The Cup and the Crown (9 page)

He was perfectly aware of how comical it was: a ratcatcher putting on airs. He’d discussed it many times with Charley, his ancient and beloved rat terrier. They’d agreed that the incongruity added a layer of delight to the situation.

He’d just set the tray on the kitchen worktable when Charley announced with a frenzied bark that someone was coming up the path. A messenger no doubt, carrying news of suspicious droppings found behind the flour sacks in a bakeshop storeroom. Or perhaps it was merely a rustling in the eaves, a darting rat-shape spied in the shadows at night. Whatever it was, it would mean a trip across town to meet with the client and size up the situation.

But he opened the door to an unfamiliar face, a lad dressed in some kind of livery; the scroll he carried was prettily tied with a rose-colored ribbon. And, Richard noted with widening eyes, there was a shiny new spinner leaning against the tree out front. Not your commonplace summons, then.

“Richard Strange?” said the boy.

“That’s me,” Richard said, taking the scroll and stepping back into his house.

“Favor of a reply is requested, Master says.”

“And who might your master be?”

“Pieter, the barrister.”

“All right. I’ll give you my answer as soon as I’ve read it. You can wait in the garden.”

“Might I go to the pen there and have a look at your dogs?”

“If you want. But don’t go trying to pet ’em lest they think you’re a rat and bite your hand off.”

The boy stared back in horror.

“That was a joke,” Richard said, and shut the door.

He untied the ribbon, spread the scroll out on his table, and studied it with squinty eyes. He was literate, but only just, having left school at the age of nine; and this florid script was nothing at all like his schoolmaster’s neat, simple hand. Richard had an eye for beautiful things, but those blasted loops and swirls made it hard to make out the meaning—which was, after all, the point of writing things down: so someone else could read them.

Skipping over the salutation, Richard attacked the words one at a time, moving down through a string of niceties till he reached the heart of the message.

“Oh, crikes!” he muttered, then. “Oh, no! They can’t do this to me. They can’t!”

He got up, made a circuit of the room, then sat down again, slapping his thigh for emphasis, and returned to the offending words. But they still said the same thing they had before: that Richard was requested—politely instructed was more the tone of it—to play host to some bloody arrogant Westrian lord who had just arrived in the city and who, like lords the world over, would find fault, demand when he should rightly ask, sneer at Richard’s hospitality, then forget to say thanks when he left.

By the saints! And here Richard thought he was finished with lords for life!

What in blazes was a nobleman from Westria doing in Harrowsgode anyway? Some mystery lay hidden there, no doubt about it, made all the more mysterious by the barrister having chosen to lodge him with the ratcatcher. It wasn’t fitting, not fitting at all, and Lord Worthington was sure to be offended. Was that the point? Had they
meant
to insult him?

At least the man would be unarmed—that was something—as weapons were forbidden in Harrowsgode. A great lord in a mad rage could be a very dangerous animal, inclined to swinging swords about and never mind who got in the way. Richard had hard experience with lords and their moods, and made a mental note to hide the dinner knives.

Well, there was no help for it. He got up from the table and opened the door again. The lad was still on the doorstep, having apparently changed his mind about looking at the dogs.

“Tell your master,” Richard said, “that I will offer up my bed to the gentleman. The lord won’t be well pleased at being housed with the ratcatcher—but then I suppose your master knows that already.”

The boy gaped. “Am I to tell him
that
?”

“No,” Richard said. “Just say I’m willing.”

He watched as the boy mounted his spinner, pressed down on one of the pedals to start it in motion, then moved slowly forward—wobbling a bit at first, then gaining speed and balance as he continued up the street. How he managed to stay upright on that fantastical contraption was utterly past imagining, but it was a joy to watch him do it.

Richard went back inside and stood in his hall, admiring once again its sturdy construction, its fine proportions, the attention that had been given to small details: the carving on the corbels, the handsome floor, each stone neatly fitted to its neighbor. They did things very well in Harrowsgode, even in the Neargate District. Even for a ratcatcher.

Then he saw it all through Lord Worthington’s eyes—the house was small, there were no tapestries, his table would seat only eight—and his pleasure was utterly spoiled.

