The Woad to Wuin

by Peter David

  The largest and loudest of the men looked me up and down. “What are you suggesting?” he inquired.

  My right leg may have been lame, but my mental limbs were extraordinarily strong from a lifetime of sprinting ahead of others. So when I was asked, in a rather challenging fashion, what was going through my head, I was ready. Bugger’s attention was fixed upon me with an odd combination of curiosity, anger, and fear. He knew perfectly well I had put him in this fix, that no one was believing otherwise, and that—like it or not—his continued health was entirely dependent upon the next words out of my mouth.

  “Bugger put his place up as a bet on our game … the game which we now know he used to cheat me.” I saw him struggle for a moment in mute protest, but then he wisely collected himself. I was the last person in the place that he wanted to offend at that moment. The knowledge no doubt gnawed at him, but there was nothing he could do. I continued, “Let us say, for the sake of argument, that he acknowledges his transgression and turns this hall over to me.”

  Bugger paled considerably at that. His captors looked confused. “Let us say that he does. How will that possibly be of benefit to us?” asked one of them.

  “You come here to drink, for the most part. Do you not?”

  Nods of heads.

  “All right. Then this is what I propose.” I leaned back against a chair, trying to look casual, when the fact was that my leg was tiring just a bit. “As the new owner of Bugger Hall—a name that I would maintain out of respect and deference to its proud heritage—I would institute a new policy in which … from the hours of five to six in the afternoon … all drinks herein, and hereinafter, would be half the normal price. In that savings, between the normal amount and the half price, all the money that you have lost to this swindler would be reclaimed over time.”

  There were still glimmers of suspicion, since what I was suggesting didn’t provide immediate restitution, or the satisfaction that derives from a solid bloodletting. But there was an undeniable attractiveness to the proposition. As if to make sure there was no room for confusion, the largest one said slowly, “So, from now until doomsday, every day we would be able to get half-price drinks … for one hour?”

  “Exactly. Happy?”

  There is always that moment, that uncertain instant, between the time when you have given your best attempt at fast-talking someone, and when you learn whether your target has snapped up the bait. That interval is simultaneously the most daunting and the most exhilarating time of any swindle.

  Then I saw the spreading smiles, and the glinting eyes of men who valued their ability to leaven their dreary lives with mead, and knew that I had fashioned a bargain. Heads nodded, and there was chuckling and looks of approval, and so it was that I acquired the watering hole known as Bugger Hall.

  The wenches who worked the place didn’t particularly care one way or the other. To them it was simply a job, and the identity of whoever was paying them their pitiful wages was of little or no consequence.

  This came as greatly unhappy news to Bugger, who had been laboring under the mistaken impression that his employees owed him some debt of loyalty. It was a rather sad thing to see, really, him standing there in the middle of the place that bore his name, suddenly an outsider. “You … you … !” was all he managed to stammer out. That was all right with me. I was very much used to people being seized with paroxysms of fury in trying to address me. Usually if they didn’t throw a punch in the first ten seconds or so, none would be forthcoming.

  “Now listen carefully,” I said in a low voice, keeping a smile plastered on my face. “The gentlemen whom you ‘cheated’ are right over there, patting themselves on the back because of what they believe to be a deal well done. It is very much not to your advantage to say or do anything that is going to get them worked up. Face the fact that I very likely saved your life just now—”

  “A life,” he snarled, “that would not have been in danger in the first place if not for you!” He came toward me, probably with the intention of breaking my neck. Not wanting to give him the opportunity to take such potentially catastrophic actions, I laid a hand on his shoulder just as he got within reach. Although my frame may not look like much, there is considerable strength in my arms, and that served me well enough as I pushed him forcefully down into the nearest chair. He looked rather surprised at being manhandled so, and I felt it was best to try and keep him in that temporary state of confusion. I dropped into a seat opposite him while the recently “cheated” customers made good on the last fifteen minutes of the hour of happiness that I had created. It was, at the moment, of no consequence to me at all, since I hadn’t paid for the mead supply that they were consuming. But if I were going to be running the place, then sooner or later—the former, most likely—I would indeed have to be making my own arrangements with suppliers. That was where I felt Bugger might be of help.

  “That’s as may be,” I allowed, admitting that his danger had been largely due to my own maneuvering. “But it would be best to deal with the reality of the situation. I have this place now. It need not be as disruptive to your life as you believe it, however.”

  His face darkened. “What are you talking about?”

  I shrugged. “You’ve invested much time and effort into keeping the place running smoothly. I don’t see why we can’t come to some sort of an arrangement so that you can continue to do so.”

  He simply stared at me as if I were suddenly speaking in a foreign tongue, which was unfortunate considering that I did not think my meaning had been particularly obscure. “An arrangement. Are you suggesting … ?”

  “That you stay here in my employ,” I confirmed, head bobbing. “It is, after all, your family name. It has been, until now, your life. I merely wish to—”

  “You merely wish,” said Bugger, voice dripping with contempt, “to take all the benefits of being owner of the place without having to care in the least about the day-to-day operation. Here I’ve spent years, making a point of being hands-on with every aspect of Bugger Hall, to assure the continued quality. And the first thing you want to do is fob off responsibility to someone else.”

