The Gravedigger’s Son and the Waif Girl 1

by Sam Feuerbach

  These thoughts didn’t prevent her from going up on her tiptoes and whispering into the woman’s ear: "You give me one copper and I’ll lower the price by two."

  The lady turned and looked questioningly at Aross, her nose puckering, her eyes too.

  No, she never chewed on a piece of straw or jumped from the loft onto the hay. Not to worry. Aross could smell a copper earned through honest work. "Right, then – a deal? Just watch…"

  The woman looked her up and down with a mixture of fascination and disgust before nodding nervously.

  "Only five coppers for four," repeated the fishmonger.

  This was the moment – Aross roared: "WHAAAT? That’s extortion! Those eels are smaller than your dick. I’ll give you two coppers for five of your runts."

  Impressed by such eloquent negotiating skills, the lady grimaced. Suddenly, it looked as if she’d lost her appetite for eel. Blushing deeply, she disappeared into the crowd, and Aross, saying nothing, was relieved of her negotiating mandate.

  Which was how the eel-seller saw it too: "Vamoose! If I catch you near my stall again, there’ll be trouble," he threatened.

  "Offer reasonable prices for your half-starved blindworms, then you might sell something." Aross wasn’t going to be intimidated by somebody like him. She stuck her tongue out at the dimwit and strolled on. Just as she was about to shove a bulky person out of the way with a swing of her hips, she heard a strange voice call out her name: "Aross!"

  The girl turned around; only a few people knew her name. An old woman was sitting cross-legged on the ground. She was holding a bowl with a few cheese rinds in her gaunt, trembling hands. She was wearing a headscarf, a faded dress and sandals that were far too big for her. They fixed their eyes on each other. The old woman’s hands stopped shaking, her back straightened up, and the girl felt how the woman was pulling her in like a whirlpool. She continued to stare into Aross’s eyes, snapped the fingers on her right hand, before hooking her forefinger repeatedly, indicating to the girl that she should sit down beside her.

  "Come to me." The wrinkles and valleys on the old woman’s face took on a friendly demeanour and she wiped away a stray strand of grey hair. "You’re the girl from the orphanage. You’re the waif-girl, Aross."

  Brilliant! What amazing news! Was the woman paying her a compliment or making an accusation? Hmm, it sounded like neither one nor the other. Something made Aross hesitate, and she asked suspiciously: "And if that were the case, who would want to know?"

  "She, who knows."

  Evasive trickery and humbug. The type of thing Aross couldn’t stand. "If you knew anything, you wouldn’t be mooching about on the ground begging for a few rinds of cheese. Only people who have no clue, no money and no nothing do that. And don’t know their arse from their elbow."

  Ha, a good speech, thought Aross. Let’s see what Shewhoknows has to say to that.

  Instead of becoming enraged, the old woman smiled. "You’re strong, just as I expected, girl. Trust me, I’ve got something that you need – just so you know."

  "Oh, right! And that would be?"

  A man interrupted their discussion in no uncertain terms. "Get out of my way, hussy!" He shoved Aross aside, almost causing her to lose balance.

  The girl squeezed in beside Shewhoknows on the ground – after all, rats were fundamentally very curious. Now she was no longer in anyone’s way, and the two of them could carry on their conversation among the market noises without fear of being overheard. In fact, the old woman had stirred something in the girl which she had thought couldn’t be stirred. It had something to do with the word "future".

  "Tell me then, what do I need?" Aross made her rat-face by making her nose, lips and ears go pointy.

  "Child! It’s cost me five years of my life tracking you down. Now, listen carefully and take the matter seriously. You don’t know who you are." The old woman’s voice sounded neither faltering nor self-pitying, but clear and emphatic; her eyes shone green.

  The girl thought aloud: "I am Aross Slimefoot, queen of the rats. And it’s taken you five years to find me? And yet I live in the orphanage in the old town – hardly a good hiding place."

  "The first tasks were to find out who you are and where you are. Now we have to figure out what you are."

  Aross’s eyes rolled quite automatically. "Very simple. I know exactly what I am. Hungry! In fact, I’m always hungry. And your idle chatter doesn’t fill any stomach."

