Notice, says the bright orange flyer, Illegal Campsite, attached to the smaller door with careless strips of tape, It is the policy of the City of Portland to provide notice, and here a corner of the flyer’s curled, obscuring the text, shelters erected at illegal campsites, it continues, This campsite will be cleared, and then, twenty-four (24) hours after and seven (7) days of: and, handwritten there, the date, 6/1. Notificación, it continues, beneath, Campamento Illegal. He brushes it with considering fingers before ducking away beneath the much larger overhead door half-lifted beside it.

The vastly cavernous hall is empty, dim, stalls marching away to either side and no one in them, about them, around, though here and there the signs of activity interrupted, boxes left open, frames stacked and canvases half-draped with quilts and wraps of felt and bubbled plastic, a cookstove dismantled, the scaffolding at the far end abandoned, dusty polyethelene sheeting hung from this pole, or that, obscuring an unfinished mural, a great sharp fang of a mountain lit up unearthly, pink and green, orange and magenta limning an appalling massive blue loomed over a suggestion of a thickly darkly deeply haunted forest, but overwhelming all that empty, quiet hall are neatly stacks of yellow two-by-fours, chest-high, depending, there in the aisle between those stalls, and spiky rolls of chicken wire leaned up against them, tipped before them, there among the twine-wrapped packages of newsprint one atop another, some tumbled from this height, or that, rolled or pushed or kicked almost to the verge of those pallets there, laid out beneath an enormous wooden tub, knee-high, unlit, empty.

His steps clack slowly, measured, as he makes his way from that half-opened overhead door toward the tub, until his footstep doesn’t clack, but rustles. Looking down to his cracked brown wingtip set upon a crumpled corner torn from some much larger page. He lifts his shoe away to see the ghost of an intricate framework, a figure sat, resplendent, and in the lap of it a tumble of households and of towers, all sketched in charcoal long since smudged, smeared, worn away to ashen smoke.

The clack resumes, measuredly stepping toward that tub, around it, to find her there, sat on the pallet, clocked black socks up over her knees and big black boots, brief red skirt and a soft black sweater, puffily oversized. Her hair’s been tucked away beneath a stocking cap of black, and her scowl lightens somewhat to see him. “Bruno,” she says.

“My lady. Did we lose a bet?”

Her scowl tightens, she tugs at the hem of her skirt, pressing it into her lap, but says nothing as he hitches up his trousers to lower himself beside her, braced against the wooden staves of the tub. “I take it you have found them?”

“One of them,” she says, tilting her knees away. “He’s off getting us coffee. Thinks he’s being galant,” she says, archly stressed. He stares at her lips, the same brightly artificial red as her skirt, and she shakes her head away, annoyed. A lock of hair escapes the confines of her cap, a fakely glossy platinum slither there behind her ear, and his brow quirks, “What,” he says, “did you do – ”

“He thinks it’s cute,” she says, tersely tucking it away. “How bad has it got, that there isn’t any coffee?”

He sighs, and shifts himself to sit his back against the tub. “It was bad, when the Chatelaine’s credit was revoked. They finally took her new truck yesterday, and the trailer, and now,” he sighs, “it appears there may be trouble with our tenancy. But. What was done, here, on Wednesday?” Looking up, to the faintly buzzing fluorescents racked so far above. “A whole new word is needed, for what did happen then.”

She hikes up to look over the rim of the tub, the floor of it swept almost utterly clean, a half-dozen, maybe, no more than a dozen crumbs of gold left to sparkle in the rough whorls of the grain. “They really polished it off,” she says.

“No one was here,” he says.

“Well, but, who’s left?” she says, sitting back down. “Sweetloaf, whatsisname, Cullock? Astolfo, maybe? You?”

“Anyone,” he says, with a wave toward the detritus of all those half-finished tasks before them, “but specifically,” turning with a stern look for her, and “Oh, sure, Bruno,” she says, with a bitterly mocking lilt. “All of us all lined up against the lot of them, just a big old knock-down drag-out donny-fuckin-brook right here in the middle of the,” her hand, reaching in the air before them, “the, this, palace,” she says, “and a gallowglas smack in the middle of it all, that’s, that’s,” shaking her head, looking away.

“The right word, at the right time, from the right person, and enough stood up behind you?” leaning forward, to catch her eye. “Rebellion’s a fickle, fragile thing, your grace, a kettle easily knocked from the flame, before it comes to boil. They would have folded.”

“Rebellion?” she says, incredulous. “They’re the ones with everything sewn up, the whole fucking court, lock, stock, and the goddamn barrel. They’re the fucking empire, Bruno.”

“They may well have the barrel, but they will never fill it. Has your grace spoken with her majesty.”

“What, today? I just woke up, Bruno. I have not had my coffee, yet.”

