by Chris Turner
Boulm scratched his brow and raised a finger with polite inquiry. “This scheme seems overtly convoluted. By happenstance, I have forgotten which rules apply to which detriments.”
“Worry not, you rascal!” The Captain narrowed his eyes and spoke plainly, “In response to all further inquires of the nature, I shall defer to Tilfgurd at the time when an offence is perpetrated.”
Boulm sputtered an objection but Graves would hear no more. “On the general topic of escape: I advise you only to banish it from your minds! Each of you is allowed to roam independently throughout the grounds—a luxury you would do well to respect and provided you behave. Peer around! The walls are sheer stone, unscalable. Any attempt to breach them pose hazards to health! Secondly, do not get any ideas of attempting to overpower any of my Constables. They have poison daggers in their belts—tipped with prickle sap of the ollop-plant, and one prod and you are as good as dead. So, Nolpin, I see your crafty scheming mind spidering toward the gate. May I remind you that master Oppet’s canines guard that threshold.” Turning to his deputy, he urged him to do the honours.
Tilfgurd went to fetch the dog master. The portcullis bars came clanging up. Into the yard trooped Oppet, a stocky, round-jowled man with a ribbon of gold hair striping his scalp. He had a benevolent face, a button nose and was of middle years, upon whose crown a bowl-shaped blue felt hat was strapped in place by leather chin guards. He was pulled along by two abominable hounds, all jowl, snouts, and tails—beasts which Baus guessed were his ‘canines’, ranging six feet in length from tail to snout.
Graves gave an appreciative nod and motioned benignly to the two grey and black-furred yapping animals: “These are our snauzzerhounds, equipped with a bevy of razor-sharp teeth. They also harbour powerful hindquarters. Tapered snout easily works like a spear rammed into a man’s guts.”
Baus and Weavil’s eyes met in a twisted grimace. The Captain, noticing the distress, continued in a hearty voice: “A bit of history—Sir Oppet, our veteran gatemaster, raised the two as pups; bred them from far west Dharahdor, didn’t you, Oppet?”
The hound master broke into an infectious grin. “They are a cross between a rockgrinder and a darpest, in fact . . . both are auspiciously intemperate and unforgiving breeds of steppe-wolf and Delasian hide-a-hound.”
The Captain added an appreciative afterword: “To Oppet’s command only do the hounds obey; our gatemaster can induce them to yield only with a secret signal.”
Tilfgurd who had been listening to all, added an informative sidebar. “Captain, Oppet’s hounds do not actually cognize a command through ears alone, they sense the gist of a verbal command through an extremely sensitive olfactory network which is—”
Graves made a polite interjection: “Though informative, Tilfgurd, the matter is overdetailed. Outside of a basic awareness that the hounds are instruments of death, I think that our new recruits need no further particulars.”
Tilfgurd sadly demurred.
Graves paused as the barks of the canines heightened. Signalling Tilfgurd to see Oppet and his pets to the gate, he demanded: “Any more questions?” Glancing about, eyes glittering, he blew out his cheeks.
Nuzbek dangled his offensive, bedraggled hat by two forefingers. “I request recompense for this soiled property!”
Graves raised his bushy brows in surprise but chose to ignore the expostulation.
“Well, when do we get breakfast?” inquired Baus.
Waiting for the chuckles to subside, Graves forced a sombre grin. “A legitimate query, Baus, and certainly not as droll as some here may think. The morning repast is served at precisely 6AM and consists of gruel and leftover slops. Having missed breakfast, as we all too often do, like now, having taken too long to discuss Heagram compound basics, we shall do without.” He motioned to the barracks in the rear. “These are your sleeping quarters—see them and love them! They are your asylum until such time as your terms are completed. The structure is neither vain nor luxurious—in fact, it is rudely configured with clammy walls, foliated yimbir-wood rafters, mildewy dirt floor and a pair of barred windows that provide a questionable view over the yard. The edifice comprises an open dorm architecture—designed for a minimum of comfort and a maximum of space-saving. Yard labour commences at 6:15AM sharp. It continues to 6PM when dinner is served! Tilfgurd shall be your liaison in these regards, at least until you are acclimatized to your new surroundings . . .” He peered about, frowning. “Ho-hum! On the subject of particulars, since Tilfgurd exemplifies so eager-beaver an attitude, I promptly entrust him to advise you of your upcoming duties; in fact, he shall personally attend to the rest of your tour . . .”
