Well, they’d done both, really, but Sloot was trying to remain positive. It rarely ever worked, but odds are beaten by persistence.
In the end, he’d rewritten the entire report himself, largely by contradicting everything that Vasily had written, probably while drunk. At least Sloot hoped that Vasily had been drunk. Otherwise, he could only think that the sheer number of errors had been malevolence, not stupidity.
As Sloot ran down the hallway, waving the pages in the air before him to coax the ink dry, he seriously pondered another possibility. Maybe Vasily just longed for the sweet release of death so intently that he intentionally erred so egregiously with regard to Lord Hapsgalt’s money.
Mrs. Knife’s office was the one at the end of the long, gloomy hallway that raised one’s hackles simply for having looked at it. The air in the hallway had an ominous, greasy feeling. Sloot did his best to ignore the impression that it was looking forward to murdering him.
Not wanting to give the hallway the (accurate) impression that he was afraid of it, Sloot slowed his sprint to a rushing walk and spent a moment failing to catch his breath before raising his hand to knock on the door.
Just as his knuckles made contact with the wood, the door slid soundlessly open, slowly enough to give him time to consider making a run for it, but quickly enough to assure that he’d fail if he tried. And just like that, with no further preamble or opportunity to steel himself, he was looking directly into the cruel and calculating gaze of Mrs. Knife.
“You’re late,” she said, her gaze unblinking, her fingers steepled. She sat in a high-backed leather chair behind a desk of dark polished wood, the gloomy grey sky over the harbor visible through the large window behind her. There were no other furnishings in the room, no papers on the desk, no place for Sloot to sit, not that he wanted to stay a second longer than he must.
It was hard to tell how old Mrs. Knife was. She appeared old, but as sharp as her name. Her grey hair was pulled into a bun. She wore a simple black dress and no jewelry, aside from a ring on her left forefinger that looked like two silver snakes coiled around a black stone.
Still out of breath, he walked in stiffly, attempting to maintain as much professional decorum as possible. Mrs. Knife made no motion to take the papers from him when he held them out, so he laid them upon the desk and waited.
Her eyes never left his. Sloot fought to suppress the urge to confess to crimes he’d never committed, and nearly lost before she broke the silence.
“Tell me plainly, mister …”
“Peril,” Sloot squeaked. He cleared his throat. “Sloot Peril, ma’am.”
“Peril,” she repeated, her eyes narrowing. “What sort of name is that? It sounds Carpathian.”
“Er, not that I’m aware of, ma’am. Born and raised in Salzstadt.”
“We’ll see about that. Give me your report.”
“It’s just there on the desk, ma’am.”
Baleful glares do not usually growl with impatience. That was a first in Sloot’s experience.
“My time is more valuable than yours, Peril. Tell me what’s in it, and be brief.”
“Yes! Sorry, ma’am.”
“Never mind that. Does Lord Hapsgalt need to count his money or not?”
Sloot was not a rich man, but he worked for those who were. He knew enough about the very, very rich to understand that in their eyes, counting one’s money was tantamount to the end of the world. A slippery slope that ended with auctioning off one’s larger estates and living the rest of their lives in the relative obscurity of being merely wealthy.
Being wealthy is vastly different from being very, very rich. The wealthy are driven to unspeakable depths of depravity, such as knowing, at any given time, roughly how much money they have. The very, very rich, on the other hand, have the luxury of merely knowing that they have far more money than they and their family will ever be able to spend, and that they can simply refer to their piles of money with words like “vast” and “unfathomable.”
“Absolutely not,” said Sloot, speaking with confidence for the first time since having recited the Loyalist Oath that morning. “Lord Hapsgalt’s holdings are as vastly immeasurable today as they’ve ever been.”
Mrs. Knife’s gaze withered a few years from his life. Sloot felt as though she were waiting for him to confess something. Fortunately, they were now in his territory. Numbers possessed no capacity to hide truth from Sloot Peril.
He’d probably saved Vasily Pritygud’s life by rewriting that report. The scandal of counting of Lord Hapsgalt’s fortune, to say nothing of the expense of hiring the scores of accountants who would have to say good-bye to their families for the lifetime of work they’d be undertaking, would have cast a pall over the financial landscape. Entire financial markets have crumbled over less.
“You’re nervous, Mister Peril.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“And you’re also quite certain about your findings?”
“Quite, ma’am.”
A geological epoch passed while Mrs. Knife willed Sloot to crack, but he did not.
“Very well,” said Mrs. Knife, sweeping the report into the wastebasket at the end of her desk. “I have another task for you.”
The Feast of Saint Bertha
Bertha earned her sainthood for the discovery of the broom; or rather its application as the single most formidable weapon in the war against the goblins. Brooms had already been discovered in the most basic sense.
The Festival of St. Bertha, apart from being a handy excuse for getting drunk in public on a Thursday, reminded every salt in the city of her heroism.
Well, not everyone. Everyone who hadn’t been singing goblin carols into the bottom of a beer mug all day, at least.
Children, then. It reminded children of St. Bertha’s heroism.
