Rattenkönig

Rattenkönig

Postby Cherny » Sun Aug 18, 2013 5:44 am

High summer, the sky a blue vault overhead; the days are bright and dusty, the fields a patchwork of green vegetables and ripening wheat. Myrken Wood prospers, drowsing under the golden sun, lulled by the songs of thrushes and meadow grasshoppers. The nights are mild, cool breezes and soft rains bringing respite from the heat of the day.

It's been a difficult day for Cherny, a day spent at his knight's side as Sir Elliot in turn attended upon his Lady in his role as protector, champion, trophy. A day of silk and lace, perfume and powder; a day of contrived witticisms and brittle laughter; a day of remembering his posture, his tone, his manners, standing just so and smiling just so and speaking just so, and that only when spoken to. It is taxing, more so than even the days spent labouring in the sun, toiling away on charitable works. He retires early to his nest in the hayloft above the stables, near the loading door - Son has claimed the far end of the loft, claiming it to be less prone to draughts; Cherny, however, prefers to have the door open, so he might sit and gaze out towards the tavern, or across the lawn to the treeline and lakeshore. He's hung sackcloth curtains to claim the space as his own, and lies staring at the underside of the roof thatch in the fading daylight.

He can't say when, precisely, he is first aware of it; he half-dozes for a span, perhaps, or goes away in something like Ser Catch's fugues; a stretch of time in which even his thoughts are quiet, empty, steady breaths and slow heartbeats, animal stirring in the stalls below, a rustling in the straw above. It is a gradual realisation that he is watched, that he is looking into a face - narrow, wedge-shaped, with bead-black eyes and trembling whiskers, observing him from a shadowed gap between thatch and rafter. He blinks, frowns slightly as he focuses on the creature, knowing that he should probably do something - should throw something, should thrash at it with a stick, drive it away. Son would do that, would fling a boot and a curse, but the squire finds himself too weary for such excitement. And there are always more rats, unseen but often heard as they scamper and scrabble through the fabric of the building.

Instead he stays where he is, sprawled on his straw mattress, as the rat - small, lean, with the awkward proportions and uncertain movements of youth - squeezes out from its hiding place to creep down one of the beams. It hesitates as he shifts slightly, head turning to keep it in sight, but moves on when it becomes clear the boy's not about to leap into violent action. There's a plate there, by the loading door, where Cherny had sat and eaten his supper; a heel of rye bread, the core of an apple, a few crumbs of cheese. A feast, and the boy watches as his visitor picks over his leavings, taking a nibble of browning apple flesh or gnawing at a tough crust of bread, gripping it with paws like dainty hands.

He should despise it, should revile it as filthy vermin, but its coat is sleek, glossy as if fresh brushed. He should rebuke it for its boldness, its insolence - how dare it and its brutish kind exist in this new Myrken Wood, where all is smiles and silk and lace - but instead he only watches, observes in silence as the rat goes about its business.

Most of the apple core and the better part of the breadcrust it leaves, too much to eat in one sitting; it takes its time in scouring the plate of cheese crumbs, however, sniffing back and forth in case any have been overlooked; eventually, disappointed, it ventures a last glance for the squire, cautious, curious, before slinking over the lip of the door and out of sight, to continue its foraging elsewhere.

He lets it go, unchallenged, and it feels like a small rebellion.
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Re: Rattenkönig

Postby Cherny » Sun Aug 25, 2013 4:07 am

Over the following days Cherny makes small efforts to win the rat's trust; each evening he leaves a few scraps on his plate - a crust of bread, a morsel of cheese, a sliver of fruit - and each evening it moves it a little closer to where he sits and watches. At first the boy remains still, hardly daring to breathe; once the rat is used to his presence he makes small movements, quiet sounds - shifting of his limbs, clearing his throat, scratching his nose - and his visitor learns that these are not things to be feared. The squire reads some treatise on tactics or heraldry while the rat gnaw on a tough breadcrust clutched in pink little hands, and the creature grows accustomed to the turning of pages, the quiet murmur of the boy's voice as he forms letter-shapes into mouth-sounds.

