Factotum ft-3

by D M Cornish

  THE HANDSOME GRACKLE

  Undaunted, the Derehund pounced straight back as the Grackle tried to stand, the dog's great teeth clashing loudly on vacant air. Swinging its club-fisted arms, the nadderer managed to bay the Derehund.

  Someone shouted, "Ten oscars on the sea-selt!" and the flurry of bets and jeers and mindless exclamations exploded again.

  At this mighty noise Skarfithin got teeth into meat and pulled the nadderer's left arm, threatening to topple it again. Yet the Handsome Grackle was not so easily done for. With another austerating hiss it lifted its arm, hauling its foe, still clamped to the meat of its arm, clear off the floor. Writhing like a line-caught fish, Skarfithin growled and seethed and would not let go. The Grackle raised its other arm and, with a quick, powerful punch, sent the Derehund reeling, its mouth still full of monster-flesh, to smack with an unpleasant wet sound on the far wall and slide heaplike to the hard-packed dirt.

  Dismayed at last, Skarfithin labored to stand and now paced more warily before its foe, head down, gaze murderous, calculating, its ribs heaving like a bellows.

  Surrounded by puddles of its own gore, but its wounds almost entirely gone, the Grackle remained motionless; only the tips of its tentacles undulated minutely, bending toward the battered dog.

  Snarling, the tykehound leaped once more, rushing the sea-monster from the left with astounding fortitude, seeking to catch the Grackle exposed as it twisted to face this new assault.

  Worried now as much for dog as for monster, Rossamund could barely watch, and half closed his eyes as the Derehund bit terrible hold of the nadderer's lower tentacle. Tugging powerfully left then right then left then right, Skarfithin tried to overset the Grackle and bring it down. The monster tottered perilously and toppled sideways.Yet it did not collapse; rather, one of its arms now became a leg, a stumped foot became a clubbed hand and the perversely vertical mouth was now more properly horizontal. Still the maddened dog tore and tugged, its jaw locked on soft tentacle flesh, until Rossamund was sure it would tear the entire limb from the poor Grackle's trunk. With a hiss the nadderer rolled completely onto its other end. Weirdly deft acrobatics had it standing upside down, both arms now legs, both legs now arms, and Skarfithin was lifted high as the lower tentacle became the head.

  Still the Derehund would not let go. Dangling, its growls like small thunder heaving in its throat, legs scrabbling and twitching impotently, it kept its hold.

  The disconcerting maw of the Grackle gaped wide, its sphincterlike lips quivering, revealing row on row of rasping ridges. Its teeth! With a shrug it flexed its surprisingly powerful head-tentacle-dog and all-and swung the tenacious Skarfithin right into its open mouth. The rippling lips closed about its middle with a wet slap and a collision of bones.

  The crowd was stunned silent.

  The Handsome Grackle had bit Skarfithin, the Blackheart of Dere, clean in two…

  In the quiet Rossamund could hear a faint, breathy wailing coming from the victor as it flicked the dog's now lifeless head and shoulders splatteringly down.

  Skarfithin had lost-and with it almost every soul in the room; though by the count of the losers, Pater Maupin and any other associate of the pit had done well. Mute shock quickly became a murmur of malcontent.

  Clearly unsatisfied at the outcome, a brave soul leaped from the stalls down into the pit. He was a strangely dressed fellow in an odd, folded hat of red cloth, gathered over itself and tilting over one ear. For proofing he wore a short-sleeved frock coat of buff dyed dull olive, undershirt puffed over his elbows, thick black vambrins protecting forearm and hand, a red sash about his waist. The fellow wore no protecting boots, rather soled hose, one leg white, the other bright yellow and patterned with the figures of twisted black laurel-fronds.This was a sabrine adept; skilled at swordplay, they were said to taint their swords with venal pastes. Instead of the telltale black, however, this adept clutched a thin blade of glaucous translucent white, handle down. Its curved cutting edge reared behind his back.

  A spathidril, Rossamund realized in horror, the most deadly of all blades.

  The adept betrayed no urgency, but stared almost in abstraction at the Grackle, approaching it one halting dance-like step at a time.

  Neither pit-bobs nor the rouse-master tried to stop the adept, and the people began to mutter approvingly, eager for him to go to his deadly work and avenge their losses.

