Dark Practices: Book Four of the Phantom Badgers

by RW Krpoun

  “We do seem to be making progress,” Elonia nodded as they walked down the street. “Yes, I would like half, you’re right about his talents growing. And Maxim, you can look openly, I understand the swinish habits of men.”

  The scholar muttered something inaudible as he cut the sandwich in half. “We could just move out to the country and watch the place if it turns out to be the right location.”

  “That’s one route, but a tricky one if the site is in an isolated area. We’ll know more when we get a look at it; all I’ll have to do is take a single step inside and I’ll know. You can cloak its location from the Sight, but not its nature.”

  “Good. I’ll keep the seventeenth open then. In the meantime we could go steal the Duchess’ ashes and feed them to pigs or something.”

  Elonia smiled. “You do have the most delightful ideas, Maxim.”

  “A taste of brandy, Gerhard?” Tonya passed him a leather flask and smiled charmingly when he took a deep swig. “Keep it, I brought it for you, some of Peter’s personal stock.”

  “First-rate brandy; obviously he indulges in nothing but the best,” the leather worker leered at her.

  “It isn’t as if he indulges all that often,” Tonya shook her head. “Too much of his precious brandy and not enough of anything else. He would throw a fit if he knew you had drunk an entire flask of his best, probably more than if he found out what we’re going to do today.”

  “Then, to his outraged feelings.” Gerhard saluted with the flask and took another long drink.

  “Isn’t it a lovely day?” Tonya looked out over the fields, still moist with early morning dew. They were about five miles outside Teasau. “How much further is it ?”

  “Much less than a mile, half of one, perhaps.” Gerhard tossed off another shot to steady his nerves.

  “Oh, I almost forgot, look at this.” Tonya unbuttoned her bodice and pulled her dress down so her shoulders were exposed, along with nearly all of her breasts. “See ? What do you think?” Painted on her left shoulder was a small and well-done drawing of a hooded hawk seated on a thorny rose.

  “Very nice,” Gerhard murmured, hardly glancing at the body art before looking down her open dress. “Very nice, indeed.”

  “Oh, you,” Tonya feigned good-humored exasperation and pulled her dress up, although she left it unbuttoned. “If I like it, I may have it tattooed on.”

  “Here we are,” the leather worker took another swig of the smooth, aged brandy and tucked the half-empty flask away.

  “This is a barn, Gerhard,” Tonya observed in a dangerous tone of voice. “Hardly an ominous place to me.”

  “Looks are deceiving,” he shrugged a bit unsteadily. “I said I knew a scary place and I’ll show you a scary place, and then I’ll show you a few other things as well.” He got the bag that held his play clothes from the carriage and handed her down. “Where’s the bag with your outfit and mask?”

  “In the carriage. If this place is good enough, which I doubt, I’ll go and change; the hawk woman will come back for our pleasure. One rule today, Gerhard, one rule and one rule only: you play with the hawk woman, and the hawk woman can never remove her mask.”

  He grinned and took another pull at the flask, feeling a bit dizzy but very fine. “Of course; and that, my dear, is the only rule.”

  “Yes.”

  He led her into the barn and around back to a stall stacked with bales of moldering hay. Easing round the hay into the empty back half of the stall, he grabbed a iron ring set into the floor and lifted up a trap door hidden in the gloom and loose straw. “It’s usually covered with bales,” he explained as he straightened. “I cleared them away yesterday when I came with the toys and to tidy up. I left lanterns burning with enough oil to last a couple days so we wouldn’t have to muck about in the dark. I’ll go first, watch your step.” A definite slur had crept into his speech.

  The trap door opening exposed an iron ladder in a stone-lined shaft that opened into a well-lit room thirty feet below. Tonya waited until Gerhard was nearly in the room before she climbed down, doing up a couple buttons on her dress first.

