The Hod King

by Josiah Bancroft

  The moth released, Senlin fell heavily upon the bed in his terry cloth robe. The constabulary could be at his door at any moment. He needed to gather his thoughts. He closed his eyes and tried to think of what he would say.

  Even for a dream, the scene seemed gauzy and golden. Senlin stared down a long banquet table that gleamed with the light of candelabras. Empty plates and bowls awaited the arrival of the first course. Servants poured wine over the shoulders of the seated guests, men with waxed mustaches and ladies with coiffures that bared their necks. They radiated prosperity and joy. A string quartet played sweetly in a corner of the vaulted dining room. Senlin’s view swung gently, as if he were floating, as if he were riding along with one of the Sphinx’s butterflies.

  The guests of honor were seated at the head of the table: a golden-haired man with a beard like a spear, and a woman whose face Senlin could not quite see through the forest of centerpieces. But even by glimpses—a twist of her hair, the curl of one ear—he recognized her. He would always recognize her.

  The duke raised his glass, rang it with a carving knife, hushing the music and laughter, drawing every eye to himself. He opened his mouth to deliver a magnificent toast, but then closed it again. He bowed to his new bride as if to say, After you. The guests all applauded until she stood. Her dress was as white as a mountain peak. She peered down the table, through the steam of bloody roasts that had suddenly materialized on the plates and the tall candle flames and the growing sprays of flowers—she peered through it all, directly at him, spying upon her happiness.

  If he could’ve fled, Senlin would have. But the dream would not let him go nor look away. She squinted at him as one would squint at a fingerprint on a looking glass. “Why, Headmaster Fishbelly, is that you? Where are your children? What has happened to them?”

  Senlin bolted upright and tumbled from his bed. He landed on his stomach and the heels of his hands. Something like a gunshot had startled him awake. He rolled onto his back and looked at the granddaughter clock on his bedside. It was nearly eight thirty. He’d slept through the night.

  The door to his room rattled again, the sound suggesting more a battering ram than a human hand.

  Recovering his wits, he called out that he was coming. He saw in the mirror that he was still wearing his robe. Briefly, he wondered if he had time to dress, then the gunshot knock came again, and he hurried to open the door.

  Expecting a constable or two, he was surprised to find himself confronted by a troop of six soldiers, all of them armed and dressed in the crisp black uniforms of the House of Pell.

  The men were led by two quite remarkable persons. The foremost gentleman, whom Senlin judged to be in his sixties, was excessively tall and militarily dressed. He wore his unnaturally dark hair oiled up into a sort of shark fin. A short black cape was tossed over one shoulder and a striking pin adorned his lapel: three white horizontal lines in a square of honey gold. He was clean-shaven yet gray-cheeked, and his heavily lidded eyes suggested a lethargy that his gaze did not. From his belt hung a pistol that was so long it ended past his knees. It seemed more a hip cannon than a sidearm.

  Striking as he was, he was nearly eclipsed by the woman at his side. She wore a suit of golden armor, or at least the top half of one. But her cuirass and gauntlets didn’t possess the common bulk of armor. They were as finely fitted as a blouse and gloves. Her hair was red as a flame with twists of smoky white at her temples. She wore a concerted scowl. Senlin had the distinct impression that she was furious with him. She still held up her gold fist, as if she had not yet decided whether or not to continue knocking now that the door was open, and he was standing in it.

  “Morning, Mr. Pinfield,” the tall man said. “I’m General Andreas Eigengrau. This is Wakeman Georgine Haste. We’ve come to see you about some murders.”

  Chapter Seven

  Approach an officer of the law as you might a stray dog in the street: Use dulcet tones; keep your hands out of your pockets; and don’t look them too long in the eye.

  —Everyman’s Guide to the Tower of Babel, IV. II

  No, no! Please, don’t shuffle those,” Senlin said to the constable rifling through one of the stacks of newspapers that consumed the room’s dresser. “They’re on loan, and there’s a fee if I return them out of order,” he explained when the officer frowned at him.

