Chapter 3: A Greeting of Head Soup
As he walked into the apothecary, Jack caught a whiff of something that smelled so awful he immediately wished he had drunk more water before he arrived. Whatever the scent was, it almost made Jack regurgitate his meat pie.
“Master Rhodes?’” he called loudly, hoping his voice would carry to the laboratory in the back.
From somewhere behind the bubbling glass vials and stacks upon stacks of dusty old books came Master Rhodes’ voice, which was as dry as his books were dusty. “Jack!? Jack, is that you!?”
Jack heard a chair sliding backwards and then a loud crash, along with the sound of breaking glass.
“Gah! Oh, by the Five!” Rhodes swore. Then there was a pause before Jack heard him say, “I didn’t like those shelves anyway. Blasted spectacles, wherever they are.” Jack heard the sound of shuffling feet and, a moment later, Rhodes produced his ancient old self from behind the stacks. Jack noticed Rhodes wasn’t wearing his eyeglasses, the kind that made his eyes appear about five times larger than they were. Instead, Rhodes’ eyes were narrow and beady and the rest of him was gingerly feeling his way along one of the worktables towards Jack.
“You’re early, m’boy. I wasn’t expecting you until around nine chime,” Rhodes said, blinking in a somewhat erratic fashion as he talked.
“Nine chime?” Jack replied, his voice incredulous. “Master Rhodes, it’s almost noon chime.”
“Oh, so it is. I suppose that would make you…” Rhodes feigned struggling to find the correct word.
“Late?” Jack filled in, instantly regretting his choice to do so.
“That’s right, young lad. You’re late, which is why I’ve delegated to you the task of ridding this unfortunate chap’s skull of the rest of its flesh.” Rhodes pointed to a bubbling metal cauldron, the source of the unholy smell that permeated the room. He shuffled over to the table and used a pair of iron tongs to remove what remained of a human skull, a thin layer of boiled flesh still clinging to the stark white bone.
“Charming,” Jack said. “And just what did this fellow do to merit ending up in a state like this?”
“That’s what His Majesty’s Law Brigade has commissioned me to find out. The Sheriff and the Guard are both otherwise engaged for the time being, so it would seem we are the acting city coroners.”
Jack chuckled. “The Acting City Coroners sounds like the worst theatre troupe ever.”
“Manners, boy! A man died last night. I’ve got his head in a broth of his own flesh and you’re making jokes while his skull is being brought to a simmer?” Rhodes sniffed as if considering the prospect of head soup but quickly dismissed the idea.
“This unfortunate fellow was found dead behind the Sky Temple cloisters in the Royal Quarter last night. There was too much blood and brain matter surrounding the head wound, which I believe was most likely the cause of death. I had to boil off the flesh to determine what caused said wound.”
“I see,” Jack remarked as he walked over to the work basin in the left corner of the room. He filled a large, clean beaker with water from the bucket that sat there.
“And now, because you couldn’t be bothered to be here on time, I will relieve myself of this task and assign it to you.”
“What about the beakers upstairs?” protested Jack. “I thought you said I was going to finally get it all organized so we can actually get into the attic without getting a foot full of glass.”
“Never mind that. I’m giving you the chance to help me with the King’s official business boy.”
“By watching a foul-smelling cauldron with a half-boiled head in it?”
“Everyone has to start somewhere,” Rhodes said, and smiled in his familiarly wizened way.
After gulping down the water in his beaker, Jack let out a softly conceding sigh. “Well, don’t you think such an important matter should be dealt with directly by you, Master Rhodes?”
“Nice try, and perhaps a year ago I might have agreed with you, m’boy, but you’ve really come into your own since then. I feel proud to say you’re the best apprentice I’ve yet had, and I have full confidence in your abilities.” He paused, as if to reconsider. “That being said, try not to foul it up.” With a brief pat on the back, he left Jack to his work and returned to the laboratory in the back.
Once alone, Jack muttered to himself, “I’m also the only apprentice you’ve ever had, so I’ll take that one with a grain of salt.”
As he monitored the slow de-fleshing process of the skull, he set about tidying up the front of the shop. This rather mundane task left his hands busy but his mind free to wander. He started thinking about the man whose skull was in Rhodes’ cauldron, what his final moments might have been like. As an apprentice to Master Rhodes, Jack was no stranger to being among the dead. Although he knew it was the coroner’s responsibility to examine any dead body that turned up in the city, Sir Barrow was relatively new to the position. He often appealed to Master Rhodes for assistance on the finer points of human anatomy whenever a body was found. So, as such, Jack came across at least one murder victim or laborer killed in a work accident every few senturns or so. He had developed a rather hardy tolerance to the sights and smells involved in the inner workings of the human body. He had lost count long ago, but he figured he had assisted Master Rhodes with well over a hundred autopsies. Under Rhodes’ tutelage, Jack had gained a considerable understanding of the things that would and would not kill a person, as well as other medical know-how that went hand-in-hand with being a good apprentice at the apothecary.
