The Fecund's Melancholy Daughter - Brent Hayward [79]
“I feel great. Just fucking great. And you ain’t taking none of my blood to look at for yer little bugs.” Grunting, and a calloused foot landed on the sill; those forearms tightened.
“Blood? I don’t want to consider your blood. But come no closer! Why isn’t your mouth covered?”
“Your little friends out there checked me on the climb. They done their tests to let me up. Your creepy helper and such. Now you just wait to see what I brung you. I was all excited-like and I forget to bring my mask. But I’m clean—”
“Remain there!” The castellan backed off. Infections and emanations from inside this cretin could kill a horse.
But the big man had clambered in. He stood in the dungeon, grinning, trying to catch his breath. He had his trap bag over his shoulder.
“You’re mad. I’ll need to have the area scrubbed. Cover your mouth, at least.”
“Look at this.” Still grinning, Tully held out the bag.
“Eh? That’s— That’s no cobali.” The castellan could tell by the way the bag hung. Forgetting his fears for a second—for he was beginning to tingle with excitement—he watched the heavy body in the bag—one body, the size of small dog or cognosci—move. If Tully had brought him the latter, the castellan would be furious: the beasts were stupid and filthy. Tully knew that. Yet movements in the bag mesmerized the castellan. “What do you have? What’s in there?”
“May I approach?”
“Stay on your side. Turn your face away. Are your hands clean, at least?”
Tully laughed. “Clean as my arse, I suppose.” He took a few steps closer, without invitation, still holding out the bag. “For the love of the gods, why do I have to see your wrinkled old johnson every time I come up here?”
“Please, show decorum.” The castellan stepped back even more, to keep distance between himself and Tully.
One bushy eyebrow cocked. “And did you see them, castellan? Roaring through on their mysterious errands?”
“Who?”
“The goddesses. Just a short time ago.”
“What? What are you saying? I might have heard some commotion or other from down there. Always some commotion from you lot. Don’t change the subject.”
The last cobali, tugging on the cords that tied it to the table, watched in terror as the large man approached.
“You see,” said Tully, “I was at South Gate—”
Holding up one hand, the castellan gave the command for silence. So many creatures were borne on the winds that issued from the bellows of the chest and from the lips of others when they spoke or when they breathed. These could sicken a man, transform him, and even kill him if he was in a weakened state.
Plus, Tully talked an incessant load of shit.
“Will it try to escape? Whatever it is. Will it? Nod or shake your head.”
Tully chuckled and shook his head, putting the bag down on the table. In a loud whisper, he said, “From outside the city. I watched ’em come in. He can’t go nowhere.”
“He? Remove the bag.”
Tully did so, and out rolled a boy with no arms and no legs, face clenched tight, blinking his tiny eyes in the dungeon’s light. His forehead was massive, his lantern-jaw jutting. Yet, for a moment, the castellan was too stunned to comprehend what he was even looking at.
Empowered by the reports of numerous eyewitnesses, several of whom were among his own palatinate, visions of returning gods had inflamed him, invigorated him. He had not seen them, for they were gone by the time he got outside, but nevertheless his decision to oversee the morning’s trial had been ordained and validated; the chamberlain felt a great deal more vital than he had for as long as he could remember. A time of rebirth! His limbs did not ache and his heart thudded in his chest like that of a younger man. This was a renaissance for him, for the palatinate, for all Nowy Solum.
The eyes of the chamberlain glinted like pieces of polished stone. His face was firm, lined with stern crevasses. He stood very still in the Ward of Jesthe, fingers together, his robe sweeping the floor, adding to the illusion that he might be a statue. On his head he wore a red miter, the same red as his gown,