We are delight
ed to welcome Gavin G. Smith for a special guest post. Gavin’s new book A Quantum Mythology is out now in bookshops and we are thrilled to share with you a deleted scene from it. Gavin G. Smith’s new epic space opera is a wide-ranging exploration of the past, present and future of mankind.
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A note from Gavin G. Smith:So this was originally in chapter 1. It happens just after the Hellaquin, an immortal operative in the service of the Circle, arrives in Birmingham, England. Set in the 18th century, it added a bit of background colour.
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The deleted scene: He caught the wrist of a young urchin who had been reaching into his coat. He snapped the bone in the boy’s wrist. The boy screamed out in pain and backed away from the Hellaquin, holding his wrist, fighting tears, but glaring at him angrily. The Hellaquin hadn’t wanted to hurt him, but as he looked at the hard-faced children around him, and their equally hard-faced mothers and older sisters staring back at him, he knew that the lesson had to be well taught if he wanted peace. He also knew that a broken arm meant that the boy couldn’t earn. He had some hard months ahead of him, if indeed he lived. Further east he could hear screaming, but that was just the pigs at the swine market where New Street met the High Street.
“What do you want?” the urchin with the broken arm demanded. The Hellaquin understood the words but somehow it didn’t sound like the language that he spoke.
“Are you with the government troops?” one of the prostitutes demanded. There had been three hot nights in July. Factory workers had taken exception to a group of industrialists, religious dissenters and intellectuals who had publicly declared support for the French Revolution. The king had finally been forced to send troops in to bring the disturbances to an end.
The Hellaquin shook his head.
“A crown to someone who can get me to the Old Crown on the High Street without having to wade through pig shit,” the Hellaquin growled.
“This is the Froggary, love, not the place to be if you don’t like shit,” one of the prostitutes said, eyeing him warily. A number of the older urchins were also weighing him up carefully. He opened his coat and let them see the hilts of his swords.
“Have a think about it, lads,” he told them.
“I’ll take you,” the boy with the broken arm said through pain and gritted teeth.
“Now, I suspect your friends are going to jump me in the rookery. They’ll get killed, and you won’t get paid if that happens. Do you understand me?” The Hellaquin was hoping that he didn’t have to teach any more lessons. He had no taste for hurting anyone else. The urchin with the broken arm gave it some thought and then nodded.
“We can just take what we want now.” It was one of the older boys who had spoken. He couldn’t have been much more than fourteen but he was already well built, scarred, and stank of alcohol. He reminded the Hellaquin of how he had started, of when he’d marched through France with the Black Prince. Except the Hellaquin’s shoulders had been broader. The Hellaquin put the case down and leant the leather-wrapped stave against the wall. He could already feel people shifting, wanting to make a grab for his belongings, even if they didn’t know their value.
“Well, let’s do this now then, get it over with. We’re all busy people,” the Hellaquin said quietly.
The older urchin stared at him.
“C’mon lads, he’s big but we can take him in a rush.”
There was more shifting, but nobody attacked.
“Take your crown and leave him be,” a voice from the shadows deeper in the alley said. The woman was gaunt, old, and every day of her hard life looked to have been etched into her disease-ravaged body. The Hellaquin wondered if even at his drunkest and most desperate he would have paid to go with her. “That one’s killed people, he has.” The urchin who had advised attacking him opened his mouth to retort. “You keep your peace, Davey Black, you’re not too big for a smack in the mouth.”
“Sorry mum,” the lad muttered, clearly cowed. There was some sniggering from the nearby urchins. The fearsome old prostitute smacked the closest one on the side of their head.
“You a foreigner?” she asked.
“Yes miss, I’m from Cheshire,” the Hellaquin told her.
She smiled a smile of missing teeth and diseased gums.
“I like his manner.” There was some giggling amongst the other prostitutes. Then her face hardened. “That wasn’t right, what you did to Robby’s arm.”
“It was either that or I would have had to kill a number of them.”
She watched him for a while. Measuring him. Coming to a decision.
“Yeah. You’re a hard man, Mr Cheshire.”
“There are harder than me, believe me.”
“Oh I does love, I does. But you don’t mean us no harm, does you?” The Hellaquin just shook his head. “I feel sorry for whomever you do mean harm to. Robby, take him through, quickly but quietly. Anyone stops you, you tell them I said it was okay. Then you get yourself to Granny Stonely and get her to look at your arm.”
The boy nodded through gritted teeth and turned to go deeper into the Froggary. As the Hellaquin passed the woman he palmed her two crowns.
“Don’t come back here,” she whispered as she made the coins disappear as if they’d never existed. He nodded.
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