A Tailor's Son (Valadfar) (3 page)

Taking a closer look at her Harold noticed that she was young
and not one of the leathery skinned old hags that he normally saw at
that time of day. It was a horrible thought but Harold knew that some
of the girls working the streets were as young as twelve or thirteen years
of age. It sickened him to his core to think that this poor girl might
actually be that young. He could tell she was nervous by the way she
clasped her hands together, all the while fiddling with the pocket of her
blouse which hung loosely from her young body. She did not seem to
carry the same hard-edged attitude as other bangtails that Harold had
seen throughout this area of the city, but if she was as young as he
thought then maybe she had not long been on the streets. That made
the whole situation worse for Harold. It upset him to think that this
little girl still had a heart; it was easier to think of prostitutes as soulless
beings plying a trade. Harold had no love for whores or their work. He
didn’t understand why they didn’t leave the city and go tend to the
farms or head off to one of the southern cities away from the reach of
the Poles or Drow and start again, but Harold thought for a moment
about what would make such a young girl turn to a craft like this and his
disdain for his employer at the Queens flashed through his mind once
more.

Whatever the young girls’ story, O’Brien would have had a
part to play in it. Harold’s anger was due to the fact that O’Brien was no
doubt her pimp. He imagined her story. Her mother died in labour as
was common and her father, a drunkard like most men from the
wooden built part of the city had most likely abused her. She had finally
collected enough courage to run away, just for O’Brien to find the poor
little girl begging on the street somewhere, no doubt asking for nothing
more than a scrap of bread. O’Brien would have spoken to her in his
charming Drow accent and offered her to come back to the Queens for
a meal. He would have given her a bed for the night, no doubt treated
her really well, all the while getting her drunk on ale without ever a
mention of its cost. Then when dawn came, he would have demanded
payment for the ale, threatened her, and finally when she couldn’t pay,
he put her out to work, the bastard. The workhouse would have been
better for the poor girl, although Harold did admit only barely. His
heart sank at the thought and as if she sensed the sorrow in his eyes the
girl looked away. She brushed her front down, loosening the rags to
reveal more of her young bosom. Small freckles dotted her chest that
mirrored those around her nose and cheeks. Harold could imagine
from her small trim jaw that she would have been attractive but for the
swelling on her face. One eye was almost closed and yellowing from the
bruising.

The story in his mind continued. O’Brien put the girl out to
work but she was not bringing in enough money so he taught her what
happens to those that did not deliver what O’Brien wanted. He beat
her up a little, not enough that she would be permanently useless to
him, but no one cared if a prostitute has a few bruises and before the
blood on her nose had even had time to dry he’d sent her back out on
the streets to stand in front of Harold. It was then Harold noticed the
filth on her, so much dirt on her clothes that maybe calling them
clothes was too much of an honour. They were more like rags that had
once been a cheap cotton dress but all shape had fallen from it so that it
hung loosely over her small shoulders. One sleeve of her blouse was
torn and Harold wondered if that had been an overzealous customer.
Harold looked at this unfortunate girl in such sadness. She approached
him with the same statement as before in her brittle tone as his glance
met hers.

Listening past the cold she carried and the slur from the
alcohol, Harold could hear in her voice that although young she was
likely to be a little older than he first thought. It was hard to tell under
all the dirt. No matter her age, she was desperate and that was for sure.
If Harold had thought of it at the time, he would have wondered why
she hadn’t moved towards the ships with the rest of the whores who
wanted easy coin, but Harold guessed she had some reason to avoid
sailors. It saddened him that there were so many nightwalkers along the
docks. The place was littered with them, all hoping to make an easy
penny from the sailors coming in from their long voyages. There were
plenty of nameless young women or old hags for them to satisfy their
urges with while they visited the shore. Most of the poor women
received a black eye or a blooded nose from their swift visit lovers. As
much as Harold hated the sensual crafts, he hated the men that abused
such desperate women even more. It pleased him that fate would have
the last laugh as the cowardly bastards had no idea what they would
carry back with them onto their ships. They would have a rash, and a
vile one at that, but it served them right no doubt as the scurvy took
them and sent them mad. Harold thought for a moment as he stood
there awkwardly. He did not want the services the young woman
offered but he felt obligated to do something to ease her pain or be as
bad as those that caused it.

