Polite Society: Chapter Eight

A chorus of excited voices greeted Credence outside the building.

With the Headmaster's hand firmly around hers and pulling to guide, Credence was swept into a sea of bodies squished shoulder-to-shoulder against each other. Some of them glanced her way, but most barely took notice, their attention held elsewhere.

Night had fallen but there was no fear in the towns. No one ran for the safety of their homes. They didn't need to, as hundreds of torches lit the streets, bathing everything in a warm, golden glow that left no corner in shadow. A celebration was taking place, a great festival with colorful banners decorating every last building, and musicians playing different songs simultaneously, creating a wall of sound that jarred the ears.

All of it surrounding the wooden stage.

The Auction, Credence realized.

She had thought to be spared from watching it, and her stomach twisted when the Headmaster took his place in the audience, pulling her close and keeping a firm grip on her shoulder. Noting Credence's fearful look, he bent down to her ear, and she could barely hear his voice above the noise.

"Need a domestic or two for the school," he explained. "I'll find them here. Is this your first time seeing the Auction?" Credence nodded, which seemed to please the Headmaster. "Oh my, what a treat."

A woman was swimming through the crowd with her fist raised high in the air, clutching a ball of dough. She was yelling, though Credence could not make out her words, and every so often she stopped to exchange a piece of food for coins. The Headmaster waved his hand to catch the woman's attention and she pushed past several shoulders to get close, then offered a steaming bun to the Headmaster. He answered with silver and the woman moved on to the next pair of hands waving for her.

"Something tasty," the Headmaster said and handed the food to Credence, "for your first Auction."

Credence was hesitant to eat the strange offering, but when the smell of fresh bread hit her nostrils it was more than she could argue against, and she dove into her treat with vigor. Inside the bun was a paste sweeter than anything she'd ever eaten before, and the dough around it was soft as a rabbit's fur.

She tried to chew as slowly as possible, wanting to savor the flavors and textures. Perhaps the towns wasn't as terrible as she'd been told—though it was far dirtier than she'd imagined.

The faces surrounding her were well-leathered by the sun, and the wrinkles of their smiles and foreheads were enhanced with dirt and grease and sweat. Like the Headmaster, several people wore pale wigs, though very few were as pristine as his. Most were matted tangles, dusty and old, releasing small puffs of white smoke when they were jostled or moved too quickly.

A special handful of people had caked their skin with paint, whitening their faces and smearing their lips with deep reds, and dotting their cheeks with tiny black shapes. They seemed to be of a higher class than their peers, like the Headmaster and Mistress Cinder, and they had a glint of disdain in their eyes when they looked at everyone else.

The smell, which was already intrusive during the initial cart ride in, was amplified in its offensiveness, and inescapable given the density of the crowd.

Credence wondered if everyone else could smell it too, and if they had simply decided not to care. Just as awful as the smell was the noise, much worse than it had been when she arrived, and with such a stifling abundance that Credence feared she might be choked by it. She wished for a square of fabric like the one the Headmaster carried, though she wasn't sure where she would stuff it first, inside her nostrils or ears.

Commotion erupted behind her, as the line of brightly dressed red stripes were led from the building Credence had just come from, and people moved aside to stare and taunt them. Miss Scrubbs led the line, playfully swatting at reaching hands and cracking crude jokes to the onlookers, while the two girls in brown dresses used paddles to keep people from getting too close. It must have been a frightening walk, Credence thought, for she could see the red stripes' clothing being pulled on by the brazen reach of several strangers, who once or twice managed a pinch on the youths' exposed skin, and made the young men and women in line blush.

The line moved around the edge of the wooden stage until it disappeared behind a long cloth scrim painted with the images of dancing couples. What happened to the red stripes next Credence couldn't guess, and her attention was pulled from their fate by a thin man who was leaping across the stage, entertaining the rabble with tricks and stunts.

He wore bright clothing not unlike a jester's garb, and a black mask that covered his face from forehead to nose. He was working his audience with ease, getting their excitement stirred for the spectacle of the Auction.

The masked man gave a signal with his hands and all the musicians quieted their music, and the crowd dimmed their conversations to barely above a whisper.

"We've got gold in our purse," the masked man's voice echoed over everything, "and a mind to spend it, eh?" The multitude roared back and he motioned for them to calm. "'Course we do, 'course we do—but! What's an Auction without a show first? Nothin' of course! What's a life without a bit of entertainment? Grim indeed! So how's about a little black stripe dancing to put the merry in our bones?"

The crowd broke into thunderous applause and cheering, as if they'd been given a great gift. Men, women, and children stomped their feet on the ground to signal their anticipation, and three people with black stripes painted across their chests were dragged onto the stage.

