Old threat, new panic

[rodentus_callidus]

Ghosts

The bell tinkled warningly, announcing a presence in the apothecary. Sebastien tilted his head warily from behind the counter, scenting the air when the intruder remained silent, tasting the shape of him in the way it flowed. There was something ... ah.

"How may I help you, my lord?" he asked, coming around the counter to bow obsequiously, his paws twitching in a nervous, dry-washing little motion. Bow and scrape, little rat. Bow and scrape.

A rich, warm chuckle greeted his gesture, and the presence before him came forward, looming a little over him. Riverdank, the bastard was almost as tall as Jan! "What makes you think I'm a lord, Herr Doctor?"

Well, that voice for a start, Sebastien muttered to himself. Did the rat think they got such cultured tones down here, this close to the docks? Not likely. Not in a native, anyway. But he smiled greasily anyway, and dipped his head in sheepish chagrin. "Your forgiveness, sir, if I presumed. It is simply that most of my customers do not smell quite so ... clean." Perfume was a common enough scent, true, but soap? Not quite.

Another laugh, warm and round. A big chest, and decent lung capacity, Sebastien thought. Not here for an illness, unless it was something creeping. But then, he rather suspected the aristocrat wasn't here for his services as a doctor at all.

"Quite so!" the stranger rumbled, apparently quite happy with the assessment. So not incognito, then. That meant one of two things, in Sebastien's experience. Either the rat was unimportant enough not to be targeted, or important enough to be sure he wouldn't be touched. Foreigner or Family. Somehow, he suspected the latter.

"What can I do for you, my lord? You're not ill, I hope?" he asked again, feeling his spine curve on instinct, dipping lower in the highborn's presence. A small chuckle from above him. The rat found his subservience amusing.

"No, little doctor, I am not ill!" Booming cheer. Sebastien nearly winced, resisting the urge to defend his ears. "But I've heard a lot about you, mein freund, and it was mentioned a number of times that you have ... exceptionally clever paws?"

Sebastien almost stood upright in confusion. Paws? The rat wanted him for ... No. Surely not. Never in all his list of services and favours had that ever come up. Well, unless you counted Sorka, but that was something entirely different ... "Sir?" he squeaked, befuddled and somewhat alarmed. Not that he'd refuse, exactly, given the rat's undoubted power, and not that he hadn't done it before, but ...

"Did I say something wrong?" And that could have been a warning, if the rat had wanted, but there was genuine confusion there, and then, suddenly, the highborn seemed to catch on. "Oh! No, Herr Doctor, I assure you. I did not mean ..." A rueful chuckle. "No, sir. I do not wish that from you. I had merely heard that you were very good at finding aches, in the muscles? My back has been paining me for some time, and I wondered ..."

Sebastien relaxed. A massage. Well, he was very, very good at them, it was true, and more than a few of his customers had found that out. Sensitive paws, and an acute awareness of touch had served him very well in his life. Not so bad, then.

"Certainly, my lord," he murmured, letting the rat see his relief. No harm in that, after all. "Would you like to follow me, or do you prefer to come at a later time?"

"Oh, immediately, if it's not too much trouble," came the reply, and that was a warning, but hardly unexpected. Money got you preferential treatment, after all. Especially in Carogne. Sebastien nodded quickly in acknowledgement.

He led the highborn into the surgery, taking care to flip the sign on the door in warning, something he rarely did, but this was the last customer he wanted Sorka or the Wekha to walk in on. Oh, so very bad, that would be. The stranger, completely unconcerned, lost no time in settling himself on the table, a rustle of cloth announcing that he'd already started to disrobe. Sebastien hurried to his side to take the shirt and coat, feeling as he did the smooth slide of silk, and the prickle of embroidery on rich, heavy linen. Oh yes. Money in spades, this one.

"Do you prefer to sit or lie, my lord?" he asked, moving to the other side of the table, and the stool ready for him to clamber up. He sensed a motion in the air beside him, flinching a little before he thought, but nothing happened. After a second, he realised it must have been a shrug, or some other noncommittal gesture. "Easier for the shoulders if you sit, easier for the rest if you lie," he explained gently, conscious that some of his customers were never comfortable lying down in his presence. Too much at another's mercy for their pride to bear, or their nerves. He didn't know if that would apply, to a highborn of such obvious power, but there was something ...

"Sitting, then," the rat said, calm and amused, but Sebastien nodded to himself. Wary, with a stranger. This high-born was not so foolish as he seemed.

"As you wish," he commented neutrally, already in place behind the larger rat. He already had a sense of him, from so close a proximity, a quick sketch of dimensions, bulk and flavour. He really did smell very clean, this rat. "I'm going to start, my lord?" he asked, paws hovering over the shoulders, not touching without permission. Fast way to lose fingers, that. Then the rat moved, a murmured affirmative, and he lowered them to their work.

Taut, was his first impression, with a little murmur from the doctor part of his brain that no wonder it was paining the bigger rat. Tension sang in those muscles, corded ropes that almost hummed under his fingers, and it took him a second before he realised, took him a moment of kneading before it struck him. Two things. The first was that not all those ropes were muscle. Some of them were scars, and not the kind you get in a fight. And the second was that the tension was following his paws, not moving away from them.