“How much do you need to earn for a room tonight?”
Harold asked,
feeling around for the loose change in his pocket. He didn’t have much
to give as most of what they earned went straight to his father and the
little Harold had, well, he had reasons not to want to be carrying it on
him after sunset in that part of town.

“I only need a half penny more. I will do whatever you want and I’m clean
too. No warts or anything.”
She replied trying to sound provocative but
being clueless as to how to achieve it in her drunken state. That might
have been enough for some of the potbellied pond-scum that had
somehow managed to get a handful of coins to bed her but Harold had
no interest in anything but getting her off the street and to work before
the kegs ran dry and O’Brien turned his anger towards him.

“Anything I want? You promise that?”
Harold asked her as he
pulled the lint out of the handful of small coins he’d found at the
bottom of his pocket. It was his whole earnings for the day but Harold
knew he would still have food waiting for him when he got home, more
than could be said for the redhead.

The young girl said, eagerly snatching the small handful of coins from
him. “
Cor-blimey, there’s got to be almost two pence here. What weird stuff you
after?”
She said and suddenly her face changed. It seemed darkness had
seeped into some people’s hearts ever since the demon broke through
the spirit realm into the waking world. There had been bodies found
that seemed to have been bled dry and rumours of cults spreading that
worshiped the evil presence in the crater outside the city. There had
been talk of working girls going missing. It was clear she was worried
just what Harold would expect for such a payout.

“I want you to get home, get off the street. A young girl like you shouldn’t
be working like this.”
Harold said with a smile. Suddenly his attention was
diverted as a coach rattled by passing between him and what he would
loosely call a woman, almost knocking them both over. Harold took his
chance to trot on quickly leaving her behind. The near collision had
startled him and it took him a few minutes to notice the leaf that had
entangled itself in his cropped brown hair. As Harold removed it he
began to daydream again. He had needed the money really, but not as
much as the girl probably did and it was worth it for the thought that
for just one night she could sleep peacefully, just as peacefully as
Harold had in the bed at grandmother’s cottage.

The Queens
was already in full cheer when Harold arrived.
The proprietor, O'Brien, could be heard singing some old folksong, the
patrons inside clapping and jeering him on. There was no doubt in
Harold’s mind that O’Brien was half-cut already, usually finishing off a
whole bottle of whisky before the sun fell behind the horizon. Harold
wondered if it was from the money of poor innocents like the little girl
he had passed, or was it on the backs of tortured souls that he had build
his criminal empire. Harold thought to himself that at least he had
helped save her from the vile sweaty job for at least one night. As he
relished on his good deed for the day Harold looked straight up above
the towering buildings and into the sky. As much as he hated what had
been happening to Neeskmouth in the last few years, he did have to
give the city its due. The sleeping beast that was Neeskmouth with its
disgusting polluted breath had created such a spectacle. The last golden
rays as they fought their way through the thick smog above the city
were a secret beauty only known to those of them the nation classed as
unfortunate, providing they didn’t breathe in too deeply. The nobles
locked themselves away safely in their homes while the poor still
worked or begged for coins from those barely any better off. It was as if
the Gods made the little beauty just for them, a silver line to an
otherwise blackened cloud. It was a shame that the sound of a
drunkard vomiting in the street spoiled it for Harold that night.

