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Chariot	By : Artemick Category: G through L > Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell Views: 1410 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: Characters, setting, plot details, etc. belong entirely to the ingenious Susannah Clarke (specifically, from her incredible book Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell). I own nothing and earn nothing from this story.

Chapter List
- 1-Chariot
- 1
Childermass held the ripped tarot card his left hand. The paper shivered in cold draft coming from the door, flicking at the edges of the paper.

With his right hand, Childermass copied the image of the card onto a new piece of parchment. If anything, he knew that magic did not listen to the looks of a thing. Still, he tried to trace deftly.

There was a chariot in the distance of the image, with a slim young androgynous figure, split between fear and exhilaratation, holding the reins taut. Close in the foreground raced two horses. Originally, one was red and one was green, and he indicated this in his copy by writing the first letter on each color on the horses’ chests to indicate the appropriate hue.

The horses’ shoulders were slammed together, yet they were pulling apart as if ready to split the yoke and rip the chariot in half, sending the rider to a brutal fall.
Struggle, he thought. It was the most common meaning of the card – war, battle, discord, contest.

Childermass cringed to think how many readings he had done lacking this essential card, and how many misconstructions he must have made without it. The card had only been found this morning, yet how many struggles were going on – between the magicians, between realities, between ancient and recent history? Not to mention men, the small, small animals. All their personal struggles. The soul, the person, the household, all in turmoil.

He scratched out one horse’s hoof, slamming it onto the plane of undefined road.

Someone had torn the chariot card in half and thrown the pieces under a winged arm chair. It must have been two days ago. Childermass had the cards on the table as he read letters. When his master arrived at Hurtfew, he had left the room – to tell Norrell about the young man who had healed a little girl with the old fairy spell.

Childermass had shut Lascelles in the sitting room, slammed the door in his face.

Of course Lascelles gone through Childermass’s things. A petty revenge. He probably drew a card from the deck without knowing how it worked – though clearly it had. Never had there been a more appropriate card! Disliking the picture, or his ignorance, or feeling fury at Childermass, Lascelles must have torn it in two and flung it down, where it settled under the chair.
That was it.

But the card was reborn.

“Thanks, old friend,” Childermass said. The paper seemed like a friend, almost like a prayer card that the Catholics printed, because he had kept it so long and touched it so often. He lit the corners and put it safely in the dish of his candle to burn. The horses seemed to scream and stamp, rolling as the paper curled. Childermass shuddered.

There was a knock - the slam of an open hand against the door.

Childermass jumped. “Yes?”

Another slam.

“It’s late – I’m on my way to bed,” he warned. “Let Lucas do it.”

There was a shouting and whoever it was banged, banged with both hands.

Childermass scowled and stood, wiping his hands. “The ravens have you, you bastard. I’m coming - ”

He turned the door knob. The door was instantly thrown back until it slammed into Childermass’s boot. He caught it firmly with his hands and glared up at the drunkard leaning on it.

Lascelles looked back angrily. His eyes were bleary red, and his skin sagged like an old, ill used man, not the finely coiffed gentleman he was dressed to be. He was grinning, a wolf’s grin.

“That’s what liquor does to a man,” Childermass said aloud. “Makes him lose his way to bed.”

Lascelles scowled and barked, “Let me in, footman.”

“No. This is not your room. You have no business in this part of the house. Move along, back to your lace pillows and whiskey.”

“You barking cur. You dare order me about? You?”

Childermass leaned on the door. He scratched between his brow with his thumbnails. “I’ll say what I like. There’s no chance you’ll remember it when you recover.”

“Dog. Let me in. Or I will tell your master how low, how insolent-“

Childermass, seeing the end of the argument, deigned not to wear his ears out hearing the whole, and he stepped back.

As Childermass removed his foot, the door his boot was stopping swung wide on silent, oiled hinges. Lascelles’s heavy weight tumbled down. Childermass stepped back further, considering the mess on the floor.

Lascelles grunted and pulled up against the door, knocking it further into the wall.

Childermass turned, crossing his arms. “What do you want from me?”

Lascelles laughed. “Skinny arms. Like a pauper.”

Though his vest was still on, for he was reasonably confident in his penmanship and drawing, Childermass had rolled up his sleeves to prevent the ink from splattering. There was no reason in his life to tempt an already temperamental fate.

