Vol.7, Ch.2, P.7
As a humble soul, I must confess: that was hardly my most graceful escape, having bruised the bum here and splashed the map there some hundred times along the way. But I stuck it. Wheezing lungs and swimming eyes be dashed, I stuck it. Even after the studitōrium had receded well into the back-g., and yours truly had been generally reduced to a ghost too drained for another “boo”, the Håkansson hoofs kept hauling.
But at one point along the travail, a thought conked the old lemon.
No! Wait! Rein the horses, André! Don’t you see? Don’t you remember? This precisely recalls the soup at Déu Tsellin, for heavens’ sake! Come on, you steaming fathead! Think! What fell out when Śāṭān appeared and scarred your poor soul there? Why, you bally beetled off, didn’t you? Ran away like a rat with cats, tigers, dragons, and giants charging after your tail, what? And amidst that blind self-bunging of yours, what happened? Well, what? Spill it all right this instant, André Håkansson!
…I’d tripped, is the answer. Like a barrel sozzled off its own beer, I’d tripped and gyrated down the full length of Déu Tsellin’s spine. Yoná’s teats, if that hadn’t been an experience to plague the nightly hour.
When I’d come to, if you would recall along with me, the Håkansson frame was cracked on all sides. Ribs, feet—I’d been left broken, tenderised, and just about ready for the old spit and fire. But what I didn’t relate in the pages prior was how I’d bally got out of that soupiest of soups. To snip a long story short, I’d squirmed my way down the valley, all alone and helpless, till I’d come upon a misty stream. And it’s there, whilst a desolate André was lapping up the cold waters, that a chance encounter had occurred: namely with a crayfish, emerging from the moisture for its morning stretches.
I’d dived at it. Dived, like a hawk after a sliver of bacon, let me tell you. But when the crustacean was firmly seized in the talons, I hadn’t sucked it down the esophagus as might a wild beast. Heavens, no. We Håkanssons are of a civilised strain, full of courtesy and all that. No; rather, I had, to put it diplomatically, “enlisted its cooperation”. And agreeing to the arrangement like the kindly, gentlething that it was, the crayfish proceeded to serve me to miraculous effect in, if you would indulge me again my diplomacies, “coaxing” its more piscine companions to waters of a more gastric composition, as it were. Well, perfectly forgivable, you’d agree. After all, without the bait—blighter, I mean—without the shelled little blighter, then André Håkansson would’ve been, by this point, but a pile of bones left to twiddle his thumbs at the bottom of a glen for the rest of eternity.
Anyway, all that to say that I had to stop. Stop André! Stop beetling! Before you slip into the same rut! You’re a son of Man, aren’t you? A creature of reflection and growth and whatnot!
So screamed the Håkansson soul. And being good lads, the feet directly cheesed, the lungs leashed in their panting hounds, and the bodily chariot clattered to a halt. And looking about with rediscovered composure, I found myself at the edge of some coppice.
The bean glowed bright. That’s it! I should shove the self in amongst these trees and wait out this beastly situation! Brilliant, what? Absolutely. But no sooner had I begun to turn thought into action than did the ears prick out of the blue. Dear Deiva—I wasn’t alone. Chirruping past a bending dell ahead was a voice. Two voices, in fact. Two voices in talk. Enemy voices.
Goosebumps broke. That’d certainly been a close one. Had I legged it any further in my drivelling panick, no doubt I’d now be found out and on the receiving end of the customary Salvator “welcome”. But though relieved, I wasn’t to stay long. The voices were waxing. The men manning their mouths were nearing. Right-ho. Time again to biff off.
…Only, I couldn’t. Not at all! Directly I swivelled ’round and the studitōrium entered my sight, my legs both turned to mush, yapping, “No! Mercy, master! Mercy!” I pressed them as to why, and my heart answered instead with a severe “Who do you think is waiting back there, you yolkless egg!” I took the point. Never mind about fleeing to the blazing imbroglio that was the studitōrium. Turn back, and I might very well find Śāṭān charging after me all drenched in the redness. Good heavens! Anything but that!
But what then? What ought I do? ’Round and ’round I scoured, weeping and slinging snot every which way, till I happened upon it: past all the tears and general muck of the eyes, there was a canvased wain parked and sniffing the weeds nearby.
Hallo. The coppicers’ stuff, perhaps? Oh, forget that! In I go! Nothing for it, anyway!
Summoning up my inner stowaway, I bunged it to the four-wheeler, crammed the self under its canvas, and lay low and still as a brat with a guilt. And presently, the two voices came ankling ’round, accompanied by the huffs and hoofs of some horse.