* * *
Graves left the area, but before doing so, he had instructed Tilfgurd to outfit Nuzbek in a proper pair of boots to replace his foppish ‘elf’ slippers. His complaints that the new boots pinched his feet received short shrift. Tilfgurd promptly escorted the men to their quarters and substantiated Graves’ earlier description of decrepitude of the barracks which in fact demonstrated a much more vivid clarity. There was a sour, ever-cloying stench of rancid unwashed bodies and other dismal redolences. Around three of the four grimy walls ranged a collection of rudely-placed dormitory beds and a darkened hallway which Baus knew only too well which led to the privy with the broken door.
Tilfgurd took the convicts to a space roughly in the middle of the yard where a subset of the ‘regulars’ worked knee-deep in clam shells and reeking fish. Baus saw broken rock strewn everywhere. The motley crew was one of such thatch-bearded ugliness that he fairly cringed. The muscle-bound, tattooed hooliganish exudation was without equal; indeed, some of the rogues Baus had briefly met the previous evening, exhibited their own unique assortment of broken teeth, eye patches, bandannas, leathers, chains and leers. The bulk was engaged in clam shucking, rock-grinding, carting drays and cleaning tools.
Amongst the criminals stooped Dighcan, the florid-faced, sullen goliath. He still guarded his crooked smirk, and now he shook his mass of shoulder-length blond curls and tweaked his golden moustache. His long lion’s chin seemed ludicrously pointed in the light of day and his jewel-blue eyes turned inward a bit crazily. Zestes was short, thickset, a blackguard if there ever were one, with an ever-present leer and loose blue overalls that were bagged at the knees. He had a nonexistent neck and wore iron-studded wristlets and green dragon tattoos fleeing up his arms. Two large looping iron earrings dangled heavily from either ear, suggestive of irascibility rather than a preference for men. Valere was a tall, purposeful and grey-eyed rogue. His beard hung a flaming red, bright as his hair which complemented his sailor’s orange- and blue-striped dungarees. A sun-browned face, and a scar breached his left cheek near the corner of his lips and made his satirical but jesting face appear fulsome. Lopze was a middle-weight thug and wore baggy mauve pantaloons. His sneaky rat face was latched with an orange eye patch and thin bartering lips and stubbly billy goat goatee. Paltuik was more of a hulking brute, bull-necked and young who wore greasy, crow-black hair clipped in short bunches and an indigo kerchief wrapped tightly around his brow—a feature which enhanced the overall bushy blackness of his threatening, down-curved brows. Vibellhanz was owl-like and wiry; he owned a bowed back and no visible teeth. His concept of hair was a collection of white wisps trailing down the crook of his back. Tustok sported a purple nose ring, a pair of sunken cheeks and hollow eyes, oily skin and the thin haggard look of a gangly ruffian. Leamoine had an annoyingly graceful manner, which his blue, immaculate trousers, grey cape and right-ear bangle seemed to accentuate—not to mention the shaved rounded chin, white face, delicate cheeks and placid grin.
Baus peered away to turn his attention from the oddball assortment to matters concerning survival. A sullen, oppressive atmosphere lurked about the earthen yard and its depressing clumps of glum-shaped spongebush and gorse shrub which peeked raggedly out of the corners of the yard like grim dwarfs. The place was more a livestock yard than a place for men. The mangy land was trampled by
a thousand feet—men who had worked for years toiling under duress. The watchtower loomed forbiddingly above the walls with flanking buttresses and a dull copper cupola. The drab sleeping quarters pressed against the lichen-rich west wall and the officers’ hall hunkered down under the tower’s shadow, but otherwise there were no other outbuildings present, except what might be called the hive, that dome-like sickly yellow construct hanging off the south rampart.
The men stood up to re-assess their new inmates. Baus felt a singular chill crawl over his skin, what with the unpleasant grins, clucks and hoots that came his way. Nuzbek was affected no less, but for some perverse reason seemed to take exception to the attention given the ridiculous black magic cap with which he still chose to crown his head. He threw a deprecatory remark at the eye-winking Leamoine and got himself into another unsalutary scuffle . . .
