The Folly of the World

by Jesse Bullington

  She went to the wall and peered out rather than stepping up to it all easy-like. Someone still caught sight of her shadow, though, and a bolt sailed up and through the open window, embedding itself in the rafters above her. It had come from the large crowd advancing along the canal toward the gatehouse. At least four or five of the militiamen who’d been keeping order downtown led the mob, with maybe thirty figures behind who were probably curious, drink-emboldened citizens. God’s fucking wounds. Jolanda ducked past the window to where a great wooden disk protruded from the wall, like an oversized spinning wheel. She pulled one of its raised knobs with all her strength, but it didn’t budge.

  Well. This was to be expected—it must take at least two men to move it, which was why she’d only seen the old man when she’d visited Simon, the other two being stationed up here. She tried pushing the wheel the other direction, even though she knew nothing would come of it… and it shifted, rope or chain on the other side of the wall groaning. Well.

  Jolanda laid into it, digging her bare toes into the splintery wooden floor, and though it made her bruising shoulder howl, she fought the wheel into turning, a ratcheting noise rewarding her labors. Trading off from one knob to the next as she pushed was the hardest part, and then, just as she thought she had it, her big toe slipped and skewed itself on a sliver of floorboard. She released the wheel, the splinter snapping off in the wound as she hopped about in agony. Thank all the whores in Sodom, the wheel didn’t fall back near so far as she’d expected, and bracing herself on her good foot, she returned to her trial. Finally she’d pushed it as far as it would turn, and though no real time at all could have passed, she was drenched in sweat.

  She didn’t risk the window, knowing full well what she would see, and as she went down the ladder, she heard them banging at the door. She peered around as she descended, keeping her splinter-spitted toe off the rungs, and saw that Sander had almost reached the door. Stupid goddamn shitbird.

  “Sander!” she shouted, and he paused, looking at her in confusion. The practice sword was in his left hand, and his right was held between his teeth. Jesus. “Get away from there!”

  He tried to answer and his hand fell out of his mouth, which distracted him from whatever nonsense he was trying to spout. The crow and the cheese, that one. The banging was growing louder, waves of shouts breaking against the door, but Jolanda’s attention was captured by the room’s only other exit: a small wooden door set in an alcove beside the table. It must open onto the small dock where those entering the city might pause their vessel long enough to bribe the militiamen rather than dealing with the harbor’s excisemen. An idea took hold like a polecat on a rat, and as she dropped off the ladder and sat heavily on the ground to remove the splinter from her toe, a smile spread across her charcoal-blackened face like a wedge of moon breaking through a midnight cloudbank.

  IV.

  The girl, Jo, had come for him, but Sander couldn’t really figure out why. He’d always been a shit to her. He tried to tell her that, tell her she shouldn’t have come, tried to give her his hand so she could make the Hand of Glory, get herself out, at least, before Jan and his Belgians broke down the door. She wasn’t having any of it, shoving the bloody hand into the waist of his hose and slapping him hard across the mouth. He grinned at her little love tap, but then she slapped him three more times, shouting something, and each blow brought him a little closer to the surface.

  “—to listen!” she was saying.

  “Been listening,” he said, or tried to say. His tongue felt numb as his hand. The one he’d sawed off with Hobbe’s dull knife—would’ve been better using the spoon. “Belgians, Jo, out there. You need—”

  “Please, Sander,” she said, her voice cracking. Her face was all black, he saw, except where it had dripped off in stripes under her eyes. Was she some devil, too, was that why she was all blacked up? Of course not, the Belgians were out there, and she’d stopped him from opening the door, hadn’t she? She was on his side. Why was she crying? “Please.”

  “Yeah, sure,” he said, unsure what he was agreeing to. “Sure.”

  “Sure what?” she said, not crying after all. Who was crying? He looked around—there were a couple of cunts he must have put down lying there, cuntlike, and a third, who was curled up under a table—he was the crier. The Hand of Glory was working like the charm it was, keeping these ball-washers in dreamtown. Where was he? In a dream? Was it Belgium? Was Belgium hell? Probably all of that, sure.