One evening there are only crumbs left behind, the most meager of meals even for a creature so small, and the rat sniffs an impatient circle around the rim of the plate in search of its customary offering before sitting up on its haunches and glaring at the boy who sprawls against a straw bale nearby, his eyes bright with amusement. In one hand he holds the end of a loaf, and with the other he pinches a good morsel of soft crumb, slowly rolling it into a neat pellet. A flick of thin fingers sends the little missile arcing and rolling to a spot not too far from the rat, which scurries to claim its prize. It becomes a game - another flick, another pellet, and so it goes, each morsel landing a little nearer the boy than the last.

Within a day the rat is cautiously taking food from his fingertips, scampering back beyond arm's reach to enjoy its reward.

Within two it tolerates his touch, allowing him to rub behind its ears or stroke its back for as long as it takes to devour a scrap of bread or nugget of cheese.

From the third day he begins to teach the rat tricks. At first simple commands, easy games - Stand Up, Turn Around, Wash Your Face - but later progressing to more challenging tasks, more complex instructions - Bring Me That, Which Hand?, Wait For It.

The rat learns quickly, and is rewarded well.
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Re: Rattenkönig

Postby catch » Mon Aug 26, 2013 7:08 am

Son didn't have any real opinion on rats. He was no farmer's lad, to fear rats in the cradle or in the grain-bin. There were always a few, furtive black rats that made a wild living in the wood, outnumbered by the field mice. The Dagger's stables were kept fairly clear of rats, with the amount of strays that stalked her halls, though he'd had one or two unpleasant dreams of something fat and hairy dragging itself across his legs, half-awake remembrances from a boy who slept like a dead rock.

Nevertheless.

"That's disgustin'," Son would say of Cherny's new pet, eyeballing the little training-session from his corner of the loft. The heavy, leather awl that he holds in his thick-fingered hand is somewhere between practiced and clumsy. It's been awhile since Da had shown him how to stitch together leather and furs, and the boy worked on a bundle of them. He eyeballs the proceedings with faint distaste.

Son likes animals. He liked his Da's dogs. He has a respect for them, even after he's outgrown animal affection, replaced with a need for a human interaction that is filled only by Cherny and a scant handful of people. But rats were vermin, and Son, contrary Son, immediately goes for the offensive, his voice full of scorn.

"You don' know where that rat's been. S'probably rabid, comin' close as it does."

Yet there are times, when Cherny has gone off, bright and early, that Son takes a careful look around, and - with clumsy bluntness - tries to lure the rat to himself, without any of the careful patience of the other, younger boy.
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Re: Rattenkönig

Postby Cherny » Sat Nov 09, 2013 12:18 pm

Son's disapproval does little to deter Cherny from pursuing this new friendship; he only grins as the rat clambers up to perch upon his shoulder, or scurries up one coat-sleeve and down the other, and casually makes sure those teaching-games take place where the older boy can see.

"He's n-not sick. Just h-hungry. And, and h-he knows I'll n-not hurt him."

The rat remains wary of the hunter's boy, only grudgingly venturing from the thatch to snatch morsels and tidbits - but never from his hand, never from within anything like arm's reach - and quick to scuttle back to safety the moment his bribe is secured.

On evenings when Son returns to the loft with a meal, however, glittering eyes might peer from the shadows; silent and watchful as dines - on conies or pigeons or grouse, caught in the woods and cooked in the tavern - as he crunches them between heavy teeth, as he devours them bones and all.

Cherny's time with the rat becomes a small ritual of an evening, a constant throughout the rising turmoil of the Lady's reign - a small circle of candlelight, a cautious stirring among the thatch, a meal shared and lessons learned. Sometimes there are tricks of balance and agility, thick twine strung taut from beam to rafter, a criss-crossing maze of strings for the rat to navigate; tests of dexterity, setting acorns back in their cups or playing pick-up-sticks with stalks of straw; games of wits, Cherny shuffling walnut shells to and fro, the rat hunting the hidden pea beneath - or chattering indignantly when the boy tries to use his yet-imperfect sleight of hand to cheat.

