Jack Daw Part Eight (Conclusion?)

Madame Brevity’s burned with a jaunty yellow flame, as if the flames were having a good time at their work.
The whores looked less amused.
They had been rousted out of their warm beds in the wee hours of the morning, told to get what they could carry, and hurried out of the building as the first flames started showing on the outside. Now the whole first floor was consumed, and the few people who had roused to help were incapable of stemming the blaze. Fortunately, there were no houses close enough to catch as well, but Madame Brevity’s was doomed.
At the beginning, the man who had rousted them up (an evil-looking one, to be sure) had dug like a madman, throwing pails of dirt to the girls, who had feebly shaken them out on the very edges of the flames. In fact, he had dug so vigorously that there had been a minor collapse near one of the foundations in the back, and he had ceased shortly thereafter.
He had also run inside, to get a few things out for the girls, and they had heard him banging around inside, only running out when the fire got so close to the door that he had to leave or burn. His fierce beard had been steaming when he came out, and the scar on his cheek was livid in the hot firelight. But he had been grinning, and he handed the stuffed doll he carried to a grateful whore with a nod.
And then he had stood and watched, for nearly a half an hour, while the house collapsed with shrill noises that sounded almost like screams…
*******
“That’s all I saw of him, Inspector Bentley. He had a big scar and a bushy black beard, just like I said. You couldn’t miss him. He was about your height, and he looked nice enough, before… before- ”
The whore couldn’t finish the sentence, and Bentley nodded distractedly and waved her out. She clutched a stuffed doll, half-soaked in blood, and it dripped a trail on his clean floor as she left. There it mingled with the mud and blood of 6 other whores and 4 concerned citizens that he had seen before her.
There was no doubt. All of the stories matched, and it had to have been the work of Jack Daw. Bentley smiled a grim little smile inside, but no trace of it showed on his face. Ludovico had taken him in once, but he would catch him, and there would be a reckoning. A reckoning, and then a hanging.
*******
Ludovico ran like he had never run before, but he could never run fast enough to escape his mind, and that was what hunted him now.

Flashes of it kept coming back to him.
Sneaking into Madame Brevity’s to set the fire, he had listened carefully and heard the very soft murmur of voices below. He had hidden bottles of oil in appropriate places, then set fire to the curtains that covered the back windows. There it would take a while to catch the rest of the house, if no one helped it along, but it would look impressive. He ran up to warn the whores and move them out, and on the way out managed to kick a few of the bottles over, towards the back wall.
Outside, he had made first to collapse the entry tunnel, knowing that what dirt he gave to the whores would be ineffectual. Once that was done he ran back inside to cover Sam’s Seaside’s internal exit, sliding a heavy couch over it, then nailing the couch to the door with a few well-placed swings. Then he had knocked over the rest of the oil and beat a hasty retreat as the whole place blazed up.
He knew that there was no way out for those below, and the thought gave him pleasure.

As he ran tree limbs beat at him, whipping him across the face and arms, but they had no more effect than would the punches of an underfed whore.
He ran, but the screams followed him.

When the roof started to collapse he knew it was over. There was no escape, and he knew the screams for what they were, coming from the trapped men below. But they were muffled, and he told the crowd that wood made strange snaps and noises when it burned. They soon enough cut off anyway.
After a few minutes more he decided that it would be good to leave before anyone started asking awkward questions, and he started to ease back through the crowd, but he was halted dead by a faint movement in the flames…

He no longer knew where he was, or cared. He couldn’t get the voices out of his head. The shadows around him grew longer and longer, and he stumbled, exhausted, into the deepening night…

