Rytius Records (Substack Edition), Ch. 5

Chapter 5. Special Delivery

5. Special Delivery

Never hard to spot, Ritius emerged first from his black truck, before his guard, and even before his valet. He had the effect of a wedge in flowing water, tower residents scattering leftward into the towers and around corners further up the street, and shoppers streaming rightward, across the street, past the sentry gates, to disappear among the alcoves, stalls, and niches of the market. His shotgun swung out from under his oiled horsehide cloak and hit the side of the truck. Whereas the mere appearance of his armored black pickup truck emblazoned with Appall’s red death harp insignia hadn’t, this noise—halfway between the gong of a steel drum and the strike of a hammer on the head of a particularly large nail—alarmed the two women serving breakfast sandwiches from the BROOKSIDE BREAKFAST BUGGY.

Ritius exiting his truck

They were cuckoo clock birds selling CRISPY CRAWLERS spiced in delicious combinations with eggs, toast, and various garnishes, precisely machined creatures of fine pattern and habit, clicking and turning in their appropriate grooves, reaching down here to pluck up the frying grease bottle, there to arrange the spice canisters along the edge of the cooktop, now to sweep and scrape the griddle, to hook spoons and ladles to hips, to tuck stray tufts of hair finally securely beneath their nets, and then to smile coldly at one another, the one wrapping one last sandwich for one last patron while the other began packing up. They had done this dance together daily for many years in several places and had never yet become friendly. It was between them and it was nobody else’s business, but it was also as though the clock simply went into reverse, running the same actions backward, their setup now a teardown every bit as gear-driven but the action a bit more raggedy, with a little more rattle and shake. Ritius seemed not to notice them hustling off, stuffing soft supplies into the ripped, open mouths and swollen gullets of their overused rezippable plastic bags with ripped zippers, twisting them shut by twirling them in one hand, hooking the hoop to the proper peg poking out of the cart. They rolled out, busting up the group of tenant applicants they had been serving, cart wheels clattering against the cracks in the sidewalk, rattling around the corner.

Ritius stood tall, hitching up his six guns while his deputies formed his guard. He had always been contemptuous of bodyguards, and he doubted that these untested youth, even with their automatic rifles, would help much in a meaningful confrontation. There are doubtless many matters in which nothing can substitute for experience.

“RITIUS!” Rytius barked from across the street.

“RYTIUS!” Ritius hollered back. “WHAT’S GOING ON WITH YOU, BROTHER?”

Rytius crossed, smiling, leaning back, as he approached, as though he were awed and impressed with his brother’s self-presentation. Ritius never acknowledged this disrespect. Rytius was the older brother, even if by only a year, and Ritius had often thought highly of his brother. He had always insisted that he named himself after his older brother. He had been a little confused about the different uses of is and ys, but he did mean to make his name like his brother’s, and he did mean to make it different and mean different at the same time. Ritius would never acknowledge this disrespect, and he was sure that his brother would show no more.

“I received a letter for you today.” Rytius raised his hands and opened his coat by the collar for frisking. The senior guardsman looked to Ritius for an indication. Was he really supposed to frisk this man, his master’s brother?

Ritius looked cool and level at Rytius and wondered whether his brother was about to perform some slick new breed of impertinence. Ritius decided he wouldn’t and frowned and shook his head. It would not be necessary to frisk his brother. There were still three automatic weapons aimed at his midsection in any case.

“You should deliver letters to our offices, brother,” Ritius quipped, smiling broadly, as though to take the edge off. “If you want to be a postman, I am saying. Do it right, right?” He laughed in place of his guardsmen, who didn’t dare. “Run up and get gunned up.”

Rytius ignored all this dark admonishment and jocular assuagement and, perhaps to his detriment, put all consideration of the workings of Ritius’s mind out of his own. He pulled the letter out of his jacket and handed it over. He was disappointed to find himself in the grip of a sudden and involuntary indecision whether he should suggest that Ritius read the letter now, because Ritius had forgotten so much since they were boys, and he likely had little cause any longer to read. Or then perhaps he should ask to leave before the letter were read, so as not to appear to play on Ritius’s family feeling. Then he remembered that he didn’t explain even the very first thing.

“It was delivered to the house this morning, and I opened it and read it, thinking it was for me,” he said. Addressing the first thing delivered him from any difficulty managing his brother’s reaction to the letter. That was entirely Ritius’s responsibility now, to choose how to receive this letter, wrongly delivered, wrongly read.

Ritius opened and read the letter silently, lips unmoving. Rytius had underestimated his brother, and this mistake alerted him to the potential presence of others that he might have missed, because he had been underestimating his brother. Ritius’s face was plain and Rytius could read nothing on it. When Ritius had finished, he folded the letter and pocketed it. He looked into his brother’s eyes and asked him, simply, when it would be convenient for him to come by the store to do a proper inventory, so that the prince might know what treasures would fill his tower. Rytius answered that tomorrow Tuesday would be best, and the brothers parted with a pound.