On other evenings they simply rest together, the rat listening from Cherny's shoulder with quivering whiskers and bead-bright eyes while the boy reads from his small collection of tattered and dog-eared books. Passages from the Best-yeary on creatures foreign and fantastical; a fechtbuch in better condition, purchased with the Lady's coin and featuring tinted woodcuts of fighters wielding spear and sword and shield; the pair of them spend the better part of their time puzzling over A Prince of Three Cities, a five-act melodrama in a damp-spotted octavo, its plot a tangle of dynastic intrigue and betrayal, scheme and counter-scheme.

It's from this last that Cherny plucks the name of FORZO, a Captain of the Guard, which the rat seems to accept; he responds to it, at least, no hesitation now in approaching the boy or clambering about his clothes. Cherny speaks and brave Forzo listens; in time he answers, first chirping and chittering, then with faint sparks of emotion, of want, of intent; soon tiny rat-thoughts flutter and tickle at the the boy's mind like moths at the edge of a candleflame, and he laughs in quiet delight.
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Re: Rattenkönig

Postby Cherny » Sun Nov 10, 2013 11:39 pm

Weeks pass, and the rat masters new challenges by the day; brighter, more attentive, capable of performing increasingly complex tasks with pink little hands - hands that learn to grasp, to grip, to manipulate. He wins at pick-up-sticks more frequently, and moves on to other games. They play at fencing with lengths of straw, Cherny keeping his wrist to the floorboards while Forzo aims strikes at knuckles or palm, copying guards and hews from the fechtbuch figures as the boy calls them out.

One evening the rat is not alone when he scrambles from among the roof slats; another follows, smaller, grey-brown in contrast to Forzo's increasingly glossy black, timid and uncertain. Over the next few nights, with encouragement, it - she - loses her mistrust of the boy, until she becomes willing to take crumbs from his fingertips, growing tolerant of his quiet voice and gentle touch. With chirping voice and sparking thoughts Forzo makes introductions and the boy laughs, for all that there is little else to laugh about under the Lady's rule.

Other rats join them on subsequent nights - one at a time, fearful and skittish at first - and soon become familiar enough that Cherny can tell them apart, can discern individual traits, can give them their own names from the playbook. They become CARITA, ALLEGRA and BENIGNA, ladies-in-waiting at the court of Duke GALLO. Neither so bold or so clever as the first among them, they are still content to scamper and play, to groom one another or watch from the sidelines as Forzo shows off his latest tricks.

Before long they discover the pail of silken curls shorn from a madman's scalp, set aside and forgotten in a corner of the loft. The bucket quickly empties after that, its contents spirited away for nest-lining.
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Re: Rattenkönig

Postby Cherny » Sun Nov 17, 2013 3:26 am

Summer ends in a rush of red-and-gold wings, the air thick with locusts glutted on months of verdant excess; Forzo hunts the swarm, spearing chitinous bodies on a length of skewer and carrying them back in triumph. His ladies crunch and feast upon this bounty while it lasts, already growing fat with the champion's young. Cherny too gathers up locusts by the bagful - at first with the idea of roasting them, as Son suggests, but after several unfortunate and unpalatable experiments he casts that plan aside, and the bag of locusts with it. The rats prove more patient in their efforts, carefully roasting the insects on the lid of the boy's tin lantern as he reads.

The boy explains the results of the swarm's passing in the evenings that follow - the loss of crops, devoured by the creatures that now hang among the loft's rafters, toasted husks strung together and saved for the winter ahead. He explains how people will go hungry, and how Forzo and his ladies must be careful henceforth, as rats are hated for the damage they wreak upon food stores; not just the food they eat, but the food they spoil with their droppings which make people sick. They mustn't be seen, mustn't be suspected, or they'll draw the attention of ratcatchers; hunters, who'll bring cats and traps and poisons and fierce little terriers to hunt down the rat-captain and his ladies.

