The Incorruptibles

by John Hornor Jacobs

Cornelius was served first and began to tuck in at once. The slaves served Gnaeus next, and began to move about the table.

  Gnaeus ate slowly, taking morsels from the plate with his fingers and placing them in his mouth like a man placing stones in the mouth of a statue. After a short while he stopped and sat, somewhat dazed, staring into his plate.

  Carnelia guzzled wine and pushed her food around her plate, making interesting configurations and pretending to have eaten. She was looking like death in a lukewarm bath. Unpleasant and mocking as she was, I had a moment of sympathy for the girl – spoiled rotten by birth and then absolutely terrified by vaettir.

  Amid the clutter and clank of carving knives and cutlery, Cornelius said, ‘And now, Mr Fisk, Mr Ilys, regale us with the story of the hunt! We shall dine on your story!’

  Fisk looked tense and uncomfortable. Livia winced at her father’s strange use of ‘dine’. Under the table, she placed a hand on Fisk’s knee.

  I waited for an outburst from Gnaeus but he remained blessedly silent.

  I said, ‘Fisk ain’t much of a talker, for sure. But I’ve told my share of stories around many a fire across this new land. Please allow me.’ I set down my glass and looked down the length of the table. ‘Many of you know the story, having witnessed the carnage with your own eyes. But I will try to give full account of what happened.’

  I spoke of the early morning darkness, the wind on the plains, the collection of hunters. Fording the creek and the size of the herd. Ia forgive me, but I made Gnaeus seem a formidable hunter rather than the blood-thirsty child he was.

  When I came to the stretchers, I pointed at the bound one who sat utterly still, watching.

  ‘She and her brethren came, forcing the herd of auroch toward us, rousing them into stampede. They danced on the beasts’ backs, like acrobats. Graceful, yes. But deadly. When the stampede overtook us – and Mr Fisk retrieved the grievously wounded Mr Gnaeus – they flew and pranced overhead like they walked on air.

  ‘They snatched at our hair, lifting men up and cutting free their scalps. Your brave lictors fell defending us, Mr Cornelius, and many lascars. Mr Secundus showed true bravery defending the womenfolk.’ I nodded at Banty. ‘And Mr Bantam as well.’

  I took a sip of wine to wet my mouth and finish the tale. Carnelia watched me with lowered eyes, unsmiling, as though again experiencing the furore, the dust and blood of the day. Secundus frowned and shook his head. Skraeling looked astounded and grim, while Kliment stared at me with a bemused half-smile upon his face, as though he were listening to a song or fanciful tale told in a tavern by some travelling bard.

  ‘With our shooting and the vaettir’s bloodshed, we became encircled by dead aurochs and the bodies of men. And then Fisk leapt amongst us, into the circle’s centre, on his big black, carrying Gnaeus. Mad with anger, he was, more than I’ve ever seen, and I’ve known him now for an age. But now I must pay tribute to Miss Livia. It was she who saw the danger coming for Fisk, dashing overhead. She called out, leapt into the centre of the circle of dead, and raised her own deadly hand. It was she who brought the vaettir down.’

  I stood up and raised my glass. I was taller than the table but not much. ‘So, if I may, I’d like to offer a toast to Miss Livia, as beautiful and deadly as the vaettir themselves. All honour to the woman whose bravery averted total calamity at that hunt.’

  Everyone save Gnaeus stood up, pushing back chairs with a clatter, and raised a glass.

  She was blushing when she said, ‘You are too kind, Mr Ilys. I haven’t the words to thank you.’

  ‘Nothing to thank me for, ma’am. What you did was brave for man or woman.’

  She smiled a little sadly. ‘I am flattered, but there is no honour in killing.’

  It was then that Gnaeus pitched forward, face-down onto the table.

  Gnaeus’ head struck the plate, still containing auroch liver and tongue, and his remaining flap of hair pitched forward to reveal a ragged bloody circlet and a half dome of bone white skull threaded with streaks of blood-tinged yellow pus.

  Two lictors lunged forward to lift Gnaeus away bodily as Livia tried, vainly, to cover his wound with his dangling flap of scalp.

  ‘Carnelia!’ she barked, livid. ‘Stop that bloody giggling.’

