Headless Over Heels ch 2.42 - Charlie (Patreon)

“The Verdugo with his thirsty sword came riding on his bay,” Annalise sang, cheerfully wavering between keys as Demetrius’ heavy tread and swishing tail sent confetti-inflected breezes up the bridge. “Sing who’s the something something la la head I’ll take today. Y’went and stuck this one in my head, you wee spanner.”

“Call it making up for spare time.” Seth brushed a strand of stray bunting off his black tailcoat’s sleeve. “That song’s a pure classic. Can’t believe you hadn’t heard it.”

Beneath his shiny new saddle, Annalise al Equis blinked slow and rubbed her snout on Demetrius’ flank, ears low.

“I’m not an expert on horses by any means,” Seth said. “But I’m was beginning to suspect this meek little stolen pony is developing a crush on The Meat Man.”

”Y’know, now that you mention it…” Annalise (the person, not the horse) steered Demetrius to the left, away from Annalise (the horse, not the person).

Annalise (the horse again) made a distressed little knickering noise as her stolid partner in ridden-ness trudged further away.

“Blow me down. I reckon you’re right.” Annalise (person) chuckled. “Now it’s even more urgent you give the poor filly a name. Can’t keep calling her Seth’s Horse.”

Seth patted Annalise al Equis’s mane down. “I will keep thinking about it.”

It was a parade day, and they traveled in the distant train of the rolling celebration. By the time they got to the Headtaker’s bridge, the crowd had thinned to a revelry of those unlit merrymakers who had come more for the day-drinking than the bassoons or the cheering. The festivities had moved North.

Seth steered around a black-and-white striped barrier fence that had come unlocked from its abandoned siblings. “Biggun today, huh?”

“Aye. Bordays always are during the reaping homecoming season. Another month or so of big pennants and confetti every weekend. And then we leave the whole mess where it lies for the grown-ups to clean up.” Annalise tipped her brim to the streetsweeper, who returned the favor with his peaked pillbox cap. “How many carriages today, goodman?”

“Ten, your ladyship.”

“Ten already.” Annalise whistled. “St. Procas’ Pecker. Must’ve taken all day.”

“Yes’m,” the custodian said. ”We’re in the thick of it now.”

“Saints bless you, fella.”

“Eh. It’s work.” He flipped his broomhead upward and plucked the stray petals from its bristles. ”Fine enough work for the season after a springtime full of public works and plumbing, sure. It’s a barrel sometimes, I tell ya, seeing the sorts of stuff they toss.”

“Any underthings today?” Seth asked.

“Oh, tons. Rarer they don’t throw skivvies, I tell you. Oughta open a damn boutique. Underthings is normal. Had a taxidermied bat this time.”

Annalise smiled in open-mouthed disbelief. “Bullshit.”

“Nerval,” the man called. “You got the bat?”

An unsmiling Sektoric sweeper held up the leering leathery corpse. One of its glass eyes had been knocked out in its final flight.

Annalise met its cyclopean glare. “Why in hell would anyone throw that?”

“Search me,” the sweeper said. “Why go to the parade in the first place, I ask. At least the Legion is out here killing seraphs. Why you’d idolize a butcher-bird fresh from killing a bunch of kindred is beyond me.”

Seth briefly considered spurring Annalise al Equis to trample this rude bastard with her dainty little hooves, but her human namesake just laughed. “I hear that, fella.” A flick of her wrist and a brace appeared between her fingers as if by magic—Seth had taught her that trick. “For cleaning up after us, goodman.”

He removed his cap and caught the flicking coin, then finished the gesture with a deep bow before putting the hat back on. “Hundred blessings from the hundred saints, goodwoman.”

“And yourself.” Annalise clicked her tongue and Demetrius snorted and was off again.

“You didn’t owe his ungrateful ass a thing, y’know,” Seth said. “Why waste a brace on a guy who thinks you’re scum?”

Annalise hummed. “And what’d you think of Verdugos before you met me, boyeen?”

“He’s a Necropolitan,” Seth said. “He didn’t grow up with the fear of the year.”

“Sword hangs over the Necropolis the same as it hangs over anywhere else, y’know,” Annalise said. “The Verdugo General’s the one who does the swinging, even. And she’s getting on in years. Takes her a couple whacks now and then.”

