The Adversary by Michael Crummey

Author:Michael Crummey [Crummey, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Knopf Canada
Published: 2023-09-26T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

~

Word of Abe Strapp’s return from the capital and the covey of sad cattle he’d settled into his childhood home ran through Mockbeggar and Nonsuch like fire in a field of dry grass. By evening the Big House was full to bursting, the heat inside sultry and oppressive from the crush of bodies, and men stood three and four deep outside the windows to catch a glimpse of the ladies of easy virtue.

Matterface and Heater ran a gambling table of cards and dice in the kitchen except when they were called upon to throw out some obstreperous lush or a drinker who’d run through his money and credit. The Abbess paraded about the rooms to talk up the clientele and suss out those who had the means to avail themselves of the girls’ services, escorting them upstairs to the bedrooms, knocking at doors to announce a john’s time was done.

Abe Strapp himself was like a gravedigger, people said, up to his arse in business and not knowing which way to turn. He wagered reckless hands at the gambling table or lorded over drinkers at the bar or simply stood in a room to take in the raw rakeshame he’d conjured. He went up the stairs and listened at each room, calling out to urge on the fornicators and hammering at the door as a kind of applause when the enterprise concluded. “Good man,” he shouted. “Well mowed.”

It was the best night of his life and he wished it might never end.

He woke the next day on the floor of the servants’ room. There was no sign of a hangover despite his mad time, as if he was newly immune to consequences. Two girls slept head to tail in the bed beside him, his piss-proud cock standing like a little flagstaff, and he helped himself to the nearest cousin, hauling her shift above her hips and lifting one bared knee to her chest. Spitting into his palm and polishing the head of his piercer to a glisten. The girl slept through the occupation, lying still and silent as a corpse, and that likeness was a tongue lapping at his ballocks. He poured himself into her black joke with a roar that momentarily woke her bedmate before she turned and settled into the wall.

He walked through the house afterward, bawling out for Matterface and Heater before pouring a straightener at the bar. The Abbess was in her seat opposite the fireplace with a pot of tea on a side table. He raised his glass when he saw her there and she nodded her head of curls.

“This will do nicely,” she said, with more conviction than she’d managed the day before.

“We might have brought more of the laced mutton from the capital. These few will be wore to rags before long.”

“It is a source of continual amazement,” she said, “how much a receiver general can set to her ledger. But we will pull some locals to the cause if need be.”

Abe threw back his head and laughed.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.