A Company of Heroes Book One: The Stonecutter Read online

  “Please,” whispers Thud, “be very quiet. Those men are looking for you, aren’t they?”

  “Yes.”

  “What’d you do that made them so mad?”

  “I didn’t do anything!” she lies, but Thud does not know that yet.

  “That’s good.”

  “I can’t stay here!”

  “Oh, sure, they might be back, all right,” agrees Thud.

  “But I can’t leave, either.”

  “They’d spot you in a minute,” agrees Thud.

  “I have to get out of the city! I must!”

  “I bet,” agrees Thud.

  There is a silence between them, since there isn’t much that can be said after that; the conversation is going nowhere. The girl’s sadness lacerates Thud’s heart; he has no idea what he can do to relieve it. His great hands wrestle with one another, like a pair of small dogs roughhousing. The rough skin sounds like millstones grinding. The girl looks up at him with eyes that are like the peal of bronze bells. An idea squirms its way to the forefront of Thud’s consciousness, where his mind’s eye blinks at it in unexpected and unfamiliar realization of his genius.

  “I can get you out of the city.”

  “You can? How? When?”

  “I can’t tell you. I’ll have to show you.”

  “Thank Musrum!”

  “It’s a way I used when I was a kid”, the girl finds it impossible to create a mental image of the giant as a child; the picture leaning more toward something like a pupae than anything human, “but you’ve got to get out of here first.” Thud rises to his feet and goes over to the big window with the kind of ponderous grace a cow affects, and occasionally achieves. He leans out over the sill and gives a good, long, hard look in both directions and then returns to the girl, still with the unhurried deliberateness of the truly bovine.

  “There’re Guards in the street. They’re likely all over. If I can get you out of here, I can get you home. Then it’ll be easy.”

  From his workbench, Thud selects a large chisel, nearly as long as the girl’s arm, with a blade as sharp as a razor. It winks at her conspiratorially in the window light. Thud jams its cutting edge into a chink between two of the wide floorboards and bears down upon the opposite end. The board lifts with a protesting screech. Moving down its length, he repeats the action two or three times until an entire ten-foot-long slab of thick lumber has been pried from its moorings. Rusty spikes hang down from the moldy underside like miniature stalactites. A hundred annoyed spiders drop from it and scurry for cover.

  Thud gets down on his hands and knees and drops his head into the rectangular hole. He looks up and says, “Come on, this way!” as spider webs floats from his face and a small insect, panicked, disappears over the curve of his head like an arthropodal Magellan.

  The girl looks into the hole with extreme distaste. She imagines a thousand unwinking little eyes gazing back at her. “In there?” she asks, unnecessarily.

  “Please,” the giant begs. She reminds herself that there are, probably, worse alternatives. She has seen some of them. In fact, it is just because she knows there are worse things than a damp hole, slimy with grey fungus and alive with invertebrate things, that she had been forced to flee her home, and that is why she climbs down into the darkness after only that single moment’s hesitation. She leaves shreds of her rumpled dress festooning the splintery edges of the narrow slot, which is perhaps just an inch less wide than it should have been.

  Whether or not she thinks of it, the girl should be grateful for her boyish silhouette. The earth is only about three feet below the floor. It is covered with a kind of grey-green gruel of mud, decomposing wood and the dust of limestone and marble. Her feet sink into it until her ankles are buried. It sucks at her feet when she tries to lift them. She looks up at the gargoyle face that hovers over her head, round and pale and grinning like a moon.

  “Turn around and crawl,” it says. “You’ll see a little bit of light. Head for that. When you get to it, stay there. Wait for me.”

  “But...”

  “Hurry!” he urges, and she has to duck as he replaces the plank over her head. A dozen sharp blows rain dust and crawling things down upon her as Thud resets the nails. It is absolutely dark, with the exception of the thin lines of light between the floorboards. They recede from her in either direction like an elementary exercise in perspective. They stripe the contours her body so that she looks like a topographic map of a teenage girl. She turns around and sees the patch of grimy-looking daylight that Thud mentioned. It looks about a mile away. She makes certain her leather bag is strapped tightly across her chest and begins crawling on all fours toward the glimmer.

