The Corpse-Rat King

by Lee Battersby

  They stared at each other, taking in their faces, their exposed arms, the light and vitality in their eyes. Gerd raised a hand to his face, felt the health and firmness of his skin.

  “I don’t know,” he said at last. “I… I don’t know.”

  “No.” Marius stared into the depths of the fire. “Neither do I.”

  They lapsed into silence again. Marius felt deadness seeping into his skin, brought on by his hopelessness, his bewilderment. He glanced down at the back of his hand, and saw the first tinges of grey as his skin dried and shrunk over his bones. Gerd noticed, and stirred.

  “So, tomorrow,” he said. “What do we do? What’s the plan?”

  “Plan?” Marius replied, holding his hand up and turning it this way and that in the light, watching death spread across it like cancer. “I haven’t had a plan since this whole thing began.”

  TWENTY-TWO

  There are larger cities on the continent of Lenk. There are more grandiose cities. But nowhere is there one that oozes power the way that Scorby City does. At its heart is a single castle, melded together over centuries from a sprawling cascade of buildings clinging along the ridge of a single, low-lying mountain. The locals call it the Radican, and the buildings that crowd its base have taken on some of its majesty – nowhere in the Scorban empire will you find cottages more ornate, or a populace so assured of their place at the centre of world affairs. The wall that surrounds Scorby City is over twenty feet thick, although nobody has tried to invade in over three hundred years. It isn’t worth the effort. Any potential invader would be so quickly and effectively wrapped in red tape that signing the necessary permission forms just to rape and pillage – and those forms actually exist – would take up most of a season. Scorby City is an oasis of rules and regulations in a world that all too often gives itself over to lawlessness and chaos. Everything is planned, from the layout of its square-cobbled streets to the number of times the cathedral bells ring to signify prayer. The guards wear uniforms of clean, pressed material. The fruit and vegetables for sale in the markets are free of blight and deformity. The children are polite, the maidens virtuous, the politicians truthful and well-meaning. There isn’t anyone on the entire continent who doesn’t hate the smug, supercilious lot of them. But it was exactly this type of regimentation and order that gave the kings of Scorby an empire – no matter how unoriginal and rigid an army’s way of thinking might be, it was priceless when facing an army of drunken, wild-haired mountain dwellers who thought baring buttocks was an effective answer to a rain of exactly three thousand arrows released at twenty second intervals. The Scorban empire was rich in land, and materials, and men, and Scorby City was the clockwork that made it all run.

  The Radican rose two hundred feet above the skyline, before ending in a cliff face that fell to the valley floor. Brightly coloured buildings ran along a central avenue all the way to the top, growing in height and grandeur until reaching the Royal Apartments, a six-story edifice that stared out across a massive square at the top. Flags hung every few feet up the length of buildings, and the cobbles gleamed from the daily washing that sent a torrent of muddy water down into the more mundane, working depths of the city. There were children who made a living from combing the mud left behind from those washes, and selling the rings and coins left behind by Radican-dwellers too distracted or proud to recover them.

  At its apex, separated from the front of the Royal Apartments by thirty feet of cobbles, as if the buildings themselves wished to step no closer, stood the Bone Cathedral, the final resting place of the kings of Scorby since Scorbus the Conqueror had united the tribes below him and set out to rule the coastal plains. Eighty feet high and with a canopy sixty feet in diameter, it was constructed entirely from the bones of those who had resisted Scorbus and his successor, Thernik the Bone Collector. Those who had never seen the cathedral passed on stories of massive chandeliers made from thigh bones, sconces of hollowed-out skulls, mosaic floors patterned from countless tiny, stained, toe bones. Order is not built on humility. Nobody creates an empire out of politeness. Scholars had estimated that a hundred and twenty thousand skeletons had gone into the making of the cathedral. Scholars are known for being conservative. Had they been even remotely accurate in their calculations, Scorby City would be known as much for its haunted, drunken scholars as for anything else.

  A line of people stretched from the massive front doors of the cathedral, past the Royal Apartments, and down the main boulevard of the Radican to the city floor. Every thirty seconds precisely, they took a step forward. Those who went through the doors reappeared at the side of the cathedral twelve minutes later. Then they dispersed, making their way back down the hillside to resume their lives: quiet, reflective, their eyes downcast in deep, sobered thought. Whatever occurred inside the building, for many of these supplicants, would be the defining moment of their lives.

