Chapter VI.

 (Pages 63-77)

Chapter VI.

In which Sir Levee espies her eyes once more

Sirs Humphrey and Desvot get ditched

Something Sure Does Happen at Savella’s Stable

Jacarbi and his Juced-up Jumble

I.

            Sir Levee passes by the grand gate to Great Trickle whereupon his hunger takes him and he resolves to pay patronage to Rosita’s Buffet, eating one platterful of noodles, chicken, two rolls, a soda, his eyes wander around the room as he eats. As he leaves the restaurant he swears he can see the fantastic façade of Delcita across the room, but he is not sure if it is truly her or not for it was barely but a glance. He leaves a gratuitous tip and departs for the chapel to pray for forgiveness and Delcita to come to him, for he has not the courage to even show his face to her and knows not what to say to her. There he kneels for an hour in silence.

II.

            Sir Humphrey wakes up with a sore spine, stretching his arms outward, erecting his back, and crunching his blunt bones he gets up. Sir Desvot wakes up in the pit he had burrowed into the earth, deep enough one cannot even see his face until he pokes it up from within.

            “I believe the creature clawing beneath me last night has fled from either fear or pity, but I swear to thee sir I could hear it so clearly crunching through clay and course gravel deep beneath me. Say, have thou seen Sir Levee?”

            “Better yet sir have thou seen my steed? It has vanished along with him.” The two look each other in the eyes and put the clues together. “That thieving scoundrel! Sir Desvot, at once we must make pursuit and deliver justice unto this baleful bandit!”

            “But where has he even gone? For you understand Sir Humphrey this man could have retreated to either Great Trickle or Sfouma, and it would take so long to find him and your horse, a needle in a haystack, a bronze coin conglomerated with copious copper-crafted.”

            “I shall recognize my steed, Sir Desvot. I know her better than any other; The Accountable Aletra, I shall see to it we find this pilferer pronto. Art thou comfortable with me riding along to Great Trickle on thine steed The Swift Stelanos?”

            “Of course, Sir Humphrey; thy weight shall be affably borne by my swiftly steed in this tedious, tiresome trot to Great Trickle.” Humphrey hops upon the hind of the horse and they continue forward into the day; soon enough it comes to Desvot’s attention that his canteen is empty and that Humphrey’s is still buried in his left saddlebag, wherever it may have been taken by that scoundrel the thieving Thraxus. It takes roughly two hours for them to come upon a water pump in the middle of the plain.

            “Sir Humphrey, wilt thou please dismount and deliver some water upon my emptied canteen?” Sir Desvot, handing to him the vessel. Humphrey jumps off the horse and tries to pull back the lever to the pump, but it is rusted in place as the corrosion of ages blocks out all movement. He puts his foot on the pump and yanks with all his might, but it is not even the slightest forgiving to him.

            “Sir Desvot, if thou would aid me please; this pump is ancient and infrequently used that its handle will not budge,” Sir Humphrey surrenders, “with four hands I believe it may just give in.” Sir Desvot jumps down next to Humphrey and the old, rusted water pump. Desvot stands on one side and pushes on it while Humphrey holds on with both hands, either foot against the pump, yanking with his every strand of strength and sinew it still does not give in the slightest. “Do we have any rope?” Desvot searches his saddlebag and pulls out a chain about four meters long.

            “Does this work, sir?”

            “Yes, give it here, wilt thee?” Desvot tosses the chain to Humphrey who doesn’t happen to catch it, though Desvot reaches down and lifts the slack next to him and throws it again at Humphrey, who still doesn’t catch it, but it lands on his shoulder. He untangles what little of it is knotted up and binds it to the pump. “Here, fasten this to thine saddle,” tossing to Desvot the opposite end of the chain he winds it around the saddle’s crupper. “Now when I tell thee to bolt, that means thou must bolt, understand?” Desvot nods. “Now Bolt.”

