Since the latest “short story” in the prequel Observer Tales quickly developed into a novelette, I have decided to publish its four parts in short story-sized installments.
This back story has been brewing since I worked out the longer story arc for the Observer, and realized the central importance of Diana Ashcraft, her significance in the larger story, the Observer’s relationship with her, and the secret details of her family history. The Dun Cat of Mill Bridge helped develop the dynamic between their personalities, but left open the circumstance of their first meeting.
And, I wanted to firmly establish the series’ mash-up of detective story and “New World Fantasy” by performing a literary marriage of the Tolkien-inspired deep history of the Observer’s world with a reference to hard-boiled American pulp fiction. The eponymous Woman Who Wouldn’t Die — a tip of my writerly hat to the classic noir film and the Clayton Rawson novel that inspired it — is a thing from the darkest depths of Antiquity.
This brings us to my third motivation, elements of the larger story that I felt could not be fairly sprung upon the reader in a sequel to The Ligan Of The Disomus, the series’ first true novel. These hints to the deeper legendarium eventually prove key to the greater conflict that the events and revelations of Ligan kick off; they were ever-present under the surface off the narrative (even in Ligan) but I wanted to offer a clearer set of clues for the careful reader.
These elements include the most ancient of the “bad animals” that so terrify Deputy Tom Sul, the closest thing to vampires in the Observer’s world, and the religious background that explains how the Observer’s commanding officer (in the age of sailing ships) is Commander Lea Thomas rather than Leo. The “Man” becomes “Woman” in more than just the title.
“I need to get this rambling word-monger back to the task at hand,” the Observer would grunt. So, with one last minor comment (If you recognize a paraphrase or linguistic play-on-words in this installment, then kudos to yudos! Post it in the comments.) here is the first installment of The Woman Who Wouldn’t Die.
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PART I
STAITHE
The day Frer Jacob told me about the woman who wouldn’t die, he found me angling for fish at the end of Lemaigne’s Pier Eight, what the locals call “The Old Staithe” because it is the oldest, and rottenest, dock in port.
The Staithe is a slapdash jumble of timbers and planks that was likely never very impressive, not even when freshly nailed, because it was thrown together by a mob of trappers and merchants who had far greater knowledge of beasts or business than they did of wood and iron. The damned thing looks more like an argument against carpentry than anything else.
And, it’s such a clumsy mess that it has hardly ever seen much business, which is why the other Piers had been built and re-built and improved over the years by professional carpenters, while the Staithe is the same old heap of mismatched lumber and bad joints it always was.
But, being Sunday, there wasn’t much activity that day on anywhere along Water Street. A peculiar superstition turns the licentious denizens of Lemaigne (and any sailors ashore) into models of piety and careful pronunciation on the Holy Day. No ship sets sail on Sunday from Lemaigne, no loading, no offloading.
In addition to this, the harbor had been fairly empty for the greater part of a week, as most captains had anchored their ships in the far offing, so they could run if the White Fleet happened along to press them into service breaking the Strayland blockade.
Unfortunately for them (should the White Fleet come pressing) the winds were dead, the sea becalmed but not quite glassy, just smooth enough to cast sunlight. Had there been any sunlight over Lemaigne. Cloudy as it was, the water instead flickered black and grey like some sort of diabolical anti-flame.
~♥~
On an empty dock, on an empty day, during an empty week, it was quite easy to hear Frer Jacob’s footsteps as he made his way down the Staithe.
“I stopped by your office.” He squatted in his cassock for a moment, then — perhaps deciding that wasn’t familiar enough — sat down beside me on the deck like we were old chums.
“I wasn’t there,” I said.
“I was hoping that was the case, actually. The alternative was that Lemaigne’s only Observer was consciously ignoring his office door being vigorously rapped upon.”
I had graduated the Security Corps academy only a few months before, and was immediately assigned to Lemaigne as an Observer, which is roughly like a Lieutenant or Captain in one of the regular military Corps. Observers are posted by the S Corps to keep an eye out for odd crimes and strange comings-and-goings that the locals were not equipped to handle.
The “office” Jacob was talking about was really little more than a clapboard shed, not in much better shape than the Staithe. Commander Lea Thomas, my academic adviser, had acquired the Lemaigne Observer’s office for the S Corps from her sister, a retired merchant captain. Not sure whether the Corps paid for it, or the captain had paid us to take the leaky pile of scrap-wood off her hands.
Ignoring the monk, I wheeled in the line and lifted the bait out of the water. Still there, soggy dead minnow. I sent it back to the depths.
He grinned at me, sly and sidelong. “At first I thought, being the new uniform in town you might be away, having spent Saturday night in the arms — and such — of some infatuated local bonny.”
The grin faded and he seemed almost immediately regretful, either because his innuendo betrayed the chastity of his Holy Office, or because I had only recently made his acquaintance and he had no earthly right to speculate about my carnal habits.
“So, Frer, why aren’t you in church?”
