Economous Musgrove Chapter 7 Part 3

Alas, with Supanova Adelaide now done I have the post con blues, but such trifles are not enough to stop Economous from pushing on!

To those who are seeking to guess what is happening next, it may come as some surprise to you that if my stories have plot twists these are not nor have ever been intentional, and though some authors might (certainly tv script writers seem to anyway), I am not sitting at my keyboard rubbing cunning hands and playing some kind of guessing game with you all. 

If their are "twists" they are instead simply artefacts of me seeking to be true to my characters and to the Half-Continent most of all, and because the H-c is a foreign land with forces driving it different from our own, "twists" occur, it seems. Was this how you were reading the MBTs? Trying to fathom ahead how things were going to turn out? 

(I do not do this myself, so I find the practice strange - I have always thought a story best enjoyed if each moment is savoured and I leave the telling and what is ahead to the director/author/whoever.)

Economous

musgrove

    

© D.M.Cornish

PLEASE DO NOT PUBLISH OR REPRODUCE WITHOUT MY PERMISSION

Chapter 7 PART 3

Opportunity Unlooked For

In the bright cheer of a warm Estor morning promising a hotter day, Economous – dressed in full coat, high shirt collar and neckerchief despite the waxing heat – finally set a step outside the warren of his garret. With many a wary glance to left and to right he hurried his way to the harbour where the many commutation offices were, eschewing common paths in favour of an obscure route less likely to be patrolled by those not local living. His way took him to seaward precincts of the harbour’s edge where the closer to the powerful stink of the palid, acrid waters of the harbour the city drew, the more tumbledown it became. For the more well-to-do souls were, the further back from the reek they sought to dwell and to work – most of the city’s peers living in the hilly suburbs beyond the first curtain wall – as if to escape the bitter reality of the hostile waters. Even the Brandendirk – the Archduke’s palace and the cities chief seat of government – was built well inland. Economous had read once that it was the reverse in Gottland: that for their noble classes it was considered a sign of the strength of their breeding to live as near the sea-stink as possible, building out even over the smashing waves that were a feature of those distant waters.

It was the reverse for comutation agents too.

Proximity to the sea was prized for its convenience to the very vessels for which each agent acted and all the best crowded the main strands that ran along the very rim of the city’s many elevated stone pace – great structures of stone, brick and mortar lifting the sea-side districts safe from the monster-infested waters. Consequently it was in lanes and walks the tunneled off from these high strands that the cheaper – and generally shabbier – commutation agents were to be found. And, as a seldom contradicted rule, the shabier the agent, the shabier the vessels they represented.

 As for himself, Economous had grown well used to the smell by now, and standing now on the stoop of [AGENT NAME & ADDRESS], found in a dingy perpendicular alley, he drew in a lung-full of the odour before entering the file. He still remembered vividly his own very first proper smell of the vinegar seas; stinging, over-sweet yet caustic at once, bringing back a time in childheood when his father had spilt embalming douse all over the kitchen floor. The reason for such an expensive mishap in so incompatible a location remained vague yet disquieting even to this day, though Economous well recalled that at the time he and his mother – under her tearful insistence – spent a goodly long time living in the kinder-smelling hospitality of their next door neighbour’s tiny back room.

Purchasing the cheapest commutation ticket possible – twelve whole sequins or a week’s labouring wage – from a blandly mannered clerk, Economous was set to depart on the least costly receiving vessel warping a course to Boschenberg very early in two mornings’ time.

“The Douse Fish is the vessel’s gazetted name,” the commutation clerk intoned. “Its master one Mister Patefract.”

“Is it a good vessel?” Economous asked before he thought. “Sea-fit or whatever the saltdogs call them?”

The clerk regarded him with a mixture of required patience and barely vieled scorn. “I cannot say, sir,” he said and added meaningfully as he collected the fee. “I believe in our line you get what you pay for.”

With nought else to offer, Economous passed over on of the dazzling new coins of his down-payment.

“What is this, sir?” the clerk arched a brow at the glittering geld.

“It is… gold, sir,” Economous returned mildly, thinking fast. “Surely you do gold?”

“It is also not proper tender, sir,” the man blinked long-sufferingly at him. “Sous, oscadrils, staters, grassus, hours, Hergott doubles, Turkic lots and even Sebastian imations we do, but that” – he continued to regard the coin as if it were nothing more than a slip of paper with the word money writ bold upon it – “we do not. Find a benchman and git this changed into something useful… Or better yet, take it to one of those learn-ed wiseacres at the Pike Athy who could buy it off you to put on wondrous display,” the froward fellow concluded in a tone that spoke of anything but wonder. “On either course, no ticket will be issued without genuine denominations.”

Economous had thought the gleam of genuine gold would move folk to be far more willing, but it appeared that the avoidance of bureaucratical tribulations was prized higher. Half the district, two thirds of the day and four benchmen later, Economous at last found some one willing to do more than snort or sniff or scowl at his alien billions.

“That’s a Samnian knot!” this fourth benchmen – one Mister [………BRILLIANT NAME HERE………], Handler & Exchange, according to his well-polished sign on the shop’s door post – finally responded, speaking through rotten teeth and straggling greasy moustachio like the drooping wiskers of a cat. Despite these most obvious disadvatages, the fellow was finely turned out in well-cut frockcoat, his  solitaire properly tied about a pristine white collar.

 “From the lost kingdom of Samé?” Economous replied, recognising the name from his athenaeum learning.

“Aye, aye, Samé, Samnë – ‘tis all apples,” the benchman returned. “Where in the blighted here and vere did ye find such trove? Ye di’n’t steal ‘em, did ye?” he pressed with a scowl, drawing himself up indignantly. “I’m no fence for pilfer, sir!”

