Childe of my Heart ~ Chapter Twenty-nine
by Shanyah
 

It buggered belief, the things some people threw away. Chairs, bedsteads, side tables, all perfectly usable. Take his crypt for instance, done up nice with salvaged knick-knacks from Sunnydale’s city dump. Bit of spit to wash the crud off and presto, the tomb is a home. Perfectly usable rubbish, just like the Unbonded. Poor sods went about their trade and some having no trade, shuffled on worn out heels, fingers twisting the cruddy leather of their multicoloured bands. They milled on the Main Floor, cast-offs in a Trail that didn’t value the weak, out of fashion or unpleasing to look upon. They were junk on the Trail’s city dump and he was in a salvaging mood.

“You’re Earned now, you lucky man. Next,” said Dawn, Custodian of the Town Square’s Eastern gates. Her fingers fumbling, she tied a maroon ribbon around the wrist of the next Unbonded in line.

Given that they’d come directly to Main Floor from the Baths and hadn’t stopped for breakfast or taken a tea break, Spike wasn’t surprised that Dawn’s voice was dull with fatigue. He supposed it wouldn’t hurt to give her a breather.

“Trade places with Fred for now, Bit,” he said.

Fred left the sheet on the bench and took charge of the Eastern gate. Dawn sat on the bench and with a deep sigh, took over cutting the maroon sheet into ribbons. Xander handed out ribbons at the Southern gate, persuasive as a leaflet distributor working on commission.

Saddling a gaggle of new recruits with a satchel of maroon ribbons each, Spike ordered them to the other gates that opened onto the Square saying, “don’t Earn me no Gangr’als or Tomb Robbers. Can’t be doing with that sort of fickle demon.”

He sent another five to work under Fred’s instructions and the last five under Xander. By mid-morning, the recruited Unbonded had spread out from the Town Square and were out in Main Floor proper, signing up those of their type whose lost hope had driven them into the hovels of what was one big hovel.

Dawn came up to him. “I’m out of sheets, Mi Amo,” she said.

“Get Harris to bring another one from the sheet stall.”

“I already tried that, he’s not at his gate.”

Swift anger and swift steps, he trawled the stalls, found Xander talking to an Unbonded vendor at a fruit stand. She jostled a crying baby from one hip to the other while Xander stacked oranges from a box onto the stall.

“How can such a tiny person cry so loud?” Xander went over and waved ribbons above the baby’s face, smiling as it hiccupped at the maroon mobile. “My Master would schedule your working hours around child care,” he told the vendor.

“What is your meaning?” She asked.

“Baby’s been out here all night with you and he’s tired. It doesn’t take a parent to figure out that he needs home and a warm fire right now, but you’re on long working hours and can’t give him that,” Xander paid attention as the baby gummed half a ribbon into its mouth, sucking on the strip of cotton. He eased the ribbon out of the chomping mouth, raised the mobile out of reach and was rewarded with a screech.

“My Master would let you work flexi hours,” Xander said. “Sign up and you could take your baby home.”

Tart laughter and a disbelieving shake of head from the vendor. “He must be a different kind of Amo this Master of yours.”

“He is,” Xander crooned at the baby. “Yes he is. And,” he glanced at the vendor, “My Amo will cut an hour off your working day for every Unbonded trader you enrol. It’s a good deal.”

She looked at Xander like he was a simpleton.

“You don’t believe me? Ask him. He’s at the back of that tree,” said Xander.

Grinning large at Xander’s brilliance, Spike left his surveillance spot and walked up to the pair and a half. “So are you interested in flexi time?”

“This is your Master?” The vendor wiped her hand on her tunic and tidied her hair. “You did not say you are Earned by Master Spike.”

“Yes or no?” Spike pulled a ribbon from Xander’s fist.

The vendor extended her arm to him. “Mi Amo.”

He unbuckled the multi-coloured band and tied the maroon ribbon around her wrist. “Go home. One of the others will mind the shop,” he said to her and turning to Xander he said, “you’re wasted on donut fetching, mate.”   

He sent a recruit for three maroon sheets. When the sheets were cut into thin ribbons, he gathered all his Unbonded, and arming them with thick bundles of ribbon, he and Xander lead them into the heart of the industrial district - caves packed with Unbonded craftsmen and workers.