  Two robed figures joined the line in the early morning light. They had spent hours before dawn approaching those who came back down the mountain, asking each citizen what they had seen: was it the King? Was he still on display? They had received no reply other than a shake of the head. In the end, the strangers had no choice but to join up and see for themselves, one pace closer every thirty seconds.

  “You think it’s the King?” Gerd asked as they took their first step forward.

  “Has to be.” They waited, stepped, waited again. “Look around. These people aren’t here because they’re being forced.” Step. “What do you think it’ll take? Eight, ten hours, to climb all the way up?”

  They considered the winding path before them, moved, gazed upwards to the looming bone monolith at the end of their journey, moved again. In front of them, and now behind as well, those in the line stepped in concert, a long, silent, solemn dance to inaudible dirge music.

  “Ten hours at least.”

  “Exactly. And look at them.” They stared about themselves. The citizens were of a single type – silent, patient, uncomplaining. They had the air of people undertaking a pilgrimage, as if they wished to breathe in every moment, roll it around their minds to draw out every sensation, to be able to gather their children and grandchildren to them in future days and say “I remember when–”

  “Silent contemplation,” Marius said. “Parishioners, off to see a saint.”

  “Their poor, dead King”. Step.

  “Yep.”

  “And we…”

  “Quiet, now.” Marius lowered his gaze, stepped, and stepped again.

  It took two hours to move past the final row of houses. Then they began to climb the broad avenue that ran between under the arched wings of the Radican. Slowly they rose above the rooftops of the city so that they stood with only the twin rows of frontages on either side. Bored palace residents stared listlessly down at them from the rows of windows above. Tiny alleyways crossed their path at regular intervals, creating side streets whose dead ends opened out onto thin air. Marius found himself counting the steps between each sliver of horizon – the atmosphere on the boulevard, surrounded by the unthinking herd and the high, dull walls of brick and plaster, was oppressive. Another hour passed, then another, the simple procession of step, wait, step dulling his thoughts until his entire world consisted of the grey cloth covering the back of the man in front, his body so attuned to the tedious rhythm of their ascent that it was several seconds before he registered Gerd’s elbow digging him in the ribs.

  “What? What is it?”

  “Your hands.”

  Marius glanced down.

  “Gods damn it.” His flesh hung gray and withered across the prominent bones beneath. He glanced up at Gerd. “My face?”

  Gerd nodded.

  “Fuck.” Marius lowered his head so that the edges of the robe hid him from view. “Lesson learned, then. We can’t afford to lose our concentration, fall into dead patterns.” His hands tingled. He watched in wonder as the skin grew pink, swelling with life until they looked like any other man’s. “I’m never going to
get used to that.” He raised his head. “All right, now?”

  “Yes,” Gerd pointed ahead. “Here’s something to keep you occupied.”

  “What?”

  A dozen feet in front of them, somebody had set up a stall at the side of the queue. Bright painted wood stood in contrasting shades to the equally bright stone behind. The stall was in three parts. As Marius and Gerd watched, people stepped up to the first part, a giant board listing menu items for sale. After thirty seconds they stepped on, and gave their order and money to a fat, bearded man in grease-stained shirt and apron. He shouted it over to the three youths who manned the final section of the stall, who, quick as oiled machinery, seared meat in a massive wok, cut salad, threw it together on flat bread, rolled, folded and wrapped the finished meal, and passed it to the customer before their thirty second journey took them past the stall. Marius nodded in appreciation.

  “Clever,” he said. “Nothing like a captive market for making good money. You hungry?” Gerd blinked in surprise.

  “You know what? I am.”

  “Me too. And I wasn’t a second ago. What do you think?” he smiled mirthlessly, “Is our attention to being alive paying dividends, or are we just patsies for good marketing?” He drew a small bag of coins from inside his robe. “What would you like?”

  “Where did you get that?”

  “Oh,” he smiled, and waved his hand non-committally. “The big city helps those who help themselves.”

  “Help themselves to others’ belongings,” Gerd grumbled, but he turned to examine the approaching menu. “There, um,” he said after several seconds, “there seems to be an awful lot of rodent on the menu.”

  Marius laughed. “Don’t worry,” he said. “Scorbans consider magrats a delicacy. They farm them.”

  “They what?”