  But Carnelia, hysterical, could not. Secundus watched his brother being carried away under Livia’s supervision. He seemed stunned, thoughtful and maybe a little unsure.

  ‘That was damned unfortunate,’ said Cornelius finally. ‘Almost put me off my food, it did. I had no idea.’

  ‘It appears your eldest son has been scalped, Cornelius,’ said Beleth. ‘Did they not tell you?’

  Cornelius harrumphed. ‘Of course they did, Linneus, of course. But there’s hearing about it—’ He paused and searched ineffectually for his glass. It turned out it was already in his hand. ‘And then there’s seeing it.’ His bloodshot gaze travelled down the table. To the vaettir.

  Fisk said, ‘He’s got a fever. And from what I can tell, quite an infection.’ He wrinkled his nose and muttered. ‘No smell worse than a wound turning bad.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ Cornelius said, but without conviction. He looked at Secundus as though seeing him for the first time. ‘He’ll be right as rain, you’ll see. You’ll all see.’

  ‘What’s got me puzzled,’ said Secundus, clearly changing the subject, ‘is where you learned to spin a tale like that, Mr Ilys? The hunt didn’t seem half as fine a story when I told it to myself.’

  There was laughter down the table, some of it still uneasy after Gnaeus’ exit.

  ‘I learned to spin tales to compensate for own stature, Mr Secundus. A story-teller is always welcome around a fire,’ I said. ‘And far less likely to get shot.’

  More laughter.

  Livia returned, looking strained but forcing a smile. She took her seat and said, ‘Pardon me for that interruption, but Gnaeus was not feeling well.’

  Samwell Kliment, his face straight, said, ‘He seems to be in need of some tailoring.’

  Livia shook her head. ‘I worry that if we sutured his wound, it wouldn’t be able to breathe. I have applied tersus incendia and acetum, liberally. All of the legionaries who’ve been scalped, save one, have died from infections or some sort of brain fever.’

  I said, as gently as I could, ‘It’s a hard land here, ma’am. Sometimes all you can do is hope.’

  When the dishes were cleared away, Cornelius clapped his hands and a slave came, bearing a carved wooden sceptre truncating in a bear’s foot. It smelled raw and gamey and my stomach did a little turn as she walked past.

  ‘I quite fancy a smoke,’ said Cornelius. The slave began strapping the sceptre to Cornelius’ thigh, and I realized then it was a false leg. Cornelius noticed Fisk and me staring and declared, ‘She took my leg, so I’ll use hers.’

  Secundus glanced at Livia, since it was she, and not the bear, who had actually amputated her father’s foot.

  The slave used a small wrench to tighten the straps until Cornelius winced. Looking closer, I saw the wood of the leg was cleverly fashioned. It was intricately decorated, with carvings and traced skeins of silver and finely stamped leather. It had a small skean affixed to one side, such as the Ruman Northmen use, and what looked like a flask on the other side. The hinged foot itself was wooden but covered over with the bear’s paw, its great claws stretching five, six inches long. Once the leg was attached, Cornelius touched the foot to the floor and the claws clacked on the floorboards.

  He stood up. Everyone at the table watched as Cornelius, a senator of Rume, attempted a drunken, limping jig at the end of the table, clapping his hands and throwing his bear-leg into the air in feeble little kicks. The numbing effects of booze had done its work. After the rich foods and copious drink, most of the guests at the table could only stare upon him with expressions of muted discomfort and unease.

  Corn
elius sang:

  ‘Oh ho, we’re the fighting fifth with bragging sticks

  Swinging swords and mighty dicks

  A million virgins heard this song

  We filled their bellies, every one!

  A hey! A hoy! A hey!’

  Carnelia clapped her hands in time with her father’s dance. She was the only one. Cimbri looked a bit stunned and his second, Paterna, blinked at the Senator’s gyrations. Beleth chuckled.

  ‘Whiskey for the guests! Come, Lupina! Pour the whiskey!’ Cornelius panted, and then stumped unsteadily away from the table. He stopped, turned in a circle quickly, moving his bear foot clack repeatedly, as if he were showing off his agility.

  ‘It’s fierce! Is it not? Should I take the praenomen Ursa?’ The half-dvergar slave – Lupina – darted forward and grabbed Cornelius’ arm just as he began to teeter and fall. He steadied himself on her shoulder.