Spike walked the smoggy and crowded veins of the tunnel system and skirted piles of litter, his head buzzing with information that had previously seemed useless. Three types of Unbonded: those born into it, those demoted from Earned to Unbonded and those who’d been Earners and had become Unbonded by their own hand. He’d seen it happen, seen many Earners gamble their indigo bands on a fight in Jude’s gaming pit. The Gangr’al is going to win, they’d say, it’s a sure thing. Gangr’als didn’t always win and Spike had never seen Jude as happy as when he fixed a multi-colored band on the wrist of a newly Unbonded Earner. 

Where did that sort of Unbonded live…if he himself lost his band on a dud bet right this second, where on Main Floor would he choose to live? Not in the smoggy and littered tunnels for sure.

Turning round so he was walking backwards, he asked, “Is there a Tom here?”

The Unbonded shook their heads.

“Dick?”

No luck.

“Harry? Sally, Pierre, Juan…Juanita?”

Zero takers.

“Faye, Pedro, Philip?”

“I am called Philippe, Mi Amo,” a man raised his hand. Baritone voice, caramel skin, eyes the colour of a calm blue sea, handle of a sword showing above his right shoulder.

“I’m a Master vampire, I bet my band on a horse and it came last. So now I’m an Unbonded Master Vampire looking for a place to live. I want a nook that’s far from Town Square’s din and not too close to the fumes from the work caves. I want neighbours who’re dangerous like me ‘cause that keeps the riff-raff from moving into my neighbourhood. Where on Main Floor is my niche Philippe?”

“Your niche is on my street, Master.”

He took Philippe in, liked the confident stride and unflappable tone. “And where’s your street?”

“In the Sixth Tunnel, Mi Amo. The Army kitchen and mess hall are situated in the Sixth Tunnel of Main Floor and although the soldiers do not live there, they make dangerous neighbours at meal times. There is an unoccupied nook a stone’s throw from the cave I share with my brothers. Does Amo wish me to take him there?” Philippe asked.

Spike felt a smile tug at his lips. “Brothers? What, you all bet on the same fight?”

“We are El Eliminati, brothers in spirit if not by blood,” said Philippe.

Spike’s mouth watered. A cave full of El Eliminati. A cave full of El Eliminati.  He faced forward, part of him wanting to stay on course for the industrial district and a greater part of him pulling for the dangerous street in the Sixth Tunnel of Main Floor.

“Where to first Harris? Work caves or Lethal Street?” He asked, needing objectivity.

“There’s more ground to cover in the work caves, Mi Amo,” Xander said without a pause.

“Industrial District it is,” Spike conceded. Then he shook his head, throwing Xander a gritty smile. “I must be crazy…” listening to you, trusting that you’re advising me correct.

*    *    *    *

Tresten had orders to give regarding his upcoming banquet, menus to scrutinise and the Great Hall to inspect, entertainment co-ordinators to harangue. His diary did not allow for unscheduled consultation meetings and for fifteen days, he denied his Advisors’ requests for one such meeting. He would have denied them an audience on this the sixteenth day had not Groza lead the other two Advisors to the Great Hall, accosting Tresten there and trailing his Amo around the Hall, imparting counsel he had not been permitted to impart.

“Wider, wider,” Tresten told an artist balanced on a step-ladder, “Tresten grins, he does not simper.”

White paint dripped off the artist’s brush as he waved it at the partially brightened and extended smile on a wall painting of Tresten. “Mi Amo, the proportions.”

“Painter, you will correct the image or become Unbonded.” Tresten guffawed, turning to his Advisors, “Did the Vampire coerce the Unbonded, Groza?”

“No Mi Amo, but-”

“Do they belong to another?”

“Not in the true sense of-”

“This matter scarcely merits Tresten’s arbitration,” Tresten said. “The Unbonded are Spike’s for the Earning.”

“My precise words to Groza, Mi Amo. The Unbonded belong to all and none,” Sargo said. “They are as olives growing on roadside trees and anyone may eat of them. It is not Amo’s concern if the vampire chooses to gorge himself.”

“Gorge you say?”

“Yes, gorge I say. Spike is a gluttonous and foolish master for he insists on scavenging the Unbonded even when he has not the space to house them. As Amo Tresten of course knows, an Earner is at liberty to accommodate his Earned on his Ranking,” Sargo said.

“A few extra Earned should not be difficult to house,” Tresten glanced at his portrait, “surely?”