  "The future is the key."

  Aross didn’t need to think for long. "The present is shitty."

  "Without the present, no future."

  Shewhoknows had a fancy answer to everything.

  "Aross! You’re only missing a little something. And when you find it, you will see." Red sparks danced in the old woman’s green eyes. "Collect it in the burning night. And only then! Have no fear and no shame – all is well."

  "What do you mean: “a little something”?" Aross was becoming impatient. She had no time for this convoluted pussyfooting around.

  "Child, the tooth of time will show you when the moment is right."

  The old woman continued to smile. A friendly smile. Something you could never take for granted when it came to adults. Aross was generally mistrustful of smiles, for the joy on the lips seldom made the journey as far as the eyes.

  The girl had the feeling she was treading water – not a pleasant feeling for a rat, who was otherwise always running. "And when will I know that the moment is right?" she asked impatiently.

  "Listen out for the…" the old woman’s voice grew softer. "For the witch’s peal."

  Aross had heard enough. In all the filth, among all the crackpots around her, she had already experienced a lot in her young life. But the old woman was teaching the concept of the creeps in a totally new way: On the one hand, she was surrounded by an aura that churned Aross up, yet on the other hand she was talking gibberish. The tooth of time and witch’s peals. Too crazed, too vague, too ludicrous.

  She crawled away and stood up. "I have to go."

  The old woman smiled again. "You’ll understand then that the time is right. Pardon my metaphors."

  "Exactly! Your meta…force won’t feed me. So, spare me your riddles. It’s enough for me to know where I can get something to eat."

  "Nourishment you will not be lacking in. But you have other challenges ahead of you." She rolled a silver coin in her fingers and flicked it to Aross.

  The girl caught the coin in her hand and held it firmly in her fist. Now she was talking! A language that Aross and the traders with all their delicious wares that filled your stomach understood.

  Why is Shewhoknows begging on the ground, with nothing more than a few rinds of cheese, throwing money around?

  Where was the catch? What was the deal? Did she have to listen to more of the old woman’s mumbo-jumbo? Things like: "Don’t believe everything you see" or "always listen to your heart, my child’? Aross didn’t believe in anything but her stomach, otherwise she’d have died of starvation in this hellhole long ago. Her world consisted of filth. Perfumed claptrap, on the other hand, belonged up in the castle with the nobility.

  She thought for a moment. She could put up with a lot for a silverling. She also felt the need to chip in herself. "I have a metaforce for you too: I don’t waggle my tail – I bite, bite, bite. To the very end!" She leaped up.

  The smile disappeared off the old woman’s face. "I know. You have a thousand teeth, more than any shark, Aross. You are the next one after me. Do not forget my words – my death should not be in vain."

  The girl could think of nothing to top that.

  "I understand I’m demanding too much of you." The furrows on the woman’s brow became thinner and deeper. "So, you call yourself Aross Slimefoot, queen of the rats, and you bite and bite. Then I will ensure that you think of me in your hour of greatest need on the day of the thousand bites. I can only help you once, and then you are on your own. Remember everything we have spoken about."

  She p
laced her hand briefly on Aross’s breastbone. It tickled, and Aross had to stop herself from instinctively shaking her off. She didn’t like any physical contact. The old woman raised her bony forefinger. "And another important piece of advice – find the bone reader."

  Wow – that really took the biscuit, even for all that money. Aross’s legs were itching to go; she just wanted to get away and forget the old woman. "Thanks for the silverling. I have to go."

  The expression on the woman’s face changed momentarily. A shadow flickered across her face as she closed her eyes. First enraptured, then beguiled. The old woman raised her eyelids; Aross blinked – for a moment all she could see was a yellow shimmer. Perhaps it was the diffuse light under the canopy. The next moment the eyes were sparkling green as before, and the old woman smiled happily, as though someone had taken a great weight off her shoulders. She spread out her arms and whispered: "Now I am ready."