            Desvot charges his steed forward, the slack of which begins to lift from a coil on the ground and as it reaches the end of the chain he can feel something give which precedes the sound of running water behind him. He turns to see the water pump torn out of the ground at the end of the chain, an impressive geyser spewing water from the hole upon which it sat. Humphrey holds the Canteen above the water, which doesn’t work as well as one may expect it to because the water all just pours back out on the ground. Instead what he must do is catch what diminutive driblets drop from above into the canteen, a rather small target. This process takes a half hour to sufficiently fill their canteen before departing from the pulverized pump, the newfound annoyance, the Gushing Geyser of Pladus Plain

III.

            Sir Levee is just concluding his prayer, closing it up with another sign of the cross when a man in fragrant white robes appears next to him. “Sir, it has been several years since I have seen a man as thineself entranced in such a prolonged and passionate prayer; may I ask thee for what art thou praying?”

            He looks up to the man, “Father, I pray here tonight partly for forgiveness, but ultimately I sit here begging God or whoever may be listening for a girlfriend; wining at him for a wife. I pray to him that my darling Delcita Lavie will love and appreciate me, that she will be happy with me, respect me, and value each and every moment we spend together as I will with her.”

            “Father – how touching, no one has ever called me that before… Thou have been sitting here for an hour asking God for a lover? Is such not a duty for thineself to commit? Prayer may do a great many things sir; a prayer can possess unprecedented power, but not yet have I observed one grant a knight with a lover before.”

            “Understand father that my anxiety oft prevents myself from uttering a single syllable let alone any speech or soliloquy to this Delcita I so hopelessly adore. I know no other way to draw her to my side than write to her or pray for her arrival, for her love, for her soft, soothing hand in marriage.”

            “Oh Knight of Such Sorrowful Expression, may I offer this advice? Pray not for her arrival, but for thine own growth – that thou wilt muster the might and the courage to speak with this Delcita thou desperately desire.”

            “I know not if even prayer may aid in overcoming my nervousness that this lovely lass may not favor I or my masterpiece I have writ for her. I stand so fearful of her rejection, of the repeated disappointment as I have experienced twice previous in each and all my other romantic endeavors.”

            “I bid thee luck sir, and may God ever see you in his favor,” he says before returning back to wherever he had been; Sir Levee proceeds then to pray again with this new advice. He gives it fifteen minutes, wraps it up, and walks to a fountain near the entrance cycling an endless stream of holy water. Making sure the priest is nowhere to be seen, he unsheathes his Kris. If I do it in Latin it’s gotta work, he thinks as he attempts to christen his Kris. He plops his blade in the water, making a sign of a cross, “Domine, benedicere hoc ferrum in lumine,” he says before pulling it back out of the water and sprinting out the door before anyone catches what he’s up to. He has no clue what it means anymore, but when he’d translated it in his room the words made complete sense to him.

            Trotting through the streets of Great Trickle (riding on the saddle of Aletra) holding a sword that he is now thoroughly convinced has been blessed with the light and grace of God, he decides to call it a night and locates an inn: Rompey Riscardé’s Restaurant, Bed and Booze. After checking Aletra in for the night at a nearby stable, he pays for three rooms with one gold piece and passes out peacefully in the abused but bearable bed.

IV.

            An alleyway between two buildings near Savella’s Stable in the dark of night, a man is holding his hands over a fire he’s started in a trashcan – nearby another is resting under a tarp writing poetry for apparently none eyes other than his own as he sits crumpled staring through a peephole at the man with salt and pepper beard. He shivers over the flames as the autumn air bites at his back numbing his nerves; he feels naught but the wind flowing frigid over his body and the heat reflecting only off his hands and face.

            As a man encroaches the alleyway he moves his head up from the fire and watches him sidle slowly inward, “Halt sir, who art thee? Explain thine presence!” The man soon revealed under the glow of the firelight is wearing a bowler hat and two neckties; he has hardly a hair on his head as what had been atop it has long torn from his scraped and scarred scalp.

            “Simply Solomon, dear heart,” he says producing a gladius from his trench coat, “I just want for myself more friends is all; come closer, sir.” The man beneath the tarp stops writing his poetry inside the notebook of illegible ink and holds his breath as the predator steps closer to the fire.

