Parnell Green: Clerk Without a Case

1

Ashfang turns the spoon over in one claw before he answers — which buys you a moment, because he won't look at you until it's done. He sets it down on the split table. “Ordinary steel. The village ate off that once.” He regards you the way a man regards a goat that has learned to knock. “Sit down, cutlery.” He tilts his head, unimpressed. “You're the fourth this spring, if we're counting. How refreshing that you brought nothing at all and a spoon on top of it. I was a guest in this hall once, you know. Fourth seat from the head, on the left. I remember it precisely.”

2

You sit. He watches you take the fourth seat from the head, on the left, and something in his jaw stops working. “Not that seat.” A pause. “That's my seat.” He turns the spoon over again, as if it might have grown. It hasn't. “Forty feasts. That's what's owed. Go on — tell me what the village sends the fifth man to say. It'll say it in a smaller voice than the goat.”

3

You lay the spoon down where the first cut used to be served. Ashfang turns it over once, then once more, and does not look at you. “Four of you in one spring,” he says. “The goat at least had the decency to be food.” He sets the spoon down and glances off to his left, toward the empty seat, before he answers anything. “Say it. But say it from there.”

4

“Serviceable,” Ashfang says, of the voice you're using. “Four of you, and the goat is still ranking highest.” He turns the spoon over. One revolution. Then he nudges it two inches toward the left side of the table with a claw. “So the village has decided forty dinners become one spoon, handed over by a man standing on my seat. I've heard worse arithmetic from the reeve.” He settles his chin onto the table. Water pools in the gouges. You're still welcome to try the next part out loud.

5

Ashfang lifts the spoon by its handle and begins to tick it against the table edge — tap, for a tally. “Let's total up what you've done since you climbed up here, since you've clearly never negotiated in your life. One: brought a spoon. Two: sat in my chair. Three: spoke from my chair. Four: put the spoon where the first cut went, which I found tacky.” Tap, tap, tap, tap. “The goat ranked higher.” He turns the spoon over once more, then sets it down on his left side. “You've two hours and this spoon. Spend them.”

6

The spoon rings against the table once more, and Ashfang sets it down on the left side, where he can see it without turning his head. “Two hours,” he says, “and you've spent them building a case for the goat.” He folds his foreclaws and looks at you fully for the first time. “So. Five of you, one spoon, and forty dinners gone. Say the thing you came up here to say. Not the speech — the offer.”

7

Ashfang waits, but your offer is only the silence of a man who has run out of ideas and spoons. He picks up the spoon, weighs it, and sets it down with a sigh. “The goat, at least, was edible. You, I fear, are not even interesting.” He rises, stretches, and turns toward the village. “Forty feasts, one spoon, and a clerk who cannot count. I’ll take my payment in fire.” He leaves you standing in the ruins, the spoon cooling on the table, as the first smoke rises from the valley.