Attacking it wasn’t exactly an option. It would have him upside down banging his head against every tree in the forest before he could so much as inflict a scratch. And the cat was pretty much out of the bag as far as his secret agricultural project. So, why not talk to it?
“I guess I’m lucky to have you as my protector,” Righty finally finished, after a long, awkward pause, wondering how sincere his insincere comment sounded.
“That would be an understatement,” came Harold’s response, thorny enough both in tone and content to make the prior response look rather flattering.
“Well, how does this work? Will you follow me about day and night and keep me out of harm’s way, or do we need to have meetings such as this one?”
“Why did those men attack you?” Harold responded, feeling more in the mood to ask questions than answer them.
“Well, as for their leader, because I killed his brother.”
“Why?”
“He threatened me and my family.”
Harold was silent for a moment.
“I knew that.”
“Then why would you ask?”
“To see if you would tell the truth.”
“How would you know if I was telling the truth?”
“I can hear Janie arriving at your house right now. In fact, she’s calling your name. Don’t you hear it?”
Righty looked severely at the bird, wishing it were a few sizes smaller so that he could bash its brains in.
“Don’t worry. I just heard her go inside.”
“Okay, so you hear very well. How long have you been following me?”
“For a while.”
“What now?”
“Do you expect to have many more battles?”
“I hope not.”
“But do you expect it?”
“Unfortunately, yes. But I don’t plan on getting blindsided again, and much less by someone with a sword when all I’ve got are these!” And Righty pulled out the brass knuckles and dagger angrily.
“Do you believe a sword would be the answer to your problems?”
“It would be a start.”
“But you don’t know how to use a sword. If you did, you would have used your dagger rather than strapping bludgeons onto your knuckles.”
Righty looked angrily again at the bird. He hated how this thing saw right through him, especially regarding his weaknesses.
“So, I don’t know how to use a sword. I can learn. It’s not exactly like I was born knowing how to use my fists, and you’ve seen what I can do with them.”
Righty’s anger started to turn to curiosity as he noticed a playful twinkle in the bird’s eyes. It was clear it was holding a lot back from him, but there was something in particular that was tickling its feathers at the moment.
“What is it?!” Righty exploded.
Chapter 35
When Pitkins came home and was greeted by a hysterical Donive telling him that the cat she had graciously welcomed into their home had gone crazy, grabbed groceries from her, soiled them beyond recovery, and was still guarding them, Pitkins’ first instinct was to grab the wretched thing by its back legs, toss it as far as he could throw it, and hope it got the message that it had worn out its welcome.
But, as often is the case after hysterical summations are given, the details—as they trickle in one by one—often paint the inexplicable in a slightly more logical light. Pitkins asked what it was the little devil had taken, thinking for certain it must be fish.
When Donive told him it was a new cooking spice she had purchased, that seemed strange. He had grown up with cats, and he had never seen or heard of a cat so interested in cooking spices.
Pitkins walked outside and saw Pitkins still guarding the soiled spices. He was then thoroughly befuddled—as men often are with their wives—when she then began to tell him that she suspected Bandit might have believed there was something dangerous about the spices. In Pitkins’ mind, that information would have been more logically given first. In Donive’s mind, that would have made for one boring story.
Pitkins stooped down and petted Bandit’s head and looked deeply into his eyes, as Donive had done. He also saw the intelligence that Donive had seen. He thought he would try a little experiment. He went and got a shovel and dug a small hole next to the spices.
Then, he looked at Bandit, and as many pet owners do who do not believe for a moment their animal can understand their exact words, Pitkins said to Bandit, as if he were talking to a toddler, “Baaaad, right?” pointing to the spices. Bandit lazily closed his eyes and then reopened them.
Pitkins then dug a small hole right next to Bandit. As he did so, he felt strangely unnerved by the degree of intelligence and intensity he saw in Bandit’s eyes. It seemed as if they were opening up his very soul and examining the contents carefully.
Dispensing with the childish talk, Pitkins looked directly at Bandit and then slowly moved his shovel towards the soiled spices. Bandit’s eyes followed him carefully. They now had a cunning look about them, suggesting any trick would be in vain.
To Pitkins’ satisfaction, Bandit sat passively while Pitkins put some of the contents in the hole he had dug. Bandit then moved away from the soiled spices completely but kept his eyes peeled on Pitkins.
Pitkins put all of the soiled spices into the hole and filled it back in with dirt. Bandit then sauntered towards Pitkins, rubbed his side against both of his legs, and then lay flat on his back. Pitkins felt the hairs standing up on the back of his neck. Something told him this was no ordinary cat. He had read stories as a child about dogs doing amazing things to keep their families from danger, but never had he heard of a cat taking such extreme measures to protect its family from something it judged nefarious.
He stroked Bandit’s belly softly, and as he listened to his soft purr he almost began to think he had imagined the whole thing.
