Patrick deWitt - Undermajordomo Minor

“Yes, yes.”

“A madman,” Klara said, shaking her head in wonder.

“Not mad,” said Lucy. “Just simple. A barn animal, really. I might put his mental age at that of a five-year-old, and not a particularly bright five-year-old, either.”

“But whatever did you do?”

“I defended myself, naturally, and forced Tor from my home. Not without a knock or two to remember me by, I might add.”

“You? Oh, but you are so slight.”

“I am agile, is what.”

“Is that so?”

“Very agile and quick and fit.”

“I wouldn’t have guessed it.”

“I could cross a room in the time it takes you to blink your eyes.”

“Well.”

“Yes. So it was that I sent him packing that first night, thinking that would be the end of it. But he was relentless, and it seemed that each time I left my home, then Tor would come barrelling around a corner and make for me.”

“Who in the world could live under such circumstances?” asked Klara.

“Not I.”

“No one could.” Klara became thoughtful, and again she regarded Lucy from a sidelong angle. “Perhaps it is that this misfortune will lead you to something better,” she said.

“Perhaps you’re right,” said Lucy. “As a matter of fact, I’m sure you are.”

This made Klara happy, and she hooked her arm in Lucy’s. “But, what shall we name the puppy?” she asked.

“I don’t know.” Lucy was staring at her snaking hand.

Wistfully, she said, “I like the name, Rose.”

“Rose?” said Lucy.

“Rose,” she repeated.

Her hand came to rest atop Lucy’s, and he said, “We’ll call her Rose, then.”

And they did do this.

She invited him over for tea, which led to supper, with only the two of them in the shanty, as Memel and Mewe had gone away to Listen to work the crowds at a solstice celebration. The hours drew past, and there was nothing like a slack moment, for no sooner would Klara answer a question of Lucy’s than she would ask a question herself, and then back again, until the village had gone quiet, and all were in for the night. At one point Lucy screwed up his courage and said,

“Just who is this Adolphus?”

Klara looked away. “He is a soldier I knew.”

“Knew or know?”

“Know. I don’t know. I haven’t seen him in months. And I don’t know where he goes, when he does.”

“But you wish you did?”

“Sometimes I do.” Klara looked back at Lucy. “Perhaps you might find it flattering, that I have an inclination to lie to you about this.”

“Perhaps I might,” he said.

Rose lay on the table, dozing in between them; they both stroked her but were careful never to touch each other’s hands. Lucy could have stayed up all night, but when Klara stifled a yawn, he stood, and said he would take his leave. Klara nodded; her hair was mussed and she smiled at him as he stood at the door. He walked through the village and up the hill to the castle, crossing the still entryway and pausing at the bottom of the stairwell to fish out a squat candlestick from his trouser pocket. Rose began to squirm, and so he let her down onto the ground. She disappeared around the bend of the stair and Lucy, lighting the candle, followed after. The bulbous flame was jouncing up and down as he took the steps; arriving at the mid-point landing, he paused, thinking of how pleasing Klara’s face had appeared in the candlelight, and of the way she’d hid her smile in the shadows. He recalled looking over to find she was drawing her cheek back and forth against the fur collar of her cape; and this was a proud moment for him, one that he knew he would revisit any number of times in the coming days and months.

While cataloguing these happenings, he’d been peering absently into the darkened recess of the landing; and to look at him was to see a young man without a care or concern, a person for whom life posed no problems whatsoever, only opportunity, and adventure. But gradually this look left his face, and by degrees was replaced with an ever-more severe and serious one. A thought had entered his mind, a terrible suspicion, which was that the darkness into which he had been gazing was not empty at all, but that it held, or hid, something; that it held someone. He stared with an increasing intensity, scarcely drawing a breath. There was no movement in the darkness, but with each passing moment he became surer and surer that there was a body hiding in the recess; and, furthermore, that it was aware of his being there — that it was watching him as well.

Now a sound became audible, but this was so slight at the start that Lucy couldn’t be sure he was hearing anything at all. Soon it increased in volume, not so very much, but loud enough that Lucy could not deny its existence. He wasn’t certain what the sound was, but thought he could identify it; and he hoped with great fervency that he was mistaken. Alas, as it became louder, his suspicion was confirmed, and he lamented this, because of all the noises to hear, at this late hour and in this lonely location, here was the one he least wished to witness, and it filled him with the direst dread. It was the sound of someone hungrily, gutturally eating.

Lucy raised his candle, and this cast a jewel of milky light in the darkened corner, where he could now make out the proportions of a man, and a wretched man at that, crouched on the floor and outfitted in nothing more than ragged tweed trousers. His bare back was all bones, the flesh coated in grime, and the bottoms of his feet, tucked under his legs, were painted in the blackest filth. Lucy could not see what the man’s feast consisted of, his face being hidden behind a curtain of long and grease-matted hair, but he ate with something beyond gusto, groaning slavishly, his body shuddering as the consumption of his meal reached its pleasurable capstone. Lucy’s hand was trembling, and so the candlelight also was trembling. Where is Rose? he thought.

The man ceased eating and turned towards Lucy. His face was covered in blood, and he held in his hands the remains of a small animal, its middle section eaten away save for a ribbon of black fur connecting its halves. A smile crept across his face as he stood; fur and red-purple flecks of meat and entrails clung to his emaciated body. He was panting, and his eyes were so wild that Lucy could not regard them directly. The man was laughing, but stifling this, as though he didn’t want to make any sound, as though he might disturb someone; or, bizarrely, as if fearful of offending Lucy. He stood and moved closer, holding the remnants of his feast up to the candlelight. Lucy found he couldn’t not look down, and in doing so he was at once encouraged and discouraged to see not the body of Rose, but that of a very large rat. The man too was watching over the carcass, only with something like adoration, or satisfaction. When he lifted the remains to his mouth and lovingly chewed at the stubborn string of fatty fur to halve the thing, Lucy’s revulsion was such that his world became liquid, and he lost consciousness, falling away to the ground.

He awoke the next morning in his own bed, Rose licking his face, his head gauze-wrapped, his skull lumped and tender. There came a knock on his door and Agnes entered carrying a breakfast tray. He sat up and she set the tray upon his lap; pouring him a cup of tea, her face was nearer to his than it had ever been before — he noticed she had a downy cheek, and the balled red ear of a newborn. She placed a spoon in his hand and moved to sit in the rocking chair, patiently and wordlessly observing Lucy while he ate. After he had finished, she removed the tray and set it by the door before returning to the chair. Folding her hands, then, and with what seemed to be repressed irritation, she said, “Now, I’d like to know just what it is you think you’re doing here, boy.”