Now Childermass looked down, and became uncomfortable. He was frail from a childhood of eating apple cores found in the gutter, and should it come to a fight, he was not anyone’s favorite. He shifted and said, “Aye.”

“Put on your coat, slave. You’re in front of your betters.”

Childermass did not move.

Lascelles seemed to take all this in. Then, without any warning, his drunken wave resolved in the appearance of a pistol.

“By King – “ Childermass stepped back, hitting his leg on the table. The stack of cards slipped, fanning out. He put his hand out but kept his eyes on the gun. “Lascelles, what are you thinking?”

“A whore would do well to keep her mouth shut,” Lascelles said, straightening. He sneered, “Didn’t your mother ever tell you that?”

Lascelles lurched forward, slamming the door behind him.

The servants, Childermass realized, would all be sitting in the kitchen, conversing. And his master was in the library. Both were floors and halls away from that room. There was not way to hear a door slam, and even a gunshot would be like the bang of a bird against a window. There would be no alarm.

Lascelles stalked forward. He jammed the gun into Childermass’s forehead.

Childermass turned to the side. At first he gasped, but then he swallowed, weighing his chances. On one hand, Lascelles was a wealthy man of reputation; he could not simply murder a servant, and he knew no magic to hide a body. Lascelles would not be so stupid; he was violent but far from a dunce.

God, but the metal barrel was cold against his temple. Childermass could feel the weight of it, the steel’s density. Worse, he smelled brandy.

“Look at you cower…” Lascelles cooed. “Now you bow.”

Leading with the gun, he drove the servant backwards, tripping over his table and backing into the wall, as Lascelles rammed the gun into the man’s skull. With the alarming speed of drunks, he grabbed Childermass by the white necktie he wore.

It was, though no one would ever know, cut and stitched from a dress of Childermass’s mother. He had made some six like it. One he’d worn when he came to offer his services to the great houses, ages ago, when Norrell hired him on a whim, needing a criminal for the baser tasks he longed to accomplish. The white neckties, very worn from washing, had grown to have a strange blue or lavender tinge, which only showed a certain light.

Childermass could hear the threads rip. Lascelles shook his fist and the tie tightened. Childermass brought his hands up to keep from being choked. He sputtered, “Sir – Lascelles!”

“You impudent little scab,” the man wheezed, his breath a stinking broth of meat and brandy. “Who do you think you are, lounging around the sitting room, correcting me like you have any business in the conversation? If I had my way, you would be in the streets, you would be before a magistrate in fetters! Oh. Oh, I have longed to meet you privately. Take it off. Take it off!” He stepped back and gestured with the gun.

Childermass reacted to the sound of the innards of the gun clanking. He took off the tie and tossed it on the chair with his coat. “It’s off.”

“That.”

Childermass looked down. He imagined a dozen spells that might protect him; several would hurt or impede Lascelles; two would kill him. But it was one thing to admit he was performing divination when it was relevant to how he served the magician, and another entirely to admit he was actively studying magic from Norrell’s precious, secret library – lethal magic too. It would be even worse to be practicing such forbidden arts, and immeasurably wrong to be use them to harm the magician’s guest. For even if Childermass thought Lascelles was a leech and a scoundrel and a liar, he could not deny that Lascelles was Norrell’s collegue and equal.

Childermass unbuttoned the vest.

“And lift your shirt.” He watched the servant obey, simpering, “That is your master’s property; we won’t harm his investment.”

Childermass looked up as he tugged the shirt off. He had expected the man was only interested in threat, humiliation, perhaps enforcing the dominance of his assumed wealth. “What?”

Lascelles reached under his coat, chuckling. He removed a neat riding quirt that was not the property of Norrell’s stable. It was stiff braid with two tails, clamped with tin bands – a gaudy, decorative thing.

Childermass remembered Lascelles’s statement to Norrell - Hana, the maid, was outside the room when he’d said it: That servants who spoke out of their place, as Lascelles saw it, should be whipped.

Childermass threw his shirt aside. “You will regret this tomorrow. An attack on me against Norrell’s express warning?”

Norrell had not the presentiment or good judgment to issue any such warning, but Lascelles was hardly in a place to remember that. Indeed, the false gentleman squinted, momentarily uneased.

Childermass stuck his thumbs in his pockets like a boy, and leaned back against the wall. He scoffed, “Put the gun away. You’re not shooting anyone tonight.”

