Errol hadn’t always been an innkeeper.
In his youth he knew of himself as a lumberjack, his days spent joyously forging through the mighty pine forests of Velik and walking unafraid of the dangers that existed in every action. He had wrestled with wolves for the warmth of a knitted cap, he had seen unfellable trees shatter from the wight of the falling snow alone, he had—in one fit of particually youthful exuberance—rode a fallen log down the river Statnia while wearing nothing but the risk of stopping too suddenly.
But this life is for a younger man, and as his knees went knobbly, and as the arthritis in his wrists ached, he knew that it was time to put down the axe and to find something that was sedentary.
Many Lumberjacks will become hunters when they retire from felling trees. To spend a life knocking down an object that seldom moves gives you a surprising knack for knocking down the opposite. But now even the hunting life felt too weathered for the frostbitten Errol. He dreamt of fires, candle lit rooms with clinking glassware, of laughter. The smallest ember of something he had always ignored now screamed out for a different life and by the luck of Lenith he had been given the chance.
It was once a tidy inn.
Errol had known of many buildings such as this that were unfortunate enough to have met a handyman in their lifetime. Well-meaning fumblers that charged at renovations armed with a bag of hammers and a complete lack of common sense. The whole building had a sag to it, the roof lilted to and fro as if not quite knowing which way it should fall; boards were half-hung over windows without panes, nails were bent in shapes that intention could never hope to achieve. Errol looked at the sad tavern and almost heard it whisper, ‘fix me,’ but took it to be a trick of the wind.
He had trouble in finding the inn at first. The request had listed it as ‘an idyllic rest along the babbling Allendale Rd. It was idyllic when compared to a shack, Errol mused, but he had never known a road to babble…But pay was pay and the sign on the ground read “Copperpot Inn”. Something nagged at the old hunter and as he picked the fallen sign off the ground and lent it against the fence. There was an air of cobbling togetherness to the inn that would offend most of the associated cobblers; he wondered if he should ask for payment upfront.
A gate, swollen with rot, swung precariously as he wandered past; the steps, oriented just so narrow enough that they were impractical, creaked under his foot as he approached. Assuming the worst, he carefully opened the door and forewent knocking just on the chance that the distressed timber would buckle under its own weight.
‘It seems a poor request,’ the little man stuttered as a weak ale was poured and business was discussed, ‘rats in the basement, ha-ha, very low rent request for someone to call a hunter.’
Storybooks had problems like these, a helpless bartender with beast below, a brave hero striding into the dark and vanquishing the nimble beasties before lunch. This wasn’t a problem that normal tavern should have, and it certainly wasn’t something that a hunter should have been called for. People bought cats, didn’t they? The barman definitely looked like he had a cat.
‘I sent the blacksmith’s apprentice down there yesterday,’ he continued, ‘strong lad, son of a carrot farmer so he shouldn’t have any problems seeing in the dark, but it’s been a day and he hasn’t come back.’
‘Have you gone for a look?’ Errol said trying to be helpful, but with enough bluntness to the baritone of his voice that a raisin would snap to attention and turn back into a grape if requested.
‘And have my bones turned to chalk by a night witch? Not likely.’
The bartender had a nervousness to his nature that caused him to jingle as he fretted from one foot to another. Trinkets and wards of several gods were tucked into pockets, worn from chains, and presumably stuffed into the socks of the man, who for the entirety of his life appeared to be outrunning his own shadow.
Errol saw no point in further talk, so he finished his pint and made toward the stairs and whatever evil may lay therein.
‘I’ll be back soon,’ he spoke as he left, ‘then we’ll discuss what you owe me by how much, or how little, I had to deal with.’
It was dark.
A struck match found its way to a lantern and a flickering glow radiated across the basement as the flame began to steady. The light shone across the floor as it grew, appearing to catch the glint of two hundred eyes within the fire’s glow. An inward breath rippled across the room as tension seemed to elevate and pull loose the knot of bravery that Errol had worked on since he was a lad and deathly afraid of the dark.
A figure sat slumped in the middle of the room, its head bowed, and wearing the stillness of death draped across its shoulders. Slowly, Errol moved the focus of the lantern toward whatever horror lay behind the curtain of darkness. The beam wavered as it shifted, a tremble of the wick allowed the light the falter for only a moment as the form became fully illuminated. The apprentice blacksmith was sat cross-legged upon the ground, a transfixed gaze of hypnotic contemplation wracked across his pale dormant face. His fingers drummed upon the dirt and with deliberate care he moved his hand toward the chess board.
‘Check,’ he said with a satisfied grin.
A flurry of excited squeaks and tiny applause descended across the watching darkness as a single rat, who was neatly brushed and spotted brown with blotched white, sat thoughtfully across from the apprentice, furrowing his brow and exhaling in remonstration.
