The House of the Stag

by Kage Baker

  It was easy to find work when the money ran out, as Gard was bigger and broader than most Children of the Sun. He called himself Triphammer. He was perfectly content to be a stevedore, hoisting crates and bales in and out of warehouses all day long. When the workday ended, he’d go to the public baths and steam himself and afterward eat dinner in the same waterfront tavern each night. He used no magecraft beyond the spell that disguised him. He spoke mildly and avoided giving offense to anyone.

  Afterward he might go to one of the pleasure clubs, where for a modest fee lusts were consensually soothed, and occasionally the conversation was rather pleasant as well. He never slept there, for his disguise took conscious will. Inevitably he returned to his single room, up five flights of stairs, but its one window opened on a view of the sea. He would lie in bed watching the stars drift down into the water, and sleep at last.

  He needed nothing. He wanted nothing. Occasionally he would see a family out for a day’s excursion, mother and father and little children, and only then he felt a vague sadness.

  Gard wondered whether it might be granted him to forget his past, in time, in the serene repetition of labor and pleasure.

  One moonless night, coming home late, a pair of thieves assaulted him. He killed them both, but was obliged to struggle. After that he bought himself weapons. From a bookseller Gard ordered all of Prince Firebow’s work, intrigued to discover the prince had written a volume on military campaigns. He read it with interest. He spent three nights in every week at the public gymnasium, bringing back his body’s memory of the arena. Resolutely he kept the memory out of his mind, as much as he was able.

  It was unwise of him.

  He was sitting at his dinner in a tavern one night when three men came through the door abreast, leaning on one another as they were. They were staggering, croaking out the “Hymn of Thanks to Fire.” One of them waved an empty wine jar.

  “Lovely tavern!” said the shortest of the three, pulling his head out of his companion’s armpit to look around. “Tables and benches and things. Let’s just sit. And have drinks out of wine cups. Like shivi-civilized men, eh?”

  “Right!” said his friend in the opposite armpit. “Come on, old Tecker, bear to starboard. That way, that way! Easy does it! Whoof!”

  Tecker, who was the midmost drunk and very large, settled on the bench next to Gard’s with a resounding crash. He put his head down on the table and giggled. The shortest drunk navigated his way to a seat beside the big one with some difficulty, while the third went off to the bar.

  “You won’t mind old Tecker, will you?” the short one inquired of Gard. “It’s only that we’re celebrating. Geeman’s wife gave him a baby boy s’afternoon.”

  “Congratulations,” said Gard.

  “Gods bless you! Geeman! Four cups! Nice stranger here’s going to drink your boy’s health! You’ll celebrate with us, won’t you, nice stranger?”

  “Well, gods bless him!” Geeman bawled from the counter. “Barkeep! Make that four cups!”

  “Four cups!” echoed the short one. “So Tecker ‘n’ Geeman ‘n’ Parlik ‘n’—what’s your name, eh?”

  “Dennik Triphammer,” said Gard.

  “Dennik, right, well, us four can drink little Bexi’s health. ‘N’ Mrs. Geeman’s too, course.” The short one beamed hazily at Gard. His friend came weaving back with a tray with four cups of wine. He set one down before Gard and almost dropped the tray; the short one caught it and set it down without slopping too much. “Here we go! Drinks for everybody. To li’l Bexi!”

  They both drank. Tecker had begun to snore. Gard drank quickly, not wanting to seem rude. “Shouldn’t you go home to your wife and son?” he asked Geeman.

  Parlik roared with laughter. “His mother-in-law threw us out!”

  “Her and the midwife,” said Geeman.

  “Pair of old … old … she-creatures,” said Parlik. “Oi, Tecker, drink up or I’ll do it for you. Tecker? Gods below, has he passed out?”

  “Tecker?” Geeman prodded him. His head lolled. “Bloody hell. We’d better get him home, or we’ll have another woman sulking at us.”

  “How? He weighs twice as much as me,” said Parlik. Both of them turned glassy stares on Gard. “Er … friend Dennik, you look like a big strong lad. How about you help us get this big oaf home? You’ll be doing a lady a service.”

  “Though not in the usual way, har har!” said Geeman, and fell off the bench backward.