The man with the cane stepped from the flames, and Ludovico’s eyes widened. He was untouched by the furnace around him, and his mask gleamed oddly in the light. He paused at the edge of the building, as timbers tumbled behind him and sparks blazed high into the air. His clothing was immaculate, as Ludovico had last seen him, and finally he stalked forward out of the fire… straight towards the part of the crowd where Ludovico stood.
Ludovico started to speak, to deny what was happening before him, he knew not what, but he was interrupted before he even started, as other figures stalked from the inferno. There was the one who had held his arms, there the one who had chuckled at his struggles. The man who had warned them all to the presence of Bentley’s guards held a nasty-looking hook with a bladed inner edge.
“Jack Daw,” they said, and nothing more.
“Jack Daw.”
Jack drew his blade, his short sword that had served him so well in so many fights before, but he could barely raise it against the terror that stalked towards him.
“Jack Daw.” The chant grated at his very being.
They surrounded him, mingling with the crowd, the too-silent crowd.
‘Magic,’ his mind gibbered at him, and then fled, shrieking.
Instinct took over.
He swung, wildly, at the figures around him. They were hazy and indistinct, but he swung nonetheless, and felt his blade bite into flesh.
Finally, there was shouting, and screams, but the chant continued.
“Jack Daw.”
He cut them down, and down, and down, but the chant continued.
“Jack Daw.”
He saw a doll, drenched in its former owner’s arterial blood, and he checked his swing at the last second.
Around him lay bodies, so many bodies. Whores, and civilians. But the criminals he had been trying to kill still stood, untouched... Indistinct. And the chant continued, though no living mouths formed the words.
“Jack Daw.”

He fled, into the dawn.

He fled, into the darkness.

Jack Daw Part Seven

It took four months for Ludovico to fully heal, and each day the inspector (whose name was Bentley) came by and talked to him for a while, about his life, and his plans, and each day he left with the same admonition:
“If you remember anything, anything at all, about the men who tried to hang you, you let me know, you see?”
But Ludovico held his silence. He told the inspector about his young life on the wagons, about the wolves who had attacked the Romany family, and killed most of them, and he told how his mother had swam with him in the frigid water of a river to a small island, with the wolves on the shore until dawn, when they had fled, whimpering. He told of the strange and probably crazy old man who had taught him how to fight, and more importantly, WHY to fight.
And he told an abbreviated version of his capture of Slate Jack Arell, the man who had stolen Clayton Danziger’s pearl-handled Parthian rapier, and his daughter’s virtue at the same time. He told how he had used Jack Daw’s reputation to smoke the man out, and then poisoned him into unconsciousness and brought him to Danziger for the reward.
But he didn’t mention the woman and her boy, and he didn’t say what his plans were once he had recovered.
His dreams were filled with faces, and vengeance.
He saw the other faces, the woman and her son, almost every day now. He would look out the window and they would be looking in, or he would see them in the mirror standing behind him, or just as a glimpse out of the corner of his eye.
At first he had nearly jumped out of his skin, but the faces faded quickly if he noticed them, and he became almost used to it by the time he had recuperated. He knew it was his guilty conscience, but he banished it from his mind. He would have time for regrets when he had dealt with his attackers.
When finally the day came where he could make a full stretch without pain, and he could talk without problem, though his voice was a little huskier than it had been before, the inspector visited for the last time.
“I know there are things you have told me, Tiger,” (the inspector had taken to calling him tiger, for the similarity to his last name, but he disliked it intensely) “and despite my wishes, I can’t hold you any longer in good conscience. So let me just say this.” The inspector braced his back slightly, and a grim expression came over his face. “If I catch you involved in an illegal act, I will have to hang you, and this time for good. Any affection I may have for you will not sway me in my duty.”
Ludovico realized that the inspector actually had a tear in his eye, and started to say something, but he was interrupted.
“No- that is all I will say. Good bye, sir.” And the inspector walked out.

