The Man-Butcher Prize

by Charles X Cross

  The dome atop the roof of the town hall erupted in a ball of flame; bricks, smoke, and mortar shot out in all directions. The audience screamed and the assassins readied themselves for battle. Some dove to avoid cascading shrapnel. Then a green hue swelled from the detritus. A spume of red and purple and yellow shot into the air with a wicked screech. Lights popped against the clouds and smoke burst in the most vibrant hues. The initial trepidation was washed away with relief and delight as the onlooker’s realised the coloured explosions had been planned.

  Too concerned with the narrowing window to find his sponsor, William failed to get caught up in the excitement.

  ‘Together, the entrant and their sponsor,’ the mayor roared with wicked glee as the fireworks filled the smog choked sky, ‘will rip, tear, blast, buck, and bludgeon their way to victory. The Man-Butcher Prize awaits!’

  1673

  The memory of the journeyman’s disposal had been seared into William’s brain and revisited a hundred times over. But like a well-trodden path, the memory gradually eroded until it was unrecognisable. After five months with the pawnbroker, cutting up the journeyman’s body had stopped crying him to sleep, turning to a mundanity not worth thinking about.

  Winter solstice had been and gone without celebration, or even mention, though on that particular night the broker had changed into more formal attire before leaving. William had been left alone in the cellar with his list of chores and a weighted chain dragging at his ankle.

  He barely had any time to sleep. During the day he was let off his chain to help in tending the shop. Sweeping floors, wiping counters, and not looking customers directly in the eye were his three main duties. In the evening, he would be returned to the cellar and his weight, to itemise stock and see to any other menial tasks. He had made bread one day, and cut the sores off the old man’s feet another.

  One afternoon, after he had finished polishing a collection of antique spoons, he found that the door dividing the stock room and the shopfront had been locked. On his knees, he pressed one eye to the keyhole, rewarded with a direct view of the back of the counter. He squirmed, turning this way and that, and at best was granted a glimpse of the pawnbroker’s faded smoking jacket.

  There were voices coming from the shopfront, and to his surprise he recognised them both: the broker, and the captain of the journeyman apprentice’s ship. William hadn’t spent much time with anyone aboard except the cook and the young merchant, but the captain’s voice had carried into the darkest part of the hold. Uncommonly deep, a bellowed command always poised on the end of a sentence.

  ‘Perry disembarked and was sighted in the district. Give me the truth of it, Basar,’ the captain growled, rapping his hand on the glass counter top.

  ‘That may be, captain, but he never arrived.’ The broker’s voice had a timbre that William had never heard before; sorrowful and apologetic. ‘I would love to have told you otherwise, but I waited all night. To be honest, I thought I was waiting for Mr Goodrich himself. Indeed, I couldn’t imagine a street thug accosting such an imposing gentleman, so just assumed the artefact hadn’t been located yet. His apprentice on the other hand, so naïve… I suspect he was easy pickings.’

  ‘Street thugs?’ The captain sounded doubtful. It didn’t suit him.

  ‘Oh, yes.’

  William could practically hear the broker’s sick glee breaking through his melancholic warble.

  ‘The place is rife with crime, contrary to what you might have heard, and half the constabulary is owned by organised gangs. Even a man such as myself has protection rates to pay.’

  The captain mused for a moment, forestalled. A man used to obedience and honesty in his crew, thwarted by such a lowly creature. ‘Well, please, if you hear anything, get in touch.’

  ‘Good day to you.’ It was almost possible to hear Basar wringing his hands.

  William screwed up his fist and struck the door. He was surprised at the sheer noise of it against the dusty silence of the back room. Then his second hand joined the drumming. Over and over he thumped the wood, desperate for help.

  ‘What’s that?’ the captain asserted, making himself louder and bigger over the crooked broker.

  ‘Just my dog. It’s a big brute.’ The broker kicked the door. ‘Quiet in there, or I’ll bury you in the yard.’

  William pounded on the door again, more ferocious and rapid than before.

  ‘That doesn’t sound like any dog I’ve heard.’ The captain primed his flintlock. ‘I think you should open that door.’

