A Tailor's Son (Valadfar) (17 page)

The walk to Donkey Road Courthouse did not take long.
They made their way quickly from Muriel’s house on the Knoll, past
the candle maker’s and pawnbrokers out onto Trade Road. It was still
bitterly cold and Muriel shivered as they walked. How Harold wanted
to put his arm around her to keep her warm but he fought his feelings.
She tried to press into him a few times but Harold had to remain in
character as they approached the station. They could not risk someone
seeing through their disguise. His palms began to sweat with nerves.
Muriel must have sensed it and turned to him taking his hand.

“It’ll be all right.”
She whispered shooting him one of her
smiles. It warmed him slightly and gave him the determination Harold
needed. He nodded back to her, pulled his shoulders back, muscles
tight and standing tall and determined they made their way inside. The
inside of the station was bare and the floor and walls shared the same
grey coat of matching plaster as half the city seemed to. They walked
quickly and all was going well. A few more steps and they would make
it to the first door. Harold’s hand twitched, eager to grasp the door
handle and step inside the corridor that led to the cells. With barely a
step remaining, Harold pushed his hand out, shakily reaching for the
small latch when from behind his desk to his left a fat balding old man
who seemed to be bursting from his uniform called out.

“
Hey.”
Was all he said but Harold’s heart sank and his
stomach leapt. Harold turned as calmly as he could and put a smile
across his face. The fat officer sat down behind a rather shoddy looking
desk. Its top was covered with papers, most of them having stains from
teacups across their tops. A sickly plant with huge leaves sat next to the
desk, adding only a little colour to the mass of grey. The room
reminded Harold a little of the hospital ward in which he had woken
up, but somehow this place was even more depressing, if that was
possible.

“
What?”
Harold asked trying to sound calm and like he had
every right to be there.
“I haven’t seen you before, what you doing here?”
The fat man said
and got up from behind his desk and began to slide around it. Harold
could see the wooden rattle tucked into his belt at his side ready to call
for assistance. He had not bothered reaching for that though, and
Harold noticed the truncheon in his hands. Harold had to think fast if
he wanted to keep his teeth.
“I’m just bringing this girl in.”
Harold said trying hard to sound
like a city guard. “
I caught her trying to lift some meat from the butcher’s.”
The
lie sounded convincing, but Harold did not risk a mental pat on the
back just yet.
“You don’t work here, what’s your game?”
The old officer said,
sideling up towards him. Harold saw him flexing his knuckles as he got
a good grip on the truncation.
“What? You mean this serf doesn’t even work here?”
Muriel suddenly
interrupted, a look full of anger flashing across her eyes. She tried to
break free of his grasp with such force Harold actually had to pull back
hard, the sudden jolt marking her wrists. She let out a whimper and
Harold was amazed at how well she acted.
“You better start talking lad.”
The fat man said stalking towards
him. Harold knew that if the walrus-looking man brought that
truncheon down on him, it would hit him hard and Harold would
probably wake up in one of the cells, missing a few teeth and with a
headache worse than any hangover he had ever experienced.

“
All right, I don’t work here but my brother does
.” Harold said his
brain cheering at its own ingenuity. It worked. Harold confused the real
officer, which bought him time to think and luckily time to remember
the name of the young officer whose suit Harold was wearing.
“
Frederick Swenson. You must know him.”
Harold waited, trying his best to
look expectant.

“
Yeah, I know him”
The officer replied.
“It doesn’t tell me why
you’re here though, does it?”
He lowered the truncheon and it looked like his
plan was working. Harold grinned and stepped towards him, his
confidence growing.

“If you know him, it should do.”
Harold said, with a small chuckle.
“
He was out last night and is a little unwell today. In fact, he is pig sick. You could
smell him halfway down the hall this morning. He didn’t want the sergeant giving him
another ear-full so asked him if I would come in for him. You know, so his beat would
still get walked and that, and I thought, what the hell, always good to have your
brother owing you a favour right?”
Harold said, releasing his inner thespian.

