It was morning in the kingdom of Black Dawn, dew-soaked and cold.
Back at the village of slaves, the clown's hut had been trashed. It had been in that state for days; the clown hardly ever returned home. Scrawled in her own greasepaint on a cardboard inner wall was the quaint and misspelled little message:
DiE u VaMpiyRe FrEindD
The clown had been too tired to notice it upon returning. She slept. Her greasepaint had partially rubbed off; smeared blackness was still clinging to her eyes. Huddled under the ragged fragments of sacking cloth that made up her bed, the clown slept.
She slept, while the other slaves gathered together what was left of their free will, and plotted. It was the first semi-coherent plot to overthrow the vampires that they had formed in a long time. The clown had been a slave of the Black Dawn kingdom for three months, and this was the first plotted rebellion she had witnessed, or at least, the first one she would have witnessed had she been awake to witness it.
One of the slaves drew the clown out of her dreamless sleep. It was not a gentle awakening.
"Aw, bugger off … ow, stoppit … woss 'appening, eh …?" the clown murmured groggily, as a rough hand shook her awake. Her blurred vision focussed, and her eyes came to rest on what was directly in front of her. Something sharp …
"Bloody 'ell." The clown sat up cautiously, automatically putting up her hands. "Where'd yer get a dangerous fing like that, eh?"
The slave in front of her was tall, but his shoulders had taken on an automatically hunched stance: the result of a few years of enforced humility. His voice quavered slightly, as though he had forgotten what it was like to be on the giving end of orders. "You … shut up. Or … I'll have to use it."
The clown smirked slightly, sensing a façade. And if anyone was an expert on putting up a front, it was her …
"Look 'ere, you," she said, not unkindly, pushing aside the bolt of the stolen crossbow with an assertive finger. "Yer don't want to go pointin' that at the wrong person now, do yer? Let's not mess about, eh? Watcha want wiv me?"
~
Peregrine was hunched over a table, a candle stub beside him: a sphere of light amongst towers and mountains of murky books. In the cavernous oak crypt that was the castle's library, the lone vampire was the only area of movement, furiously flicking through the pages of leather-bound tomes that had not been glanced at for possibly a century or two. But then again …
His dark eyes pinned down the detail that had been tweaking the edges of his mind. His pale fingers froze in the action of turning a page. The heavy volumes he had taken the trouble to find had not been touched, or so he thought, for years at least. They were covered in the grey powder of time to a thickness of almost half an inch. Colonies of spiders had made their homes in the spines. There was enough dust to kill an asthmatic from twenty paces. And yet …
He leaned closer, eyes narrowed.
Fingerprints in the dust, too small to be his own. That was the incongruous detail.
He glanced at the titles of the books again. Traditions, rituals, ceremonies, events. They were all about the ancient foundations of Black Dawn, and some weren't even printed. Some were written by hand, by someone with enough time on their hands to note every small aspect of the stilted procedures that revolved around the royal family of the kingdom. Someone who liked attention to detail. Someone who wanted future generations to remember. Someone who really needed to get out more and meet new people ...
Peregrine slammed the book shut, regretting it immediately when the resulting cloud of dust and grime blinded him. Coughing, choking, eyes screwed shut, the vampire staggered out of the room. Outside in the damp corridor, he paused to brush the cobwebs out of his hair. Appearances were important - especially since there were people to see, matters to discuss …
~
There were slaves clustered around the pile of rags that was the bed of the clown. The young woman herself was gazing up at the crowd of emaciated, hollow-eyed figures with something approaching amusement. They believed they were threatening her. The clown felt as though she was being held hostage by damp tissue paper.
She blinked as they told her what their plot consisted of.
"Yer want me to what?" She couldn't help sniggering. "Don't be daft, I ain't doing that."
The slaves repeated themselves, slowly, carefully, and with more vehement gesturing with the crossbow. The seemingly damp tissue paper had needles in it. The clown listened, sighed, and scowled. She could already tell: this was not going to be a good morning.
"Fine, no worries. I'll be yer distraction. But I ain't happy 'bout it, for anyone who cares."
There was a pointed silence.
"All right, all right," the clown snarled, dragging herself out of the tangled rags of bedding. She was pretending to ignore the crossbow. "When are yer doing this whole plot fing, anyways … What?" She blinked. "Wathca mean, right now? I been performin' all night … all right, fine. No need to get all stroppy 'bout it. Jus' put yer pointy fing down, all right? Yer little plot ain't going to work, o' course … all right, I ain't saying I won't try me best. For crying out loud ..."
Muttering venomously, she began scrabbling amongst her scattered possessions for clothing and greasepaint sticks. Then she glanced up, and the clown saw the trashed mess for the first time. There was one thing very wrong with it.
"All right, which one o' you buggers went an' nicked me coxcomb again, eh? Yer'd fink it were funny or somefink …"