fat man bent double over the central alter, and he was as naked as the day he was born. Behind the now purple-faced and pathetically gagging and whimpering man was the Fiend, his hands gripped hard around some sturdy cloth he was using as a garrote to throttle his hapless victim.

  When she spoke, it was in a voice choked with she knew not what. “I cannot leave you alone for even a minute!” She didn’t know why she said that. They were the only words that seemed to leap to mind.

  “Ah, Tuppence. Hello again. Could you close the door?”

  Throughout, the Fiend’s fat victim continued to choke and squeal, and several incoherent gurgling noises now emanated from him that may have been attempts to beg mercy.

  Deirdre ignored them, but by reflex reached back and pulled the door closed. The streets weren’t crowded, but neither were they empty. What if someone walked in at that moment? The Fiend hadn’t even thought to bar the door. Her ire finally bested her shock and fear.

  “Will you stop that!” she hissed as quietly as her temper permitted.

  “What?”

  “I…!” she began to shout.

  “Oh, very well…,” said the Fiend, adopting a conciliatory tone, after which his mouth distended, and in one swift move he locked his huge fangs onto the gurgling and choking man’s neck, twisted once to a cracking sound, and leapt to the ceiling twenty feet above, where he swiftly used the cloth garrote to hang the now lifeless corpse from the central rafter.

  As he dropped to the floor, the reverend, now more Fiend than clergyman, reached out with the claw of a single finger and pricked the naked corpse’s great belly. A long and lean slither of intestines followed the Fiend to the ground. It took many seconds for the entire intestinal ribbon, foot after foot of the grisly stuff, to slide out the belly and onto the floor, during which the Fiend danced and capered about muttering every sort of obscenity and hooting a cacophony of ecclesiastical mumbo jumbo.

  Even after all the Fiend had shown her, the lunacy of that moment left Deirdre trembling and speechless, especially after the Fiend crouched down and began sucking in enormous mouthfuls of intestines.

  It finally was too much, and the mortified young woman had to resist the urge to retch before she spoke.

  “Will you stop that! We have to go! What if someone walks in!?” She didn’t want to get closer than necessary, but the urge just to grab him nearly overcame her.

  Before she did, he relented.

  The Fiend, now suddenly Reverend Ainsley again, rose and spoke in a voice that was more sad than peevish. “Oh, very well, Tuppence … though I had planned on taking this time to compose a sermon on the sin of sloth. It was a half bell past second, and this terrible man wouldn’t rouse himself from bed to take my confession. And him a bishop, nonetheless!”

  “How could that possibly…?” began a now near hysterical Deirdre.

  “Can you imagine,” said the reverend, who somehow hadn’t a speck of blood or viscera on his perfect collar or overcoat, “the bastard dared give me a cuff upside the head for even asking him to take my confession at a time set by ecclesiastical law for the sacrament. The sacrilege.” The faux reverend moved in a dignified step toward the door. A faint smile played at his handsome mouth when he opened the great portal and gracefully motioned Deirdre to take the lead.

  Outside, she began to run, but a boney hand slowed her.

  “Never run from a crime scene, Tuppence,” were the gentle and pastoral words of the learned minister. “It only draws attention.”

  The two continued on at a casual pace for some minutes, Deirdre aching to bolt and run or to start screaming at every step of it. The reverend hummed peacefully, even gayly, a phenomenon that increased the farther they traveled from the great church. By the time three blocks had passed, she was fairly certain the Fiend at any moment would break into song and dance.

  “What are you so happy about?” the trembling lass whispered without looking in his direction, as if doing so would draw attention to them.

  The reverend began to giggle in a very unecclesiastical fashion. He gave a deep sigh. “The chitlins of a fat man of fifty years’ age.” Another sigh. “If I had nothing else to eat for the rest of my long and miserable life, breakfast, lunch, and dinner, I would never tire of such a feast.”

  Deirdre finally looked up at him, no longer trying to hide her shock.

  “So sweet,” he went on, “so delectable. You know the trick, Tuppence? You have to start with the testicles and work your way up. It gives the fresh chitlins a tang that can never be captured through any spice or sauces.”

  By that time, they were nearly halfway to the inn, and the street was empty, but it would not have mattered. Deirdre let out an angry and frightened yelp.

  “What?” he asked in surprise.

  “How? What? … back there?” She was flummoxed. True, the man the Fiend had throttled and eaten clearly was a Gheet, and a Gheet clergyman at that. That he was dead, and was killed in front of her, bothered her only a little. Well, more than a little. But the Fiend’s random snacking was getting them nowhere! She finally mustered her thoughts. “Do you have any sort of plan?!”

  Reverend Ainsley stopped and drew himself to his full height. There was no hint of anger on his face, but his voice had just a trace of emotion. “Tuppence, have I ever come to your farm and told you how to farm? … No? Then please do not ever tell me how to fiend. Now, I don’t have a full plan yet, but I do have a plan. And I’ll do my very best to do right by you. I give you my word.”

