by Will Molinar
Marko frowned and imagined what it would be like to bounce the man’s head off the floor. It would’ve been fun as hell.
Another tough, Julien, smacked his back with a hearty slap and refilled his tankard of ale, but Marko didn’t feel like drinking anymore. Julien laughed at something one of the others in the gang said, but Marko wasn’t listening. Like all of them, Julien wore a tight fitting black vest with short sleeves and black leather pants. It showed off their muscles and let others know who they were.
Initiation was simple. Survive a gauntlet of pummeling from all the others and compete in their wrestling contests. It was grueling, but they weren’t called toughs for nothing. Julien was taller than Marko, but few of them thicker or stronger than the bull necked youth.
Marko stared at the drunken lout and started moving forward. Julien clicked his tongue at him.
“Goin’ somewhere, Marko?”
Marko turned his head. “Wanna have some fun?” He turned back and walked towards the drunk.
Julien grinned and swatted the toughs next to him. Then he whistled. “Fellas, let’s start our night out right, I say.”
Hearty grunts of agreement followed, and the patrons near them stood up and paid attention to what was about to occur. The tavern was called Stern’s Place, and the primary establishment hosted the toughs wrestling matches. People came from all over the city to watch them. Some prospective recruits would often join in, hoping to get a spot on their roster but most failed.
Marko moved forward. The lout continued his harassment, pawing and groping at the young lady. Now she was looking around for a way out. She should have brought more ladies with her. But she was young and perhaps inexperienced.
She turned away from the man, but he grabbed her shoulder and spun her around to face him, yelling. “You dirty slut! Nobody turns from Giuseppe!”
The drunken lout struck her a loud, resounding slap across her left cheek. She didn’t scream. The poor girl seemed too stunned to do anything. A red welt already began to form in the shape of his hand.
Marko cursed under his breath for waiting too long and sprinted over. Clamping a thick fingered hand on the back on the man’s neck and squeezing hard, he pushed his body away and watched as Giuseppe’s eyes bulged in pain and surprise.
“You have two choices, sir,” Marko said and grabbed the man’s near wrist when he tried to swat at him. The tough held it tight to the man’s body and twisted his neck so his head peered up. Then he popped his own knee cap in the back of the man’s left knee, and the joint buckled.
“You can walk out or be thrown out.”
The man sputtered and resisted. “You-you-you no treat Giuseppe like this!”
“Wrong choice.” Marko yanked his head around and nodded to the young girl. A couple other whores gathered around her. They were looking at the drunk with disdain and anger. “Pardon me, miss. Have a good night.” She smiled despite her obvious pain.
Patrons and toughs nearby clapped and cheered Marko on. His men slapped him on the back and kicked at the drunk, but Marko waved them off. It wasn’t fair to attack a man who couldn’t fight back. But it was nice to have encouragement.
“Get ‘im, Marko!”
“Nice going! Take the chigger out and stomp ‘im good!”
“Serves the drunkard right!”
The drunk was sober enough to be embarrassed and fought back with more energy. He planted his feet to push back against Marko. He threw his other arm at Marko’s barrel chest, but it felt like a cool breeze with nothing behind it. Marko twisted the captured wrist behind his back and pulled up. The man grunted in pain and stopped fighting. People gave up so easy.
The crowd parted before him, and more people patted him on the back. Marko gave a slight nod and marched the drunk out the door, a few of his men right behind him. Outside, the man tried to elbow him in the face, but Marko controlled the man’s body too well for the lazy blow to connect. But the motion upset him.
Marko shoved him forward, a little harder than intended, and the man sprawled in the dirt. People laughed. The man yelled in pain and flopped on his belly, trying to get to his hands and knees. Marko didn’t laugh but rather kept his eyes on the man, watching for any aggressive movement.
But the man was done. When he got to his knees, his bloated, alcohol flushed face was covered with dirt. He wiped some detritus from his clothes and tried to stand, but he stumbled back down. The crowd laughed and began to dissipate.
