On the other hand…200 gold rubles!
“Duke,” I said to myself, as I sometimes do, “what will you do about this?”
As often happens, I didn’t have a good answer for myself.
I figured that the only answer I was going to get was down at the docks. If I could find the ogre, then I could do him in, get some sort of proof, and bring it back to Miss Cavendale. I was not going to bring his head back to her, but some other sort of proof should work. If she didn’t pay up, we were going to have a much less pleasant conversation. Hopefully, that would convince her before I needed to pull in the Watch.
The docks were always an interesting place, made more so by His Majesty’s order that all and sundry are welcome in Capital City. It used to be that you could go there and see ships from foreign lands, unloading cargo from those same foreign lands. For the most part, the ships had human crews, even if they were hired on to make trade easier. Now though, the ships were crewed by whatever race or being owned them, and in several cases, it was a mixture of several. Plus, there were families and individuals arriving by ship in search of a new life. It had become quite the mixed stew.
Which meant my task of finding one particular ogre wasn’t going to be easy. On the other hand, it wasn’t particularly hard. Ogres are big, really big. There aren’t that many other races that they can hide behind. I needed to keep a look out for large, threatening looking individuals with greenish skin, and hopefully, I’d find my man. Ogre. I mean, I’d find my ogre.
The bottom of the sheet that I took from the Nuisance Board said that this particular ogre went by the name, “Ham”. This was not his real name, as ogre names tend to be long, guttural strings of sounds that remind one of rocks being crushed. To get along in a human city, most of them pick a name that’s short and easy to say, even if it’s not really a name. My “Ham” could have easily been named, “Pan”, “Brick”, “Rock”, or “Sky”. There could even be several Ham’s walking around the dock, although that was unlikely since ogres were still relatively rare in our city.
I hung out for a while waiting and watching, watching and waiting, until I finally saw an ogre. I studied him carefully, and looked at the sheet in my hand. This looked like him, I was fairly certain, but still, I needed to be sure. I walked up near him, took a deep breath and called out, “Hey! Ham!”
Several folk turned to look at me. Some were wondering if I was insane, I’m sure, and some were looking to see if I was selling a cured pork product. But the best part was that the ogre turned and looked at me.
“Wha?” he said, staring down at me.
I didn’t hesitate in pulling my gun and shooting him, right between the eyes. The ogre metal ball should have punched right through and put him down. But the bugbear metal ball bounced off with a loud pinging sound, causing the ogre to shout in surprise and rub the spot where I shot him. Of course, I should have hesitated and made sure the gun was set right. My only defense is that the thought of those 200 rubles scattered my brains, which the ogre was also getting ready to do.
He glared at me for a second, let out a loud roar and reached for me. More accurately he reached for the spot where I was a moment before. I was now well on my way out of there, as fast as my feet would carry me. He saw me, let out another bellow, and took up the chase.
This is where we came in.
Now what could I do? As I ran, two things about ogres occurred to me. The first was that they’re not very intelligent. At the moment, I didn’t feel that way either, but I should have the upper hand in that department none the less. The second was that, despite their reputation, ogres are not actually vicious killers. If you rouse them, as I did, they will certainly not hesitate to beat you to a pulp and that very well may kill you. But overall, they prefer to be left alone.
It was time to take a risk.
I ran around a corner and skidded to a stop in the middle of the street. I turned around, facing back, and raised my gun up, holding it in both hands. The ogre came pounding around the corner a moment later and I yelled out, “Stop! Or I’ll shoot!”
The ogre stopped. He looked confused, then angry, then confused again.
“You shoot me already,” he rumbled.
“Yes,” I replied, “but this time, I’ll make it count! Stop chasing me!”
“Why you shoot me in the face?”
“Someone put you on the Nuisance Board, Ham.”
He scratched his head. He looked at me, looked at my gun and then looked at me again.
“Why you call me Ham?”
“That’s your name isn’t it?”
“Ham my brother. Me Hock.”
It was my turn to stare.
“Then why did you turn around when I yelled?”
“Me thought you see brother. Me no see him for days. Him missing.”
“Wait,” I said, lowering my gun, now that the immediate threat of violence to my person seemed to have passed. My bluff worked. “So you’re not the Ham that Miss Cavendale put on the Nuisance Board?”
He got dreamy eyed at this.
“Her so pretty,” he said. “Me like her.”
I got an uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach.
“Hock,” I said, “does Ham think Miss Cavendale is pretty too?”
His eyebrows drew together like two storm clouds.
“No!” he said. “Ham no like pretty Miss. Ham say her no good. Ham say her try to use me, but I say no, Miss is good!”
“Uh huh. Why is she good?”
“Her say we be together and live in house. She make me feel nice and I do what she tell me.”
I pondered this, and decided not to ask what he meant by make him feel nice. I was more interested in the other part of what Hock said.
“What does she tell you to do, Hock?”
“Get things from bad people. Be near her and not let others hurt her.”