Chapter 36
It was only a matter of days before Pitkins began to get a bit of an idea as to why Bandit had soiled the spices, but in many ways it only thickened the mystery. Talk was spreading like wildfire about the spice that was said to make coffee seem like sleeping powder.
The rumor was that stores were having a very hard time throughout the capital city keeping enough of the spice stocked due to its immense popularity. Those who put it into their stew reported feeling extremely energetic, and if even slightly more than what the recipe suggested was put in, people would be awake all night.
It was only a couple months after that that Pitkins began hearing stories not only about how this would replace coffee but how this had brought “the age of the party” to the city. One rumor was that a cook had dropped a bag of the spice, causing a cloud of powder to erupt, and reportedly she didn’t sleep for two days afterwards. Another rumor was that someone had just put some of this powder onto his stew and, having a terrible cold, breathed in deeply before sneezing and in the process inhaled some of the powder right off the top of the stew.
While there were many different explanations for the discovery, what was certain was that somehow it had been discovered that just a little bit of this stuff up your nose could make you party all night long. It was also becoming popular amongst a lot of the construction crews who were still working feverishly to rebuild the damage to the city from Dachwald’s invasion. They found to their satisfaction that one whiff after a hard day’s work and they felt as if they had just awoken from a refreshing eight hours of sleep, ready to tackle anything—in this case a long evening of drinking and partying. Pretty soon, many people were concluding that this spice was good for both work and play.
As time went on, both Pitkins and Donive found themselves increasingly grateful for Bandit’s odd interception of the spice before she had put it into their evening stew. It was becoming clear that those who used it tended to use it too often—that is, morning, afternoon, and evening seven days a week. Some users seemed practically possessed. Filled with energy, they would rant and rave, talking rapidly and c
easelessly but often failing to make a point. Others seemed to have enhanced intelligence after taking moderate amounts and could accomplish in two hours of work what previously took six.
But, more and more often, Pitkins was beginning to both see and hear about its negative effects. There had been reported cases of young men of twenty or thirty years old falling dead from heart attacks after days of non-stop sniffing. There were stories of people going to doctors and asking for help to stop it because they could no longer sleep. There were stories of people becoming considerably violent and, numb to pain, beating each other to death with their bare fists.
Pitkins was beginning to feel relieved he had managed to craft himself a new sword on par with the quality of Carlos, and to which he had decided to give the same name, because just striding through the city he often saw emaciated shadows of people staring at him with an evil eye, as if trying to decide whether he would put up a fight if they leaped upon him and attempted to tear his flesh off with their bare hands.
One look at the glint of steel attached to his hip, and so far they had thought better of it. Furthermore, in spite of the fact this herb was turning some people into such fearsome specters, it was so cheap that beggars could obtain enough money in a day to get their fill, although this occurred at the cost of not eating, something the worst of these fiends had essentially lost interest in anyway.
The noticeable menace to Sodorfian society caused the nobles to have a vigorous debate as to whether this substance perhaps should be outlawed. Unfortunately, too many of them were users themselves for this to be a realistic possibility, especially since—at least for the time being—none were as flagrantly shameless and corrupt as Senator Hutherton. However, they took note of the fact it had been outlawed all but the upper class in Sogolia months ago and recently in Selegania. Thus, they did take the measure of banning the exportation of Spicy Green, as they did not wish to become an outlaw state and risk the wrath of surrounding nations.
Some nobles proposed an investigation into the origin of Spicy Green, but they were quickly shouted down by the vast majority of the nobles, who feared this was simply a stratagem to cut off the source of Spicy Green, the mere thought of which sent a shiver down their spines.
It perplexed Pitkins deeply how Bandit had so quickly detected the vile nature of this substance and reacted so viciously in order to protect those in his household, and he had earned the undying love of Pitkins, who before had been rather lukewarm towards the adopted stray. Every night, he stroked Bandit’s long soft hair and looked into his intelligent eyes, as if hoping to learn some hidden secret, but Bandit usually closed his eyes lazily and purred, as if to say: My life’s work has been done.
However, while Pitkins had been saved from addiction by Bandit, he had another enemy, one he had never confronted in so strong a form in his life: boredom. Pitkins had been raised from childhood through adolescence in a physically and mentally stimulating atmosphere, all of which was designed to prepare his mind and body for a lifetime of military service in the upper echelons of Sogolia’s elite military unit: the Nikorians.
At the age of sixteen, he had formally entered military service, and from there the physical and mental training had only intensified. By age twenty-four, he was a captain. By age twenty-nine, he was a general. By age thirty-three, he was framed and exiled, whereupon he went to Sodorf. But, at least then, he had found his niche plying the trade he had mastered as part of his training in the military: sword crafting.
