The Corpse-Rat King

solid embrace and double-handshake. “And I have it on good authority that is it very high-grade shit indeed.” The king let him go and turned to crush Marius in a similar embrace. “This end of the island alone is a veritable gold mine of commercial-grade heating and bleaching material. I’m sure you can see why.”

The King let go of Marius and stepped into the centre of the village. He clapped his hands several times in quick succession. Immediately, each of the islanders turned their attention to him. He shot off a quick-fire speech and they leaped to their feet and began busying themselves in diving into huts and pulling out items of furniture. Young girls ran behind the huts and returned with large fruits of various descriptions balanced upon their heads. Bomthe took Marius by the elbow and ushered him toward the table.

“I believe we are invited to join the inauguration feast,” he said, “where it would be considered advisable to eat everything that is put before us and drink anything we are offered, do I make myself clear?”

“Like good diplomats, eh?”

“It does involve sacrifices.”

They sat at the King’s right hand and the villagers and sailors intermingled around a series of planks laid on the sand before the table. Four natives emerged from behind the largest hut, carrying a long bark platter between them, upon which rested a mound of cooked meat. They laid it before the King, who piled his own plate high then indicated to Bomthe and Marius to do the same. They complied, and once they had finished, the rest of the village paraded past the table to take a meagre share for themselves. Once everyone was seated, the King clapped his hands, and the village fell to eating. Teenage girls passed amongst them, handing out small quantities of stunted and burned vegetables. Between mouthfuls, Marius glanced over at the sullen child still turning the spit.

“What about that?” he asked Bomthe, indicating the turning meat. “I thought that was dinner.”

Bomthe raised his eyebrows. “Hm. I’ll ask.” He leaned over to the king, and asked a quick question in the native tongue. The King replied, and looked over to Marius, laughing. Bomthe smiled in return. “That is for the children,” he said. “The late monarch’s favourite hunting dog, apparently. The natives hope the children will ingest its loyalty and cunning along with its flesh.”

“Huh. Then what are we eating, his favourite horse?”

Bomthe stared down at his plate and blinked several times before leaning back to the King to ask another question. Upon the reply he straightened, and stared out beyond the huts to the distant sea. He swallowed, then nodded to himself as if confirming some long-held inner thought. Marius noticed the action and stopped scooping the greasy meat into his mouth.

“What?”

“We are not eating the late monarch’s favourite horse,” Bomthe said carefully.

“Well, no, I hardly expected…”

“We are, in fact, eating the late monarch.”

Marius felt what little blood remained in his face drain into his boots. “What?” he asked in a voice suddenly devoid of moisture.

“The islanders believe that it will imbue them with his strength, his nobility, and his wisdom.”

“You mean they’re…”

Very deliberately, with the King’s gaze firmly upon him, Bomthe reached down and scooped up a handful of meat. He placed it in his mouth, chewed several times and swallowed.

“Be a good fellow, Mister Helles,” he said, eyes fixed upon the horizon. “Eat your wisdom.”

Marius stared at Bomthe, then at the King, the islanders, the sailors lounging around the village square laughing and stuffing their faces with handfuls of dripping meat. “But…”

“Trade with this village is worth several times more than the lives of everyone on board my vessel. You and I included. We are guests at the most important occasion this archipelago has seen in more than thirty years. If we offer such a gross insult as to refuse to dine with the new King, what do you think would happen to that trade?” Bomthe scooped up another gobbet of meat and ate it, closing his eyes as he swallowed. “What do you think our lives would be worth then?”

“You’d be surprised,” Marius muttered. He reached down, picked up a few strands of the stringy meat, and held it up in salute to the King, who was looking around Bomthe at Marius with a curious half-smile on his lips.

“Ah well,” he said, smiling back, “let’s hope they serve you with chips, mate.”

