It is not uncommon in my line of work for a client to make special requests for a job. Some want their targets to go as painlessly as possible, while others wish them to suffer greatly. Some want it to look as an accident, others want it to look like someone else wanted the target dead, and still others want it known that they were behind it, only they don't want to dirty their own hands.
I have had requests for targets to die by arrow, fall, poison, beheading, fire, and even one that required their victim be eaten by a dragon (that one was a challenge). People have their reasons, and I normally don't pry, but when Hiram Mendel brought me a job with the condition that the target be killed with a spoon, I grew curious.
Mendel told me that my services had been requested by a blacksmith from a small town called Carrdberg. I don't often work for common folk as my prices are rather high, but I understood why when I got the rest of the explanation.
My target was to be a young man by the name of Lucius Montressor. It seemed that Lucius had a thing for younger ladies, and one of the young ladies that Lucius had a thing for had been the eight year old daughter of the town blacksmith.
Lucius Montressor abducted the young girl and abused her... intimately. He also broke her neck. I don't know if that had been his intention all along, or if that was an accident resulting from an attempt to restrain her. I don't much care either way.
This is a tale that should never have needed my involvment. Lucius should have hung for his crime, and he would have if his father had not been the town mayor. But his father was, so he did not. Instead he went free.
Were this not bad enough, the mayor had sought vengeance on the smith, refusing to let him produce goods for the town guard and coercing the villagers to boycott him. I could see why Lucius was such a fine gentleman.
Mendel had no explanation for the spoon. A condition is a condition though, and so I went with it.
Before fulfilling this contract I would need to make myself a spoon weapon. I have of course made spoons before, but never to be used a weapon. The spoon itself was easy to make, but I did find sharpening the edge of the bowl of it to be a little unusual. I could have done it magically, but I believe that weapons should be hand-crafted.
I had timed my trip so that I would arrive in Carrdberg during their harvest festival, and I did this for a few reasons. The first was that I would be just another of many merchants who would be passing through the local villages, so my arrival would not draw any special notice. Second: with the townsfolk dressed in fancy dress for the festival activities, I would pass amongst them in my own costume unnoticed.
My final reason for going during harvest time is that it is not uncommon for me to do so, and I would have to put little effort into explaining to my wife why I am traveling. I would just need to be sure to sell some of my wares while on the road.
The forest can be quite lovely in the fall, and the journey to Carrdberg was quiet and enjoyable with the exception of the small group of goblins and the pair of brigands that mistook me for helpless. They won't make that mistake again.
Carrdberg looked like any of a thousand other villages, including my own. After stabling my horse I went to the mayor's office to register for the festival.
“Ah, a blacksmith!” the mayor, a fat man who looked to be about as familiar with hard work as I am with being an orc, exclaimed while he wrote up my seller's permit, “You should consider staying around after; we could stop having to use the smith from Merkord.”
“Your village has no smith?” I asked.
“We do, but his quality and his character are... lacking. We could do with a replacement.”
I walked around the village once my business with Mayor Montressor was complete. I wanted to learn where everything was, see what I could use to my advantage, but I also was considering throwing in the assassination of the mayor for free. My horse's rear end contained more intelligence than that puffed out blowhard, and the air that flows from it smells better too.
I visited the blacksmith, even though seeing my client is something I almost never do. He was a gaunt, tired man who looked like a man with no reason to rise from bed in the morning. I did not reveal my true self to him, but instead told him that I too was a blacksmith visiting for the festival.
His work was of fine quality, not as fine as my own, but fine. I purchased one of his swords; his first sale in months he told me. He would not explain why none would buy from him, but I already knew the answer to that. I doubted my actions improve things for him, but he would get what he paid for.
The first day of the festival was a good one. The townsfolk purchased much of what I had for sale, likely due to their boycott of the local smith. If I were really there to sell I would have begun to worry about running out of stock before the end of the festival, but selling out of merchandise would not only give me an excuse to leave before festival's end, but it would mean I would not have to try to sell anything on my journey home.
I expected the second day of the festival to not go nearly as smooth as the first though; some in town might no longer be in a festive mood come morning.
I waited for night to come; for the masquerade. When the townsfolk returned home, I, and many of the other vendors not plying food or drink, closed up shop and joined the celebration. I worse my normal garb, only adding a mask to make me disappear into the costumed crowd.
It was easy to figure out who Lucius Montressor was. He not only stood with his father at the lighting of the bonfire, but he was the only person there in a bright red robe. He looked every bit the fool his father seemed to be, only not so fat. He behaved as though he thought himself the king; pushing through the crowds, spilling his ale on people and laughing, and molesting any female under the age of forty years who happened within arm's reach.
As people danced, sang, and drank around the fire to a small group of bards playing festive music, the younger residents of the village decorated the straw men that had been erected around the fire. They were meant to help scare away any goblins that may come into the village after the harvest, and on the last night of the festival they would be sacrificed to the bonfire to ensure a safe winter. I did not take part in any of this celebration.