“Yeah, I saw Fred leave here last night talking about going somewhere.
You know, the sergeant is going to kill him if he finds out. He’s already on his last
warning after getting caught in the alley behind the bell with one of O’Brien’s tarts.”
The old man’s face melted and he actually looked somewhat jolly.
Harold could imagine he would have many stories to tell if Harold had
the time to listen.

“He won’t unless you tell him, right?”
Harold said, still in awe that
this was working.
“You tell your brother he owes me a brew – actually make that two.
” The
fat man said with a laugh. “
If you’re anything like your brother I bet your collar
here isn’t coming in for stealing a bit of meat. Go on, what did she give you? Bite you
when you said you weren’t paying
?”
“
Yeah, something like that, but don’t tell him. It will please him no end.
Come on you.”
Harold said, tugging on Muriel’s wrist and leading her
away.
Harold did not relax until the door closed behind them and
they had walked halfway down the corridor. Harold was glad to let go
of Muriel’s wrist, still feeling bad that he’d had to man-handle her.
“
You were great.”
She whispered, giving him a quick kiss him on
the cheek in her excitement and Harold felt instantly proud.
“
Thanks for buying me time back there. I couldn’t have done it without
you.”
Harold replied, holding his cheek.
“Come on, the files room should be just up here. If we get out of here alive
and without cuffs I’ll give you another kiss.”
She said with a giggle and Harold
could tell his face must have turned a strong shade of red.
The filing room was just as Harold expected it to be, dark and
filled with cobwebs and dust. A corridor between the bookshelves ran
from the main door down to the far wall. Scattered about on the floor
were wooden crates containing what he guessed to be the older files.
There were no candles in the room and the darkness felt chokingly
close and coated everything in a palette of greyscale. While Muriel held
the solid door open, just enough to let in what little light there was in
the main corridor; Harold pressed forward, his eyes trying their best to
scan the small-carved letters under each shelf. His heart leapt, beating
against his ribcage as from down the hall, Harold heard a man’s voice
shout out. Harold froze watching as the dust fell from the shelves.
Breathing deeply, he realised the shout had come from one of the
convicts in a cell and not from the guards.
“Any luck?”
Muriel whispered from the open doorway and
Harold shook his head, a pointless motion in the dark.
“No.”
He whispered back. Harold could barely see more than
an inch or so in front of his nose and paranoia began to play with him.
Harold could not help but feel that some unknown shadow, something
lurking in the dark, was watching him. It was a stupid idea but one that
all humans shared. A sudden squeak as his foot hit something small and
fluffy followed by the sound of tiny feet running for cover exposed his
stalker. A rat scrambled under one of the nearby bookcases. Harold
had no idea why he followed the rat’s path, maybe out of frustration for
the shock it gave him. Harold wanted to kick the little blighter, so he
followed it. Harold stopped once he reached the bookshelf where the
rat had made its escape. Harold could see two shiny orbs glowing back
out from under it, watching him. His eyes squinted upon the plaque at
eye level. It was either the letter ‘r’ to ‘u’ or ‘s’ to ‘v’, Harold really could
not tell in the darkness but either way this was the rack Harold needed.
Harold couldn’t help but feel like somehow the rat had meant for him
to find this shelf.
Harold used his finger to run across the bound files feeling
for dust, until he came to one that felt crisp and new. Harold pulled it
free, being careful not to knock any of the other files to the floor. They
were not far from the main reception, and any noise could bring that
aged, but well built, officer running from behind his desk to investigate.
Harold carefully made his way back towards Muriel, doing his best to
avoid the litter of crates on the floor and leaving the rat to its solitude.
“
You got it?”
Muriel asked, obviously eager to get out of the
place.
“I think so.”
Harold said glancing down at the file in his hands.
In the slit of light from the door Harold could make out the word
‘Spinks’. This was indeed his file. “
Yeah this is it.”
He added. With the
file now in his hands it then occurred to him that in their rush to get in
and acquire the file, neither Muriel nor Harold had actually thought
about how they would get out of the station unchallenged.