“My liege,” he says, with some concern, “do you happen, even, to know, where her majesty is, of the moment?”

She looks to him, brow quirked, considering. “Anna,” she says, then, “said, last night, said that she’d said she meant to, to be with,” a breath, “the, ah, the strippers, exotic dancers, those, the, I, I didn’t want to get in the middle of that. Interrupt,” she says, “anything.”

“Her majesty,” says Bruno, “did quit this palace yestereve, for the apartment of her sometime dalliance, Christina Halliwell, who has worked as an exotic dancer, and also as an actor, singer, and model, under the names Christienne Limoges and Tina Triplette. Number Seventeen, Twelve Forty-five, Southeast Forty-ninth; rooms shared with her sister and partner, Stephanie Halliwell, currently in Los Angeles. Her majesty did spend the night, but slept alone, on a couch. I’m told there’s plans for brunch at Surabaya in a bit.”

“The couch,” says Jo. “You’re well-informed.”

“Your grace must be, when it comes to her majesty.”

“You’re saying they, they’d actually, are you saying she’s, in danger?”

“Her majesty is always in danger. Put away your delicacy: your grace must always be in the middle of it, now, or at the very uttermost least, know where that middle, and her majesty, might be found.”

“Dammit, Bruno – ”

“Blast it, Duchess,” and she flinches, though he has not raised his voice, “you,” he says, that syllable quieting punching the air between them, “are Southeast. You are the Widow, of my lord the Duke. Favorite of the Queen. You are the Hawk, my lady. Your grace has authority, which is power, but also a terrible duty. You are the last of her majesty’s court, and your grace must – my lady!”

She’s lurched herself to her feet, stalking away around the tub to fetch up suddenly before Jack, stood there just out of sight, his denim jacket of a softer, brighter blue, verbosely spangled with badges, and beneath his nose, above his lip, a neatly penciled mustache. He holds a couple of tall white paper cups striped yellow and red and blue down the sides and a plain white paper bag, and as the Shrieve Bruno cries “Duchess!” Jo seizes Jack by an elbow and yanks him stumbling after, back away from the unlit stage the overhead door the tub and Bruno, reaching after her, “Jo Gallowglas!” as she drags burdened Jack with her past lumber and paper, chicken wire and stalls, dismantled stove and scaffolding, into the archway under the mural and through the tunnel and all the while “Wait” he’s saying, and “Jo, stop” and “I’m gonna drop, Jo! Wait!” as they spill out onto the yellowing tiles of the vaguely daylit foyer, “The hell?”

“I just,” letting go, turning about, resettling the cap on her head, “wanted some, peace, and quiet, for,” looking to his cups, the bag, “what did you get?”

“Uh,” he says, “ah, lemon, lemon poppyseed, and, and chocolate chip. Muffin-tops, I mean. And, uh, they had,” lifting one of the cups, “protein lattes? Which, I figured – ”

“Come on,” she says, grabbing his elbow again, yanking him after, toward the dark stairs down as, down the flight from above, one two many sets of footsteps clack-tocking, thumping, “have to,” someone’s saying, Gloria Monday, “no, we have to, get it all in, every last scrap off the dock,” coming down into the foyer, followed closely by Jim Turk, and then Getulos, Trucos, and more besides, “the paper especially,” says Gloria, across those little hexagonal tiles and into the tunnel, her jet-black hair and her great brown T-shirt that says Sheriff of Hong Kong in lurid red across the front, “some of it’s already got rained on,” she says, “and more’s on the way, so we need to figure out,” turning about before the archway, shuffle-scuff of her dingy shower slippers, “who,” she says, thrusting a finger at Big Jim brought up short, “is gonna,” she says, but beneath that bushy mustache of his, the black of it hatched with white, his satisfied smile spreads wide, and without a word but a simple wave of his hand he steps past her, out from under, into the great high hall, his loose white shirt wide open at the throat, his corduroy kilt a-sway, “we have to,” she says, turning after him, “what the,” stepping after him, “happened,” she says, taking in the lumber, the wire, the bundles of newsprint, “you,” she says, hastening after him, “you already,” catching him by a sleeve, “you already did it,” hauling him about even as she launches a shove at his shoulder, “you let me just, natter on, like that, and the whole time, we, you, you!” Another shove of a punch. “You let me pontificate, like a goddamn asshole,” crashing her whole self into him, wrapping him in an enormous hug, “you big fucking jerk,” she says, muffled against his chest.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

“Sure, and of late, sweetling,” he says, and a kiss for the top of her head, “you’ve a lot on your mind.”