Harold’s eyes grew accustomed to the coming darkness as he
drew his vision back down to the streets. He didn’t know why but his
gaze fell on the buildings as if it was the first time he’d seen them. They
were not huge stone towers like those estates at the noble end of town.
No, these were not the rich four or five storeys high masses of
brickwork. They did not overhang with polished windows and
sculptures that had been painted in the dried excrement of the flying
rats that littered the skies. Instead they were a mix of wood and clay,
simple hovels made for purpose over beauty. The buildings were all so
square and unwelcoming, coated in blackened ash and moss from the
ever wet air. They still managed to both impress and impose on Harold
even after all these years. Most of the city was built in the same style,
crushed together with no space between the buildings. The
overhanging balconies blocking out what little of the sky could be seen
behind the smoke. The city was growing so quickly that there was no
space for houses and it would not be many more years before stone
giants took their place instead, if construction kept going at the pace it
had since the war ended. With the prosperity that the golden age had
brought, people came from miles around to work in the factories that
were sprouting up like weeds. The city hummed with the sound of
machines and the hammers of stonemasons building places for the
cheap labour to live. It made a man feel like each street was a secluded
island with only one or two spots within the city where they could see
the sky clearly, and that was why with the light bouncing off the clouds
and the moon starting to climb ever higher in the sky, Harold savoured
the moment.

The Queens tavern was a real contrast to the buildings around
it and was one of the last of its kind. Harold did not know its history
fully but it was one of the oldest buildings in the city and had survived
the fire that had swept through the harbour when the Poles first
invaded. It was one of the last reminders of the days before the city was
occupied by the Iron Giants. At one time, not so many years ago, the
stone buildings ended at the Market Crescent, aside from the statues at
Celebration square, but now they pushed further north and only the
most common parts of the city were still made in the old way, with clay
and beam. It had been both a blessing and a curse for Lord William
Boatswain when he opened trade with the Dwarfs of the Goldhorn
Mountains. The city prospered and grew, giving birth and helping fund
the Brilanka monks’ march into Neeska. They had been called in to aid
in the battle against the shadow demons of Briers Hill. Their first
Cathedral had started to be constructed with this newly found wealth
just south of Celebration Square. Close by a massive wall that stood
five men high was built running around the natural Neeskmouth ridge
from the west and south of the city, to save it from ever falling to
barbarians again. The city folk felt safe and blessed but not everything
had been so wonderful. With so much money flowing into the city and
so quickly, the sudden boom of new technologies released from within
the secretive Dwarfen halls, trouble was guaranteed. The machines
themselves rivalled even the magic of mages and lead to corruption, the
likes Neeskmouth had never seen. It was not only pirates now that
threatened the harbours. With their wealth from bringing in these
Dwarfen masterpieces the Brilanka monks funded a crusade that saw
mages outlawed and in 118ab William, one of the saviours from the
return of the dragons at the turn of the century, was voted out of office
in place of the current lord, Malcolm Benedict. Malcolm Benedict was
a mad man, obsessed with stamping his religion across the city and
getting more and more Dwarfen machines. How the Queens tavern
had survived all that and not been forcibly torn down in the
developments, was a mystery. On the other hand, maybe it was not.
After all, it had been in the O'Brien family for almost seven
generations. The upper classes of the city were so corrupt that the
O’Brien’s no doubt held a lot of sway with them and that had kept the
place as it was. There were even rumours of their coercion reaching as
far back as the monarchy of the dethroned Handson’s. The Queens
was a small thatched building, not as pretty as Harold’s beachside home
but it did have its own charm, if you looked under the blackening of age
through the thick clouds of smog.

The side street was emptying and only a few people headed
along it making their way home. Harold watched them from the
shadows wondering what stories their tired and worn-out faces hid. As
always they seemed oblivious to his presence as they busily scuttled
home like disturbed woodlice from under a dampened log. As Harold
untied the barrels from the horse and cart he prepared to move them
into the tavern; the drunkard who had ruined the sky painting earlier,
staggered off out of sight and Harold was alone once again. It was
strange how it always happened. The city had a twilight period where
the beggars vanished to go off to sleep wherever it was they went, the
shops all closed and the streets emptied. Given another half an hour
the streets would be bustling again with a different type of
Neeskmouthain, but for now those families that could afford food ate
and those that could not still sat around the dinner tables. Once the
meals were finished, the tidal pulse of Neeskmouth would change; the
street gangs would come out, the prostitutes would move away from
the docks and into the markets, the children would vanish, and the
lantern man would light the city up which seemed to signal the seedy
underbelly of Neeskmouth to awaken.