  “Sure. There are factory farms on the city outskirts. They raise them like chickens. Very clean, very nice,” he said in a passable attempt at a local accent. “They don’t just scoop them out of the gutter. Raised on corn and oats, clean water, no garbage. They’re good eating, if your cook knows what he’s doing.” He turned his eyes towards the board, paused long enough to whistle. “These prices, he must know what he’s doing, eh?”

  Their thirty seconds were up. They stepped forward, within hailing distance of the stall owner.

  “What will it be, gentlemen?” he called, rubbing massive, hairy hands down the front of his apron, an act that served merely to stir fresh paths into the layers of grease and grime already there. Marius raised a hand in greeting.

  “Business good?” he said with a smile. The stall owner shrugged.

  “We’re lucky today,” he replied.

  “Lucky?”

  “Another week and we’d have been out of luck, and then…” he turned his hands up in a gesture typical to Scorbans, a short, dismissive upwards chop that said ‘Just my luck, shit for dinner again’. Marius nodded in sympathy.

  “How so, friend?”

  The fat man indicated the stall. “Not my stall, see? Government owned. We just buy spaces in the lottery. Got to admit, I was lucky. Nobody wanted to buy this end of the reign. Another week, some other bugger would have won the concession, and I’d still be down in Cackmarket square competing with everyone else for grandmothers and lunch shoppers.”

  “The government…” Gerd shook his head, tried again. “You auction off the chance to profit from the King’s death?”

  “Not auction,” the stall owner grimaced. “Lottery. We’re not savages.”

  “Absolutely not,” Marius nodded in approval. “Purely business, right friend?”

  “Right.”

  “Damn civilised, if you ask me.”

  “Well thank you for your approval,” the fat man replied, only the slightest hint of sarcasm creeping into his tone. “Now, if you don’t mind, you might want to order before you pass by.”

  “Of course, of course.” Marius dipped into the pouch, drew out a few coins. “Let’s live like there’s no tomorrow, shall we? Two of your large rolls, with extra chilli. And do you have any Kessa Water?”

  “No, but if you’ve got three more of those,” the owner indicated the coins, “I’ll send Ethren down into the markets to get two bottles and find you in line.”

  “Done.” Marius paid his price. “A pleasure doing business.”

  “Yeah, sure, of course.” The fat man nodded, called the order across to the youths, who began the process of assembly, then turned towards the rear of the stall. “Ethren!”

  Marius and Gerd stepped on as he began issuing instructions to the young girl whose head had popped through the curtain at the rear of the stall. She gave the two customers a good look over, then disappeared. Marius took the two rolls as they were offered, gave one to Gerd, and they stepped away from the stall.

  “Brilliant,” Marius said as he bit into his roll.

  “What?”

  “Well, this for a start.” Marius brandished his lunch. “Seriously, that is really good rat.

  But this whole setup. It’s a brilliant idea.”

  “I don’t get you.”

  “Look.” Marius indicated the line around them. “How long is this lot going to take to get

  to the head of the queue? Ten hours? How many do you think brought lunch with them? I bet it’s the same for every function that occurs up here. People get excited, or they’re ordered to come up here by bosses or wives or public acclamation. Then they’re stuck in the queue, hungry, thirsty, and what are they going to do?” He laughed. “Captive audience.”

  “So?” Gerd’s shrug was eloquent.

  “So?” Marius shook his head. “How many people do you think there are in this city?”

  “I don’t know. Twenty, thirty thousand?”

  “Ninety-three and a half thousand at last census. I know, I helped fudge the figures on the Tallian quarter.”

  “What? You altered census figures? Why on Earth would you do that?”

  Marius smiled. “Do you think it’s a good idea if the Scorban government knows how

  many of its traditional enemies really live in the heart of its base of power?”

  Gerd shook his head slowly. “Gods. Have you ever done anything honest in your life?”

  “I…” Marius stared into the distance for a moment. “That’s not the point. What I’m

  saying is, there’s ninety thousand people down there. That equates to, what, say a thousand food merchants, maybe? Any one of whom would kill for the chance to open up in a prime location like this, above the stink and the sweat, with a guaranteed clientele, quiet, orderly, in and out in under a minute with no arguments, no fights, no chance of some fat-headed thug with a cosh and an inflated sense of his own hardness coming round every month demanding protection…” Marius stopped, smiling, until the person behind them bumped forward, and he stepped back into his place. “So, run a lottery. Give every merchant a chance to buy in based on something immutable, something unchanging…

  “Like the King.”