II
Baus and Weavil’s adjustment to the daily duties in the yard proceeded slowly. Certain activities granted rigor, which included fish-cleaning, clam-shucking, stone-chipping, wood-chopping and lugging stones to build the sea wall. Re-mortaring the gaol’s high stone bulwark was also high on this list, which grew in disrepair every year. Every third or fourth day, a new group of convicts was summoned to apply blocks to the seawall. Heagram’s new construction scheme, brainchild of Prefect Barth, included the plan to protect the town’s heritage buildings by the old port from the killing breakers that raged during the winter months. Four to five inmates toiled away on the construction, hoisting stone upon stone, packing, sealing the cracks, while Voin the general contractor, watched on with critical attention. He monitored the work with a vulpine ferocity, correcting every mistake or error of judgement. While the free labour was a bonus, the convicts did not like it one bit and toiled and groused, and only a single guard was present, usually Ausse. An iron ball was affixed to each ankle, effectively negating any chance of escape.
This was the fourth day of Baus’s incarceration and today Valere, Zestes and Boulm were on seawall duty. Dighcan, Lopze, Nolpin and Nuzbek cleaned fish in the yard. Baus and Weavil were assigned to clam-shucking along the seaward side, a task both despised. A neck high pile of clam shells rose at their side—rich with the same fermenting reek with which Baus was altogether too familiar in his own vocation—or former vocation, should he say.
The land at this quarter dipped down to the sea. Looking back toward the barracks, Baus could hardly see the tops of the hazel tree where the fish-gutters worked.
He stooped low, clapping a rock to a live clam on a flat chipping stone. The shell exploded and ripping out the lukewarm meat, he flung it into one of the wicker baskets. So the morning had passed, and with a hundred other shell-crackings.
Baus loosed a sigh. From the frying pan into the fire! he raged grimly. Working free of charge on seafood-gutting to feed the ungrateful gullets of Smilly’s taproom or those at Snogmald’s tavern. Something, somewhere had gone tremendously sour.
Baus turned his attention to other more profitable pursuits—namely that of escape. Despite Graves’ emphatic warning, he had bent his mind hastily on a plan of flight from the outset. Clearly the prison walls were too high to scale; the rock was too smooth to be breached by any conventional means; no less did Oppet’s pike-nosed, flesh-champing dogs pose any helpful backdrop.
Weavil, heavily dispirited by the glum turn of events, had sunk into a deeper mire of gloom. The midget was less wont to joke, or join in on songs with Baus.
The behaviour disturbed Baus for the reason of pure aesthetics. It had him arresting his clam-snapping and cheering Weavil out of his doldrums. “You are flagging, Weavil! We must all look on the bright side. Where one frets, one languishes. Where have gone all your infectious drolleries?”
“Flown away with the ekloons,” sighed Weavil.
“Shameful, shameful!” Baus scolded. “Like all great men we must retreat to our stronger place, treat impediments as immutable opportunities to excel beyond the modes of internal statute imposed upon us by casual circumstance.”
Weavil’s leer became a saturnine grimace. “You can seek comfort in all the ‘causalities’ you want, glibster. I wish only my former self—as a healthy, five foot, nine inch poet.”
“You will, Weavil!” thundered Baus in a cocksure voice. “We shall confront this gingerstamp Nuzbek and in due time we will compel him to renounce his villainous ways. He shall reverse this foul deed of his! Even if we must move all the asteroids in dreaded Cygnus, we shall force the magician to do his duty!”
“A fine ambition,” scoffed Weavil. He hunched in despair in the chill, face down and tapping his clams with a listless energy.
Baus paused, stroking his chin with a spark of reflection. “We must venture cautiously, Weavil. Any attempt to blunder in the dark will doom us. Lawbreakers, lunatics, maniacs—all are in our midst; they will make mincemeat of our jejune persons. We must trust to our thinking intuition, install cunning deceits, concoct suitable strategies to outwit the evil around us!”
