by Hadena James
“Well, that was pointless,” Michael came barging into my room without even a knock. Although, since Alejandro had broken it earlier, I figured it didn’t matter. I was pretty sure that someone would be up to fix it, eventually, and until then, I’d just play revolving door.
“What was?” I asked him as he sat down some containers of food. It smelled like Chinese. I searched for and found a box containing Cashew Chicken.
“The Hanging Coffins. We found out our company did order ten, but again, the company doesn’t exist.”
“How long did it take to get all of them?”
“About seven months. One smith took an extremely long time making one.” Michael pulled out Sweet & Sour Pork.
“Back logged.” I commented without surprise.
“Exactly. Hence why they only built one of them. Do you realize the amount of work these smiths get?”
“I imagine it is a lot and it is all unique.” I answered.
“You have no idea. We talked to a guy that said last year alone, he made seven Hanging Coffins, six Pears of Anguish, a Brazen Bull, three show piece Iron Maidens, and that wasn’t counting all the other stuff he normally makes or the special orders from museums.”
“It’s a specialized business,” I commented dryly again.
“Why don’t you seem surprised by any of it?” He asked.
“Because I once had to order a replica for a class that I was helping teach. For some reason, someone had stolen the leg irons that belonged with a stockade. Anyway, it took nine weeks to get them. Leg irons aren’t complicated by any means. Besides, I’ve put together exhibits and done consulting with museums before and I know the sort of stuff they order.”
“And?” Lucas prodded.
“And I’ve been to Goth clubs, death metal clubs, fetish clubs; they all have this sort of stuff around. I was once in a Goth club that had a maiden and a Hanging Coffin. Both replicas of course, but still… These things draw a crowd. Society likes to carefully interact with its darker side. When a museum offers an exhibit on torture or surgical tools or death or taboos or superstition, they always have big turn outs. They can have huge fund raisers based around them. The small museum that was connected with the University of Washington did it one year as a fundraiser at Halloween. They raised more money at that fundraiser than they had in the three months previous from donations. The reason I was in Baltimore was to give a short speech on The Spanish Inquisition and its use of torture as a means to extract information. The entire fundraiser was based on torture methods used by the Inquisition. They raised a ton of money. It’s where I got the job offer for the Field as well as three other museums.”
“So for historians, the dark side is big business.” Xavier said.
“Yes, go to any large university campus and take a class on the Middle Ages and some portion of the curriculum will be dedicated to torture, crime and punishment, executions and other dark stuff. Students need credits in different departments, so when they offer those sorts of classes, the enrollment fills up very quickly. Money gets shipped into the department based on the student head count. Campuses offer them. History, Anthropology and Sociology departments all do it. Rarely does someone major in it, like I did, but I’m the exception, not the rule. It is part of the reason I am considered a resource in the academic world and why museums want to hire me. I can bring the darker side to life for them. Most Medievalists specialize in specific kingdoms or governments or time periods, I specialized in torture.”
“Sounds like you did more than specialize in it.” Michael gave me a grin.
“I’m human; I can appreciate the darker side of humanity. To be honest, every historian can. Show me a professor of cultural history and I’ll show you a professor that knows all about the dark side of whatever civilization they specialized in. That is the reason I am unique. I didn’t pick England or The Franks and get my degree there. I took the dark side of all the Middle Ages and got my degree.”
“That’s very gloomy,” Michael frowned.
“Yes and no. It is gloomy when you think about all the time I put into studying it, but in reality, humanity has been dominated by sex, death and religion from the beginning. All I did was get my degree in one of the things that has dominated humanity. It would have been gloomier if I had gotten my PhD in 20th Century American History.”
“Why?” Michael asked.
“Because it was dominated by two world wars, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, assassinations, the rise of the mass murderer and the rise of the serial killer. In comparison, the Middle Ages seems like a trip to Disney Land. There was far less death during it.”
“Hard to imagine that the Middle Ages had less death than the 20th century,” Xavier said.
“Yes, yes it is, but in the long run, it isn’t that much of a mystery. Death has become an industry in the 20th century. War reached technological highs. Mass murderers became a dime a dozen. Serial killers became prolific and normal. Of course, that’s not counting diseases and other causes of death.”
“They had diseases back then,” Xavier countered.
“They did and they were bad, but there was less population to kill off, so if a third of Europe dies from plague in the Middle Ages, that’s a few hundred thousand people. If it happens now because of a particularly virulent strain of flu and that’s millions. Population increase makes a significant difference in the amount of death. 40,000 people died at Waterloo, that many and more died in the Battle of the Bulge, but we don’t realize it because of the population increase.”
“You are trying to point out that everything is relative.” Lucas said.
“Everything is relative,” I agreed, “relative to your current position in the world. Forty years ago when serial killers began to rise in numbers, it was the topic of every newspaper headline. Now days, it’s an editorial found near the back. Our torturer will start making headlines when they hit 100 people or when they do something so horrifying that it can’t help but shock everyone in the nation.”
“That should have happened with the drawing and quartering.” Michael said glumly.
“But it didn’t because we’ve had six Jack the Ripper copycats in the last 15 years alone. We’ve had countless mass murderers since then, including my brother, who only made headlines because he was popping off prisoners behind a fence. Numbers and shock-factor attracts attention, a small drawing and quartering doesn’t count. Impaling doesn’t count. If our torturer sticks ten women inside Brazen Bulls, it might get noticed, but even that is questionable.”
“You’re obsessed with maidens and Brazen Bulls.” Xavier gave me a weak grin.
“I can’t think of a worse way to die than a Brazen Bull. Impaling comes close, but I have a fear of burning to death and actually burning to death, not dying of smoke inhalation.”
“That’s twisted,” Alejandro came into the room. “Someone is on the way up to move you to a different room. It is closer to Xavier and Lucas, you’ll be protected. You’ve got another letter.”
Chapter 36
