THE LOUSY DUCK appeared closed, which meant, of course, it was anything but. True, the windows were carefully shuttered, and the archery garden was overgrown and the gate chained. But it would take more than a city-wide epidemic to still such a storied establishment, and the pub had many entrances, the riverside now being the preference, all but invisible in the viridescent smog from opposite shore.
Nonetheless, the atmosphere was hardly the same. With the lights turned down low, men hunched over their drinks, nursing them to their bosoms like newborn babes, staring into the dark liquids, contemplating the existential. But today, something was different...
There were rumours that HE had returned.
The sightings were contradictory: a flash of red and yellow sighted through the mists of Southwark; a jacht, ostentatiously emblazoned, tied up in Whitehall; a siren melody wafting on the evening zephyrs around the Tower. But there was no denying one irrefutable fact: there were an AWFUL lot of women in the pub tonight! And they looked thirsty. Like really thirsty! A thirst that no drink poured by Milly or Polly or any of the other bar wenches could slake!
Still, there were other possible explanations for the overwhelming presence of the fairer sex. After all, the Duck seemed to be one of the few places in London that had remained rat-free. The ubiquitous rodents had become a city-wide underfoot plague of their own proportions: a living carpet in the alleyways; rivulets in the streets; and hanging threats of mistaken identity in clothing cupboards. Only the scent of Milly’s pussy had kept the rats from the Duck: she had refused to turn the veteran mouser over to the guard for incineration and, as far as Mr. Tiddlesworth was concerned, business was very very good.
So, it is not surprising that, when the Duck’s front door was nearly thrown from its hinges by a trilling blast, the publicans all assumed, quite reasonably, that they had been rumbled, and that the establishment was under cannon-fire from the authorities! They dived beneath the tables in terror! And what followed the shockwave into the pub, cartwheeling across the floor with acrobatic aplomb, could well indeed have been a yeoman! The colours were spot on: crimson and gold... But there was something wrong about the pattern... less piping, and more... pied!234
Whatever it was, it completed its whirling entrance with a three point landing, and was suddenly still in the flickering candlelight. Something multi-barrelled, burnished and obscenely turgid hung from a sling about its chest.
The first brave damsel to poke her nose out from behind an uprighted table gasped. “Oh my GAWD!”
A second followed suit, licking her lips at the sight of such girth. “Is it a flute?”
A third. “Is it a recorder?”
Fourth: “Is it a leek?”
The first nearly exploded with excitement! “No! It’s a PIPE! He’s back!”
The dam broke, and a tide of womankind, and not none of the men, rushed forwards to mob the well-posed piper, but he evaded them with a swirl of cape, spinning in a high-velocity pirouette towards the bar, sparks flying from his high-heeled clogs! He berthed with perfection.
“Mike!” he baritoned. “My usual!”
The ancient bartender known as Mike235 pillared up, seemingly without bending, from his resting place behind the bar. It took a special kind of customer to rouse the Mike.
Mike was suitably overwhelmed that the Piper remembered his name. “Coming right up, Mr. Piper! Er, sir!”
The Piper’s eyebrows were perma-arched in false modesty. “Call me Pied!” he grinned! Far too many teeth – he seemed to have three rows! One of the girls amidst the stunned crowd behind fainted.
“Oh, sure thing!” said Mike. “Um, so what brings you back to London Town in these ’ere dark times, Mr. Pied, er, sir?”
The Piper shook his head self-deprecatingly. “Well, perhaps I’m sticking my pipe in where it doesn’t belong, but when I heard my favourite little town was in trouble, I just couldn’t sit back and do nothing!” Another woman fainted – a housewife old enough to know better.
Mike whistled. “Well, you’re a braver man than me, sir! Seeking out the one place on earth where even the clergy are saying their prayers!”
The Piper sighed sagely. “Occupational hazard of being me, I’m afraid...”
This time it was Mike who fainted, throwing up the bottle as he fell... to be caught in the Piper’s outstretched palm! The Piper peered over the bar. “Mike! Mike?” He shrugged and uncorked the bottle with his teeth. “Like I said: occupational hazard!”
