Age was a demon, a haunting that slipped into the bones whispering weakness and frailty. It stole his muscles, his agility, and the quickness of his wit. It seemed a miserable reward for surviving, all things told, which was proof enough that life was a fool’s bargain.
Maybe there was a god out there, somewhere, who’d decided that life was a good thing, and so made it real, like blowing on a spark to keep it going until it was nothing but ash, then sitting back and thinking, why, that was a worthy thing, wasn’t it? Here, let’s make lots more! But a man’s spark, or a woman’s for that matter, had to be worth more than just a brief flicker of light in the darkness.
Behind him, as he pushed forward step by step, the boat ground its way up from the waves.
The muscles remembered younger, bolder days, and the bones could mutter all they wanted to, and if the haunting aches returned on the morrow, well, he would damn that day when it came.
His back to the sea, working as he was,Whuffine did not see the blood-red sail appear on the southern horizon.
“The challenges of governance,” said Bauchelain, studying the wine in the crystal goblet he held up to candelight, “pose unique travails that few common folk have the intelligence to understand. Would you not agree to this, sir?”
“I have said as much many times,” Fangatooth replied, glancing over at Coingood. “As you have noted in my Tome of Tyranny, Scribe. Do you see, Bauchelain, how he writes down all that we say? I am assembling a book, you see, a work of many parts, and now, with this night, you yourself enter the narrative of my rise to power.”
“How congenial, sir,” Bauchelain said, raising the goblet in a toast.
“And if your companion would deign to speak, then he too would be rewarded with immortality, there upon the vellum of my virtues-Coingood, note that one! My vellum of virtues! It’s my gift for the turn of phrase, you see, which I am adamant in preserving for posterity. ‘Preserving for posterity!’ Write that, Scribe!”
“Alas,” said Bauchelain, “Korbal Broach’s talents lie elsewhere, and as a dinner guest he is often noted for his modesty, and his evident appreciation of fine food. Is that not so, my friend?”
Korbal Broach glanced up from his plate. He licked his greasy lips and said, “Those bodies I left outside should be frozen by now, don’t you think, Bauchelain?”
“I imagine so,” Bauchelain replied.
Grunting, Korbal returned to his meal.
Fangatooth gestured and a servant refilled his goblet. “It always astonishes me,” he said, “that so many common people look with horror and revulsion upon a corpse, when I admit to seeing in its lifeless pose a certain eloquence.”
“A singular statement, yes.”
“Precisely. Flesh in its most artless expression.”
“Which transcends the mundane and becomes art itself, when one considers its ongoing potential.”
“Potential, yes.” Fangatooth then frowned. “What potential do you mean, Bauchelain?”
“Well, take those bodies you suspend upon hooks on your keep wall. Are they not symbolic? Else, why display them at all? The corpse is the purest symbol of authority there is, I would assert. Proof of the power of life over death, and in the face of that, defiance loses all meaning. Resistance becomes a pointless plunge into the lime pit of lost causes.”
Throughout this Fangatooth was making rolling gestures with his hand, almost in the scribe’s face, and Coingood scratched away as fast as he could.
“The corpse, my friend,” continued Bauchelain, “is the truth of power laid bare. Undisguised, stripped away of all obfuscation. Why, the corpse exists in all forms of governance. May it rest beneath soft velvet, or perch gilded in gold, or holding aloft gem-studded swords, it remains a most poignant, if silent, rebuke to all those absurd notions of equality so common among troublemakers.” Bauchelain paused and sipped at his wine. “The corpse can only be the friend of the one in power. Like a bed-mate, a cold lover, a bony standard, a throne of clammy flesh.” He lifted his goblet. “Shall we toast the corpse, my friends?”
From the far end of the table, Emancipor belched and said, “Aye, Master, that’s one to drink to, all right.”
Fangatooth paused with his goblet almost touching his lips, and turned to eye Emancipor. “Good Bauchelain, you permit your manservant such crass interruptions?”
“I do indulge him, it is true,” Bauchelain replied. “With respect to the subject at hand, however, Mister Reese is something of an expert. Among the sailing community, he is known as Mancy the Luckless, for the misfortune that plagues his maritime ventures. Is that not so, Mister Reese?”
“Aye, Master. Me and the sea, we’re uneasy bedmates all right. I’ll have some more of that wine there, if you please.”
“Yet,” Bauchelain resumed, “you do seem out of sorts, Mister Reese. Have you caught a chill, perhaps?”
“Chill? Aye, Master, down to the white roots of my hoary soul, but it ain’t nothing a little drink won’t fix. Lord Fangatooth, thank you for the escort you provided me up here. I doubt I would have survived otherwise.”
“Trouble in the village?” Bauchelain inquired.
“Some, Master, but I got away and that’s all that counts.”
“Dear Mister Reese,” said Fangatooth, “I do apologize if you have been in some manner inconvenienced in Spendrugle.”
“Milord, some things no man should ever see, and when he does, why, decades of his life are swept away from his future. This is the shiver that takes the bones, the shadow of Hood himself, and it leaves a man stumbling, for a time. So, for the warm fire and the full belly, and all this wine here, I do thank you.”
“Well said,” Bauchelain added, nodding.
Seemingly mollified, Fangatooth smiled.
Emancipor leaned back, as the conversation at the other end of the table returned to its discussion of tyranny and whatnot. Against his own will, he thought back, with a shiver, to what he had seen in Feloovil’s bedroom. Those mouths had to have come from other people, other women. Cut off and sewn back on … but then, he’d seen teeth, and tongues. No, he decided, something wasn’t right there.
Pulling out his pipe, he tamped rustleaf into the bowl. Moments later, through clouds of smoke, he studied the scribe, Coingood. Scratching and scribbling, working through one wax tablet after another, the contents of which he’d then, presumably, transfer onto his lord’s vellum of virtues. A life trapped in letters seemed a frightful thing, and one at the behest of a madman probably had few high points. No, Emancipor was glad he was not in Coingood’s place.
Far better, obviously, this life of his, as manservant to a madman and his equally mad companion. Frowning, Emancipor reached for the nearest decanter of wine. That’s what’s wrong with everything. It’s the mad who are in charge. Who decided that was a good idea? The gods, I suppose, but they’re madder than all the rest. We live under the jumpy heel of insanity, is what we do, and is it any wonder we drink, and worse?
At the far end of the table, the madmen were smiling, even Korbal Broach.
I think I want to kill someone.
“… a most fascinating principle,” his master was saying. “Are you absolutely consistent, sir, in hanging every stranger who visits your demesne?”
“For the most part,” Fangatooth replied. “I do make exceptions, of course. Hence your presence here, as my guests.”
“Now, sir,” said Bauchelain with a faint tilt of his head, “you are being disingenuous.”
“Excuse me?”
Through his smile, Korbal Broach said, “You poisoned our food.”