With Blood, Overflow 1299

It was not well-known that the Vicar of Christ, Alphonse XV, kept a Jew in the Palazzio de Cabra. It was one of the few secrets of the grand castle of Orim that was actually a secret.

The Jew was Bagdemagus, a Jew known only by Jews. He was a heretic, a scoundrel, a dangerous dabbler in the darkest of arts. And for all of these qualities, he found shelter in the Palace of the Horned Lord.

He was housed in a cellar on the farthest side of the Palace. It was beyond the King's Quarter's, so any servant there would have business only on Alphonse's whim. Alphonse knew some still came; his Hillmen servants fancied a staircase not far off from the Jew's quarters for... rather immoral acts. But none so far had found the Jew wizard.

"I bring the virgin's blood.", the voice rang out in darkness.

Silence, more darkness and then, a spark and a snap of fingers. The entire cellar went alight as torches around the room went ablaze.

The Jew Bagdemagus sat hunched over his table, intent on some article of study. Alphonse, his King and Liege of the Dark, approached, wearing the woad robes he found comfort in.

"Did you mix it with holy water as I said?" The Dwarf, even in his high chair, was dwarfed by elderly Alphonse. He reached out a hand for the vial of virgin blood.

"Yes, its still warm. Good." The Dwarf turned the vial from side to side, watching the crimson liquid move. "Viscosity seems right. Tisn't clotting. Now, for the final test on the matter, be it a virgin's or a whore's?"

"Of course it is a virgin's.", Alphonse said with an indignant. The ugly Jew smiled. "You will excuse me if I do not let your opinions muddle my science, Rey. Besides, from what I hear, you know more of the whore." Smiling, he produced a clear glass lens, the type used in Deraxti far-seers from one of his pockets. He brought the lens to his eye and the small bottle of blood to the lens. His face contorted in perverse satisfaction.

"I hate to say this, Rey, but you have a dud virgin on your hands."

"Impossible.", Alphonse said with shaky resolve.

"Okay, fine. Someone else has a dud virgin on their hands.... or other appendages. I assume you would remember taking this virgin, Rey."

Alphonse closed his eyes and rubbed his temples. His face was going pale. "Are you sure about this, Jew?"

"More sure than you were." Bagdemagus had an offensive, nasal voice that made everything seem insulting. The fact that everything was insulting seemed to matter little.

Alphonse turned around sharply to exit the cellar. "Where are you off to, Rey?", Bagdemagus asked without looking up from whatever his work was.

"To kill my daughter and find a new virgin." Alphonse hurried up the staircase.

"Do virgins come used?", was the taunting reply after the onset of darkness. Alphonse heard it going up the staircase.

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"The bowl.... it overflowed while you were in Orim, Capitan." The physico was a man who looked always on the edge of jaundice, a man who spoke with an odd confluence of the sailor looseness and the Universario precision.

"Who ratted?" Jhonen leaned on his cane menacingly, as if to strike the one who broke the blood bond. That would be beating a dead horse or, in this case, a rat.

"Raton, funnily enough. I stepped into the cabin yesterday and there..... the bowl, overflowed, bloody it was." The physico looked down in almost pity for his cabin's floor. It had seen bloodstains before, but not such blood as that. Not a man drained entirely of that humor. It still wasn't dry, and there was the smell in the wood, which would remain for a long time to come. For some reason, the smell reminded Jhonen of Mass. "Raton's mates said he started rattling on about cities of gold and the next thing they knew, he was pale and slumped over, with liquor flowing from his mouth."

"Physico, remind everyone of the blood bond when they get on ship. You're my bosun, because I don't think Raton can do it any longer." Jhonen looked at the cabin floor once again. He felt great pity for any of the sailors lodging below when Raton's blood poured down. "And throw the bowl in one of the nets. Because I'm certain someone else will be a little Raton before we even get out of port."

"What of the rat's share?" Jhonen grinned, he had seen the gleam of gold in those jaundiced eyes. "It will be divided between myself and my officers. You are an officer now." The physico smiled.

"When do we leave port?"

"When the royal agente arrives with our funds. The King thinks we need them, and its best if he keeps thinking that."

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Abram strode into Zhelyazo's foundry unannounced, nearly wrenching the door off of its weak brass hinges. If that was not a sign of quality metalwork, Abram did not know what was.

Abram threw a large metal cast, resembling a mold, onto the smith's table.

Zhelyazo looked up from his mundane task. He was hammering out the gold; it melted better in sheets and let him find any impurities in the metal without melting it all out.

"I can't take any more work, Abram. Thees is going to be hard enough to feenish."

"Its not work. Its a gift, Zhelyazo."

"I do not... understand, Abram." Zhelyazo's voice was unsteady, he had always feared working with Ser Thumbscrews. Abram put a hand forward and took a hammer off of the table.

"Oh.... no....."

"Which leg do you favor, you Iron mongrel?", Abram said in a growl.

"Wha.... why?" There was fear in his voice. In deference, he hunched over as far as his deformed back would allow.

"Which leg?" Abram adjusted his grip on the mallet.

"The... the right." Zhelyazo put no thought in it, hoping only that he would spare one of his legs.

"Wrong answer." Abram swung the hammer quickly, hitting Zhelyazo in the side of his left knee. The knee buckled inward. There was a crack, a cry of hideous pain and then, a fall.

Zhelyazo's nose first caught the table, with a bloody spurt and a painful crunch. Then, the top of his jaw came to the edge, breaking teeth on the hard stone edge. He slid to the floor on the side of the table after that.

Zhelyazo spit blood upon his smock. Abram, standing over the toppled hunchback, spit upon him. "Jorobado, your deformed back marks you as impure. Hold your tongue on matters of purity, you Rossiyan son-of-a-whore." The response was groans and a mostly incoherent Bastard!

"I am not the bastard. You are. I brought you here, you little pendejo. I made you the.... failure you are today. And you should be glad for even that."

Abram hefted the metal cast off the table and threw it on the hunchbacked little Jew. "After you pass out and wake up, put on that brace. And finish this work before Jhonen arrives back from Orim. Otherwise, I shall break something else. Your daughter's pesca would be nice to break into, I judge." Zhelyazo only groaned and closed his eyes in escape from the pain.

"Hey, you, pendejo! Guard this door till that jorobado wakes up. Ser Screws will pay you well." Everything faded for Zhelyazo.

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Lmumba lay upon a rock, basking lazily in the sun. She had eaten much over the past few days, and was still digesting the griot of the village she lay outside of.

The members of that tribe were not yet under her full control, but they were being soothed as she grokked knowledge of the flesh. Already, the unmarried and widowers were finding new women to take their seed. And plenty of seeds were being sown. She imagined what it would be like to be an animal, with no choice over fertility. No, her people's way let them make children as needed, with none of the imbalance of nature.

Not that Lmumba could really compare herself now. As Griot, she was always fertile. It was an odd symbol of connection with the Gods and Peoples over her. It was animalian in the worst possible sense.

She wrapped the clan's old banner around her naked body as the sun began to set. And then, the banner began to speak to her as the skull had.

"Off, in the rising sun's path, you will find one who has grokked but should not have. Find him and take his seed-spark, Virgin-Griot."

There was a loud scream following the talk. The banner held no sound after that. She discarded it, it was not very warm anyways.

Lmumba looked off into the dark horizon. her men would accept any warpath, no matter how seemingly stupid. No War-chief had yet risen to challenge her supreme authority. They would march as soon as she digested her last meal.

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Maria Erasma sat upon a blunt pole, hoping for death to come soon. Her lover, the Hill-men's hetman, did the same, his spasming arms reaching out for her touch. They were too far away, and it was likely just a twitch.

She finally felt something tear inside of her, and felt the cool rush of blood in the midnight breeze. She would have screamed if not for the rag in her mouth. Besides, her father wanted to make sure she didn't gnaw off her lips or break her teeth or do anything unbecoming to her head. She felt organs shift inside of her, stretching the skin of her belly as the pole pushed its way up her body.

Alphonse XV looked at her from his balcony. He was tired of his family's incompetence. He had hoped to marry Maria Erasma off to someone able, and take his grandchild as heir. But no, Maria had to break her pesca with a damned Hill-man. She couldn't have even done with a noble, to which things could be patched up. No, she wanted death.

Of course, the entire castle knew long before Alphonse did. Only when he came questioning serving girls with thumbscrews did someone tell him. And they did so reluctantly. Alphonse also found something he was not as surprised at. News of the golden cities along the Spice Winds had already made course through the castle. next, they would be in the city and then the world. He had hoped to keep it secret, but it would still give him great fortunes to have even a small stake of that people's riches.

Finding a virgin girl had not taken rumors. It had simply taken looking. A certain Don Juan Callisto, an independent, rebellious and foppish sort of noble, had a little girl the age of five. Alphonse took her into his custody. It served many purposes. He would have his virgin's blood, maybe a wife to use for leverage with the dons, and, to ransom Don Juan Callisto into the trained petulance of an agente.

1300 looked to be an interesting year ahead.