The Chronicles of Jonathon Postlethwaite: The Seed of Corruption (29 page)

                            The    Chief    of    Assassins    had    questioned Caldecott  for  nearly  an  hour  and   now   considered his bungling underling's fate. Amaril twitched nervously and scratched the mole on his nose. Not even for a second had been able to meet Morrell's accusing gaze. Smiling menacingly, he laughed softly at the quaking Caldecott.

                            Amaril looked up briefly and giggled back, trying to peer into the Chief of Assassin’s eyes but could not sustain contact, being forced to turn away shivering. Another long silence ensued. Eventually Morrell sighed and lifted his muscular bulk from the chair. Amaril whimpered as the monstrous ox-like form of Flax's deputy walked slowly towards him. Morrell stood over him, his good eye burning a hole in the top of Amaril's skull, his stinking breath torturing his nostrils and stomach.

                            A large, heavy hand came to rest around the back of the weeping man's neck. Amaril winced and closed his eyes, but the vice-like pressure he expected to come and crush the life slowly out of him never came. Morrell spoke  in a voice like gravel sliding down a steel tube.         “So  you  still  have  the  nerve  to  claim  a  reward?”  he croaked “A reward for what exactly?"

Amaril replied in a whisper, his answer more of a question, a confused plea.

“For the boy? "

                            Morrell bent over and stared directly into Amaril's face.

“Yes of course! I forgot. Mmm, the boy." he stood upright, turned away  and  began  to  pace  around  the shaking  Assassin.  Hands clasped  behind  his  back, his  head  nodding in mock consideration, Morrell laughed quietly.

“Yes of course. The 'boy' ......with tits. Is that what you are claiming this reward for? he grated. “The boy who was in fact a girl." he chuckled.

“Have you visited a brothel recently Amaril?"

“Tits!?" Amaril Caldecott croaked in genuine surprise. The circling continued.

“Yes,  my  dear  Amaril,  under  those  rags  was  a  girl,  a female, a woman. Understand? You burned down a whole block of the City, brought the Tans down on our backs  for a girl! And failed Amaril. Failed! Failed! Failed! " he howled.

                            Edgar Morrell's face had turned white with rage, sweat rolled down his forehead into his grey, bushy eyebrows as his burning rage set his body on fire. He marched back towards the chair and leaned heavily on its back while Amaril contemplated the penalty for failure, not just a simple ordinary failure. He had failed Silus Flax and no-one failed him and lived.

                            He considered escape, but was trapped, the only way              out              guarded              by              High              Hats              who              smirked with              amusement at his predicament. Amaril's brain began to work overtime and an idea drifted into his scheming mind. Then he smiled.

                            He stiffened and stood upright,  his  shivering ceased and he scratched the mole on his nose again as he  smiled  broadly  at  Morrell's  back.  He  would  take  a chance, but he knew that Morrell could not challenge the excuse he had concocted under pressure. It was a last ditch effort on his part and an idea was born, necessity was the Mother of its invention and its Father self- preservation and, unknown to him, was almost true.

                            Amaril cleared his throat confidently and Morrell whirled around. “Did you say something idiot!" he howled, staring at a smirking and confidant Amaril.

"I knew the boy would escape, so I captured the girl....er.....she is the boy's wench. My plan was that he would come to us seeking her, as he will soon." he said quietly and assuredly. Morrell stared at him in disbelief for a moment, then laughed and shook his head.

“But my dear, bungling, Amaril. She's not here and it’s doubtful that she still lives, since she was sent to the Tallmen for their amusement. They don't last long in the Towers. Surely this 'boy' would realise this don't you think, and why would he bother anyway? Would you risk your life for a female?"

                            Amaril considered Morrell's reasoning and realised he had lost.

"There was a chance that he would " he ventured. " if he err .. loved her."

Morrell roared with laughter.

“Did  what!  LOVE  ?  Amaril  are  you  ill?  No-one loves

anyone anymore, they never did. It's just lust dear Amaril, an animal thing. Any thinking man knows that. The boy'll just find something else to shag, like the rest of us." he mocked.

                            Amaril felt embarrassed more than frightened. Of course no one loved anyone any more or so they said. But he had loved his Mother dearly until her death and he didn't want to shag her. He knew what love was. Amaril was sure that the emotion was still existent in the city, just a little lost, buried. People like Morrell made him sick, they knew but were not man enough to admit it. He grew strangely angry.

“You’re wrong Morrell! Wrong! He did love her I know about love and he wasn’t like us" He screamed as tears streamed into his eyes along with the memories of his Mother's unselfish affection. “And you destroyed my plan! It's your fault! You fat bastard! Flax'll sort you out when              he              hears about              it,              he              will              understand!"              he threatened,  pointing  an  accusing  finger  at  Morrell  who promptly reached out and broke it with a sickening crack. He laughed as Amaril staggered around in pain.

"Plans! Plans! “the amusement drained from Morrell's face. "It doesn't matter anyway, Amaril. No one threatens me! “he spat.

Amaril looked up into Morrell's face and realised that the Chief of Assassins actually might have believed him. He was frightened that he had made an error and was dangerous. Morrell nodded to the guards and stepped back sneering.

"Better send you to see your Mummy then Caldecott, seeing as you love her so much!"

                            Amaril whirled around quickly enough to see the flash from the guards' musket barrels, but did not live to hear the roar of them or feel Morrell's knife drawn across his throat to make sure of his silence.

Chapter Twenty One

                            Jonathon crouched low on the rooftop overlooking the Black Leopard and considering his options when the City's bells began to ring, unaware of the minor dramas taking place below. The Tallmen had decided, because of the result Amaril's arson, to vent the City of the billowing clouds of smoke which hung above the rooftops, dimmed the light and poisoned the stagnant air.