            “Stay away! Don’t come another step nearer!” The bearded man backs from the barrel where Solomon approaches and seizes him by the beard.

            “Lovely, lovely! Friend for Sollie!” he says so singsong as he severs his arm and kicks him to the ground, pulling another necktie from his coat and crouching to the ground, wrapping it around his neck. The man chokes blood onto the pavement as he holds the necktie tighter and tighter to his throat until he stops breathing. He keeps a tight grip until the man’s pulse, as apparent through his grip of the necktie, fades and his body limps. Solomon takes back the tie and with a Half Windsor puts it aside the others on his neck, cachinnating as he clacks his feet out the alley. The man ‘neath the tarp finds his breath and begins to hyperventilate.

V.

            Sir Humphrey recognizes his steed at once amongst those tarried at Savella Stable near Rompey Riscardé’s. Desvot follows him as he confronts the owner, “Sir, know thou the man who tarried this horse in the stable and by chance his current whereabouts?”

            The owner of the stable, still in his nightgown and trying to get some sleep, does not respond to this but instead rolls away from him and shoves his head beneath his pillow. “Sir, art thou aware thine sign promulgates twenty-four-hour-access to the horses tarried herein the stable?” Desvot inquires of the snoozing stableman who rolls on his back and begins to snore through the pillow. He holds it down tightly over his face for about twelve seconds, smothering him until he wakes up and starts panicking.

            “Sir Stableman, May I please ask who tarried this steed or of its owner’s whereabouts?” Humphey asks him once he seems to have lapsed his unconsciousness.

            “Huh? What happened now?” He begins to stir, “Was that thee Delfrik?” he says to nothing beneath his blanket.

            “Sir, may I please make with thee an inquiry?” Desvot just about shouts at Savella. The man turns his head to him, astonished by his abrupt appearance.

            “My apologies sir,” he says before lifting his nightcap and removing two compacted footlong foam earplugs from his earholes, “Didst thou need my assistance in particular tonight sir or art thou here for business with my stable?”

            “See thou sir it’s about this horse, I was wondering if-” Humphrey is interrupted.

            “Such then is business thou must partake with my cousin Delfrik if he hasn’t fallen asleep again. He’s supposed to manage the stable at nights though he isn’t the most reliable all the time; he’s always there for me though.” The Stableman hollers into his blanket, “Delfrik, get up! We’ve got another customer,” replacing his earplugs and rolling away from him, he pulls the blanket down to reveal a cloaked head grown from his side.

            “Welcome to Savella’s Stable, sir, how may I help thee on such a numbingly cold night?” Delfrik says as he corrects his cross-eyes which continue to cohere back to the bridge of his nose.

            “Know thou sir the tarrier of this mule?” Sir Humphrey points to his stolen steed.

            “AHHhh, indeed sir, he is just over in Rompey Riscardé’s, he told me to give you this,” he says as he pulls a room key and two gold pieces from his nose, “He instructed that these coins be spent on naught but thine inebriation. He’s already paid for the tarrying of thine second steed. Need thou any else tonight, sirs?”

            Sirs Humphrey and Desvot look together to shrug and turn back, “Not that I can think of tonight, sir,” Desvot says, “Have thou a nice night, Delfrik.”

            “And a wonderful night to you as well,” he says to them as he hides back beneath the blanket to rest.

            “Fair thee well, Delfrik,” Sir Humphrey says, tying Stelanos’ lead next to Aletra’s, now departing to Rompey Riscardé’s Restaurant, Bed and Booze to dummy themselves delirious on their accumulation of alluring ales and pass out around two in the morning inside rooms 05 and 06 at the end of the left hallway on the right side across from Levee in room 04.

The noise inside the tavern seems to simmer until a point a bit before three when a rumbling ruckus wakes up Sir Levee, who has all day been inside his room writing for the Lovely dame Delcita Lavie of his deepest dreams. He sits in the middle of the bed and stretches, whereupon the worn bedframe snaps in the center to slip every single sliver of sleepiness soaked in his eyes. Reaching for his haversack, he unzips it and withdraws a fresh cabbage that he begins to munch on.