“Have a good night, sir,” Marko said. “And don’t come back unless you can behave yourself.”
The man cursed him in some foreign tongue. Marko grunted and was about to turn back into the tavern, but Donald ran up to him. Tall and blocky, with dark hair and a thick forehead, Donald was one of his best toughs.
“Listen, he wants to see you. Right now.” Marko stood straighter and knew who the man meant. “You better hurry, Marko. He’s not in a good mood.”
“I bet. Thanks.”
Donald went inside the tavern, where no doubt the tough would drink away the tension from his recent experience with their boss. Marko took a deep breath and looked to the east, to the edge of the city’s boundaries, and his destination.
Walking fast helped him reach the rocky, forested section on the low side of the south east cliff, where the edge of town met the wilderness. Darkness enveloped him, and the eerie silence of the woods was somewhat frightening. The devil lived here.
Jerrod’s cabin was a few minutes away. It was small and simple, with a few scattered trees nearby. Most of the surrounding foliage was sparse as if the plants had trouble finding purchase on the rocky terrain.
Knocking caused shuffling and muttering curses behind the door. “The fuck is it?”
“It’s me, sir. Marko.”
“Huh? Wait a damn second.”
It was less than a second. Jerrod yanked the door open, and the glare from his fireplace backlit him in a strange way. His eyes were bloodshot, his head bandaged from Zandor’s ill-fated attack, and the stubble on his large head matched that of his week’s old beard. He was very drunk.
“’Bout damn time you showed up. You lazy cunts need to get to work, hear me?”
“Yes sir. What do you need?”
“What do you think I need, moron? Get that shit Zandor. Maybe flame him. Go and fuck up, the, uh, the….”
“The betting tents? They already had a fire there once and might expect that. They can shut them down pretty fast, sir.”
Jerrod looked confused for a second and then got angrier. “Huh? Well then burn the damn arena. Yeah, that’s great… fucking arena….”
“Sir, that’s a lot of work. They have guards, lots of them.”
“Don’t argue with me, you little shit!”
Jerrod stepped forward. His rancid breath and towering presence made Marko quail.
“Get it done!” Jerrod said and stepped back into the cabin. “Burn that place to the ground.” He slammed the door.
Marko sighed.
* * * * *
A seagull’s cry pierced the normal afternoon hubbub of the Western Docks. The bird flew in a lazy arc over Piers One and Two, drifting in between the tall masts and wooden crow’s nests. Numerous ships docked there, ready to unload their wares to the largest trading port on the continent.
It soon mixed in with the other gulls filtering around the sky and was lost.
Most people wouldn’t have noticed the singular visitor to the docks, lost as they were in their own business. Some would say their level of observation was too low to track such a motion, that they were too stupid or lacked the ability to think above the normal consideration that plagued day to day life.
Samuel Becket would have agreed with that assessment. The Dock Master stood and looked for more seagulls, and close as he was to those piers, it afforded him a nice view of the sea and its denizens. It was enjoyable to watch and study them. His mother would say it was because of his inquisitive nature and artistic temperament. They were bea
utiful creatures, in an odd way, with their yellow beaks and white and gray coats. They were such a mainstay of the docks, he couldn’t imagine a world without them.
One in particular stuck out with a very unusual coloring. It had some pigmentation problem that caused it to be almost all white, with only a streak of gray down each wing. He was very pretty.
It flew off and landed with another group of them stood perched on the masts of Pleasant Dream. The mercantile craft shipped fine jewelry from a southern supplier and was one of Becket’s best clients. It was inspiring, uplifting somehow, to see the way the sun outlined their forms. The light twinkled and glimmered, like some divine force percolating within the world of man. A few of them spread their wings and lifted off. The sun blasted Becket’s eyes, and he turned away.
