Tender Morsels

by Margo Lanagan

  ‘Mmm.’ The Fox-magic smacked his lips as he climbed out the chamber window onto the roof. ‘He were good and tight. He almost quenched me. He almost done the job.’

  ‘Save yourself,’ growled the Hogback, folding himself after him. ‘The best is yet to come. Enflame your pin for this last one; he will quench you well and truly.’

  So finally to Hogback’s they repaired. There they found the gentleman at cards and tobacco with a large party of his closest confreres, frittering away the fortune and reputation his father had spent his life acquiring.

  Hogback leaped up at the sight of the motley men stepping into the drawing room. But then he espied his own self—only strangely clothed, and brightly pinned, and giving off a strong incendiary stink, and his ‘How dare you!’ died on his lips.

  ‘Ooh, this is a fine, upstanding feller,’ cooed the Fox-man.

  ‘He is no better than the others,’ said the Hogback-man, striding forward. ‘Only his fine clothing takes more negotiation. Let’s have at him.’

  They descended on him, all five, and there before the merchants of the town, and the most respectable, and such of their ladies as ran from the adjoining parlour at the hubbub and did not faint dead away at the sight, they stripped away Hogback’s fine pantaloons and visited on him exactly the measure of degradation and damage he had dealt out to Liga that afternoon in her father’s cottage, those many years ago.

  ‘Well, we are done,’ said the last cloth-man, withdrawing from Hogback’s bottom and letting him fall limp and bloodied to the fine Turkitch rug. All around them, the gentlemen expostulated and broke candlesticks on the cloth-men’s heads, and the ladies shrieked and malaised and ran about. Unperturbed, the five figures tucked what was left of their dulled pins away into the matter of their clothing, or their flesh, or whatever it was they were made of. They stepped out through wall and window, descended to the street, and strode, too fast to follow, up the town. In the morning, some onlookers would say they had fled downhill; others would swear on the Eelmother’s chastity that they had tripped off all five in different directions; still others would insist that they had flown into the air on bat-wings, or caught fire and burnt themselves up to nothing and nowhere.

  However they reached there, when they arrived at Lady Annie Bywell’s house they walked straight in, and across her front parlour, and smoothly through the back wall of that and into the workroom. By then they had shrunk to the size of children, and were more clothy than fleshly, and they slipped and slithered, clambering up to the bench and thence to the worktable.

  ‘That were so gratifying,’ said the Hogback-man sleepily, his voice risen to a child’s chirp.

  ‘It were,’ screeked another one, drawing a loose pin out of his pants and fixing himself to the table with it. ‘Goo’night, brothers.’

  And anything else they said, it sounded like scissoring and snipping and no more, as they arranged themselves and flattened and shrank further, and pinned themselves by their privates to the tabletop, and lay down to rest, until they were just as they had been when Urdda put them there: five cloth shapes, flat and silent in the empty room, their pins gleamless in the dark.

  16

  Liga and Branza stepped out the next morning, to walk down to the dairy for milk and fresh-cheese.

  ‘There is a smell about,’ said Branza as Liga closed the door behind them.

  ‘There is.’ Liga sniffed it. A Strap cousin ran across from one lane-end to another, and down in the market square there was a general busy-ness not usual at this hour. ‘Someone’s house has burnt down in the night?’

  They walked on, examining the sky for smoke and listening for hints in the conversations all around. ‘Constable,’ they heard, and ‘attacks,’ and ‘even into Hogback’s place!’ A crowd of men huddled outside the locksmith’s house, muttering, but these fell silent at the approach of the women. Some passers-by hurried frightened; others whispered and suppressed laughter.

  ‘Liga, good morning! And Branza too!’ This was Widow Tems, for whom Liga had made that good linen dress she was wearing.

  Liga drew her aside. ‘What has happened, Widow?’ she said, and Branza stepped closer to listen. ‘Everyone is running about like ants in a stirred nest, and so early!’

  ‘You heard nothing in the night?’

  ‘I ought to’ve?’

  ‘Why, even I was woken, with the events up the road at Hogback’s.’

  ‘I gather someone has attacked him?’

  ‘Him and many others. Everyone I speak to has a new name. The butcher’s boy, Cleaver, is one, and one of those scoundrel Straps—Vivius, I think, or maybe his brother Ivo.’

