The Corpse-Rat King

continued to watch the feeding frenzy below. “Master Spone. Escort Mister Helles back to his cabin, please.”

“Sir.” Spone stepped forward, and laid a hand on Marius’ shoulder. “This way, Mister Helles.”

Marius turned away from the carnage and walked back to his cell in silence.

The Faraway Isles, according to those who have endured the eight month journey there and back and lived, is a veritable paradise on Earth. Long, sweeping beaches of golden sand edge forests of such startling beauty that syphilitic artists form orderly queues simply for the chance to paint them and shag the magnificent dark-skinned natives that populate the islands in a heavenly parade of innocence and sensual delight. Trees hang heavy with fruit in a rainbow’s profusion of colours, the tastes and textures of which leave such ordinary repasts as rabbit stew and cabbage potage as ashes in the mouth, and the crystalline blue waters of the shallow bays provide swarms of soft- boned fish that swim straight into a fisherman’s net, and whose flesh flakes so perfectly that once you have tasted it, the mere act of fishing resembles a desecration of God’s will. Assuming the listener is not lost within thoughts of such beauty that questioning them becomes impossible, it is often tempting to ask why the storyteller returned to tell the tale, why, indeed, he isn’t still lying on those golden sands, eating the perfect fish, and showing the beautiful native girls that little trick he picked up at Madame Mirabella’s House of Relaxation. The answer is invariably the same: “The captain caught me.”

By contrast, the Dog Crap Archipelago looks exactly how it sounds.

Discovered less than four hundred years ago by the famous Tallian adventurer “Literal” Edmund Bejeevers, the Dog Crap Archipelago lay like a giant turd across the passage between Borgho City and the Faraway isles. Early explorers found nothing there to recommend the place to anybody, and indeed, early maps show a simple ovoid outline with the words “Don’t Bother” written inside. A long, dripping string of shallow volcanic outpourings, its only advantage lay in a number of tiny freshwater lakes, and its location, halfway between Borgho and the Isles. They were a perfect place to lie up and replenish water supplies, as well as discard the barrels of waste and refuse that accumulated on the long voyages between ports.

Those early explorers bought rats – which leaped ship at the sight of land – and chickens, which had occasionally escaped their ship-board pens. Pet dogs were thrown overboard by sailors who had tripped over the bloody mutts once too often. Sick cattle were disposed of on the basis that it’s bad enough tripping over pet dogs all day without landing face first in liquid cow shit.

The cows shat, the rats ate the garbage, and the discarded pets ate the rats. Seeds fell from pelts, or flew in on the wind. The islands were home to no natural predators. In truth, they had no natural anything before those early explorers arrived.

Within three hundred years, the first natives arrived.

Refugees from who knows where, it was left to the idle to wonder at what kind of society they had fled that a shit-stained island full of feral dogs and rats seemed a better alternative. But arrive they did, and claimed the archipelago for themselves, and began trading with the, frankly, astonished traders who still stopped there and were more than happy to start charging for the things they had previously thrown away for free. In no time at all, the Dog Crap Archipelago enjoyed a status in trading circles that “Literal” Bejeevers could hardly have envisaged, and which had otherwise escaped his other major discoveries.

It was Captain Bomthe’s intention to spend a week on the main island, to sell their waste and restock their stores with fresh water and fruit-gorged cattle carcasses. It was Marius’ intention to stay in his cabin and ignore the entire escapade. As a plan it was foolproof, for all of seventy-two hours.

Marius was lying on the floor, concentrating on a most ingeniously drawn pamphlet he’d discovered wedged into the space between two loose wall planks regarding the Queen of Tal and various members of her palace guard, when the sound of arriving cattle was replaced by a much more urgent commotion. Marius closed the pamphlet and lay with it on his chest, listening to the drama outside. He was trying to decide whether to rise and see whether the change in atmosphere was worth his attention, when there came a thunderous banging on his door, and Figgis came barrelling in.