  ‘No whiskey? Come, Lupina, fetch some. And my cigars. To share with my guests.’

  Lupina gently pushed Cornelius back onto his seat. He chuffed out an explosion of alcohol-scented air, still humming the tune to his marching song. Moving swiftly, the slave disappeared through the servant’s entrance to the kitchens and reappeared bearing a leaded-crystal bottle of whiskey, a set of tumblers, and a wooden box.

  Setting down the tray, she poured drinks with a deft economy of movement while another slave delivered them to the dinner guests. Then she opened the cigar box and presented it to Cornelius. He took a cigar, bit off the end, and Lupina lit it with a match.

  We all took cigars and whiskeys, even the ladies – scandalous by New Damnation or Harbor Town standards – and wandered about the great room and out onto the rear gallery beyond the paddleboxes, over silvered water.

  It was colder now, and my breath was mingled with cigar smoke and the fumes of good whiskey in my glass.

  Banty, Carnelia, and Isabelle huddled at the rear rail, laughing and wreathed in smoke, the moonlight broken into a million facets beyond them on the thin ribbon of the Big Rill that dashed away to the south and east to New Damnation.

  Miss Livia, arm and arm with Fisk, who looked simultaneously uncomfortable and ecstatic, strolled the length of the gallery, Fisk favouring his uninjured leg. The engineers stood near the Senator while he clomped around on his bear-leg. Below us, on the lower gallery, sounded catcalls and shouts, the clatter and tromp of legionaries without whores, fighting, or gambling to entertain themselves.

  With Fisk occupied, I wandered back into the great room. Lupina glared at me, but poured more whiskey into my tumbler.

  The vaettir remained unmoved as I stood in front of her. The two shotgun-wielding legionaries, men of the fifth, did not have that loose, casual stance of men on blockade or watch. Exposure to the stretcher for long periods had them spooked.

  I swirled the whiskey in my glass and glanced at the soldiers. ‘She move much?’ It was possible they would ignore me or take offence that a dvergar would question them. But I was old when these boys’ parents were born.

  ‘No … sir.’ The last word came reluctantly. ‘She’s like a statue, she is, little miss Agrippina.’

  I raised an eyebrow. ‘Agrippina?’

  ‘Oh, just the fellows’ name for her. Vibenus came up with it. Something about his mother.’

  Soldiers love their nick-names, and Agrippina – it suited her.

  I looked at her. Her eyes stared beyond me. As I moved, they did not track my motion. I walked around the holly cage. It was hard to tell if she even drew breath.

  ‘They live for aeons, it’s said.’

  The guard shifted, almost startled. ‘That right, sir?’

  ‘Yes.’ I sipped my booze and smoked my cigar. ‘The vaettir used to trade with the dvergar, when they wanted fabric, beads, steel. My mother told me that they were all naked before we came to this land.’

  Someone whistled, and I realized Mr Secundus had joined me.

  ‘Naked, you say?’ He looked a bit woppy-jawed, standing unsteadily. Maybe he’d been jarred by his brother’s state. Maybe he was scared of what his future might hold. Whatever the case, the whiskey had not missed him. ‘Like babes in a garden, then, were they?’ He laughed, looking quizzically at Agrippina. ‘Give her her hand back, brush out the hair, put her in something nice, red maybe, she might look presentable. Not so savage.’

  That talk sounded too similar to Banty’s whorehouse rumours.

  ‘I wouldn’t try getting her into a dress, Secundus. She might scratch you like she scratched Gnaeus.’

  His face clouded, thinking. But then he had another drink and laughed. ‘True. She was fearsome on the plains, hopping to and fro, taking those scalps.’

  I’d seen this before. Men, when finally confronting their fears somewhere safe, will try to find some humour to make the threat smaller. It doesn’t work in the end. If Agrippina even moved, this poor highborn lad would piss himself.

  ‘Mr Secundus, the vaettir truly are a terrifying race. But I’m curious as to whether there’s more to them than blood and misery and games.’

  ‘Are you suggesting they might overcome their natures? Rise above their savagery? They might have some modicum of civility?’

  I thought for a moment. ‘I’m one hundred and fifty-three years old, Mr Secundus. My dvergar blood gives long life – it changes perspective somewhat. Sometimes it’s hard for me to get worked up over anything.’