  “Oh, not you too!” said Parlik. He looked at Gard. “I beseech you. Can’t get them both home myself, can I, a little shrimp like me? I’ll break in half. Here, if you’ll take old Tecker, I can probably manage Geeman. Eh?”

  “All right,” said Gard, more amused than annoyed. He hauled Tecker upright and staggered out with him, and a moment later heard Parlik cajoling Geeman up off the floor. They emerged into the night. Gard grimaced, trying to see around Tecker, who was as heavy as though his bones were made of iron. “Where are we taking him?”

  “Down to Rakut’s Wharf,” he heard Parlik reply. “Straight down there, see? Rakuty-Rakuty-Rakut’s Wharf …”

  They had gone about five streets down toward the wharf when Gard felt his knees buckling. He was drenched with sweat, suddenly sick and weak. The footsteps behind him were echoing oddly. Tecker’s dead weight became unbearable.

  “I don’t think—,” Gard said, and stumbled. Beside him, Tecker fell only to his knees before scrambling upright, leaving Gard on the pavement.

  “He’s down,” Gard heard him saying.

  “Strong bastard.” Parlik’s voice was clear and thoughtful. “You take his arms. Geeman, take his feet. Come on, hurry.”

  Gard felt himself hoisted up and was only grateful, glad to be allowed to sink into soft oblivion. Down he went; and then he was propelled upward into consciousness on a tide of painful nausea, twisting to vomit. “Oh, bloody hell,” someone muttered, and Gard felt acute embarrassment as he retched up his dinner.

  “Keep going!”

  “Nine Hells, look at him!” someone else exclaimed, and Gard felt himself abruptly dropped. He struck the bricks sharply and the pain cleared his senses even more.

  “What is he?”

  “He isn’t—”

  “Shut up, both of you! Pick him up and come on!”

  Gard was seized roughly and dragged over brick, over stone, over splintery planks, then he was dropped again, to land with a hollow thud on a wooden floor. Floor? It was tilting slightly. A deck. He had been brought aboard a boat. He struggled to his hands and knees and someone kicked him, aiming at his head perhaps but hitting his shoulder instead. It hurt. He was angry. Someone was growling.

  “He’s waking up!” Someone sounded scared, with an edge of disgust to his fear. “Throw a net over him before he—”

  “Hold on! We don’t need the net. Where’s that thing her ladyship sent? Here! It’s a whatchacallit, a spancel. It’ll bind him.”

  “That little thing? You’re mad!”

  “No, see, it’s magical, and she said—”

  Gard groped for his boot and found his knife. He lunged upward and killed Geeman and Tecker—one stab through the kidneys, one stab through the ribs, one-two. Parlik scuttled toward him sidelong, holding up something that flickered with witchlight. His face was pale and terrified. Snarling, Gard grabbed up a pail and hurled it at him. Parlik fell and Gard dove at him and drove the knife into his throat.

  Then Gard fell again, and vomited again. He crawled away from the bodies and sat awhile, gulping in the night air. At last he knelt upright and looked around.

  He was on a small craft, a fishing vessel by the look of it, with one cabin forward. A dim light was burning within. Parlik must have come from the cabin. Watching the light steadily, Gard advanced on the cabin with his knife in his hand.

  No one was in the cabin. An open pouch of papers was on a table, its contents strewn about by Parlik as he had dug in it for the spancel. Gard had to blink his eyes two or three times bef
ore he could focus on the foremost written document.

  … lodging house in Buckle Street. He is employed as a stevedore on Cresset’s Wharf, using the name Dennik Triphammer. His habits are most regular: his shift ends in the afternoon and he goes directly to the Sand Point Baths. Invariably he emerges forty-five minutes later and proceeds uphill to the Flowing Bowl, where he dines and drinks, though never more than two cups. He will generally depart after one hour …

  Gard grimaced. The report had been written by an Amrick Stone. He sorted through the other papers: maps, safe-conduct passes, letters of marque, and … here was a letter bearing the seal of House Porlilon.

  And here was a purse containing coin. A lot of it. He spilled it out on the table. Fabulously old coins, of varying denominations. Here was one from the reign of Freskin the Dictator.