“Master Becket,” one of his aides said as he came up to him. The man was thin and sallow faced, named Barker. “The shipping details for the day. We’ve had another defection. Sorry, sir.”
Becket took the papers and shook his head. “Don’t be. You didn’t do anything wrong. The fault lies with others.”
Becket looked at the manifest reports and saw that the trend continued. More merchants were leaving the Guild. He sighed and told Barker to go back to his work. Fewer and fewer ships were coming in. Soon only dust and rust would build until nothing was left but the gulls and their shit.
Recent events had changed the personnel within The Merchants Guild. Dock Master Dollenger, along with City Watch Commander Raul Parkins and a few others, were hung at the gallows for the part they played in Castellan’s attempted coup of Sea Haven.
Because of this, Becket enjoyed a promotion to Senior Dock Master of the Western Docks, the larger of the two ports where hundreds of ship dumped their wares every week. Guilt wracked him, for all of them were guilty of conspiring with Castellan du Sol, and all of them should have paid.
But Muldor, the new Guild Master, had talked them into throwing certain members of their leadership to the wolves. They had lost another Dock Master, Maggur, when he had escaped the authorities, and at the present moment his whereabouts were unknown. Young Gunnar Lawson took over senior position at the Southern Docks, and two new members were to join their ranks to replace the murdered men.
And Becket considered them murdered. Though he never liked them much anyway since both colleagues were greedy, unscrupulous men, but killing them was extreme. But someone had to take the blame.
Moving into the top position at the Western Docks, in charge of Piers One through Three, ahead of the cranky old coot Melvin Crocker, Becket was now one of the highest ranking members of The Merchants Guild. He might have even been Guild Master Muldor’s second.
‘Who else would be higher?’ he thought. Carl Tomlinson, the marketplace liaison for the Guild? No, that man’s time in the position was a mere fraction compared to Becket’s tenure. No one would consider him higher on the pecking order.
Young Gunnar Lawson was the senior Dock Master at the Southern Docks now that Maggur had been expelled but couldn’t lay claim to having more seniority than Becket. No, Samuel Becket was the second most important person in the Guild. This position put him in the upper echelon of the city entire.
Which meant the responsibility and stress were greater.
He glanced back at the gulls, but he had lost the specific beauty he had been spying before. Oh well. There would be others.
Back in his office, in the mammoth warehouse, they stored much of the extra goods unloaded on the docks. Becket stopped to admire one of his paintings, picked up from one of his favorite sellers only last week. Its frame propped against the wall next to another work of art, a waist high sculpture he wanted to return. It was a bust of some historical figure but clashed with the theme of his foyer. The décor of his home was important, so he tried things out first in his office.
The room was cramped. The painting was as tall as the sculpture, even on the ground and almost as wide as his arm span. He looked at the painting, judging its worth. The scene was idyllic, with gentle hills and a stream cutting through a beautiful countryside. The plan was for a rural theme for his foyer, so as to give visitors a feeling of warmth and belonging when they entered his home.
The current merchant defection wouldn’t help his ability to buy such things. Compiled with the new Guild policies, piracy was on the rise. Another ship taken, another huge grip of supplies ripped off and plundered, stolen by Lurenz. The infamous buccaneer was back to his old mode of operation. It happened a lot more many years ago. Becket remembered the time before Castellan became Guild Master. Piracy was a fact of life back then.
They dealt with it well enough, counting the loss as part of doing business on that side of the continent. The king never got involved. That was the main area of contention for the higher ranking members of the Guild, but there was nothing they could’ve done about it. That was the attitude.
Castellan changed all that. With his charisma and charm and strength of personality, he swooped in control of the organization and made them all wealthy. Very wealthy. He had also brokered a deal with the pirates, and they stayed away from their shipments. Goods arrived on their shores as they were supposed to, and everyone was happy. All that changed when he was taken away in chains for a myriad of crimes against this Sea Haven, and their neighbor Janisberg to the south.