He toasted the fallen bartender, and raised bottle to lip–
–which was when something else entered the pub at high speed! It would be nice if we could say that Clive’s entrance was the equal of the Piper’s. There were somersaults, to be sure, but as this was the result of Clive stubbing his toe on the doorsill, the progression across the room was rather less controlled. He rolled, skidded, and came to a messy halt in a heap at the Piper’s feet. A whiff of stilton.
The Piper reached down with one hand, and pulled Clive to his feet. “Nice entrance! You okay, little broedy?”
Clive was rather dazed. “Um. I don’t suppose you know where I might find the Pied Piper, do you?”
The Piper spread his arms. “Well, as a matter of fact I do... He’s right here!”
Clive cast around. “Really? Where? I thought he’d be really obvious!” And then Clive’s gesticulating hand landed on something long and smooth. He looked the Piper up and down. “Hang on! Exuberant clothing... huge instrument... smells like garlic…”
You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.
The Piper nodded modestly. “Yes, yes, I know…”
“You’re him!”
“You betcha!” The Piper drew a quill from his chest hair (in fact, it’s possible the quill was his chest hair) and a small piece of parchment from behind his ear. “And what’s your name, friend?”
“Er, Clive, I think.”
The Piper put an arm around Clive’s shoulder. “And how old are you, Clive?”
Clive shrugged it off. “Well, I’m legal, if that’s what you mean!”
“You don’t say!” The Piper signed. “Well, here you go! Take care, little broedy!” He made to move away...
Clive looked at the parchment and read out loud: “To Clive, from P.P. Write me!” He threw it down in disgust! “Look! I don’t want an autograph! I, I… need your help! I come with word from the Alchemist!”
The Piper spun back. “Oh, how is old Dave?”
Clive shrugged. “Yes, good, good! I mean, he’s in hiding from the authorities for concocting an Elixir that was wrongly mistaken for a serum that started a London-wide contagion…”
The Piper tutted. “Boys will be boys!”
“...But, apart from that, he’s just Jack-a-dandy!”
The Piper nodded thoughtfully. “And how’s that delicious daughter of his? What was her name?”
Clive’s face sank. “Isabella?”
“Of course, yes! In fact, Clive, she’s part of the reason I came back! The things that girl could do with a glockenspiel…” and then he touched it, up and down, just once, and his lip arched and trembled. “Boyyyyyy!”
Clive wanted to vomit. Mission. DEATH! Plague! Rats! “Really, who’d have thought? Look, we– we need your help!”
Again, with the arm around shoulder! It was like being hugged by a paeodophilic bear! “Of course! Anything for my new best broedy!”
Clive grimaced and whispered conspiratorially. “This may come as something of a shock but… I know who started the Plague!”
The Piper somehow managed to lean closer still, dangerously close to penetration now. “Really?”
“Yes. Now they wear hats... and suits!”
It took a moment for the clockwork between the Piper’s ears to do its thing, but then his facial expression morphed into delighted shock! He leaped straight up onto the bartop, his pipe cocked in his hands like some sort of firearm!
“Of course! I knew it! Stand back, little broedy! Things are about to get... rough!”
At that moment, Mike sprang back up to vertical behind the bar. His hair was standing straight up, as if he had been hit by lightning, or hung upside down from a tree for an inordinate amount of time in a hurricane. He had a crazed glint in his eye, and a sneer upon his lip.
Clive recoiled! What was happening?
It was clear Mike was about to... sing?
“The fear is ris-ing!
There are dark times up ahead!
A boy somewhere is cry-ing...
’cos his momma, she’s lying dead!
What happened to the saviour?
The sandals and the cross?”
The Piper assumed the position, arms outstretched, head bowed.
“Could it be he’s here now?
Amongst the drunkards and the dross?
And the dross...”
The Piper straightened and began counting off on his fingers: “Stage one: penetrate sewer defences using only a toothbrush and a wet flannel! Stage two: kill rats! Stage three: save world! Stage four: marry…” he had forgotten again, but a glimpse at Clive brought it all back “...Isabella!” He winked at Clive and gave him a thumbs up!