  ‘Oh. Why those three, does anyone know?’ Liga’s voice was curiously dead.

  ‘Oh, there is others as well. But barring Hogback, they were all very much a lower type of person.’

  Liga moved her basket to her other arm, looking flustered. ‘Dear oh dear, what a terrible thing. Is there any idea who attacked them?’

  ‘A gang of them, it was: ten or twenty of the brutes. They broke into people’s houses and tore the husbands from their beds. Of course, Hogback were not sleeping. He had guests, but that did not stop these men. They walked straight in, the brazen fellows, and there, in front of everybody—’ The widow glanced at Branza’s bright eyes, tut-tutted, and shook her head.

  ‘Are they—are they very much injured?’ said Liga.

  ‘No one knows of Hogback—he is under the care of his physician, though, so it must be quite bad. Of the others, I have heard—I will not say what I have heard, before a maiden,’ said the widow, with another sidelong glance at Branza, ‘but none of them were let off lightly, it sounds.’

  ‘Whatever for, was this done?’ said Branza.

  ‘No one can ascertain!’

  ‘Oh, why does anyone gang in and do violences!’ Liga gave a brittle laugh. ‘Come, Branza, we must to the dairy, and then sewing awaits. Good day, Widow Tems.’

  ‘It has the whole town terrified,’ said the widow after them. ‘Every man-jack. Good day to you.’

  Branza sped after her mother. ‘Why are you hurrying so? You are not especial friends of the Straps and Cleavers, are you?’

  ‘I am not.’ Liga hurried on.

  ‘And Hogback Younger—well, Annie says of him, Great wealth does not a gentleman make.’

  ‘None of it is good,’ said Liga, still hurrying. ‘None of it.’

  Here came Ada Gilly-that-was-Keller. ‘Liga, Branza, have you heard it all?’

  ‘We have,’ said Liga, and would have walked briskly on.

  But Branza slowed. ‘Some of it,’ she said. ‘A group of men have attacked three households, is how much we have.’

  ‘Five it is, now that I’ve straightened everyone’s story.’ Ada closed her eyes to remember. ‘Foxes and Cleavers and Straps—and out at Woodman’s camp, for they brought him in this morning, Joseph Woodman. He was hurt the worst of them.’

  ‘And Hogback Younger, of course.’

  ‘Oh, Hogback! It is all over town about Hogback, what they done to him.’

  ‘Which is what?’ said Branza.

  ‘Oh, maid, I cannot dirty my mouth with it. But it were most indecent. I don’t know how he will look in anyone’s eye—’

  ‘Come, Branza,’ said Liga.

  ‘Widow Cotting, are you feeling quite well?’

  ‘I am very well, thank you, Ada. Only, work is pressing. Good day to you.’

  ‘Good day, ladies.’

  ‘Mam? Mam!’

  ‘Don’t call out on the street, Branza.’

  ‘But why does this upset you so? You’ve no work pressing, particularly; why did you tell Ada otherwise?’

  But Liga only hurried them on.

  Out at the dairy, she would not dally and talk with the other widows and wives, and Branza could overhear nothing, so watchful was everyone of her maidenly sensibilities. They bought their fresh-cheese and had their milk-pail filled, and then Liga wanted only to hurry back home.
Branza followed, lagging when they drew near a huddled group, and in the ash-tree square; hurrying a few steps, disgruntled, when Liga urged her on. That smell! But had there been any fire? Hogback’s house looked intact, and Ivo Strap’s, down that lane next to where Vivius kept his poor donkeys. Whatever had upset Mam, that she was so incurious about these events?

  When they reached Lady Annie’s, Liga went straight into the sewing room without removing her cloak, and Branza heard her say—it must be to Urdda, for she would not use that sharp tone with Annie—‘Did you cook this up?’ And her basket thumped onto the table.

  ‘Cook what up?’ Urdda said.

  ‘Did you put Lady Annie up to it?’

  Annie? Why would Annie have anything to do with this? Branza hung up her cloak and went to the sewing-room door. Mam looked like a hawk perched on a rock, sighting a kill down in the grass. Urdda sat with the yoke of the bride-sister dress over her knee, surprised from her stitching by Mam’s fierceness.

  ‘The two of you are tight as thieves sometimes,’ said Mam. ‘I would not put it past you.’