  The room below was perhaps sixty feet square and twelve high; she had been expecting a vaulted chamber, obscene tapestries, perverted statues, blood-soaked floors, something dark and ominous and forbidden-looking. Instead it was largely empty save for twelve lamps in stands along the wall, a waist-high stone block at one end with a hollowed out depression in it’s top as if to cradle a round object, and a couple free-standing square metal frames with manacles at each corner standing against the wall in the manner of something put away. A chill sank into her blood when she realized the frames were small, no adult could be bound there; she hastily stopped thinking about it. Wandering around the chamber, which also contained a ‘x’ shaped adjustable bondage frame and a folding travel table bearing a wide variety of toys (both of which Gerhard had brought the day before), she saw that the walls of mortared stone were covered in strange, twisted writing and the occasionally artistic etching depicting things she had seen at the mock-court and things she was going to do her best to forget. A gray curtain closing off a cupboard-size alcove in one corner that she guessed held cult items, and a few air vents in the ceiling completed the furnishings.

  As she circled the room she extinguished eight of the lamps and turned the wicks down on the remaining four so the room was bathed in shadows. It was time to go through with it; Tonya had been on battlefields large and small, seen sacked villages and pillaged farmsteads, stacks of corpses waist-high after a hard fight, and more victims of rape and torture than she cared to remember, but nothing struck a chill in her heart as did this bare, functional chamber. She didn’t have to be gifted with the Sight to know that these stones had witnessed the worst acts that Human nature could devise.

  “You’re right, this is a horrid place, just the sort of thing I was looking for,” she purred, turning to face the leather-worker, who was leaning against the wooden frame sipping from the flask. “You’ve done very well, Gerhard: I am impressed.”

  “I thought you would like it,” Gerhard mumbled, his eyes a bit glassy in the poor light.

  “Now, I’m going to leave and the hawk woman will appear shortly,” Tonya swayed over to the ladder. “And Gerhard, let’s not waste any time talking. It just ruins the mood.”

  Back in the barn she raced outside and out to the road, frantically waving her arms. A moment later a closed carriage rolled up, and Philip jumped out. “Everything all right?” he asked, eying her unbuttoned dress with concern.

  “Perfectly, we’re at the right place,” she nodded. “And he’s drunk at least half the flask; we’re in business.”

  “Good.” The Badger opened the door to the carriage’s passenger compartment and handed down Bessie, who was wearing Tonya’s black outfit with high heels, her blonde hair expertly dyed to the same shade as the standard bearer’s and a identical hawk and rose painted on her arm. “Here we are then.”

  The tall whore blinked in the bright morning light, eyeing her surroundings. “Where is he, not in the barn, it is?”

  “Underneath in a creepy cellar; can you manage a ladder in those heels?”

  “I could manage a ship’s rigging in these heels after all this time,” the tall girl shrugged good-naturedly. “Ready when you are.”

  “Now, you remember, if he takes your mask off yell ‘domain’ three times and we’ll come running,” Philip reminded her as she strapped the mask in place. “Otherwise, just show him as good a time as you can.”

  “That’s as good a time as he’ll ever have,” Bessie assured him. “For the money you’re paying me, I would show a cohort a good time. And I know, he’s the master, I’m the proud hawk-woman he’s teaching to mind.” She smiled at Philip’s sudden blush. “It won’t be the first time, laddy, but now it’s the last.” She tapped the mask’s small beak, adjusted her vest, and tugged her gloves on tightly. “I’m ready.”

  “I told him not to waste time talking,
so that shouldn’t be much of a problem,” Tonya advised her as she led the way to the trap door. “The light is dim, too.”

  “Don’t worry, two minutes into it and I could be a Ruwen and he wouldn’t notice,” the whore assured her. “See you in a while.”

  Philip placed a cocked and loaded crossbow next to Tonya and sat on a bale in the stall. “Better listen close so you know what you’ve ‘done’,” he whispered.

  Twenty-odd minutes later the noises dwindled away to nothing; after a bit Tonya heard Bessie calling out the word ‘Barley’, which was a signal that Gerhard was unconscious. The tall Badger slipped down the ladder to find the leather worker snoring on the floor.

  “Took a bit longer than I expected,” Tonya apologized as she unstrapped Bessie.