  “Sure,” he said, then hung his head, caught in a lie. “I don’t know, Jo. Whatever you said.”

  “Here,” she said, leading him to a door. It made him dizzy to look at the whorls in the wood. He didn’t like it. Led somewhere nasty, somewhere dark. Somewhere Belgian. The girl was unbolting the door, and he would have stopped her if he didn’t think the effort would make him fall, and he really didn’t want to fall, not here, where he might not find the surface again. “See the water?”

  “Ugh,” said Sander, the crack she had opened in the door revealing a small dock surrounded by black liquid, lights from somewhere beyond shining on wet wood, wet water. Last place he wanted to go, that. She poked her head out, looked around, and jerked back inside as several bolts whizzed down and stuck in the dock.

  “Good, they can’t get to it from the street. I’m going out front,” she told him, leading him away from the door onto the water and past the rattling shutters of the barred window, toward the other door, where the Belgians thudded the wood with their flat paddle tails, ululating beyond it for Christian blood. Why the fuck would she go out there? They’d rip her to pieces. “I’m going for the boat. You have to bolt the door after me, Sander, do you understand? You have to bolt the door.”

  Well, obviously. “Uh-huh.”

  “Good,” she said, and he was relieved to see her smile. She was cute when she smiled, girlish in a way she’d maybe never truly been, at least as long as he’d known her. “Then you go to the canal door, and look out until I come along with the boat. Then you jump in and we float away, understand?”

  That didn’t sound so good at all. He frowned, tried to tell her it was a bad idea, and found he was crying after all. Jesus, Sander, buck up!

  “You have to, Sander,” she said, taking off the black blanket she was wearing over her like a cloak. Or was it a cloak? A big one, yeah. She kept talking as she began to unfasten the armor he had given her, taking it off because she was going to die. She paused, her brigandine half-undone, and snapped her fingers in his face, like she was goddamn Hobbe or something, the little bitch. The flash of anger brought him back up for air, and she came into clarity as he blinked away the tears. Why the hell was she stripping? He’d thought by now it was well understood he didn’t go in for cunt.

  “Of course you don’t,” she said, smiling again, and he wondered what other thoughts he might’ve unintentionally voiced. She was somehow getting her fingers into his pants from across the room, but then he saw his own bloody stump jutting up from his waistband and felt his heart stop. What in all the heresies of the pagans had he done?

  Well, sure, he’d chopped his hand off. Christ’s weeping eyes, was that wise? Would he bleed out? Had he already, was he dead in his cell and this was all a death dream, like had happened the last time he’d died?

  No. He hadn’t died, ever, and he wouldn’t here. The girl was still talking at him as she got her doublet the rest of the way off and started working on the buckles fixing her knee plates on. She meant to go out, past the… whoever was out there, to a boat. That made sense. Boats were how you got away from Dordt these days. Fine. But if the… whoever was out there, banging on the door, if they tried to stop her, how could she hope to reach the vessel?

  He’d have to go instead. His fist tightened around Glory’s End, felt her familiar throb. This was a dream, then. Relief warmed him like a pair of freshly pissed pants on a cold night in an alley, and he took a step for the door when Jo put herself between him and it, all naked and spooky-look
ing.

  “I’m going for the boat,” he said.

  “No, I am.”

  “All right,” he said, relieved. Dream or no, he was exhausted and wanted to fall back under.

  “You lock up behind me, aye? And wait by the other door. With this.” She offered him a bulging satchel. No, it was her blanket, cloak, whatever, with all her armor bound up in it. He reached for it with his stump. Frowned. Offered her Glory’s End.

  “She’s seen me through every hell,” he said solemnly. “Now she’s yours.”

  The brat rolled her eyes, and he had half a mind to split her head, but she took the sword before he could decide if that was warranted or not. He accepted her bundle. She stood on her tiptoes and kissed his cheek. Why in Christ’s name was she shaking so bad as she turned to the door? Awe at the weapon he’d given her, no doubt. She weren’t so foolish as he’d thought, then, bony-assed chit.