Forzo listens to this, in between tricks and lessons; listens and questions, at first - Why not fight? Why not bite and kill? - but the boy is firm, emphatic in forbidding such considerations. Humans work together, he explains - despite the evidence of recent weeks, despite the Lady's misrule - humans work together when they are threatened. If an animal bites a human, and especially if it kills, that animal is hunted and destroyed. Humans do not tolerate being preyed upon. If Forzo bites a human, he and every other rat in the stables will be killed. Far better to be careful, far better to stay hidden.

The rat listens and heeds, for thereafter none but Cherny and Son catch sight of he and his wives. The boy crops his hair in secret sympathy for a girl he'd seen beaten and sheared in the streets, and these clippings too are gathered and saved.

Summer ends in a rush of violence, in casual brutality and an inexorable, inevitable reckoning. Humans work together when they are threatened.
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Re: Rattenkönig

Postby Cherny » Tue Nov 26, 2013 1:44 pm

Autumn closes in with bitter winds and half-filled storehouses, Myrkentown's streets rustling with gusts of confusion and uncertainty; the Lady is dead, her Vice-Governor deposed - but what now? Who will pay for the cruelties enacted in her name? What will become of her servants?

Such troubles are remote from the lives of rats, who concern themselves with their own affairs. Shrouded in his new black coat, Cherny keeps his distance from the town. Instead he busies himself around the tavern and stables - hours spent slinging stones, or tending to Sir Elliot's horse, or wrestling with Many-Fights' pups. In the evenings he retires to the loft - emptier, for Son lies wounded in the house of healing - and takes comfort in the company of rats.

They continue their battle with A Prince of Three Cities, the boy going so far as to scratch together a crib sheet on a scrap of paper to keep track of the shifting net of loyalties and allegiances, true and professed. Forzo shows more interest in martial matters, in keeping with his namesake, and grows so insistent on studying such arts that before long Cherny takes to leaving the fechtbuch propped open for the rat-captain to peruse at his leisure.

Meanwhile the rat-ladies spend their time reading with the squire, or watching in fascination as he toils over his needlework, stitching new pockets and pouches to the inside of his coat; their minds spark with curiosity, and he shows them the precious sampler that Gloria had gifted to him, explaining its purpose as a pattern, a template, and their thoughts flutter in delight at the cleverly-stitched patterns, the stylised beast-figures of stone-bear and jah'zoon. He shows them cross-stitch and seed stitch, leaf and chain. He finds them a few scraps of linen and a length of thread, and with the loan of a bone needle they play at their own craft - clumsy at first and with little care for design, but gradually with more purpose. They learn to work together, pushing the needle back and forth from one side to the other, poking guide-holes in the cloth with sharp little claws. They find delight in patterns - simple geometry to begin with, but with time they become more decorative, figurative, taking cues from the sampler.

It becomes a routine, until abruptly it isn't. One evening Benigna fails to appear; the next, neither Allegra nor Carita emerge from the thatch for their post-supper visit. Forzo attends to his meal of food-scraps as readily as ever, but will not be drawn on the whereabouts of his ladies. The boy can only assume that they are well, or the rat-captain would make their distress known.

Two days later the mystery is solved: from the rats' nest deep in the thatch can be discerned faint piping voices; many of them, on the very limit of hearing, accompanied by a fluttering of querulous thoughts from tiny new minds.
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Re: Rattenkönig

Postby Cherny » Mon Jan 13, 2014 12:20 pm

"F-forty."

Cherny's voice is hushed; astounded and dismayed in equal measure, and again he begins his count of the young rats. Weeks have passed since the rat-captain's ladies went into seclusion; they emerged some days later, only slightly thinner and no less hungry, venturing out only long enough to feed, to accept perhaps a touch of fingertips to their ears before retreating to their hidden nests. Now, at last, their offspring are old enough to accompany their dams, bright-eyed and curious, all too-large paws and bobbling heads. He moves them from one group to another as he counts, under the watchful gaze of their mothers, and reaches the same total as before.

Forty. Two score hungry young mouths, and what are they to eat? Forzo seems unconcerned - they'll eat the same as their parents, feasting upon the great pails of oats and bricks of horse-bread upon which they might gnaw. Horses are so much larger and eat so much more, after all. The boy voices his reservations, stressing again the importance of going hidden, of going unseen. If their pilfering is noticed it will be the end of them, all of them, captain and ladies and sons and daughters.