            He gets up to his feet and puts his ear up to the door through which he can hear the voice of Jacarbi, who seems to be belligerently drunk, threatening another patron at the counter with his gargantuan Gada. He unlocks his door and goes out to see exactly what type of trouble he’s gotten himself into, which doesn’t seem to be too much yet. So far he has embarked into a sonorous squabble between himself and two men over a game of darts.

            “You’re doing it all wrong you assholes, you’re supposed to stand this far back,” he says as he walks all the way back to the wall with four darts in his hand.

            “You’re not gonna try all four of those darts from all across the barroom are you?” the man slurs as he stumbles through a bar stool.

            “Watch and learn, sister,” he says before he sends it like a bullet across the room and hits one hole away from a perfect bullseye. “Aw, I missed. Lemme try that again.” He sends another dart across the room that hits just above a perfect bullseye. He starts to grow an anxious look in his eye; he tries one more time; the dart spirals through the air somehow before landing dead center; a sigh of relief. “Alright, one more try now,” he says as he hurls one more dart across the room that deflects off the end of his previous shot. “Eh, good enough,” he says as he looks back to the other two players. “Who’s next?”

            “That’s no fair, you’re cheating,” the heavier set of the pair begins.

            “Yeah, he’s got someone else up by the board putting the darts in for him; I swear to ya, that’s gotta be it,” the other man says before looking everywhere around the dartboard for the colluding craftsman who is nowhere to be seen.

            “I bet you he already left. He knew we were coming for him, he just…” his eyes scrutinize the room and lock onto target, “Hid inside this barrel!” The man throws a barrel into the air, revealing beneath it absolutely nothing while the barrel crashes into a table, falling into pieces and spilling beans all over the place. The bartender groans and goes to look for her broom, which is missing the dustpan and even the handle due to some extremely misfortunate circumstance and starts to sweep up all the beans and debris.

            “I didn’t cheat, you nimrods,” he raises his Gada, “Those four shots were just as clean as those eight you two nailed into the wall. Don’t make me mention that ninth shot we still can’t find. To think it was bad enough this place only had five darts for their dartboard, can’t you just go buy a couple more? It’s only a couple copper a dart.”

            “I bet you he has the fifth dart, too,” says the skinnier one, “He probably went and hid behind the bar.”

            Jacarbi raises his Gada the rest of the way into the air before smashing it into a barstool, “I didn’t cheat, and there’s no one assisting me you ignoramus – I’ll even sink two more for ya if that’ll finally prove it.” He raises up his right hand and one by one the darts start coming back to him through the air; the men’s faces are aghast. He sends one dart screaming into the uppermost double-twenty and then shoots one that pins itself into the bottommost double-three. “There you twats, now calm down; there’s no guy going up and placing the darts into the dart board, it’s just the raw skill of a dart champion sinking shots with astounding accuracy, and even some pinpoint precision when I want it.” The two men start whispering amongst another about this drunken dart champion, “Hey Bartend, you have any Orange Vanilla Juce? I’m just dying for another drink; that Alloy’s Ale I tell ya really gets to you; Juce is much smoother.”

            “Yeah, I believe we have something such as that on tap. We’re actually out of Orange Vanilla right now; are you fine with Original or Spring Mint?” She says rising up from behind the counter.

            “Eh, Spring Mint shall suffice,” he says as he turns over to Sir Nicholas Levee, who is walking up to the seat next to him.

            “I would like a Juce Original, please,” requests Sir Levee as he finishes up the last bite of his cabbage.

            “Hey, aren’t you that fella I saw up in that tree over in Pladus? I swear I know you from somewhere else, too; just can’t remember quite where.”

            “Yessir, indeed that was I,” he says as he receives his Juce and takes his first swig.

            “Hah! You shriek like a pansy,” he say before slapping his knee to ignite inside himself a roaring conflagration of clangorous cachinnation that takes a moment to extinguish. “Hey, you don’t like darts, do ya?”