The stranger was afraid of his touch.

He went still, paws going silent in the rat's fur, any number of panicked observations suddenly crying for attention on the heels of that realisation. There were any number of people who had cause to be afraid of him, in this city. And plenty more who thought his reputation enough of a reason in itself. But none of them were aristocrats, who could have him killed on a whim. And none of them, not one, who would choose to come here and subject themselves to his touch if they feared him so. Not without very, very good cause. And while it was more than polite, and prudent, to keep names out of the mix when dealing with back-street doctors and high-up customers ... suddenly he rather thought he needed to know.

"Who are you?" he whispered, harsh and nervous, his paws clenching slightly in the stranger's fur. "What do you really want, my lord?"

Silence, for a moment. The rat was still beneath his paws, tense and near trembling, those scars prominent to his touch, but calm. Controlled. Any violence in him, any threat that sprang up in reaction to the fear, was ruthlessly leashed inside this rat. And Sebastien recognised that. He recognised it well. It takes a lot of practice to know when to grant someone else your fear, and not let them know how strong you can be when pushed. A lot of practice, and a certain kind of fear.

"I know who you are," the stranger murmured eventually, his voice soft and neutral, bland. "There are only so many blind rat doctors in Carogne, after all. Only so many of an age ... to have known my father."

Sebastien couldn't stop the flinch, the tremble in his paws that he knew the other rat had to feel. "F ... father?" he whispered, but he knew. Already, he knew.

"Graf von Caprara," was the quiet, steady answer. "Though I believe most people knew him as 'The General'."

Slowly, carefully, numb behind the shock, Sebastien lifted his paws away from the rat's back. He thought of blades, hidden close at hand, thought of poisons even closer, but already there was a little voice in his mind, an old voice, whispering. You don't touch the General, mischling. You don't have the right. Didn't I teach you that? So quickly, did that voice spring forth. The General had trained him well, all those years ago.

"I've heard stories about you, you know," said the General's son. "I've been listening. Out here. There's not many with the ... gift, shall we say ... to maintain so precarious a position between the Polizei and the Wekha. Not many who could sustain an association with one of most feared Enforcers in Carogne and one of the most recognised Polizei officers. No. There are very few able to do that. And even less who would want to. Not unless they had a very good reason for not wanting to cement loyalty to any one group. Not unless ... they already had an idea of what could come from that." His voice was almost gentle, there. Almost sad.

"What do you want?" Sebastien whispered again, almost a hiss, harsh and vicious and terrified. His ears were ringing. He thought he might fall over. Just collapse. How was one supposed to react, when the ghosts of the past came calling? Oh. Yes. "I won't ... I will not go back! I will not."

"No, you won't," his tormentor acknowledged, with just the faintest edge. "You don't want to, and I can't force you. I've seen what happens to people who force you, Sebastien. I know what you can do."

A pained laugh, nearing hysteria. "What I can do?" he gasped. "No, my lord. Sorka won't challenge you. There's no favour in the world big enough to encompass that war!"

"I didn't say Sorka." Soft, reproving. And deeper again, frightened. Worried. "I know what you did, Sebastien. I know it had to be you. Only one person knew enough, was close enough, and had that special gift of yours. To trade little favours. To make little people do little things, that can have no effect on the grand scheme. Like get you a loan of a friend's dagger, for example, and get it back to him when you're done? Like tell you where the General might go on patrol? Like have a few Wekha friends congregate in a certain location at a certain time?"

"I ... I don't ..." Sebastien tried, but his mouth was dry, and that soft, warm voice was relentless. Funny. It sounded nothing like the father's, but somehow managed to be far more frightening.

"No-one else knows, of course. Who'd suspect the blind torturer, always kept helpless at my father's side? You weren't even allowed to treat him, after all! You couldn't have been the one to poison him." A pause, thoughtful. "And you weren't, were you? Yours wasn't the paw that stabbed him, in the end. But maybe, just maybe ... it was the paw that put the poison on the blade. Maybe. What do you think?"

"I don't ... you can't ..." he stuttered, paralysed for a terrible moment in something deeper than fear. Good morning, good morning, the General said ... But no! No, this was not the General! This was someone who feared him, someone he could ... And even the General, in the end. He wasn't helpless, no matter what the voices in his head whispered.

"You can't prove anything," he said at last, soft and harsh. "There's no-one left to prove it to. And I will not go back, General's son. I won't."

"I know." And now there was humour in that cultured voice, and a warm regret. "I wouldn't ask you to. I'm not that suicidal." A low rumble of laughter, calm and warm once more. "I ... You will not believe this, Herr Doctor. I know you won't. But I mean you no harm. I only wanted to know if you were the one. If you'd killed him. And I think, proof or no proof ... I think I can know that, now."

"Why?" Sebastien whispered. "Why do you want to know that, if you don't intend to act on it?"