  General Eigengrau did not seem the sort of man to move about a room unnecessarily, perhaps preferring that a room move around him, but he gave his man a small, conciliatory signal. The black-booted officer quit scrambling the newspapers and began ripping the drawers from the bureau. Senlin’s shirts and underclothes fell into heaps, which the officer probed with his polished toe.

  The first thing Eigengrau did when he planted his feet in the middle of the room was ask for Senlin’s credentials. Senlin produced his, or rather Cyril Pinfield’s, proof of citizenry to the ringdom of Boskopeia, his business card, his accountant’s license, and a letter from his bank. Senlin could only hope Byron was the talented forger he believed himself to be.

  Continuing his scrutiny of Pinfield’s papers, Eigengrau said, “You were saying, sir: You felt unwell, so you left the play early, ran out into the rain. Whereupon you observed Mr. Cavendish and Mr. Brown with a hod in an alley.” Senlin was doing his best to pay attention to the general while still keeping an eye on Wakeman Haste, who was making a thorough and more thoughtful sweep of the room. Senlin made an effort to avoid glancing at the cigar box full of the Sphinx’s messengers. They were wrapped in a thin layer of tobacco to deflect a casual inspection. He could only hope she didn’t smoke.

  The general continued his summary. “You observed a scuffle between the three men. Then you approached and struck Cavendish—”

  “It wasn’t a scuffle,” Senlin said. “They were torturing that man, the hod.”

  “Not an uncommon sport,” Eigengrau said. “Though it’s not usually a prelude to murder.”

  Wakeman Haste’s angry expression seemed to soften when she spotted the cigar box tucked under an errant copy of the Daily Reverie. Her mechanical fingers were lithe enough to catch the subtle lip of the lid and flip it open. She peered in at the tobacco-wrapped moths and smiled.

  Ah, Senlin thought, of course she smokes.

  Shortly before his departure, Senlin had asked the Sphinx why she couldn’t dispatch her Wakemen if she was so certain Marat and his hods posed a danger to the Tower. Surely the Wakemen were better equipped for such an enterprise, and wasn’t that the entire purpose for their existence? The Sphinx had replied, “Need I remind you that Marat was once a Wakeman, too? The fact is, my employees are not as reliable as they were. I still hold out hope that some of them remain loyal. But some have aged and softened beyond usefulness; some have been corrupted by vice or luxury; some have had their sanity eroded by age and activity.” Senlin thought that a very charitable way of describing the Red Hand, but he decided against correcting the Sphinx. “Some Wakemen are now more loyal to their hosts than to me. I admit, I neglected them. But there’s no way to know now who I can trust. I suggest you continue to choose your confidants very, very carefully.”

  Wakeman Haste plucked out a cigar and rolled it between her thumb and forefinger admiringly.

  Snatching up the cut-crystal lighter from his bedside table, Senlin smiled as he approached Haste. “Those are quite remarkable. They’re hand rolled by gibbons in Algez. Gorgeous creatures.” He flicked the flint wheel ineptly, drawing no flame. “They’re diligent workers, though they do like to lick the cigars.” The Wakeman, who’d nearly gotten the cigar to her lips, now scowled at it. “It gives them a musty flavor, but it’s all part of the experience.”

  “A monkey licked this?” she asked.

  “Technically, gibbons are apes.”

  She dropped the cigar back into the box and ignored Senlin’s expression of mock hurt as he clicked the lighter shut. “Can you describe the hod?” Haste asked.

  “Oh, come now, Haste,” Eigengrau interjected.
“Bald, underfed, lame, bad teeth, and an iron collar. They all look the same. You might as well ask him to describe a pigeon.” The general folded Pinfield’s credentials and tucked them under his arm. That seemed a bad sign to Senlin.

  “He was not very tall,” Senlin said. Hoping to appease Haste by answering her question. “About yea high.” He held out his hand to mid-chest level. “He had very narrow shoulders. Was perhaps fifty years old. He was covered in whitewash at the time, but I think I could identify him if you found him. I’m very observant.”