“Captain’s compliments, sir,” he said, drawing up short and averting his eyes, breathing heavily. “Your presence is required on the poop deck as soon as possible, if you please. Very important, sir.”

Marius had rolled over and pulled his hood forward so that the young cabin boy could not see his face. He spoke round the corner of the hood. “Thank you, Figgis. I’ll be along presently.”

The young messenger shifted his feet nervously but kept his ground. He stared at the planking before him. Marius sighed.

“Should I apologise, Master Figgis?”

Still the boy said nothing. Marius counted to three, then pulled himself up and turned his back on the waiting figure. He peeked at the skin beneath the edge of his glove, and saw it was grey, and rotting.

“For what it’s worth, I hope it wasn’t too severe a beating,” he said, staring at his deadened flesh. “There will be worse once you’re an adult.” He smoothed down his glove, and straightened. “Away with you, now, and leave me to get ready.”

In truth, he had nothing to do, but the less the crew knew of his particular habits, the safer he would feel. He may be able to survive a one way dip in the ocean, but he had no desire to walk all the way to the Faraway Isles underwater, or to discover how much of his flesh would survive the pursuing fish. Figgis silently left, closing the door gently behind him, and Marius sat on the edge of the ledge until he had estimated a sufficient time to wash and towel himself down. Only then did he stand, and emerge into the blast of the midday sun.

The deck of the Minerva looked like the aftermath of a particularly vicious bar fight. The planks were awash with blood, and teams of navvies swept it over the side with massive-headed brooms. Towards the prow, the cargo doors were open. Haunches of meat were being lowered on ropes to the lower deck, where they would be smoked and cured for the journey ahead. Natives from the island ran here and there, carrying baskets of fruit upon their head, sternward along the side of the deck to where Marius knew more open doors would lead to yet more storage decks. The ever-present escaped chickens screeched as they careened across deck, the mate’s boy and his cronies in hot pursuit. Everything was bedlam as a hundred or more bodies wove and ducked past each other, orders were shouted and acknowledged, and the casual brutality of the officers was played out with languid good nature upon the straining backs of the crew. Overhead, the sun dominated yet another cloudless sky, adding its vindictive heat to the sticky atmosphere on board. Marius shaded his eyes with one gloved hand, and offered thanks to no god at all that being dead absolved him from the need to sweat. There was enough stench of unwashed humanity already without him adding to it.

“Ah, Mister Helles. My thanks for joining us.” Captain Bomthe swung down from the poop deck to stand beside Marius. Marius glanced at him, and once again marvelled at how a man could stand in the midst of carnage and stink and yet look as if he had just emerged from a leisurely tea with the nobility. After a week of observing his ever-present starched uniform and stainless shirts, Marius had formed a fantasy: a cupboard in the captain’s quarters, with six months’ worth of identical uniforms on hangers, each one bearing a tag describing the day of the week to be worn, the exact time to be discarded, and the level of smugness to which the captain was entitled. Today was a day of high smug, judging by the tilt of the captain’s smoothly-shaved chin. At least I can match that, Marius thought, and I don’t have to risk a cut to do so. He nodded, and turned his attention back to the deck.

“Are you ready to depart, then?”

“I’m sorry?” Marius turned from the spectacle below. “What do you mean, depart?”

“Didn’t Figgis explain?” The captain frowned. “I told him to fetch you.” He tutted. “I’m going to grow weary of beating that boy.”

I doubt he’d say the same if the positions were reversed, Marius thought, but kept silent.

“Perhaps you might fill in any missing details,” he said instead. The captain tilted onto his toes, then brought his heels back onto the deck with a crisp thump and began to stride down stairs and across the deck. Marius hurried to keep pace.

“We’re to go ashore,” the captain said as they walked. “Big occasion for the natives, don’t you know. Death of the high muckamuck. Honoured guests of the royal family. Observe the funeral, eat the meal, swear in the new head banana, that sort of thing.”

“Dead king?” Marius stopped in his tracks. Behind him a cow mooed, and he jumped forward before it could