This set off the most piercing, howling, and eerie laughter from the man. Lascelles’s eyes rolled up in his head, and he threw his chin high, neck disjointing like a wolf. He laughed and he laughed…

Childermass shivered. He felt the small draft all the more.

For a moment, it felt as though he were touching his cards. He could feel the paper - and he smelt a corpse.
There was death in the room.

“Do you know, boy, what I have done with this gun?”

Lascelles looked down the barrel.

Yes, Childermass realized. He could guess from the abrupt horror and pity drawn out of his heart by Lascelles’s hyena-like laughter. That brand of hysteria and melancholy were things that Childermass had met as a child, living in the place he and his mother worked.

More than that, Lissell looked down the gun and examined it, for a moment acting ready to clean the barrel, as if it had already been shot.

“You do not – “ he started.

“You killed.” Childermass whispered. He knew it was true instantly. The corpse smell grew stronger, and he felt screaming – heard nothing, but felt the chill of the screams on his skin. The cards’ paper seemed to flip under his hands. “You’ve killed. A person, not an animal. A human. A poor man…”

“Do your cards tell you that?”

“In a way.” Childermass’s eyes widened. The letter. “Drawlight - ?”

“No!” Lascelles howled, flinging the gun up.

There was a shot. It blasted through the wall, spitting plaster in a cloud, then wood behind it. Childermass was hit with splinters. He dropped, falling half onto the table, where the cards leered and called in echoing images of men, swords, and glimmering glasses of blood. He wailed, and could not hear it.

There was a blow to the back of his head.

Childermass fell flat. He was deaf from the gunshot. When he turned, Lascelles’s boot was pulling back. He hid his face, and Lascelles stomped into his arms, his head – then, seeing little reaction or blood, he pulled back. Childermass froze, standing with his fists pressed to the sides of his forehead like a cage. Lascelles was shouting, but neither of them could hear the words.

Lascelles took him by the hair and pulled him to the bed. He tossed the used pistol down and pulled out a second gun, a pair to the first.

Childermass sat.

Lascelles point the gun at his head. He mouthed an impression of the sound and pretended to shoot.

Childermass blinked quickly and looked down.

Then something struck his face. It laced over his eye, and the pressure of his eyelashes sent him back, involuntarily propelling himself away in an instant. The quirt, the whip – Lascelles had struck him.

He looked at the man’s mouth. It was mouthing something – whoreson. As the gentleman ranted, sound returned to the world, and wretched speech: “- Lay back, John. I’d hate to explain the marks on your face.”

Childermass refused. But when his face was struck again, he lay back.

“A good whore! Hold that. Grab the headboard.”

Childermass felt the cool quilt on his bare back. He put his arms over his head. The scent of his own sweat reeked. His fingers scrabbled for the edge of the headboard.

Lascelles was delighted. “Now you’re obedient.”

Childermass stared into the man’s heart, feeling the cards cry like the stones of York that saw the murder in the church. Once Lascelles had killed, he now felt everyone should suit him or die. Childermass could see it now, and he knew the man’s type. Lascelles was the kind of man who would fuck a whore and afterwards leer at every woman he met, as if they only walked free because of his restraint; as if, if he wished, he could slaughter strip them easily despite their screams. Lascelles had transgressed, and on crossing that line, found a whole country to explore.

Childermass’s breath hitched with fear.

“Good boy. Good dog. See, that is what a servant is meant to do.”

“You would be obedient too, with a gun to your head, were our places reversed,” Childermass muttered.

Lascelles guffawed. “As if they could be, even for an instant! You’re weak.”

“All I have to do, sir, is to take a gun from the armory.”

“You – “ Lascelles put the gun under the servant’s eye, and when that did not deter his stare, pressed it hard against his lips. “Open, open up. Open your mouth or I’ll break those white teeth out and you’ll use wooden ones like a centarian!”

Childermass opened his teeth wide. Lascelles jammed the gun down, knocking between them. He shoved further, and Childermass tried to stop him – teeth grinding down the metal barrel, his tongue pressed to the hole – choking, Childermass let go of the headboard –

Lascelles lashed him, kneeling down on his guts. “Hands back or I will blow your fucking head off! I will!”

Childermass turned his head sideways some, so that he could not choke, and he put his hands up like a caught robber. Slowly, his fingers touched the headboard again.

“Close your lips on it.”

It took a moment for Childermass to hear the words. Then he obeyed, pressing his lips in hesitantly.