This was the moment. Please just pass, please just pass, I prayed, feeling the Håkansson heart beating against the bars.
“…Ah… here we are, then…” I overheard one of the men speaking in a slippery glide.
“…Well, blimey…!” the other blared in a laugh. He sounded like a toad. “…That’s proper wily, innit, slippin’ in weapses on a wain… ’Em gormless guards… really took it for a coppicers’ cart, didn’t they… heh heh…!”
Gormless guard? Why—I beg your pardon!
Wait. Hold that thought. “Wain”? “Weapses”? There hadn’t been any “weapses” on this blighted thing, had there? I looked over my shoulder to confirm, and then gaped in a lungless gasp.
Oy!? It cannot be! Surely these blighters mean for some other bally wain! For the love of Yoná and all Her angels, please let it be so!
“…Hyah, hyah…!”
No good. All prayer was as dust in the wind. After hitching up the horse, the two blisters had boarded the wain. And hyah-hyah’ing their beast to get going, the vehicle grumbled, and we were off.
Well, if this didn’t biff and blow the spirit. Although truth be told, I should’ve known. Of course they’d meant this wain. There hadn’t been another in all the dashed place, thinking about it. Drat! Of all the bally things to happen! But nay! It’s out of the soup and into the boiling cauldron for André! Drat it, I say!
“…So, whereto with this, eh…?”
“…Thither… South and west-ish…”
The wain rocked as it rowed. All about me as I lay was the unceasing rattle and jostle of my bedmates: that is, a whole family reunion of weapons. Indeed, the toad-toned of the two men hadn’t been jesting: maces and spikes, swords and spears—whatever to give a bloke an uncomfortable time, it was all bundled here in a whacking heap. And the odd one out amongst them? Why, none other than André Håkansson, the bluntest blade to have ever left a mother’s anvil.
“…A ‘glamour’, were it…? The magick wot’s mask’d us…? Like in the faerie tales…?” I heard the ribbiter bringing up later on. “…Ya reckons it’s still, er, glammin’ an’ all…? ’Cos blimey if we’ve got noses pokin’ in the croft to trouble for…”
“…No twouble about it…” next glode the rhotist. “…With an Apocwyphum like that, your keenest hound won’t catch a whiff of my stinkiest sock…!”
By the Deiva. I say, what? The breaths cheesed. The thoughts scurried. “Glamour”? “A pocked griffon”? I hadn’t heard any of this humbug whilst with the Salva—wait, no! This must be it! One of those situations, those soups! Where you overhear something you bally well aren’t supposed to, and the next thing you know, you’re gagged, bagged, and dragged off to who-knows-where!
“…Aye, well… speakin’ o’ whiffs… reekin’ pity the bomb hadn’t bury’d the princess…”
“…Oh, she’ll be buwied… soon or late…”
“…Ah, but wot ’bout ’em, er, Himmel tykes, eh…? Can’t well bury ’em all so soon, can we…?”
“…Soon enough… once the west of us awwive… Don’t you wowwy… The wats’re in their gwaves alweady…”
No, no, no, no! Quit running off your mouths, you two! There’s an innocent aboard, don’t you know! An unwilling and uninvolved party! If you’re going to plot and snicker, then at least be a bit more hush-hush about it, if you get me! I mean to say, have some deuced sense, men! Sense!
“…Aye, that’s fair… Clear ’way this dog’s dinner… an’ all the world’ll be cleansed o’ this ‘reconciliation’ shite… Peh…! Bus’ness brazen blasph’mous, if e’er there were ’ny…!”
Cheese it, I said! Cheese it! This very instant! Carry on this rot in some blasted dungeon or bally wherever you villains go in for nowadays! Just nowhere near my earshot, dash it! For I say again, I want absolutely nothing to do with this rot! A cricket like me prefers to stay in his dark little corner, can’t you see! Not pushed astage with all the audience goggling agog! Come on! Think of the crickets! Us poor and cricking little crickets!
Anyway, if you haven’t guessed, I’d very well lost my marbles by that point. A sobbing, hiccupping, huddling mess of a man, if you can picture it, with whats and wheres and whys filling all the crumb of his loaf. But as not a single answer deigned to dawn, I stuck to gagging the respiration like my life depended on it—for it bally well did—as on and on the wain rocked, dragging me away to who-knows-where.
♰
“…All right… ’Ere’bouts be good, methinks…”
“…Aye… Park this here, and the chaps’ll know to fetch it…”
“…Cheers, then… But, er… ’oo’s to watch it…? We ain’t got lads in that there book’ouse yet, ain’t we…?”