A deeper laugh, this time, and a crueler edge to the humour, an edge he recognised, for all it was a pale echo of the original. The voice was different, so very different, and the General would have hurt him already, were he here, would have done a great deal more than laugh, but still. There was something in this rat that was undoubtedly his father's son.

"I never said I didn't intend to act on it, mein freund," said the General's son. "I only said I didn't mean to harm you. Believe me ... there's a lot I can do with you besides that. A lot that I want to do with you. And a lot, maybe, that you will want me to do." A deep chuckle, a thoughtful pause. "You are good at trading favours, after all. And what I have in mind ..."

Sebastien shook his head, his paws gripping the table as the other rat stood up, clenching tight around the padded wood. "No," he said. "No. One does not trade with the General. I learned that the first time. One gives, and hopes he doesn't take more than he's already promised he will. But he does. He always does." A pained whisper, trailing off, before he remembered himself, straightening, vicious. "I learned my lesson with your father, General's son. If you want something from me, you'll have to take it outright, and pay the price!"

A long, thoughtful pause, as the taller rat stood opposite him, looming over him. "And ... there is nothing I can do to change your mind?" Said innocently, too innocently. Sebastien felt himself tense. "No favour I might offer? To look after a friend, say, who falls under my charge?"

"No," Sebastien whispered, sick. "No!" Polizei. Highborn to the Families, and there was only one of Sebastien's friends that might fall 'under his charge'. Only one at risk, and Sebastien had never thought, never thought, that one day that risk might be because of him.

"But he might need it, you know. He's a good officer, a good Polizei, but he is so very young, still. So very vulnerable. Can it really hurt, to have someone highly placed to look after him?"

Sebastien nearly lunged. Nearly sprang, and it took everything he had to lock the impulse down, everything he had not to attack, not to scream a denial, not to beg for his friend's life. It took everything he had, but he managed it. Because those things didn't work. Not with people like this, like the General. Fighting, begging, denying ... none of it. You could only give them what they wanted, while they wanted it, and kill them when they weren't looking. And this one ... this one knew better than to ever look away. Sebastien was not the only one to learn a lesson from the General.

"You said," he whispered, softly. "You said you'd been listening to stories about me. Getting to know my reputation."

"I did," was the quiet reply. No mockery. Almost respectful.

"Then you know." Sebastien drew himself up, quivering and determined. "You know how much I can bear for my own sake. You know that while it's a bad idea, it's acceptable to come after me. I am, after all, in a precarious position, like you said. You know I can be attacked with relative ease."

"It ... may have been mentioned, yes." Oh, Sebastien would bet it had. And a few more things besides ...

"And you will also know," he said, and now he lowered his voice, now it was little more than a hiss, small and bright and deadly. "You know that the only instances where I have struck out, the only times when I have well and truly gone against someone ... have been when they threatened what is mine, when they threatened my friends." The rat was silent, but Sebastien didn't care, coming around the table to move into his space, raising his head to shove its ruin into the bastard's face. "Lots of people know that. But you, General's son. You know something else. You know what I did, once upon a time. Just for myself. You know exactly what I can do, what I could do, what I did. Can you add those things together, General's son? Can you see what I am telling you?"

A long pause, and then, quietly: "I can." Sebastien nodded grimly.

"You want to look after him?" he asked. "Look after my Jan? That's good. That's good, General's son. Because Jan deserves to be looked after. He's a good boy. He wants to help people. Not like you. Not like me. He deserves people to look after him. And you will. You will. Not because it gets you what you want. Not out of the goodness of your heart. Not because it will help you control me. But because if you don't, if you hurt him, if you happen, perhaps, to look the other way while others hurt him ... I will show you things I learned long before your father. I will show you things to make what I did to him seem blunt, seem paltry, seem nice. I gave him a relatively clean death, all things considered. Touch Jan, and I promise you, yours will not be so pleasant. Do we understand each other?"

He stopped, the breath rattling in his narrow chest, trembling vehemently. Lay the rules now, lay them quick. Make this rat think, make him think very, very hard, before he made any move. Give Jan that much longer. Give himself time to calm, to research, to assess the threat. To gather Jan up and run, if need be. Just a little more time. Just a threat, to buy him that. Please.

Silence, for a very long time, and then, suddenly, there was a paw on Sebastien's shoulder, gentle and sure before he shrugged it violently off, and that warm, aristocratic voice held something else, something Sebastien had no idea how to interpret, no idea how to understand.

Relief. Pride. Triumph.

Compassion.

"We understand each other, Herr Doctor," said the General's son, and it was so gentle Sebastien almost flinched. "We understand each other. And, I hope ... perhaps some day we might do more. Thank you, sir."

"What?" Sebastien asked, blankly, but the rat was already retreating, pausing only long enough to pick up his clothes, and despite his bravado Sebastien wasn't quite willing to challenge his exit. But he did have to know ... "Wait!" he called, and sensed the other rat pause. "Why? What do you want, General's son?"

A pause, and then, brightly, sincerely. "Something my father would never understand, Sebastien. Something, with your help, with people like you, and your friend, I might yet achieve."

That was it, no more, and he left before Sebastien could think what to say. And in his wake ... one very frightened, one very confused, and one very determined little rat.