The War in the Waste

by Felicity Savage

  Ought to be good for a snigger, he thought rather desperately.

  I had a girl an she was Prettie

  Crispin started, then sank back.

  She was the apple a Valestock city

  When I took er to the music hall she wore erself out

  Larfin an swillin ale and callin out—

  All praise the Queen!

  The band revved up with a wheeze of brass and crashed into the all-too-familiar chorus with excruciating vigor, as if they expected sheer decibels would somehow disguise the fact that they were off tempo and off-key.

  Crispin sighed. Now if only they could manage to disguise the singer’s nasal tenor, too.

  The chief aim of all the singers was, of course, to invent as many new riffs on Ferupe’s scores of national anthems as possible. The most interesting feature of the evening was the inhuman speed with which colored lights flickered over stage, pit, and gallery. Crispin stood and placed his hand on his chest, singing along with the sixty or so men and women in the hall:

  All praise the Queen

  Our hearts beat with hers

  Slander the Queen

  That is Ferupe you curse

  Let me some day

  Be graced by the sight

  (exaggerated emphasis on the high note, a heavy-handed drumroll—Smithrebel’s band could play anthems far more evocatively, Crispin thought)

  Of my Queen in the light

  Of her virtue and might!

  Grinning at each other, delighted with the power of their own lungs, the music-hall patrons flopped back down onto their chairs. Strange, Crispin thought, that such fervent patriotism could be coupled with ignorance of the war. He was having more trouble than he had anticipated forgetting Constable Carthower’s threats: the draft quota weighed on his mind; and now he thought life in the infantry could hardly be worse than this.

  The tenor, his duty to the Queen discharged, swung back into a succession of bawdy couplets. No one was listening—in fact, they were making so much noise it was difficult to hear the singer—but that was the point, wasn’t it? Money meant so little that you didn’t even feel the need to watch the entertainment you had paid for. Ale slopped. Chairs crashed. In a corner near the door, a fight broke out. Sweaty-faced girls shimmied between the tables, platters of sausages and fried apples held over their heads.

  Crispin clenched his fists under the table. He had no right to feel superior to these animals. Every last one of them had something he didn’t: work!

  It was easy to tell the town men apart from the farmers. The farmers’ jackets hung raggedly on their big frames, their voices were less discreet than the townies’; they were accompanied not by shrill girls but by stout wives and children. Crispin would starve rather than sink to farming. These were not the prosperous tenant farmers of the heartlands; these were men and women whose only inheritance from their ancestors was a scrap of forest, who saw no better way to live than to scrabble a meager harvest of fruit from it. They led lives of dirt, poor food, and animal procreation. To become one of them would be the ultimate loss of face.

  Yet he couldn’t even get a job sawing oak for daemon cells! Was he going to end up like this? Weather-beaten, alcoholic, unaware of the desperacy of his own situation? Not an intelligent thought left in his head, his only consolation an occasional drunken lark? Better the army!

  It seemed as though the very lowest walks of life were the only ones open to him. The circus had left its mark on him. From the height of the flying trapeze or the truck cab, the gap between performers and patrons had seemed unbridgeable—but now here he was, lumped with poor souls who had worked around daemons all their lives, yet never felt the slightest curiosity about them.

  The waitress he ordered an ale from looked at him distrustfully. She pocketed his coin with an insolent snap of the wrist, not speaking, and glanced at him over her shoulder as she moved away. He didn’t belong here. At least, not in her eyes. That was relieving, in an odd way.

  The brew was foul. Thinleaf smoke thickened the air to fog. It smelled stomach-turningly sour. Crispin pulled out his own tobacco cigarettes and lit one, ignoring the glares of men who clearly thought he should offer them around.