  Just get me away from the madwoman, thought Aross. She crawled on all fours between two pairs of legs, the silverling clenched firmly in her fist. Ignoring the enraged looks of the legs’ owners, the girl reached the exit. Here too, the masses of people were pushing and shoving as they walked along the quay. The harbour was always jam-packed at this time of day. The sailing boats bobbed up and down on the piers, the seagulls swooping hither and yon among the masts in a constant search for food.

  Like me. Rats with wings, thought Aross and looked longingly at one of the large birds, flying in an elegant curve through the air.

  Aross liked the smell of fish, thick smoke, sweat and salt. There was something fresh, foreign and faraway in it, compared to the sewers around the orphanage.

  A whole silverling – she could buy food for a week. She was in a good mood now and remembered she wanted to look for Mattilda. In spite of the crisp autumn wind, the whores were skimpily dressed, standing on pier 4, the main trading point for transactions of a bodily nature in Hubstone. Aross had a good idea of all the goings-on here, even if she didn’t want to. She craned her neck in search of Matilda.

  A fat woman with a long scar on her cheek snarled at Aross. "What do you want here? Pier four belongs to the reapers. And anyway, no man wants to touch a greasy, skinny bag of bones like yourself."

  Should she waste anger and time on this fat ferret? Aross decided against it and left her standing there. Why should the queen of the rats be bothered by what some dung beetle was saying about her? She was already past the fat woman and had forgotten the incident when she finally spotted Mattilda at the end of the pier.

  "Matt, you look like shit," said Aross by way of greeting. Mattilda’s small face brightened up a little, apart from her right eye, which was beaten black and blue. The girl’s once lively eyes were as dull as the water from the well in the old town. Welts and bruises decorated her arms and legs.

  The two embraced each other.

  "Hello, Aross," whispered Mattilda. "Better you go quickly. Or we’ll both be in trouble."

  "Who did that to you?" asked Aross, pretending not to hear her.

  "The protector I’ve been assigned to – you know that the protectors control everything here. And above all they cash in the money."

  Aross looked at her friend and frowned. She had aged years in the last few months, and a crooked, insincere adult smile distorted her face even more. At their last meeting she had explained to Aross that she always had to have a friendly smile so that the men would take her to the dive nearby.

  "And who protects you from the protectors?"

  Mattilda looked at her sadly. "Aross, get away while you still can. Just run away – away from the crazy matron before she sells you into this hellhole. Away from the town. Once the protectors have you in their grasp, you’re done for – then you’re better off dead." Her last words ended in a sobbing whimper.

  Aross wasn’t really surprised; she knew the laws of the old town and of the skulduggery in the harbour. But Mattilda’s pitiful appearance and her drastic words hit her harder than she’d expected.

  "I have a bit of money – will I give you some?" she asked.

  Mattilda’s eyes became even wetter after hearing this. She whispered to Aross in a voice she had never heard before: "You just don’t have enough money. It’s like the story of the bleeding giant – it’s always too little and never enough." She wiped her face, smearing the heavy makeup around her eyes. "Just like the giant – I don’t have enough blood…it’s…not enough."

  A thickset guy in a jingling chainmail shirt strode towards them. His gait was ostentatious and powerful, as though he were wading knee-deep through water.

  Mattilda’s eyes were bursting with horror. "Leave me in peace, Aross! Scram! Here comes my protector, Chain Dog."

  A sword, a club and a whip were swinging from the man’s belt. "You there, you’re supposed to be working, not gossiping." Without hesitating, he slapped her with the flat of his hand, making a cracking sound. Mattilda uttered a cry of pain.

  Chain Dog turned to Aross. "And you, pipsqueak, get lost. You’re still too young and…too ugly; you’ll just get us into trouble with the authorities." He aimed a kick towards Aross with his right foot, but she evaded him skilfully. The guy pulled the whip from his belt. She had no other option but to run back along the pier. She could do nothing for Mattilda at the moment, but she swore that she would keep Chain Dog in her heart for the future, and not release him again until he had paid his dues.