The issue at the moment was that no one knew the exact details of that deal with the pirate Lurenz. Becket had only been a Dock Master a couple of years when Castellan came in and was not senior enough to be privy to that information. At the time it seemed trivial. He, Crocker, Dollenger, another man named Coleson, and Beauregard, Lawson’s predecessor, were too satisfied by the money coming in to question anything Castellan did.
Beauregard died a few months after Castellan took office under mysterious circumstances. He had been a middle aged man and was found dead one morning in his bed, not a mark on him. There was nothing too unusual about that. Men died that way, but once his replacement, Gunnar Lawson, took over Piers Four, Five, and Six at the Southern Docks, people began to talk. The man was under qualified, and there were those that claimed easy to control and thus why Castellan appointed him. With everything happening so fast and the money pouring in, no one questioned it much at the time, Becket included.
After the recent change in personnel and the shakeup of their cadre, Becket believed it worthy of thought. What really happened to Beauregard? It was almost a decade ago and Lawson must know something about it since he stood the most to gain. Becket made a mental note to question the man if possible.
That was not what garnered the majority of his anxiety at the moment. Dealing with the merchants abandoning their memberships, and the theft of their goods was paramount. Becket was also put in charge of recruiting new Dock Masters and was in the process of choosing men to place in positions of great influence and wealth.
There were a lot of good people, including his highest ranking Pier Supervisor, Pierce Johnson. But Becket liked the man where he was and had some other candidates in mind instead.
It was strange being in Dollenger’s office. He had moved forward along the Western Dock’s scale into the first position while Crocker moved up behind him in second. Dollenger’s tastes were rather pedestrian, and thus Becket kept rearranging the space. Dead men left behind a trail of problems that never ended.
His old office was better. So was the former position; less wok, less responsibility, and less stress. How easy it was to pass along problems to the persons above him in the chain of command. Now there was only Muldor above him, and the man was too stubborn to deal with.
Becket knew what the Guild Master would have told him. “You’re the senior Dock Master now. Deal with it.” If Becket were to question him, Muldor would not answer except with a stare from those dead fish eyes.
Becket sighed. He began rearranging the paintings and sculptures in the foyer in his mind. This one, with its rolling hills and gentle river in the background, would anchor the right
side below his stairs, the center of a trio of paintings in his home. Similar rivers ran through them all, and that might’ve been a nice idea to string three together in the same space next to each other. That would tie that wall together well.
Another set of images ran through his mind as well, one of numbers, money bags, and his bank vault growing sparser as his profits shrank. He would find no more sanctuary behind his walls in the wealthy section then. Nothing would protect him from the vile scum of Sea Haven’s dank bottom dwellers then.
Becket shivered and set about thinking of a way to stop it from happening.
* * * * *
During most nights at the arena, the sheer volume of noise and mass of people was almost overwhelming. The spectators stomped so hard, it threatened to break the wooden bleachers upon which they stood. Nobody sat. They screamed and cursed so loud it would make sailors blush. The fighters fought and bled so much on the wide open floor it looked like an abattoir’s lair.
The punishing force of violence surrounded them all. Every single living soul in the cramped space added their heat and energy to create a miasma of chaos. The regular, beaten down citizens of what outsiders referred to as “Murder” Haven, yelled for blood and mayhem, and none were disappointed. And it happened every night.
The only ones who went home dispirited were those that lost money on their bets. Yet they came back as often as they could. Zandor knew repeat business was the key to success in any venture of this nature. Sure, the place was loud and drunks got obnoxious and annoying, but they couldn’t get enough of it. He stood near the lower reaches of the south side bleachers and crossed his arms, watching, trying to filter out much of the hubbub.
After years of practice, the foreign provocateur was able to cut away the nonsense and listen to scraps and pieces of information that might have proved valuable. People spoke on things when they were drunk when they might not otherwise. Every so often he would catch a bit of a rumor or even a slid fact. It took time, but the shifty man was patient enough to wait.