Clive, against his better nature, returned the gesture, with venom.
Mike leapt over the bar, and approached the awed publicans, finger pointing.
“When your need is di-re,
you need a hero on your side!
Your world’s on fi-re!
You better call a guy called Pied!”
But far from being cowed, the publicans formed a chorus!
“We know that he’ll deliver,
like a midwife to a prince!”
The Piper piped up next:
“Vermin start to shiver!
I’m gonna take your meat and make it mince!”
Clive gaped. Had the world gone insane? The interior of the pub was turning into an impromptu musical, rehearsals, even workshopping, be damned! But such was the effect of the Piper’s Sontheimian presence:236 melodies formed out of thin air; improvised instruments found their way into hands; lyrics were composed on the fly; and harmonies were found by those who had, but moments before, been entirely tone-deaf!
All: “It’s time to pay the piper!”
The Piper: “The writing’s on the wall!”
All: “It’s time to pay-ay-ay the piper!”
Piper: “An empire’s gonna fa-all!”
Mike: “He’s got big balls!”
All: “Fills music halls!”
Mike: “Our plight now calls–”
All: “–as darkness falls to payiyayiyayiyayiyay!”
“Pay the Piper!”
And suddenly, the mood shifted, went low-key, and even the lighting acquiesced, flames impossibly burning blue... The tempo slowed, and Mike was somehow now on the clavichord, bent low over the keys...
The Piper began to click his thumbs. He was surrounded now by a new circle, smaller than the previous: children! Where had they come from? They stood facing Clive and the audience, hands behind their backs, faces blank and emotionless. He began, tempo aswing, the words neither sung nor spoken, more sprechstimme than sprechgesang: “There was this town so, so far from here, where the people they lived in perpetual fear! Rats ruled their lives, even ruled their dreams... They couldn’t sleep through the ni-ght for the sound of their babies’ screams!”
The publicans crooned: “Oooh-yeah! Yeah yeah yeah!”
“I arrived in Hamelin not a moment too soon, where I deep-sixed237 the furballs for a sizable boon!”
The Piper knelt and wrapped his arms around the flanking children.
“When it came to payment though, all shoulders were cold, so I kidnapped their kiddiwinks...” He turned the children – their hands, behind their backs, now revealed, were bound. “...and into slavery sold!”
Clive gasped! It was true! It was all true! He looked around at the other adults in the room, but they were just smiling and nodding like idiots!
The Piper hopped to his feet and thrust. “Shoulda paid the Piper! The price was ONLY small!”
All: “Gotta pay-ay-ay the Piper!”
Piper: “Or lose your town’s gene-pool!”
Mike: “His feathered hat!
Ears of a bat!
Moves like a cat!
He’s smelt a rat–”
All: “And theyiyayiyayiyayiyay... will pay the Piper!”
The Piper cartwheeled towards the door, but paused at the threshold:
“I must leave now: I hear the danger call!”
He hoegened238 an arm up to his ear!
“You must be strong now, if in battle I should fall!”
The men shook their heads: “Oh! You’re so brave!”
The women fluttered their handkerchiefs:
“Take our blessings!
We owe to you our lives!”
The men, grinning, thrust their wives forward.
“When you return, Pied,
you’re welcome to our wi-i-ives!”
The wives in question looked jubilant!
With a final nod and a two-finger salute, the Piper was gone! The musical, however, lingered on like a bad smell...
All: “That’s how we’ll pa-ay-ay the Piper!”
Clive between them and the door. This had gone far enough! But his protest, though not sung, somehow still fit the metre and rhyme... To the women: “Don’t you think the price is steep?”
“We’re gonna pay-ay-ay the piper!”
Clive tried again, to the menfolk: “With your wives he’s going to sleep!”
“He WILL succeed!”
“He’s full of greed!”
“His LUST we’ll feed!”
“Do you really need…?”
“To payiyayiyayiyayiyay... pay the Piper!”
Quite against his will, Clive was front and centre of a final tableaux, arms a-shrug, unwilling puppet to the mass musical hypnotism of the Piper of Sontheim!