“…No, another team’s soon to take post there… But once they’re in, we will’ve got eyes and ears all about this place… and then ev’wy path westward’ll weally be locked down snug…’
So went the last I’d heard from the ribbiter and the rhotist. With horse in tow, they waddled off and away. I remained. Oh, thank jolly heaven! They hadn’t bothered a trifle to review the goods, stowaway and all! And here I’d been, dreading the moment like some last judgement! Why, those blisters must’ve been bally sanguine about whatever their dashed scheme was, skipping inspections and all! Indeed, it well appeared the fates’ fondness for old André hadn’t completely dried up!
Very timidly now, I oozed out from under the canvas and trickled off the wain, only to find that I couldn’t stick the landing. The ordeal had reduced my knees to wobbling hinges. Drat. Come on, André. Deep breaths, now. Deep. There’s a good lad. Revive the vim with the vital air.
“Hhoo… haaa…”
That did just the trick. The heart deflated to a simmer, and the knees slowly slotted back into their moorings. It certainly helped that peril was finally back behind the horizon where it belonged. Right-ho. Good sense was coming back to roost. And directly plying what I could, I next recalled what the frog and the fop had spilt during that ride.
“Bookhouse”, was it? Well, sure enough, there the bally thing was, sitting a stone’s throw or three away from the side of a causeway whence I now stood. Meaning, if the old maps hadn’t deceived, that I’d been wheeled to the north-west of this dashed school.
I racked the bean. There was the other B to consider. “Blasphemy” or some swill like that, one to be “cleansed from this world”. By Yoná, that doesn’t sport the tranquil note at all, what? Well, I suppose it’s unavoidable that a get-together as world-shifting as today’s is all but liable to invite no few detractors and derailers. Flies to filth and all that. But really, now? Haven’t these foaming blighters got anything better to do? I mean, biffing ’round and proving a general nuisance seems more the pastime of the little imps we call “children”, what? Ghastly!
At any rate, it became clear that my hysterics had cooled down to a smooth sangfroid, despite the current soup. All these thick travails of late must’ve grown me a heftier pair, if you feel my fuzz. Excellent. But one twig remained stuck in the mud, as it were. Turning ’round, I pondered it: the wain.
It very well wouldn’t do to just leave it here, now would it? I mean, what with all the hard and pointy things bristling inside? Going by what those two blokes had said, I was willing to bet the family jewels that all these troublemakers larking about would soon put them to no chummy use. Absolutely not.
“…Best I tucked it away someplace, what?”
Tuck away was right. I mean to say, you wouldn’t expect me to help myself to some of the cargo, and then biff off to swashbuckle some sense and manners into these ranklers? No, no, no, what piffle, hoh!
Well, shaking my head, I gave the environs a thorough goggle-through. And then—ah, there we are: a break in some shrubbery beside the bookhouse, perfectly snug and inconspicuous to park a coppicers’ wain at.
Directly I got to it, and began lugging the four-wheeled demon. And Deiva dash it, if the thing wasn’t a whale of a weight. If I hadn’t known any better, I should’ve thought it a whole bally army’s worth of “weapses” back there. Mercy!
Anyway, I stuck it, heaving the ho with a sporting bit of Håkansson derring-do. And after raining a sweat and fearing if the awful noise wouldn’t alert every ear in all the school, I got the blasted thing into posish, and stood there febrile and stertorous like a bedraggled bagpipe.
“T… topping… This… this ought do…” I wheezed to the self.
Well, all fine and capital now that the day’s good deed was done with, but next? Were it my way, I should like to humour my original idea of wriggling into some spot out-of-sight and awaiting the blowing-over of this beastly shindy. Only, “where” was the rub. After all, if what the men’d said were true, then the bookhouse as I looked at it would soon be infested with more of the miscreants.
The fingers snapped. Shrubbery! I turned to the wain behind, and saw that the greenery ’round it was juicily grown and whatnot. There was even a fruity deal of trees behind it. Hotsy-totsy, the plan’s in the bag! No one would bother coming ’round to snoop, I should think. Of course not. Good graces, you’re a genius, André! You truly have grown some shrubbery down there of your own, haven’t you!
Now then, time to mingle with the green and have myself a much-deserved nap…
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Notes
Apocryphum
(Language: Late Latin; plural: Apocrypha) A religious writing kept from public consumption due to differences in canonicity. Later on, such a work deemed of questionable authorship. In Soot-Steeped Knight, also refers to a secret and systematically suppressed magick.
Glamour
(Language: Scots) An enchantment that exchanges the appearance of an object for another, typically for the better. In Soot-Steeped Knight, a seldom strain of magick that achieves the same end, but rather through meddling with the senses of the beholder.
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