  "The bleeding giant". Mattilda’s ominous whisper stuck in Aross’s mind, just like the thick spiders’ web in the hayloft. She felt goose bumps on her skinny back, and she shivered. Every year the matron told the children of the orphanage the story of the bleeding giant: Once upon a time there was a giant who lived in the mountains of Groanpeaks. Aross hadn’t the foggiest where Groanpeaks was, but that wasn’t so important for the story. The matron would begin with a description of the giant. He was enormous of course, over six yards tall and as strong as twenty-one bears. Why twenty-one bears exactly, she never explained, but that wasn’t so important for the story. The giant lived happily in his mountain cave and, on account of his friendly manner, he never touched a hair of anybody’s head but was always friendly.

  A sweet giant then, Aross had thought at that point in the story the first time she’d heard it. Lovely!

  The matron slowly came to the meat of the matter. One day the giant saw the king’s daughter being driven through the valley. She looked out the window of her carriage, and then it happened. The giant fell madly in love with the young woman at first sight.

  How anyone could fall in love with somebody being driven past at high speed in a carriage was a mystery to Aross, but that wasn’t so important for the story either.

  The giant could do nothing else the livelong day but think about the king’s daughter. He wanted nothing more than to be with her, to look at her and admire her. And marry her. And so, he told the king of his wish. The latter wasn’t overjoyed at the prospect of having a giant as his son-in-law but didn’t want to alienate himself from him under any circumstances. Who knew how dangerous a furious giant might be? So, the king made a proposal to him. "Fill the top tower-room in my castle-keep to the windowsill with your blood – then I shall give you my daughter for your wife."

  The giant looked in bafflement at the king and then at the castle-keep, a tower not much bigger than himself and not much thicker than his thigh; and the room at the top looked laughably small. "I’ll do it", he decided. Without further ado he cut his wrist with his enormous knife and held it at the highest window of the castle-keep, so that his blood flowed in. With one eye he examined the scene through the other window as the room began to fill. The blood slowly advanced, and it wouldn’t be long before it was dripping out of the windows. But then it stopped, just under the windowsill. The giant squinted with effort into the room until he discovered that the door had been opened by the king’s servants. "Oh, the king has lured me into a trap. My blood is flowing down into the lower rooms of the tower. Then I’ll just
fill them too." And so, the giant put his hand further through the window and dreamed of the beautiful king’s daughter. The whole tower was filling with his blood, and the level continued to rise. The king observed what was happening in horror and ordered the doors to the dungeons be opened. And that was damned important for the story.

  The giant couldn’t see the open doors to the dungeon. He bled and bled, he became dizzy, he squinted into the little room, there wasn’t much more blood needed. He bled on until finally the castle dungeons were filled with his blood. When he dropped dead after two days, there was a small earthquake.

  What a shitty story! Five times over the previous few years they had been forced to listen to the story, and each time they had cheered the giant on and hoped he’d manage it this time, but the dimwit kipped over and died every time. Aross had noticed the last time that the matron got pleasure from seeing the looks of horror on the children’s faces – the old torturer had really revelled in it.

  What lessons had Aross drawn from this story? Firstly, giants are stupid. Secondly, kings are nasty liars. Thirdly: fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.

  And I shouldn’t forget the fourth lesson, thought the girl. The matron is a bad person.

  Her concern for Mattilda was growing. Chain Dog was worse, it seemed to her, than the king in the story of the giant. Unfortunately, there were quite a few of these characters in the capital of the Worldly Kingdom. Hubstone prided itself on having the largest sea harbours, the largest cathedral and the greatest buildings in the Worldly Kingdom. Aross couldn’t judge if this was indeed the case, but it was certainly true that the largest arseholes of the Worldly Kingdom were running around Hubstone.

  The old town, which the harbour was part of, was controlled by two clans – the turners and the reapers. The men in these fine organisations divvied up all the lucrative businesses between them. Obviously not peacefully – there was constant fighting over control of the whorehouses and bordellos at the harbour, as well as of the gambling joints; then there was the blackmailing, not to mention the protection rackets. The turners’ speciality was the noose fixed around the victim’s neck from behind and twisted tight by means of a stick – as slowly as possible. The reapers on the other hand, used a more traditional method. Always armed to the teeth with knives and daggers, they preferred to slit their victims as they walked past. A two-week war had raged between the two parties a year ago, which had cost twenty people their lives. A pity they hadn’t all killed each other.