Dead Man's Hand

I consider myself a purveyor of hard-to-find goods. I roam from village to town scouring for specific items for my clients. When I find an untold treasure, I liberate it from its captor to be returned, to whoever pays the most.

I was approaching Little Bigton, across the river from Big Littleton, when I smelled it. The village announced itself long before its crooked rooftops broke over the hill. The wind carried its perfume across the fields in greeting.

The streets were alive. A baker carried trays of golden loaves from his oven. A butcher hosed yesterday's work into the gutter, where it mingled with mud and whatever else had given up. Yeasty beer bubbled somewhere nearby. Fragrant fruit and meat pies cooled on windowsills.

Chickens strutted like they owned land. Pigs disagreed with property law entirely.

It was a glorious assault on the senses. Every breath offered a choice: honey cakes or horse dung, fresh herbs or livestock, roasting meat or something that had very recently stopped being meat.

Little Bigton smelled terrible. Little Bigton smelled wonderful. I might appreciate it more if I didn’t suspect my brother would be sniffing around for the same dead man’s hand.

I was here on behalf of a wealthy benefactor. Wealthy benefactors are remarkably similar to pigs. Feed them and they grow affectionate. Starve them and they grow loud.

Mine had become very loud indeed.

The object was rumored to be somewhere in Little Bigton. Whether it rested in a merchant's strongbox, a widow's attic, or beneath a pile of turnips in the market, I intended to find it before sunset.

The only lead: the object had last adorned the hand of an old man hanged in Little Bigton.

The gallows stood on a low rise beyond the market square, where practical matters were conducted at a respectful distance from lunch. I followed a crooked lane uphill, stepping around a goat that seemed determined to challenge all passing traffic like a toll collector.

The gallows was currently unoccupied, save for a few crows. They watched me as though I had interrupted something important. The wood creaked in the wind. A small shed leaned nearby. A weathered sign listed crimes and punishments in handwriting that suggested literacy was optional.

A man sat beneath it, whittling. Old enough to have opinions. Young enough to share them.

"You looking for someone?" he asked without looking up.

"Possibly."

"Alive or dead?"

"Recently dead."

He nodded.

"That narrows it down considerably."

I tossed him a copper. His hand moved faster than I would have expected. The coin vanished.

"An old man was hanged here three days ago," I said. "Thin. Gray beard. Unusual jewelry."

The knife stopped.

“A fella with strange rings?”

Now I had his attention.

"Where did they take his body? Did anyone claim him?"

He rolled the coin between his fingers. "Depends who you ask."

"I am asking you."

"Then I'll give you the expensive answer."

I sighed and produced another coin.

"After the hanging, the body disappeared."

"Disappeared?"

"That's the story."

"And the truth?"

"The truth is, things disappear in Little Bigton. You understand?”

"And where would it have gone?"

He nodded downhill toward the market.

"That's where it gets interesting. Half say his widow cut him down. Half say the undertaker took him first.”

"And which half do you believe?"

He grinned. "The half that pays."

I left him beneath the gallows.

Two stories. One corpse. Not bad.

A third possibility occurred to me.

Valuable objects have a remarkable tendency to travel. Especially when professional liberators such as myself are involved.

As I descended into the crowded streets, a pig screamed in outrage at a personal betrayal by a chicken and I almost stumbled upon them as I stewed.

Where to go first? The widow. The undertaker. Sentiment or opportunity. Experience favored opportunity. I headed for the undertaker.

Every village has a grave digger. They are usually found near the cemetery outside a church. And the church was impossible to miss. It loomed over Little Bigton like a King in a beggarly court.

A path of uneven stone led to the cemetery gate. The air changed from the rich chaos of the market into something much earthier. Dead grass, turned dirt and cold stone.

The gate complained when I pushed it. Everything here seemed to have an opinion.

Halfway up the path, I saw him. He was kneeling beside a newly dug grave. A spade rested nearby. Dirt still clinging to its blade.

I stepped closer. “I’m looking for a body. Recently hanged. Old man. Jewelry that caused trouble.”

“Ah,” he said. “That one.”

I waited. In this line of work, silence is just another currency.

He finally straightened, brushing dirt from his hands.

“There are three kinds of bodies in Little Bigton,” he said. “Those that stay where they’re put. Those that are taken. And those that decide they’re not finished yet.”

“And him?”

“That depends on who you ask.”

A crow landed on a nearby headstone and watched us with interest. I suspect it had heard this conversation before.

“You took him,” I said.

“I prepared him,” he corrected gently. “There’s a difference. Preparation is expected. Removal is… negotiated.”

“While preparing him, did you notice a ring? A green stone. Set like an eye?”

“You are not the first to ask. There’s another in the village. Foreign sort. Paid in advance.”

I exhaled slowly.

Alister.

Last I heard he was practicing his magic for some lowly lord in the north.

The words came out before I could stop them.

“May a thousand turds rain upon his smug face!”

The undertaker backed away a bit.

“Now, now, lassy. That’s not talk for a lady.”