  “That’s very convenient,” Haste said, crossing her beautiful arms. They chimed softly where they rubbed together. Wisps of steam rose from the engraved joints of her elbows. What Senlin had initially mistaken for a suit of armor was undeniably one of the Sphinx’s engines. He saw her artistry in the etchings that swirled across the muscular plates. Those patterns were as complex as burl wood. “You admit to fighting with Cavendish and Brown, but you insist you didn’t kill them. No, a short, narrow-shouldered, fifty-year-old hod killed them. He picked up a stone and struck first one, and then the other, dead, while you stood there being—how did you put it? Very observant.”

  “Yes,” Senlin said, seeing he had not won any ground with her.

  “No.” She shook her head. “I think there was no hod. There was only Cavendish, Brown, and you in that alley. Perhaps they insulted you earlier in the evening. That’s usually how these things go. They insulted your terrible fashion or your clumsy dancing or your inability to satisfy a woman. You took offense. You followed them into the alley, picked up a convenient cobblestone, and took them by surprise. Once they were dead, you splashed some paint about to make it look like a hod had been involved.”

  “‘That’s usually how these things go’?” Senlin said, his calm cracking. He knew she was baiting him, hoping that he might say something rash or revelatory. “Is presumption as good as proof here? That must make your job so much easier. Why even have an investigation, or courts, or a king for that matter when we have you to tell us how these things usually go?”

  She strode straight at him, raising a gold finger as she came. The floor still trembled even after she stopped. “Why did you intervene on the hod’s account? You expect me to believe that, in the middle of a storm, you saw a hod getting bumped about in an alley by a couple of drunks, and rather than go inside where it was dry or call someone of authority, you decided to mount a personal crusade for a hod? What am I supposed to make of that? You’re either a madman or a liar!”

  Haste fairly panted with anger. The air in the room felt thin and overused.

  If they took him to their offices, he was sure he would be exposed. The moment they checked his ticket against the ship’s passenger list, they would see it was a fake, and the rest would unravel. No, he could not afford to be taken in. He decided to try a different tack, something to remind them what he was: an awkward Boskop.

  “I’ll tell you what I am. I am a misfit!” Senlin’s voice cracked as he shouted. Senlin heard the familiar yet no less electrifying sound of swords being drawn from their scabbards. There was no going back now, so he thundered on. “I am an oddity! Even among my countrymen, I am the subject of ridicule. They mock me because I am not ashamed of my passions. I am proud of my snail farm, my lace collection, my poetry. All my life, they’ve called me namby-pamby and milksop, because there’s nothing that threatens a bully’s delicate virility so much as the honest passions of other men. This world is full of tyrants, full of men who can’t raise themselves up by their own pursuits, and so they spend their lives pulling others down to their low and loathsome level.

  “When I saw those men tormenting that hod—that human being—I ran to his defense. If I had known the hod would take advantage of my help and kill them, I might not have intervened. I do not love bloodshed.” Senlin closed his eyes, his voice shaking with delved emotion and genuine fear. “But I did what I wish others would have done for me. I stood up to the bullies.”

  When he opened his eyes, Senlin found Georgine Haste staring at him. She seemed to be trying to read something printed in very small letters on the inside of his skull. At last, she broke off, making a shooing motion at the other officers. The sound of swords sliding back into their sheaths filled Senlin with relief.

  “Did this hod say anything to you?” Eigengrau asked.

  The question caught Senlin off guard, and when he hesitated, he felt he had no choice but to confess the truth and hope it helped his case. “He did. He said something I didn’t understand. He said, ‘Come the Hod King.’”

  Eigengrau and Haste exchanged a look that suggested they’d heard the phrase before.

  “Perhaps we should move this conversation to a more formal setting,” Eigengrau said, nodding at an officer who produced a set of shackles. “Don’t look so forlorn, Mr. Pinfield. It’s just a little public theater. Half of Pelphia has been arrested. No one minds it. It’s just one more way to see your name in print. Now, if you’d like to make a scene, I’d suggest you wait until we’re on the street. No point shouting yourself hoarse where there’s no one to hear it. The officers will be happy to thrash you to heighten the drama if you like.”