  “Always seems to,” the ‘hawk-woman’ observed. “ ‘Course, after the first time he took a drink from that little vial there and it was back on the game, perked him right back up, it did, so that probably threw things off a bit.”

  “Here,” Tonya passed her a cloak. “You go on upstairs and wash up, Peter lit a fire and has water heated. You’re done here.”

  “I’m done, period,” Bessie observed. “This was it.”

  Philip was sitting on a rock fence watching the birds dance in the bright blue sky when Bessie came out of the barn braiding her damp hair and wearing a conservative dress. “Ooh, that was a nice wash, and the wine, too, thank you.”

  He smiled at her. “We appreciate your assistance in this matter.”

  “I got paid for it, didn’t I? Paid, and then paid more, too; there those who paid me a great deal less for what I’ve just done.”

  “We want silence, not just your services. If you’re ready, we’d best be on our way.” He handed her up into the closed carriage and collected the horse’s nose bags. Bessie leaned out of the closed back as he stowed the grain bags. “Mind if I ride with you? I hate these closed affairs.”

  “Not at all,” Philip stepped over to help her, but the young woman scrambled up onto the wide driver’s seat without waiting for assistance.

  When they were on the road and safely out of sight of the barn, the Badger sighed and relaxed. “So, what will you do now?” The Badgers had contacted Bessie early the day before; with her savings hidden on her person, she had left her quarters and met with them and an agreement had been arrived at: for putting her up for the night, buying her a suitable wardrobe of travelling clothes, a ticket on the noon coach heading east, and twenty Marks, she agreed to participate in their deception. “When you get to where you’re going, I mean?”

  “I’ve your money and mine,” Bessie said slowly. “I believe I’ll find a nice town, two or three thousand people, not too big, not too small, and take a room there. I’ll be a widow, you see, my husband was a good man who was killed in a river boat accident while travelling on business, he was a fur dealer, don’t you know.” She glanced sidelong at Philip. “My uncle clerked for one, so I know enough to pass. I’ll get a simple job, housekeeper or maid, find myself an honest man with an ordinary job, marry him, and be a damned good wife, loyal as a brick.”

  “A quiet life.”

  “Very. I’ve had enough excitement to last me forever, only it wasn’t excitement like I thought when I was a little girl, but instead it was feeling scared and bad and sick inside. Now I want to clean a little house and cook and worry about making meals on the wages my husband brings home and sew a dress for the village dances. Excitement isn’t the same as happy.”

  “That is true,” Philip mused. “Before you fully embark upon your new life, you should take this, a bonus for a good last job.” He held out a ten-Mark piece.

  The blonde girl with the dyed hair looked at the coin. “I’ve already been paid plenty.”

  “Not enough, Tera and I feel; take it, it’ll come in handy later on.”

  The girl took it thoughtfully. “Next time I take money from a man, it’ll be wages, likely in copper pennies, and honest.” She cocked her head and studied the man beside her. “You know, I kinda think maybe this was honest, no matter what I did. I don’t think you two are looking for a good time.”

  “We looking, but it’s not for a good time,” Philip grinned tightly. “We’re whores in a kind of way: people hire us to do what they can’t get elsewhere.”

  “The whores of war, mercenaries,” Bessie nodded. “You’ve got business with whoever used that horrid place back there, and I wish you luck in dealing with them.” She looked at the coin in her hand. “I ought to not take this money, or the other; a good person would help you for free.”

  “A good person did help us, and she deserves the money. We work for our gold just like you do,” Philip said firmly.

  “Not quite like I did,” she observed sadly.

  “We kill for it, girl,” Philip shook his head. “Kill, pillage, loot, and kill again. We all do what we have to in order to get by. That’s the way of it if you are born to parents who aren’t rich.”

  “Isn’t that the truth.”

  “We’ve plenty of time,” Philip mused. “On the way I’m going to stop for a sausage pie; would you like one?”

  “That would be nice.”

  “Good. I know a cart-man who has a fine hand with a grill.”

  “This was good, but I can’t finish it,” Bessie wiped her mouth neatly with a cotton handkerchief. “Would like the other half?”

