“Let your hate fuel you.” Barbara smiled.
“I don’t have hate.” Charles hissed.
“Well, I do.” Barbara snorted. “I’ve enough for both of us.” She paused and pressed her back into the paneled wall of the staircase. With her left arm, she pulled Charles near her as footsteps sounded in the hallway above them.
The footsteps were followed by frantic voices.
“Zettie!” A woman cried out.
“I’m goin’ ta get more hot water!” Zettie answered as the footsteps paused.
“No time, girl! I need ya!”
“Damnation,” Zettie muttered.
Barbara and Charles heard the footsteps retreat.
“You see,” Barbara whispered beneath wild and flickering eyes. “God smiles upon my hatred.”
“Does He?” Charles shook his head.
“Hurry,” Barbara nodded, grabbing Charles by the arm and pulling him up the stairs after her. “Ulrika’s room is this way.”
At that very moment, Ulrika Rittenhouse stiffened her back against the cold and narrowed her eyes at Mr. Punch who stood—shoulder-to-shoulder—with Marjani in the muddy clearing. She could feel Giovanni cowering behind her.
“So, how will you do it, Idiot?” Ulrika grinned. “How will you punish me? Will you strike a blow against my head? That seems to be your favored method. Will you beat me until I’m dead?”
“Dead?” Mr. Punch grinned. “Who said anything ‘bout ‘dead’?”
“Isn’t that the usual form of punishment? Your people are known for your hangings and beheadings.”
“That we are.” Punch nodded. “We English, we like a good hangin’, we do. Here, Marjani, should I tell Miss Ulrika ‘bout the hangman?”
“If you like, Sir.” Marjani nodded.
“See, I knew a hangman. Well, to be honest, I didn’t personally. It’s a Mr. Punch thing. We all got a common history though there are many of us. Punchs, that is. I ain’t like a regular one. I’m different. Now I am, anyway.”
“I understand now,” Ulrika sighed. “You’re going to bore me to death.”
“I’ll pretend you didn’t say that,” Punch nodded. “See, Mr. Punch—he done a lot o’ things what got him in trouble. Them Mr. Punchs are puppets, they are. I were a puppet, but now I’m a fella what means I got different experiences than most of the other Mr. Punchs. I act on me own, only I act like a Mr. Punch would act cuz that’s what I am.”
“Still think you’re a puppet?” Ulrika laughed. “And these are the people that Britons give the most prestige. The Duke thinks he’s a puppet.”
“So as it was,” Punch continued, ignoring Ulrika, “Mr. Punch was brought to the hangman so he could be punished for what he did. Only Mr. Punch, he tricked the hangman into putting his own neck in the noose. And, see, Punch hanged the hangman.”
“He’s trying to tell us something,” Ulrika laughed, jabbing Giovanni in his ribs with her elbow.
“I am.” Punch smiled. “See, the hangman got himself killed because he made a mistake.”
“What was that? Trusting a lunatic?”
“No.” Punch frowned. “He got himself killed because he thought it were his place to take another man’s life as a way to punish him.”
Ulrika grumbled, “I have no idea what you’re saying.”
“Death ain’t sufferin’.” Punch winked. “Life is sufferin’.”
“My life is hardly an ordeal.” Ulrika chuckled.
“Not yet it ain’t.” Punch grinned. “But, it will be.”
Did you miss Chapters 1-415? If so, you can read them here.
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