  Feeling a sudden and radiating numbness in his chest, Senlin held out his wrists. He watched as the irons were placed on them. They felt heavy and cold. As he observed the tightening of the screws, his hands seemed to grow more distant. His vision began to retreat. He saw the top of his head as if he were standing upon his own shoulders, looking down. The hotel room shrank to the size of a desk drawer. His bed was like a sheet of stationery. The soldiers were as small as nibs and paper clips and coins. The drawer of the room began to close, and the darkness clutched at him.

  “Excuse me,” a young, unsteady voice said.

  Senlin caught himself just as his trembling knees were about to buckle. He inhaled, and the breath brought the room into relief again.

  The young porter in the doorway looked a little terrified but also thrilled to have happened upon such an extravagant scene. He stood at full attention in his crimson livery, holding a lidded serving dish. “I have Mr. Pinfield’s breakfast. And a letter.”

  “Come here, lad,” the general said. The porter stepped around the officers, who made no effort to spare his inconvenience. Hunting about for some clear space to put his tray down amid the general mess of clothes and newsprint, the porter had no choice but to balance the tray on an unsteady stack of papers. He lifted the dome cover on two pieces of pale, naked toast, a teacup full of tepid water, and a wedge of lemon. A stately letter lay on a second saucer.

  As the general took the letter, he observed the man’s bland breakfast. “Hoping to punish a tapeworm, Mr. Pinfield?” he asked with a chuckle. He gave the youth a few coins, then turned to face the shackled guest. “Since you’re indisposed at the moment, perhaps you’ll allow me to …” Eigengrau had already broken the seal and begun to read the letter when his voice trailed off.

  When he looked up again, there was a different sort of light behind his eyes. “Yes, we can take those off, now,” he said to the same officer who’d screwed down the locks. The relief that filled Senlin’s chest was only slighted diluted by his confusion.

  As the irons were removed, Eigengrau said, “It seems you have some business to attend to this afternoon, Mr. Pinfield. I wouldn’t want to keep you from it. We appreciate your time this morning.” He returned Senlin’s credentials along with the opened letter and gave what seemed a knowing smile. “We’ll let you know if we need anything further. I don’t imagine we will.”

  And with that, the general and his officers filed from the room, departing as abruptly as they’d arrived.

  Georgine Haste was last out and nearly through the door when Senlin said, “Excuse me!” She hesitated, turning her head just enough to show she was listening but would not listen long. The shield of her back was etched with a great tree whose leaves, canopy, limbs, and roots seemed to curl in, embracing her. A golden tree of life. “Do you kn
ow who the Hod King is?”

  For a scant second, it seemed she might answer, then she swallowed hard and said: “It’s none of your concern.” She slammed the door so sharply the gust sent papers fluttering to the floor.

  Senlin looked at the letter in his hand. The stock was made of fine, crisp linen. He opened it and read:

  Dear Mr. Pinfield,

  Thank you for your letter. I’d like to hear more of your proposal. Why don’t we discuss the business later this morning? I have a regular table at the Coterie Club above the Colosseum. I trust you’re familiar with it. I’ve enclosed my card. Show it to the man at the door, and he’ll see you in.

  Cordially Yours,

  Duke Wilhelm Horace Pell

  Senlin removed the duke’s calling card. The front was embossed with his name and title. On the back, was a square of gold leaf that contained three white lines, hovering one atop the other. General Eigengrau’s lapel pin had borne the same symbol. Beneath the white bars, in a tombstone script, were the words THE COTERIE OF TALENTS.

  Chapter Eight

  In the span of just a few years, the Coterie have gone from being a drunken fraternity to the most influential society in the realm. I’ve had an easier time getting an audience with the king than an open seat at the Coterie Club.

  —Oren Robinson of the Daily Reverie

  Senlin choked down the dry toast and tepid water that had been his daily breakfast since arriving at the Bon Royal. Blast the Boskops and their bland palates! He longed for a piece of fruit, a link of fatty sausage, or even a cup of weak tea. Then he recalled the days of hunger they’d suffered aboard the Stone Cloud, and he felt ashamed of his ingratitude. The hooks of entitlement were so quick to set!