  “Thank you, don’t mind if I do,” Philip accepted the remaining section of pie. “Some more wine?”

  “Yes, thank you.” The two were eating their meal seated on stools in front of the coaching line’s office, using Bessie’s new bag as a table between them, the rented carriage already back with its owner. The eastbound coach was due to leave any minute, the handlers were checking the harnesses and axles preparatory to calling for the passengers.

  “Well, well, dyed hair and a coach ticket, how original.” A shadow fell across the remains of the meal as a man stepped up to the pair.

  Philip looked up at a large man who was grinning mirthlessly through a grimy tangle of beard, his seldom-washed clothes stretched tight across his broad shoulders and sagging belly. A younger man with features similar enough to be a brother lurked nearby, one hand casually thrust under the thigh-length shirt he wore over leather trousers.

  “Old Turkle isn’t too pleased that you missed a night’s work, girl, and even less that you haven’t been home lately,” the big man grinned, keeping his eyes on Philip, who crouched on his stool with his arms folded across his chest, a fairly innocuous-appearing man in tight breeches and a pale green jacket neatly buttoned up the front, the picture of a respectable small businessman. “He said for us to go and collect you, ten shillings and your efforts until dawn is the payment, and here we find you just short of noon, it’s going to be a fine day.”

  “Tell Turkle I quit,” Bessie snarled. “I’m not a slave, so get lost before I start screaming for the Trident.”

  “The Brotherhood, eh? Sure, they would stop us from taking you now, but what about tonight? Come along quietly and we’ll just keep you between us; make us delay, and you’ll be tied to a pillar in the Red Fox gettin’ serviced by all our mates at a bitt a throw, a regular floor show you’ll be. One word from us and the coach master’ll refuse your custom, that’s a stone fact.”

  The thug had glanced over at Bessie while talking; Philip causally uncrossed his arms and thrust a guard-less spike dagger into the big man’s thigh and left it there, standing as the thug howled in shock and pain. As he stood his right fist, with the two-inch arrowhead-shaped blade of a push dagger jutting from between his fingers swept at the man’s face, slicing open a four-inch gash across his left cheek. Bessie started screaming for help as the wounded man spun away splattering blood and the younger thug closed, a foot-long, slightly curved fish knife held before him.

  Philip hopped back, shifting the push-dagger to his left hand and drawing his belt dagger with his right; the younger thug glanced over at his brother, who
was easing the edgeless steel shaft from his leg, and hesitated. The Badger immediately jumped in, slapping the blunt top edge of the single-edged knife down with his left forearm while thrusting with his dagger. The first stroke glanced off the wide leather belt the young man wore under his shirt and ripped a long gash in his side; the second the thug parried with his open left hand, which was cut badly. Philip backed off as his opponent freed his knife and his older brother lumbered up.

  Shrill whistles screamed and all three combatants immediately dropped their weapons and raised their hands; the Brotherhood only whistled once, and once they had given their call anyone with steel still in their hands or a combative attitude would be target for a volley of ghoads followed by a good head-thumping to show him the error of his ways. Followed by a fair trial and five lashes for breach of the peace, just to keep people aware that there was a code of laws regarding their conduct and it was a very good idea to pay attention to it.

  “Right, what is going on here,” A Brotherhood Corporal boomed out the non-question as the rest of his quad, ghoads ready, positioned themselves around the combatants. “My, my, if it isn’t James Curly and his younger sibling Parn. Why are you two louts bleeding on my street? Cobblestones don’t wash themselves, you know. There had better be a good reason for this. Who’re you?” This last was directed at Philip.

  “Peter Marn, a dealer in leather goods.” He worked hard to sound respectable.

  “Ah hunh.” The Corporal glanced over the blood spatters on Philip’s clothing as he motioned the Badger back. Picking up the weapons Philip had discarded, he wiped them clean on Parn’s shirt before examining them. The young thug opened his mouth to protest this causal use of his clothing, thought about the Brother standing behind him and the steel business end of the ghoad in the Brother’s hand, and shut his mouth.

  “Are these yours?” The Corporal asked Philip.