| | I've been working on a short story...If one had been carefully watching the denizens of the Pub, one might
have noticed a new figure who had not entered in through the door.
(Though if one was clever one might have remembered that the window in
the Men's Privy was usually left open.)
He was fairly tall, and wore a high-collared cloak of black. Black was
his waistcoat, too, as was his shirt, his cummerbund, his trousers, and
his high leather boots. There was a bit of white lace at his throat,
and a thin silver lining on his tricorn hat, and the glitter at his hip
was a light cavalry saber (ostensibly pried from the hands of the
soldier who had once owned it). But nothing else relieved the darkness
that clothed him--as though the very Night herself was his covering.
He approached a table in the door-side corner, and the candles seemed
to dim, and the flames of the hearth quieted like a scolded dog. He
sat, and leaned his elbows upon the table. When the barmaid came, he
let fall two coins of aged silver upon the wooden surface.
"Blood," he said, in a whisper that seemed to fill the room. "Human blood."
"Here now, what sort of establishment do you think I'm running?"
demanded the barmaid in a loud voice. "This isn't Paris, you know.
There's no blood to be had here."
The Dark Lord rose slowly to his feet. He took the barmaid's hand in
his own and kissed it, lightly, on the back of her fingers. "Your own
will do," he said, barely audible.
The barmaid said nothing. Her eyes seem suddenly vacant, and her mouth gaped slightly.
"You will fetch me blood," he said to the hypnotised barmaid. "One goblet. More later if I require it. And--"
The tray, which the barmaid held in her other arm, slipped from her
suddenly lax grasp and clattered on the ground. The sudden noise woke
her from the trance or sleep or whatever she had been under. In one
motion she jerked her hand free from the Dark Lord's, and slapped
him--hard--across the cheek. His hat fell off.
"None of that!" she said, picking up her tray again and half-holding it
before her like a shield. "There's no call for mesmerification here,
and if you try it again I'll call for the constable. I say again,
there's no blood to be had!"
The Dark Lord looked taken aback. "Red wine, then," he managed to say after a long silence. "A Valpolicella if you have it."
"That's better," said the barmaid, and stormed away.
After a moment the Dark Lord sat down, picked up his tricorn hat,
carefully dusted it off, and set it back on his head. Then he went to
lurking at his corner table in an embarrassed sort of way, though his
eye kept watch on his fellow-patrons.
In the stables, a rather jittery stableboy curried the flanks of a
steaming hell-steed. The steed itself, once again horse-shaped, was
eying the boy in the sort of way that a lion eyes a three-legged
gazelle. |
| | Posted 6/6/2007 8:45 PM - 6 comments
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