  Someone was growling again. When he realized he himself was making the noise, he stopped.

  Gard swept the coins back into the pouch and put them inside his shirt. He grabbed up the papers, holding them into the flame of the oil lamp until they caught. He dropped them on the table and broke the lamp with the hilt of his knife, so the oil ran out and spread flame in a sheet over the table, dripping flame into a heap of bedding on the floor. Gard backed out of the cabin. He stumbled over Parlik’s corpse and, seeing the spancel clutched in Parlik’s hands, hoisted the body and pitched it over the side. It sank at once, trailing the glowing spancel after it as it descended into black water.

  There was a fountain on the wharf. Gard could hear the trickling water. He scrambled ashore awkwardly, found his way by the sound, and drank deeply. It cleared his head. He washed the blood from his hands and the knife and leaned gasping against the fountain’s bowl a moment, waiting to see if he could hold the water down. Someone shouted from Cresset’s Wharf, pointing across at the fire, which had just shot up through the roof of the cabin.

  Breathing raggedly, Gard focused and pulled an illusion over himself. He shaped it to resemble Tecker, to whom he had been closest in size, with Tecker’s striped tunic and Tecker’s red beard. Then he set off, as fast as he could, hoping to get to his room without trouble. Behind him, the shouts and commotion were increasing.

  As he came around the corner into Buckle Street, a man stepped out of an alley. “Tecker? What are you doing here? You should have had him by now!”

  Gard stopped. “Stone?” he said after a moment’s hesitation. “There’s something her ladyship wants, and he doesn’t have it on him. I’m to go look in his room.”

  “But you have him?”

  “Yes, we have him,” said Gard, feeling the cold calm descend. “Come with me. You can help me search his room.”

  Two months later, Gard stood in a long line without the gate of Deliantiba, waiting stolidly. His bag was heavy, and so he had set it on the ground between his feet and stood with arms folded. In front of him, a woman jogged a ceaselessly complaining baby in her arms; behind him, a pair of salesmen muttered together about taxes.

  When his turn came at last, Gard stepped up to the table. “Your name?” inquired a city clerk, opening a tablet.

  “Wolkin Smith.”

  “Occupation?”

  “General laborer, sir.”

  “Place of birth?”

  “Chadravac.”

  “An island man, are you? I thought so, by your accent. What’s your business, Smith?”

  “Seeking employment, sir.”

  “Empty his bag, gentlemen.” Gard handed over his bag without complaint and watched as two members of the city guard upturned it on the table. They sorted through his spare suit of clothes and dozen books without comment, but the clerk noted down the book titles. “Amateur scholar, are we?”

  “I hope to improve my mind, sir.”

  “Weapons on the table, please.” Gard drew two knives from his boots and laid them out, following them with the short sword he wore at his belt. The clerk noted these also and filled out the tablet. “Open your hands to the gods and repeat after me, please.”

  Gard opened his hands and blandly swore by gods in whom he did not believe that he intended no harm to the city of Deliantiba, nor any to her citizens in general and particular, nor would he poison her wells nor commit arson. He further swore to abide by her laws and, should it become necessary, help defend the city against attack in time of war.

  The tablet was signed, stamped, closed, and handed to Gard with a copy of the civic statutes. Gard thanked the clerk and put his weapons away. He thrust his belongings back into his bag, shouldered it, and walked in through the city gate.

  “General laborer, indeed,” the clerk muttered to the guard captain. “With those books, and that accent? That’s some nobleman’s bastard.”

  “Fallen on hard times, then.”

  “Haven’t we all? Next, please.”

  Gard found another bare room in a boardinghouse. Its window’s view was only of the dry stony hills on which the city was built, but he didn’t mind. He didn’t plan to stay long.

  A notice board in the atrium of his building advertised employers in need of workmen. Inspecting it, Gard saw one requiring the services of a gardener. He had seen gardens; the thought of green lawns and shade lured him, in this dry hot place. He noted the address and within the hour found himself standing in front of an open yard full of cut stone: plinths, urns, obelisks, polished spheres, statuary, flagstones. He was staring around, wondering if he’d got the address wrong, when a thickset man emerged from behind a pair of wrestling gods and looked at him inquiringly.

