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“Master Bauglir,” says one of the nameless lackeys, a soft-handed man who’s likely never worked a real day in his life, “Is entertaining at the moment.”
Gothmog refrains from spitting out his chew, but not from lifting a skeptical brow. What does Bauglir think he’s about, holding court in this godforsaken cavern? Thanks be, the new headquarters will be finished pronto, hare-swift, because each new visit to Angband brings new vexation.
Gothmog taps a boot on the smoothest floorboards that this place holds. He lets the spur on his ankle drag deep. These were the boy’s spurs once, and he thinks of that, thinks of him, whenever he puts them on to ride. That’s the way to honor an animal in death, he once heard a native say. You carry it with you.
Only, there is no honor in death.
He waits a long time. Hears a clock tick; can’t see it. Hears the groan of shifting soil; can’t see it.
When the door of Bauglir’s study swings open, it is the man himself, looking rather livid—if the brick-blush under his lily-pale skin is any suggestion.
“I’ve a new slave for you,” he intones, and Gothmog lifts both brows now, wondering if Mairon has gone and overstepped himself at last.
There’s a man who ought to be horsewhipped until nothing is left but blood and begging.
“That so? We can lodge ‘im under open air tonight. Quarters is nearly—”
“It is the boy,” Bauglir interjects coldly. “I confess I am ready to see him…subdued. Used for the work his father battled. Nameless and grey-clad. Cowering.”
This is unexpected. Every twist and turn of Bauglir is unexpected; Gothmog hopes, someday, that every twist and turn will be unimportant.
“Fallen from your favor, then?” He once thought the boy such a prize. Still doesn’t know how he got that wrong.
“I had him eating out of my hand,” Bauglir snaps, his eyes fixed on the sun-bleached windows. “I had him on his knees in this very room.”
Gothmog spits his chew. “On his knees?”
“Begging.” Bauglir paces to his desk, sits down, tosses a few papers as if he is a vengeful wind. “But the worm turned today, Cosomoco. The worm turned.”
Gothmog wipes his mouth, leans forward on his chair. He’s intrigued. “What d’you mean?”
“He went wild. Bit and clawed and scratched. The mention of his brothers, of course. The idea that they might be in danger. He was snapping like a harpy; no use to me like this.”
Gothmog forced the boy’s face into drowning silt rather than let him fight. Gothmog has seen what the fair-faced rake will do, when presented with the choice between pain and his brothers, death and his brothers, anything at all and his goddamn brothers.
Sometimes, you have to drown and keep drowning. You don’t let the thing you’re killing breathe.
Gothmog says, “Sounds to me like you’ve got a mad dog on your hands.”
“A mad dog.” Bauglir relaxes against the swayback of his chair, taps his chin with wax-candle fingers. “Yes, I suppose I do—if he is mad, he will not be easily tamed. That must be what it was. A madness. His father was—”
Gothmog huffs a breath. He doesn’t need one of Bauglir’s fancy maps to see where this is going. Doesn’t need one of Bauglir’s hourglasses to measure the futility in minutes or seconds. He knows, most importantly, where this should go. “Only one thing to do with a mad dog.”
Bauglir looks amused. “And what is that, my dear fellow?”
“You put a bullet in its frothing skull.” Gothmog rises. “Say the word. I’ve a bullet right here. You know how fast I can scrawl his name on it? In a jiffy.”
Bauglir actually gapes. Makes him look a little fishlike, but Gothmog isn’t going to say that. Isn’t going to bring insults into a conversation where business is running smooth as malt beer. “Kill him?”
“If you want me to.” He’ll bend the boy’s neck across his knee, shoot him up through the skull, so he can feel the death in his bones.
He must admit, he likes that. That—sensation.
But here and now, the fish doesn’t bite. “No, no,” Bauglir says, as if he is catching his breath. “The boy needs minding. Needs to remember what it is to earn his keep. He has a fighting spirit, but a deep longing to please also. I can make something of that, and you can make him ready. Will you do that, Cosomoco? Will you make him ready for me?”
Gothmog has business to see to. Roofs to throw up, ties to lay down. Postholes to be dug and steel to be buried.
He has no use for a rabid dog, but he’s managed with worse.
“I’ll do my best,” he promises. The unnamed bullet will keep, for now. And Bauglir is satisfied. That is the important point; the point of his satisfaction. As long as Bauglir reigns, Gothmog’ll pay him in all the fealty he needs.
Strange, how such a great man can be so small.
Deadly, how such a small man can be so powerful.
“Thank you,” Bauglir is sayin, smiling. “If he is not pliant in his current mood, allow me to advise all manner of solutions. Indeed, let me place one in your hands.”
(He rummages in his desk.)