This rather matter-of-fact approach to healing and anatomy bestowed Jack with a clinical and academic view towards medicine, not unlike Rhodes’ himself. Perhaps this was why he had taken such a vested interest in teaching Jack all he could, having finally found a student quick enough to keep up with him. Jack paused in his musings to check on the status of the skull, which, Jack judged, still had a little while to go. His thoughts returned to the original owner of the head he was boiling and the circumstances that might have led to his death.
Murder was not uncommon in Lazarus. Jack had even heard reference, by patients of Rhodes’, to a secret criminal guild that operated out of the Lower Quarter. They never talked about the guild in front of him, but Jack couldn’t help it if he happened to be close-by when certain information was discussed. As he himself was fond of saying, If somebody doesn’t want you to know something then it’s probably something worth knowing. This logical philosophy allowed Jack to justify the odd eavesdrop…on occasion. Murder and death existed in Lazarus, as well as in every other city and town of which he had ever heard. As regrettable as this sad fact was, Jack surmised that no one could stop all bad things from happening on occasion.
Usually, the truly nasty elements of human violence and corruption did not make it out of the Lower Quarter, where the Law Brigade paid less attention, if any at all, which was why Jack found it so unusual that a body with what looked to be a violent head wound had been found in the Royal Quarter, where the castle Guard regularly patrolled every tree-lined street and walled estate. That’s not to say bad things never happened in the Royal Quarter. Every once in a while, a noble would turn up poisoned at his dinner table.
Probably for political reasons, Jack would often guess when he and Rhodes went to collect a body from one of the mansions in the RQ. Besides identifying the poison that had killed the person, having only the deceased’s remains to examine, Rhodes could supply no more information to Sir Barrow. As such, those investigations were usually left unsolved.
As he returned his thoughts to the task at hand, Jack now held in his tongs a completely white skull. Not one patch of flesh remained. The hole in the top of the skull was about one inch in diameter and the cracked fragments all around the edge of the wound were bent in, except for the rear of the wound where the weapon had evidently pried against it upon removal. If the death had been due to poisoning or even a lacerated throat, Jack would not have thought it too strange. Both methods of killing held some measure of sophistication and forethought. However, this kind of savage murder involved a wound Jack had only read about in the wartime accounts of field healers from the various Kingdom Wars. More than that, because of the shape and size of the wound, Jack deduced it had not been made by an axe or sword or even a mace, but by some kind of tool, maybe intended for masonry or digging, such as a pickaxe. He went behind the stacks to the laboratory to let Rhodes know the de-fleshing process was complete.
“Interesting,” Rhodes said, as he examined the now clean skull. “It seems likely that death was due to the penetration of the skull by some kind of straight metal weapon, a spike perhaps. Odd crime for the Royal Quarter.”
“I had thought the same thing myself.”
“No one likes a showoff,” said Rhodes in his trademark nonchalant way. As he stared into space with a serious look of concentration on his face, he absentmindedly scratched at his chest through his plain linen shirt. He bumped his hand on something under his shirt, then reached in and pulled out his glasses, which had been hanging around his neck the whole morning.
“Ha, I knew they’d turn up,” Rhodes said, smiling at Jack.
Suddenly, from the direction of the Stalwart, two chimes tolled from the bell tower, letting the city and the outlying homesteads know it was Middasrest, the period of the day when all work was laid aside for a chime. During this period, every citizen of Lazaras was encouraged to either take a well-deserved break from the workday or to run personal errands before nightfall, when all shops and offices closed. During Middasrest only the banks and the Trading Commissioner’s Office remained open. The Royal Guard and Law Brigade maintained regular operations during this period as well. Lazarians might have been set on custom and tradition, but there was no reason to let that interfere with the safety of its people.
“Ooh, Middasrest already!” Rhodes exclaimed. “I’m off to see Daellus about a rather interesting insect he says he’s found. In the meantime, why don’t you get started on the beakers upstairs?”
“But it’s Middasrest!”
“And you were three chimes late this morning, so I think the consequence fits the wrongdoing, don’t you?”
With a resolute sigh, Jack replied, “Yessir.”
“That’s a good lad.” Rhodes threw on his brown highwayman’s coat. “I’ll be back in a chime. If a patient comes in with anything more serious than a fever, send for me at once. You recall where Daellus lives?”
“Yes. Just two blocks along Butcher Street.”
Rhodes gave a quick smirk. “Just making sure all that ale hasn’t addled your brain,” he said, and with that sped out the door.