Wolf's-head, Rogues of Bindar Book I (11 page)

Baus peered
away to turn his attention from the oddball assortment to matters
concerning survival. A sullen, oppressive atmosphere lurked about
the earthen yard and its depressing clumps of glum-shaped
spongebush and gorse shrub which peeked raggedly out of the corners
of the yard like grim dwarfs. The place was more a livestock yard
than a place for men. The mangy land was trampled by a thousand
feet—men who had worked for years toiling under duress. The
watchtower loomed forbiddingly above the walls with flanking
buttresses and a dull copper cupola. The drab sleeping quarters
pressed against the lichen-rich west wall and the officers’ hall
hunkered down under the tower’s shadow, but otherwise there were no
other outbuildings present, except what might be called the hive,
that dome-like sickly yellow construct hanging off the south
rampart.

The men stood
up to re-assess their new inmates. Baus felt a singular chill crawl
over his skin, what with the unpleasant grins, clucks and hoots
that came his way. Nuzbek was affected no less, but for some
perverse reason seemed to take exception to the attention given the
ridiculous black magic cap with which he still chose to crown his
head. He threw a deprecatory remark at the eye-winking Leamoine and
got himself into another unsalutary scuffle . . .

II

Baus and
Weavil’s adjustment to the daily duties in the yard proceeded
slowly. Certain activities granted rigor, which included
fish-cleaning, clam-shucking, stone-chipping, wood-chopping and
lugging stones to build the sea wall. Re-mortaring the gaol’s high
stone bulwark was also high on this list, which grew in disrepair
every year. Every third or fourth day, a new group of convicts was
summoned to apply blocks to the seawall. Heagram’s new construction
scheme, brainchild of Prefect Barth, included the plan to protect
the town’s heritage buildings by the old port from the killing
breakers that raged during the winter months. Four to five inmates
toiled away on the construction, hoisting stone upon stone,
packing, sealing the cracks, while Voin the general contractor,
watched on with critical attention. He monitored the work with a
vulpine ferocity, correcting every mistake or error of judgement.
While the free labour was a bonus, the convicts did not like it one
bit and toiled and groused, and only a single guard was present,
usually Ausse. An iron ball was affixed to each ankle, effectively
negating any chance of escape.

This was the
fourth day of Baus’s incarceration and today Valere, Zestes and
Boulm were on seawall duty. Dighcan, Lopze, Nolpin and Nuzbek
cleaned fish in the yard. Baus and Weavil were assigned to
clam-shucking along the seaward side, a task both despised. A neck
high pile of clam shells rose at their side—rich with the same
fermenting reek with which Baus was altogether too familiar in his
own vocation—or
former
vocation, should he say.

The land at
this quarter dipped down to the sea. Looking back toward the
barracks, Baus could hardly see the tops of the hazel tree where
the fish-gutters worked.

He stooped
low, clapping a rock to a live clam on a flat chipping stone. The
shell exploded and ripping out the lukewarm meat, he flung it into
one of the wicker baskets. So the morning had passed, and with a
hundred other shell-crackings.

Baus loosed a
sigh. From the frying pan into the fire! he raged grimly. Working
free of charge on seafood-gutting to feed the ungrateful gullets of
Smilly’s taproom or those at Snogmald’s tavern. Something,
somewhere had gone tremendously sour.

Baus turned
his attention to other more profitable pursuits—namely that of
escape. Despite Graves’ emphatic warning, he had bent his mind
hastily on a plan of flight from the outset. Clearly the prison
walls were too high to scale; the rock was too smooth to be
breached by any conventional means; no less did Oppet’s pike-nosed,
flesh-champing dogs pose any helpful backdrop.

Weavil,
heavily dispirited by the glum turn of events, had sunk into a
deeper mire of gloom. The midget was less wont to joke, or join in
on songs with Baus.

The behaviour
disturbed Baus for the reason of pure aesthetics. It had him
arresting his clam-snapping and cheering Weavil out of his
doldrums. “You are flagging, Weavil! We must all look on the bright
side. Where one frets, one languishes. Where have gone all your
infectious drolleries?”

“Flown away
with the ekloons,” sighed Weavil.