Ages ago, thanks to a sudden influx of sailors from a far-flung island where the men wear dresses and speak no intelligible language of their own—though they insist that mumbling into ginger beards most certainly does count as a language—Salzstadt was plunged into one of the most vociferous periods of uninhibited swearing ever seen anywhere in the world. At one point, according to the Ministry of Obscure Historical Statistics, there were actually more swear words than proper words being uttered in the city at any given moment.
The Domnitor, long may he reign, blamed the ginger men in skirts, their “language,” and the insanely potent liquor they brought over on their ships. All three have been banned in Salzstadt ever since, especially the language, which the good folk of the Old Country called “Mumbly Crivens.” Scholars recollect that it is composed mostly of swear words, alongside a few phrases meaning “pour me another,” “pull the other one,” and “I’ll give you half my fish for a date with your sister.”
By some stroke of luck, just as the goblins came to outnumber the people, an old gran named Bertha found herself surrounded by an entire congress of goblins, intent on using every part of the gran in the construction of a ghoulish beer tent.
For the record, the dismemberment of grans at the hands of goblins was not considered “lucky” by the Domnitor, long may he reign, the people of the Old Country, or any agents thereof. The aforementioned “stroke of luck” refers not to the menacing and endangerment of the elderly, but to the conclusion of said encounter, as follows.
Bertha found no weapon in her immediate grasp, only her broom. It was a good broom, long heather with a stout oaken haft. Legends say that her eyes turned a flaming red as she took it in her grip, and with chiseled biceps and throaty roaring, she swept through the shambling lot of them, sending them all evaporating into the puffs of shadow from whence they came.
She cleared her house, went next door, and bade the Widow Chiminski take up her broom as well. They cleared her house together, went to the next door down the street, and so on.
Several fires resulted from t
he events of that night, as many hard-of-hearing grans misunderstood that the brooms need not be doused in kerosene and set alight to achieve the desired effect. It took the better part of a week before the burning buildings were no more than smoking rubble.
In the end, it was a battle-hardened band of grans who looked out over the city, free of both goblins and ginger mumblers in dresses, whom they’d sent back to their boats with a packed lunch and a scarf in case they got cold on the way back home.
So it was that Bertha was sainted on the spot in Salzstadt’s great cathedral. Every year since, the Feast of Saint Bertha has commemorated that day.
Of course, a proper story would have gone on to say that ne’er a goblin was seen again within Salzstadt’s mighty walls; however, salts had become very good at swearing, second only to mumbling sailors with really good whiskey. Old habits die hard.
Sloot was across the street from Gildedhearth, Lord Constantin Hapsgalt’s sprawling estate, when the tail end of the parade was walking by. Four columns of grans, walking single-file in the most orderly lines one can imagine, giving every cobble the most thorough sweep it had seen since this very same thing happened the year before. It was a rare treat indeed, seeing that many brooms in the same place all at once. It wasn’t as though one could just walk into a store and buy one. In spite of their mysterious power against the goblin menace, only married people were eligible to own them. Broom making was a highly profitable cottage industry, with the premier artisans in the field spending all of their time crafting works of art to be presented at the most decadent weddings of the year.
That’s tradition for you, Sloot thought, being careful not to do it aloud. If the people of the Old Country were more pragmatic thinkers, he’d be allowed to own a broom; then again, Sloot decided that maybe he didn’t want to live in a world where that sort of wanton anarchy ran unchecked. What would be next? Could he punch who he liked, cut in lines, and say the proper name of the Old Country to his heart’s content? His broom would provide a means to deal with the consequences, so why not? He shuddered at the thought.
The parade moved past, and Sloot was momentarily reticent to tread upon such clean cobbles; then again, he was far more reticent to keep Lord Hapsgalt waiting, so tread he did.
“Name?” The downward lilt, the drawn expression, and the powdered wig on the butler standing outside the gate had formed a committee for the single purpose of insinuating to Sloot that while he probably belonged somewhere, Gildedhearth was not that place.
“Peril. Sloot Peril. I’ve been invited to—”
“Summoned,” said the butler. “You’ve been summoned to dine with His Lordship, Mister Peril.”
“Right,” Sloot replied. “May I go in, then?”
The butler’s second chin followed his first in a righteous waggle, accompanied by his lips in a curling into a gentle sneer.
“You’ll have to complete an application.”
The butler may have been formidable in his use of bluster and pomp, but Sloot was an accountant. He ate standardized forms for breakfast, in triplicate (literally in one case—teenagers can be cruel, but that was well over a week ago).
Sloot was provided a walking stick and a skin of water for his walk down the main hallway, every inch of which was festooned with gilded scrollwork, marble columns, and frescoes so lifelike that art students were encouraged to walk through it. Having done so, they tended to decide they were in over their heads and take up law or medicine instead.
Sloot was surprised that he’d never heard of many of the artists whose names he read from the plaques, and reckoned that their entire lives’ works may well reside in that obscenely long hallway.
It was nearly dinner time when Sloot finally reached the foyer of the main house. He was greeted there by a woman dressed in a high-collared black dress, wearing spectacles that would have been judgmental enough just sitting on a desk, much less perched upon a hawkish nose that could have looked down upon the sun.