That was it. Hock here was being used as a leg breaker and bodyguard, and his brother Ham, who looked an awful lot like him, wasn’t happy about it. Which was kind of strange. It wasn’t unheard of for ogres to be in that line of work. They were big, tough, and followed simple instructions without question. But why was Ham so against it?
The easiest way to find out was to ask.
“Hock,” I said. “One more question. Why does Ham not like Miss Cavendale?”
He shrugged.
“Me not know. Him just don’t. “
With that, there was really nothing more that I could gain from the conversation. I apologized to Hock for the accidental face shooting and made my way down the street.
If Ham hated the idea of Hock working for Miss Cavendale, then why was Hock still doing it? Ogres are big on family and if you take on one, you take them all on. So why would Hock ignore Ham like that? And why was it so serious that Miss Cavendale was willing to shell out 200 gold rubles to have Ham out of the way?
The only place I was going to get the answer was at Miss Cavendale’s. It looked like my chance of finding Ham was pretty slim, otherwise he’d be the better place to start.
I started off in that direction, thinking that I would stake out Miss Cavendale’s place for a while and see if there were any obvious answers before I had to do things the hard way. As I walked, I realized that I no longer had any intention of earning the 200 rubles. Something was wrong here, and Miss Cavendale was using the system for her own ends. I didn’t like that. Those damn flexible morals were all over the place again.
As I walked by an alley, I was suddenly grabbed by a hand the size of a shield and yanked into it. I let out a yelp as I was slammed against the wall and a large face lowered to peer into my eyes.
“Hock?” I asked, already knowing the answer.
The face growled at me. Another voice from behind answered for him.
“No, Mr. Grandfather. You have the pleasure of meeting Ham. Hock’s brother, as I’m sure you’re aware. That’s enough now, Ham. Let him go. He’s sorry for shooting your brother, aren’t you Mr. Grandfather
?”
I nodded enthusiastically and after a final squeeze, Ham moved away. With him no longer blocking my view of everything else, I saw several other figures in the alley. In addition to Ham, there were three more ogres, and behind them, making them look small, were two trolls. There were also a few dwarves and a couple of gnolls as well. One of the dwarves was the one who was speaking.
“What’s going on here?” I asked, taking stock of any weapons that I had about me. All of these different races here, and not a bugbear to be seen. Just my luck.
The dwarf smiled.
“Nothing nefarious, I assure you. This is simply a collection of individuals who have decided that it’s high time for a little fairness in this city. You see, the time of humans using us for dirty work and getting rich from the sweat of our brows is coming to a close. We are helping to hasten that along.”
“I see,” I said, not really seeing at all. “But what does that have to with me?”
“The famous Duke Grandfather. Nuisance Man extraordinaire. One of the most prolific killers of anything not human in Capital City. Why, my dear Mr. Grandfather, you’re a symbol of everything that’s wrong. Did you even think to ask what Ham did to deserve a summary execution? Or any of the ‘nuisances’ as you call them, before you so callously ended their lives?”
He had a point. I didn’t, and neither did any of the other Nuisance Men that I knew of. I wasn’t going to say so to him, but in my own mind, the little seed of doubt that was always there started to grow.
“Look, it’s not my system. I’m just trying to earn a living.”
“Tut tut, Mr. Grandfather. That’s the excuse of every persecutor of the down trodden. It’s not my fault. When in truth, it is your fault. Yours and others like you. Without you, there would be no system.”
I didn’t like the sound of this. I tried to look around the alley for an escape without being too obvious. My chances weren’t great, but if I could get out of there, maybe they wouldn’t follow me into more populated areas.
“Please calm yourself, Mr. Grandfather,” the dwarf said. “We are not going to hurt you. That would make us no better than yourself. And that’s not the image that we wish to portray. However, we do have a demand.”
“Okay,” I said, buying time, if nothing else. “Spill it.”
He smiled at my show of bravado.
“Stop doing what you’re doing. Today. Immediately. You are no longer a ‘Nuisance Man’. At least not the way you have been. We are fully prepared to admit that there are bad elements, those that need to be eliminated, in every race. But you, and those like you, will no longer blindly execute those whose only crime has been to end up on your Board, simply for the misfortune of being born not human. The rest, the actual criminals, are yours.”
“You’re crazy if you think that’s going to work,” I told him. “What’s to stop me from agreeing and then continuing on the way I always have?”
“Because this is only a small sample of our resources. Do you really think I would have moved on you if this was it? You have been watched, Mr. Grandfather and you’ll continue to be. Not only you, but all of the Nuisance Men. You’re the first one we’ve contacted, but you won’t be the last. The best way to change the system is from within. Since we aren’t allowed in, we’ll have you do it for us. The choice is simple. Change the way you work, or we’ll simply make you disappear. Eventually, it will work.”
I believed him. He spoke with the conviction of one who knew he was in the right, and that history would be on his side. The city, the world, was changing. We humans would still have a place in it, but it wouldn’t be as the favored ones who could do whatever we wanted to anyone we pleased. We would have to learn to coexist and respect our neighbors. Several of my fellow Nuisance Men wouldn’t fall in with this, and I didn’t know if this group had the resources to make good on their threat.