“Shameful,
shameful!” Baus scolded. “Like all great men we must retreat to our
stronger place, treat impediments as immutable opportunities to
excel beyond the modes of internal statute imposed upon us by
casual circumstance.”

Weavil’s leer
became a saturnine grimace. “You can seek comfort in all the
‘causalities’ you want, glibster. I wish only my former self—as a
healthy, five foot, nine inch poet.”

“You will,
Weavil!” thundered Baus in a cocksure voice. “We shall confront
this gingerstamp Nuzbek and in due time we will compel him to
renounce his villainous ways. He shall reverse this foul deed of
his! Even if we must move all the asteroids in dreaded Cygnus, we
shall force the magician to do his duty!”

“A fine
ambition,” scoffed Weavil. He hunched in despair in the chill, face
down and tapping his clams with a listless energy.

Baus paused,
stroking his chin with a spark of reflection. “We must venture
cautiously, Weavil. Any attempt to blunder in the dark will doom
us. Lawbreakers, lunatics, maniacs—all are in our midst; they will
make mincemeat of our jejune persons. We must trust to our thinking
intuition, install cunning deceits, concoct suitable strategies to
outwit the evil around us!”

Weavil stared
in contempt at Baus. “Where were these cunning ‘strategies’ while I
was being pickled like a common crab-apple in Nuzbek’s jars? As I
recall, you augmented your own blamelessness by enhancing my own
guilt.”

Baus gave a
cry of resentment. “This accusation is based on a flawed concept!
Chagrined and upset at the turn of events, I was forced to adopt
desperate measures to maintain existence—an act with which you can
empathize. You are my comrade, Weavil, nothing less, and you should
be able to understand!”

Weavil gave a
chirp of disgust. “Pure claptrap!”

Baus tsked and
shook his head. Over the course of the disputation, there came a
period of existentialist talk in which Weavil finally postulated
that life was not simply a struggle for survival, but that every
man, woman was out for himself, nothing more.

Baus shivered
at such a simplification and tended toward a more global, unified
spectrum of thinking, based upon the view that the many beautiful
things in life were like pure art and literature and needed to be
placed on a higher plane of order, beyond the crass hands of human
conflicts. Ministered to and expressed with a fine tool of earnest
need, they remained protected. To this end, Weavil voiced only a
sneering refutal.

Baus thought
the reaction ungracious. He peered at his friend with a sidelong
concern. Weavil looked far too small for the burdens he carried.
What to do? The manikin, head bowed with tiny hands twitching, must
glower and lick his wounds as needed. Baus was not so easily
discouraged by Nuzbek’s thaumaturgy. Somewhere there existed a
solution to the problem of immediate escape—which meant it was
there for discovery . . .

Scanning the
prison wall for the hundredth time, he found the rampart
insurmountable—if anything, it was spiked in the remote quarter
with higher and more jagged glass. Over the north-east junction,
limbs of hazelwood sprang, but far out of reach—a discouraging
fact. A barely discernible murmur of distant waves swirled about
the bluffs. The languid moan of the wind brought a chill to his
bones. How it twinged Baus’s heart to hear such plaintive windsong!
To be free and roam the beaches once again! He had taken his
pleasures for granted—but no longer!

Baus paused,
frowning. Near a dip in the land, over on the wall . . . there was
a large oblong crack outlined in the pale slate. A stone—perhaps?
Maybe a foot in diameter—perhaps dislodged by age . . .

Baus stirred
himself. He glanced both ways, held his breath. To ensure that
Skarrow or Tilfgurd was not looking his way, he side-slipped over
to the wall and peered cautiously about. Cramming his fingers into
the crack, he attempted to jar the stone loose.

No luck. The
impediment was immoveable. He could not displace the stone, but if
perhaps a small person like Weavil could slide through unhindered .
. .

The hope was a
longshot. It would take heavy tools and significant labour to
dislodge such a rock. Not impossible, but hardly a facile task . .
.

Another
disheartening thought: Weavil may squeeze through the crevice, but
Heagram, far away, perhaps a mile or more, was accessible only via
the grim woods, densely thicketed with crag-thistle and
blisterweed. Doubtless the terrain would pose an insurmountable
difficulty to Weavil’s mobility. How could his shrunken comrade
hope to transport himself through the brake before any of the
guards discovered his absence?