“Keep them tight.”

He removed the gun through Childermass’s tight lips. The acrid, vile powder taste retreated. Childermass licked his lips and tried to scratch away the taste on his teeth.

“Where are your impertinent comments now? Your endless insolent contradictions?”

Childermass coughed, pressing his lips shut. He regarded the murderer for a moment. Childermass had seen Drawlight once, since his exile; he was a caricature of a man. To kill such a wreck, such a sad wreck - it was inhuman.

Drawlight, Childermass thought. Drawlight is dead. This man killed him.

The man is mad with bloodlust and power – he will kill everyone as it suits him, as he can. I have to do something.

“What? Where are your clever answers now? Ha!”

“My words are where they always lie,” Childermass said coldly. “At the truth of it. You did kill Drawlight.”

Lascelles stumbled back off the bed. But he found his feet. “Bitch. Ten for lying. Ten for offending me. And ten if you try to get away.” He lifted his arm.

Childermass had not been whipped in years, but it instantly brought back the times he had – as a public offense for theft. His eyes stung instantly, as if he were a boy, and he pursed his lips, turning his face away.

Lascelles struck, and struck, and struck. The muscles in Childermass’s guts jerked with each blow.

“Good,” Lascelles said finally. He was panting from the effort. “Now on your back.”

Childermass tried to sit up and could not; it pulled at the bleeding and stinging marks. Instead he scooted his body to the side and rolled onto his stomach. He knew the blood would get into the quilt, but there was no helping that.

He willed himself to pretend he was falling asleep, staring at the wall – to feel that void - but each new blow upset all the previous and all those he lay upon, bleeding.

“Foolish – dumb – bitch – liar – “ The words came on between each blow, finally ending: “Whore, whore, whore!”

Lascelles stepped back. Childermass could feel him staring – he felt the cards coming into his hands. Crossroads. Madness. Hanging man. The fortress?

Lascelles surveyed the stripped, broken skin on his rival’s quivering back.

Childermass stirred, rising.

Lascelles shoved him flat. Childermass, at the pain of the man’s hand against his back, cried out loudly, “Take care - betrayer!”

“Shh! Quiet.”

Lascelles stepped back without another word, as a man who wakes up after sleepwalking and immediately rushes to his bed. Perhaps ashamed, perhaps afraid, he was gone instantly. It was as if it the gunshot, stripping, and beating were things done in a fleet moment of anger that could not be held in his conscious mind. Whatever sanity he had left rebuked him.

Lascelles picked up the other pistol. He hid them in their holsters. He tucked away the quirt in his coat and did up the button. He breathed, fraught with nerves, “Won’t you bid me good evening, John?”

Childermass stirred. He said nothing.

Lascelles began to laugh again. That weird, low and high laugh. Then he left, banging the door.

That was all.

A rich man indulged and beat a servant he hated.

There was nothing to say.

Childermass lay still, thinking and frozen. Lascelles must have fed the seed of an idea in his mind, that power could be had with a gun. It was only natural, since it was true. Warfare had been the soul of England’s recent experience, and even Childermass had wondered what it would be like to have the power to cast armies aside as Strange did. Power was force.

Lascelles killed one friend and found it pleasurable. He must have had greater joy to humble his enemy, the dark fox-like servant that snapped at his hands and heels - to stop his mouth and make him fear.

Lascelles had found a gun could eliminate problems and enforce rank.

The servant bled in silence, not that anyone thought that far.

There was nothing to report to Mr. Norrell. No complaint worth making.

Childermass thought of the medicine downstairs, but the cold air and the cry cotton had sealed the blood up fast enough. Anything else was vanity, and vanity on him was ribbons on a hog. No point in decorating what could be at any moment sent to slaughter, or released for later hunting.

Childermass moved onto his side and curled his legs in, so as not to bleed any more on the quilt, and he cried at the pain of moving. Whipping put the victim in a corset of razors.

Childermass wept hard and reached above his head for the pillow. He pulled it down and covered his head with the pillow. His tears and the sounds in his throat were muffled. He tried to flip as much blanket as he could around his shoulders and feet to stave off the draft.

Briefly, he thought of his mother, the pathos of her position, and of Drawlight.

There was nothing more Childermass could do tonight. He could barely move, much less walk or ride to investigate. He could allow himself the luxury of a few miserable thoughts.
- 1
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Chariot