  Bloody-mouthed and so terribly alone among all this hatred, the Grackle seemed to sense something truly dangerous about its new foe. Shuffling backward to the tunnel from which it had come, the nadderer's tentacles rippled in clear agitation, thrusting in the adept's direction, then retracting sharply as if they tasted something foul.

  With an awed gasp from the chancers, the adept suddenly whipped forward, sword a wan blur betwixt man and monster, and sprang back to stand tall once more, noble, supercilious.

  What just happened?

  The Handsome Grackle seemed unaffected, yet the swordist had all the swagger of the victor.

  Rossamund looked more closely at the nadderer. Its tentacles were tight now, their ends blurring with a stunned vibration. As he watched, a terrible incision began to open from the left shoulder of the beast and down deep into its trunk. The Grackle wheezed gore and collapsed to the hard floor.

  Its shocking wound did not heal.

  It did not rise again.

  Cheers!

  Rapturous, delighted ovation!

  Smiling with what seemed to Rossamund feigned satisfaction, Pater Maupin stood again in his proud peacock silks and white periwig and bent down to shake the hand of the adept.Torn gambling chits fell like celebratory rain as every throat cried its approval of the swordsman-every throat but one.

  The stark blank inside Rossamund had no accompanying voice. Yet if it had, he could not speak such a thing in this invidical place. I should have intervened… He ached inwardly, doubling his fist about the caste of botch powder he had half consciously selected from his digital.

  With tumblings of bolts and locks, the farther pit door was opened and the stricken tractor in blue buff collected what little was left of his once-mighty fighting hound. The adept was helped back up into the stalls by many reaching, congratulatory hands. The heavy corpse of the slaughtered Grackle was dragged away by a quarto of pit-bobs.The gory floor was quickly scrubbed by laboring lads, the ticket tearings swept away and the pit readied for the next bout.

  What other undeserving creatures languished beneath the gambling house? How can I leave them all there? The young factotum was in torment.Yet how could he hope to ever set them all free?

  Another dog was brought, this time a white-and-gray stafirhund led by a tractor in an orange-and-white apron.

  "Patient souls!" came the rouse-clerk's cry as he swept an arm to point dramatically to the jowly, slobbering dog, "I give you our own darling-Truncheon, the Bogle-biting Bitch-queen of the Batch!"

  Applause and catcalls from the stalls.

  Up went the iron divide, Splitting the pit into two once more. Thunk! went the opening of the bogle-admitting door.

  In full expectation of some great slavering wretchling, Rossamund was utterly unprepared for what emerged.

  FRECKLE!

  His mouth went dry, his forehead fever-damp.Yet with an unpleasantly dark elation, he quickly discovered it was not in fact his little bogle friend but some other similar creature. Its wizened little face was broader, hairier, more lopsided, and its body longer. Dread writ clear on its squinty broad-nosed face, it was so much slighter than the dog baying and leaping at the divide; this was a mismatched bout to appease the crowd, reinvigorate their interest and keep them at wagering.

  "Lords, ladies, all gentlefolk," the rouse-clerk cried. "This one calls itself Gingerrice!"

  People hoomed and hissed.

  "It names itself, upstart wretcher!"

  "Filthy basket, how dare it!"

  "Do not be fooled by its stuntedness," the clerk bawled, raising his volume theatrically. "
It is sturdy enough to contest our darling Bogle-biter. What will be your wagers?"

  In the clamor to make an easy gain, the patrons near toppled over each other to have their calls heard, pay their wagers and get their tickets.

  Perversely inspired by the dashing display of the sabrine adept, Rossamund knew what he would do; consequences come as they will, he was not going to watch the end of such an innocent.

  At the shrieking drop of metal, Rossamund lifted himself as if to join the upsurging cries of his fellow watchers waving paddles, shaking fists, but with a surreptitious yet powerful flick sent the botch powder hurtling at the dog. Innocuously small, the caste of botch powder struck the stocky stafirhund square on its crown and popped with a pleasing purple-and-yellow puff before the beast had even reacted to the revelation of the shrinking glamgorn.The dog gave a puzzled yelp and, taking several waddling steps rearward, looked about the pit stupidly. Then, head lolling, the Bogle-biting Bitch-queen of the Batch simply lay down as if it were taking a well-earned nap and moved no more.