And although he had disliked the nobles intensely, their insatiable appetite for his swords—the quality of which they had never seen before—resulted in him being busy day after day forging, crafting, sharpening, and polishing. After the war, he had naïvely thought perhaps there would be a still greater interest in swords, but the reverse had happened.
At first he thought it was just a brief slowdown. Maybe all the killing had made people not want to even look at weapons of war. But as time went on it became clearer and clearer his services were in a serious slump. He still went to his sword smith shop nearly every day. He didn’t want to admit the horrible truth to Donive.
And it wasn’t even that he lacked money. He and Donive lived on a large estate they had purchased with Pitkins’ immense earnings from the days when his swords were selling like apples to the nobility. And the dowry alone that she had brought into the marriage would have been sufficient for them to live comfortably for the rest of their lives.
But Pitkins was finding out quickly that he was not made to live in mere comfort. He had been raised from birth for challenges, and the utter lack thereof tortured his soul. He realized the bitter truth—he had no skills other than war and the making of implements of war. He now felt as needed as an acrobat at a business meeting.
He had begun slowing down the progress of his work at the shop, for he hated to craft swords that were unlikely to be sold. And furthermore, his preference was to craft personalized swords, not just direct a client to a wall and tell him to pick. He considered most of the swords on display to merely be tools to determine what kind of sword best matched the individual. Every last detail was important—the man’s height, strength, coordination, and purposes for the weapon.
Today, Pitkins found himself feeling nearly at the point of despair. He was wondering whether moving might not be a bad idea. Surely, there were other locations where a master sword smith’s skills would be more highly appreciated. And hadn’t Donive said long ago that she wanted to see new lands and learn new languages? He seemed to recall that. Perhaps this was a sign.
As he was ruminating over the sweet escape offered by moving to a new country, something very rare happened. A man nearly reached striking distance without Pitkins so much as noticing.
“Sir?”
Pitkins looked up from his chair startled. This seemed further evidence of the negative effect boredom was having on his very soul.
In front of him, he beheld a man whose every square inch emanated power, yet tranquility at the same time. Six feet and three inches put him at Pitkins’ height, but he clearly had an extra thirty pounds of muscle in his upper body alone that Pitkins knew he could never obtain, not in a thousand years of exercise.
“Yes, sir,” Pitkins responded. “How may I be of service?”
“You . . . will . . . please forgive . . . baad Sodorfian; I no speak so good.”
Pitkins felt more awake now than he had since the war. He’d be damned if this man wasn’t speaking with a Seleganian accent. He had been trained thoroughly in that language—amongst many others—during his time in the Nikorians, although he hadn’t spoken it for years.
“My accent is terrible,” Pitkins began in Seleganian, “but I believe I can speak a little of your language. Hopefully, you are from Selegania, or I will be one embarrassed fool, indeed!”
A smile as warm as the sun emerged from the man, and Pitkins breathed a sigh of relief.
“What terrible accent? Your Seleganian is perfect!” the man replied in Seleganian, appearing greatly relieved to be saved from further embarrassment.
Pitkins smiled.
“If you don’t mind my asking,” Pitkins began, “what is a man from The Land of No Swords doing in a sword smith’s shop in Sodorf?”
“What is a former general doing running a sword smith shop?”
Pitkins felt his good humor vanish. He hadn’t exactly been able to keep his origins a secret very long after riding at the head of a Sogolian army and crushing the Dachwaldians besieging the capital city. But it was never a topic he liked to personally broach.
Then, he felt his defensiveness evaporate, as another beaming, yet shrewd, smile emanated from his strange visitor, who said, “I never knew we had earned that nickname. But, as they say, don’t believe everything you hear. Perhaps there are some people in Selegania who need swords to protect themselves from those who have them and use them to rob and kill. Outlawing something’s not the same as getting rid of it.”
Pitkins found the
man both charming and cunning at the same time. An odd mix, but for some reason he liked it. He himself found it hard to imagine abiding by a law against swords.
“Perhaps, you and I each have a rebellious side,” Pitkins said good-naturedly. “As for military life—I’ve seen enough of it. But as for swords—they’re my true passion.”
“Well, I will probably be of immense disappointment to you, Sir Pitkins,” Righty said, with a smile, extending his hand. “My name is Richard Franklin Simmers, and I’ve never touched a sword in my life. But I want the best sword in this world that money can buy. And, more importantly, I want to learn to use it better than anyone on this earth.”
For a moment, Pitkins thought he was hallucinating. Perhaps he was in the middle of a week-long binge of Spicy Green like the poor emaciated souls he saw on the city streets and had only imagined Bandit’s heroic interference with the vile herb, the way a man being swallowed alive by a boa constrictor perhaps hallucinates that his brave dog has killed the beast currently consuming him.
The Republic of Selegania Boxed Set: Volumes One through Four Page 36