While Muriel and Harold were trying to think of a way to
escape Donkey Road guard station the O'Brien boys had begun closing
the noose around the neck of everything he held dear, or so they
thought. The two thugs stood on his family’s doorstep. They had
already knocked and no one had answered. His mother was upstairs
writing in her journal and peaking through the upstairs window; careful
not to let the light from her candle escape the gap between the curtains
as she peered out. She did not dare open the door with his father in
such a weakened state. It is quite funny that even with the sheltered life
his mother led; the harshness of the streets of the common district had
seeped its way into her heart and worried her terribly. She was right not
to open the door though, and if only his father had fitted a new lock as
he had planned, things may have been so different. A second knock
yielded no answer so Ernest pulled a river trader knife, the ones with
the curly maple handles and thick blade almost like a butcher’s cleaver,
from his pocket and rammed it in to the split between the door and
frame. He knew just how to pop it open from his years of brutal debt
collection and enforcement for his deceased father. The old lock gave
way within seconds under the thugs’ strength and the door fell open.

Harold’s father was asleep in his chair, slippers on and
smoking jacket wrapped around him tightly. He was unaware as the
two thugs stampeded into their home. Ernest made straight for the
stairs while barking an order for Neill to check downstairs. Ernest
checked the upper rooms finding Harold’s mother and grabbing her
quickly he bound her hands, gagged her, and tied her to the bed. She
couldn’t put up much of a fight, she was well into her fifties and not
able to even dent Ernest’s assault. She screamed out for help through
the poorly tied gag but with the degradation of the city, a women
screaming for help during the cold of night had become all too
common and anyone who heard it allowed her screams to fall on deaf
ears.

Ernest went back downstairs to join Neill, leaving Harold’s
mother tied to the bed panic ridden, listening to what evolved on the
ground floor below. His father awoke to see Neill standing in the
lounge, knife in his hand. The house was old and echoed like the
acoustics from one of the theatres as the aged and dampened beams
readied for what was about to happen.

“Where is he?”
Neill demanded, not taking his eyes of the old
man in front of him. There had been a little bit of doubt in his heart if
they had the right house when they first arrived but the old man looked
so much like Harold, it had to be his father. Harold’s father ignored the
question as he had a fair few of his own that he wanted answered first.

“Who are you, what are you doing in my home?
” He challenged,
trying to push himself up out of his chair. Adrenaline surged through
his body making his vision blur and his heart race.

“
Look, old man, just tells us where Harold is.”
Ernest said from the
doorway. Harold’s father was a strong and stubborn man and the
mention of his son’s name seemed to infuriate him even further. He
reached for the iron fire poker, which he kept close to his chair during
the colder parts of the year. Grasping it like a Polearm his father swung
it with the strength Harold always imagined he wielded during the
battle for Neeskmouth some twenty eight years before. It struck Neill,
who had been standing just in front of what used to be Harold’s chair.
For a big set man Neill’s sharp scream sounded more like that of a
wounded child at the first successful blow. The iron poker cut through
flesh sending a spray of blood across the fabric of Harold’s chair and
splattering up the wall. It followed the sound of metal clattering against
the ground as the knife fell away from Neill’s fractured wrist to the
floor. As resilient a thug as Neill was, this bone breaking blow made
him recoil in agony and Harold’s father swung again not missing his
chance to get the upper hand in battle. It had been years since he
disregarded his title as one of the Pole, but he had not forgotten the art
of battle. Rage filled his body as Harold’s father pushed the brutes back
out into the corridor.

“
Ernest.”
Neill called out, ducking under another swing of the
poker. Harold’s father swung repeatedly even through flu-ridden limbs.
The table was sent flying with a kick from his aged foot and smashed
against Neill’s leg, closely followed by his father’s stripy escaped
slipper.