  ‘Put what past us?’

  ‘This business with Hogback Younger. And the others. The attacks in the night.’

  ‘What attacks? And what others?’

  Mam took an impatient breath.

  ‘Cleaver, was his name?’ said Branza. ‘One of the Misters Strap? What would she have to do with such as those, Mam?’

  ‘Cleaver and Strap, and each one I told you about yesterday, Urdda. You bothered so little to conceal your choices—could you not have added a few innocents, just to throw me off the scent? Or fallen one down a well one month, and have another bit by a mad-dog the next? All in the one night, last night, and all some terrible, brutal, indecent thing—I am not magic myself, Urdda, but I can smell the stuff, all right. And I am not stupid, though you may think me so.’

  Urdda blinked. ‘What’s gone on, Branza? You tell me, if I cannot get sense out of Mam.’

  Branza told, and as she uttered each of the men’s names who had been assaulted, Urdda’s face changed just as Mam’s had, realising, afraid, and very still.

  ‘Some indecent thing was done, says Ada Gilly,’ Branza finished. ‘To Hogback Younger, at least. I don’t know about all the others.’

  ‘None were let off lightly.’ Liga sank to the bench, opposite Urdda. ‘It must be Annie, then.’

  ‘Why?’ said Branza. ‘What possible—’

  ‘Swear to me it was not you, Urdda,’ said Liga, as if Branza was not there, had not spoken.

  ‘I do swear!’ cried Urdda. ‘I have been in this house since you told me—except when I walked last evening, and then I neither stopped nor spoke to a soul. I don’t even know where Lycett Fox lives! How would I—’

  And then Urdda jolted back, as if a mouse had run out from the cloth on the table in front of her.

  ‘Mam!’ she whispered.

  ‘What is it?’

  Urdda stared at the mouse, or whatever it was. She gave a tiny tilt of her head to beckon Liga.

  ‘What, child?’ Liga sprang from her seat and hurried around the table. Branza approached more slowly from the other side.

  ‘Where did those come from?’ Liga said, frightened.

  ‘I made them,’ said Urdda very softly. ‘While you told me your story yesterday.’ Still she leaned away from the table, and Liga stood behind her and laid her hands on her shoulders.

  Branza saw the cloth figures now. ‘Five little men,’ she said. ‘What have they to do with—Oh!’ Liga and Urdda were still transfixed. ‘Hogback Younger, in the middle there,’ said Branza. ‘And . . . four more. What is this? Did you mark these men, somehow, to be attacked?’

  Shakingly, Urdda reached out, and one by one pulled out the pins and laid them on the table. ‘I don’t know what I did.’

  ‘But why? What-for those five, particularly?’ said Branza. ‘We know none of them, do we?’

  ‘They hurt our mam. That is why we don’t know them; she kept them out of her heaven.’

  ‘Why, what did they do, Mam?’

  But Liga only stared at the little men, as if they might indeed up and attack her. ‘Maybe you have caught it off Annie,’ she whispered to Urdda. ‘Maybe it is a disease, like coin-sores. But maybe it was Annie herself done this!’ She sat on the bench next to Urdda and gazed hopefully into her face. ‘Annie knows. I told her soon after Miss Dance brought us here, before it could come out otherwise.’

  Urdda shook her head. ‘It was me,’ she said. ‘I know it. I was so angry, beyond . . . beyond anything, last night, but this morning I woke so fresh of it all, every memory of what you told me gone, until you accused me now—and even now, thinking about it . . . Yesterday I thought I would burn with that rage for the rest of my life. Today—well, I have no particular feelings about it at all. That is not natural.’

  Branza tried to read what went between them, but their expressions would not resolve themselves, Urdda’s into fear or delight, Liga’s into pride or dismay.

  ‘I did it. I did something,’ Urdda said calmly.

  Liga stood up. ‘I will speak to Annie. Has she woken?’

  ‘I have just taken her up her bloom-tea.’

  Still in her cloak, Liga hurried out. Her swift feet sounded on the stairs.

  Branza sat next to Urdda, and exchanged with her that look that sisters exchange when one of them has just married, or birthed, or been injured, and the world changes shape around them.

  ‘These—’ Branza tapped the nearest man of cloth. ‘Are these the reason that Mam went away? Are these what she was running from, when she met the moon-babby?’