Ruby unhooked her veil and her wind spoke. “Vampire Spike’s Unbonded are not olives. They are a swarm of locusts migrating from Main Floor to the Fifth Ranking. Amo Tresten’s chefs struggle to cater for the influx, the Fifth Ranking market is devoid of clothing, the shoe makers and armoury cannot satisfy Master Spike’s unceasing demands and the Insignia Weavers have been warned to prepare for a substantial order of wristbands.”

Tresten tugged on his earlobe, inching a sideways and upwards glance at the painter, more concerned, it seemed, with the smile on his portrait than with Groza’s impatient throat clearing.

“I take it the Fifth Rankers are dejected,” Tresten said, blithe.

“Not unexpectedly. You also would resent the filth of Main Floor being brought to your doorstep,” Groza said, alarmed not at all by his Amo’s beetling eyebrows.

“What Groza intended to say,” Sargo sidled up to Tresten, “is that the Fifth Rankers appeal for Amo’s supreme intercession. After all, the Fifth Ranking is a place of civility and does not befit the gutter rat.”

Dragging up a smile despite the beetled brows, Tresten watched the artist enlarge the portrait’s grin by a negligible stretch. “A degree of delicacy will be necessary in engaging Spike,” he clasped his hands behind his back, and footfalls setting the ladder aquiver, strode towards the double doors. “Groza will stay and supervise the inaccurate painter. Sargo, Ruby, come let us reason with the vampire.”

*    *    *    *

The readers and chess players were long gone from the Pool House and four of Spike’s Unbonded were stationed at its closed gates. “Dawn, Fred, Xander and I, no one else uses the Pool House,” Spike had said and his word was law to the Unbonded.

The steam and warm rooms, sauna and cold hall in the main building were, as usual, open to the Fifth Rankers, but none utilized them due to the invasion of Main Floor tourists. Furthermore, having insufficient space to swing a cat-o-nines in the Games’ Rooms or to groove on the balconies, Earners abandoned the Games Courtyard to Spike’s Unbonded. The Pool Garden, with its vast porch and balcony, its spacious terrace restaurant and Olympic sized swimming pool, was the one place in the Baths where a man could stretch his arms without encroaching on the personal space of another.

To the Pool Garden the Fifth Rankers went, congregating on the porch and grumbling on the balcony, pushing the restaurant’s chef to the limit of his capabilities as they lunched and supped constantly to stuff with food and wine the expanding hole of dissatisfaction in their chests. In sullen tone the Fifth Rankers discussed the plunge of their Bath from oasis to chaos, waited for Amo Tresten to come and stop the madness.

But resentment was not proactive enough for some Fifth Rankers. These donned their swimming costumes and took to the pool, floating protest against Master Spike’s selfish attempt to monopolise a public facility. Their fellow Fifth Rankers watched them from the balcony, “you do right, stand thee defiant,” the spectators encouraged. In the midst of the spectators was a Gangr’al Master. He had Earned Fifth Ranking status two centuries ago and had sought pleasure in the Baths for six hours of every day of those two centuries. The Gangr’al Master had a table reserved for his sole use on the terrace restaurant, a bench no-one dared look at in the steam room and a six-by-six feet painting of himself on the porch wall. He was used to these privileges and felt personally insulted by the activities of Spike and his gang.

Unaware of the Gangr’al Master’s vitriolic stare, Fred stood to one side of the archway and kept a tally on a notepad of the new Unbonded that came through to the Pool Garden. Dawn directed Tresten’s bath attendants in the distribution of towels at one end of the pool and Xander instructed another group in the setting up of trestles on all sides of the pool, pointing to where he wanted the boots, clothing and blankets to go. Spike pranced at the end of the pool closest to the archway, a bar of soap and a loofah presented in welcome to his Unbonded.

“Me mam swore cleanliness was next to godliness. Scrub yourselves next to godly – my treat,” he grinned, ushering his fully clothed and booted Unbonded into the pool.

Clear water churned to muddy brown, unidentifiable jetsam detached from the Unbonded and bobbed along with the floating protestors, soap scum ringed the pool’s white tiled sides. The Fifth Rankers climbed out one by one, the most stalwart of them finally flapping out of the pool when a species of Spike’s Unbonded attacked with gusto the green algae shrouding their scaly grey arms. When the Unbonded had scrubbed and towelled, they went over to the trestle tables for new blankets, clothing and footwear.

