More Than A Match

It was so terribly cold. Snow was falling, and it was almost dark…

The timid, little girl peered in through the brightly lit window and wanted with all her heart to be in the room beyond. The glowing and welcoming room, with its roaring fire and the laughing and cheering throng in the throes of such fun and jollity. Her desire to be a part of the tableau presented to her was boundless, and yet here she was in the freezing cold, in her threadbare clothing, clothing that barely covered her, let alone kept her warm.

She stared in through the frosted window at her dream. She looked on longingly as others lived out the dream that was rightfully hers. Invisible to those within the grand building, she felt the growing cold creeping up through her feet and into her knees and as her life threatened to ebb away into the snow, she made a wish. She wished with all her heart for her dream to come true.

Glancing down at her unsold wares, with an overwhelming sadness, she could so easily have given up, lain on the inviting blanket of snow and allowed the cold to take her from this place and onto a realm where pain was the ghost of a memory. The compulsion to do just that was so seductively strong, but then she heard a loud voice from the other side of the window and the words that were spoken awoke her drowsy spirit. Those words saved her life, but she would not recount this moment, with a single living soul.

“Women?! Join our number?? How preposterous! How ridiculous! This is the preserve of men! And manly men at that!”

As Lily looked upon the speaker of these words, her expression altered and she was transformed. This transformation was not temporary. Those words forged something new and Lily was never the same again.

*

NOT AGAIN.

A cloaked figure stood nearby in the shadows. Not that he had to conceal himself in this world of men. People only saw him when it was their time, or more precisely, just after their time in this place had come to a fatal end.

Death shook his head and climbed up onto his horse. 

THIS CAN ONLY END BADLY.

He said this as he held Lily’s hourglass aloft, the sands were now running backwards and rising up into the top of the glass, pooling there, but leaving a small aperture so as not to impede the flow of the sands of time.

Death had said again, but the last time something like this had happened, Jones the watchmaker had found a novel way to borrow time from those hourglasses not yet in use by the unborn of the future. Jones really had been living on borrowed time, and would have gotten away with it for much longer had he not got so greedy. But that was a different story for another time, and Death had work to do. Hopefully the rest of his night would not be blighted by whatever was going on with Lily’s hourglass. 

Before leaving, Death took one last look at the little girl. She had stood up from her crouched position at the bottom of the window, and she was brushing the snow from her garments with renewed purpose. Death could have sworn that she looked bigger somehow. 

Cheating death can do that to a person.

WE’LL BE SEEING EACH OTHER.

Death doffed an imaginary cap that flickered into existence for a moment before heading back from whence it came. The cap had been dead these past hundred years, but Death had taken a shine to it and kept it. The cap was very lucky. Hilary his horse was the only other thing he’d ever taken a shine to. There was the inkling of a shine now, for the little girl who had cheated him. If not a shine, then an interest.

Turning Hilary away from the girl, Death urged her on, deeper into the shadows, and was gone. He would look in on Lily from time to time. He was curious about that hourglass of hers and just what she might do with the extended time she had afforded to her. He expected that she would put that time to interesting use. He was not disappointed.

“Oy!” said a gruff male voice, “you can’t ‘ang ‘round ‘ere!”

Lily rounded on the man and her determined and defiant face was caught in the light of his lantern.

“Hop it you old toad!” she said in a harsh admonishment that made the man step back in something like fear, but he would have blustered this away as merely shock and surprise at the rude little girl and feisty retort.

Said girl took to her heels and was lost to the night.

*

Death never forgot that night, and not just because of the strange and worrisome blip in the order of things. Conscientious as he was, he felt a practical need to keep an eye on that faulty hourglass and how events were unfolding thanks to its malfunctioning ways.

He also had a soft spot for Lily. Death was short of entertainment in his line of work, and Lily was interesting, she had a habit of making things interesting.

From that fateful evening, Lily became something of an entrepreneur. Not content with selling, she took it upon herself to buy in goods and cut out the middle man, and she had an eye for what would sell. 

In fact, Lily’s business acumen was quite something else and she earnt a name for herself, behind the name of Lily was a growing brand and a reputation for making money and quite a bit of money at that.

Early in her entrepreneurial career she began making deals with established businesses. She would wander the streets of what she considered to be her city and she would see opportunities wherever her she looked. 

Her first deal was with Dobbler, the purveyor of cooked meats of dubious provenance. She convinced him to extend his offering to include cow, and she sourced that meat for him. Paying for the first lot of stock out of her own pocket, to prove to Dobbler that there was in fact a market for meats of known provenance. 