Economous straightened too, puffing his cheeks at the accusation, refusing the fright and the inwardly repeating scene of the fight on the Prandial with Monsiere Blanquett and his all-too-eager roughs. “It is payment, man,” he retorted hottly, “from my patroness in the far-off Undermeer.”

The benchman’s dubious expression did not shift, yet he said no more on it and agreed to five sou for each coin less his handling fee, writing up ten crackling-fresh folding notes – one for each coin.

Of a sudden, Economous found himself in that single transaction pocket-filled with an entire year’s living. Oppressively aware of the sheer weight of wealth in his wallet as he stepped in a daze from the benchman’s shop, the young illuminator hurried back to [AGENT NAME & ADDRESS] to pay the commutation fee. Receiving yet more folding notes as change from the increasingly unamused clerk and, for only the second time in his entire life in Brandenbrass, Economous hired a takeny-carriage to carry him, money and all, safe back to Shaded Rafters.

As Binbrindle so sagely predicted, Madamine Grouse was indeed displeased to be told of such abruptly final departure.

“I must be allowed time to advertise for your replacement!” she declaimed tartly from her appartment door. “How am I to make my own small way in zis ugly city wizout a full list of lodgers?” She thrust her hand at him, open and empty always wanting more.

Behind her and turned out prettily in a white summer dress all wide whispering hems of the softest, purest cloth and a broad straw bonnet – obviously a preparation for some dazzling Midwich outing with her beau –  Asthetica pottered  in the saloon and made a point of not looking at him.

But Economous felt bold now that he was going and he would show these grasping women the full stretch of his bow – as Bidbrindle was fond of putting it. “This ought cover my obligation,” he retorted with equal severity and slapped one of his newly writ one sou notes onto the cold grasping palm of his landlady. It was likely well more than was needed, but worth the loss if just once, on this last occasion, it

Astounded to silence, the Madamine just blinked and the folding money, laying so crisp and brightly printed in her grip.

This oddly strangled silence drew Asthetica’s attention. “Ma-ma?” she asked, coming now to the door.

 “You stole it!” Madamine Grouse suddenly gasped, clutching the billion to her bosom in over-drawn shock.

“Ma-ma!” Aesthetica chided.

“He stole it,” the older woman insisted, waving the note like it was an alarum flag, “and now he is fleeing zis city for fear of ze duke’s justice!”

“I did not steal it, madam!” Economous grew loud. Why are folks so keen to cry this at me? “I have a patron!”

“So you have been playing pauper all this time, have you?” the sour-souled woman shifted flank as quick as any wily ambuscadier. “Fooling this poor soul, starving my precious daughter out of her food! But now it proves you are a-wash with coin!”

“I have a patron now, Madamine Grouse!” the illuminator insisted with yet greater volume which seemed to bring him space to speak at last. “An agent for a lady of the highest distinction called only yesterday. This great personage has sent for me especially from the Subtle Pall. Her, and that” – he nictated firmly to the glittering disc snatched so securely away – “is part of a down payment to retain my service. If it proves insufficient, madam,” he pressed, keen to keep the momentum of the shock, “then you may take what rent you like from the sale of my affects. You are welcome to it. I am leaving this city, probably never to return.”

At this Aesthetica finally beheld him in full and frank surprise.

 “Neverto return?” she repeated in a small, strangely strangled voice.

Economous frowned and jutted his bottom jaw obstinately. “Aye,” was all he said in overly cold reply.

Occult thoughts clearly raced behind the perplexed quickly blinking gaze of his one time fixation, and her perfect Hamlin-bow lips seemed for a moment to quiver perhaps with emotion, perhaps about to speak… Yeet Asthetica said no more.

What was it to her that this was so? She already had her deep-pursed peer just as was always intended; Economous was free to go and do now just as winds blew and for once they were gusting his way.

“Well zen, good bye to you, sir,” Madamine Grouse returned with an abrupt stiffening of manner. “Maybe now I can get someone to pay proper rent for your room.” Reaching across her daughter to subtly yet bodily shove the confused girl back into to room, his landlady firmly shut the apartment door, gracing him with one last and peculiarly narrow-eyed glare before the portal closed with a telling final “thud”.

Economous Musgrove Chapter 7 Part 2

Here I am, back from Supanova Brisbane after meeting a whole tribe of most excellent readers and fellow Sundergirdians. How uplifting it was to speak to you all of whom I met - someone signed my book "you were more normal than I thought you would be," which I am choosing to receive as a compliment (maybe too normal?).

But alas, such happy times always end and here I am, returned in time for more Economous.

I now have a week to catch my breath before Supanova Adelaide - of which I am now a late inclusion \o/

Economous

musgrove

    

© D.M.Cornish

PLEASE DO NOT PUBLISH OR REPRODUCE WITHOUT MY PERMISSION

Chapter 7 PART 2

Opportunity Unlooked For

So, in the unhealthy steadily summer-cooking gloom Economous slowly formulated a resolve to give up on the Moldwood, on Asthetica and fabulism and seek more certain employment in some duller – surer – line of trade.

Perhaps  in another city? he considered with little enthusiasm. Doggenbrass, maybe…?Brandenbrass’ most immediate southern neighbour languishing in the shadow of the great city’s gravity likely possessed less opportunity … but at least it is not HERE. Here where all paths were thwarted and aspirations brought to nil.

The very morning – was is Luneday or Meerday? – he settled with uneasy certainty upon this sure, unhappy yet necessary answer, ascending footsteps shook with increasing violence upon the staircases up to the garret door.

The duffers have come for me! was his first wrenching terror, but he quickly caught hold of panic as he realised only one pair of feet was making the awkward climb. Bidbrindle knew the stairs too well to be so noisy, and Asthetica – even if she might condescend to pay a visit – would have been quieter yet, besides which, it was the wrong time of day for either of them.

It must be Scrivener-Sergeant […NAME…] , he realised with a dark twist of guilt in his gizzards.

Being paid a visit from a senior metrician of the local athy was and oft threatened consequence if a concometrist was know to be about but failed to bring their numrelogue its for requisite quarterly numrelogical examination. Scarcely avoiding a suspension last time, Economous had missed the year’s first review at the ……… Room in Pike Athenaeum – Brandenbrass own athy – for obvious reason. He glanced uncomfortably to the little stack of rent binding and frayed paper that was the vainly reconstituted remnant of his numrelogue lying where he had thrown it down more than three weeks gone. Drawing what he saw as he saw it had always seemed to him the best way to measureanything, and he had contended this successfully every time he took his number-book for inspection. Such fine argument was not going to help him here. So ready to claim the title as a defense in a fight,  surely he could scarcely call himself a concometrist any more.

The inevitable knock fairly rattled the thick planks of his garret door, far firmer even than Bidbrindle in all his unwonted enthusiasm.

Easing the portal open a cautious crack, Economous fairly unravelled with relief: it was a stranger – a tall man clad in a frockcoat of strangely iridescent black and wearing a lofty black stovepipe hat and not at all like the cruel-faced officials in the archduke’s service. This the mysterious caller now swept off his crown and flourished as he bowed: a stiff bend at the middle like his hips were a hinge and an oddly jerking twist of the head. Under his silken coat, the caller seemed disconcertingly gaunt – Economous might have gone so far as to say malnourished. Yet he stood tall and steady enough as he straightened once more in the gloom of the landing before Economous garret door.

“Good morning… sir,” the visitor declared proudly. “My name is… Hoopstick. I am an agent for a great lady… of the northern realms of… the Undermeer.” Thin and breathy and strangely inflected.

Economous nodded a bow of his own in baffled reply.

“I hope that…” this Mister Hoopstick continued, “you do not… mind this intrusion upon… your civil privacy? Your grand knavery –” he spoke this word with a sour twist of mouth “– directed me here upon… my enquiries.” Here he paused and waited.

Roused by the silence from his fascination for the fellow’s stilted manners, Economous realised he was expected to respond. “Oh – not at all, sir. I have time.”

The awkward caller gave a thin and cryptic smile. “I… come to you, good sir, to… bring my mighty mistress’… compliments. Your fame as a… worthy pen, an … accurate delineator of physiognomy has… gone ahead of… you, even to my mistress’… ears. And now she seeks to offer to… you her patronage if…if you would but… come to her mighty halls in… Meerschaum’s borders and there… daub her imago.”

A great lady?

A mighty mistress!

Economous innards gave a happy leap. At last,he delighted inwardly, my labours are sprouting fruit! Word of his work at the gala of the Branden Rose must have made it all that way north.

Situated at on the northern lands beyond the dread Ichormeer, Meerschaum and the united realms of the Undermeer were at least a weeks journey or more to the north east. Yet two years of thwarted intent had made Economous ravenous for any chance no matter how slim or difficult and he readily accepted the offer.

“To which great lady in which great hall should I present myself?”

“My mistress lives… in necessary seclusion and does… not wish her name be… bandied abroad too… readily. Yet as a… token of her good… faith and my honour as… her messenger, allow me… to present this pledge… of our veracity.” With a staccato click of elbow and knuckles, the agent held out a purse made of the same shimmering dark material as his coat.

Taking the purse and peering within, the would-be fabulist beheld a golden glint – ten gold coins of alien denomination, larger by size and weight that the sou of the Soutlands or oscadril of the Haacobin empire. Economous almost dropped the payment in his shock; even the Branden Rose did not pay as richly!

“There is ten… times that awaiting you – and with it… otherrewards ­– upon… your successful depiction of my mistress.”

Dumbfounded, Economous goggled at Mister Hoopstick who in his turn smiled a sunken-eyed – almost cadaverous – smile.

 “I shall depart now,” the agent concluded, bowing another stilted, hinge-like beck, “and go… ahead of you… to report the good… news of your agreement. When you achieve… the haven of the stout… city of Knapphausen, wait… on me at the [………………] on [……………] Street, and I shall see you… escorted to my mistress’… residence.”

With that Mister Hoopstick turned and retreated down the shuddering stairs, leaving a flabberghasted Economous blinking stupidly in his garret doorway, the purse of wealth still open in his outstretched hand.

I have a patron…? he marvelled in shock, arm still reaching out.

“Uh, goodbye, sir,” Economous eventually collected himself enough to call down to departing messenger already halfway descended to the vestibule.

I have a patron! But darker clouds immediately threatened this glowinig prospect. Now, now, don’t tally your skins ‘til they’re skun, let’s await to see if all bears out well.

Economous shook his head as if to clear it.

He was not interested in sensible-seeming, joy-dampening, parent-voiced cautions: he had a patron! All roads had closed to bring him to this one shining opportunity. Was he in any other state of soul, he would likely have turned such a proposition down, but today at this moment he was ready, ready, ready!

Arriving with a supper for two of ox tongue poached in brine, a novelty he called sun-parched tomatoes and a thick stop of bread, Bidbrindle received the happy news with his usual gust. “A patron, by the Lots! A patron!” he exclaimed. “Ah, a patroness to be exact. When do you plan to go and leave us all bereft?”

“Tomorrow if possible, the day after if not.”

The violin-maker baulked. “I reckoned it would be prompt, but that seems a mite too prompt to me, m’boy. She-down-stairs” – by which he meant Madamine Grouse – “will not like it one knot. I have seen it before: she always demands a month’s written notice for such things.”

“Well, I will tell her and see,” Economous returned with the sudden confidence that comes from receiving excellent news. “On either hand, I am going.”

To this Bidbrindle gave one of his knowing shrugs and the two settled to silence of hungry eating.

“A body would reckon I ought be glad to lose so eligible a rival for the dear Asthetica’s attentions,” the older man said at last, becoming strangely glum as he looked up from his poached ox tongue clumsy. “But I am not, my good sir, not at all. Who now will I share these distant and impossible longings?”

“You are welcome to her, Mister Bid,” Economous said a little too carlessley. “I am done with this city and all in it – Oh! I do not mean you, sir!” he interupted himself at sight of Bidbrindle’s open dismay. “You have been a light here when much else is dark. I shall write you when I have achieved my glorious new position and invite you over to visit. Mayhap my new employer might have viols that new mending.” Silent and brooding for so long, Economous’ words fairly ran out from him.

Bidbrindle laughed brightly. “Yes yes! Here is hoping she does, good fellow! I could do with a summerscale excursion.”

                                                *          *          *          *          *

Economous Musgrove Chapter 7 Part 1

A days delay again! 

Why? 

I think perhaps because we are only some weeks away from the pre-written work coming to an end and me anti-ing up to press on with the tale, and I am afraid. I do not know how it is for others, but writing for me is a whole lot of facing myself, which I do not find easy. Perhaps this is why I write protagonists who themselves struggle to "emerge".

Economous

musgrove

    

© D.M.Cornish

PLEASE DO NOT PUBLISH OR REPRODUCE WITHOUT MY PERMISSION

Chapter 7 PART 1

Opportunity Unlooked For

benchman ~ articled yet ungazetted money changers and exchangers of goods for coin, supplying loans as needed if proper items can be provided as collateral . MORE ………………………………………………………………………………………………

HIR 1601 had ended as a year of curiosities: the Emperor came South from his far away throne to show off his newest grandson; monsters attacked in mass on the borders of human habitation up north; a  mercantile gent with more money than sense had set off very publicly to hunt a mere rumour of a monster over the eastern seas; the Aestival Walking at the Hippodial had been a grand success despite the great dread of monstrous assault … and Economous Musgrove, concometrist and aimless imagineer, had found a monster-lord in the innermost districts of the city, defeating three spurns single-handedly with little more than a stick.

HIR 1602 was brought in with more noise than had been made in a goodly long time, a great riot of desperate joy, music and dancing, the tolling of the new annum welcomed with great clashings of anything that made such racket, and a grand cannonade from every harbour fort and as many rams out in the water as were present: a greater display than even the Emperor had received a month before…

Yet Economous Musgrove – locked away in his garret for fear of discovery and reprisal – heard it all with little care and witnessed nil but glimpses from the thin grimy panes of his loft window. Keeping watch day upon day upon the thin view of the street through sooty lichen-blotched roofs and elongated smoke-dribbling chimneys, he spent his hours pinned between anxiety of discovery and of foiled ambitions, and a confounding wearying wariness of the black rule, Miserichord. All too often in his vigil his attention would be drawn to look where it lay hidden and half-discarded behind a pile of books that even at his most indigent he could not bare to sell. Unseen though it was, he could yet feel it there until it seemed to him the black rule occupied the entire garret, leaving him only his vigil couch as sanctuary.

So it went.

Were it not for the kindness of Bidbrindle fetching vittles for him each day, the sulking, aimless imagineer would have expired of the starve.

Of course the rumour of the beating given to some uppity gentleman come to lord it over the low with an army of spurns and being “lorded” in his stead was all over Merry-the-boon and Liberty Folgate – indeed, the whole of the Alcoves. Until then, the biggest subject of enthusiastic repeated conversation – bigger than rampaging northern bogles, or the Grand Imperial Visitation in the last month of last year – had been a pitched battle said to have been fought by various private parties in the harbourside suburbs of the Alcoves itself. But now the stoop-step tale-tellers and alehouse story-mongers had  a far better tale upon which to rant; a tale that involved one of their own!

“The mighty deed is supposed to have been done by a golden-haired heldin born of our very own streets,” the violin-maker declared with unrelieved enthusiasm delivering a small parcel of vittles he insisted upon paying for from his own meagre purse. “The defender of the low, of ladies’ honour, of children and small animals come with a flashing blade and a biting turn of phrase to put down the wicked overlord!”

Not sure whether to be gratified at such a valiant transformation of his own unimpressive physiognomy, or dismayed at the wide spreading of the report however exaggerated, Economous only nodded.

“It is a lovely bit of absurdus ineptiae,” Bidbrindle continued and then sighed. “If it were but true… I have it on quiet but firm authority that our true heldin was of a more modest frame.” He gave Economous a disquietingly knowing wink. “Bravo, my boy, bravo,” he added in a whisper.

Humours starting, setting a frighted banging in his ears, Economous looked at the violin-maker with rabbit-wide eyes. If Bidbrindle knew, anyone might know…

“For what, sir?” he said with fumbled innocence.

The other man laughed. “All secrets safe as Hollicar’s tomb, here, m’boy!” Bidbrindle patted the paper-wrapped parcel in a fatherly way. “Though perhaps it is best I keep bringing you these as you stay hid away for a little while longer…”

Whatever his qualifications or his wide yet largely unacknowledged learnings or the quality of his patronage, Economous’ resolutely cheerful neighbour had always played to the tacit pact of goodly Alcovine with pointed thoroughness: never betray your neighbour to any aristocratic oppressor; there is ever someone in more desperate need than you; every  stranger in the ‘Coves is a neighbour. It was a most surprising trait in a fellow who worked so constantly for the higher stations and expressed such unalloyed admiration for the same.

 Economous could do nought but trust that Bidbrindle would continue in this role and keep his disconcertingly astute reckoning mute. For an entire month into the new annum, he did not dare to venture from his hiding hole, furtively watching the slightest sliver of a glimpse of the street below that he had from his garret window. Remaining in the increasingly stifling heat of his cheap attic rent, he relied on the violin-maker for his sustenance and for reports of the daily to-and-hither often provided by irregular deliveries of topical gazettes like the Scribner or Assessor. Yet, while it may have been wondrous scandal throughout the Alcoves, the glorious assault did not feature once in the august pages of either broadsheet – not even in the obscure observations in the rearward pages. Whatever morbid fascination many well-to-do folk might have with grand district, the rest of the city did not actually care what happened to those living in its infamous streets.

Close confined and sweltering, he began to long for the peculiar comforting airs of the Moldwood; yet he knew all too clearly that the glebeland’s shadows and hissing boughs and its grazing rabbits all hinting the great and terrible secret that dwelt within would only bring deepening of his gloom.  The ancient park had now come to represent most solidly of all his frustration with his life’s path. Even if it did not, despite the encouraging absence of gazetted report, he dared not step out – not until Bidbrindle said it was safe to do so.

Tellingly, Anesthetica had not once made the short journey up the worn flights to seek Economous out, nor even left a note – as she had on his last self-seclusion. He listened to her every day carefully not making noise as she went out to work and returning  later and later and all too often accompanied by the arrogant tones of Lord Fold… But she never came up to him. 

So much for “You are missed”Economous concluded bitterly, then corrected himself: Of course she had not, why would she, all her goals were achieved in Lord Fold, Reive of Lot-in-the-Hole.

He considered some brief missive of apology for his rude and thrusting behaviour that ill-shone night so short ago, but an ugly quandary of blame kept him from forming suitable words.

Economous Musgrove Chapter 6 Part 2

Hmm, will testicles be grown at last?

By way of apology for the delay in posting I give you a bumper issue.

Economous

musgrove

    

© D.M.Cornish

PLEASE DO NOT PUBLISH OR REPRODUCE WITHOUT MY PERMISSION

Chapter 6 PART 2

Bless-ed Anonymity

“Return that purloined item to me this instant,” the saviour of the city purred, “and all shall be forgot. I shall see that the property finds its… rightful home, and you shall go on your worthless way knowing that you owe your continued breath to the mercy of your highers and betters.” He finally looked Economous in the eye to see that the import of his false claim had made it home.

False in fact, but true by station, went the term – the loftier classes were right by right, regardless of truth or actual wrong. The higher a soul stood in society, the “righter” they were.

“Come, Mister …………, Madamielle Cantaline, Mister ……………,” the fat fellow purred to his spurns. “Learn this ill-read brute a just and fitting lesson that he might not re-offend and  a small jink of justice be done in this most unjust place.”

All too willing to obey, the three bravoes stepped around their master and made to encircle Economous, the two men brandishing their heavy cudgels suggestively while the lady skold took a caste of dangerous chemistry from  one of several digital containers at her belt.

Economous backed away clumsily, colliding thigh and buttock with a stone-post, arresting his retreat just long enough for the trio of sturdy roughs to gain and surround him. How did I get here! his eternal inward observer wailed, slow to believe and therefore truly comprehend his danger. Habits formed through training served him now as the imagineer was thoughtlessly leant back into the eighth primary stance – held best when facing sundry foes. Miserichord buzzed like a hive of wasps in his twitching grasp.

“You do not have to do this,” he said in druken fright, he mouth speaking without reference to his working mind.

“’Tis a mite late for mewling, lad,” the largest of the spurns – Mister ………… appeared to be his name – returned with fixed determination.

“You wouldn’t attack a concometrist would you, not in such open view,” Economous tried again.

“I would!” barked the youngest spurn – so named Mister ………… by his master. Clearly thinking he had easy prey plumping in his clutches and all too eager in his inexperience, the brazen youth closed directly with Economous.

Even through his drunken daze, Economous recognised the lads mistake but found himself unwilling in that instant to exploit it for fear of making a bad situation worse. His limbs however, did not apparently share such quibbles and without knowing what his own arms were at, Economous suddenly struck out with Miserichord, lashing the youngest spurn across the unwary fellow’s cheek. It was a mighty blow: a perfect sinidextrous ortus capat – upper-cutting left-to-right strike to the head –that instantly drew gore spluttering from the foe’s nose, sending the spurn reeling back clutching his stricken face, to collapse scarce sensible upon the flags. With only the slightest sense of risk behind, the calibrator whipped back faster than Economous knew was within his own ability, foiling a wicked turbus capat aimed purposefully at his head by Mister ………… seeking to exploit the younger spurn’s error.

“Oh-ho, it seems this one knows what he is about,” the lady skold – one Madamielle Cantaline – chortled grimly as the older spurn span away from so skilful a defence to think again upon his next assault.

Wide-eyed and amazed at himself, Economous stared now at the skold, fathoming full well that her fumes were his greatest threat. In the very motion of that thought, the woman flicked her arm with that peculiar twisting flourish of a skolds-throw and Economous knew he was in strife. Even as he futilely swung his priceless black calibrator to prevent at least being directly struck by the bursting of the caste, he knew his only real hope was that the potive flung was nothing more than a choking fume and not some deadly mordant or blasting fulminant. Eyes shut against the inevitable engulfing chemistry, he was amazed to feel a small yet satisfying chock! as Miserichord deftly connected with the tiny fragile caste. However, rather than shattering the tiny delicate vessel with its foul concoction, the intervening strike sent it directly back at the skold to burst with a flash of orange and purple upon its very originator. With several startled yelps, people passing near scampered clear of the fume, pulling unwary neighbours with them. Flailing her arms as she sought to douse the dire fizzing  so abruptly and  unexpectedly turned against her, Madamielle Cantaline promptly dropped to her knees and flopped forward on face and stomach, overcome by her own makings.

Her employer – several feet to Economous’ left – flapped his own limbs in impotent rage at this mishandling of his staff.  “HOW DARE YOU, SIR! HOW DARE YOU! THEY COST ME SIXTY SOU PER ANNUM EACH! SCOUNDREL! HELP! HELP! I AM ATTACKED!” – a cry to  which no one paid the smallest attention.

“Full of tricks, aren’t we,” Mister ………, the last spurn growled, drawing now a short, heavy straight-bladed jacksword from the folds of the pleated frocks of his proofed coat. “I have ploys of my own…”

As amazed as his thwarted attackers at the sublime and unlikely skill of his self defence, Economous blinked a little stupidly at this final opponent.

As much as any calibrator might be re-enforced against the whittling cuts of any sword, Economous well knew that in the end, blades beat cudgels in all but the best hands. As handy at harundo as he might have been – steady enough to place on the tables of Athingdon Athy’s best cudgel-players – it had been a double run of profound fortune that had saved him tonight; he did not want to chance the Lots a third – and anecdotally fatal – time.

Jacksword in one hand, wickedly knobbled cudgel in the other, the third spurn did not give him a choice, springing left then right in a zagging rush, striking first with sword then swift as a swallow with stick.

Thwack! Thwack! Economous stopped them both in a single astonishing motion, Miserichordwas alive in his grasp, sending an impulse of unalloyed glee surged up the illuminator’s arm that set his wind leaping until it was all he could do to not laugh aloud for the joy of the fight.

Mister ………… leapt back with a frustrated growl, doubt shewing in his mein for the first time.

“WELL, GET HIM, MAN!” Monsiere Blanquett bawled without any care for the two ailing spurns at his feet. “I DO NOT LODGE YOU AND PAY YOUR INFLATED FEE TO HAVE YOU STAND BESIDE AND GAWP!”

At this, Economous let his queer, fizzing delight out in a coughing guffaw, a bizzare gurgling sound that gained more attention from those so studiously giving the fracas a wide berth.

“WHY DOES HE LAUGH, MISTER …………?” the false adventurer demanded. “Make him stop, this instant!”

“Aye! Aye!” Mister ………… barked angrily. Glowering pure malice at Economous, the spurn now stepped side to side now to circle leftwards about the illuminator. “You want something to laugh upon, do ye?” he snarled. “I can think of a thing or two to do it!”

Suddenly the fellow was upon him, sweeping sword and wood alike, over and over, a fury of blows that were no less shrewd and true for all their violence.

Feeling like a dumb puppet trailing at the end of Miserichord, Economous foiled every hit; he needed merely to have the slightest sense of an incoming strike before the wentry tool was whipping left, right, up or down, stopping the assault cold, the gorgeous elderwood unmarked even  by the tempered steel of the blade.

With a rough, cursing cry of frustration, Mister ………… finally over-stepped with a vehement yet fatigued flail, leaving – however briefly – himself exposed to a counter offend.

Miserichord now almost felt to pull Economous to step aside and like being lead in a dance, pivot about smartly to smack the astonished spurn hard upon the exposed gap between his tri-corned head and the proofing of his gaulded frockcoat collar. With a disconcerting Crack! the fellow was sent sprawling hand and knee to the cold hard flags. A dollymop with her nose in a long written list and more pressing concerns spinning about her thoughts, paused for only a blink to look first at the fallen soul then frown up at Economous before stepping over the prone spurn even as he arrived at her feet. More, Economous rushed to stand over the spurn, black calibrator raised and ready to smite his foe again should the fellow be lack-witted enough to try and rise.

The older spurn stayed down.

All battle-delight left Economous in a heave of weariness.

Now that the violence was done, people finally began gathering in a loose and cautious ring and Monsiere Blanquett immediately responded.

“DO NOT HURT ME! DO NOT HURT ME!” the high-blown fellow shrieked, all bravado voided like an emptying bladder in the face of such precipitous defeat. “I am dear friend to the Marchess of the Pike! I dine regularly with the Lord Prune, 2^ndEstimator-General to the Arch-Duke himself!”

Empty – almost bereft – Miserichord a dead weight in his hand, Economous stepped to stand over the cowering soul and looked down on his would-be accuser with dark, uncontainably frank contempt. And I have drawn the great and true lord of this city, he seethed inwardly to counter the monsiere’s reaching claims. Not knowing what to do – never before had he been in a such a position of supremacy, and the skold, Madamielle Cantaline was rousing  – Economous left his rotund tormentor where he grovelled and hastened into the milling souls. Pausing only to buy – as he had always intended – more claratine and poor bread, he hurried far down the Prandial, seeking distance and bless-ed anonymity.

He might have saved his own hide but what of the consequence of such a victory. No aristocratic sort would sit for long in such humiliation. Economous would be sought out, witnesses questioned, harried, made to tell. He could only hope that he had looked so uncommonly dishevelled that few of his streetside neighbours would have recognised him … A battle won but the war lost, went the line.

Full of fear and mistrust, he did not return directly home, rather running in the opposite direction deeper into the Alcoves, desperate to not be recognised and pinned fatally to the fight. For a bad end was certain should he be named as Monsiere Blanquett’s attacker: in defence of self or not, conviction at the Duke’s Bench of assault by a common soul upon  a personage of elevated station was a short trip to the gallows in Coldbeam Square. Yet what else could he have done? His end was a standing before a magistrate had he submitted to Monsiere Blanquett’s false accusation.

If only I had not run out so rashly! he berated himself. What was I at! What must Asthetica make of such a childish display?

Despite such self-imprecation, he marvelled at the ease of his victory and the skill of his fighting arm – or perhaps more truly, the unheard of yet mirablic efficacy of his wentry tool, his payment for drawing a creature who itself ought not exist as it did.

Mirabilic, indeed!

The hopeless illuminator sighed heavily. Hunched and hidden in this dank nook in the fishing district of The Pot, he drank, chewed over-cooked bread, his humours still refusing to calm as he re-fought the incomprehensibly one-sided fight in his soul over and over again. How Miserichord – now still and cold like any other span of lumber – had buzzed and leapt in his grasp. Reluctant to keep hold of it, yet loath to cast it so simply away, Economous regarded the black rule like it might at any moment spring off, dragging him haplessly with it.

Could any witness tell it was the stick that fought and not its wielder? Who could credit such a thing?

Wedged between crawdod pots and shaken down butts, jumping at every rattle or bump or hint of human voice, Economous waited. As night drew on he was amazed to find an almost continuous traffic of rabbits moving about in the secluded quiet of his hiding place, constantly nuzzling the air for threats many stopping to stare at him, wretched fellow that he was.

“Tell your master he can have his stick back,” the thwarted fabulist hissed at them.

They simply winked and twitched at him.

He had read once that the blessings of monsters were a blight on all everymen, and he was now beginning to see why. He tried to shoo the creatures away and leave him free of this constant token of the Lapinduce’s presence. Failing to shift them, he took to glaring at the sneaky little beasts, until the first gleam of morning glory glowed in the eastern arc of roof cluttered sky and the rabbits scattered to deeper shadowed alleys.

Rising, Economous shook himself and returned by an uncommon route of byways, avoiding the eye of the several lamp-dousing limn-men he passed until at last he made it to his garret. With infinite care, he crept up the unsteady flights to lay a-bed at last, thought-consumed and twisted by fright, watching sun rays piercing the gaps in the slats of his garret shutters grow more acute in angle, the winking of his weary eyes growing long and heavy, until senseless sleep finally overtook him.

Economous Musgrove Chapter 6 Part 1

I would suggest the following is NOT a good way to get out of a hole.

I am finding folks theorums and ponderings about who is what very entertaining and helpful. Please, keep the thoughts coming.

Economous

musgrove

    

© D.M.Cornish

PLEASE DO NOT PUBLISH OR REPRODUCE WITHOUT MY PERMISSION

Chapter 6 PART 1

Bless-ed Anonymity

casque ~ a hinged slat of wood with holes for neck and wrists and a heavy lock to secure it shut; used as the most basic form of civil punishment by many cities of the Soutlands, seen as more humane than lashes with a cane that was for many generations the usual mode.  MORE…………

Half-blind in drunken dismay and utterly shocked with himself, Economous part jogged, part staggered down the To-Market, determined to put as many strides between him and the disarray behind him as he could in an evening.  So rough was his exit that he fully expected to be chase down and accosted, hauled back to Lord Fold to apologise with great show: but no pursuit followed him in his rapid, unsteady retreat. With a confused notion of replenishing his vanished stock of cheap claratine, Economous bumped through his fellow downside citizens agitated with anticipations of the year’s turning. About him folks made ready all manner of cauldron-bells, clutter-bottles, ratchet weasels, pots, griddle pans, cutlery, tom drums, tin horns and speaking trumpets: a great collection by which to make a great din of noise to see out one annum and bring in the new.

Once, long ago in less urbane times, such clamour was universally held to frighten off monsters prowling at the foot of village walls. And though the custom was thoughtlessly continued in most cities of the Soutland city-states, such simple-headed ideas were largely forgotten or scoffed over. Yet any rustic parish neighbour, especially those under very present threat from nicker and bogle out on the sokelands at the fringe of human habitation – such as Economous’ native town of Lo – knew better. As much as he relished city life, Economous had always thought the name of “naïvine” for an urbanite who had never encountered a monster acutely apt. City folk loved to put on knowing manners and pretend to themselves that they were supreme over all the threats of nature, but he had only met a few who fathomed fully the dread and danger that country souls called normal. And the higher the rank, the deeper this ignorance commonly went: such as Lord Fold. Economous sorely doubted  if the Reive of Lot-in-the-hole – despite his country purview – had ever been dial-to-dial with even a mildly mischievous bogle, let alone a ravening nicker and survived.

Resolved on finding some small species of satisfaction in this dyphr-wreckage of a day, the frustrated illuminator hurried onto wider way of the Prandial Street, a dual carting way fancy enough to possess stone-posts and  its own row of street lamps at the regulation twenty-five yards, paid for by subscription of the local shopkeepers. Such glorious enlightenment – normally only found in middling or high-station suburbs – made this thoroughfare popular in the darkling hours and its merchants and markets and walk-in bazaars remained open well after all other sellers had retired for hearth and bed.

As the sun westered, the day-light traffic of cart and drey and the rare private lentum was replaced by handsome, open-top dyphrs, park-drags with teams of six and fare-charging takenys coming from all wards of the city. Under the frowning wood embellishments leaning from the salt-stained façade of every structure to crowd the vacancy above the Prandial, the usual throng continued without pause: water-caddies, crossing-sweeps and wandering tray or barrow sellers, moll potnys, sharps with their cheap tricks and grab-cleats lurking, looking for easy prey. But now these were joined by early revellers, a great many of whom – by evidence of their fine clothes – were not native to the Grand Liberty of the Alcoves. With all these hurried a unique sight in this modern age: dollymops by the dozen in their high white bonnets and aproned stomacher dresses. Like lowly pantry maids they went with clear purpose from grocer’s stall to shambleman, from tallow-puff to dispensurist and all domestic shops between, forced by their work-a-day hours to buy their food and necessaries at such an unseemly time.

