Bloody Banquet

Barlin tossed a corpse over his shoulder and trudged towards the wheel cart. The woman had been rich. It was physically evident in her physique. Much good it did her. He thought sarcastically. Of course, it didn’t actually do her good in the slightest. At best, it was bad for Barlin's back and near-catastrophic for his knees. 

“I doth swear.” he said as he tried fruitlessly to toss the body, “The lord ought pay us more than our standard measly wage when the work doth be much beyond standard and measly.” 

He said it to Grolin, his single partner in cleaning the great hall. Grolin was a shorter man with a sorry constitution. With balding hair and wrinkled arms, Barlin often wondered how the young man would come to look past his twenties. 

Grolin scrubbed at a section of the wooden table, removing a mush of ruined food, and various small parts of former people. “Doth ye thinks it wise to murmur of such things?” He grunted, trying to wedge his rag into the red-filled cracks of the wood.

Barlin brushed his hands on his stained apron and meandered to another body. The unlucky rascal had been a bit of a fighter, made apparent by the numerous crossbow bolts that begged reality to change his species from human to porcupine. “Murmur not would I, if the work did not consume thrice the time.” He struggled to find a good hold of the lad without poking himself.

“Apart the record, friend, I doth agree with thee. But for sakes! What is to be done?” Grolin brushed aside a noble whose face had merged with his long cold soup. He mopped part of the mess into one of the many empty buckets he towed behind himself.

“I doth not know,” Barlin grumbled. “Why doth thou thinketh I petitioned thee?”

Grolin paused for a long time. He had the look of a merchant about to divulge a secret for a high cost.

“. . . Could we truly not procure from the bodies of the deceased?”

Barlin could hardly believe his ears. “For shame! I seek solution Grolin, not madness veiled in fantasy.”

“. . .”

“Best think not of that. If our lord doth slaughter these” Barlin gestured in an encompassing circular motion to the entire room, “-for the evasion of the yearly tribute, what doth ye think he might do to thou for theft? Truly thine poorest of propositions.”

Grolin took a long look at the stained table, and then glanced to Barlin.

“Of course I jest dear friend. Only in jest would I propose such a thing.”

He with a smile that didn’t meet his eyes, then promptly returned to his work. A tangible silence settled on the room.

Barlin set down the porcupine and went to the next unfortunate. He considered striking up an unrelated conversation but decided against it. He sensed the mood had been dampened. Have I rebuked too harshly?

They worked in the usual silence for a few minutes. It was taxing, and when Barlin had to move aside chairs to drag a very wealthy man across the floor, he again thought begrudgingly about his wage.

“Oie” Grolin exclaimed

“What doth it be?”

“Which body of the cart did thou remove from this spot”

Barlin looked up from the dead weight and hobbled to look at the spot in question. Grolin was pointing at a peculiar splat of blood in an odd squiggle shape. Barlin straightened, prompting a crackled from his back.

“I doth have difficulty recalling. Why dost thou alarm?” 

“This doth be writing.” Grolin pointed at the squiggles.

Berlin tilted his head. “Right thou art methinks. What doth it say?”

“Forlorn am I, I cannot read. Only can I recognize the rune for family.”

“A final will then. . .”

“Call a scribe shall we?”

“Nay, no need.”

“Wipe away, should I? Or nay?”

“What thinkest thou. Thou thinkest the lord wants written blood in his dining hall?”

“Surely. The lord did drench the whole in blood, so one would think he would not mind it.”

Barlin glaired at the shorter man who gave him a toothy smile and wiped away the writing. 

“Merely a jest friend. Merely a jest.”

Silence seemed near again, but Grolin filled the void.

“About family, how be your own?” Grolin wrung his rag over a bucket of murky water and moved the bucket to the table.

“Not in any peril. . . but suffering for small lack of coin, and for lack of mine time on a day such as this.” 

“Might you ask the Lord for a raise?” 

“More madness you speak. I would fear to die.”

Barlin stretched his sore muscles and looked despondent at the remaining bodies. His arms plead for him to take a break. Grolin grabbed a nearby chair, tipping off a pretty lady, and offering him the seat. He took it gladly.

“Mayest thou have time to work more?”

“Lest I see mine wife not at all, nay.” 

“Something you can sell, have you?”

“Again, nay. . . Where dust thou go with such a line of questioning?”

“It seemeth I have no solution for thou.”

“It would seemeth. . .”

“Say, however. . .” Grolin started. The tone of his voice was sly, like a sea snake inviting a rabbit to dinner.

“If it doth pertain to thievery, make clear you speak in jest.”

“In jest of course. . . Say we did taketh but a single minor article. Or perhaps two.”

Grolin gestured to the large man Barlin had dragged halfway across the floor. He wore many gem-studded rings on his bloated fingers.

“Thine risk to reward ratio would be abysmal.”

“Though, might it not be?”

“Speak, how so?”

“Who is to miss so little in this physical cacophony of blood and gore?”

“Still. So little gain. . .”

“Do thine own calculation Barlin! Merely a single article doth equate in the least to twice or trice our daily wage.”

“Such small trinkets, Truly?”

“Would thou have me scrawl it for you?”

“Nay. No need. . .”

Barlin scratched his head. The Idea was entirely theoretical, and definitely not a viable solution to his financial troubles. At least, that’s what he told himself. But . . . What If ? The question nagged at him even more than the buzzing flies on the deceased.

“But by chance, if someone is to witness? Or perhaps take stock and find discrepancy?” he asked.

“By glory, Who is there to witness? And if the latter were so, would it truly be a hardship to find the servant that doth takes stock? Surely he may take interest in our jest.”

“Doth it be our jest? Or thine?”

“Ours, if thou dost think it so.”