A week passes, and the rat-wives grow fatter yet; another, and they withdraw once again to their secret lairs.

A month after the first count, and the boy's tally is closer to a hundred.

No. No, this cannot continue. It mustn't, for the stables are by now a near-constant bustle of little bodies scrabbling through the thatch or scampering among the straw - though they know well enough to avoid Son's den at the far end of the loft, wary of his short temper, and strong teeth that devour bones and all. They are clever, they are elusive, but it is too many, and they must stop. No more.

Forzo protests, of course, for he is proud of his plump wives, his vigorous young; the boy does his best to explain, pointing out how the oat-sacks are now thinner, the loaves of horse-bread fewer than before - and yet now there are twice as many of the rat-captain's progeny to feed. Too many rats, he says. Not enough food, as the winter's cold turns the trough-water to glass and the ground to iron.

Too many rats, Forzo reluctantly agrees.

He does not come to supper the next evening, nor the one after. His young still scurry and scamper to and fro, and Cherny finds it hard to begrudge them their playtime; he begins to teach them the tricks he'd shown their father - and others besides, for now they might cooperate, might work together to achieve more than one rat alone.

On the third evening Forzo returns; Cherny first notices him hunched upon a rafter overhead as his children play. Drying blood mats his fur, and he shivers with something like exhaustion. Benigna scurries down to accept a breadcrust from the squire's hand, while Carita and Allegra remain at their captain's side, laving his cuts with their tongues. Cherny's concern is met only with the reply: too many rats.

At Son's end of the loft, three small, stiff corpses lie lined up on the floorboards by his bedding; a trio of fat brown rats, each bearing a gore-crusted wound to throat or ribs or belly.

Winter deepens, and every night or two thereafter come more such offerings; bloody little bodies laid out in ones and twos and threes.
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Re: Rattenkönig

Postby catch » Wed Jan 15, 2014 7:28 am

After Noura, Son had been sullen, and unwilling, for much talk. As the winter wound onward, he became even more so.

He was hungry. A constant, gnawing hunger, something a butcher's boy on a dwindling salary could not satisfy. When he wasn't rushing about, doing his turn at the butcher's shop, then he was out in the ice and the snow, desperately casting his traps wide. He even tried a dead-fall, something he'd not wanted to do, so close to town. Hoping for a deer, for anything, bigger than a squirrel. But he had to stop the dead-fall, for every person in Myrkentown seemed to have gotten the same idea. They flushed the game away with their inexpert stamping, their bawling, driving it deeper and further away, so that - often - Son left before day-break, and did not come back until well after night, exhausted and half-frozen, and so short a temper that he would only answer Cherny in snarling monosyllable.

He knew that Cherny had warned him about Noura. And he knew that he should be more gracious to the squire's boy. But it was hard. It was so hard to remember all that, with wolves at his belly and all his thoughts swirling, centered, on food. And he was certain that no one suffered this winter as much as he did, and trying to think of ways to keep the Dark part of him at bay dominated his thoughts when he went to sleep, and were the first thing he thought about when he woke.

When he came back to the loft, in poor temper, as usual, he almost wanted to scream. He wanted to boot Cherny down the stairs, and hold him under the horse truff until the smaller boy stopped moving, stopped breathing. Such murderous thoughts were constant with him, now, and he was just as afraid at the strength of them as he was of the Hunger. But there were dead rats on his bed. Next to it. It didn't matter, there were dead rats, covered in gore and set neatly next to his pillow.

Son had been too distracted to notice much of the rats, aside from a hatred of them - that they'd like Cherny more than him - even though he treated them with contempt at every turn - though he had noticed that there seemed to be an awful lot more of them. They all looked the same, and Son was constantly mixing up the big, dog rat and his three does, all with ridiculous names that were hard to remember. But the addition of many, many smaller rats was something he did notice.

And now there were dead rats on his bed. And it was certainly Cherny's fault.

Son tried to pick one up by the tail, his lip sneering in disgust. He was fully ready to throw it onto Cherny's sleeping face when he paused. All his natural disgust for the things throbbed in him, but something deeper in him also throbbed, fueled by the murderous thoughts.