  She was motioning him over against the wall next to the main door, and he followed her lead. She slid the top bolt out of the lock, quiet as she could, then knelt and did the bottom one. Only the middle bolt kept the beasts at bay, but rather than springing it she reached over and pulled open the portal of the tiny peep-window set in the door. Soon as she did, the crew out there quieted down, the silence spreading backward from the door like a dropped mug of wine soaking across a rug.

  “I’ll come out!” Jo shouted so loud it made Sander wince, her face pointed at the hole in the door but not in front of it, like, where she might get stuck. Smart enough, Jo. “I’ll come out, you all just back away!”

  The riot started up again, banging the door even harder, the shouts waking up the sleeping angels, no doubt, but then she roared again, and again they quieted down. Cowardly mob of nutsacks. “I’ll burn it down!” she hollered. “Back off! Twenty paces! I’ll burn it! Kill these three watchmen!”

  Again the banging stopped, the silence spread, and she edged over toward the peep-window. She darted a peek before they could pop her, and seeing the grim smile on her face, he reckoned she liked what she saw. Mind, they’d shoot her soon as she stepped out, and there’d be men on either side of the wall, clear out of her view from the peephole and ready to pounce, and her nakedness wouldn’t distract them for more than a moment—she would’ve been a sight better served with her brigandine. Before he could tell her any of that, though, she’d thrown the last bolt, wrenched the door open, and slipped out, pulling it shut behind her.

  Shit. He dropped her bundle of armor and went after her, but the quick movement made him swoon in front of the door and he barely found the wherewithal to knock the top bolt in place while he got his bearings. He was right beside the peephole, and leaned into the door for a better look, his blazing forehead pressing against the oak. This was stupid, they would catch him like this, but he was too tired to move, and besides, they seemed busy enough with the girl for now.

  Sander had been correct about men lying in ambush on either side of the door, then—two of them. One now lay screaming in the street but the other was right in front of Jo, the sneaky bastard having the drop on her and—no, Sander saw, that wasn’t right at all, this second man was limp as a pickled herring, and only upright because Jo had a hold of his hair, her arm quivering from the strain of holding him aloft. Her bare back filled most of the window, but past her shoulders and those of the man she hoisted up, Sander saw the crowd maybe ten paces off, and then he heard a chorus of bowstrings strumming like the harps of angels. Jo dropped the man she’d been shielding herself with, his back festooned with shafts, and Sander tried to laugh, but only a wet cough came out.

  She charged them before they could reload their crossbows or move on her, and as usual he was impressed with her grit. They weren’t Belgians, like he would’ve fought, but, mundane men or no, there was a whole host of them, with cudgels and pikes and shining blades. The naked girl was among them, Glory’s End whistling through the air, but instead of severing limbs and spraying blood, as the sword would have for Sander, she deigned only to bludgeon the men’s limbs and weapons as Jo pushed through them.

  Then, suddenly, tragically, impossibly, they were driving Jo back instead of letting her through. Maybe six or eight men lay clutching themselves on the cobbles, but there were at least twice that many pressing forward, and more behind them. Sander tried to warn her, tried to tell her what to do, but as quickly as she had joined the battle, she left it, fleeing back toward the gatehouse. They followed, and bows were raised, and she looked over her shoulder, which, what the fuck, never look over your shoulder, especially when you’re running along a—

  —Canal swallowed her. Sander blinked, not believing it could have ended this way, but there was the mob drawing up short at the icy ledge, those with lanterns waving them over the water, those with bows firing them into the channel. Stupid, stupid, stupid girl—first and last thing he taught her was mind the goddamn canals, especially when you’re running.

  “Ball-washers!” Sander howled at them. “Plaguebitches!”

  That got their attention. A few lingered, waiting for her to surface with lanterns and bows at the ready, but most of them charged the door. He fumbled the middle bolt locked just before they reached the gatehouse, and slammed the hinged portal covering the peep-window back into place. They were beating on the door again, and he resumed his position of leaning against it, as if that would help. It smelled like oil in here; maybe he should burn the place down. That would learn them.