“Because I was looking for you, to discuss a woman the Sheriff’s men tried to arrest last night. And, well, not that sort of woman, but one you might be interested in, officially. As the Lemaigne Observer, I mean.”
I stared down my line. If he had something to say about this woman, I figured he would get to it soon enough.
“And, I knew you wouldn’t be in church,” he said with a shrug. “So, I asked if anyone had seen you, and someone had. Speaking of which, why don’t you go to church, Observer?”
Damned small talk. “Do you really want this story, Jacob?”
He crossed his hands in his lap in a way that told me he did. I said flatly, “The Argument from Articulation.”
“Oh! Gundulf’s solution to the problem of Evil.”
For those not familiar with this artifact of ancient theology, the gist of it is that if God is conceived as being Creator of everything, and therefore All-Powerful, then it must follow that He is also capable of having not created something which nevertheless exists. This must be true, the argument goes, because creatures of spit-and-ash like us can articulate the possibility of it, and nothing we mere mortals can articulate could be impossible for an Omnipotent Being.
Also, since God is All-Good, this something else must necessarily be Evil. And, although Evil is not created by God (and therefore God is not culpable for all of the resulting wickedness) this does not contradict God’s All-Powerfulness because Evil exists on its own by Almighty God’s articulated ability to have not created something which nevertheless exists.
“I had to prepare a homily on the Argument from Articulation at my parish school,” I said, lifting the minnow from the water and plopping it back down. “I was convincing, but unconvinced.”
“A parish school,” he noticed, “So, you were High Church?”
“My mother was High Church. My father was whatever my mother told him to believe. Their deal upon betrothal was that he told her how and where we would live in this world, and she told him where we were going in the next.” I wheeled the bait in a bit, hoping that the motion made it seem quick to whatever other fish might be down there. “I don’t think he realized that the arrangement gave her a divine veto over his every word.”
“She clearly did not have her way with you.”
“Unconvinced,” I repeated. “The Church was all bright buttons and dull bayonets,” I said, quoting the old saw about bad soldiers. “No offense.”
“None taken,” he shrugged, “I assume you mean those who care more for Church dogma than Church mission.”
I drew the minnow in again, noted its soggy and sorry condition, and gave up on it. I had successfully transformed half a fish into no fish. I turned to look at Jacob.
“It’s not mission that’s absent, but Reason.” I set the pole on the Staithe beside me. “Whisper a word of good sense in collision with dogma, and even though capable of the clearest proof, you’ll kick up a hornet’s nest, and they’ll swarm about your legs and hands, and fly into your face and eyes.”
Jacob chuckled. I realized I had been waving my hands around as if in futile defense against a swarm of stinging vermin. I thought he was laughing at my frustration, which I must admit was due more to my own inability to catch fish than the failings of the Church. But then, with a tilt of his head he said, “There’s a greater Hornet awaiting them.”
His intonation of the word “hornet” made clear that it was some sort of inside joke.
“I have no idea what you’re on about.”
“Sorry. It’s just a funny word, hornet.” And then he grinned even tighter, looking skyward as if the joke were between him and God Most High. Not at all interested in why that word was so funny to this rambling monk, I got to my feet. He stood up beside me. “Observer, your protests sound a bit Prelatarian.”
“I’d rather drink frog-pissed pond water.” Lowering my lids at him, I bent down to retrieve the now-useless pole, which had caught so many fish before the Staithe.
Jacob nodded sideways, considering. “I agree that Gundulf’s Argument was rather inane, myself. Clever, but inane. Yet, here I am.” He swept his hand down the front of his grey cassock, to point out what I already knew about his occupation.
“Why are you here, Jacob?” I asked, rapping my knuckles on one of the Staithe’s crooked posts. “I know you don’t have a congregation here in Lemaigne, but shouldn’t you be performing some Sunday ritual, clanging golden bells together or something?”
“Eh, the Church sent another Brother here a few weeks ago. To keep an eye on me, I think.” He winked conspiratorially. “In any case, he’s preparing the hooks and baubles for the liturgy.”
“So, why aren’t you helping him?”
“He’s the ritualist, let him do the ritual. I’m more of a counselor.” He rethought, “Or a guide. Tanna’s cartographer.” At the name of the Saint, he tucked a thumb reverently between his fingers and touched his chest.
“Ok, enough of the chitter-chat, Jacob. What’s the story about this woman?”
“Oh, yes! The Sheriff and his men shot a madwoman in the chest last night. She brandished an axe at them, or so they claim. They hit her maybe seven times, point-blank.”
“And you want me to identify the body?”
“Oh, no body. She just ran off.”
Okay, seven shots and she runs away? That qualifies as Observer business, I guess, even if the truth was that the Sheriff’s puddered crew were all aiming askew to keep from shooting a woman.
“Let me get my pistol and uniform.” I swept the minnow from the hook and flipped it off the Staithe. The moment it was over open water, a jozzle swooped down from somewhere overhead and snatched it out of the air.
CLICK HERE FOR PART II
I really do love this, John.