The Phantom Pen

Death has never tasted sweeter

I have never been a man of God, but then loyalty has never been a necessity for me. It was merely a word plucked out of the dictionary to keep the men of these lands in check. The term ‘control’ takes the form of many synonyms, be it religion, money, or greed.

I have betrayed my King with words shared in the ear of our enemy. Secrets and revelations poised to bring down the Monarchs and their future kin. I have spent many months in Spain, where I have held meetings with none other than the head of state: King Charles III.

I hereby write this confession with my hand in the presence of Lords as an act of good faith. I feel I have been consumed by a strange force that presides outside the walls of logic and reason. No church in the land will forgive my deeds; nor will the priests and bishops that work under the glass ceiling of God.

Forgive me, my King. I know the taste of treason; it has the sickly texture of toffee apples on a stick, licked away in the presence of yellowing, worn-out enamel. Smile down on me, God, may your rotting teeth light the way.

Lord James Lavender

I placed the quill down on the desk carefully, not to break its stem. Armed guards in red military uniforms drew spears to my eye line. I couldn’t help but find an attraction to the emblem of the King sewn proudly on with impeccable stitching. A unicorn and lion rear up to a crest lining the bloodlines of our four nations. A golden crown sits perched on top of a shield completing the coat of arms.

The wiry fellow taking centre stage was a man I knew from times in parliament; a wicked man who I had been watching very closely. I had come to the conclusion he had poisonous plans in the making, to climb up the ladder of the establishment, using the men he had betrayed as the rungs. It would appear I was the final stepping stone on his treacherous journey.

His black polished shoes were a vast contradiction to the long white socks that concealed any trace of skin. The velvet olive waistcoat he sported was being held firmly at the edge of the cloth, his elbows out, flared as if he was ready to cluck.

He swanned over to the tarnished writing desk with long eccentric strides before snatching the long roll of paper and holding it up to the light, admiring the ink filtering through the thin surface. He shook it vigorously, wanting the words to remain in their most elegant form.

Lord Dashmar’s face illuminated like the moon on a sunny day, a trace of a smile drawn on with the ink borrowed from my pen pot. His eye sockets were dark and sunken from consecutive sleepless nights haunted by the lives of others.

“You will never get away with this, Dashmar!”

He stared me down like a stray dog, his eyes unmoved, his eyelids appeared syringed away. He waved the letter into the air as it was the flag of the commonwealth.

“You have just signed your death warrant, James, in a room full of Kings guards.”

I looked at the guard’s stern faces.

“Why are you doing this to me?”

“Knowledge is power, and you know too much of my dealings. In such circumstances, death will be a kinder option than most. Guards, arrest that man!”

I put my feeble arms into the air to prevent any more injury. I was lifted to my feet and assertively pushed in the back and edged out towards the door. Rubbing shoulders with Dashmar, his grin spoke of victory and supremacy, prompting me to beckon a pool of saliva onto the tip of my tongue. I puffed out a burst of air, propelling the phlegm I had gathered into his eye.

The guards immediately stopped and waited for their commander’s inevitable reaction. Dashmar raised a hand and casually wiped away the spit from his cheek with a collection of fingers. Gazing down at his shimmering skin, he felt the liquid’s texture, placing the four fingertips to his mouth.

“Death has never tasted sweeter…”

A subtle nod from his grace prompted the guards to shove me out of my London office. The tired maids and clerks stopped along the hall and stared at my ejection. Ignoring my pleas, I was lead down the red-carpeted staircase and to the grand oak doors. Soon after I was in a black stagecoach pulled along by two horses of a similar colouring. The laws of this country, like most, were blinkered, in keeping with the chaperone beasts ready to deliver me to the Tower.

I peered out of the carriage and looked up at the victorian building to my office window. I saw a ghostly silhouette of Lord Dashmar from behind the curtain as he watched my demise. Hawks in the King’s uniforms followed my every movement inside the carriage as it swayed along the cobbled lanes. The spinning spokes and metal hooves could not distract me from what would be awaiting me.

The Tower of London needed no introduction, nor did the ravens with who could never be allowed to leave their dwellings. I looked up to the Tower’s highest point, hearing the screams echo down from its stone holdings.

Two guards accompanied me through the main gates and down a stone staircase to a dingily-lit dungeon. The prisoners motioned closer to the bars of their cell to gauge the next freeman to be dismantled by madness. Their eyes defeated, their liberty stolen.

A rusted gate groaned open, inviting me into a deprived pit. Small puddles had formed as a result of a leaking roof. The rainwater was bathed in by one rat, which was the size of a cat. The locks churned against cold metal, confirming my current predicament. Not wanting to soak my trousers in the filth, I wrapped my hands around the metal bars and held on for dear life. After hours of standing, my legs wobbled as if I had been walking for days, my nose twitching at the god-awful stench.

My legs gave up on me halfway through the night. I curled up into a ball as the vicious night draped its cloak over the city. I had given up kicking the rats off my legs at the seventh time of asking.

The next morning, I was plucked from my cell and marched up the stairs to ground level. Rusted chains orbited my wrists and feet as I pleaded with the guards to let me free.