  “Exactly. The King’s alive, but he’s going to die one day. Pick a day, pick a week, and if

  the big man cops his whack, you’re in. It’s so simple. Just limit the upper range to, say, what, every three years or so, that way the merchants have to keep reinvesting, but not so quickly that they think they’re being conned. A thousand merchants. What would you charge? A day’s take?” He stared into the distance, calculating. “Good Gods, the take must be… Good Gods.” He shook his head, took a bite from his roll. “Mm, that is good rat, though. Eat up, don’t let it get cold.”

  Gerd took a bite from his roll, swallowed, and erupted in a coughing fit.

  “What… the hell… oh my Gods that’s hot…”

  “Don’t you like chilli?” Marius clapped him on the back. “You have to eat rat with chilli.

  Here. Ethren! Here, girl!”

  The young girl from the stall ran up past curious onlookers, spared Gerd a quick look of

  contemp
t, then handed two cheap looking bottles to Marius. He uncapped one and handed it to his still-coughing companion. “Drink this, it’ll help.”

  Gerd took a long swig, then sprayed it out again as another cough overtook him. “You…

  bastard,” he managed between hacks. Ethren shook her head in derision.

  “Country boy?” she asked. Marius nodded.

  “I’m educating him. Here.” He produced a coin from his sleeve and handed it to the girl. “That’s for the speed of service. No commission for the old man, understand?”

  Ethren smiled and slipped the coin into her shift. Marius nodded in satisfaction.

  “Good girl. You’ll know when I need you?”

  “I’ve got lots of chores,” Ethren slipped a stray strand of hair behind her ear and glanced

  down the slope towards the stand. “I can make detours without being noticed.”

  “Good girl.” Marius held out his hand, third and fourth fingers folded down. Ethren took

  it in the same manner, bumping folded fingers together in three quick knocks – slum handshake, from gutter rat to gutter rat. Then she was away, racing back towards the stand to carry out another of the old man’s orders.

  “What was that all about?” Gerd had recovered enough to stand upright. He eyed the

  departing girl with a sour expression.

  “Kids and servants,” Marius said, raising his bottle and taking a long draught, sighing as

  the peppery Kessa Water burned his throat. “They’re always worked too hard and they’re never paid enough. Makes for an easy friendship. It might never pay off, but it never hurts to make friends.” He turned back to face the distant cathedral. “Now, it’s about time I showed you how to eat this stuff properly.”

  They progressed up the hill, one step every thirty seconds, as the sun reached its zenith and began the slow descent towards night. Twice more, in the hours of their journey, they came across stalls at the side of the avenue, selling meals of meat and bread to the passing visitants. Twice more, though they were no longer hungry, Marius chatted to the stallholders, gathered gossip about the city, bought food, and secured the loyalty of the child who brought them Kessa Water with gold coins and guttersnipe handshakes. The cathedral loomed over them, a massive, brooding presence darkened by the sun hanging behind it. Its shadow crept down the boulevard towards them, eating the light, until it reached out and covered them. The quality of the air changed, then: the countless little stirrings and shuffling of people in line stilled; the muttered conversations died away; the sense that each member of the queue was somehow together on their journey, a silent and unspoken camaraderie born of common intent, melted. The shadow devoured them, and each individual was left alone with the knowledge that the object of their journey was upon them. Soon, the journey would be left behind, and they would face their King, lying dead on a stone pallet in the bowels of the great bone building. It squatted, waiting, only a thin slice of its vast bulk visible at the end of the avenue – its great bone doors, open. A mouth, waiting to devour the line that wound towards it in solemn silence. Only Marius seemed untouched, chewing enthusiastically upon his magrat kebab, slurping Kessa Water, pointing out items of interest to his young companion – the library that Vissel the Reader built with his bare hands, dragging the stones up from the river in the dead of night after the rest of the royal family were long asleep; the monument down a side alley in remembrance of Rackno’s first, unsuccessful, experiments with manned flight; the hand-dug runnels down either side of the boulevard, scooped out by residents during the Blood Nights to divert the flow of ichor around their houses and down the hillside into the city. The Radican was a living museum, the depository of a thousand years of the Scorban people’s most significant moments. Marius knew them all, and delighted in Gerd’s silent astonishment. He ate, and talked, and only stopped when the boulevard ended, and they faced the full facade of the Bone Cathedral across the empty space of the Royal Parade Ground.