  ‘I wouldn’t want it to bite you.’ The broker’s excuse was weak and everyone knew it.

  The counter top squealed as it was lifted and thumped heavily aside. There was a tussle as the captain shoved his way past the old broker; keys rattled in the lock. A gun poked through the gap first, on the off chance the broker had been truthful about the dog.

  William stepped back, tears blurring his pale eyes as he stared up at the captain through the swaying curtain of glass beads. He was as brilliant up close as he had been from the far end of the deck. All perfectly organised frogging and gleaming buttons. His hair even maintained a perfect coiffeur having been stowed under his hat all day.

  ‘Is that you, boy?’ He looked down at William, confused for a moment, before he realised what his presence here meant; that the journeyman had arrived and the broker was lying.

  There was a loud clap of gunpowder and blood erupted from the captain’s chest. He toppled much like the journeyman had, only this time, onto William. The dead mass pinned him to the floor. He tried to wriggle free, but the captain was too heavy.

  With a click the broker locked the main shop door, then calmly turned the sign to “closed” and lowered the blinds. His flintlock was reloaded in the gloom and then his wizened face peered over William.

  ‘I’d normally kill a slave for something like that.’ The broker chewed on something unknown in his mouth, in that way that a lot of old men seem to do. ‘I still might, but I need a cup of tea first.’

  Basar stepped over William into the back room, then disappeared up the staircase.

  Unable to move, paralysed from the weight of the dead man and malnourishment, William was trapped. Blood pumped over him until it turned cold and coagulated on his clothes. Fatigue and shock dragged him into sleep, and only then was he taken to the cellar. The broker disposed of the captain alone.

  William tried to flee many times after that, but the cellar was deep under the earth and the stairs were steep and slippery. He hadn’t the strength to heave the iron ball strapped to his leg any further than the second step. The only person who ever heard his cries for help was the broker one night, having returned to fetch his hat. Ten lashings with the buckle end of a belt promptly stopped any further attempts to escape.

  Disobedience had been driven out of William. Even when he saw the calendar, and realised it was his birthday, it didn’t encourage him to free himself from the perpetual servitude. He tended the shop silently; planned to bide his time until evening. Then he would rush through his chores to give himself a few hours of rest, and savour his scraps as if they were the finest red velvet cake.

  It was almost as if the broker could sense he wanted to keep his head down. He sniped at him over every little thing: a triangle of un-swept dust in the crook of a doorframe, an ornament displayed at an angle on the shelf. It was the coin deposited into the wrong compartment of the lockbox that almost bought him another flogging, a punishment William was determined to avoid.

  In the late afternoon, the broker made his way groaning and creaking up the stairs to the storerooms above the shop. William had never been allowed up there. So he continued with his work, pricing worthless knick-knacks that were sold as foreign treasure.

  By and by, it occurred to William that he was alone; that he was unchained. Such restraints were impractical in the shopfront and unnecessary when the broker’s gun was always in reach.

  He stepped around a tall display cabinet to stow a wand fr
om Marjore with a pot of other such useless sticks. Wood rattled against the clay pot. Light glimmered from the polished handles. William looked up. Just a few feet away, flanked by grim faced statues and tasselled scarves, was the front door. Unlocked. Three feet of bare wooden boards stretched between his feet and the door. Beyond was the street, and freedom.

  Terror clutched him. Terror that he would be out in the world, terror that he would be caught before he got there. For one aching moment, William’s heart was silent as he listened to the stillness in the shop. There was nothing, not even the shuffling of the broker’s heel or the tap of his cane. William hoped the old man had simply died, perhaps that a vein had burst or that he had spontaneously combusted. Maybe even fallen and broken his… not his neck; that was too quick. Perhaps his ribs, so he could slowly asphyxiate – aware of his inevitable death.

  Something shifted upstairs; a box lid. Not dead then, just quiet.