The dilemma
was real. Baus accepted his plight with solemnity. Escape seemed as
lofty as instant riches, quite possibly as impossible as
impossibility itself.

With a dull
reminder of this misfortune, Baus returned to the monotony of his
clam-shucking. Occasionally he mumbled curses or glanced at the
wall, but these gestures did not help. A new line of reasoning
entered his brain. For example, this evening could he bandy words
with Graves to see what could be done about this cock-eyed
sentence? What were a few miserable cils, after all?—The smallest
bite on the Captain’s foot was Weavil’s crime—a picayune prank.
Were not Nuzbek’s infractions all the more serious?

After dinner,
the prisoners took time to digest their cold onion pudding and
stewed yams to reflect upon the day’s labour. Leisure hours were
few and Baus took opportunity to request an audience with Graves
through Tilfgurd. Baus received a brief consultation with the
Captain and inside the office, he confronted him on the issue of
his sentence.

Graves,
however, was obdurate.

“Captain, you
are a stickler! How can I repay these debts of mine while I am in
gaol and I can no more earn cils than court damsels?”

Graves
arranged his bearing without concern. “This is an evocative
conundrum, which in all practicality raises profound questions. I
advise you to forget it. I merely uphold the law, which in relation
to you, states that people owing monies to other people are
incarcerated until they can repay such funds.”

Baus’s mouth
dropped agape. “This is a pleonastic logic. Admitting nothing other
than the presence of inept thinking! I demand justice!”

“File your
complaint to Judge Witherhum then,” grunted Graves. “His Honour
shall be free in about eight months from now.”

“Unreasonable!
I might contract a virulent disease by then.”

“The
possibility is remote,” argued Graves, “but unlikely. Regard the
facts: you tender no funds, you have no one to secure your bail.
You are without employment and without sympathizers. A rather
unfortunate situation, but what of it? If I were not such a
seasoned law-enforcer, I might feel pity.”

“Opinions
only!” snorted Baus. “Possibilities, facts!—they are all noise to
my ears.”

“You are
entitled to your views.”

Graves
summoned Tilfgurd. The discussion was over and Baus was dragged
away, Skarrow informing the Captain that an important errand was in
hand, involving a missing bucket of hoarfish and two sick wegmors
in town. . .

III

As was
customary, at half past six, the convicts gathered at the barracks
to engage in their evening game of ‘Flanks’—a friendly competition
that took pleasure at hurling projectiles at puppet-caricatures of
inmates in order to profit on bets on razing them to the ground.
The playing field was a worn track thirty yards long by ten yards
wide, an area of pinkish sand cleared of grass, stones, tussocks
and spongebush.

Tonight was
the fourth evening of the incarceration of Baus and Weavil and Baus
watched thoughtfully as the men drew their missiles and took
practice shots. The list of objects to hurl included clams,
molluscs, fish spines, pebbles, rocks, dead branches and beobar
cones, anything a convict could find . . . Each man fabricated his
golem: a creature from wood, shells, rock, weeds or mud. The size
of each icon was strictly regulated—no golem could be any smaller
than six inches high by two inches wide.

Baus leaned
forward to better hear the boasts of Dighcan and Zestes. Paltuik
and Valere were not far behind. In Baus’s mind’s eye, he saw the
rules of engagement as an unabridged and slightly elaborate version
of ‘bowl-the-bottle’, easily a town favourite. Each prisoner had
with three attempts to knock over his adversary’s icon: a knockover
earned him six points, a slice, three, a dismemberment twenty. The
last icon left standing was declared the victor. The loser not only
forfeited his
bander
-the ‘article wagered’ on the bet—but
agreed to play out a certain minimum number of rounds decided upon
in advance. If a player were to forfeit all his bander after the
requisite rounds, he would receive a debasement, or at least an
embarrassing drubbing. The humiliations ranged from footling
roughhousing to extenuating rigors, spanning the gamut from a
single, jocular rump-boot, to a double-switching with
strangle-weed, being stripped naked or forced to jog around the
compound cane-whipped by hooting inmates. Rewards as these remained
contingent upon the severity of the loss. Men acquired articles of
bander while relieving themselves of stresses, a practice which
Captain Graves approved, owing to the health benefits and increased
morale among the prisoners.