I kept my distance, but kept Lucius in view. I felt excitement at killing that man, something that disturbed me some. I believe that people should enjoy their work, but not when their job is death. Still, watching this spoiled, malicious boy in a man's body drink and fondle his way around the bonfire did nothing to instill me with a sense of professional detachment. I had only seen that sort of boorish behaviour previously on display by members of nobility, and his continued consumption of ale was not improving him.
It was making him into an easier target however. Thankfully the guard did not keep with him as if he were a noble.
My chance presented itself when Lucius wobbled away from bonfire and deeper into the village. He had neither torch nor lantern, and the moon cast only a weak light. I kept in the shadows; close to the buildings. He would not have been able to see me even if he had turned to look, which he did not.
He stopped before the darkened blacksmith's shop, and proceeded to relieve himself of his used ale on the man's doorstep. It was apparently not enough to take the man's daughter and livelihood away from him; Lucius also had to urinate on his front door. I looked around, and saw this was my chance. I pulled the oversized spoon from under my cloak, approached, and hit him in the back of the head. He dropped to the ground, landing in the puddle of his own piss.
It would have been easier to kill the man then and there, but there are two reasons I did not. The first being that Lucius Montressor being found dead at the blacksmith's door would likely end with the smith swinging by the neck. The second reason was that I felt that Lucius should know what was happening to him. He should know why.
I took Lucius to an empty house I had found during my exploration the previous day, and him secured to one of the ceiling joists. It was then time to wake him up. I removed the stopper from my phial of harthorn draught, and waived it under his nose, he awoke with a start.
Lucius looked around, confused by his sudden awakening, his residual drunkenness, and what must have been a quite large headache from being knocked out. It took him a few moments to notice me standing there, my mask laying on a dusty table next to the spoon.
“You! You're that traveling smith!”
“I am.”
“What is going on? Why am I here?” he asked, struggling against the ropes holding him upright. He them looked down and saw that his trousers were missing, “Why am I naked?”
“Your pants were wet,” I explained, “One does not buy ale so much as borrow it, yes? You won't be needing them again anyway.”
“Who are you? What is going on?”
“I am more than just a humble blacksmith. You may have heard of me, Nomo Goda?”
No recognition in his bloodshot eyes.
“No? Never mind,” I started to pace, “So I hear that you like girls.”
“I... I am known to be... popular with the ladies, aye.”
“Not just the ladies.”
“I'm not into men, if that's what you are hinting at; if that's what this is-,” he looked down at his nakedness again, and his face reddened.
“This? No, I am not into members of the male persuasion either. No, I am referring to your interest in children.”
“I do not know of what you speak.”
“Is that so? I am certain that I saw you being overly familiar with a number of younglings tonight; maybe more so with the small girls than with the adult ones, no?”
“I am friendly, there is no crime in that!”
I stepped close to him, and spoke softly into his ear, “I hear you got friendly with the blacksmith's daughter. I hear she did not survive your displays of friendship.”
“Lies!” He yelled, “I was not found to be responsible for her!”
“Yes, and I am certain that your father's position as mayor had nothing to do with that,” I said, walking over to the table, “It does not really matter if you are innocent though. I do not actually care, as I am not here for me. I have been hired to deal with you.”
“Hired?”
I took the spoon in my hand, and turned back to him, “Yes, I am not just a smith, Lucius, I am an assassin, and you,” I took a step towards him, “are,” another step, and I raised the spoon, the sharpened bowl towards him, “my target.”
“No! I can pay you! I can pay you more!”
“That would be no way to run a business,” I said, “Lets get to work, shall we? Lets first be rid of this, you have no more need of it.”
I swung the spoon at his groin.
* * *
I slept soundly in my wagon that night, and was awakened to a commotion outside. In the early morning light I followed the hurrying townsfolk to the center of the village where the straw men remained mounted around the edges of the still smoldering ashes of the previous night's bonfire. The was an extra figure there now.
It seemed that someone had mounted the naked, mutilated body of the mayor's son like one of the straw men for all the public to see. Rather than being decorated with bits of cloth and autumn flowers, this person had scooped out his innards like you would a gord to make a demon's lantern, and then decorated him with them, wrapping is own inner bits around his neck and arms.
They had also cut off his genitals.
The weapon had been rounded; not a sword or dagger to be certain. The guard was baffled, the townsfolk seemed a mixture of horrified and relieved, and the mayor, well the mayor was inconsolable at the loss of his only son. In his grief, he canceled the rest of the festival and ordered all of the visiting craftsmen and vendors out of the village by midday.
As I was preparing to leave, I considered leaving the spoon for the blacksmith so that he would have no doubts that his request had been fulfilled, but I realized that if he was found with it, he would most certainly be blamed for the killing. I would not be surprised if he were blamed anyway actually, though he could not have been the only one with motive in the village.
I did not kill the mayor, though I wanted to. Lucius had been the first time I had enjoyed killing, I mean truly enjoyed it, and it still worried me. I was used to assassinating people I had no opinion on one way or the other, maybe even felt sorry for, but that man.... That man was a venomous spider lurking in the stew, and when you find a spider in your stew you have no choice but to take your spoon and scoop it out.