Eat it.

It was not a voice. Not a tangible command. It never had been. But it was an overwhelming need. Here, here was meat and bones. Here was a means to stave off that Hunger. But it was a rat. A disgusting, dead rat, covered in blood -

Before he could even have another thought of protest - before he could finish the first - Son savagely tore into the carcass.

He ate it in three bites.

He went on to the next.

He didn't realize that he was weeping until the rats were nothing more than solid lumps in his belly.
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Re: Rattenkönig

Postby Cherny » Sun Feb 09, 2014 12:15 pm

A night in the Rememdium, and no more than that for all that his wounds were extensive, horrific - torn and punctured flesh, bites and scrapes where he'd been gripped by savage teeth or raked by dull claws; bruises and sprains and scrapes from when the beast had shaken him, worried at him, flinging him to and fro like a ragdoll.

His coat and the clothes beneath had spared him the very worst of it, thick layers of wool bearing the brunt of the wolf's fangs; even so his forearms are a bloody ruin; he bears bites elsewhere - upon his legs, his shoulder, his ribs - and three parallel gouges mar the left side of his jaw from cheek to throat, deep and raw.

The healers tended to their work, first seeing the boy kept warm, plying him with sweet tea until he had begun to recover from the shock of the attack; until his hands had eased in their shaking and some colour had returned to his blood-smeared cheeks. Then they'd set about cleaning his wounds with brandy and hot saltwater before stitching those that had needed it, daubing pungent ointments onto the rest lest they fester. Cloths packed with snow to take down the worst of the swelling, but even so his flesh had been mottled and ghastly with bruises, and would likely remain so for weeks after.

But as the boy had dreamily remarked, once embraced by the haze of pain-dulling tinctures, while he absently watched needles of bright steel and threads of dark silk draw his ravaged flesh together again, he'd had worse. Much worse. An arrow through his chest, and the wellsmith stitching his left arm had nodded, remembering.

Just the one night in the Rememdium, and released the day after, for by some miracle the wolf hadn't managed to kill him..

Now he sits in the hayloft, gnawing quietly on the heel of a loaf of dark bread; hard going, for the crust is tough and his face is sore and swollen yet; to grip anything too hard or turn his hands just so is to tug painfully on his stitches, rousing his wounds from a dull ache to something sharper and more unpleasant. Fresh bandages on his arms and leg, more ointment slathered on his jaw, and a lingering grogginess from the poppy milk given to him the night before.

He eyes his coat as he eats, the garment hanging from a nail hammered into the wall of the loft - washed and dried by the Rememdium's laundry, new rips and tears here and there to match the marks in his own flesh. Those wounds would heal; his skin would mend itself, and he would survive. But he frowns at the harm wrought upon his coat, his fine Militia coat, so smart and dashing; for that he can feel anger, feel resentment towards the lifeless carcass that now lies cold and stiff in the stable below.

After a time he settles down to sleep, turning and sighing irritably as he struggles to find a position that least pains him. Eventually his breathing steadies, deepens, and he rests at last.

The stables stir with quiet activity, the scrabble of little feet and the flutter of little minds. They gather around the slain wolf-mother, pressing little hands to blood-matted fur and yellow-ivory fangs, inspecting the beast that dared attempt the unthinkable.

They confer with soft and chirruping voices and flickering sparks of thought. The beast is dead, the beast is slain, the beast belongs now to the Hunter who takes the skin and drinks the blood and devours the flesh. They will not defy him. But they cannot abide this harm that has come to their dark-eyed boy whose clever hands are now smothered and stifled in camphor-gauze. They cannot sit by and do nothing. But what is there to do?

A suggestion is made, a clever suggestion, and a consensus quickly reached. The wolf's carcass is left once more alone.

Dawn creeps pale and grey across the sky, and their work is done.

With bone needles and black horsehair and scavenged thread they've laboured; the results are not perfect, no - at a certain angle, in a certain light, the heavy wool still reveals its scars. But at a casual glance it is once again whole.
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