  He turned his chin towards the imposing door. It seemed larger than before, more than just dry wood and a thin pane of glass. The blind was up, like an open eyelid. Through it, he could see the beating sun – somehow powerless in the dingy shop – and the faceless blur of people passing by atop high carriages. He could become one of them, unseen and unknown. Or he could run straight into a fresh hell; into the clutches of a more ruthless slaver. He might board a ship and be reunited with his family, but he wasn’t so sure that was possible anymore.

  His shoulders squared to the door. In his gut he felt this was the right thing to do. Once open, the bell would trill and the broker would know he had fled into the streets. His foot shuffled forwards, a few toes closer to a new life.

  There was a scrape of soft leather on wood as the broker returned to the stairs.

  The bell swung on its pendulum, knocked by a rare customer. A man stepped inside, stooping his head, even though the lintel was a generous six feet in height. Coffee-rich flesh, glossy black hair oiled and trimmed just so; a man from the south, cased in road-dusted clothes from the north. He let the door swing closed behind him, ringing the bell again. Every movement was precise, fluid yet unhurried, like a prowling cat. A huge and intelligent beast that did not belong in the civilised world.

  As the man turned his azure glower upon him, William knew what the spectre of death truly looked like. He didn’t balk under scrutiny – strengthened by his time away from coddling parents. This man’s arrival had cost him his one chance at freedom. The moment drew between the pair in frigid silence, until finally the southerner dipped his head in passive greeting.

  ‘Mr Basar?’ The man called out, shifting his sights to the backroom door. He moved for the counter and William retreated behind it to his stool and the labelling of produce – shrivelled by the weight of his failed escape.

  ‘Won’t be a minute,’ the broker replied, reaching the foot of the stairs. With a few grunts of exertion he made it through the backroom to the shop, hauling a roll of hessian tied with twine. The hanging beads clattered as he entered. ‘Help me, boy.’

  William leapt off his stool and took one end of the bundle, lifting it over his head to the countertop.

  ‘I trust you’re Mr Azul, you certainly look Conejan.’ The broker pulled the frayed end of a string to loosen the first of three knots. ‘Here about the artefact?’

  ‘I am, yes.’ The blue-eyed man shot another cold glance towards William, forcing him back to his stool in the corner. ‘When I heard such a humble place as this had come across something so unique, I had to see it for myself. Tell me, how did you get your hands on it?’

  ‘I have a somewhat famous merchant adventurer wrapped around my little finger.’ The broker used a yellow stained nail to pull the last of the twine from the wrappings. ‘I could tell you who, but you wouldn’t believe me.’

  The foreign customer smirked, and the broker unravelled the contents from the bundle. Inside was the etched stone sword, the slaver’s silver flintlock, a belt buckle, and collection of buttons.

  ‘Forgive me.’ The broker swept all of the journeyman’s effects to one side. ‘I obtained all these things together, haven’t had time to sort through everything yet.’

  ‘No matter.’ The blue-eyed man leant closer to better look at the carved sword. ‘May I touch it?’

  ‘You may, but just bear in mind, if anything’s broken you have to pay for the pieces.’ The broker made an attempt to accompany his weak humour with a warm smile, but his natural demeanour made it obviously disingenuous.

  The customer took up the carving by the hilt as if it was a real sword and not some delicate antique. He even swung it a few times as if it had ever been intended for combat.

  ‘It’s not as heavy as it looks.’ He jostled it loosely between his forefinger and thumb to get a better feel for it, before setting it back on the counter. The broker rubbed the base of his spine in disagreement. ‘How much?’

  ‘Why don’t you make me an offer?’ Though the broker managed to abstain from his habitual hand ringing, the prospect of receiving vast quantities of gold seemed to set him on edge. His hands flirted together, fingers caressing varicose veins through loose skin.

  ‘I’m not in the business of haggling.’ The Conejan turned to look at some of the other items in the shop as if he had completely lost interest in the carved sword. ‘Tell me what you want for it, and if I can afford it I’ll buy it. If not, I won’t.’

  The broker clearly didn’t like this.

  ‘One-fifty.’ A high bid. ‘That’s gold pieces, not imperial grana mind.’