“Whatever. If I got stabbed as often as you do I wouldn’t be so reasonable with the people who stuck their nose up at me about it.”

“There’s some kind of sex joke in there,” Annalise observed, thoughtfully.

“We’re not still talking about my nose, are we?”

“Nah, the getting stabbed bit.”

Beyond the bridge and the forbidding granite chain-pull warriors who decorated it, the city had more effectively absorbed the revelry. The parade had evolved de novo into a bustling market day whose hawkers had arisen from the flurry of flotsam like mushrooms after a rainstorm.

“Flowers!” A murani salesgirl zeroed in on Seth from the front of a pushwagon loaded down with perfumed bouquets, some of whose blooms bore the telltale treadmarks of having been harvested from the street. “Calendula, roses, dahlias, shadowslips. Flowers, young sir? For your goodly mother, perhaps? She surely deserves them.”

“Who—my mother?” Seth rested a hand on the brocaded chest of his slim black tunic. “I can’t say she does, I’m afraid.”

“Youth these days.” The flower seller shook her head solemnly. “What’re we even keeping the dome up for.”

“Oh aye.” Annalise held her laugh in. “The boys are banjaxed, sure. You got any meadowsweet on that cart, sister?”

“Meadowsweet? Of course.” The muran picked through her bevvy of beauties. “A rather common flower for such a rare lady.”

“Mmm. Guess so.” Annalise accepted the simple, snowy bouquet by its paper stem. “Doesn’t make them less beautiful. And they’re my boy’s favorite.” She held the flowers out to Seth.

He drew his horse alongside hers to take them. She intercepted him by his lapel, and pulled him into a brief but deep kiss. Seth she surprised; the murani flower woman she thoroughly scandalized.

“Youth these days,” she laughed, and spurred Demetrius on past the cart and its gawking proprietress.

Annalise al Equis meekly followed her senior as her rider wiped his mouth. “If I didn’t know better,” Seth said, “I’d think you relish the scandal our age gap generates.”

“Me? Relish?” Annalise wiggled her hips atop Demetrius. “That’d be awful immature of me.” She finished the abridged handoff of the meadowsweets to Seth. “Filipendula Ulmaria. That’s what these are called. Or sheisi nukniam by the Murani herbalists. It’s interesting, what stays rattling around up here even after I put Alice back in her box.”

“Do me next.”

“Vulpes Voluptuarium,” Annalise said.

“I’ll assume that would be very funny, if I were as smart as Alice.”

“Oh, aye. A right messer, she is.”

The Bastion stood to receive them at the end of the bridge. Annalise veered to one side before its gothic gate and took Seth down a marble-tiled side street insulated from the echoing celebrations taking place in its great hall. Lines of increasingly intimidating and fancy footsoldiers exchanged salutes with her until the path disgorged them at a four-story octagonal donjon sprouting from the Bastion’s side. It was unadorned for a Bastion district building, which was to say it only had the one row of gargoyles on its rooftop and only a couple of exquisite statues in artful nudity standing in its relatively subdued sconces.

A pair of sentinels in full black plate opened the door for Annalise as a page ran up and took Demetrius’s bridle with impersonal precision. The guards turned their expressionless frog helms on Seth when he went to follow his liege; she halted on the other side of their steel hedgerow. “Easy, lads,” she said. “He’s with me.”

Without a word of protest they stood aside and let Seth through. “You thought I wasn’t with her?” he inquired as he passed. His words bounced off the guard’s ornate breastplate with all the lame effect of a bodkin arrow.

Through the door was a brief vestibule where another warrior waited for them beneath a tangle of exquisitely-formed chandelier. This one had his helmet under his arm. The protruding hawkish nose and the lines on the man’s desaturated forehead spoke of advanced age; the bulk of his armored body and the scars on his face attested to the brutal life he’d defied to get there.

“Annalise,” he said.

“Cristof,” she replied. “What’s the craic?”

By way of reply, the man took a blind step backward to the vestibule’s heavy stone door. On its face, like a frontispiece, stretched a textured and fanciful map of the last continent and the territories that made it up, with perspective-defiant kindred scattered across its scope, their faces caught in the serene detachment common to antique art.