  Not one person about him seemed to realize it was Rossamund who had caused such a dramatic intervention in the bout. The dog-door opened but a crack to admit the head and shoulders of a patently confused pit-bob.This small opportunity was all little Gingerrice needed. With a gleeful squeal it pounced straight for the door, throwing the pit-bob aside as with surprising strength it shoved the port open farther and shot through and away before anyone could think to intervene.

  The rouse-clerk stood and bellowed, "Stop that beastie!" but it was too late.

  Shouts of anger and dismay rang out from the dark spaces beyond the door, joined by the ravenous baying of many hounds.

  With a growing ruckus, people began to cast about for the upstart who had dared defend a monster and bring them further losses.

  "Who was it?"

  "Wait till I hook the treacherous basket-me babbies won't eat for a week now!"

  And the worst-angry claims of "Sedorner!" "Selt-kisser!" "Outramorine!"

  In the stalls to the left a riot began as disgruntled patrons of high and low class weary of the night's extraordinary vicissitudes and unafraid to use their fists and worse escalated their demands to the ticket writers. Officials in the lowest stalls called useless instructions lost in the furor.

  Careful not to draw attention to himself, Rossamund eased away from the balustrade, searching faces to see if he was seen, eyes rapidly ranging the increasing madness. Above him and to the right, Rookwood and Eusebus stood together, observing the anarchy with expressions of amused wonder. Across the pit Pater Maupin was bundled away, the feather-collared dexter, Anaesthesia Myrrh, flinging out her hands left and right, clearing a path before them through the angry press. Each time she threw out a hand, there was a pallid flash-not bright like a fulgar's arcs, but some bizarre combination of witting and arcing that tossed uppity customers left and right without the dexter laying an actual hand upon them.

  A frightful crashing came from the rousing-pit below. More intent on departure, Rossamund caught a peek of tentacles flailing and men flung high. There came a high hissing and with it another portentous smashing of wood and metal. The Handsome Grackle! Somehow, though the foul gash in its shoulder still gaped, the poor beast had survived after all and, on the loose, was smashing its way into the pit. Shrieking and chattering, other little bogles were rushing in behind it-released perhaps by the Grackle's raging-springing upon the tractors and the pit-bobs who charged in from the opposite portal with pistol and cudgel to stop them. Outnumbered, the foolhardy fellows were quickly thrown aside.

  But escape would not be so easily won, for the sabrine adept who had sliced the Grackle before dropped again into the roust, drawing his mystic blade to finish the job. Bogles sprang wide about him and through the still open dog-door, following after Gingerrice.

  The Handsome Grackle, however, was oddly sluggish to respond.

  Dexters, swordist and all, the young factotum would not see it cut again.Taking out a thennelever of glister dust, Rossamund gave it a powerful flick, tossing a dose of dazzling gray powder to shower down over the swordsman passing close below, catching several poor retreating spectators in the stunning dust too. Even as Rossamund pushed through spluttering gagging folk and scrambled up the steps to flee, he caught the narrow scrutiny of the young dandidawdler with the glittering wig fixed upon him from across the pit. Instantly the fancy fellow put hand to temple. He is a wit! The patrons only just recovered from the dexter's antics thought they were to suffer a wit's puissance too. Overset-ting each other in their desire to get out of the way, they toppled as a mass, tumbling the fancy fellow in their fall.

  Reprieved, Rossamund moved folk aside with heedless ease as he made a path down the sweating-walled tunnel, round and round up the spiral stair, bursting through door wards and footmen already struggling to control the untimely and panicked exit of other patrons. Somehow he managed to find his way to the main saloon, threading a way hastily between the chancers still largely ignorant of the trouble below. A sudden shout behind, "GRABCLEAT! SNEAK THIEF! BLAGGARD!" roused every attention, and pale round-eyed faces cast about in shock. Walking at the doubled double, Rossamund dodged the grasp of a quick-headed patron and sprang for the green exit. To cries of alarm from the loopholes, he sprinted the crimson obverse, flinging more glister in the dials of the door wards bristling to stop him, driving them back gurgling and gasping. Eyes closed and breath clenched, he lunged for the red door, thrusting it wide to rush free from that abominable chancery and into the night's bitter fog.