I did know that I was done with business as usual though. Oh, I would still stay in the game. But I would use my reputation and my standing to demand more answers. I would ask what someone did, was there proof or witnesses, before I went after them. I had been around the city enough to know that there was still going to be plenty of work for someone like me, but it would be different. I found myself not minding that. It had been in my thoughts already, and now, here I was being handed a perfect excuse to make the changes and say that they were forced upon me.
“You’ve convinced me,” I said. “I’m in. But I still don’t get why Miss Cavendale sent me after Ham here.”
The dwarf sniffed at that.
“Miss Cavendale will be settled. Poor Hock is not the first unfortunate to run afoul of her. She lures some of the, shall we say, less intellectually gifted, yet strong, members to her and uses them to maintain her criminal enterprises. She has several operations, and she is not shy about throwing bodies at a problem until she overwhelms it. Invariably, those bodies are non-human. Trash, in her view. When she took Hock however, she made a mistake. Ham is very bright, and saw what was going on. He and his brother are no criminals. In their own land, their grandmother is a clan chieftess, and considered among the great of her kind. Did you even know that ogres had such societies, Mr. Grandfather?”
I had to admit that I didn’t. I knew ogres by their behavior in the city and what sort of jobs they usually held, if any.
“I didn’t think so,” he continued. “There’s much of the other races that you don’t know. That will change in time, I’m sure. You’re not alone, Mr. Grandfather.”
With that, he turned to leave, the others following suit.
“Wait,” I said. “What about Miss Cavendale and Hock?”
I was surprised to find that I actually cared. Hock seemed like a decent sort. I shot him in the face, and yet he still let me off the hook. The dwarf seemed surprised by my question as well.
“Don’t worry, Mr. Grandfather. We’ll take care of it. You see, we have a Nuisance Board of our own.”
He turned and left the alley, all the others following without giving me a second glance.
The world was going to change. It was in the air. His Majesty decreed it so when he opened our borders, and maybe this was all in his grand plan. Who knew? Not I, being a lowly Nuisance Man and hardly ever consulted on matters of state. But whether he meant this or not, it was coming.
I headed home, finding that I was looking forward to what tomorrow would bring.
INTERLUDE 1
When the story was finished, the young man set down his tablet and stylus. He listened carefully, even to the parts that he already heard before. He did not interrupt one time, as his grandfather instructed him, but he did make pages of notes.
“So that’s why you started only going after actual criminals,” he said.
Duke grimaced, and cleared his throat.
“It was what I, and every other Nuisance Man, should have been doing from the beginning.”
“Yes, but it was a different time.”
“You weren’t listening well. I said that the idea had been creeping in on me anyway. That what we were doing was wrong.”
The young man paused to consider this. His grandfather did have a point. Because something happened in the past didn’t mean it should be excused.
“Still,” he said, “you changed the way you operated, and that changed the whole thing, right? Tell me about that.”
Now the old man smiled again.
“The system did change, and even the Watch caught on after a bit. But that’s a story for another time. I’m thirsty.”
The young man stood up, only to hear a voice yell from the kitchen, “If he’s thirsty, he can drink water!”
The young man looked at his grandfather.
“Eh,” Duke said, “she looks out for me. She always has. Water would be fine. For now.”
The young man left and got the cup of water. Handing it to Duke, he asked, “What’s next?”
The old man looked up.
“I’m tired. Why don’t you come back tom
orrow, and I’ll tell you another story then.”
The young man nodded eagerly, and kissed his grandfather on the top of his head.
“Tomorrow then,” he said, and left, stopping to say goodbye to his grandmother as well.
A few moments later, an older woman came from the kitchen and looked down at Duke.
“You’re such a liar,” she said, a smile playing about her lips.
“What? Every word I told him was perfectly true!”
“About your story? Maybe. But I know you, Duke Grandfather, and you’re no more tired than I am.”
The old man got a gleam in his eye.
“That may be so,” he said, climbing to his feet, and gathering his wife in his arms. “But it doesn’t mean I want to waste ALL my energy on storytelling.”
She giggled, and leaned into him. If the young man was still there, he would have noted the love that still burned between his grandparents, even now.
As it was, he returned the next afternoon, and repeated the same mock argument about the need to hear the stories, and about his grandfather agreeing to tell them. For his part, Duke didn’t mind, but he did like giving his grandson a hard time.
“Fine,” he finally said. “What did we agree to yesterday? The time I got a pet cat?”
“No, Granddad,” the young man said, knowing full well that his grandfather remembered. “You said you’d tell me another story about being a Nuisance Man. How about when you got your gun?”
“No, that’s a story for another time, but…come with me.”
Duke led his grandson up the stairs to a locked door. Pulling a key out of his pocket, he unlocked it, and they entered.
Duke Grandfather- The Whole Story Page 3