Jack Daw Part Six

The inspector nearly fell forward over Jack’s shoulder as he finished his sentence, but caught himself and spluttered indignantly at the idea. “Preposterous! Here you stand before me, and no tricks will get you out of a trial, sir! Furthermore-, ” but he stopped and stared as ‘Jack’ slowly pulled the beard away from his chin. There was a kind of tacky substance holding it on, he saw, and its fierce bushiness had concealed the edges, where it might have been easier to spot as a fake.
Despite realizing that ‘Jack’ was a disguise, he jumped again when the man in the bed began to pull at his scar, which came off as well. It peeled up, leaving a red mark where the skin had been runneled up in a faux scar tissue ridge. When beard and scar were gone, and the former ‘Jack’ had rubbed the rawness out of his face, the inspector seemed to see a totally different person. Whereas the criminal Jack Daw was an obvious rogue, with an ill-omened look about him, as if he might suddenly knife you at any turn, the face now revealed showed only deep caring, hidden sadness, and obvious pain from his injuries.
“Good god, man… Ahhh, so who, I mean why would those posters be there…?” The inspector looked from the discarded beard and scar-glue to the face of the wounded stranger.
May I ask first how it is that I am still alive? I still remember… up to the hanging. And a knife coming out of me.
The stranger smiled his grim smile again, and for a second he looked more roguish… almost like Jack Daw.
“Ahh, yes, well, the men who had hung and stabbed you fled when we approached… We were out on one of the lord’s patrols, you see, and we heard the laughter from the road. But the blackguards heard us coming and took to their heels. One of them like to have stabbed you, though, and did a right job of it. Lucky for you we keep a healer along, and he was able to patch you up, else you’d have been dead for sure.”
The inspector looked discomfited for a second, then continued, somewhat slower and in a lower voice. “The fact is, sir, we’d probably not have done for your wounds, if a lad hadn’t recognized you and brought up there might be a reward.”
The stranger started to laugh and immediately stopped, his face white and pained. The inspector quickly grabbed his shoulders and pushed him back flat.
“Mustn’t exert yourself too much, you know, what with that wound in your chest, you see. And stay straight as much as possible, the more you bend the worse you’ll feel.”
The stranger looked around hopelessly for a way to write in that position until the inspector went and grabbed the guard’s shield and held it at an angle for him.
Thank you. So what now?
“First I’d like to ask what your name is. Your real name.” The inspector watched his face while he wrote, but he displayed no emotion.
Ludovico Taigur, of the Rom.
When the inspector glanced down at the parchment he almost dropped the guard’s shield. “Romany! But you’re not… But you’re disguised, aren’t you? So, maybe…” He looked closely at Ludovico’s face, “Yes, the bone structure, if you look closely… and your nose, now that I’m not looking at the scar and the beard.
“Well, being a Rom isn’t a crime, I suppose, though some might say otherwise.”
There is good and bad amongst my people, but I have committed no crimes here other than putting up some posters.
As he wrote, two faces swam in Ludovico’s vision, but he blinked them away.
“Well, if you’re telling it true, we don’t have anything to hold you on. We’ll check with his lordship, of course. But your disguise was pretty convincing, it was. Ahhh, and of course we’ll keep you here long enough to heal, you see. But after that you’ll be free to go.”
Thank you again. For now I think sleep will help me best.
“Ahh, yes, quite right.” The inspector gave a last nod to Ludovico, handed the shield back to the guard, and left, but Ludovico was asleep before the door had closed.