The room beyond was a curious blend of altar and office. Shelves and records and scroll cases and reliquaries and a wooden desk carved with bristling wings, behind which, in unadorned robes of black cotton, sat—

Seth blinked. For a moment he thought there’d been some error. This couldn’t be—

But he recognized those high cheekbones, even though they were now drawn and sallow. That patrician brow, penned by worming varicose veins and raked across with care. That piercing stare that had looked up from how many ill-gotten braces, filmy and indistinct.

“It’s twelve past the 7th cast,” the sentinel murmured. “He’s had a long day.”

Annalise chewed the edge of her tongue. “A bad one?”

“They’ve been better.” The sentinel glanced to Seth. “Mind yourself around the Living Saint, boy.”

“Yeah, all right.” Seth barely had the focus to take umbrage with the fancy prancy pikeman. His attention was consumed by the mighty protector of the continent, the supreme commander of the Legion. On the coins, Charles il Nekropoli’s baldness was carefully kept and clearly intentional. In real life, gray hair wisped in a corona around his ears like husked corn.

It wasn’t that he was old. Seth had seen old folks who were spry, alive, even just in the eyes. But there was a kind of used-upness that planted the gray seeds of mortality’s dread into your mind.

Charles il Nekropoli was old, but that wasn’t why it was hard to look at him. He was broken.

Annalise’s steps echoed into the chamber. “Hey, Charlie,” she said, softly.

Charles’ faraway eyes rose and filled with adolescent awe. “Julianna?” he whispered, voice cracked and pitted like reliquary pottery.

“Nope.” Annalise tapped the side of her nose. “Annalise.”

“Annalise.” Charles drooped, as if his head was too heavy for its thin, mottled neck. For an excruciating moment Seth thought he’d fallen asleep, or worse, but then a dusty chuckle came from his throat. “Bleeding hell, I’m doddling. As if there could be mistaking yourself.”

Charles il Nekropoli IV was Orwinese. Seth had not known that.

“Blast it all, you came in with the last round, didn’t ya? Mallachtyr, and I missed it.” “Was it grand craic?”

“Ah, sure, you know yourself, oul fella. Didn’t miss much. Same old ruaille buialle.”

“The posh nosh is all notions, sure, but it’s grand craic, the parade,” Charles said. “Heard it, anyway. Pure loud bleeding bugles. Would’ve been nice to put in a how-do-ya-do, at least.”

“Ah, here, g’way with that,” Annalise said. “You need your rest.”

“Need a bleeding wooden onesie, me.”

Annalise rolled her eyes. “Give over, Charlie. Got plenty of hexis here for ya, and I’m plenty early. You’ll be all right once the carriages really come calling.”

Charles scoffed. “I will, yeah.”

“Rafi sends love, by the way. We split the party this year between us.”

“Rafi’s back this early? That old polecat would’ve been late to his own birth if he’d known the word for delay.” A connection sparked in Charles’ synapses. “Ahhh, now I remember hearing about this little to-do. Your boy got in a scrap, didn’t he? Passat ad something?”

“Sure look it, that’s boys for you. He came out all right.”

“This himself?” Charles squinted at Seth. “Saint Tyran, boy, you’re growing beards now, are ya?”

“Uh, no, my lord.” Shit—Seth really ought to have bowed by now. He did so belatedly. “I’m Seth al—il Gutierre.”

“Seth’s my man.” Annalise’s arm slipped around Seth’s waist. “We’ve been looking after each other this season.”

“Are you, now?” Charles’ smile was a log thrown onto a guttering fire; it revived him some. “That’s grand. Nobody deserves their happiness as much as you do, Jules.”

“Annalise.” She chuckled tolerantly. “Bats in your belfry there, Charlie.”

“Ah, hell.” He grimaced. “Don’t you go having to tell me about bats ‘n belfries.”

“I’m here to tell you something else.” Annalise’s eyes sparked brighter. “Something brilliant, Charlie. That head I was telling you about? We’ve got her. Her name’s Alice and she’s a wee genius. I reckon I’ll have that code of hers cracked in a month, tops, and then we’re well on our way to—” Habit forced her attention momentarily over her shoulder. “To fixing this.”