            “Indubitably, although I am not so erudite of the scoring system. All I know how to do is throw darts at the board and try to hit that dot in the center,” he points to the bullseye.

            “That’s fine, I’ve been playing it for years and I still don’t know how to score it either; just throw em’ at the board and try to show off, you saw me do it already.” He hands the two leftover darts to Sir Levee, “Here, You give it a couple shots.”

            He holds the barrel of the dart with two fingers, flicks the flight and sails it smoothly through the air into the end of the uppermost dart where it sticks in place. He takes the next dart and nails it into the end of the bottommost dart with the same flight-flicking technique as had rewarded him with his previous success.

            “I bet you it was that guy who stuck the darts in the board,” the larger man says to his friend at the end of the bar as they carry into another round of ales and speculation. Sir Levee sits back at the bar and takes another swig of his Juce; Jacarbi orders a refill.

            “Not bad, kid. You know, give it a few more years and you might be as much of a hotshot as Jacarbi himself. Best shot I ever done was about twelve years back; had a dart for each hole and landed every single one of them in less than two minutes; four darts at a time.” He drinks the entire glass in a single swig; Levee takes a greater gulp than any he’d taken before of his Juce and sets the glass back on the counter.

            “Care for any cabbage?” Sir Levee moves his hands over to his haversack, pulling from it two heads of cabbage.

            “No, I quit eating cabbage long ago when I lost my taste for it.”

            “I have been trying to cut the habit myself, for I know Delcita may not be so fond of my cabbage consumption with it being so frowned upon in today’s society.” He holds one head in his hand, debating whether or not to tear into it, and decides instead to take another sweet swig from his Juce Original. “Know thou Jacarbi of the thieving Thraxus?”

            “Yeah, I think I remember that guy; no one knows his real name though, just the alias Thraxus. Lives north of town a ways past the bitumen pits; I think he’s got a manner or something he hardly takes care of that’s running all up and down with thieves like himself. I’d probably keep away from it if I was you.” Jacarbi finishes his next drink in another gulp and motions to the bartender for another, “They’ve this dog there too, but I wouldn’t touch that thing if I was you. Probably more bloodthirsty than Thraxus himself that thing is; she’s named Glacinda; seen that thing eat an entire couch once; didn’t even have the faintest care how many people were sitting on it; just ate the whole damn thing like a marshmallow.”

            “Such a hellish hound sounds a worthy foe for the likes of mine weaponry and wit; after we pass through Melardi’s and Picapelli’s we shall embark upon this trail North to the dwelling of this thieving Thraxus and put an end to his terrorizing tactics-. Speaking of, have thou any news regarding The Great Gruceti or the Baton of the Bollinger?”

            “What?” Jacarbi says with one final swig of his seventeenth glass.

            “Mind not, the rule of this tyrant king and his Literal Cult of personality must have been long after thine loss in the twisting trees of those wandering woods.”

            “I’ve never heard of this Gruceti asshole in my entire life.”

            “Let me say just that he may potentially be the single most despicable despot ever to dictate: a deceiver and demolisher of all life and non,” Sir Levee yawns, “Anyhow, I must be returning to bed; I will most likely fall asleep once more to the relaxing records of my favorite composer Frangei Zappinsky. I am in a mood that only his Goblin Shark Suite may satisfy; for a man so ugly and lonely as he found the most kindred spirit extant to himself was not a human but the grotesque Goblin Shark until one day he would meet a Gorgeous Guppy that would open his world so generously.”

            “Well, you have fun with that, I’m gonna go get laid,” Jacarbi says preceding a projectile of puke that upon Sir Levee’s return to his bedroom vanishes vapidly into air. He spies a woman at the end of the bar. “Hey there foxy mamma, there ain’t a room in my name but I don’t think anyone is in the lady’s room right now if ya wanna take my Gada for a gamble. There’s either this or the other and let me just say that the one you’re looking at right now ain’t nothing compared to what I’m gonna whip out at you in a hot minute.” The woman doesn’t know any other way to respond to him than cracking up, Jacarbi wondering what he did wrong. That line used to work All the Time.

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