Billy's Bones

The Mongrel King

What a fucking day it's been. Honestly. I best start from the beginning. So...

You recall, the last time I wrote, Dicky was getting himself high ideas about a boat. Well, it's been more than a week since then. The mine has kept me busy. I ain't had time to write much. But anyhow. I finishes my shift the other day and heads to the Inn.

Where's Dick?

Karita says he's down the dock.

Shite. I neck off my ale and goes on down there to find him. I hears him, before I sees him. There he is. Bold as brass, aboard some skiff. Them two whalers from the inn are with him. Fridik and Hod. I don't like neither of them. Never did. Ropey old bastards. If they such good seamen, then what the fuck are they doing hanging around Dawnstar?! Where's their own skiff? And their crew for that matter? They say they're in Dawnstar, drinking till their septims are all gone. Go and shite. Never heard such ox shite in my life. Why would anyone in coin and in his right mind use it in Dawnstar?! One shitty Inn and nary a cat house in sight?!

Nah. Something dodgy about the both of them. They're hiding from something if'n I didn't know any better. I never did like sailors though. Horrible bastards, the lot of them. All the kids in Riften knew to keep well away.

Anyways, they're all aboard this skiff. Alb too. But he's asleep under a blanket.

"Dicky Moone!" I shouts out, "Wha the fuck d'ye think you're playin' at?!"

He turns and laughs at me. Says I gave him the fright of his life. Says for a split he thought his old mam was up from Bravil to collar him.

I'm not laughing. But my ill humour ain't fazing Dicky any. He can't wipe the smile off his daft face.

"It's ours! Look!"

He's beaming still. Right up from his toes. He thrusts a roll of parchment at me, and I look it over. It's the deed to the ship. Not that that daft bugger would know - he can't read. Could be a receipt for a bushel of apples for all that he knows.

But anyway, it is for the ship. It's got all of it's measurements on it. And it's name. Dicky has signed it with an X where he's supposed to.

"The Grey Rose," I reads aloud.

"Aye, well, I reckoned we could change it's name. Baptise it, like." Dicky says in return. He's still grinning. He shows me a bottle of wine. It's all dusty from some cellar. It's probably spoilt. Likely it will give us bad bellies. You're supposed to smash the bottle against the hull when you rename a ship. I've seen it done before. But we ain't none to be wasting wine, so we drink it.

While we're drinking, I get to learning that Dick took half of my money to pay. But he assures me he's got a job lined up. He'll pay me back before the weeks out. Dick is my brother. So I call him a cunt, but I let him off. I'm drinking and drinking. We finish the wine. So Hod dips back into town and brings ale and mead. And a nip of something else. Skooma. But then, it is a special occasion, says Dick.

We've named the ship The Mongrel King.

We've named it after us. Cos that's what we are. Mongrels. Half-breeds. But Kings in our own rights. Beholden to no men. Free as the wind.

I'm feeling quite well by now. I'm full of beer. Alb is sleeping still, warm under his blanket up on the deck. The night is cold enough that we can see our breaths. The moon shines silver and cold on the water. She's watching us.

I'm too drunk to feel the nip of the wind anyhow. I have a pull on the Skooma too, and feel Her warm embrace. People go on about about Skooma like it's an end game. But it needn't be if you've got any gumption about you. Only weak men are addicts. I can pick up and put down whenever I like. Before that, it'd been about an eight month since I'd last indulged. I like Skooma well enough. But personally, a strong ale is my preference..

It's a good night. Fridik pipes up with some sea-ditty. I forget the words. I think it was about a lass on the shore. He's got a pleasant voice. And I momentarily forget that I don't like him.

Dick wants a woman. But there ain't none. Hod says it almost time that we be leaving anyway.

"It's the middle o' the fuckin' night." I say.

But he says that the tide is right. I think he's shitting me. But him and Fridik get up and go down the gangway. And I hears them on the docks, they're talking to someone. And there's another sound, like a cart being pulled. So I gets up, and go see what's what. Dicky is slumped in his chair. He tells me to leave the old boys to their business. Have another pull, Bill. He says. He means the Skooma. But I say nah. And I follow the old bastards down the gangway.

That's when I realised. They was exchanging with Leigelf. The foreman of quicksilver mine. And another lad is with him, that I don't recognise. He's lugging a cart. I stumbles over, and pull back the sacking that's covering the load. It's full of iron ore.

"Wha the fuck is this?!" I fucking know that ore don't belong to him. I fucking know cos I was the one who dug it. I dug it from the iron mine - I didn't work for those bastards. I fucking KNOW. They stole it. They stole it and they're passing it to us to lug. I wasn't fucking born last week.

Then I hear the tap of Dicky's crutch. He's coming along down with us. He's telling me to calm down. He's still wearing that stupid smile. He says I should just take the iron - for it was me that mined it anyhow.

I says aye I mined it. But I was paid coin for it fair and square. It ain't right. I'm not happy. My voice is raising and I'm making a ruckus. It ain't right. I sat across the table from Gjak and ate his bread! I ate at his table with his lass and his bairns, and now they want me to be taking from their mouths!

Dick is telling me to calm down. Holding his hands up to me. Showing his palms. He's still got that look on his face. Stupid fucking look like he's got the innocence of a babe. So I knock it off his face. Fist. Straight into his nose. I feel it crumple beneath my knuckles. Dicky is down. Felled in one. But then, he was already half-cut before I struck him.

The old fellas curse. "I thought ye said the skooma would placate him!" I heard one of them say. Don't know which. But then I fucking knew what it was that they'd been trying to do with me. Plying me with wine and all kinds. I flew at them next. Leigelf and the other fella join in. I'm trying to wrestle with the four of them. We're rolling about the dock. I'm swinging blows and coming into contact with whatever. I'm vaguely aware that Alb is awake now. Cos I can hear him screaming blue bloody murder. It doesn't matter any that the four of them are on me. My ribs are getting kicked in, but I don't feel it anyway. I'm too full of mead and madness.

"Leave him!! Leave him!" Dicky must have found his feet again, cos I can hear him bellowing. I've got my arms locked around Leigelf's neck. His companion is kicking me. So Dick starts landing blows down on him with his crutch.

"The guard is coming! We've gotta go! Bill. Bill! Get off him! We've gotta go!"

Now Dicky is whacking me with his crutch. And he doesn't let up until I let go of Leigelf. The two from Quicksilver mine stumble away. They leave the cart. We all tear up the gangway. We leave the cart too. The two old fellas know what they're doing, and they cast us away sharpish. We're out into the bay before the guard come. You don't half feel the tug of the wind once you're out of that bay.

Once we're out, Hod goes to square up to me again. I go to stick the brow on him. But I misses. Dicky was busy rubbing Alb's hair and calming him down, but he comes back to intervene. The two whalers are pissed with me, saying I've fucked up the deal. Dicky agrees with them. He says I won't get my money back so fast now, for now we've got no ore to barter in Windhelm.

But I say fuck them. They kept me in the dark and all. Took my coin for good measure. All of that coming from Dicky Moone. Who has the audacity to call me 'brother'.

It's the next day now, and I'm still seething. I thought I might write it all down. And get it out, like. Maybe then I'd feel better. But I don't feel none the better. I've got a sore head. And my ribs are all black and blue from my tussling. I've split my knuckles open. The Skooma has give me a thick head. They're expecting me up on deck now. We're all supposed to be sorting out an alternative plan. Seens as though I went and 'ruined it all'. Fuck them. They'd better change their tune sharpish else I'll be hoping off come the next port, and leaving them to sort their own shite.