  Mr Azul mulled it over as he strolled the shop, looking across the array of weaponry for sale. After a minute, he picked up what looked like a tapered staff with a notch in each end. Swords, umbrellas, and ivory headed canes rattled around as he removed it from the crowded display barrel.

  ‘Do you have the string for this?’ He turned to face the broker.

  ‘I do somewhere.’ The broker slid the sword across the counter to the huddle of effects in front of William. He lifted the hinged top and moved to a display in front of the smoky glassed window.

  ‘Throw it in with the sword and you’ve got yourself a deal.’

  William was surprised by the offer. From his time in the shop, he had learned the value of things; in comparison to the sword, even the umbrellas, the bow was practically worthless. For a hundred and fifty gold pieces, the broker would twine a bowstring from his own gizzards – or more likely William’s – if it saw the deal done.

  Basar pulled the contents out of a pot on the display shelf and scattered them out. A few military badges and some pearlescent beads tumbled to the floor. A bundle of something fibrous was still wedged in the bottom. He reached in with two long, gnarled fingers.

  ‘I knew I had one around here somewhere,’ he said triumphantly, stretching out the string and pulling any knots free. ‘It’s not the finest there is, but it’ll see you good.’

  The broker coiled the string back up neatly and passed it to Mr Azul, who instantly unfurled it again. It was pulled taut twice to test its strength, producing two tones like that of a dull sitar.

  ‘This should do nicely.’

  The broker bobbed his head, and shuffled towards the opening in the counter, eager to confirm the sale in his ledger.

  ‘Holden Goodrich sends a message.’ Mr Azul whirled on the heel of his polished black shoe. ‘No matter your intentions in the dispatching of his associates, the last deal between the pair of you has been had.’

  The warning came just early enough that Basar knew his fate before the bowstring was slipped around his neck and the panic of near-death set in. William had seen it coming, but didn’t move to help. He watched as the broker tried to claw the string free with frantic fingers, though it had already pulled too tightly into his flesh. With two flicks of each wrist, Azul wrapped the string more securely around his fists. Basar’s legs lost strength and the pair lowered to the floor. He kicked for a time and just as his life was about to slip from his body, the string was released.<
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  Leaving the broker wheezing and drooling on the boards, Mr Azul stood easily and straightened his coat. With feline calm, he approached the counter.

  ‘I’m taking this back for my employer.’ He began to rebind the sword in hessian. ‘He wanted you to know that he could have you killed at any moment. Compared to him, you have few friends, little coin. Do not dare even mention his name again. It will not take much effort on my part to find you, the guild has eyes everywhere.’

  The broker gasped and choked phlegm.

  ‘If I were you, I’d thank the New Fates that Mr Goodrich has a reputation to preserve.’ Azul knotted the last bit of frayed string around his sword and bow.

  With one hand massaging his throat, Basar subtly reached for his flintlock. The hammer was caught on his belt. He fidgeted and rolled onto his side, fumbling to undo the buckle.

  ‘Oh, it’s too late for that Mr Basar.’ Azul tightened the second string on the bundle calmly. ‘Your boy has different plans for you than my employer.’

  The broker’s blood-shot eyes drifted to William, who stood atop his stool wielding the silver barrelled flintlock – taken from the journeyman’s discarded effects. Basar fought with his belt, whooping panicked breaths, heaving to free his flintlock. The belt slipped a little, trouser fabric tore, and the pistol pulled free.

  Azul padded across the room and planted the silver tip of his boot in the broker’s ribs. The pistol fired wide, shattering a glass cabinet and splitting a shrunken head. Black sand spilled from the fissure. Not satisfied with a simple rebuke, Azul crushed the broker’s jaw under his heel. A collection of Basar’s teeth dribbled from broken lips as he recoiled into a whimpering ball.

  ‘Go on then, boy.’ Mr Azul knelt over the broker and grabbed a fist of his shirt to prop him up. ‘Finish the job.’

  William’s hand began to tremble, his finger too weak to flex.

  ‘What’s your name boy? Mine is Ojo. Tell me, what does this man feed you?’