  Several yards down the road was a stationary line of takenys waiting in the weak glow of a street-lamp for the reveling set to seek their wending home, their horses ruminating noisily in nosebags. Uniformly red-and-white-striped vests showing under heavy cloaks, the muffled drivers stood in a group staring down the seaside road in Rossamund's direction, clearly engaging in some animated discussion.

  "Escaping yer comeuppance, hey, lad?" one quipped as the young factotum drew near.

  "Cloche Arde, the Harrow Road, Ilex Mile!" was all Rossamund gave in answer, springing into the cabin of the front-most takeny.

  "Wo-ho, little lord, what's with the hasty so late in the evening?" its rotund owner chided as the harnessed horse whickered angrily at the shaking of the coach on Rossamund's hurried boarding. "I thinks we've found our culprit, boy-os," the plump takenyman called in aside to his fellows; then to Rossamund, "Fleeing yer creditors, are ye, young sir?"

  "No, no. I just need Cloche Arde, the Harrow Road, Ilex Mile, and quick!" Rossamund repeated in rising distress. I never should have come out tonight.What was I thinking?

  "A'right, a'right, me masters! Not so speedy!" The takenyman wrangled. "It'll cost ye double for double speed!"

  "I'll give you triple!" Rossamund responded without hesitation and rattled coin in his pocket-part of his night's winnings-as proof of good intention.

  The takenyman paused for an agonizing moment. "A'right then, off we go," he said, nimbly clambering to his high seat despite his girth. "Onward we hasty go." With a philosophical mutter and shake of his head, he added, "Another night in Brandentown…"

  "Stay clear o' the duffers!" one of his fellows shouted as the horse was flicked to start, going the very way he had just come.

  "The other way! The other way!" Rossamund cried, but to no avail.

  Passing the Broken Doll, the young factotum could see through the window grille unhappy patrons beginning to spill out from the chancery's scarlet door. At their lead among a gang of angry roughs was the distinct figure of the dandidawdling wit. In agonies that the takeny-driver was not proceeding nearly fast enough, Rossamund knelt on the cabin seat, staring through the narrow slot of a back window.

  The carriage had gone barely a quarter mile inland, down claustrophobic lanes with little traffic, when the wildly bobbing night-lantern of a pursuing carriage hove into view.

  Pulling down the side sash, Rossamund cried to the driver. "You need to go
faster, sir!"

  "A chase is it, 'ey? Well, I am going as quick as I dare to about these streets!" was the angry retort. "Another night at the Broken Doll…," the fellow growled. "Ye do the sitting and I'll do the whipping!" As emphasis the driver gave his already tiring nag a clip of his long switch.

  The takeny lurched and Rossamund was tumbled to the footwell. Struggling to right himself, he clutched the door sill.

  The takenyman made a tight right, putting the outward projections of town-house walls between them and the pursuit, and pulled his horse up short. For a dread moment Rossamund thought he was going to be ousted from the cabin and left to his fate, yet the goodly driver actually took a close left turn into a cramped lane not intended for horse-drawn conveyances. With as much hurry as the benighted confines allowed-not more than a quick walk-the coach rattled on. The driver eased past scuttlebutts, handcarts and a startled night-soil man, ducking night-drying clothes strung like naval bunting on a line at angles across the meager gap. An irate cry from on high could be heard through the clatter of their transit.

  Rossamund peered through the back slot and thought he spied the bulk of the chasing carriage sprint by the lane yet not stop.

  "Just as long as the other fellow don't smoke my ruse we'll get about nicely," he heard the takenyman call in explanation. "This improptatory path'll deposit us on South Arm and put ye a good sight nearer yer destination."

  A much smaller shadow flitted up the lane and landed on the sill. It was Darter Brown, looking decidedly ruffled and beating his wings in agitation.The sparrow gave a loud tweet!

  Even in the ferment of the chase, Rossamund was grateful for this tiny ally.

  Like the whir of butterfly wings in the core of his skull, he finally felt the edge of the wit's sending. It was more artful and precise than Threnody's clumsy fishing and, feeling desperately vulnerable under its all-finding cognizance, Rossamund found himself wishing the girl lighter was at his side in this new crisis.