They hadn't seen a bath like the red stripes. They might not have been let out of the carts for the entire day. They looked miserable, like empty bodies without a soul, and blank, fixed stares.

Without a hint of concern, the masked man hopped over to the first prisoner, a man bleeding from his head, and grabbed his chin to pull him to the center of the stage.

"You work hard every day of your life," the masked man addressed the crowd, "and what does this one do? Steals your bread right from under you! What do we think of that?"

The crowd booed and hissed, and someone threw a ball of mush that landed directly on the bleeding man's chest. The masked man jumped back and giggled.

"Don't get ahead of me, loves, he'll get his."

The bleeding man fell to his knees and began to weep.

"I was starving," he cried. "Please! Have mercy, I had to eat!"

"We're all starving," the masked man said cruelly, "we all got needs here! 'Starving' is no excuse!"

The masked man straightened himself and put his boot on the bleeding man's shoulder. The bleeding man looked up at him, trembling so hard he shook the foot that rested on his body.

"What do we say to 'starving'?" the masked man asked the crowd.

The reply was instantaneous screams of fury and ridicule.

"By leave of the towns," the masked man said and pushed his boot, sending the prisoner onto his face. The bleeding man was gasping for breath, his eyes staring wildly at the audience sneering back at him. He mouthed the word 'please' but there was no pity from the mob. The masked man clapped, and an enormous brute joined the company on stage, his hands gripping a long, thick whip.

Several people raced to string up the bleeding man between two wooden poles, holding the ropes so tightly he was suspended in the air. The masked man ripped the prisoner's shirt from his body with a small blade, then stood back and quieted the crowd.

"Would anyone deny the Chopper his due?" The masked man pointed to the brute holding the whip. "Hasn't he a job, same as us all? Speak now, if you wish to spare the ugly thief—or hold your fat tongue and let him have it!"

Every last voice dimmed to a sinister silence, and not a soul dared to make noise. The bleeding man could be heard clearly now as he begged and cried. The next sound was the whoosh of the Chopper's whip flying through the air, and a painful snapping as it licked the man's skin. It made a nasty welt on his chest, and the force of it sent the man back, but the ropes held him in place. The Chopper flicked his wrist again and sent blow after blow across the man's torso.

The crowd hollered and clapped, and it was only Credence who winced with each lash, and every new line on the man was felt in her heart.

But the Chopper wasn't content. His aim turned to the man's face, and a lash split his cheek and burst his bottom lip. A nasty blow that whipped across the man's eye made Credence look away.

She dropped the last of her hot bun to the ground, unable to stomach another bite.

They mean to kill him, she thought, one lash at a time until he drops. Because he was hungry.

The crime did not merit the punishment, Credence felt, but the crowd was thirsty for blood, and the only thing that mattered to them was that it wasn't their own.

Trying to distract herself from the horror onstage, Credence turned to look behind, and her eyes landed on a toddler perched on its father's shoulders. It was clapping its tiny hands together and watching the torture with a drooling smile.

A heavy clunking pulled Credence's attention back to the stage, just in time for her to see a new whip being unfurled by the Chopper.

At its end were curved iron blades.

Credence shut her eyes tight. She wouldn't watch. She couldn't.

But she heard the first strike across the man's flesh, and the screams of approval that followed.

Credence plugged her ears with her fingers but it did horribly little to dampen the sound. Several more strikes followed, and Credence even heard a few shocked gasps from the onlookers.

After a final gruesome squish and crunch, the masked man's voice called to the crowd.

Credence removed her hands from her ears but didn't dare look up. She didn't want to see what the poor man had been reduced to, and she realized with a cold dread that she couldn't hear his screams anymore.

The masked man was introducing a new prisoner to the stage, and explained in more than a few unpleasant words that the crime committed was selling a sick cow.

It would not be a whip for this one, explained the masked man, it would be the blade.

"What's a Chopper good for if not chopping," the masked man joked.

The sound that came after turned Credence's stomach. Something was going into skin, over and over again, and once more the tortured wailing was drowned by the delight of those watching.

It continued this way, hearing petty crimes followed by increasingly hideous murders. Credence thought a criminal was someone who committed an atrocity, but as the masked man listed off each offense they sounded less and less deserving of the punishment they inflicted.

Overcharging for wool.

Stealing a horse.

Drunken public foolery.

Credence felt the only ones committing crimes were the Chopper and the masked man—and the audience that encouraged them.

And then a familiar voice, rough and mean, shouted from the stage, cursing and spitting and howling.

"S'not fair, I's did nothin'! An' I's know all the poses, too! I's still useful!"

Wonda.