  His chair was so far over to the right of the pit that he could see straight into the left wings. People carrying assorted props rushed to and fro at a frantic rate. Craning backwards, he could see up behind the piece of scenery—whatever they called it—painted with a gigantic face of the Queen that depended from the roof at the front of the stage. Whenever the music went up, the rack of daemon glares installed behind the scenery swung into action, sweeping the hall, bathing center stage in a flood of color, the hoods that covered first one, then another snapping back with audible thocks. The main hall was lit only by gas hoods; the stagelights were far more complex. They swiveled and hopped with a life of their own, an array of mechanical chorus boys far better choreographed than anything on stage. Levers and gears extended up into the darkness of the roof. That pointed undeniably to the presence of a demogorgon here, in the Old Linny.

  The show was almost over. Shouts of “T’morrer, moocher!” and “Love to yer lady!” echoed from the door. The tenor with the Prettie girlfriend had been replaced onstage by six reedy boys dressed in red ball gowns—a delegation from the Valestock Tap-dancing School for Young Ladies, according to the harassed master of ceremonies. Even before the first tap, there were shouts of “Back to th’ schoolroom!” Unobtrusively, Crispin put his ale mug on the floor and went backstage.

  In the maze of steps and doors into which he found his way, the bustle seemed only now to be reaching fever pitch. No circus spirit here; this was work. People rushed past him, sometimes twice or three times in different outfits, without sparing him a glance. A few narrowed their eyes suspiciously in response to his “Pardon me... ” and hurried on. It was becoming more and more of an effort to sustain a polite tone, when finally a harried-looking girl with her arms full of the Tap-dancing School’s furbelowed red dresses stopped and turned to look at him. “Yes, can I... ”

  Her eyes widened. Go on, girl, scream!

  But she did not even fall back. Not that that was possible, really, in the narrow corridor. She clutched her armload of cheap and slithery red stuff closer to her breast. “Can I help you?”

  “I’m looking for Mister—I’ve forgotten his name, for the daemon handler who works here—”

  She wore her black hair scraped back from her face in a bun, the way Prettie used to wear it; she had Prettie’s neat features. But her body was not like Prettie’s at all. She was unusually tall. Though small-hipped, she had generous breasts, crushed together in a low-necked bodice, and the shadowed cleft between them sank so deep that it practically invited a man to plunge his fingers down...

  In the name of the Queen, Crispin told himself, this isn’t a girl you check out at your leisure, you openmouthed fool! She was already frowning. He favored her with a full-power grin, the one that never failed. “The man who handles the daemon,” he said as if he had never paused. “I’m afraid I’ve misplaced his name but... ”

  “Rutridge,” she said. “Yes, he’s in the roof.” She shifted the costumes into her right arm so that she could gesture with the left. It was slim, the hand nearly as white as her breasts, the nails clipped short. “Go there, that way, then right, then there’s a door with a no-go cross on it, and you’ll see the stairs up.” She looked back at Crispin, hesitated a moment, and her smile flickered. She had bad teeth. It was the perfect touch. It placed her firmly in an age bracket, older than the nubile adolescent she had first seemed, but none of her teeth were gone; she couldn’t be over, say, twenty... “He’s in a cranky mood; if it was me I wouldn’t disturb him at his work—but I suppose he sent for you.”

  “Of course,” Crispin lied. “Thank you, miss—”

  But she was already gone, whisking away along the corridor and into a door, the red material flying behind her like wings. He memorized which door she’d gone into. Then,
slowly, he started toward the corner she’d indicated, resigning himself to kiss ass and flatter ego and demonstrate intelligence and generally prostrate himself like a dog in the name of the great, the miragelike Position. She had one. If even a girl could get honest work, why couldn’t he?

  Constable Carthower had told him why, even more bluntly than the trucker from Galashire had. But Crispin refused to believe them, despite the evidence, before giving the thing one more go. And after that... ? An insidious little voice asked him. After that, one more? And one more?

  Go to hell, he told it. He ascended the ladderlike steps, careful not to make a sound that might disturb the man hunched into a niche of a vast wheel-and-lever apparatus that seemed to have dropped roots into the rafters like a skeleton creeper, glimmering metallic in the darkness.

  Is this it?

  Bloody well better be.