Muttering curses to himself, Richard went into his sleeping chamber and began to empty the wardrobe of cloaks, boots, doublets, and long woolen gowns, carrying them to the storeroom by the armful. Next he fetched a basket from the kitchen and filled it with the contents of his chest: gloves and hose, linen shirts, a velvet cap, and those satin slippers he’d never had occasion to wear.

Now he stripped the linen from the bed and put on fresh, fluffing the pillows, arranging the coverlet just so, straightening the bed-curtains. Would a small vase holding a rose be too much? Yes, he decided. It would smack of subservience, of eagerness to please, and he was done with that.

He
would
give the floor a quick sweep, though, for pride’s sake.

As he worked with the broom, Richard thought back on the two noblemen he’d known best in his life. Both had borne the title of Lord Carnovan of Bergestadt, father and son, one after the other.

Richard had been born on the Bergestadt estate, where his pa served in the lord’s kennels, looking after the hunting hounds. As soon as Richard had been old enough, he’d gone to work there as a page, bedding down with the dogs at night, filling their water bowls, changing the straw, and taking them out when they needed to do their business.

Lord Carnovan the father was a big, coarse, impatient, red-faced, shouting sort of man, an accomplished and passionate hunter. He wasted no affection on his lady or his son; he lavished it all on his purebred horses and his splendid hunting dogs.

Most days he’d come striding into the stable yard preceded by his booming voice: “Oh, the devil take you, what’s-your-name-Matthew; I don’t want the
mastiff
! The lyam-hound, you fool! I want the
lymer
!”

Richard had thought him an ogre back then and trembled at the sound of his arrival. But later, after the old man pitched off his courser one day while vaulting over a hedge, and struck his head on a boulder, and was killed, he’d gained a whole new perspective on the matter. Lord Carnovan the father had been what a lord should be: confident, capable, and strong. He had, in a manner of speaking, earned the right to be rude and demanding.

But Lord Carnovan the son was something altogether different. He had not his father’s wit, nor his father’s skill, nor his father’s competence—just his father’s title, and the lands and fortune that came with it. Little Lord Peacock was his whispered name. Puffed up with pride and drunk with power, he’d brandished his new estate like a toddling child who’d gotten hold of a sword.

“I am master now,” he’d announced that first day, “and it’s of no consequence to me how things were done in my father’s time. You will do as I say or you shall be sacked. Am I clear?”

He carried a whip; he liked to use it, too.

Richard heaved a sigh and put the broom away. The bedroom was presentable enough, considering the short notice he’d been given. Now he went into the kitchen and set about arranging a light meal on the silver tray—fruit, cheeses, and sliced cold meat—thinking how glad he was he’d bought himself a
pair
of cups in case he actually had a visitor someday. That was one small humiliation averted, at least.

Suddenly his heart filled with rage—that this, of all things, should be forced upon him now when he was so happily settled, that ugly business all behind him. He was so overcome with horrible memories that he dropped onto the kitchen stool, breathing hard.

The Peacock had been uncommonly proud of the fine dogs and horses he’d inherited—though he’d had no hand in breeding, buying, or training them. They were like the heavy gold chain that hung around his neck and the ruby he wore on his thumb—possessions, things that cost a lot of money. He didn’t love them.

Within the kennels, where Richard and his pa worked, the dog most valued by the Peacock was the beautiful greyhound Aurora, and Aurora was expecting puppies. When the time came near for her to drop her litter, she was moved into a private room with a fireplace, away from the other dogs, where she could be cared for tenderly night and day until the birth was accomplished and the pups were well out of danger.

Richard’s pa had been given the evening shift. Though he wasn’t the senior man, he had a natural way with dogs and was well schooled in veterinary physic. Since Richard was coming up in the dog trade, too—he’d been given charge of the ratters and showed great promise—he’d been allowed to stay with his father and learn what he could.

“It’ll be tonight,” Pa had said to Richard, “or tomorrow morning at the latest. She’s turned away from her food all day—and see how moody she is?”

“If I fall asleep, will you wake me?”

