He dubbed himself the Rat King when he foresaw the rodents crawling on his corpse, weaving in and out of his garments like a sensation, like a disease. Now he waits for them down in the ornate sewer home he fashioned. It is a fickle thing, the premo...
The scream is high and cold, like liquid-ice running down a spine or the grate of metal against stone. The dropped laundry turns increasingly red as the sound of feet against stone rings like the drums of ancient mankind partaking in the dance of the dead.
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How dreadfully loathsome.
The whole place is in an uproar, women screaming at their own shadows. Nefarious, bloody murdering rapists on the loose! And what must he do? Why, interview the man who found the body. Visit the scene of the crime. He, the Head Inquisitor! What if he died? What if it is a mindless, blithering madman with insatiable bloodlust—who so conveniently lurks around the next corner waiting for his most prized killing? God, ought they to send some serving girl to do this work?
Insulting, unlawful—no, it is blasphemous... And now he will have to cope with Cook, who he is quite certain thought up the idea of arming women with those frighteningly massive fabric rollers.
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The boy is pushed and pulled along the string of bodies which elbow and knee in panicked frenzy, growing more frantic with each snippet of news. Men stand in their dressing gowns with naught but a bit of wood or metal, women clutch small children to their sides and press them into tight corners. Pale, shaking boys scamper along the outskirts; the candles are their batons and badges as they whisper news to the nearest ears. And when the body is brought down the children are pushed further back, accompanied by an array of shielding hands. The undertaker halts briefly to talk to Cook, who looks more like an irritated queen bee than a weeping woman.
When he leaves the questions are asked in shrill voices, demanding with cracks of frailty that do not improve her color. She is about to speak when they emerge from the dark and the hall falls silent.
The gray lines under the King's eyes speak more eloquently than any of his words. Those gathered do not listen but instead watch as the small figure is pressed feverishly to his side and horror freezes over his eyes. There is no need to hear him. There is as much might and struggle in the nervous convulsions and twitches as there is in the long crack that had crawled down the table in the Grand Hall. The madman is gone—or perhaps merely made sane in light of fiercer madness. They now see authority: a king, someone they had long forgotten. When they are calmed and his words are spent he smiles, if not weakly, and, with the girl guiding him, he exits amongst the group of guards. Then the old man is alone and they all turn, waiting.