Jack Daw Part Five

Once again Jack was surprised to find himself returning to consciousness. But the burning ache in his chest and his inability to draw a full breath convinced him.
Reluctantly he opened his eyes. He lay in a clean-looking room on a white bed. Ugly-looking black candles burned on either side of him, exuding a pleasant sweet odor.
There was an armed guard at the single door leading out, and when he saw Jack open his eyes, he knocked on the door behind him. In a few seconds a man in an inspector’s uniform came in.
“Mr. Daw. How good of you to wake up.”
For a second Jack started, but this man’s voice was totally unlike the man with the cane’s, even if he had been disguising it. He shook off the memory and listened.
“I have been hoping to get my hands on you for some time, Mr. Jack Daw. You have been a very naughty boy, according to reports.” The inspector preened a bit at this and reflexively twisted the end of his long handlebar moustache. “But I warrant you’ll not be causing any more trouble in MY town, no sir.”
Jack thought he might want to stop this line of thought before it went too far. He started to speak, but gagged instead. He quickly discovered that if he breathed slowly it was no problem, but if he tried to talk he was in trouble.
“Ahh, yes.” The inspector looked slightly dismayed. “The healers told me you would have difficulty speaking for a while. It will make a confession difficult, no doubt.” He looked saddened at having to wait.
Jack made a flourishing motion with his right hand while holding his left underneath it. The inspector was quick to pick up on his meaning, and perked right up.
“Yes, you could write it down! Excellent idea, that! Let me just have this chap …” Here the inspector conferred with the guard and the guard left, coming back in a minute or so with some parchment, a quill, and a vial of ink.
Jack pulled the parchment towards him and uncorked the ink. He dipped the quill in the ink and gave it a quick tap on the edge of the bottle to clear the excess ink. With perfect calligraphy, he began to write as the inspector watched, fascinated.
On what charges do you wish to arrest Jack Daw?
He started to turn the paper for the inspector, but the inspector came around to his shoulder to read it.
“Ahhh, well, on charges of theft, extortion, and murder, of course. There are wanted posters for you all over town, you see.” The inspector seemed confused as Jack smiled grimly.
Who put up those posters?
The inspector looked at what he had written for a moment before replying. “Well, ahhh, the lord’s men put them up-“ here he checked himself, “But… well, they haven’t been around lately, you see.” The inspector frowned. This was not going according to plan. He leaned back against the wall in thought, then pushed forward again when Jack started writing once more.
Consider the fact that it was NOT the lord’s men that put up those posters. Consider the fact that the crimes of which they speak are fabricated.
Consider the fact that there IS NO Jack Daw.

Jack Daw Part Four

The rope burned, like a necklace of fire. His hands were tied behind him and to his belt, to prevent slipping them under his legs. The knots were both cunning and cruel, and he had been searched thoroughly to make sure he had no blades. The ones he had hidden on himself were piled on the ground in front of him as a taunt…

** The reward lay heavily in his pouch as he rode away from town. One moment of carelessness was all it took, to end two unknown lives. If he had only packed the ‘sugar’ up before he left, the woman and her son would have lived. One moment of carelessness.
Ironically, in thinking about carelessness he paid insufficient attention to his surroundings. He was watching the sky move behind the up thrust trees, and when he looked down they were all around him. Some he recognized from wanted posters, other were unknown, but all had the same feral look of the urban predator.
The fight was short and decisive, and his last sight before he bid farewell to consciousness was a cloaked and hooded figure with a mask… and a cane. **

If he swung a little, trying to ignore the pain in his neck, he could hit the tree behind him with his feet, but he could gain no purchase on the smooth bark. A man behind him and to the right laughed at his efforts.

** Jack was surprised when he regained consciousness, until he felt the rope around his neck. He was being supported by a tough on either side and one behind him, and the man with the cane stood in front of him.
“Ahhh, good day, Mr. Daw. We were waiting for you to rejoin us.
“I’m afraid you probably know what the penalty is for betraying a member of Sam’s Seaside.” The man smiled, a careful movement that had little to do with amusement. “It is, of course, death. And it will be administered by hanging, in this case, as a warning to any others who have similar plans. You will be left here to swing, and to rot, and cause fear.”
Jack tested his bonds, but there was no give in them. He looked at the men around him, and there was no give in them either. The man with the cane watched him carefully for a second, then continued, satisfied that he was not capable of escape.
“Well, then. I’m afraid it’s time for us to part ways, Jack.”
Out of sight to Jack, men pulled at the rope, and he was inexorably drawn into the air, his breath cut off… **

There was nothing he could do. His vision blurred, and two faces swam before his eyes. A woman and a child…
“Boss! The guard!” The voice seemed to come from far away, and it didn’t make any sense to Jack.
“Well, Mr. Daw will have to find his end without us.” This voice seemed more familiar, but it was too much effort to recall why. “But as a parting gift…”
Agony tore through his chest, banishing the fog of death that had begun covering his mind. His vision cleared abruptly, and he saw the man with the cane withdrawing a bloody dagger. He felt the bright blood pulsing seemingly straight out of his heart, and he barely heard the words the man said as he left.
“We shall not meet again, Jack Daw.”