“Feel free to change in the locker rooms and to bed down anywhere you like – yes on the terrace too. Don’t be shy, mi casa es su casa,” Xander said.

On hearing that his favourite eatery was to become the Unbonded’s bedroom, the Grang’al took it upon himself to hasten Seventh Ranking intervention. He exited the Baths at a run and quailed at the picture on the Fifth Ranking ledge. Lost in a sea of maroon ribbons, blockaded from his Earned by the Unbonded ‘bedding down’ in his units’ gateway and prevented from reaching the staircase to the upper Rankings by the compress of raucous Unbonded, the Grang’al embraced with relief the trumpeting of Lord Tresten’s laughter.

*    *    *    *

“Amo Tresten,” Spike met him at the archway leading into the Pool Garden, “to what do I owe?”

Tresten roved his eye over the swimming pool. “You have been procreating,” he said.

“Got to stay busy. Keeps me out of trouble,” Spike said. “So anyway, here for a skinny dip?”

“Thank you no, Tresten has his own private baths,” Tresten smiled amicably and strode under the archway, forcing Spike to back-up. “Tresten brings you good news. You have been awarded space on the First Ranking for your people. An entire section of the caves will be cleared and dedicated to their lodgings.”

“Ta but I like to have Mine close by. It comforts me.”

“You haggle fiercely,” and Tresten grinned fiercely. “Tresten may be able to provide space on the Second Ranking. It is far more comfortable than what these Unbonded have so far been accustomed to.”

“My Unbonded need fattening and we both know the Second Ranking is on reduced rations.”

“Thin is the line between bargaining and imprudence Master Spike. Tresten has offered Second Ranking and will go no higher.”

Noise from the terrace, a round robin of aggressive hisses and jibes at the “upstart, the outsider. Put him in his place, Amo Tresten! Order him to mind his station!”

William’s life flashed before Spike’s eyes. He’d started life at par with his peers, became an outsider when his stuttering grew and his confidence stunted. Now Spike had the confidence, but was still an outsider. Hustler trying to mix-it with the Trail’s aristocrats and miserably failing. The tossers on the terraces weren’t impressed. Tresten was deaf to anything that wasn’t spoken in toffee-nosed twang and all Spike’s chips were down. He had to be heard and he had to do it before the clamour from the Fifth Rankers turned the negotiations into a shambles.

He held a finger up at Tresten, stood it straight for Tresten to count and made his first demand. Spoke it in Gangr’al because Fifth Ranking was over-run with Gangr’als and they booed the loudest, had to be silenced first. Another finger for his second demand. Three fingers, three demands all spoken in the harsh, attention grabbing language of the Gangr’al. No boos came from the terrace.

Aristocrats, even idiots like Tresten, they all understood French. He made his fourth and fifth demands in French, threw in a smile and a pause and just to show off, spoke his last two demands in Latin. To make sure there would be no misunderstandings, he repeated his seven demands in toffee-nosed twang, arrogant to the last and precisely like a mace bludgeoning the backbone of Tresten’s social structure.

“You will have a total of fifty Fifth Ranking units above, below and opposite mine cleared for two hundred of my Unbonded.”

“Ten consecutive units on either side of mine will be cleared for my Select.”

“The balance of my Unbonded will be divided into two equal groups and granted living quarters on the Fourth and Third Rankings respectively.”

“All my Unbonded, regardless of post-code, will wear maroon bands and will have incontrovertible right of entry to The Fifth Ranking.”

“Being human, the Bath’s chef understands the subtleties of the human palate and My Earned are quite taken with his culinary skills. You Tresten, will transfer chef from your employ to mine.”

“This entire Bath will be set aside for my sole use and that of my Earned and Unbonded. Those who enter here without my invitation will be diced into minuscule cubes.”

“And heed me Tresten, I am resolute on The Baths being strictly prohibited to Advisors. Things will turn unsightly should I catch sight of peeping phantom or scent of gaseous emissions.” Spike held Ruby in the glow of his stare to emphasise that he could do nasty as and when required. Or when he felt like it.

“Tresten grants you chef Bob, but insists on maintaining ownership of The Bath’s other staff,” Tresten said, proffering his hand to Spike. “Have we a treaty?”