“You’re nearly late,” she said.
“Then I’m on time?”
“That’s your one.” She took a step toward him and thrust what appeared to be a magic wand in his face. Sloot knew enough about magic to know that he didn’t know the first thing about magic. Best to assume that it could go off at any moment, then.
“Sorry,” replied Sloot.
“My name is Olga,” said Olga. “Mrs. Knife informs me that you’ve never dined in a proper house before.”
“I’m not sure how to answer that.”
“That’s all right, it wasn’t a question. I’ll be your mannerist for the evening, just do as I say and there’s an excellent chance you’ll leave here with all of your fingers. Are we clear?”
“All of my fingers?”
The wand was a blur as it went whack against the knuckles of Sloot’s right hand.
“Ow!”
“I’m not keen on questions, Peril.”
“I understand,” said Sloot, who didn’t quite, but wasn’t keen on further instruction.
“Very well,” said Olga. “Here we go then, eighth chair on the left, don’t sit until Lord Hapsgalt has done.”
Sloot nodded. Olga turned and rapped twice on the great oaken door with the ornate bronze door knocker that looked eerily like Sloot being eaten by a dragon. He shook his head and chalked it up to hubris, nonetheless trying to recall whether any bronzesmiths had lately been studying him.
The double doors were opened from the inside by the most enormous pair of brutes that Sloot had ever seen up close. He followed Olga quickly past them toward an enormous table, where at least twenty well-dressed people were standing beside their chairs and speaking in low tones.
Olga led Sloot to his chair and motioned for him to stand beside it.
“No time for a proper lesson on forks,” said Olga. “We’ll muddle through, just start from the outside and work your way in. You do know how to use a fork, don’t you?”
Sloot smiled. “Well, I haven’t had any formal training or anything, but I think—”
Whack went Olga’s wand on Sloot’s knuckles again.
“That sort of cheek might win you giggles in whatever pub you abuse with your presence, but do it again here, and I’ll have your apartment burned down.” There wasn’t a hint of malice in her voice, just the matter-of-factness with which a waiter might recite the soup of the day.
The other attendees abruptly stopped speaking at once, causing Sloot to wonder whether his hearing had quit. The sound of footsteps from behind him assuaged that fear.
Whack went Olga’s wand across the back of Sloot’s neck. He fought the urge to cower from the blow, noticed that everyone else had turned in the direction of the footsteps, and followed suit.
The man walking toward the head of the table could have been any one of the millions of people in the world whom Sloot had never met, but he was Lord Constantin Hapsgalt. That was not the product of probability, but the inevitable result of generations of well-orchestrated plotting. Lord Hapsgalt’s black suit was exquisitely brocaded in gold, and he towered over the pair of butlers walking before him. He was a tall man on his own, and the high-heeled shoes that were all the rage among the very, very rich would clear up any ambiguity that dared to hang around.
“Sit, sit,” said Lord Hapsgalt, waving his hands.
“Not until everyone closer to Lord Hapsgalt has done,” said Olga, her wand in a lascivious position to prevent him from sitting out of turn. She eventually withdrew it, and Sloot sat. Olga stood beside him.
Sloot looked around the table, despite the feeling of dread that came from knowing he might make eye contact with someone he didn’t know. Or worse, someone that he did. And then, as proof that the worst thing that can happen usually does, Sloot found his gaze met by that of Mrs. Knife. His heart sank into his stomach, no doubt hoping that she wouldn’t think to look for it there.
“Welcome,” said Lord Hapsgalt, “to all of you on this auspicious occasion. I’m sure that you all know my son, Wilhelm.”
Lord Hapsgalt motioned to his left and a caricature of a man, whose pencil-thin moustache strained to separate his monumental nose from the most prominent pair of eye-teeth that Sloot had ever seen, stood slightly and gave a little bow. The cavernous curls on his powdered wig made a whooshing noise as they moved through the air. His suit looked mossy, an unfortunate side effect of green velvet.
“It is a proud day in a father’s life,” Lord Hapsgalt continued, “when he gets to announce that his one and only son has finally decided to stop tom-catting around and settle down!”
It was then that Sloot noticed that nearly everyone at the table was wearing a ring like Mrs. Knife’s on their left forefinger: two silver snakes coiled around a black stone. He couldn’t help but notice because they all started clinking them against their wine glasses by way of applause. Olga thrust a spoon into Sloot’s hand and gestured toward his wine glass with her wand. Sloot tapped along with the chorus.
“And who’s the lucky lady?” asked Mrs. Knife, who was sitting across from Wilhelm with an unreadable expression. The expression on the frightful figure next to her was very readable, a treatise on general disgust with all it surveyed. He was an old man with long, greasy white hair clinging to his nearly-as-white pallid face. He was holding a wine glass filled with a viscous red liquid that didn’t look like any wine that Sloot had ever seen; however, considering the nightmares that would likely result from further speculation on the matter, he decided that wine was the only thing it could have been, and resolved to consider it no further.
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