  He wanted to bang loudly on the door, to release the frustration which had bubbled higher every minute he spoke with the daemon handler, but he just rapped with the unbruised knuckles of his left hand.

  Backstage was silent. The gaslights which hung at the turnings of the corridors had mostly been switched off. Crispin had escorted the old handler out into the drizzle, nodding pleasantly at the litany of complaints and abuse issuing from the gray beard, which seemed not so much directed at Crispin as at the whole world, and specifically the vile intransigence of daemons. Rutridge did not question Crispin’s remaining inside the hall, where surely he had no right to be. He shuffled furiously off into the damp night, cursing. As Crispin closed the door, the smile dropped off his face faster than a broken clown-mask, and he found himself punching the doorjamb so hard it was a wonder he did not break his hand. He rested his forehead against the ancient wood and remained there for a few minutes, unmoving.

  Then he went back inside.

  He knocked again on the door.

  But of course she had gone home long ago. The only people left in the Old Linny were the men sweeping out front, and the girls cleaning the kitchen and the bar.

  Crispin glanced in both directions, then laid his ear to the door. It sounded as though somebody were inside... but it was probably just rats. Well, maybe he could sleep here tonight, provided he woke early enough to escape unseen. Better than the corner outside the daemonmonger’s, anyway! He laid his hand on the handle.

  The door opened. Crispin jerked upright so fast he dizzied himself. The girl showed no sign of having noticed anything out of the ordinary. “Yes?”

  “You told me where to find Rutridge,” Crispin said. “Remember? I wanted to tell you you were right. He’s a piss-mouthed old bastard.”

  “Were you looking for a job? Mr. Knight’s the one you ought to have talked to, although I don’t think—”

  Crispin pulled a face. “Not just any job. I’m a daemon handler.”

  The girl nodded. “I see.” She held on to the side of the door. Behind her, Crispin saw a small, grimy room equipped with a full-length mirror and a ratty yellow velvet armchair in which she had been sitting; her sewing lay over its arm, the needle glimmering in the gaslight. She was only a slavey, he thought, left to finish her work after the costume mistress had gone home. There were lines of tiredness under her eyes.

  But they were still amazingly beautiful eyes. And those breasts!

  She was looking up at him wearily, without a trace of curiosity. He could not stand it any longer.

  “I’m going for supper. Do you want to come?” He knew full well his rude tone made the invitation sound more like a proposition than any respectable girl would stand for. She drew a sharp breath and flinched upright. He growled, “Well?”

  “It’s too late,” she said nervously. “Nothing’s open.”

  “Oh, yes it is,” Crispin said. “Place called Slimey’s. It’s across the river. Truckers go there mostly. But some women, too. You won’t feel out of place.” He did not mention what type of women they were—or that it was almost certainly not her sort of place. Dammit, he needed to treat himself to a bit of pleasure after a long, hard day of failures. On a not entirely conscious level, he needed to prove that the power he’d once exerted over women still existed. He needed to give as little as possible, and in return get everything she had to offer.

  “Do come,” he said in his best persuasive tone. “You’ve been working hard all night. I can see that. And it’ll be on me.”

  She nodded slowly, considering the idea. Then she smiled brilliantly. It was like a blow in the face, a slap that stung as if he were meeting her for the first time, all over again. He saw stars.

  “All right. Do you mind waiting while I change?”

  Without waiting for an answer, she whisked around. The door closed behind her.

  Left alone in the corridor, Crispin grinned hugely. “Fuck you, Rutridge,” he murmured. “Yeah, and you, daemonmonger sir, and you, madam landlady—yeah, and you, too, and all, Millsy—”

  Another girl came around the corner. Her eyes flicked from the door to Crispin’s face. “Who are you?”

  “I was about to ask you that,” Crispin said with a grin. Her lips were painted carmine red; she had rough skin and a figure that would have been an hourglass if she’d had much of a waist. She had been in the act of pulling the pins out of her pile of brown hair, but the front pieces still framed her face in greased loops.