Spike took the notepad and pen from Fred and pushed them into Tresten’s hand. “Here’s one I made earlier,” he said. “Sign it, bottom of second page.”

Tresten read the two pages through, had Ruby and Sargo read them then signed the treaty.

Spike counter-signed saying, “Four thousand and nine of my people service your industries…”

“Forty-six hundred and twenty at last count, Mi Amo,” Fred corrected in a stage whisper, “not including the four hundred unemployed and six hundred minors.”

“There you have it. My people tailor your undergarments, make your wine, clean your streets, etcetera. They do so with my consent. I will disallow it when I feel it necessary and I do not expect resistance from you.”

Tresten’s grin at Sargo was splintered. “Advise Tresten,” he said.

Sargo clicked his grey claws, snapping of crab pincers in air. “The law is clear. Master Tresten would be required to cast individual bids for the Unbonded in order to retain their services and even then, Master Spike has the latitude to deny a bid for his Unbonded.”

“Very well Amo Spike,” Tresten inclined his head downwards, “they will labour only with your approval.”

Spike bounded up the stairs to the terrace. There he cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted. “You work, they play. You keep The Trail ticking over but when was the last time you rolled a dice?”

The Unbonded mumbled, shook their heads.

“Exactly,” Spike said. “I reckon you’re due for a week’s holiday. One week, no work, all play. Pass the word to the five thousand willya?”

The Unbonded cheered and Spike speared Tresten with a grin. “Hey, I like that noise. Goes straight to your head does that. Tell you what, I’m gonna throw in another week. Yeah, a fortnight of sun, fun and flaming sambucas - what say you my good people?”

“Jouez le jeu!”

Seeing defeat under Lord Tresten’s shallow smile, the Gangr’al Master turned to the Boabhan Sith beside him. “I have a riddle for you, my friend. What does a shrewd man do when the pleasure palace is seized by a new Custodian?”

“He ingratiates himself to the new Custodian,” replied Baobhan Sith, glancing at Spike.

Tresten ambled out of The Baths, strode up to Seventh Ranking and stamped through the Great Hall’s doors. “Wine,” he snapped at Sargo. “Arrange for the remaining Unbonded to be bonded to Tresten,” he barked at Ruby. “Can you not be left to oversee so simple a task as advising the painter? A timid virgin smiles with more courage than does that painting,” he said to Groza.

“Amo would Earn the Unbonded?” Groza asked, faint in voice and wide in eye.

Tresten snatched the goblet and flask of wine from Sargo, gulped, refilled, snorted like a rabid bull. “You, Sargo and Ruby are not to venture into The Baths on Fifth Ranking. Am I understood, Groza?”

“You are clearly understood yet Amo’s rationale defies understanding. Advisors go where they will and Unbonding has long served The Trail’s penal system.”

Tresten threw his goblet at Groza, grunting with satisfaction as wine blotted Groza’s pristine whites. “Would you rather that the Vampire earned Tresten’s full workforce and allowed them leave whenever the whim takes him?”

Groza discounted the mulberry stains and held his composure. “Quash this nonsense, Mi Amo. Do not reward Spike’s insolence with opportunity.”

“That is excellent reasoning, Groza. I am to quash him for not breaking the law and thus risk my reputation among the First, Second, Third, Fourth, Sixth and Seventh Rankers, quashing their spontaneity to play.” He stepped up to Groza, threatening him with the height and breadth of his stature. “You forget that Tresten must have play.”

Groza looked to the floor, but didn’t step back. “I forget nothing. I realise that Amo must play, but cannot see why he insists on playing with fire. Spike will-”

“Your affair is to advise and not to lecture. Is Tresten to take it that Groza’s ambition outstrips his role?”

Groza’s gaze flew to Tresten’s, his rigid face taking on a semblance of softness, a rarity for Groza. “My loyalty is staunch. Tresten knows this.”

“Then be devoted with less antagonism,” Tresten shook the ladder, flinging the painter off it. The metal steps warped as Tresten climbed the ladder, the platform of a top step creaked under his rear. “Brush.”

Groza dipped the brush into the tin of paint and ascended two rungs, handing Tresten the brush.

“It is not long now Groza,” Tresten said and turning on his seat, touched up the painting. “Exercise patience.”

The painting’s resultant smile exceeded the boundaries of artistic licence.

CHILDE OF MY HEART ~ CHAPTER THIRTY

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