  ‘These, among others. But these are quite bad enough, I would think.’

  ‘Why, what did they do?’

  Urdda tried to find ways to say, but only shook her head.

  ‘Come,’ said Branza. ‘I have some idea what town boys do, get them together in a bunch.’

  ‘Oh, no, Branza,’ murmured her sister. ‘They are so much worse than I ever thought.’

  A peal of laughter rang down the stairs then, from Lady Annie’s throat.

  ‘What is she laughing at?’ said Branza. ‘Has she gone mad? Should we go up there and rescue Mam, maybe?’

  There was a flurry of thuds upstairs. Annie croaked and Liga protested. Then Annie’s walking stick tack-tack-tacked along the upstairs hall. ‘Let me see the girl!’ she cried.

  ‘Urdda?’ called Liga, not entirely happily.

  Branza followed Urdda out into the hall. At the top of the stairs, Liga was wringing her hands. Lady Annie hobbled energetically into view, her gleaming house-gown trailing.

  ‘Little witchlet!’ she cried out when she saw Urdda, and laughed delightedly, showing the full glory of her ivory teeth. She came to the stairhead and held the rail and waved her stick. ‘Greater love no daughter has, than to shaft the buggers what shafted her mam!’

  ‘Annie, please!’ said Liga. ‘Branza knows nothing of this.’

  ‘All you need to know, Branza, is that justice have been done this day. Come up here and let me kiss you, Urdda-girl—don’t make me break my scrawny neck upon them stairs!’

  I woke up feeling as if I’d put in a good night in Keller’s alehouse. Anders was shaking my shoulder, and Ousel stood by the crib, out of which Bedella’s wail rose, thin as twine, miserable as a kitten down a well.

  ‘Bab wants her nurse, Da,’ says the little man.

  ‘I think I hear that, Anders-lad. Which one of you dropped that anvil on my head i’ the night?’

  They both of them eyed the bed for it, which made me laugh. ‘Come along, then, my lads, let us go and put her at Lissel’s.’

  The moment we stepped out the door, I thought: Annie. The air stank of twitten-magic and streambank-magic and all that stuff of those Cotting women and that widow. What’s she been up to?

  It did not take long to find someone who wanted to tell me. A little longer and I had several tellings, which, when put one beside the other, the
true tale began to emerge. Further on, my cousin-inlaw Arth Barrens gave me a good accounting. What have Annie got against those five? I had to wonder.

  I left Bedella with Lissel; she were now crying full and lustily, convinced she would die milkless. Then up my boys and I went to Annie-Urdda’s, as they called it. They fair danced up the town, and despite my thumping head I felt the cheer in my own step, and the burnt air had the same effect, I felt, as the clean air at the summit of the Mount when the first snow has fallen.

  The Widow Cotting opened the door, and straight away, by her pallor and her nervous manner, I knew I had come to the right place. She embraced the boys, distracted, and stood back as they ran on into the hall. ‘Come in, Davit,’ she says.

  ‘Good morning to you. Is that leddy at home, or is she still flying about, spelling people?’ I said jovial, walking in.

  ‘Oh, Davit.’ She shook her head and shut the door. ‘’Tis not Annie! Come in the workroom; we are all huddled there.’

  My, they were a picture, the three faces that met me from around the table.

  ‘Davit!’ cried Annie happily. ‘You will never guess how this has come about!’

  ‘I think I will,’ I said, because Urdda had flushed red as soon as she saw me, and Branza was giving her that look, part awestruck and part glad it was not herself that was at fault. Anders and Ousel were sat along the bench with them already; they loved this room, but were seldom allowed to enter it. ‘But perhaps you had better tell me, rather than me waste your time guessing.’

  ‘Ooh, little mens!’ Ousel danced a white figure cut of cloth upon the tabletop. I saw both Branza and Urdda restrain themselves from snatching it from him, and all the women stiffened, or tried to disguise that they were stiffening.

  ‘How many is there, Ousel?’ I said.

  He counted them up from the bench beside him. ‘Five mens!’

  ‘That’s fine counting,’ I said. ‘Five, eh? And what would Miss Urdda Cotting have against those five particular men?’

  She were gazing down the table, away from me, but Branza was not so embarrassed. ‘They hurt Mam,’ she said, ‘once upon a time.’