  “Not just someone else. To the man most qualified to get the job done. Certainly an understanding can be reached that—”

  “Oh, I think an understanding is eminently reachable,” he replied, but not in a tone that I liked. He leaned forward, and beneath the bushy growth upon his face, his mouth was twisted in a snarl. “Here is the understanding: I am a peaceful man by nature. A moral man. It is because of this peacefulness that—once the initial shock of anger has left me—your puny neck has not been snapped beneath these hands that could uproot a small tree.” I took careful stock of the meaty fingers, and had the distinct impression that he was not just making idle boasts. “It is because of my morality,” he continued, “that you will be able to sleep peacefully at night, secure in the knowledge that I will not come to you in the still of the darkness, shoving a pillow over your face and smothering the regrettable life out of you. For that matter I could, upon this very eve, torch this place so that you will be the proud owner of a large pile of ashes. The thought of taking such action, however, against the fine service establishment crafted by my ancestors, is anathema to me.

  “However, understand this, flame hair: I will find a way to destroy you. It may not be today, or tomorrow, or this year, or even the next. But you have ruined my reputation with these, my most reliable customers. They would always look upon me as a cheater and a liar.”

  “And you’re claiming that you never cheated at cards?” I asked skeptically.

  He glowered and said nothing. At that moment I wasn’t sure whether he wasn’t responding because he knew that I had caught him out, or because he felt the question so contemptible that it wasn’t worth his while to respond. Finally, in a voice so flat and without intonation that it was almost chilling, he said, “You have ruined my reputation. A man is only as good as what other men think of them … except, I suspect, for y
ou, who is thought of more highly by some than he could possibly aspire to.”

  “Don’t even begin to think you know of, or understand, my aspirations,” I warned him.

  He let the comment pass and instead leaned forward, peering out from beneath bushy eyebrows. “You took my business, but more … you took my pride. A man without pride is almost as dangerous as a man who has no reason to live.”

  “A man who has no reason to live,” I retorted, “is a suicide, and therefore hardly a threat.”

  Smiling thinly, Bugger said, “If a suicide jumps off a cliff … he’s certainly a threat to whomever he lands upon. If a suicide thrusts a sword through his chest … it would have tragic consequences for anyone who might be leaning against his back. There is no greater threat to the living than a man who has no concern of dying. And may the gods help the enemies of such a man.”

  I suddenly felt very dry in my throat, and the backs of my eyeballs hurt. Without further word, Bugger rose from his chair, strode toward the door, opened it, and exited his family business. Somehow I knew that he wouldn’t give it a backward glance. I was right.

  From around me there were cheers and congratulations to me on my new vocation. But I was receiving the approbation of fairly drunken men who were consuming my liquor at bargain prices. So their approval meant very, very little in the grand scheme of things. A man who developed romantic attachments to ten-year-old boys would doubtless have received three huzzahs upon his arrival, so undiscriminating was the crowd by that point.

  I had won a small battle. I then prayed to the gods that it would not be as shortlived a victory as my others had been.

  The gods answer all prayers.

  In my case, the answer is invariably mocking laughter.

  Chapter 3

  The Vision Thing

  It is always a tragic circumstance for a truly inveterate cynic, such as myself, to own up to those moments in life when he is genuinely happy. Such admissions raise false hope in others that if a cynic has the capacity to enjoy some aspect of his existence, then true happiness and the loss of dreary cynicism is but a short step away.

  I am not such an individual. I am one who has confidence in his trepidation. Being happy actually appeals to the cynic in me, because all during the time that I am pleased about something, I firmly believe that sooner or later it will be taken from me. A truth of the human condition is that people enjoy being right. That extends even to the conviction that all will turn out wrong. I like constancy in my universe, so to me happiness is a transitory state that exists primarily to make the sting of loss all the more poignant. I really don’t think that anyone truly appreciates anything they have until it’s gone.

  So I tell you with clear conscience and never having had the slightest belief that all would end well, that the two years I spent operating Bugger Hall were a very happy time for me. Had things not ended as they had—and, indeed, as they invariably did for me—I would likely be there to this day. Managing the place was no trick for me at all. Indeed, I discovered I had a knack for it. And why not? I had spent the first fifteen or so years of my life growing up in a busy tavern called Strokers. I had absorbed all the ins and outs of running such an establishment, and although Strokers was a smaller operation than Bugger Hall, the principles were fundamentally the same.

  True to my word—a rarity, I’ll admit—I kept the hour of happiness. Indeed, it’s my understanding that other drinking establishments began to imitate my initiative, by popular demand. I found that very amusing indeed.