Dobbler had seen his chance to make a quick buck from Lily’s free meat and couldn’t say no. After that, Lily supplied Dobbler with half of all his meats and made a tidy earning into the bargain. Some would question why Dobbler persisted with his dubious meats, but old habits died hard, Dobbler was an astute business man, and in any case, he had a very good thing going with the pest controller. And the pest controller’s wife.

Up and down the high street, Lily worked her magic, until she was renowned for having not just a golden touch, but the golden touch. Soon enough, she did not have to expend shoe leather and undue effort seeking out further opportunities, she was sought out and her sphere of influence expanded.

Life was good for the little girl who should have died on that harsh winter night, and doors were opening for her. Door after door swung open and she was welcomed in.

However, there was one door that remained firmly shut, and this was a source of much annoyance for Lily, for this was the one door that she dearly wanted opened to her.

Still, she knew this was always going to be a tough nut to crack and she didn’t want it to be too easy. So she built and she built, until she was a woman of substance. Anyone who met Lily was left in no doubt of her substance. There was something elemental about her, and a dark rumour did the rounds in the taverns, Lily had sold her soul to a certain god in exchange for all her success. Not one person refuted this.

*

Every day, Lily walked past the window that had changed her life, and every time she passed that spot she shuddered, as though she were walking over her own grave. There was something of a premonition too. The premonition grew and became more substantial with time. Lily mistook the feeling of foreboding she experienced for one of destiny. Unfortunately, they were one and the same.

Once she had made a name for herself, and had become a woman of means, she would take her daily walk and as she passed the window she would add to her plan. This plan was also a scheme and there was cunning and artifice aplenty embedded within. Lily was intent on breaking through this last door, and when she did, the world would never be the same again.

She would mutter the words that had been shouted through the window. Words that were intended for her and her alone.

Beyond that window was supposedly a preserve exclusively for men.

“We’ll see about that!” said Lily as she paused at the building, and she meant it, for the time had come for Lily to make her grand entrance.

*

“You did what?!”

“Why that’s preposterous!”

“Over my dead body!”

“That can be arranged, as can all things…”

This last gentle utterance silenced the entire room. Eyes widened and monocles fell forgotten and swung like hanged men. Glasses were canted at atrocious angles and drinks were spilled upon the fine carpentry. One of the younger members broke the horrified silence, screaming as he lost his senses, ran full pelt towards none of other than Lily’s window and bounced off it, unconscious before he landed in an undignified heap.

There was a woman in the inner sanctum of the most manly of places. A woman had invaded this place, and worse still, Smythers had just been explaining that her membership had been passed and that the ceremony was a shoe in.

To add to the general ignominy of the proceedings, tonight was to be a night of ceremony and celebration, for two of the senior members were being raised to the high table. There was calamity as the growing anticipation of a jolly good evening was hijacked by the presence of a woman of all things. A woman who somehow had ingratiated herself and found a way to join their number.

There were rumblings of discontent and murmurings of “inquiry” and “inquest” and “ruddy big rollockings”, but the rumblings were cut short by the voice of the infernal woman.

“Speaking of arrangements…” there fell upon the room a deathly silence.

Was this woman really going to speak of tonight’s arrangements? The ceremony was hundreds of years old and there would be no alterations to it now, or ever. Not unless Dobbler ran out of his infamous special product.

“As this is such an auspicious day, and we are making history, I have taken the initiative for this initiation of mine and made all the arrangements so that nothing is left to chance,” said the lady in their midst.

The lady was wearing a cloak not dissimilar to the other member’s cloaks, only it managed to be completely out of keeping with the old and well-worn traditional cloaks that the men wore. In comparison, hers was regal. The hood and trimmings were lined with a fur that defied description. This was because the fur was of dubious provenance, having been purchased from Dobbler at a very good price. The lady also wore the cloak well. Some of the men around her were envious of the cut of her cloak. Others had already forgotten themselves and were appreciating her presence in the room a little too eagerly.

“But…” began one of the elder members.

The lady raised a fine finger in something like gentle admonishment. She did not have to try all that hard to command the proceedings, these men had no clue as to what to do with such an exotic creature in their midst. These men were a lost and isolated tribe encountering civilisation for the first time. Most of them would be lucky to survive the encounter.

“Jooves!” bellowed the Lily, “bring forth the virgin!”

The assembled men threw their heads around like demented meerkats.

Virgin?

Virgin!

The Keeper of the Book of Ceremonies groaned inwardly. He was well versed in the contents of the Book of Ceremonies, and he was well aware of the reference to virgins, but he’d never bothered with that nonsense, and not one of the assembled had questioned his interpretation of the Book, mainly because none of them had ever bothered to read it. The Keeper’s interpretation of the Book largely entailed swapping anything contentious for more booze and more food. No one was going to argue with that. Eat, drink and be merry was always a winner.