                            At the sound of the bells, the crowds below were flung into panic. High Hats,  Tans  and  ordinary citizens alike, began to run in terror for the cover relative sanctuary of the lower levels. Seeing an opportunity to get inside the Black  Leopard  in  the  confusion,  he and  scrambled  quickly  down   the   building  to  the street level. Swiftly he entered a side alley and waited. Down the alley a High Hat sprinted toward the shelter of the Black Leopard.

                            As the galloping High Hat Captain drew level with the place where Jonathon waited, he  threw  out  an arm to make contact under the High Hat's chin, snapping back his head as his body continued forward. He hit the cobbles hard and unconscious. Jonathon dragged the helpless man into the darkness at the side of the alleyway then, dressed in his black coat and top hat, ran to join the crowd which jostled and fought with one another at the door of the Black Leopard.

                            Two large and bar room ugly door men fought back the crowd with heavy sticks, admitting only High Hats and throwing the rest away from safety. A rough pair of hands reached expertly outwards and dragged Jonathon from the crowd and pushed him into the packed bar of the Black Leopard.

                            A few faces turned and nodded acknowledgement to Jonathon and the other High Hats who had been hauled in from the street. The staff of the Tavern secured heavy shutters on the inside of the building and then the two doormen entered and closed the door, barring it against the crowd outside and the din of the bells which continued their warning.

The inside of the High Hat headquarters was bigger than it looked from the street. High Hats by the hundred sat in their back coats around wooden tables drinking, smoking and laughing, oblivious to the chaos which would ensue outside when the venting began.

                            There would be no frantic hammering on strangers' doors for them while watching fearfully as dark, crescents opened in the sky above and heralded the rapid and lethal replacement of the City's atmosphere. They were safe and that was all that mattered to them.

                            Jonathon wandered slowly across the sawdust and spittle strewn floor and amongst the tables, studying the relaxing High Hats. They played cards and chatted. Some sat alone and silent, smoking huge reefers. An assassin sat in a corner and cleaned and sharpened his knives.

                            Another dissected a large rat which he had nailed alive to the table top. No one paid the impostor any attention as he strolled in the dim light yellow light of the oil lamps towards the bar at the end of the room.

                            Jonathon chuckled to himself quietly, if they only knew who he was, the thought amusedly. He reached the bar and a short, fat and bald man with a large moustache smiled at him from behind the glass and beer strewn bar top. “What’s it to be Captain." he grunted, his eyes alighting on the red ribbon tied around Jonathon's top hat. He studied the man closely, his mind slipping gently into the bar tenders. “Has Amaril Caldecott been in today?" Jonathon asked casually.  The  dirty  white aproned  bartender  guffawed  loudly,  his  face exploding  in  amusement.

“Sure ‘as Captain. Why y'ask? 'e a friend of yourn then?" he questioned, an amused tone in his voice. Jonathon smiled and shook his head.

“He has something of mine, I need back." The bartender laughed again.

" 'e owes just about everyone 'ere somethin' ." he said motioning              to              the              faces              who              had              tuned              in to              the              conversation at the bar. "But I don't ‘spect anyun us'll be gettin' it back now."

The  watching  High  Hats  laughed.  Jonathon  was infected by the High Hat humour and laughed himself, yet was intensely frustrated.

                            Jonathon delved into the bartender’s mind  and saw the reason for the his amusement. Jonathon examined the memory of a small wiry man being dragged protesting down the steps at the far end of the bar room by two High Hat thugs. Jonathon laughed again and moved towards the

steps. As he began to descend the barman shouted to him. “Bring me somethin' back Captain, if there's anythin' left - maybe the wart off the end of ‘is nose! " he laughed loudly.                             Jonathon smiled and waved to the  bartender and quickly descended the worn, damp steps which emerged onto the lower street levels  below  Black Leopard and Chain Street.

                            The poorly lit street extended perhaps a hundred yards in either direction before terminating in newly constructed walls,  which  isolated  the  domain  of Silus Flax's High Hats from the rest of  Dubh  below street level.

Lining the dim streets were brightly lit shops, brothels and ale-houses, which were the source of rowdy male laughter and squealing and screaming women. Only High Hats were to be encountered here.

                            Along the gutters patrons of the bars and brothels sat or slept off the hangovers of their days activities. Jonathon could barely believe the numbers of dark coated men here, there were far more than he had ever imagined existed in the whole organisation. The ranks of the High Hats had been rapidly increased recently and the air of expectancy which filled the dens of vice here was overwhelming.

                            Jonathon crossed the street and, passing through an archway, descended another flight of steps to another street level. The scene was almost the same here as on the other level, except that all the High Hats wore the same red ribbons around their hats as he did, and he realised that this level was dedicated to those of a Captain's rank only.

Again he moved onwards and downwards. The guard  at  this  level  nodded  as  he  Jonathon  began  his descent to he next street level, letting the Captain pass but never taking his heavy lidded, almond eyes off him. Jonathon sensed a tension in the air here. He could feel the scrutinizing gaze of the level guard drilling into him. Something disturbed Jonathon, causing the hairs on his neck to stand on end.

                            He quickened his pace and ran down the remaining stairs. He heard a light flutter of footsteps behind him and realised that he was being followed. The stairway led on to yet another street like those above, but here another set of stairs continued his right and downwards. Jonathon moved down these steps and waited in the shadows of a shallow alcove from where he had a clear view of the landing which led out onto the street above.

                            He could hear no footsteps now, but he could feel the stealthy approach of his pursuer. On the landing a man stopped and looked out onto the subterranean street. Although he wore the garments of a High Hat, Jonathon sensed that this man was not what he seemed.