  Although I kept my ears open and made casual inquiries of guests every so often, I could find no trace or idea of what Bugger was up to since he had departed the walls of his establishment. This concerned me somewhat. The main reason I had offered him the position in the first place was that I was an advocate of the belief in keeping one’s friends close and enemies even closer. But Bugger had been impolite enough not to cooperate with my stratagems, and so he was gone from my scrutiny. In that perverse sort of way I had that anticipated encroaching disaster lurking about every corner, I remained certain that Bugger would show up sooner or later. And when he did, whatever happened as consequence would have a most negative impact upon me.

  This was not mere pessimism, I assure you. My personal history was rife with individuals who would disappear from my life, only to make return engagements. On some occasions those unexpected reappearances reaped great rewards for me, although invariably they were transient in nature. On other occasions I had encountered familiar faces in most unfamiliar and unfortunately timed arenas, and such meetings had always led straight to disaster.

  So I had no doubt in my mind that Bugger and I would cross paths again at some point in the future. Just how soon it would be, and what sort of dire consequences it would entail for me, I could not even begin to guess. In fact, on some nights—particularly during inclement weather—I would sit alone in a corner, having mead brought to me steadily by my wenches, and try to anticipate all the absolutely worst moments that Bugger could make an unexpected return.

  In truth, I thought about a lot of things during those two years. It became something of a habit with me, to sit alone and reflect upon my life. It wasn’t as if I had been living it all that long. And yet, as I thought about it, it certainly seemed to me that for someone who had been in this world for barely two decades, I had managed to annoy an impressive number of people, many of them in high places.

  Particularly when winter would come in, the days shortening as the nights lengthened, I would stare into the fire crackling in the hearth and think about all the people in my life that I had disappointed, or in whom I had misplaced my trust.

  My mother, Madeline, a tavern wench and whore who was convinced that I had a great destiny ahead of me, and had her faith in me rewarded with a brutal death at the hands of an equally brutal assailant.

  King Runcible of Isteria, who had taken an interest in me and chosen the unusual tactic of elevating a commoner to the position of squire … and eventually even to knighthood. His wife, Queen Beatrice, who had never been anything but kind to me … and their daughter, the Princess Entipy, whom I had first considered to be a fire-setting lunatic who worshipped the witch goddess Hecate, but later found her to be …

  Well … just a lunatic, I suppose. At least, she had never started any fires in my presence, although for all I knew she had burned the castle down since I’d departed.

  So there they were, the royal family of Isteria. They had honored me and loved me, and I had turned on them for reasons that were really very good ones. But they couldn’t have known that, and the disappointment and anger was as keen to them as if my motivations were purely selfish and mean-spirited. I could still see Entipy framed in the window of the castle, a single candle burning in the window, betrayed by a man for whom she had let down her guard and had actually loved … or at least as close to love as a twisted little loon as that could come.

  And then there had been Tacit. Tacit One-Eye, adventurer and hero, whose destiny I had usurped. He was my best friend in all the world, and I was directly responsible for him ending up a hollow remnant of his former self.

  There was Astel, my first … well, hardly my first love, although she did relieve me of my virginity. She was also the first woman aside from my mother that I ever truly trusted … and I paid for that trust rather catastrophically.

  On and on the list went, and in the end I could only think of two people in my life whom I had not genuinely disappointed. One was the dreaded Warlord Shank, a ruthless barbarian ruler whose engagement party I had wound up being a waiter at. And the other …

  Well, the other was King Meander, the vagabond king. A self-made outcast from a frozen realm in the far north, Meander led a troop of loosely allied warriors collectively known as the Journeymen. They recognized no boundaries, went wherever they wished, whenever they wished. In a way, I envied them their freedom and sheer insouciance when it came to such things as nations’ borders. I might very well have be
en inclined to join up with King Meander, for his rogue philosophy was appealing to mine own. There was something that prevented me from doing so, however. For there was a very distinct possibility that it was Meander who had killed my mother.

  It was not possible to say for certain. King Meander was, among other things, not right in the head. I had occasion to ask him point blank about the deed, and he claimed not to remember. It was understandable, I suppose. The tale had it that Meander, some years back, had been trapped in a glacial cave during a days-long blizzard. His wife had been his only companion, and when both of them were starving, she took her own life so that he could have sustenance. And Meander had actually engaged in the forbidden and awful indulgence of feasting on his wife’s flesh in order to survive.

  There are legends that those who consume the bodies of their fellow humans are transformed into cursed monsters. That may have proven to be mere fancy from a physical point of view, but there was no denying the horrific damage done to Meander’s mind and sanity. He claimed to have no recollection of one day carried over into the next, living purely in the moment since the past was so painful and the future so empty. So when Meander said he might well have killed my mother in some insane fit of depraved pique, or might not have done so … there was no way to determine. That was, to put it mildly, somewhat frustrating for me.

  I could have endeavored to kill Meander regardless. Indeed, I was not the least bit squeamish over the notion of possibly depriving someone of their life unjustly. I wanted someone to suffer for my mother’s slaying, and if Meander was the one, that would have been fine with me. If he did the deed, he would pay for it with his life. If he in fact was not responsible for her death, then in the afterlife he would certainly seek out the shade of the person who was responsible and even the score in Hell.