  I walked around the orbis argenta, looking at Agrippina, at the wardwork, the cage. And then at Secundus.

  ‘But the stretchers, their flesh is undying, if all the tales told about them are true.’ I pointed at her with my cigar. ‘She’ll be here for a thousand years after I’m gone. And I’ll outlive you by a lifetime, unless I get ventilated by some pistolero.’

  Secundus’ face darkened at that.

  ‘So, there’s no telling how they’ll act or respond. To her, she might as well have been captured by flies, our lives are so short. But mark my words, the vaettir have some sort of code, or culture, or … something. We’ve never been beyond the White Mountains, and they could have whole cities over there.’

  ‘You sound like my father with his talk of dragons.’

  ‘I can’t speak with any authority on the great wyrms. But one of the vaettir sits before you. We have to figure out what that will mean.’

  ‘Means they aren’t as tough as they seem, maybe.’

  I sighed. Commoners like me can’t just wallop a highborn lad upside the head without getting crucified. It’s debatable if you can deliver sense like that, anyway.

  ‘No,’ I said slowly. ‘It means we got extremely lucky.’

  He tilted his glass to his mouth, noticed it was empty, smiled at me, and turned to find Lupina.

  I stopped him, putting a hand on his arm before he could leave. I gestured to the open Gallish doors and the river beyond. ‘Mr Secundus, I know it was a hard thing. But don’t change how you remember what happened out there,’ I nodded at Agrippina, ‘just because we’ve got her caged in here. Remember how bad it was.’

  He frowned, brows furrowing like dark stormclouds on the virgin plain. The expression didn’t sit well on his young and as yet unlined face. He had more and more to deal with now. His father. What was left of his brother. But he loosened some, reminding me why I liked him so much.

  ‘Understood, Mr Ilys. You are correct, but I believe I’ll indulge myself in a few more moments of fantasy – and another whiskey – before retiring. Can I send Lupina round to you?’

  ‘Much obliged, if you did.’

  He smiled then. A remarkable young man, altogether. ‘Would you check on Livia for me? Obviously, she doesn’t need my protection, yet there are stretchers about…’

  I nodded and toddled off.

  I could feel the cold air coming in through the open doors. Soon Captain Skraeling and Sam
Kliment wandered in, followed by the engineers. Banty walked on the deck, arm and arm with Isabelle, passing in and out of the shadows thrown by the daemonlight. Carnelia was watching, her arms crossed over her breasts and face caught between scorn and maybe, truth be told, a little jealousy. Cimbri stood on the threshold of one door, hands on his waist, staring out into the night, smoking like one of the smokestacks that rose above us.

  I walked out on the deck, shivered with the cold, and spotted Fisk and Livia standing in the shadows cast by the hindmost stack. He was leaning against the outer rail, his head down, listening.

  They did not notice me approaching. She was saying, ‘So, when Metellus learned he could marry the Amelianus woman, and take all of her lands and income for his own, he divorced me with no compunction.’

  Fisk was slow to speak, but when he did it was with rage, barely subdued. ‘That man is an ignorant jackass.’

  ‘It was difficult for a while. I had never loved him …’ She paused, tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. ‘It was a political marriage. The plebs have it so much better in that sense. Their women are not bound by convention. But going from a matron of a household to a divorced woman in Rume, it is not something I’d like to endure again. Metellus, not content to divorce me, put about the forum and to his cronies that I was deviant, and could not conceive a child due to strange … proclivities.’ She bowed her head. ‘He besmirched my name, along with ending our marriage.’

  ‘Ia-damn that man. I would—’ He stopped and gritted his teeth. ‘I would kill him, if he weren’t a half a world away.’

  Livia placed a hand on his cheek, only for a moment, and he raised his hand to grasp hers.

  ‘I knew you, of all people, would understand.’ Her voice, measured and soft.

  ‘Been years since I thought about the dishonour to my name.’ Gruff and rumbling, his voice.

  ‘Surely it bothers you? I don’t know if I agree with what your father did, but you are of patrician birth, and by rights should be in the senate.’

  He laughed, lowered his voice again.

  ‘I was just a boy when we came here to exile. This land was like a wonderful adventure. Though a cloud hung over Father, I loved it. But he turned mean and desperate. Exile didn’t suit him. It wasn’t until …’