‘Where did that knight come from,’ he squeaked, ‘my, my! You’re wasted as a blacksmith. I know several clever rats who could not even put a scratch upon you.’
‘What’s going on here,’ Errol called to the room, his roaring voice shaking dust from the floorboards above, and, to his regret, the ceiling of small basement making him crouch just awkwardly enough that he had to drop his sword out of its sheath rather than dramatically draw it.
‘Oh, hello sir,’ the boy piped, ‘we’re playing a game of chess, sir. First to five games gets three copper pieces.’
Scanning the worn chess set, Errol noted that both sides had four matchsticks neatly piled which he took to mean that this was the final game.
‘What’s the time by the way?’ the lad continued, ‘It feels like I’ve been playing all night.’
‘It’s past two bells in the afternoon,’ Errol intoned, looking about the room and hanging the lantern up on a torch-hook. The rats parted and made a small space for him to take a seat.
The brown and white rat had scampered onto the board and was moving a piece with an excited nudge.
‘Stalemate!’ he squeaked proudly, there was gasp from the watching crowd and a tiny applause that Errol noted to be thunderous when equated to rat paws.
The boy tutted to himself and began setting his pieces up again, ‘that’s the seventh stalemate. You’re very good when pressed into a corner,’ he said.
‘It’s in my nature,’ the rat squeaked with a layer of dramatic irony, ‘rats are not focused on just winning or losing like humans are. We tend to look for the “third option”, the one that is safest and the one most likely to keep us alive.’
Stroking his whiskers the rat yawned and moved a pawn forward, beginning a new game.
‘A stalemate is never a loss, and a rat catcher will notice a successful rat much faster than one who stays unseen. Remember that next time you go to the cheese cellar.’
The game was incredible. Attack, parry, feint. Errol had often played chess through his travels but had never seen two players that were so masterfully matched. The lumberjacks of Velik loved the game, they would charge all their pieces forward in a rush of fury, hoping to swarm the opponent and overwhelm them before counter. The bookbinders of the travelling libraries would move the same piece backward and forward for days and days, just waiting for their folly to attack first.
Two further stalemates played out in dramatic fashion before the brown and white rat finally claimed victory to a rousing cheer of squeaks that made the diminutive basement seem full and alive. There was laugher, a congratulations of both players, and the boy happily dropped three copper pieces onto the chessboard.
‘That was great,’ he beamed despite having lost, ‘you’re a much better player than my dad, I’ll have to try to think of a way to win those coins back.’
‘You can try,’ the brown and white rat squeaked with a victor’s grace, ‘and you can call me Six-bottles by the way, I’m the accountant for the village.’
The spell of fairy tale broken for a moment, Errol realised that he had just watched a talking rat win a chess match and decided that it was odd enough to question.
‘What do you mean, “accountant for the village”? How come you can talk?’ he said, turning the situation around in his mind to identify if he had gone mad.
‘Rats are excellent financiers,’ Six-bottles squeaked, ‘and most of the town hasn’t realised that it’s us yet. I think they believe that we are some kind of benevolent spirit who is really keen their taxes; but it’s easier to be unseen and paid well than, well…noticeably poisoned. I should remind you of our preference to the third option that I mentioned before. And I should say that all rats can talk, it’s just that not all humans choose to listen.’
Errol was not one to question facts. If you hit a tree with an axe, it fell over. If a group of rats wanted to speak, play chess, and to do the finances of a small village seven days ride from the nearest city, well, let them.
‘Well, I’m in the mood for a drink and I guess the barman owes me for finding the boy safe. Lad, you run home and tell your parents before you’re going to do anything fantastical next time. If they’re good people, they deserve to know where you are, and the barman upstairs has had no end of fretting in thinking that you were in trouble. Six-bottles, I think you should come with me and clear up with the man, he seems one that’s too panicked to keep in the dark.
The front bar was empty. A trail of clothing and papers were discarded by an unfastened suitcase that was now stuck in the wall and followed by a trail of detritus that led to a fallen door and trampled garden beyond. Without any further thought, a hurried note had been left for Errol on the floor amongst a circle of salt and chalk dust; its shaky writing difficult to read but Six-bottles turned out to be able to decipher a spider’s handwriting if given enough time.
To whatever horror has claimed this tavern as a lair.
Have mercy upon my mortal soul for I am sure that I did not summon thee.
I, a mortal of bad back and terrible coordination, would only inhibit your grandeur and must beseech thee to leave my bones alone.
I leave to you the inn so that you may not follow me, nor curse my bloodline with thine evil or amicable ways.
Please, please, please, have mercy.
Yours,
Denis Highburrow .
‘Fancy that,’ Errol muttered as the small rat finished reading the letter in its formal muster, ‘I don’t know much of curses, but I’ll take his request on board.’
He had always wanted to run an inn.
J. McCray
2022
Sunday Short Stories 