If Annalise had been hoping Charles il Nekropoli would hop from his throne and click his spindly heels, she was disappointed. His nod was slow and guarded. “Good,” he said. “That’s good.”

Her nose wrinkled. “What, that’s all I’m getting from ya? Charlie, it’s amazing.” Annalise hadn’t faltered when he’d forgotten her name twice. She did now. “You remember I told you about this? About what Niama al Tars had been working on? My plan?”

“Aye, girl,” Charles said gently. “I remember. But there’s been so many indistinct shapes in this fog of mine that have seemed like such grand hope. And when I drew close—poof.” He waved one wizened hand. “Couldn’t grasp a thing. Just more fog. So many promises. I hate to see you upset.”

“This one’s different, Charlie.” Annalise maneuvered herself back onto solid ground. “This one’ll work. I’ll show ya.”

“And remind me, this isn’t the one you’re doing with Dez?”

Annalise’s lips tightened. “Desdemona al Vhesse? No. Why? Has she been in?”

“It’s just I know you two were working on something once,” he said. “Last time I can remember you being this excited.”

A touch of her chill toward Desdemona cooled her reply. “That was a long time ago.”

“Ah, beg your pardon. Only remember your long time is different from mine.”

“Sure look it, I beg yours,” Annalise said. “We’re just, ah… has she? Been in? She mention me?”

“Verdugo al Ydris.” Charles’ mien hardened into that same cupronickel glare Seth remembered stamped on the money. “I tolerate these differences in approach and philosophy, girleen, but I do not involve myself in them. You’re the same Leigon. Remember that.”

“I will, sir.” Annalise covered any sting she might have felt with a salute. “Won’t bother you with it again.”

“Now to happier business. And your one here.” Charles smiled at Seth. “I imagine you’ve brought the boy along to see him given rank, eh?”

“Yes, sir. Uh, Your Grace.” Seth bowed again. You already did that, stupid.

Annalise’s arm on his shoulders as he came up gave him some shade from this glaring spotlight. “Aye, that’s right. My man’s here to enlist.”

Enlist was a bigger word than Seth had mused on himself, but he supposed it wasn’t wrong.

“Well.” Charles steepled his fingers. “What do you feel you deserve as rank, young sir?”

Surely that couldn’t be how it usually worked. Seth cast about for some formality but smartass replies were all he could find in the queue. “Anything past Teniyant and the twins will see me in the dirt, sir.”

The Sorcerer General laughed. “I can see why you like this fella, Annalise. Primary, I think. Verdugo Primary Seth il Gutierre. Respect on your name, but not so much that the al Ydrises can’t push you around.”

Annalise beamed and rubbed Seth’s back between his shoulder blades. “That’s bleeding decent of you, Charlie.”

“I can’t very well give a lower rank to a lad who detonated a blackfeather now, can I?” Charles il Nekropoli said, and winked. Nobody had mentioned the blackfeather. This frail old scarecrow was plugged in further than Seth had realized. “Where’s that bleeding sword of mine? There’s ceremony here. A dubbing sorta thing.”

“Don’t fuss yourself, now,” Annalise said. “Seth don’t mind just taking his title from a vicer, do you, boy?”

“Not at all,” Seth said. The Sorcerer General’s legs were shaking as he tried to stand. The sight spiked sympathy and discomfort through Seth in equal measure. He was eager to leave this grand, golden chamber as soon as he could.

“Ah, sound enough.” Charles sat heavily back down. “Take your commission elsewhere, laddy, but take this advice right from me, yeah?”

“Yes, Your Grace.”

Charles leaned forward. That fervent solemnity came briefly back. “After your soul, your youth is the greatest prize you can give the Legion,” he said. “Be neither a miser with it nor a fool. And mind your Exark.”

Seth bowed one more time. This one felt only appropriate. “I will, Your Grace.”

“Good, then.” Charles visibly relaxed. “I’ll leave this young wheelgun with you, then, Jules.”

Annalise did not correct him this time. Only raised his spindly knuckle and gave it a light brush of her lips. “Love you, Charlie,” she murmured. “Your Grace.”

She took Seth away, then, and he had one last look at the frail filament that lit the Deathspell before the vast ring-handled double doors shut behind them, and the distressing truth of the Sorcerer General was hidden behind the towering edifice of the stone continent.