“If you like your tongue,” Bomthe said in the same equal tone he’d been using since discovering the identity of their meal, “I’d suggest you keep it still.” He slid the last of his meat into his mouth and swallowed. “You’re on a very thin plank as it is, Mister Helles.”

Whilst Marius was considering how wise it would be to push the conversation any further the King rose, cleared his throat for attention, and phlegmed up another speech. Children scurried to clear away the meal, much to the relief of Marius. The King sat down, elbowing Bomthe with a dirty chuckle and pointing to the door of the largest hut. The curtains across its entrance swished open, half a dozen naked girls ran out, and the dancing began.

Being dead should have meant, as far as Marius had considered the matter, that blood ceased to flow throughout his body. Sure, Keth had shown him otherwise, but Keth was different, and besides, he hadn’t really had a handle on the state of his being then, and after all, that was Keth. And yet, as the girls before him gyrated and folded their nubile, sweating bodies into shapes he’d only ever seen formed by clowns making balloon animals for children in the marketplace, at least one part of his body exhibited proof that blood was flowing into it at a furious rate indeed. A dancer shimmied up to the table, bent back at an angle that intimated a loss of at least three vertebrae, breasts swinging from side to side like passengers on a running camel. The King whooped in a most unregal way and leaned forward to slap her on the stomach, indicating to Bomthe that he should do the same. Bomthe complied with nowhere near the reserved air he had displayed during the meal. The girl slid along the table and presented the swaying vista of her body to Marius. He swallowed, remembering the first time he had seen Keth. He had been alone, a stranger to the city, and the tavern window had shown the only light along the whole posh side of the docks. He’d squeezed himself into a booth with a pint of bottom scrumpy, and watched as the dancing girls moved through the crowd, sliding from one dropped farthing to the next, displaying themselves for those who would pay only to imagine, and marking out those who would pay more, later, to touch. Keth had swayed out of the crowd, back arched, hips swinging in long, slow circles, and leaned over the table towards him, long hair gently tickling the sides of his face, ends dipping into his flagon. And with no money, and no contacts, he’d gone out that night and found a game of penny ante, and the next night a game of three card poke, and the next joined in a plot to rumble a distributor of fake Tallian art treasures… and every night, every penny he earned, he brought back to the tavern, and waited with his solitary pint of dregs, waited for Keth to come swaying out of the crowd…

“No!” He pushed himself back from the trestle, knocking his stool to the sand and standing, shivering, under the shocked gazes of Bomthe and the king. The dancer worked a shrug into her movements, a little dip of her shoulders that said “Whatever. Your loss, pal,” and slithered over to the first of the sailors laying on their mats. Bomthe raised his eyebrows.

“A problem, Mister Helles?”

“No. No, I…” Marius wiped a hand across his eyes.

“Not your type, sir?” Marius heard the insinuation in Bomthe’s tone, saw the smile. “Shall I call Figgis?”

“No, that’s not… to hell with you.” Marius swung way and stalked out of the circle of light, into the dark at the edge of the village. He stopped once he was around the corner of a hut and leaned his head against the rough dirt wall. Only then did he let out the breath he had been holding.

“Gods damn it,” he breathed. “What the hell is wrong with me? Why am I even breathing?”

He straightened himself, took several more. “Just get through this,” he muttered. “Just get through this and get back. Get it sorted.” He nodded his agreement to the small voice at the back of his mind that was whispering all the things he would do once he got through this and got back. Yes, make it all right. Yes, take her away. Yes, even that. Even settle down. He stepped back towards the feast, his composure restored, ready to make his apologies and see out the rest of the evening, then stopped just outside the row of torches stuck in the sand. Bomthe and the King were standing, deep in conversation with the girl whose dancing had sent Marius into his reverie. She nodded, and Bomthe passed her something which she quickly tucked into the waistband of the tiny grass skirt she was now wearing. The King waved his fingers and she left them, ducking between two torches a few feet from Marius. She turned when she saw him lurking in the shadows and smiled, coming towards him with one arm held out as if to take his hand.