He’s been chained to the wall for a long time. Several nights, he would guess. Sometimes a gaoler comes along to throw freezing moat water over him. He licks the foetid fluid off the lip of his beard and feels the gristly bits on his tongue. They don’t feed him. That’s how he knows they are going to kill him.
His death comes in the form of two voices floating down the dark stone corridor outside the cell.
‘...and as you have seen, traditional methods have proven ineffective,’ says a measured man’s voice.
They enter. Man and woman. The man is well dressed; noble, no doubt, as is the woman. He wears a striped outfit of dark violet and oxblood, with a long golden chain wrapped around his shoulders. But there’s no doubt as to who is wealthier.
The woman’s garb is plainer at a glance, but it's the details that reveal the true opulence subtly disguised below the modesty. It takes a certain kind of person to hide a whole string of diamonds in a silk thread trim. Maybe only a dozen people in the whole world could afford that. And maybe one or two of them would imagine hiding that vast expenditure for the sake of a more muted, refined look.
These are the things only a merchant of some repute would notice. A reputation now as low as the cell he languishes in.
The guards, royal guards, drag in a long crate behind the two nobles.
‘It took a significant amount of time and investment to develop this new weapon,’ the man continues.
‘You can expect reimbursement for your efforts,’ the woman says, voice as cold as the blue of her eyes. ‘If it works.’
‘Oh it works, Your Gr-, uh, My Lady,’ he corrects himself. He gestures at the guards, hurrying them along to cover his error. ‘As I will display. Please stand back, My Lady.’
The merchant fastened to the dank cell wall swallows. What isn’t in his bowels threatens to shake loose as the guards heave open the heavy lid of the crate. He strains to see what is inside. Darkness.
The nobleman reaches in and from it plucks out an eel. It sits limp in his hand. Dead. He brings it over to the merchant, who watches with confused fear. The eel is black. Its skin doesn’t sheen like eels he’s seen before, not that he’s seen many, but looks scaled. Metallic. The noble hefts the corpse. It's heavy.
The nobleman raises the eel for the woman to see. She nods. Then he draws something from his pocket. It looks like a key, with a bright blue head. He slots it into the back of the eel, as if there is a hole waiting for it, and the eel snaps into a straight line. Then, after a breathless moment, it comes to life.
The nobleman struggles to hold onto it. ‘As you can see, My Lady, these new weapons will require expert hands, which my house will be happy to provide.’
She nods, dismissive. A “get on with it” nod.
He obliges. The nobleman lifts the eel to the chained merchant’s face. The eel's head is pointed like a spearhead. The merchant hardly registers the blur of movement as it strikes towards his face.
The merchant feels his front teeth crack with the impact, as the eel forces its way through his mouth, ripping his cheeks, and into his throat. He feels his windpipe strain with the girth of the eel's body as it furiously wiggles its way down his throat.
The merchant’s eyes are blinded by tears. He cannot breathe. Wild panic shoots through every vein as his body convulses with pain. He rages against his chains. Over the jangling of iron on stone, and the viscous sucking sound of the eel slithering down his throat, the merchant can hear the two nobles talking calmly.
‘And how many of these do you have?’ the woman is asking.
‘A dozen prototypes. We can produce many more at your word.’
This is what the merchant hears as the eel reaches his gut and begins to gnaw at the skin of his stomach.
Paddy Dobson
4th January 2022