Jack Daw Part Three

When he had covered the grave he jammed a piece of wood into the ground at the head, on which he had crudely scratched some words:


“They looked like drifters, or homeless,
and I didn’t know their names.
A woman and a boy.
They looked for some warmth
of a winter’s evening and found death instead.
I’m sorry, but I did it.
-Jack Daw”


Before he left, Jack made sure there was nothing to identify him at the scene. He poured the rest of the ‘sugar’ into a bucket of water, enough to dilute it past the danger level, and poured it on a rocky patch of ground behind the house. He wiped the tear tracks from his face with a lace handkerchief, being careful to avoid the scar and the edges of his beard. Finally he examined himself in a small metal mirror he produced from a sleeve pocket. Satisfied, he went to collect his horse.
Above, the trees stirred restlessly in the chill breeze, seeming to shake their skeletal fists at him. He ignored them and rode for town. He had a reward to collect.

Jack Daw Part Two

The grave was dug, and the man crawled out of the hole to the bodies. He took the taller one first, picking it up easily and placing near the edge. The smaller corpse seemed almost heavier, but he placed it on the opposite side. He knelt down at the foot of the grave and tears filled his eyes once more, blurring the grave to an earlier scene…

** “Nothing like hot sugared tea to take the chill out,” said the bearded man. In contrast to his bland garb before, he now wore a green flowery coat with a double row of buttons on the front, with lace dripping from neck and wrists. His vest was silk, and the buttons on it appeared to be solid gold. A fancy-looking short sword rode one hip, and a spiked buckler rested against the wall. His high leather boots were shined, and his tri-corner hat had a long feathery plume sticking from one side. A waxed moustache complemented his beard, and the scar rode up around his right eye in a wicked and jagged half circle.
The short man sitting opposite him at the lone table only grunted. He had a whippet’s lean look and a panther’s smile, when he chose to show it. Today was not one of those days. He wore loose red linen for the most part, with a sash of black velvet. A long knife depended from the sash, and he had a smaller version tucked into one boot. He had a number of pouches at his belt, and he restlessly fiddled with things inside them between drinks of tea. The clinks of small metal objects came from within.
“Can we get on with this? I have an appointment afterwards, and I don’t want to be late,” said the short man.
“Of course. More tea?” At another grunt, the bearded man poured the shorter man’s glass full once more, and then spooned sugar from the bowl on the table into it. Two scoops, and then he sat back and began to describe the job.
The smaller man listened attentively, and had the other describe in detail the buildings they would be encountering, with an eye for decorative stonework, ease of gripping, projection on which to catch a grapple and such. But as they talked, he found it harder and harder to concentrate, and had to ask more questions to figure out what their next move would be…was it the target building that had the stucco face? Was it the one next door, or did that one have the gargoyle statue on the roof?It was all … too …much.
The bearded man watched the other closely, and was ready to catch him when he fell. He eased him to the ground and quickly checked his pulse, then raised one eyelid and let it slide shut.
“You’ll be out for a little while, my rooftop crawling friend. Long enough, at least.” Grabbing the body under the arms, the bearded man dragged the body out into the cold. **

Eyes still red, but weeping finished, the man dragged the taller body into the grave. It thumped down with solid suddenness. He tried to arrange it as best he could, and then turned to the other body, and gently pulled it into the hole. He set it down next to the other, and pushed them close together. Then he slowly pulled himself from the hole for the last time. He said a few words, in a halting voice, but they seemed to go unheard amongst the pines and the cold, and he soon stopped.
The first shovel of dirt hit the smaller body, and the top of the sheet jerked down enough to expose a child’s face …