  “Where is 17 Sand Street?” asked Gard.

  “That’s here.” The man gave him an appraising stare. “Looking for work?”

  “The notice said you wanted a gardener.”

  “So I do.” The man jerked a thumb at the sign on the back wall. VERKIS WIRECUTTER, LANDSCAPING SERVICES. “You look fit. All right with heavy lifting?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “I pay as I have jobs. Got one today. Lady up on Leadbeater Terrace with a new town house, and one of my boys went and joined the army yesterday. Interested in taking his place? We load up the cart, we deliver and arrange the merchandise as madam sees fit, we bring the cart back. There’s five crowns in it for you.”

  It was good money for a day’s work. An hour later Gard was toiling up a narrow street, pushing a cart loaded with urns and statues, as Mr. Wirecutter and another day laborer hauled on the traces. They drew up before an eminence of rock with a mansion on it, so recent the mortar looked still damp. Mr. Wirecutter went around to the trade entrance, straw hat in hand, and presently returned with a lady apparently highborn.

  “… and madam may of course return any pieces she chooses, if on continued acquaintance they do not please, but I’ve brought my very finest stock, and I think it’ll suit nicely. My staff, madam. Gentlemen, I have the honor of presenting Lady Springsteel.”

  “Charmed,” said Lady Springsteel, with a sniff. She glanced from the other laborer to Gard and fixed her gaze on him, her eyes widening slightly. “How kind of you men to come all this way in the heat. Perhaps you’d like a cold drink, before you unload my goods?”

  “Madam is gracious indeed,” said Mr. Wirecutter, observing that her interest had settled on Gard. She clapped her hands, and after an interval a sullen servant girl appeared and was given orders. She returned, after yet a longer interval in which madam tapped her foot, bearing a tray of drinks each topped with a little mound of snow.

  “Lemon water,” said Lady Springsteel with a brilliant smile, handing a glass to Gard. He took it with a bow. She gave the servant girl an impatient look.

  “The snow’s brought all the way from the mountains. It cost an awful lot,” the girl intoned dutifully.

  “Hush, girl, it’s vulgar to tell people such things,” said Lady Springsteel. “I do apologize. She’s from Mount Flame; I’m doing my best to refine her.” Gard, who didn’t care if he never saw snow again, suppressed a shudder, but drank.

  Lady Springstee
l’s garden was on a terrace behind the house, to which she led the way when they had finished their drinks. Gard stared. It was an expanse of flagged walk and raked gravel, in subtly contrasting colors, and bright-painted tiles ornamented the walls. There were benches, and a pond in which sad-looking fish drifted, and a small shrine to Lady Springsteel’s particular gods. Not one blade of grass, not one tree, not one flower or shrub of any description disturbed the geometric perfection of Lady Springsteel’s garden.

  Its geometry was further enhanced by the addition of Mr. Wirecutter’s urns and statuary. When they were placed and Gard and his fellow worker stood sweating, Lady Springsteel inspected it thoughtfully. Mr. Wirecutter followed her closely, twisting his hat in his hands.

  “Splendid effect, I think,” said Mr. Wirecutter.

  “Oh, I don’t know,” said Lady Springsteel. “Perhaps it needs an obelisk or two.”

  “The very thing! I have them in black marble, white marble, and a very smart red sandstone, which is, I understand, popular in the villas at Salesh-by-the-Sea just now—”

  “What do you think, good man?” Lady Springsteel rounded on Gard.

  “Er—shouldn’t there be some plants?” said Gard.

  “Plants?” said Lady Springsteel and Mr. Wirecutter together, and Mr. Wirecutter hastened to add, “He’s from the islands, see.”

  “Oh, I can tell from his voice,” said Lady Springsteel, advancing on Gard. “What a charming accent! Is that an island custom, plants in gardens?”

  “Yes,” said Gard, hoping it was.

  “Let’s have some, then,” said Lady Springsteel.

  Gard, seeing Mr. Wirecutter glaring at him, said, “And obelisks. Red sandstone obelisks. Very popular, your ladyship.”