Speaker 1: The Scum Kings, a broad Sword Studio production created and
written by Mike Daltrey. Chapter six, empty bellies.
Speaker 2: Two days without food or water, and the dark has
a taste. It tastes like rust and bile. The hold
is sweltering. The river heat seeps through the hull and
bakes us in our own stink. Stiggins stopped groaning hours ago.
He's just a shape in the corner now, breathing slow
and shallow. His cut arm crusted, black GIGX is sitting upright,
eyes open in the dark, grinning at nothing. He hasn't
complained once. I think he's enjoying this. My stomach has
stopped growling. It's moved past hunger into something quieter and meaner,
A dull ache behind my ribs, a fog in my head.
They don't open the hatch for us, They open it
for themselves. Daylight slices down into the hold like a blade,
and Brin's boots appear on the ladder behind her. Two
of her crew, carrying waterskins and hard tack. They drink
and eat right there on the ladder, looking down at us.
Then they close the hatch. It's a message you don't exist.
The third time they do it. Or So snaps, this
is insanity. He says. His lips are cracked. His voice
sounds like gravel dragged over glass. I'm not dying in
a hole because Stigand can't keep his hands to himself.
He starts shouting at the hatch. Brin, captain, I have value.
I'm the best tactical mind on this river. Silence from above,
then footsteps. The hatch opens. Brin's face appears backlit by
the sun. She looks down at Orso the way you
look at a dog that won't stop barking. I can
redesign your rigging. Or So says, his voice, shifting from
desperate to professional. He's putting on his operational voice, the
one he used to pitch battle plans. To me, your
pulleys are wrong. You're losing a third of your wind
efficiency to friction. I can fix it. Give me a
day on deck and I'll double your speed. Brynn tilts
her head. She's listening. I can see the flicker of
respect in her eyes. She knows or So is smart.
Everyone who's spent five minutes with him knows that your
boom cleat is rigged backward. Or So continues gaining confidence.
And your jib sheet runs through a fair lead that's
mounted six inches too far aft. It's pulling your bow
to port and crosswinds. I noticed it last week. Brynn
stares at him for a long moment. Then she looks
at the rigging above her, as if checking his claim.
She turns back to him, then she closes the hatch
without a word. The dark swallows us again. Or So
sits there, mouth open, staring up at the sealed wood.
His hands are shaking, but not from hunger, from humiliation.
She didn't even, He starts. She doesn't believe you, I say,
I lean my head back against the hull. You don't
know shit about boats. Shut up, Dre. Just wait another day,
I say, stop begging. It makes us look weak. Or
So turns on me. The chains rattle as he jerks forward.
Speaker 1: Weak.
Speaker 2: His voice is low and deadly weak. You want to
talk about weak, Drey. Let's talk about week. I turned
to listen to him because in this hole, it's the
only entertainment I got. Let's talk about Vance's folly. He snarls,
his cracked lips pull back from dry teeth. Let's talk
about the man who had more gold than a duke
and turned it into a prison. Let's talk about the
scum king who flooded a village with bullion and then
couldn't buy the respect he so desperately wanted. That's enough,
is it? Because I was there, Dre, I watched you
ignore the disaster unraveling around you. I watched you higher
dogs that couldn't fight their way out of a rain puddle.
I let my plan, my beautiful, patient plan, die because
your pathetic ego needed a throne. I lunge at him,
or I try. The ropes catch me short. My bound
hands swing wide and miss his jaw by an inch.
He lunges back, his forehead cracks against my cheekbone. Stars
explode behind my eyes. We grapple in the dark like
two blind animals, all elbows and knees and spit. There's
no room to swing, there's no room to breathe. We
bash into barrels, knock over or a bucket that spills
something foul across the floor. It's a fight as pathetic
as we are. Stigan doesn't even wake up. It ends
the way fights between starving men in ropes and chains,
and not with a winner, but with exhaustion. We collapse
against opposite walls of the hole, panting, bleeding from the
mouth and forehead. I taste blood in bilge water or
so spits. You know I'm right. I don't answer because
he is in the corner. Gigs starts laughing. It's soft
at first, a giggle, then it builds louder, rolling up
from his gut like a wave. He rocks back and forth,
his chains, jingling, tears streaming down his painted face. He
laughs and laughs and laughs. And in the dark, with
my face swelling, in my stomach, eating itself, I realize
that Gix is the only one of us who is
exactly where he belongs.
Speaker 1: Will you