“Jesus,” she says, pushing away from him, his big hand gentle on her shoulder, “the fuck is that?” pointing, past the lumber, the empty tub, to the space before the opened overhead door, where a man in a pale work shirt is stooping to set down a couple of heavy cardboard boxes he’s been carrying by the handles upfolded from the tops of them, his bent head topped by a mighty round of tight black curls. Straightening, shoulders hunched despite his powerful frame, he looks about to spy a folding table, leaned up against the wall there, and crosses over, pulls it away, unlimbers the one set of legs with a resonant clank, kicks the other set down, clank, and easily lifts the table to spin it about and set it lightly down. Heads back to, with some little effort, take up the burden of those boxes and shuffle them over to, one after the other, haul them up and set them on the table. “You!” he calls, pointing to Teacup Tall, stood there by Jim Turk, and tosses something a-jangle that juggling dandling Teacup happens to catch, a ring of keys. “Two more in the sedan outside, in the trunk. And the cups, bring ’em. Help!” he barks at Charlichhold, with a sweep of his now-empty hand. “Go on! Do not scratch the finish, you hear me?” A woman’s ducking in beneath that half-opened door, her stodgily utilitarian dress of taupe and umber, and an apron not quite so white as once perhaps it had been, and two wide milkily translucent plastic bins stacked one atop another in her arms, and she’s careful not to tip or shift them as she straightens and makes a beeline for the table, where he’s crouched, poking a perforated notch at the base of one of those boxes with a darkly thickly finger, digging into it, hissing, he wrestles out a plastic spigot, shaking his hand away.

“Everything is okey-doke?” she says, setting the bins down one by the other, popping the lids off them to reveal ranks and rows of donuts glistening, gleaming, dusted with sugar, white and yellow-gold and densely chocolate and burgundy blue.

“Turns out, hot coffee’s hot,” he says, moving on to punch in the notch at the base of the second box. There’s Teacup and Charlichhold with two more, and long ungainly plastic sleeves of paper cups, and up comes Dick-a-Tuesday to take a sleeve in his hands and gnaw a hole in the plastic wrap, tipping out and stacking up the cups as the stoop-shouldered man in the pale shirt pushes himself to his feet, a hand to the back of his black-curled head, “You saw the napkins? Cup jackets? Creamer, sugar? Go on, go on, go get ’em,” shooing them with both his hands, turning about, taking in the smattering of others slowly approaching, from this stall or that, the arch at the end of the hall, the balcony above, “and tell everybody it’s coffee!” he booms. Brushing down the front of his shirt. “Better than the alternative,” he mutters, to himself.

“That’s Gordon?” says Gloria, still stood there by the lumber.

“You know Gordon,” says Big Jim behind her, hands on her shoulders, watching as Gordon starts filling cups from one of the boxes, handing them around, and Teacup Tall is scowling at Getulos’s paint-flecked fingers hovered contemplatively over the donuts, as Danarey and Herwydh, Hob and the lucent Himmelbord, Nicky Nack and Cragflower, Cherrycoke, the Flynn and flat Peg Powelr, Joli with her rainbow braids and Tumble Tom, gigantic head thrown back, laughing fit to fill the hall, and Val demurely ducking, her greasy unwashed hair hung well down past her shoulders, Sproat, the Buggane, and Petra B in black, tugging a stray bit of tape from the heel of her hand. “Shall we, sweet?” says Big Jim, leaning around her.

“What?” she says, shaking her head. “Sure, yeah,” stepping away from him, out from under his hands, looking from table, coffee, crowd, back to the lumber and the supplies, laid out there in the aisle. “We, we don’t need a truck,” she’s saying. “We don’t need a truck! Trucos!” she calls, beckoning. “C’mere! I wanna run something by you guys.”

•

And then, afterwards, her smile spreads in fits and starts almost in spite of itself, and, blinking, the breath she’s catching turns to puffs of laughter. She rolls onto her side on the white expanse of softly deflating comforter, pressing her thighs together as his hand slips from between them.

“God,” he says, knelt beside her, still in his fresh white T-shirt, those newly stiffly selvedge jeans, his curls a-glimmer in the candlelight, and that neatly penciled mustache, “you are so fucking beautiful,” he says.

“Shut up,” she says, half-muffled, but she doesn’t flinch at the hand he lays on her bare hip. Still in that copious black sweater rucked and tangled, those black socks stretched well up over her knees, but the cap is gone, and tousled on the pillows her short hair glossily bleached to a fakely translucent platinum, stripped of all lingering colors as if to leave room for any possible color to somehow come rushing in.

“You are,” he says, that hand of his slid up, along her hip, her flank.

“You’re just saying that,” she says, “because I’m here. Available.”

“I’m saying it because you’re beautiful,” he says, that hand of his tugging at the hem of her sweater, lifting it. “Go on,” he says. “Take this off. Go on.”