  The door thudded again and again, and Sander smiled at the thought of drying out in front of the hearth with Jo. He’d had his fill of the wet and the cold. He closed his eyes, rallying the strength to go over to where the lamp hung from a chain over the table and dash it against a wall or something, or maybe just break it over his head like some drunkard smashing pots against his skull for a laugh, or—

  Huh. The banging on the door had stopped, though they were still shouting. Not at him, though. He put his ear to the oak:

  “—boat!”

  “—bitch!”

  “—back!”

  Huh. Sander opened the peep-window, wondering if this were a ruse and he was about to get his eye tickled with something sharp, but too curious to care.

  No, not a ruse. The men’s backs were to him again, and the crowd on the edge of the canal was dispersing, and with the quickness, members of the militia and men and women and kids in their nightclothes all shoving one another aside to flee the channel. Strange. In one of those peculiar little gaps of silence in the cacophony of cries, Sander heard a bowstring snap. One of the men closest to the gatehouse pitched over, a fountain of black flying up from where the quarrel had stuck in his throat. Huh.

  Was someone calling his name? It certainly sounded like it, an angel whispering over the battlefield, a mouse murmuring in an avalanche. Sander, it said, Sander, then something else? Run, maybe? Well, that—

  —Ah. Jo was floating along the edge of the water, a vengeful ghost, and one possessed of a magical weapon to match Glory’s End. It was a crossbow, but one that never emptied—the spirit need only kneel for a moment, as if in slack-assed prayer, and then the bow was nocked and loaded again. She had almost reached the side of the gatehouse, crying his name over and over again, and he stared in awe at the phantom. It had been so long since his dreams had been anything but nightmares that all he could do was ogle the spectacle as she shot down one plaguebitch after another. This was great!

  “Sander!” She was nearly screaming it now, “Sander, run! The canal! Sander! Get in!”

  Ah. He saw it now—she was standing in a boat that drifted down the channel. That was… pretty smart, he had to admit, and nearly tripping over the balled-up cloak full of armor, he lurched over toward the door in the alcove. The crying lad had buggered off somewhere, but as Sander rounded the table and opened the canal door, someone very large moved to snatch him. He turned, swinging his stump at the man, too tired to explain why, no, he wasn’t up to a tussle at present, and inadvertently knocked the lant
ern from its ceiling hook, onto the table. That sheriff’s pet giant who had worked Sander over back on Voorstraat was right fucking here, somehow, his neck all black and blue and his face all red with fury, but instead of laying into Sander, the big baby fell back, scared. Damn right, he was scared.

  No, shit, it was just that the lamp had broken, a column of fire shooting straight up to the ceiling, and then Sander’s legs caught flame as burning oil flowed off the table, all over him. Tired or no, he found his strength then and pitched himself through the door, slipping on the dock and falling into the water. It was fucking cold, too damn cold, and he was too tired to think, let alone swim, so it was time to…

  Someone had him by the hair, and suddenly dead sober and aware he was back in the well, Sander screamed underwater, kicking for the surface. He came up and clobbered Jo with his stump-hand, which crippled him with pain and nausea. It felt like someone was hammering an icicle into his fucking arm bone, and he blacked out which, sure, was probably for the best.

  Ash Wednesday 1426

  “Who Knows Why Geese Go Barefoot?”

  Out on the meer the mist did not rise with the sun, and midday found Jolanda rowing just as blind as she’d been before dawn. She tried not to look over her shoulder at Sander, because at any given moment he appeared dead and she couldn’t stop propelling them along to check for breathing every few strokes. She ought to cut off his scorched hose to see if his legs were all right, but at this point it wasn’t like it would make a whole hell of a difference—she inspected his stump-bindings whenever she took a break, but beyond that she didn’t know what to do with the mutilated idiot.

  Hauling him into the boat despite his best efforts to drown himself had resulted in all of the gear she had packed becoming soaked, and to top it all he’d left her armor in the gatehouse, though his severed hand was still safely jammed down his hose. Typical Sander.