** By the time the bearded man returned to the house, now scruffy from travel and wearing a stained great cloak over his nicer clothes, it was far too late. The son was dead already, and the woman was in convulsions that would soon lead to madness, if not death. It took only one look at the sugar bowl, next to now knocked over mugs, to see the culprit … Or a look in a mirror. They had come in from the cold and taken a drink to get warm, figuring that no one would begrudge them that small favor. The woman was injuring herself as she thrashed, and her eyes were wide and bloodshot. Her tongue had swollen and her fingernails were ice blue.
He held the woman down and cut her throat to end her pain…there was nothing else he could do. **

Jack Daw Part One

The legend of Jack Daw started on a blustery grey morning in the transition from fall to winter, in a cottage on the edge of the woods. The trees still tried to hold the fading remnants of their colorful crowns to the sky, but their skeletal limbs brought to mind dripping bits of rotted flesh instead, and the crows made a gruesome spectacle as they flew amongst the standing corpses.
The only sound to be heard in the chilly air was the crunch and swish of a shovel. The ground was frozen hard on top, but the man working had broken through with a pick and was down to his chest now, no longer cold from the work. Runnels of grey dirt trailed from his red-rimmed eyes, and he shook occasionally with more than cold. Next to the hole lay two sheet-covered bodies, blood stains visible at the throat of the taller one. The shorter body was small and thin, surely no more than a child.
The shovels of dirt hit the ground next to the cottage with clockwork precision, and the man in the hole couldn’t help but remember…

**“I’m Jack Daw. I’m looking for a second-story man.”
The man speaking was dressed much like the other patrons of Sam’s Seaside Bar, which is to say ‘all in black’. He wore the same anonymous black domino, as well, and his hair, assuming he had any, was concealed by a bandana, a muffler, and a black floppy hat. The only thing that marked him was a large ferocious beard and the edge of a scar peeking from under the domino.
The one he spoke to was dressed similarly, but rough shaven and scar free, at least to outwards appearances. He carried a natty-looking cane of polished mahogany that almost certainly concealed a blade, and his domino had a certain mark at the edge, just to the side of the right ear.
“Might be I know someone. What’s the pay?” The man with the cane kept his voice low, despite the hidden nature of Sam’s Seaside, requiring two tunnels and a search to get in. The clients of Madame Brevity’s Brothel, through the thin floor above, sometimes had sharp ears, after all.
“The pay’s 3 large in advance, 2 after, with a 10 percent bonus of the take if the job’s quiet. It should add to maybe 800 all told if it goes well.” The bearded man raised a finger in warning. “But no amateurs, you hear? I understand you have at least one good topper around, and I need talent for this job.”
The cane twitched slightly at the total, but the man who held it stayed impassive. “I know a guy,” he said cautiously, “but he’ll ask for more than that, even with the bonus. He’ll want maybe 5 up front, 5 after, plus the bonus.”
The bearded man scowled under the domino. “13 large? I can get 20 scags and roust the house for that.” He scratched at his chin under the beard and spat at a tin on the floor, hitting the edge.
“You can’t get this quality for less, though. The guy I got is good, and worth it.”
The bearded man grunted a laugh. “How do you prove it before he drops a dagger into my foot while he’s up?”
“You hear about the Danziger job?” The man with the cane studied the other man’s face and seemed satisfied with what he saw. “I thought you might have. That’s the guy.”
“Him, eh?” The bearded man seemed to be trying not to appear impressed, but having a tough time of it. “Alright. 5 up front, 5 behind, and the bonus. I’ll drop the front at Brevity’s in an hour. The job’s two nights from now, but I want a go-over tomorrow to set the plan.”
The man with the cane nodded, pleased. “I’ll have him meet you at…?”
The bearded man thought for a minute. “The old Borgman place in the woods. It’ll be secluded enough that we can talk without interruption.”
With a flourish of the cane, the marked man got up and nodded, then left towards a side room. The man with the beard finished his drink and then went to begin the crawl back outside, unremarked by the other customers. **