“Stop,” she says. “Jack. Stop it. Stop,” jerking away, she claws back a corner of the comforter to slip under it, “I’m chilly. Anyway, it’s your turn. Shimmy out of them jeans, already,” but he’s looking away, shifted to sit on his haunch. “I know you like being galant and shit, but it’s supposed to be, like, a reciprocal act, you know? Sex? Couple-few more goes, I’m gonna start feeling guilty. You keep picking at that, it’ll never heal.”

He yanks his hand from his upper lip, the mustache thinly dark and sparse, “It was supposed to be bigger,” he grumbles.

“They can only work with what you’ve got,” she says, elbows leaning on her knees tented under that comforter.

“That’s not,” he says, “not what we saw. Yesterday.”

“What, who, the Starling? Trust me, Jack, that was, mostly? Her.”

“Yeah?” he says, sitting up, seizing handfuls comforter, tugging, “and what about,” he says, yanking it free of her grasp, “you,” he says, pulling away dim white to reveal the featureless black, that sweater pulled down over her bare lap, the clocking of those long socks lost in the shadows.

“You thought this was cute,” she says.

“You don’t?” He looks back, over his shoulder, past the nimbus of candlelight from the floor there to the pale linen screen just visible, “so go put on something else,” he’s saying, but she sighs, leans forward, hooking her thumbs in the top of one of those socks, pushing it, down her thigh, around her knee, down and down, “I don’t care,” she mutters, working it over her ankle and off, wiggling her freed toes.

“All right,” he says, as she’s wadding up the sock to toss it away, into the shadows on the unlit side of the bed. “What’s next.”

“With what,” she says, hooking her thumbs in the top of the other sock.

“For us! What are we gonna do next.”

“I don’t know, Mr. Draper,” she says. “You tell me.”

He blinks, his expression falling away. “That’s, not my name,” he says.

Her hands stop, that sock down over her knee, bunched about her shin. “Okay,” she says, without looking up.

“That’s, that’s not me. That’s not my name.”

“Okay,” she says. “Jack. Just Jack. I didn’t, mean anything by it.”

“Yes you did,” he says.

She looks up, then, to meet his eyes as fiercely stern as hers, that mustache arched over an incipient snarl, the corner of her own mouth so absolutely motionless before, with a breath, relaxing. “Okay,” she says. “Jack. What is it you think we ought to be doing.”

“You,” he says, “yesterday you was the one all fired up to go find May, and hell, I don’t know, maybe Hector, but instead we’ve done,” he shrugs, “fuck-all. Just, holed up down here, a day, a day and a half, I mean, do you even have any idea what time it is?” but “I’m,” she says, “tired, Jack. I’m just,” working the sock the rest of the way off, “so. Fucking. Tired.” Tossing it away.

“So, what,” he says, “is that it? You’re just, gonna give up?”

“I,” says Jo, lifting the corner of the comforter to crawl back under it, “am going to lie down and maybe sleep for a bit, I don’t know. I might get hungry enough I’ll, actually, maybe, go look for some way to scrounge something to eat, and that,” lying back against the pillows, “is pretty much all I got.”

“You wanted my pants off a minute ago,” he says.

“Moment’s passed.”

“You’ve got,” he says, “people, who would,” a breath, an irruption of animation, “you have money,” he says, sat up, “cars, people, you’ve got,” an arm flung up, pointing above, “all this,” but she’s rolling over, up on an elbow, “Jack,” she says, and then “Jack,” and, shaking his head, that hand drops back to his lap. “Precisely none of any of that is mine,” she says.

“But – ”

“You have no fucking idea what I, I’ve,” she closes up her eyes, a fortifying breath, “I wanted to find you, and fix things. Put them right. But,” lying back on the pillows, “I can’t. Roy’s dead, Jack.” One arm curling protectively over herself, shapelessly black atop white. “Roy’s gone. I’m sorry.”

“You’re,” he says, looking down at his hands, one beside the other in his lap. “Sorry,” he says, and then, “what about May, what about, getting her back to her, to what’s hers. Her cats. Those damn National Geographics.”

“She has people.”

“She, she has, what?”

“She has people, her son, whatsisname. Mike.”

“He lives in Wilsonville! He drives a goddamn stormtrooper pickup truck! The fuck does he know about jungles.”

“She knows his phone number, Jack. Yours?” Opening, blinking, her eyes. “I bet she doesn’t. And me,” closing them up again, “I don’t even have one, anymore.”

“You, you’re,” sputters Jack, “so, that’s, that’s it. You’re giving up.”

“Looks like.”

“Well, I’m not,” he snaps. “I’m gonna go out there, I’m gonna find her, and I’m gonna make sure everything, I mean everything, is back the way it was. With or without you.”

“Okay,” says Jo, her eyes still closed. “I mean, you know how to catch a bus.”