I walked past the busy town’s people, directed through the market stalls where traders were selling rotting fruit and poorly-fed chickens. The crowds had gathered in their droves to experience a free dose of entertainment. Through demonic laughter, I heard the crowd cheer and chant. The smiling public was muckier than the rags they were draped in, the dirt from their jobs and poverty permanently staining their skin.

The chopping block was the first object to catch my eye, followed in a close second by a seven-foot brute leaning on the handle of a sharpened axe. If his height and statue were not intimidating enough, the mask he wore sent my legs into a frenzy. There were no slits cut out for sight, no mouth opening to cast a smile. The long baggy garment had a pointy tip that flared out like a skirt around his tree-trunk neck. His muscular arms bulged, the veins under the skin protruding due to the line of work he undertook.

“Any last words…?” The minister asked me from across the way as silence descended.

I had prepared a speech, yet it seemed inappropriate and dull in such desperate times. Knowing the end was near, I decided to speak my mind. I wanted to be remembered in some capacity, no matter how big or small.

“Show my head to the people — it is worth seeing,”

I gulped as the minister stepped backward and nodded slowly at the hooded executioner. He yanked free the axe from its splintered home and held it up for the audience to see. With my shoulders pushed down, my knees hinged on their own accord. I titled my head at an angle to stare at the members of the audience near the front row.

The noise was unlike anything heard before — the peasants’ droning voices rang in my eardrums. Despite my predicament, their lives did not present me with envy. I believed they would suffer far longer than I ever would. I felt the cold steel tickle my skin as the executioner sized up the area of my neck.

I damned the man who had cut my life short. I cursed that bastard, Lord Dash-

Death, despite the rumours, offered up numerous possibilities. For those who leave these plains with a grudge or two, don’t fear, for some of you will get invited back to settle the score.

Regrettably, I am a shadow of my former self — a phantom, haunting the cobbled streets I once graced. I stalked my old office and spied on the maids in their chambers as they undressed. It is times like these; I wish I were more adventurous in my endeavours as a younger man. I heard their whispers and the shared shock of my sudden departure at the hands of capital punishment.

My study had not changed; my paintings of war heroes were still hanging in their golden frames. The only noticeable difference was a strange man who resided in my chair. He was my protégé, a replacement sent to continue my good work. I launched a barrage of insults into his path, angry that he had jumped in my grave while I was still shovelling away the dirt.

I drifted around my old desk to the blank scroll that was ready to be scribbled on. The quill I had used to sign my life away was in the same position I had left it. I placed my hand onto the man’s shoulder and imagined what I would write if I were in this man’s shoes. I imagined the pot of ink spilling over the page to form letters and words of perfect cursive elegance.

My protégé suddenly lunged forward and pinched the feather quill as if he had an epiphany. Dipping the nib into the pot, he held the feather tightly, his wrist resting gently against the paper. I stared at the vast emptiness and demanded the man to write.

The man watched his wrist scuttle across the page, unable to halt its flow. The words etched onto the paper were not from his mind but mine. The style and pacing were unique to him, yes, but the thoughts and ideas were of my design. Once he had finished, we both were curious. Leaning forward in synchronicity, we scrutinized the words scrawled with collapsed eyebrows.

“We must find Lord Dashmar and slit his throat!”

The gentleman looked at these words with peculiar glances. My smile had returned in light of finding a puppet I could communicate through. I had to take this opportunity quickly and exert my influence by pulling at the strings. Not too tightly, I couldn’t risk him running out of the room and screaming blue murder.

A visit from the priest was tiresome enough in the land of the living, let alone in the land of the dead. An exorcism was the last thing I needed.

“You shall help me kill Lord Dashmar.”

The gentleman couldn’t put the pen down; his body was stiff and rigid. No words hence were forthcoming.

“He will come for you next…”

My protégé surrendered the quill to the table and pushed backward with his heels to scar the wooden floorboards. He waltzed past me in haste to the long mirror above the unused fireplace. His reflection was of a man full of concern and worry. He pulled down the skin around his eyes as if he were carrying out a medical consultation. Closing his eyes, the nervous lad tried to control his breathing by sucking in a lung full of air. When his eyes opened, he jumped back from the mirror, yelping as if he was a dog kicked by its owner.

He did not hear someone enter the room, yet he knew my face having seen my head on a metal spike outside Traitors’ Gate.

I motioned to the desk for him to continue my dictation, my eyes burning a hole into the bridge of his nose. Sheepishly, the man stumbled to the counter, unable to look anywhere but my direction. A paperweight and sheets of paper were banished to the ground by my protégé’s clumsy movements.

The breaking of glass failed to stir the gentleman who gingerly pulled the chair underneath his legs and rested his shaking hands on the wooden arms. He proceeded by raising his right hand to the desk, dipping the quill into the ink, reading himself for my instruction.

Like a conductor at an orchestra, I asked the words to flow like musical notes. I drew an exaggerated ‘w’ repeatedly with both arms using my fingers as pointers.

“Sir, I am about to make you famous. Together with your influence and my power, we will bring down Lord Dashmar!”

Dean Middleburgh is a writer that has had the good fortune to write for P.S. I love you, Invisible Illness, The New North and Storymaker. Please feel free to follow him and read his short stories here: Dean Middleburgh

Other stories you might like: