SRθ: Grim Inquiries (2023-2024)

Sit.34: The Deal

I came to my senses immediately, in the presence of The Mistress. He'd mentioned 'er, The Heathen, but I'd forgotten her way – to stare us all down an' make us feel all like childs. I even found myself c'rrectin my Celtic back English, frighted twee by a gell twice me size. I started to call out. "Nice ta fuckin' see yew agaen, ya hard-knockin'-" I stopped. Eyes wide, I wrestled back my tongue, hard-ways, feelin' inside a burnin' Gaelic rage of bloodin'-green shamrock an' all the leather boots an' caps in- God. Okay. Jesus. I'm done, holy shit. This is bad even fer me. Okay.

She looked down at us. "Whaddya want, wee skanners? Lookin' reghdey fer a paghrty, or WHUT?" No, sorry, she definitely never said that. She was more like, "Heathen, I'm so disappointed in you." Why'd she call him that, though? How'd she know our nickname for 'im? Okay, she didn't really say that either. I was still fogged with fuck, an' smacks on the skull from last night prior. I don't quite remember what's been said. I'll summarize, aight?
"New Lord," she greeted, sounding none too charrmed.
An' 'e was not stannin', like, nor duck'd n' sorted. "Mistress," 'e whimpers. "Please, allow me to explain-"
"No need," she guts. "Everything's clear just from looking, thanks. You've got your hands full here, I think – you won't be coming with."
An' 'e yells, "YOU CANNAE DEW THIS TA MEH-" I mean, um. He says it more like, ah, "Mistress, oh, my DEAR lady!" 'E chases 'er down, she's back-turned. "MISTRESS! Please, think twice on me, maybe! Perhaps! All I ask is that you- this isn't what it LOOKS like!"
She smiled, coldly. "Did you think we never heard of your exploits? Word travels far among busy bees, you should know this."
"My... exploits?" he stammered. "Whatever do you mean by that? What exactly am I, uh... exploiting, here?"
She stood over him - just as tall, half 'is width, and twice as big. "How about, for starters, your LEWD CRUELTY upon our CUSTOMERS? The PEOPLE of our BRAND, who BUY the beer YOU'RE supposed to SELL THEM in EARNEST! What do you think HAPPENS when they TALK about our BRAND, and ALL OVER our BARRELS is your STUPID icon's CLUCKING FACE?! WHAT do you think they SAY when they TALK about YOU?! "
He shrugged, looking demure. Like a kid being spoken down to by an adult of greater measure. "I dunno, I guess they say... I'm pretty handsome. And really funny, and fun to eat dinner with. And I tell great jokes!" He swung his arms to the sides, not yet register'ng the proverbial mud around his waist in his own swallowing pride.
"No, Heathen," she pinched the bridge of her nose. "Gluttonous heathen, you, no. They don't speak kindly of you at all. You're known quite well across ALL the land by ALL remaining people not FUCKED to DEATH by the plague that if EVER they should cross YOU, YOU'LL GLADLY FINISH THE JOB!"
He shook his head, keeping his face from grinning too widely. But he was red-faced and caught. "I have no idea what you mean, by that. What you're insinuating, it's blasphemy. It's libel! I should see you in high court, perhaps, under The Pope's nostrils-"
"You ABSOLUTE moron, you're not GOING ANYWHERE." She put her hands on her hips, and bent him back as far as he could go by standing on his toes' air. It looked like a struggle for him to stay upright at all. She went on, "You're a FUCKING disgrace, and you're MAKING us LOOK BAD! We've heard ENDLESS tales of your SODOMY and RAPE upon our patrons, and they've all flocked to us, SHOUTING for ANSWERS! They BLAMED us, BLAMED our BREW, RIOTED in the BLOODY STREETS! Did you not THINK that while we REPRESENTED you in our KINDNESS, that your ACTIONS yet REFLECTED BACK onto US?! Our COMPANY?!"
He shook his head, angrier now, and stood back over her so suddenly it made her relent. He was about to strangle her with his paws, and she looked a bout of horror across her face as she realized he was turning violent... to seal control about his problems. I stepped forth again and sliced his inner knees from the back, and he shouted at me – blood trailing from his legs and staining into his boots. But then he fell over, apparently having given out, FINALLY, to the slashing upon his chicken's shanks.
He kneeled before me, furious and spittling with rage. Without even looking up, he growled, "When I get my hands on you, Reaper, I'm going to make you wish you'd been raped by me. Because I'm going to do far worse, if I ever have my way."
"GLUTTON, OY," The Mistress called out with a whistle. "YOU'RE the person responsible for your predicament, are you not? Who had to have all the goodies and treats? Who had to have at the kids and their mothers and fathers, too? Who had to drink all our wares and claim pilfering and dare ask INSURANCE to care you more?"
He turned around on his knees and rolled his eyes. "Like you've never done the same, whore almighty!"
"Aye," she nodded, ashamed. "I've raped and pleasured myself many times with sloshed drink upon men I fancied, this is truth. I was young and in squalor, on payless dirt – now I'm a woman, see? An ADULT. And I'm RESPONSIBLE for the LIVELIHOODS of other LIVING people! So I'll be damned, spat on, FUCKED senseless, tied up and hog-roasted over an OPEN FIRE before I let YOU, a MISERABLE fucking WYRM, eat OUR hand's wealth another SINGLE breakfast! Or we'll ALL end up just as DEAD as you are, INSIDE." She pointed in his eyes, right where he couldn't see it – between them. "STILL, in your soul, I can see it – you wish nothing more than to drain your restless cock upon the sleeping, unwilling tongues of those who trusted you – whose mouths should fill only with our sanctioned brew and name. Or did you forget how your FATHER ever FOUNDED this town's pub? Did you think it was COINCIDENCE that led you here, and then back to us at the brewhouse when all home was told you were out to WAR?"
He slowly chewed on the information he was given. "You're saying... my father set me up to be a salesman from the start? I was never supposed to fight?"
"OH, NOW he GETS IT!" she laughed grandly. "Or did you think it all too convenient that on your way to the battlefield, a wine schooner just so HAPPENED to cross by your path, in need of a funny-looking man in an AWFUL horned helmet? Did you think that you were RUNNING AWAY by your own CLEVER WIT?" She flicked him in the forehead.
He shied away. "So my father never believed in me from the start. He knew I'd chicken out, and sent that boat... to save me. And I thought I was saving myself."
"AAAAND SCENE," she bellowed in his face. "YOU were a NOBODY to begin with, so what made you think even WE could CHANGE that? All WE did was give you a CHANCE – which, congratulations! You've ROYALLY WASTED."
The Heathen blinked, thinking 'imself invinced once, and perhaps again, but now stripped of 'is heart's little armor. "I don't understand. You said everything I was doing... was fine! Okay, even! You even laughed at my stories when I told them!"
"Aye, she did," The Mistress nodded. Then she sneered. "Because I can be a right cold bitch myself, sometimes. But you forgot one single solitary detail about your nightly excursions: you aren't supposed to let EVERY-FUCKING-BODY FIND OUT, ARE YOU?!" she yelled in his face, and shoved his head into the ground.
And he was saddened by it, weeping; because as I imagined, it reminded him of a time long past... and made it brightly fresh again inside him. It brought him back home. And he was done, so frail in-two you'd think him sleeping, dreaming feared for a mother's scolding.
The Mistress looked at me and The Mystic, my scythe still reddened but long-since aired to dry by the time it took to lecture the piece of shit. "Who are you, his whores?"
The Mystic fell silent, embarrassed by its truth.
I spoke up. "We've met, actually. Remember any reapers?"
The Mistress covered her laugh with a white-gloved palm. "Oh, honey, I meet all kinds in bed-sheets and bars. Or are you-" she look'd at me 'gaen, and scrunched a smile. "Oy, The Grim?! You're he, now? Oh, LASSIE, will ye be? Sheit, I'd hardly-" Okay, again... she's English. Why do I keep screwing this up? Anyway. "Oh, The GRIM Reaper! Charmed, we meet again." She walked over an' gave me a hug, and another one for my girl. "You two look rough... especially you, dark-haired. How's about I buy you some beer? On the house!" She walked with us in her arms.
"What about-" I looked back for The Heathen, still crying about his torn-up life on 'imself, and into grassy mesh. The Mystic looked too, and stuck out her tongue at him.
"Oh, forGET him," said The Mistress. "He's spare knucks, old news. You'll have your way with him later, legally speaking – he's no longer immune to your town's laws."
I grunted. "Our town doesn't actually, uh... have a court-house."
She blinked. "Oh, Jesus fuck, no wonder he'd been about for so long. I thought it strange your guards hadn't nabbed him, figured maybe he'd paid them off."
The Mystic frowned. "No, he just, um... made us all watch really bad theatre and drink really hard to make his crimes forget with us. It was kind of silly, actually."
"That's probably why it worked," The Mistress sighed.
"Won't he take the gold?" The Mystic inquired. "If we leave him there? And the boat?"
As she spoke, The Lancer 'imself ran off the docks, and all but tripped over the lard in 'is way stepping. He wasn't wearin' 'is skull'd helm, though... I fig'rd 'e was done bein' Tha Killer fer a while, good for 'im. Wan't 'is best look. He gathered up the gold from the ground, as fast as any hands I've ever seen – it was his eyes, I think back now, which were darted and trained by his lancing. He was as accurate to find gold in grass as he was to find arteries in a man's shoulder, and as I remembered, mine as well.
"Mistress," I handed her shoulder, "we can't survive, this town, without our takes from business fairly done. He's made your ken, aye, for all beer's werth, but 'e's also bled us nightly an' squeezed us dry. All but a therd of each sale's sent to 'im, for all seasons past until another year after. Please, see it in your heart... leave some for us. It's not all hes, an' it never was."
We stopped. She let us go, but we stayed at her sides, unsure of where else to be after everything.
She sniffled, like the air bothered her. "Reaper, your silver tongue's rusted copper. Fare ye fer a Scot, shad aye?" she mocked, eyes bright and grinnin' too.
I grinned back. "Aye, pr'haps. But aye'm right, n' you know it. You wouldn't want ta set a bad example for those dukes of yers, smaller fer 'aight n' brains shrunk in? 'Ear you robbed a town, raped an' plundered, they might fae the same whin thaey're older. Be our next lords, they just might, y'know."
She gritted her teeth. "Fine. Only because it's you who's asking – you're pretty well-received by everyone, I hear. Though I'm surprised in your dull cut of throat, given O Rosto and the moor-slaver you BEHEADED on your first year out..."
I frowned. "I slit his neck, then 'e fell. An' O Rosto was killed by Tha Plaggie, la docteur, j'ai peur. He loosed a sickness in towles, somewhaer, an' on in me fer sport."
"Alright, alright, already, just shut up and stop sprouting freckles at me." She rolled her eyes. "LANCER!" she called.
He stood up straight where 'e was, and salutated right back. An' 'e rolled 'is eyes fer good measure.
She told him, "Do leave half of that gold for us at the pub, will you? Bring it to me in time, but with haste."
He balked, "Are you God-smackin' serious? Carry it all, take half for home, and then carry it all back? "
She said, "YES, Lancer, and I expect to see the full amount in exactly half when I count it later – give or take a pound, for yourself."
He smiled, nodding like a dog on a walk. "Don't have to tell me twice." He kicked The Heathen in the head on 'is way off.
The sad lump only groaned in pain. "Oowwww."
Satisfied with 'is handiwork, The Lancer wheeled off the jingling mix of coins – more accurately tin, copper, bronze, gold, and silver – but always more fun to just call 'gold'.