Among it all Economous wove a worming way until he spied the shuffling figure he sought: Chancer Pigfeet – a convicted pinch-dough baker only recently returned from prison, back to scratch his scant living from the admirably forgiving or those of his neighbours too poor to afford grudges. Employing a tallow barrow as his stall, crying: “Loafs for the loathely! Bread for starving souls!”, Chancer Pigfeet also sold the cheapest claratine this side of the Spokes.

Sight fixed on the pinch-doughman, Economous bustled through a small collection of fine-looking folk out of place in their well-cut cloth and gathered so carelessly and obstructively in the very midst of the Prandial’s walk.

“Oi!” came a rough retort.

Ignoring exclamations and goodly manners – such as his own parents had taken pains to inculcate in him during his awkward, lonely boyhood – the aimless imagineer pressed on to his goal of small, stony loaves and thin wine. Yet when he approached [BAKER NAME] the fellow looked past Economous, paled, turned and hurried his meagre goods to some other vantage on the bustling street.

Economous blinked stupidly and frowned.

“My, that’s a fine piece o’ wood you have in your hands, m’boy,” came an oily observation from close behind.

Economous turned to find a portly high-station fellow in a fine coat of cloth-of-silver brocaded with cloth-of-gold, and a high silver wig standing before him: primped, powdered, flabby cheeks rouged prettily, entire person drenched in pungent sweet-waters.

Lord Dust of Drystick, little doubt, Economous concluded and chuckled to himself.

Here was another bored and indolent person of circumstance out on “adventure” in the rough districts.

What is it about the Alcoves that attracts these overblown dastards? 

At the brave “adventurer’s” back were three unfriendly looking figures, the man’s spurns, there to make the slumming adventure actually possible, all clad in heavy proofing and sour looks that served well to keep most trouble bayed. One – a woman – was marked with a twin of dark vertical stripes upon their face going from hairline, over either eye and down each cheek. A skold! – a brewer and thrower of dangerous potives designed first to harm monsters but proving ill against everymen too.

“I am myself a connoisseur – as they say it in the Patricine – of such curiosities,” the powdered fellow said smoothly, looking intently to Economous’ hand. “From whom did you steal it?”

Puzzle-headed, Economous lifted his hand and saw what grip alone confirmed, that in the heat of the instant he had fled Madamine Grouse’ Bunkhouse with the black-elder calibrator still in grasp.  “It is not stolen!” he slurred angrily. “H-how dare you, sir! It was a –” … then realised with a souse-addled blink he had no fitting tale as to how he possessed it, close his mouth with an audible plop!

 “Oh I think we will find it is stolen, m’boy,” the preened and  powdered adventurer pressed, his regard only leaving the priceless tool to make certain he was making a fine spectacle.

By now other folk were realising something dark and portentially unpleasant was a-foot and began reflexively to skirt widely about Economous and his well-served tormentor.

“Do you see, [………NAME………],” the fat fellow continued over-loudly, talking now to a young spurn on his right: a swaggering yet rather common-looking fellow a year or two Economous’ junior and cradling a gabelung in his arms as if it were the historied Mast of Ruin itself. “This is why we do the necessary civic service of descending into this reeking place and patrolling its diseased streets. At every turn is some half-clothed blackguard such as this fellow here,” he flicked a dismissive gesture at Economous, “strolling about brazenly without neckerchief or hat or cingulum, boasting their crimes and thinking these warrens of unhealthy streets will hide them. Not while Monsiere Blanquett is on his watch! Oh no! Not while I care and dare enough to bring right and fruitful living to those most in need of the instruction.”

“Dare you seek to impeach the noble and tested character of a concometrist, sir!” Economous retorted boldly, his humours simmering with all the courage three bottles of bitter-strong vin can bring.

For a blink his rotund accuser took pause: it was indeed a grave thing to assault any of an athy’s agents by word or deed. Had Economous been wearing his baldric, sable edged in leuc – black edged in white, the unique sign of a concometrist – it would have been unlikely they would have accosted him in the first, fancy calibrator or nil.

But all too quickly the man’s expression turned shrewd.

“Ho now!” Monsiere Blanquett declared victoriously, looking the dishevelled illuminator boot to crown with open disgust. “Where is your cingulum? Your number-book? Your fitting mode of attire?” He raised a victorious finger. “For if you are a concometrist, sir,” he continued waspishly, “then you are a disgrace to that institution’s glorious dignity!”

Though Economous was about himself enough to not let it show, this judgement hit true, for it was – surely – true. “Well,” he returned with a contrived and showing lightness of tone, “allow me to hasten home and fetch it then, to prove my claim and save you embarrassment.” Realising that he was just playing into this silken bully’s game in remaining tamely to receive his lecture, Economous now turned and went on his way, already thinking how tasty even an ill-baked pinch loaf would taste at that moment.

“Don’t you walk away from me, you lousy malnourished brute!” the self-proclaimed monsiere bellowed with all the authority four spurns gained him. “Stop! STOP ! I say, or for this insult alone I shall make certain you suffer an afternoon in a casque on the public step of the Leak!"

This was no idle threat: a person of high station could indeed – upon their word alone – have any low-born soul incarcerated briefly on the charge of insolence and wilful impertinence.

Despite himself, Economous halted and turned.