I hesitated.

“…He is my brother,” I said.

The undertaker’s expression shifted. You could see the careful recalibration of someone deciding how much trouble they were willing to stand near.

“Well,” he said at last, slowly, “that does complicate things.”

A crow agreed from his perch on the headstone.

I hadn’t meant to say it aloud. Worse, I hadn’t meant for it to matter. Siblings have a way of doing that. They turn otherwise clean transactions into something with edges.

“He wasn’t always a magician,” I added, more to reclaim control of the conversation than out of interest in sharing. “He was just Alister. Then he learned things that made him unbearable.”

The undertaker nodded like a man who had buried plenty of people who were unbearable.

“He bought the body,” he said.

“Of course he did.”

“With instructions.”

That made me pause. “Instructions?”

The undertaker glanced back toward the grave he’d been working on, then lowered his voice slightly, as if the soil might be offended by gossip.

“Specific ones. The jewelry was not to be removed by ordinary hands. The corpse was not to be seen in daylight. And under no condition be buried before the third night.”

A cold shape settled behind my ribs.

“And when is the third night?”

He studied me for a moment, then pointed with his spade toward the village, where smoke curled lazily from chimneys and life continued its symphony of rot and bread.

“Tonight.”

Of course it was.

There were two ways to proceed.

Find Alister or find what he thought he had already secured.

My patron wanted a dead man’s hand with the signet ring. Simple. Superstitious. Profitable.

But if Alister was involved, then the hand was no longer an object. It was a key.

And Little Bigton, for all its chaos and livestock and competing smells, had just become a lock about to be opened.

There was little sense in chasing him all over Little Bigton. Night would fall soon enough and I knew where I would find my dastardly brother. Everything he did needed darkness and shadows and his dabbling in necromancy would serve him well here.

As night came, I situated myself outside the cemetery. A rattling sound caught in the wind. Allister was on the move. I could hear the shuffling of feet, the walking dead. Not sure how he slipped past me, I swore before I could stop myself.

“Saints spit on my luck. He will probably bite the finger off before I can get there and lick his own after.” His proclivity towards the macabre was a known commodity.

I needed to get to the corpse and the hand.

I crept silently through the graveyard until I found them perched around the fresh grave.

Alister stood controlling an animated corpse. He held his hands in a coaxing motion propelling the dead man forward.

Alister held out a knife by its tip and the body reached for it. The blade gleamed in the moonlight. As the corpse awkwardly gripped the hilt, Alister made a cutting motion. Slowly, what used to be a man began to hack at his hand.

Alister shook his head in disgust and indicated the other hand. I stifled a laugh. Specifics were never important to Alister. I was surprised when he tried his hand at magic. A very precise endeavor. Probably why he was working for a minor nobility.

The corpse took several minutes to sever its hand. It made a glopping sound as it hit the ground. In a movement quicker than I thought him capable of, Alister swooped up the hand in a velvet cloth. Making sure not to touch the flesh, he placed it in a side pocket. Finished now with the corpse he dropped his hands and the body fell into the hole.

Ever so pleased with himself, Alister walked toward the gate.

I waited until he was halfway across the cemetery before moving. Alister was many things, smug, arrogant and unbearable but he wasn’t stupid. I kept my distance through the sleeping village.

I tread lightly up the stairs, being careful to avoid the creaky areas that complained underfoot. He of course was in the kingly suite, meaning the attic where no one else could be. I pressed an ear to the door as he began his bedtime ritual, just like clockwork. I settled in for a long wait.

In true Alister fashion it took him forever to settle into sleep, but eventually light snores emitted from the other side of the door. I gently tiptoed into the room. He was asleep face up on the bed with both hands covering the coveted prize. As I crept toward the bed, a floorboard creaked.

I stopped like a statue with my hand extended toward the bed. Holding my breath, I watched my brother twitch and mumble as his hand rose in gestures I didn’t understand. I trembled in place hoping his subconscious couldn’t complete the spell. After a long pause, Alister began to snore with an open mouth. I resisted the urge to stuff something in his gaping maw.

I slid my fingers gently under his. In a subtle scooping motion, I pulled the covered hand toward me. The velvet cover began to slip away. I quivered knowing that the touch of the dead flesh would be the end of me. I pulled anxiously on the cloth. Alister twitched again. He wasn’t the sound sleeper from childhood. For the third time I cursed him. With one last effort, the hand slipped from his grip and clattered to the floor.

Startled Alister sat upright. His eyes blazed a golden hue and an unearthly voice emitted from his chest.

“Who dares?”

With a relieved sigh, I answered. “Tis just me, the wee sister of your heart.”

This was familiar territory of a game we played as children. Leave it to him to booby trap his body instead of the room.

His voice lowered and his eyes closed. “It is just you and I am here to protect you.”

He always thought that. He never expected I wouldn’t need it. I backed out of the room, treasure in hand.

Fleeing Little Bigton, I felt the darkness press behind me, urging speed. The sooner I could rid myself of the hand the better.

I would see Alister again soon.