Wherein Certain Disclosures Give Rise to Others
A group of travelers, weary from several hours of their coachman’s prattle, sought to amuse themselves without interruption. Though the heat of the evening would certainly make such undertaking uncomfortable, the well heeled and prancy assemblage noisily closed the windows and curtains of the coach, making certain that the driver understood that his attempts at discourse were unwelcome. Two of the passengers emitted audible sighs of displeasure, intended for the drivers ears, so that he may at last recognize his social betters. As it is in all tales such as this, the travelers would come to regret their effrontery and hubris.
Of the four travelers, it was the elderly gentleman, such as he was, who stood out most: wearing naught but embroidered golden silk from scarf to stocking. Only his boots, blackened each morning by one of several menservants, contrasted against his otherwise resplendent attire. Being a rorty bloque, his appearance was equally appealing to each of the three young women with whom he found himself traveling and, upon taking in the pleasing lines and nubile forms of the bits o’ crumb, found himself chucked all of a heap, and it became his intention to satiate his base desires with one, or perhaps all, of them before the journey found its end.
As the reader well knows, the surest way for a niminy piminy gentleman to put on the flooence and earn his way into a young woman’s heart, if not her undergarments, was to perform feats of physical prowess, displaying at once the strength of a Viking, the dexterity of an athletic droll, and the grace of a Parisian lord. The old mustache, being learned in the arts of seduction, removed his golden coat and vest revealing a sleeveless golden undershirt and two hairless, emaciated appendages. He then proceeded deliberately to his ritualistic display of virility. A full description of his undertakings, being both unnecessary to our history, and likely to send our more gentle readers to swoon, will be omitted here except to point out that it proved to be both enchanting and potent to its viewers.
Just as the serpent instinctively understands the precise moment when his strike will most likely subdue his prey, so too our man prepared his strike and began the careful transition from courtship to consummation. However, much to his regret, at the very instant he meant to bring his girls around, the sound of a single shot rang through leaden night air, and the carriage came to an altogether unpleasant halt. Our man, who had been preening in a rather seductive, but unnatural, position at the time, found himself all a-cock from aft to fore, his trousers fell below his stockings, which revealed his heretofore obscured shame, and rendered him without dignity. As the fates would have it, however, he would not suffer embarrassment for, at the same time, his head attempted to share common space with the corner of a brass handrail, which occurrence rendered him without faculty.
Had our man been conscious at the time, over the protests of the the horses, he would have heard a second gun shot, and the hardened (though strangely elevated) voice of a mounted brigand shouting: “Stand and deliver!” The coachman, though a hardened veteran of numerous such sackings, and generally unconcerned by the presence of the strangely diminutive highwayman, repaid the kindness of his passengers by obeying both commands, leaving coach and passengers to the mercy of the black rider. He then hastily balleyed to the nearest village for a pint of apple jack and a beanfeast of afters.
While the reader correctly assumes that there exists several additional sordid details of that tragic event (many of which arose from rumours that appeared long after the event) the most scandalous of those matters will not be described in this essay. Lest the reader take umbrage, the rationale for omission is sound: firstly, there occurred far too much violence and strife for public discourse, and, for the second, to share such salacious events with the reader would serve no other purposes than to mortify the exquisite, or inflame the prurient interests of the common. Neither event would serve the author’s purpose or desire, and so will remain far from his quill and the reader’s imagination. Suffice it to say, the black clad brigand took several liberties with the traveling libertines, having unburdened several purses of coin, caused the willful destruction of an entire wardrobe constructed from golden silk, and deftly removed three gowns and undergarments of three frightened young ladies. A gentle reader would feel no compulsion to inquire further, and so the author shall offer no more on this matter.
Each of the three women stood mumchance outside the carriage and trembled with fear lest they wake snakes. While they had endured the unmistakable sounds of their unconscious male companion being defiled, they had not heard demand from their assailant, and neither had the black rider betrayed any expectation from the captives. Finally there came the thunder of silence, and all was still. The black rider emerged in foundling temper, seemingly as black and limitless as the night itself, and strode savagely towards the young women, with a black-jack easily extending from the right hand. Helpless, the terrified gaggle first begged for salvation, then offered backsheesh beyond measure (and beyond their capacity), and finally threatened swift retribution for any further indignity they were made to endure. The young ladies proved to be pitiable creatures when confronted with the limits of our will, and perceived wisdom, in the face of the mounted personification of evil.
The black rider, though, was not such an evil, and was not intent on satiating desires for violence or flesh. Rather, the rider was searching for something, or more accurately, someone. After appropriating the available coins (for the rider was a version of evil, just not the sort previously described), the rider forced the women out of the mustard pot, separated them from their garments, and raked several accoutrements. The sounds of struggle arose when our elderly gentlemen had briefly regained himself and, upon witnessing the brusque manner in which his apparel was being tended to, made choice riot which, had it come from a braver man, would have given the listener cause to believe he was suffering fates unimaginable. As it was, he remained untouched until such time as the black rider tired of his shrieking, removed a black-jack, and with a quick blow to the head, returned the elderly gentlemen to peace. Unfortunately for our man, such a blissful state would not last him through til the dawn.
The rider had been searching for a distinctive pair of undergarments bearing the embroidered markings “ELM” but had, once again, failed to discover the same. Frustrated, and impatient, the black rider emerged from the cab determined to complete her investigation. She did not speak to the young ladies, rather she simply examined the lower left hip of each for a particular marking, with which she had been intimately familiar. Unfortunately, the monogram eluded her. She did not, however, become angry, only more determined to recover that which she had lost. She understood that finding it required patience, lucre, and an army of vigilant and determined soldiers. So, although the ultimate prize had eluded her that evening, she had concluded that the adventure was not a complete loss as she was able to make leg, and she intended to add three new soldiers as well.
As was stated earlier, there are a number of details to this event which the author is disinclined to share with the reader, but it can fairly be stated that, through a combination of methods of persuasion, the black rider succeeded in adding three new converts to her cause. How this was accomplished, why it resulted in the mild disfigurement of the elderly gentleman, and to what end it would serve are matters outside good taste and necessity. In any event. when it was all over, four riders, on three horses, galloped back towards town, leaving a carriage, an old man, and a message nailed to his groin which read: “We are coming for Him” implying that the reader would know precisely who that meant.
Before reaching town the horses abandoned the road (and seemingly all sense of reason) and galloped down a treacherous, and long forgotten, path. Obscured by two monumental willows and impenetrable foliage, few could have found the trail head, and still fewer would have mustered sufficient courage to attempt its passage. The path twisted among the ancient boulders and trees that seemed not to know it was a path at all (for it had not been used as such since ancient times), rose perilously away from the river, and beyond the reach of men.
At ride’s end was a very old estate that time had misplaced, and the forest had all but consumed. Living there was a group of young women who had two primary occupations: baggers, and, as the reader has already guessed, the proper owners of that rumourmonger rag the Sheffield Ratter.
More importantly, they had recently lost one of their own, and had sworn bitter oath to snake out the bobtail that had absconded with her, and snuff the bloke’s candle.
That evening, word reached the black rider of Major Strong’s lost contraband, and suddenly the blue roses burned crimson.
[…] Read Ch. 5. […]