“I will, Son. I promise.”

“I wouldn’t want to miss it.”

Everything was ready. There was a large nest for Aurora filled with fresh straw, a bowl of water nearby. There was a roll of silk thread and a clean, sharp knife—the one to tie off the cord and the other to cut it should Aurora fail to do it with her teeth. Water and linen cloths were ready to wipe the puppies clean, and a brass bell as big as your hand to ring for help should anything go wrong.

Richard was young, and he’d worked all day; it’d been hard to stay awake. So he hadn’t heard Aurora’s panting, nor her little whimpers. He hadn’t seen his father rise up from his chair to go to her. But he
had
heard, through the mist of a dream, a strange, guttural sound, followed by a crash and a moan.

He’d woken then to see his father lying, as still as death, sprawled across the greyhound, crushing her with his body.

Richard hadn’t had the breath to scream. He’d just leaped off the bench and run to his pa, pulling him off the stricken greyhound with all the strength he had—though his father was a heavy man and Richard was still small. He’d laid him out on the floor and knelt over him. Pa’s face had been red, and his mouth slack—but he breathed; he was still alive. Richard had found the bell then and rung it hard, setting up such a clamor that it should have woken the dead. But it hadn’t woken his pa, nor the greyhound, either.

First a groom had come running, then another, and finally the marshal of the stables himself. By the time he got there, two puppies had been saved, cut from Aurora’s belly. She’d felt no pain; nor would she ever feel anything again.

Only then had anyone attended to Richard’s pa.

“Apoplexy,” the marshal had pronounced. “I doubt he’ll walk or speak again, if indeed he lives at all.” He’d laid a hand on Richard’s shoulder. “We’ll call a physician, lad; but I wouldn’t store up too much hope.”

It was nearly morning by then, and someone had decided that they must inform the Peacock. Richard had been kneeling over his father, stroking his hand and whispering encouragement, when the lord had come storming in. He’d seen the dog, her belly sliced open and the three dead puppies. Then he’d turned to the prostrate man lying in the straw by the birthing box.

The circumstances were explained: a horrible tragedy, an accident, unanticipated, and most certainly unintended. Richard remembered looking up at the Peacock, watching the emotions play across his face and realizing with horror that the man was stoking the fire of his rage. Once he had it blazing hot, the Peacock had started swinging his whip at the comatose man—who had loved that dog with a tenderness her owner could never feel, who would not have harmed Aurora or her puppies for the world. It was as though the lord had been taken with a fit, so out of control had he been that morning, striking the unconscious man over and over.

Richard had screamed for him to stop, even tried to grab his arm, at which point the lord had struck him across the face and kicked him to the ground.

They’d buried Richard’s pa that afternoon. That evening Richard had packed up his few belongings and such money as his father had saved. Then when all was quiet, he’d slipped into the kennels and stolen his two favorite ratters, a breeding pair.

He’d traveled east all through that night, the ratters trotting happily behind him. Three days later they’d crossed the border into Austlind. There he’d made a life for himself going from town to town, ratting for room and board. Eventually he’d settled in a midsize town where he was so well regarded that folks from miles around would call him to rid their barns of vermin. He’d even been able to buy himself a little house with a yard for his dogs to run in.

It was there that the Voyager from Harrowsgode had found him and made him that offer—with the astonishing salary, and a house besides—that Richard had accepted. He’d become his own man at last, never again to cower before a master.

And now here he was, all those years later, giving house-room to another Peacock, giving up his bed to the man, bringing him food on his precious silver tray—all of which the lord would sneer at because it wasn’t good enough. Why,
why
had he not just refused? They could have found someplace else for the man to stay. Lots of people spoke Westrian. The city was chock-full of scholars.

Charley set to barking again and dashed to the door. Richard hauled himself up from the stool, the arrangement still unfinished on the tray, and went reluctantly to open it.

Had the messenger brought him a dancing bear, Richard couldn’t have been more surprised. Why, this fellow was just a
lad
, probably not eighteen. And though he was fair of face and manly made, he looked for all the world like the gardener’s boy, come hat in hand to ask was there anything more that needed doing just now?