  “The word of a fiend?”

  “The word of a friend.” He lay his hand on her shoulder. “I am your friend, aren’t I? Do you trust me to do my best for you?”

  A tear seized her eye, and she gave a short nod. She’d seen how he was with people, how he manipulated them. But at that moment, she didn’t care if he was doing it to her. She needed this, she needed it so badly.

  His arm still on her shoulder, he resumed walking, pulling her close as he did. She walked beside him as a daughter might with a father.

  He patted her shoulder after they’d strolled a way. “I’m sorry if my dining choices upset you. You’ve seen how I eat at the barrow, lots of cauli
flower and cucumbers … maybe a nibble of fish when the stream is running.” His voice became apologetic. “I don’t eat people every day. Not even every year. I have a nice slice of fat man maybe once every fifteen or twenty years. Is that alright?”

  “Yeah,” she grumbled. Her tone was grudging, but she really didn’t feel that way. “As long as they’re Gheets.”

  “I’ll try to stick to that diet,” he replied.

  A few minutes later, they reached the inn and found Isabel happily waiting.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  Isabel wasn’t certain how to take Tuppence. At times, the young womanchild was amiable and playful, and at others morose and sullen. All throughout, Isabel sensed in the girl a deep and seething anger, as if some great and irredeemable wrong had been done her. Then Isabel remembered how she herself had been at fourteen and cut the kid a break. Isabel’s life at that age hardly had been roses, and she hadn’t been raised in the coarse and violent world in which she now found herself. If Tuppence had issues, she probably had a right to them.

  Little time had passed since breakfast, but both she and Tuppence were hungry, so they pondered what to eat. Reverend Ainsley calmly abstained from dining, but if there truly was a man who needed to bulk up, it was him. Handsome he may have been — and he had an otherworldly charm and charisma — but he was as thin as a fencepost.

  There were no proper menus, but on the wall, a thick slate signaled the fare of the day. Her understanding of the language was strong, but the script still often evaded her. Pointing to some glyphs at the top of the placard, she asked her companions what they meant.

  “Chitlins,” Tuppence snarled.

  Was there a hint of disgust in the girl’s voice? No matter. Isabel instead smiled. “We have those at home. Pigs intestines, right?”

  “Oh, here they can come from the innards of most any animal,” replied the reverend in a mild and sage tone. “But I’d recommend the chicken. It is truly delightful. And think not at all of payment. Sir Alexis has generously deposed me with funds to tide us during travel.”

  “That is very generous, reverend. Thank you.” She couldn’t keep a smile from crossing her face. “And I wish Sir Alexis was here, so I might tell him the same.”

  “He’s not the kind of man who needs thanks,” added Tuppence, this time with a sincere smile. “He’s not a big talker, either. And he’s particular about what he eats.”

  It took Isabel a moment to think whether she’d missed some subtext of Tuppence’s words. By that time, the reverend had communicated their desires to a handsome woman of some forty years who appeared to be the proprietress.

  “Wait, reverend. Are you sure you won’t eat anything?”

  “Oh, Lady Isabel, I draw my sustenance from other sources. And mortification of the flesh is a central tenant of our religious faith. One cannot grow closer to the divine while adhering to the base slavery of the corpus. For me, food is a necessity of which I partake only in extremis.”

  “Tell me about your religion, reverend.” She suddenly was hungry for knowledge she’d hesitated to discuss with Sir Utrecht. It seemed important now.

  Over the next half hour, as they awaited their meal, the pastor talked about the great beings in their world, the Walking God, a force for justice and good, and the “Other One,” a being so evil and malevolent that most deigned not to give it a name. It was all very Manichean, with the force of good, as described by the reverend, sounding very much like a great and mischievous Santa Claus, but one living its divine existence swathed in the humble guise of a common human, living and working among mortal folk as one of them, always ready to step in and right wrongs done to others. The Walking God was both common man and a trickster, a mercurial character who showed many faces and who often meted out rough justice by cunning and guile.

  It was all very touching as told by a learned Doctor of Religion, but Isabel couldn’t help but have her doubts. True, she’d seen wonderous things since her arrival in Albion, a world completely different from her own Earth. But a god who walked among people and served justice through wiliness and trickery seemed to be nothing more than a story that explained every simple coincidence. She’d always imagined herself a rational and reasonable person. This all sounded like storytelling designed to quiet a frightened child, or to give hope to adults when there was none.

  But she smiled and said nothing, only paying particular attention to the minor theological differences between the various Surrey and Gheet denominations, ones that the reverend warned the parties were especially prickly about enforcing. It had been some years since the last heretic had been burned for referring to the “Walking God” as the “God who Walked,” but some remained particularly wedded to that subtle yet vital distinction.

