woman.
‘Read the real stories. With the murders and the stealing,’ demanded Gallon.
‘Again?’ sighed Fladdock. ‘Alright, we’ll stick with the real murders and stealing for now, but only if I can read Louisa the serial afterwards. What story do you want me to start with?’
‘The broadsman who took a knife in the gut after they found him cheating at cards,’ suggested one of the other convicts, a craynarbian youngling with a missing arm.
‘No,’ said Gallon, a serious look settling on his gaunt face. ‘The Hood-o’the-marsh story. The one where the Hood-o’themarsh escapes twenty crushers after hanging the mine owner, the jigger that left his workers to die in the cave-in because it cost too much to save ’em.’
‘You are a turnip, Gallon,’ said Louisa the Dipper. ‘There’s no Hood-o’the-marsh. It’s just a name radicals use when they want to put a scare into the quality.’
‘He is bleeding real!’ shouted back Gallon. ‘His stories are always in the sheets. They say he has two pistols that shine like devil fire and he only kills at night when he becomes invisible; they say that he can whistle down lashlites from the sky to rescue him when the crushers have him cornered!’
‘My granddad used to tell me stories about the Hood-o’themarsh that he was told by
Their impromptu reading was interrupted by a clanking at the door of the cell, followed by a colonial guard admitting a gust of fresh air into the fetid holding chamber. ‘On your feet now my lovely boys — you’ve got some respectable visitors.’ He glanced at the old craynarbian waiting in the doorway behind him. ‘Well, fairly respectable anyway. Two gentlemen farmers after extra hands. Prisoner Fladdock, you in here?’
Fladdock stood up.
‘Your lucky day, young fellow my lad. One of the cattle owners scanning the transport list spotted your blood code and reckons you’re her second cousin twice removed or some such tosh. She’s bought out your contract.’
‘Lucky jigger,’ someone muttered.
Fladdock nodded, feeling the scrubby beard on his cheeks. About time. The blood code was no more real than his name, no more real than his face — which still felt distorted and swollen when he touched it. He was constantly amazed that the other convicts could not see through the results of his visit to the back-street worldsinger. The farmer picking up his paper could conceivably be his second cousin twice removed, though. Royalists had been finding the wide-open plains and deep forests of Concorzia more than accommodating for generations.
Did Commodore Black’s face still feel like this after all the years since his own trip to the worldsinger? Fladdock might have asked if he had known what the effects were going to be like. The cunning old sea dog had been right on the money about one thing. With the forces of the old country still unrelentingly shaking trees to try and turn up Prince Alpheus, the easiest way out of Jackals was with a bona fide prison record turning on the drums of a transaction engine at Greenhall and a free transportation under the crushers’ noses courtesy of the office of the colonies. They had declared the former king dead. They could
The guard turned to the old craynarbian. ‘And how many hands will you be requiring today, Mister Ka’oard?’
‘Just the ones in this chamber,’ said Ka’oard.
The guard groaned. ‘Not again. You can’t keep on doing this, sir. It is causing tensions among the other landowners. These jacks are meant to be serving labour, not rolling for fish in the waters of one of your streams. Someone in town told me you’ve even engaged a couple of tutors for these scruffs out at Vauxtion Valley. My lovely boys need to be taught how to harvest and cut down lumber, not master their letters. You realize there’s a shortage of labour here now? Just how much money have you got to be spending, driving up the price of convict contracts?’
‘Oh, there’s a few of your very fine Jackelian pennies left yet, I think,’ replied Ka’oard.
The guard sighed in exasperation and waved Fladdock out, passing him over to the cart driver that had been sent to collect the young man.
Fladdock stepped forward, handing the battered news sheet down to Gallon. ‘Keep it, Gallon. Keep it for when you’ve mastered your letters.’
The colonial guard pocketed the customary tip sent by Fladdock’s new master and looked over at the craynarbian. ‘It’s not like the old days anymore, Mister Ka’oard, when you could ride for months without bumping into one of your neighbours. You could breathe back then, you could really feel alive. Those are the times I was born with and they were damn good years too. But those days are gone out here.’
Blinking in the sunlight, Fladdock glanced back at the remaining convicts, flexed his two perfect arms and grinned. Then he was gone.
‘Yes,’ said Ka’oard. ‘You are quite correct. I don’t believe these are the old days any more. But they will do.’