  “Doll,” she said. “Doll Henley.” She came closer to Crispin. “You trying to get some out of Rae, darlin’?” she whispered. “She’s a one, she is. Only been here a year. And strange, oh my!”

  “Miss Rae and I are going for a late supper,” Crispin said in quenchingly aristocratic tones, staring down at her.

  “Auggh,” she whispered, and tossed her head coyly. More brown locks slid down around her shoulders. “I can tell you’re looking for a tumble. There’s girls here who’ll give it to you. And girls who think they’re too good. See what I mean?”

  “I believe so,” Crispin said. “You know, there’s a proverb about that. Girls that kiss, their chances miss; girls that tarry—”

  “Oh!” She stepped back. Now, he knew, she would milk the insult for all it was worth. “Oh! You damned bastard—you—”

  The door opened and Crispin’s supper partner stepped out. She wore a dress that had probably once been black, but was now a strange shade of violet-gray. It was tailored to fit her body from hips to throat, so that her neck rose like a stamen out of a trumpet of carefully stitched ruffles; the skirt swished in folds about her booted calves. When she saw Doll, she seemed to shrink a little.

  “Well, if it isn’t the young lady herself,” Doll said.

  “Come on,” Crispin said, pushing Doll firmly aside and taking her arm. “I’ve just been having a nice chat with your friend here. Miss Henley. Let’s go.” He led her past. As they moved away, Doll caught her arm, and Crispin heard her hissing vituperatively in her ear. Then Doll flung away so hard that the other girl staggered.

  As he opened the backstage door, Crispin asked, “What did she say to you?”

  Outside, the rain had stopped.

  “Do you really want to know?” The girl—Rae—made a face. “She said I was a whore who puts a spell on all the best men and don’t let no one else get a look in.”

  Crispin said, “Well, it’s nice to know she has such a high opinion of me.” Best to warn her now, perhaps. “Though if she judges men by their pockets, she was wrong as all he—out and out wrong.”

  “She’s a fucking tart,” Rae said, as they picked their way along the side alley. Her language shocked him. “A tart. That’s what they all are. Scheming whores’d fall apart like corpses if they didn’t lace themselves up so tight! Sleep with one of ‘em, it’s a fucking death sentence!”

  They came out onto River Street. No one was left about. The lights still blinked their colored patterns on the mud. The Applewater crawled beside the street, five feet down, black and silent, chopping at its banks with little waves.

  As they made their way through
the silent streets, Crispin realized the mood had been spoiled. Tension shivered between them. In the dim light from upstairs windows, he saw her worrying her lip; he felt vaguely guilty. It’s not your fault, girl.

  He’d pay for her supper, take her home, and find somewhere to kip down. And tomorrow was another day. Although he had no idea what it might hold.

  Slimey’s was hidden in a cellar, even farther from Main Street than the Old Linney—but in the other direction, out toward the eastern road, by which most traffic entered and left Valestock. There was an eighteen-wheeler parked in the street outside, but all the same, unless you knew, you’d never have thought to knock on the plain green door beside the tinware shop. At the bottom of a flight of stairs, the eatery served endless variations on bread, eggs, and pork, and endless ale. Tonight most of the tables jammed into the dark little cave were empty. Crispin had come here three times since the trucker from Galashire had first shown it to him. It was cheap (although to buy this meal, he had to spend his very last pennies, leaving only a pound note in his pocket) and nobody tried to talk to you if they didn’t like your looks. The only lights hung behind the counter. The dark did make the whores look better, although Crispin never had need of them. Not yet.

  As the ugly waiter set down their plates, Rae finally broke the silence. “I’m afraid I don’t even know your name, sir,” she said lightly.

  As they came in, everybody in the place, men and women, even the group of four brawny, drunken heartlands truckers, had stared at them. This had seemed to cheer Rae up. Her voice was bright with vitality now. But the quickness and grace with which she set down her cup of tea, curled herself on the stool, and sipped, head on one side, were not natural.