Weavil stared in contempt at Baus. “Where were these cunning ‘strategies’ while I was being pickled like a common crab-apple in Nuzbek’s jars? As I recall, you augmented your own blamelessness by enhancing my own guilt.”
Baus gave a cry of resentment. “This accusation is based on a flawed concept! Chagrined and upset at the turn of events, I was forced to adopt desperate measures to maintain existence—an act with which you can empathize. You are my comrade, Weavil, nothing less, and you should be able to understand!”
Weavil gave a chirp of disgust. “Pure claptrap!”
Baus tsked and shook his head. Over the course of the disputation, there came a period of existentialist talk in which Weavil finally postulated that life was not simply a struggle for survival, but that every man, woman was out for himself, nothing more.
Baus shivered at such a simplification and tended toward a more global, unified spectrum of thinking, based upon the view that the many beautiful things in life were like pure art and literature and needed to be placed on a higher plane of order, beyond the crass hands of human conflicts. Ministered to and expressed with a fine tool of earnest need, they remained protected. To this end, Weavil voiced only a sneering refutal.
Baus thought the reaction ungracious. He peered at his friend with a sidelong concern. Weavil looked far too small for the burdens he carried. What to do? The manikin, head bowed with tiny hands twitching, must glower and lick his wounds as needed. Baus was not so easily discouraged by Nuzbek’s thaumaturgy. Somewhere there existed a solution to the problem of immediate escape—which meant it was there for discovery . . .
Scanning the prison wall for the hundredth time, he found the rampart insurmountable—if anything, it was spiked in the remote quarter with higher and more jagged glass. Over the north-east junction, limbs of hazelwood sprang, but far out of reach—a discouraging fact. A barely discernible murmur of distant waves swirled about the bluffs. The languid moan of the wind brought a chill to his bones. How it twinged Baus’s heart to hear such plaintive windsong! To be free and roam the beaches once again! He had taken his pleasures for granted—but no longer!
Baus paused, frowning. Near a dip in the land, over on the wall . . . there was a large oblong crack outlined in the pale slate. A stone—perhaps? Maybe a foot in diameter—perhaps dislodged by age . . .
Baus stirred himself. He glanced both ways, held his breath. To ensure that Skarrow or Tilfgurd was not looking his way, he side-slipped over to the wall and peered cautiously about. Cramming his fingers into the crack, he attempted to jar the stone loose.
No luck. The impediment was immoveable. He could not displace the stone, but if perhaps a small person like Weavil could slide through unhindered . . .
The hope was a longshot. It would take heavy tools and significant labour to dislodge such a rock. Not impossible, but hardly a facile task . . .
Another disheartening thought: Weavil may squeeze through the crevice, but Heagram, far away, perhaps a mile or more
, was accessible only via the grim woods, densely thicketed with crag-thistle and blisterweed. Doubtless the terrain would pose an insurmountable difficulty to Weavil’s mobility. How could his shrunken comrade hope to transport himself through the brake before any of the guards discovered his absence?
The dilemma was real. Baus accepted his plight with solemnity. Escape seemed as lofty as instant riches, quite possibly as impossible as impossibility itself.
With a dull reminder of this misfortune, Baus returned to the monotony of his clam-shucking. Occasionally he mumbled curses or glanced at the wall, but these gestures did not help. A new line of reasoning entered his brain. For example, this evening could he bandy words with Graves to see what could be done about this cock-eyed sentence? What were a few miserable cils, after all?—The smallest bite on the Captain’s foot was Weavil’s crime—a picayune prank. Were not Nuzbek’s infractions all the more serious?
After dinner, the prisoners took time to digest their cold onion pudding and stewed yams to reflect upon the day’s labour. Leisure hours were few and Baus took opportunity to request an audience with Graves through Tilfgurd. Baus received a brief consultation with the Captain and inside the office, he confronted him on the issue of his sentence.
Graves, however, was obdurate.
“Captain, you are a stickler! How can I repay these debts of mine while I am in gaol and I can no more earn cils than court damsels?”
Graves arranged his bearing without concern. “This is an evocative conundrum, which in all practicality raises profound questions. I advise you to forget it. I merely uphold the law, which in relation to you, states that people owing monies to other people are incarcerated until they can repay such funds.”