  After their food was served, the two young women ate in contented silence while the pastor struck up a conversation with the proprietress, Mrs. Villeneuve, a pretty and shapely Gheet woman with a sweet and pious way about her. The two spoke at some length about ecclesiastical nuance so subtle that after scant minutes Isabel understood none of it. Not long after, the reverend arranged for a room for Isabel and Tuppence, and he and Mrs. Villeneuve repaired to the inn’s chapel to consult scripture.

  This left Isabel alone with Tuppence, whose spirits seemed to have improved since her return with the reverend. When first the two had entered the inn, Tuppence had been in an emotional state. Though the girl didn’t seem truly angry, had Isabel not known better, she would have thought Tuppence and the reverend had quarreled.

  But how unlikely would such a development be? The reverend was the most modest and self-effacing of men and looked upon the girl with such gentle eyes. It was that notion that most convinced Isabel of the deep worth of Tuppence. Every person Isabel had seen in company with the young lass — Sir Alexis, the boy, and now Reverend Ainsley — had regarded her with such tenderness, even though she was so often cranky and morose.

  Still, the young woman provided amiable company that evening in the common room and later in their chambers, a tiny room in the servants’ area of the otherwise full inn. Isabel learned much about life on the farm and the perils of being a Surrey in times such as these. Tuppence was unusually pleasant and generous with her smiles, and the two passed the first pleasant evening that Isabel had known in many days.

  Until the howling began.

  Greed

  “This sin is the one that will send you straight to Hell.

  Greed is the worst of them, worse even than lust. For at least lust wanes with the passing of years and the graying of the temple, but a man's greed grows more frenzied as he ages.

  For the true sinner, there can never be enough, until every halfpenny drags him into the Inferno.”

  —Dr. Erasmus Pertwee, Dean of Theology and Eschatology,

  Kings College, Portsmouth

  Deirdre came to the painful conclusion that Isabel was daft.

  She didn’t like to think of her new friend in that way. The woman was beautiful, tall, and stately and had a heart of gold. But she often was at a loss for words, could barely read, and still was not married in her middle twenties, an age at which most women, both Surrey and Gheet, had been wed ten years or more. Worse, she often seemed confused by even the simplest of things. Clearly there was some defect that wasn’t obvious.

  Just moments before, as they’d awaited the preacher in the courtyard outside the inn, Isabel completely had missed the import of an unfortunate and short-tempered jibe Deirdre had made.

  It all had begun late the evening before, when an audible howling and grunting had erupted from somewhere nearby. Deirdre had been raised on a large family farm. The sound of animals rutting, both human and barnyard, was as familiar to her as a sparrow’s cry. So, she’d promptly rolled over and gone to sleep.

  But the nature and provenance of the feral howls and growls, which were still discernable until just before dawn, had seemed a frightening mystery to Isabel. When the woman finally had found the gumption to inquire about them
, Deirdre, still a bit cranky without her breakfast, had grumbled that it was the demon getting its exercise — she really needed to mind her tongue — a statement to which a much-relieved Isabel had replied that the correct word was “exorcise,” before going on to further extol the virtues of the Right Reverend Moorcroft Ainsley.

  “Are such things common hereabouts?” Isabel asked even now.

  “Uhh … I’m sorry?” It took Deirdre a moment to realize what she was being asked.

  “Exorcisms. Are those common hereabouts?”

  “Oh … uh,” Deirdre didn’t know what to say until she saw the reverend walking down the outside staircase from the inn’s second floor, a brown package in his hand and a disheveled Mrs. Villeneuve waving a hasty goodbye behind him. Deirdre gave the woman a moment to slip back indoors. “Oh, you should ask the reverend. Here he comes.”

  The cheerful, almost gleeful, look of the minister seemed to put Isabel off for a moment. When she began to ask about the reverend’s nocturnal doings, he corrected her.

  “Ah, one of the lesser known rites of our faith. The good landlady and I were attempting to speak in tongues, so as to channel the animus of the Walking God’s nature spirit.” He smiled sweetly. “Truly, it can be disconcerting for the uninitiated.”

  By that time, he was leading the two women out onto the road, where he produced from the package he carried some bread, cheese, and lovely summer sausage. They talked more as they ambled westward, the reverend occasionally greeting passersby or uttering sweet benedictions to the faithful as they went. The locals were nothing but smiles for the amiable murderer and lecher.

  “At this time of year,” the reverend informed them as they neared the town’s western gate, “we should have no trouble hitching a ride on a cargo wagon heading west. Most go that way empty after discharging their cargo along the coast and are happy to make a few farthings hauling anything or anyone.”

  It was no surprise that the three travelers soon comfortably were seated on the back of a hay wagon headed for the town of Gatsby, the county seat, which was near where Isabel hoped to find Sir Brian Mayfield and where the preacher informed them that they might likewise encounter Sir Alexis de Vere.