  The glutinous slime covers her legs halfway up her thighs and, worse, up to her elbows. Each time her hands sink into the sediment she can feel it writhe around her fingers. Her dress, already ragged, clings to her like papier-mâché. Half sliding, half crawling, accompanied by sounds very much like a cow sucking on its cud, she makes her way toward her goal, such as it is. The squarish satchel on her chest acts like an anchor, dragging in the slime, dredging up malodorous bubbles that burst flatulently beneath her nose. She discovers that the light is an opening between the floor level of the building and the cobbled alleyway. The opening was created to act as an outlet for the drainage of moisture from beneath the building. It is working as intended and a stream of tepid, mucus-streaked fluid leaks from the opening; it then flows over the cobbles into the central channel that drains the alley. She tries to straddle the flow, but it runs over one ankle and a hand, and within inches of her nose, which, not for the first time in her life, she wishes was not so long. She tries not to think of any of the several possible sources of the liquid.

  Keeping her head within the shadow of the hole, she peers as far into the street as she dares. One black-uniformed Guard stands at the entrance to the main thoroughfare to her right ‘the street Thud’s large window overlooks), and another Guard has just turned the corner to her left, walking in her direction. She withdraws further into the darkness. The Guard, attracted perhaps by a hint of movement, a shadow within a shadow, or noticing a possible hiding place previously overlooked, comes toward her. She has no place to go where he won’t be able to see her if he bends down and looks into the opening.

  The Guard approaches within a few feet, draws his saber, and begins to squat on his haunches, turning his head so he can see into the hole, trying to minimize his proximity to the fetid drool issuing from it. The girl feels her stomach wrench with the expectation of immediate capture when something warm and furry scuttles over her legs with icy little feet. A rat the size of a pampered house cat brushes under her nose, its cold, naked tail gives her lips a snide fillip as it heads for the street. It runs out between the Guard’s legs. He leaps erect with a cry of disgust and strikes at the rat with his blade, drawing a spatter of sparks from the pavement, but the animal disappears into the jungle of crates, ashcans and garbage with a supercilious chuckle.

  The Guard flings a curse at the vanished animal and continues on his way. The girl thanks Musrum for rats. A shadow falls over the opening once again, and again she shrinks from it. This time a familiar voice husks, “Girl? Are you there?”

  She cautiously pokes her head into the open air. Thud stands there, towering over her like a captive balloon. He holds a large stained canvas bag in such a way that it shields the girl’s hiding place from the two Guards at the end of the alley. He is busily picking up bits of broken wood and tossing them into the bag.

  “They already checked the bag. They think I’m just getting firewood.”

  The girl crawls out of the hole and into the protective screen created by the bag. Thud casually bends to wrench a slat from the side of a fruit crate. As he places his foot against the box to brace it, he lets the near edge of the bag drop free. It falls to the cobbles, making a yard-wide circular opening. From the point of view of the Guards, the bag remains unchanged. The girl needs no prompting to catch onto th
e idea and scuttles into the bag instantly. Thud tosses the broken wood on top of her and moves on down the street. The entire act has taken but a moment and there has not been even a second’s suspicious hesitation in Thud’s movements. He stops twice more, piling more scrap into his sack for realism’s sake, waves to the Guards, who good humoredly wave back at the enormous half-wit, and disappears around the corner.

  The next ten minutes are not the most unpleasant the girl has ever experienced, little, she suspects, can be nastier than the crawl through the darkness under the stone cutters’. They are, however, more painful. Thud has been overzealously conscientious in his attempt at appearing casual and tossed in the firewood with an abandon that left the girl with more than one bruise and abrasion.

