1. MUD HUT MAN - Chapter 2 - part 1
Outsidethere’s a real downpour going on, beating down on the roof like hailstones, it is. But when I stick my head out, the rain
isn’t frozen, and I get a right gobful of fat, yellow drops. Stinks, it does and doesn’t tastetoo good either. Bit like Rab Cask’s hut-
brewed Devil Water, finest dung liquor in all the huts. Thelords must have drunk a riverful last night.
I pull my head back in, grab some straw and dry my face. I brush a crust of ice from my leggings, step outsideand run to the foot
of the Castle wall. Old Tess hobbles up behind me determined to join in. The overhang of a turret keeps the lords chamber pot
rain off us. As I relieve myself against the wall, I burn with hatred for hut life. My need to get inside the Castle has resurfaced
with a vengeance. There’s no way I’m going to settlefor life in thehuts. I’ve only been kidding myself to think I could. I lean my
head back, heedlessly splashing my foot, and peer upwards. Atop thepitted cliff of craggy granite the battlements are shrouded
with mist. The rain thunders around me. Good, everything needs a bit of a clean, myself included.
Lately I’ve taken to secretly cleaning myself. It’s something I’ll have to do if I’m to pass unnoticed once I get back inside the
Castle. Every now and then, at dawn, I sneak off to a grassy dell just inside thewoods. There I strip off my clothes and lie down
in the dew-sodden grass. I only have to roll around for a couple of minutes and I’m soaking. It had gotten to where I’ve even
starting to enjoy feeling unnaturally clean.
I finish pissing and shake the last few drops from my pizzle. I don’t know why it is that no matter how much you shake your
pizzle, thelast few drops always run down theinside of your tunic. As I walked back to the hut I have a good old scratch and find
the swelling in my armpit has gone down. Praise be to St. Pustule! I think I must have just stabbed myself in theuxster with a bit
of the roof when I fell on old Dad.
For a couple of days there had been some talk about folk getting together to help fix the mysteriously collapsed roof of widow
Milligan’s hut. Dad made some excuse about having to work late at thedung heap. Shit shoveling in the dark? Right.
Uncle Jack is really starting to get on my wick though. Just sits there in the corner all day, doing his dung heap impression. He
might have been dead a week and we wouldn’t be able to tell. Doesn’t even fiddle with himself any more. If you ask me that’s a
bad sign. Mean you’rewell on your way out when you don’t even fiddle with yourself. Much less anyoneelse. Uncle Jack is a
wasteof fucking space and food, plain and simple. Even the scraps he manages to get would help me out. I’m a growing lad, I
need my scoff. The more I think about it, the more I think something needs to be done about the old fucker. It just isn’t right. Life
is too fucking hard as it is.
But Herne take my sodding family, I need to concentrate on getting back into the Castle. Every night, I lie awake remembering
things I’d seen. I invariably end thesereveries by cursing thedwarf Shankshave whosetreachery led me away from my dream
and back to these filthy huts. I swear one day I will find him and have my revenge.