“Let us go forth to the alter brethren!” Lily cried and several of the gathered also cried, with fear and confusion as Lily held aloft a wicked looking snake.

The Keeper croaked. This croak was the closest he got to saying “look, I think we need a time out here. We don’t actually do the snake and virgin thing here, and please tell me you’re not doing to do the thing on page five!”

Lily being a force of nature, the assembled men being creatures of habit, and none of them equipped to deal with a woman in this place that was only for men, there was no stopping the proceedings and everyone filed into the ceremony room and gathered around the altar.

It was when Lily tied the snake to the altar that the Keeper frowned in genuine consternation and then found his voice. This wasn’t in the Book, Lily seemed to have gotten a few things the wrong way around and back to front.

The Keeper raised his hand, as though he were back in school.

“Yes? What is it?” said Lily angrily.

“I think you’ll find that…” wheedled the Keeper.

“Silence!” bellowed Lily, hearing nothing of worth from the man and seeing his gibbering wretchedness, “the ceremony will not be interrupted!”

The poor snake slithered this way and that, but could not break it’s bonds upon the altar. It looked quite put out. Thankfully, it was oblivious to the sharp and deadly dagger Lily brought forth from the folds of her cloak.

There were several oohs and aahs from the crowd of men. That was some cloak, and they would be going to see a certain tailor in the morning.

“Come forth!” commanded Lily, and the crowd parted automatically, curious to see who Lily was talking to and all the more curious to see who the virgin was.

There was much disappointment when Malcolm appeared in the doorway to the ceremony room. Wearing only a loin cloth and his body oiled, he was a fine specimen of a man, which adhered to the strictly no women code, but the men were hypocritically disappointed all the same. 

No one noticed the Keeper’s left eyebrow raise, or heard him mutter, “of course! A male virgin!”

Malcolm came forth and stood before the altar.

Lily leaned over the altar and whispered something to Malcolm.

“Really?” he could be heard saying.

“Yes,” said Lily sternly, “I am paying you triple rate.”

Malcolm sighed. 

Then he bit the snake.

“Behold!” cried Lily, “the virgin has bitten the snake!”

The Keeper shook his head. This wasn’t quite how the ceremony was supposed to go.

“Now for the sacrifice!” shouted Lily. She was really getting into this.

Malcolm stepped back. He wasn’t being paid for anything more. He’d done his part. He licked his lips nervously and was surprised to find that snake blood was actually quite tasty.

Lily raised the dagger high into the air and then she plunged it down into the bewildered snake.

There was a bang, a puff of smoke and cries and whimpers from the men. Malcolm left in the confusion, he really wasn’t being paid enough for this and he was glad he’d demanded an up-front fee.

As the smoke cleared and the chaos created by the nervous and panicked men subsided, it was immediately clear that of Lily, there was no sign. Oddly, her cloak lay in a heap on the floor and would go missing later that evening, her dagger lay on the altar, and the body of the snake had also gone missing.

*

“What happened?” said Lily.

She was standing by the altar in a state of some confusion.

THEY CAN’T SEE YOU.

“Oh,” said Lily, “it’s you.”

ME?

Death wasn’t used to the words Lily had spoken. Few people were familiar with Death, even if they happened to be familiar with death.

“Yes, you,” confirmed Lily somewhat haughtily.

YOU’VE SEEN ME BEFORE?

“Yes,” said Lily, “it’s like you’ve been stalking me.”

WHY DIDN’T YOU SAY ANYTHING?

“I thought that if I pretended you weren’t there, you’d go away,” she said nonchalantly.

OH. RIGHT.

“That’s not going to work this time, is it?” she asked, a little hopefully.

NO. NO IT ISN’T.

“So what happened,” she asked, pointing at the crumpled cloak, and the distinct lack of her, on the floor.

YOU KILLED THE SNAKE.

“Really?” asked Lily.

Death nodded, which was a slightly disconcerting sight.

“Does that happen to everyone, when they kill a snake?” asked Lily.

NO. THE TERMS OF YOUR EXTENTION WERE THAT YOU COULD NOT KILL ANYONE.

“Ah…” said Lily.

YOU KNEW ABOUT THE EXTENTION?

“I had my suspicions…”

YOU CAN TELL ME ABOUT IT LATER.

“Later?” 

YES, I’M AFRAID THAT THE EXTENTION MEANS YOU AREN’T DOWN ON EITHER OF THE LISTS.

“Oh…” Lily thought for a moment, “so what happens now?”

Death shrugged and Lily tried not to stare.

FANCY A CUPPA?

“Yeah, why not. I’ve got nothing better to do,” smiled Lily.

I DOUBT THAT.

And with that, Death led Lily to Hilary and they popped to his house for a brew.