Credence looked at the stage, now soaked red, and saw Wonda struggling under rope. She'd been bound from chest to hips and had to be carried onto the stage, but she continued to fight until her bearer dropped her onto the wooden floor.

As she attempted to stand, the masked man smiled at her.

"Wonda the Frog! I finally got the towns' ugliest wretch to stain my stage! We feared we might never have the pleasure, but now you're here and we've got something special in mind for you."

A block of wood was placed at the masked man's feet and Wonda was made to kneel behind it.

The hands of angry men held her head in place upon the block, with her chin resting forward so she was forced to face the audience.

"You've run afoul of almost every decent folk 'round here," the masked man said loudly, more presenting to the crowd than addressing the bound girl. "Who among us hasn't heard your filthy braying? Who hasn't been victim to your thieving fingers? Or worse, who's been an unlucky victim to your loathsome predilections?"

"You more than once," Wonda snapped back, "an' paid for the pleasure!"

The mass of people shook with laughter and jeering. The masked man scowled and grabbed a fistful of Wonda's hair.

"Been a long time coming, this meeting between us." His gaze turned back the crowd. "Not a soul here doesn't want to see you dead. How's that feel, eh? To know that no one wishes you alive?"

"I's 'ad a friend," Wonda argued. "I's found one! An' she was the best o' you all! A princess even! We was 'igh class ladies 'fore you tore us apart! Can't 'member her name..."

The masked man stood and pushed the tip of his boot against Wonda's mouth.

"Lyin' again, eh? You'll lie with your last breath, I imagine. Look at them all now, you monster.  No one loves you, no one's ever loved you. You were born to be hated. Wonda, the little frog, a vermin whose face does nothing but torment and disgust. What do we do to vermin, eh? We squish them, don't we? And I have just the boot."

Under the direction of the masked man, a low chant grew from the mob, repeated in slow, ominous rhythm.

"Squish."

More voices joined until the entire audience rang with the word. Wonda's face scrunched up in hate, and her eyes looked over the faces with an intent to curse them. The masked man pushed on her head with his foot and moved to the back of the stage, where the Chopper was lifting something from an iron chest.

"Go on," Wonda said, her voice shaking with the threat of tears, "ain't no one's ever 'ad a 'eart for me, no' kin or stranger. Glad to be done wif all o' you's!"

Credence's heart was racing. She didn't want to see what came next, but even worse, she felt a desperate need to save Wonda. As nasty as the girl might be, she was still a child, and a human life. Credence tugged on the Headmaster's arm.

"Excuse me, Headmaster," she said, her voice hitching in her throat, "they're not going to hurt her—are they?"

The Headmaster looked at her with a small, pitying surprise in his eyes.

"They're going to do what's best for the towns."

The Chopper handed something to the masked man, who turned around to reveal a boulder in his arms.

The crowd went silent.

"Got this special gift just for you," the masked man said to Wonda.

She spat a glob that landed at the edge of the stage.

"Tha's wha' I fink of yer gifts!"

The masked man approached her slowly, struggling with the weight of the boulder. When he stood directly over Wonda he lifted the rock with a grunt, but then paused and lowered it, as if the most amusing idea had just come to him.

"But perhaps," he said with a hint of humor, "there may be one here who wishes to spare this beast."

Soft laughter followed his suggestion, and the masked man pointed to a face in the crowd.

"You! You're the creature's brother, aren't you? What's your word on this?"

Several heads turned in the same direction, and their eyes landed on a filthy young man who was drinking from a large cup. It was the same man who'd beaten Wonda at the cart. He finished his drink and wiped his mouth.

"I came for drink an' fun," he called to the stage, "so's get on with it!"

"But your own sister," the masked man said with a mocking pout.

"That ain't a sister," Wonda's brother barked back. "Tha's a frog with teeth! Put it out o' its misery—an' ours too!"

The masked man nodded and scanned the audience one final time, feeding the dramatic thrill that was steadily rising amongst the spectators.

"Oi! Headmaster! Surely you can tame this animal? I'll even sell her cheap—how's a single silver sound to you?"

It must have been a joke, for everyone laughed, except Credence, who looked at the Headmaster hopefully. He took a moment to consider the bargain.

"I train children, not frogs."

His reply was found more amusing than the setup, and several people clapped and patted the Headmaster's back. The masked man grinned and bowed his head at a joke well delivered, then lifted the boulder above Wonda's head.

Credence shut her eyes and plugged her ears as best she could, knowing it would do little to muffle what came next.

"Finally found a way to stop that mouth," she heard the masked man say.

A sickeningly wet crunch cut through the air as the boulder was dropped.

The crowd roared with laughter.