  Now as he strides along with the bag hanging against his back, the girl wonders if it would ever be possible to sort herself out from the scrap. The contents of the bag are being stirred into a kind of aggregate girllumber. She is almost upside down, knees pressed to her nose; the bag, none too roomy, squeezes her like a small but ambitious boa constrictor digesting a large bunny. Soon the character of the bouncing changes and she guesses that they are ascending a flight of stairs. Several flights, from the time that passes. The bag slams against a wall, first on the right and then on the left, and the girl hazards a protesting kick into the small of Thud’s back, but to little avail. The jouncing eventually stops, there is a rasping squeal, another jostle, a blow against the back of her head and the bag is set onto a floor with a thump that jars her teeth. She looks out of its opening in time to see the big man closing the door through which they has just passed. When he turns, he sees her tumble from the sack, all akimbo.

  “Are you all right?” he asks. She immediately thinks of replying no, an answer for which her bruises, scratches and imbedded splinters argue persuasively. But she sees that the ugly man is in earnest; he hasn’t asked casually: he is truly concerned. To reply in the negative would be cruel; petty as well, since she is alive and that certainly is all right. What are bruises compared to what she knows could have happened to her had the Guards taken her back home?

  “Yes, I’m fine!” she answers, gladly, pleased when she sees the worry wiped from his face by one of his astonishing grins.

  The room in which she finds herself is obviously the big man’s home. It is no larger than a big closet, perhaps ten feet by twelve, which leaves little enough room to spare when the big man is at home, which is the case. There is not a right angle in it; the ceiling and walls slope together into compound angles that make the girl guess, correctly as it happens, that the room is tucked into the attic of a building. Thick wooden beams criss-cross through it, emerging from the walls, disappearing into the ceiling. The walls were once plastered but that has mostly fallen off, leaving leprous, lath-boned holes. Thud has attempted to improve on the dreary appearance this gives his home by pasting over the holes with woodcuts and chromolithographs torn from the illustrated papers. He is pleased, but this effort really only succeeds in making the room look shabbier, possibly because the woodcuts are never quite the right size or shape to entirely cover the plasterless craters. No matter. The floor’s planks are bare but very clean. In one corner is Thud’s bed: a pair of large canvas bags, like the one he has carried the girl in, sewn mouth to mouth and filled with straw. A plain little table and a chair to match ‘which latter seems altogether incapable of dealing with Thud’s immense behind) complete the major furnishings. What little else there is is quickly listed: a curtain over the single window, washed and scrubbed to colorlessness and near-transparency, a small wood-burning stove made from a discarded iron keg ‘in which Thud is now starting a fire); a wooden crate nailed to a wall that acts as both cupboard and pantry; a little oil stove on the table, next to a cracked, handleless cup filled with dirt from which springs a twiglike plant with a single leaf, and, centered on one of the trapezoidal walls, a lone tintype photograph, surrounded by pictures of flowers, some of them gaudy chromos torn from magazines and seed catalogs, others laboriously hand-colored. The silvery picture is a portrait of a pretty, thin-faced girl who looks not very much older than Thud’s foundling, except for the sad eyes; those look very old.

  This makes the girl think of her own appearance, and she looks down at herself. Her dress is plastered to her body by mud and filth; it is as heavy and clammy as if it were made of clay. It is ragged, one sleeve gone altogether, and huge rents are torn down either side. The petticoats beneath make a solid, sodden mass. She has only one shoe. She touches her hair and wants to cry: it feels like cold boiled spinach.

  Thud is busy at the little table. He has pumped up the pressure in the oil stove and it is now topped with a hissing blue flame. He is filling a battered tin pot with water from an unglazed ceramic jug. He has opened some cans and small packets.

  “You want to eat? I can make some hot tea, if you’d like.”

  “Yes! And I want some of that water. I’ve got to wash my face.”

  “Sure, here. You want to clean up? You want more hot water?”

  “That’d be wonderful! I’ll be able to think clearly once I’ve gotten some of this filth off me,” she says, scrubbing at her face with the offered cup of plain water and the piece of coarse cloth that came with it.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Me? Oh. My name’s Thud. Mollockle. Thud Mollockle.”

  “It’s a pleasure to have met you, Mr. Mollockle. My name is...Bronwyn.”

  “I am pleased to know you, too, Miss Bronwyn.”

  The room is quickly warming up, for which she is grateful; she wraps herself in the threadbare blanket Thud hands her.

  “I’m afraid that I’ve gotten you into a lot of trouble, Mr. Mollockle. Small enough thanks for saving my life, I suppose.”

  “Me?” He seems to have continuous difficulty believing that anyone would address him personally. “No, no trouble. You needed help. And I hate the Guards.”

  Bronwyn looks at him sharply, surprised and interested in the sudden bitterness with which the otherwise placid man had spoken those last five words. He seems to sense the alteration in the girl’s attention. It embarrasses him.

  “I’ll get you that water for your bath, you must feel terrible. There’s hot tea right there. And some food. Please, help yourself; I’ll be right back.” And before Bronwyn can say another word, he is gone. The door had opened and shut so quickly it had barely been able to utter a surprised “Eek!”

  She steps over to the table and suddenly realizes how weak she is. Her legs feel wobbly and she nearly collapses like a stringectomied marionette; a wave of vertigo sweeps over her, leaving her eyes momentarily unfocused. Suddenly her wet clothing feels unbearably repulsive, and she is suddenly freezing in spite of the warmth of the room. She unfastens the dress with shaking fingers, losing half a dozen buttons in the process. The garment, its fine fabric not ever intended for such uncouth abuse, peels away from her body like the skin of a scalded tomato. She kicks the mass into a corner, rewraps herself in her blanket and falls gratefully into the chair. She picks up the thick mug of steaming tea; it is like cupping a kitten in her hands, it feels so wonderfully soothing. She holds it up to her face and lets the fragrant vapor caress her cheeks, nose and eyes. The heat makes her nose start to run.

  When Thud returns, she is eating one of his fat, stale soda crackers and a slice of potted meat. He is carrying a pair of enormous buckets, each holding at least ten or fifteen gallons of steaming water, as easily a milkmaid. He sets them heavily on the floor and says, “I’ll be right back.” A moment later, there come sounds like the bonging of a giant cowbell from beyond the door, which bursts open revealing the vast dorsal view of Thud. He backs into the room, pulling in after him a battered tin tub. Dropping it with an resonant clang in the middle of the room, he circles it to close the door. There is now not a square inch of floor left unaccounted for. Still without a word, he pours the contents of the buckets into the tub. The water is still so hot it fizzes as it spl
ashes onto the metal.

  “You had better take your bath while the water’s hot,” Thud says. “It’ll get cold real quick.”

  Bronwyn is taken aback for a moment, as she realizes that Thud means for her to take her bath right there and then. A chiding protest comes to her lips but dies there aborning as she looks into the ridiculous round face and sees nothing but kindness and a concern so earnest and gentle. She has the unkind but perfectly natural thought that taking a bath in front of Thud would be not unlike taking a bath in front of a pet dog. Natural but, admittedly, probably quite accurate. She is suddenly overbrimming with fatigue and every bruise and muscle in her body suddenly gives a single agonizing throb in unison. She stands up from the chair and takes but one step toward the tub before she starts to topple.

  Thud is beside her in an instant, supporting her by one hand with the firm gentleness that always seemed so impossible for him. With the other, he pulls away the blanket, an action done so casually that Bronwyn allows the familiarity without a word of protest. He then slips his free hand behind her knees and lifts her from the floor. She looks like a rag doll in the giant’s arms. He lowers her into the tub. The water feels scalding at first and she cries out weakly. Thud ignores her; soon she feels as though she is dissolving like a block of dry ice into the steam that billows around her. She can feel herself turning bright red as blood that has withdrawn deep within her rushes eagerly back into her skin.