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Economous Musgrove Chapter 1 Part 3

Well-a-day to you all and welcome to a new week and the proper beginning of my intent to regularly post the continuing tale of Economous Musgrove, illustrator, some-time concometrist and would-be fabulist, and  citizen of Brandenbrass. It must be said that I cannot promise that this will succeed as a story, but I am willing to try if your are willing to go with me come what may. 

Either way, let us get on with part 3 ...

Economous

musgrove

    

© D.M.Cornish

PLEASE DO NOT PUBLISH OR REPRODUCE WITHOUT MY PERMISSION

Chapter 1, part 3

Breathing deeply of the tepid leafy perfume of the wooded park, he heaved a long sigh seeking to expel his fretting with that great exhalation. Curling and uncurling his bare toes in the grasses kept cropped and neat by many rabbit mouths, he allowed himself to bask for a beat or two of his humours in the dapple of sunlight touching his face as the day orb reached the acme of its meridian. Ringed about by hawthorn, the bench that was his seat was far enough in that he could almost pretend the city and its press of cares was not there. He tilted his head slightly so that the pale leaves of a stand of plane trees screened the banal sight of a chimney and a ridgecap. For this moment he let himself believe that he was out in proper woods wide, unfettered by taming walls, free of woes and weights, living each day as though it was new and unspoiled. A kind of music that was not quite music started in his soul singing of a longing for a great before when all things were simpler and bright …

With a snort and a startled blink, Economous roused himself.

“Was I sleeping?” he wondered in a whisper.

Bringing his attention pointedly to the scrawl of rabbits bounding over the open page of his numrelogue, Economous became sharply aware that the threwd of the park had thickened, became more intent, more deliberate in its watchfulness. In all the months he had been coming here such a thing had never happened before. A chill shuddering down his backbone, Economous turned first to his right, peering futilely into the wooded gloom seeing nothing but leaves, branches, trunks growing haphazard as if a true wild wood, stretching back in to the deeps of the park behind him.

“You have a commendable discernment of subject, womb-born,” came a deep, oddly purring voice over his other shoulder.

Pivoting in a twinkling he found himself peering straight into one of the queerer sights he had ever beheld. Partly thrust from thick hawthorn growth was the face of a greatly oversized rabbit – well, more the combination of rabbit and something more feline, its great ears errect and swivelling as it looked on the would-be fabulist with what to all the Alle looked like mirth. Suddenly this creature bent close and breathed upon him. Instantly his senses were overwhelmed with the thick perfume of honeysuckle and the odour of new-turned earth that brought happy thoughts of the vegetable plot at Athingdon Athy.

With a jolt, Economous remembered that he ought to be afraid. Shouting in wordless fright, he seized his calibrator and his thricehigh and sprang away, hareing barefooted down the lawn and the scant path, heedless of thorns and prickles in the lawn, leaving all the rest of his belongings to that … that thing as he dashed from that haunted parkland. Through its gate and safe out on the South Arm – the street of cloes-built half houses and merchant vendors that ran along the Mouldwood’s eastern boudary – Economous halted. His days were tough enough; he would not be deprived of his shoes and trews, nor of his numrelogue, satchel or the well-proofed frockcoat that had already preserved him from a deadly blow dealt many years ago.

Squaring his thricehigh determinedly upon his crown, the would-be fabulist steeled his milt and raced back into the Mouldwood, back up the path of his hasty flight to the hawthorn bench. He slowed for fear of the rabbit-beast. The woodland park creaked and ticked. His humours thumped in his ears. All the rabbits were gone and the weak threwdishness he new as common to this land was restored. Somewhere deeper in the park a wagtail gave voice to a tetchy call. With a lunge, Economous snatched his abandoned belongings from the hazelwood bench and dashed back to the Moldwood gates as fast as limbs and load would let him. The moment he was clear of the tree and grass and gate and out again on the long house-crowded street he halted. Bent, hand on knee, wind heaving to and from his lungs in great gulps, he leant against a stone pillaster of the park’s wall and quite unaccountably began to laugh. The clatter of lentums, park drags and pavillions running past largely swallowed the scandalous noise, but a day-strolling panderer in the lead of three fine-dressed young children was forced to step about him as he was rocked in his peculiar glee.

“How unseemly, sir!” the panderer exclaiming, her cheeks puffing self-importantly. “Not in all my born; it is scarce midday and you are as soused as a hog’s face!”

This made Econmous laugh only the harder.

Unseemly!

If only she knew what he had just seen.

That was a monster I just found wasn’t it…? he wondered in astonishment his laughter subsiding as quickly as it had risen. Suely surely not…

He had seen a hand of nickers and bogles on the few monster hunts he had managed to join; terrifying things all teeth and claws and slavering malice Yet a monster right in the very heart of our ancient, impreganble city? This should be mpossible…

I ought tell someone of this!

The masters of the city would most certainly desire to know so terrible a revelation yet what would he say? To whom would he actually say it?

“Are ye a’right, mate?” asked a passing water caddie, permanently bent – as was a mark of his trade – under the small but substantial weight of a water puncheon.

“There’s a… there’s a…” the would-be fabulist tried between great gasps. “There’s a mon–”

Abruptly, with a swallow, Economous stopped.

Who would credit such an outrageous claim? The impossibility of a monster in the very middle of so great and safe a capital as Brandenbrass. He doubted even Asthetica would believe him… And now that he came to it he found that did not wantto speak to anyone of this after all. The rabbit-and-cat beast had neither slavered nor snarled, nor had it rent him limb from trunk as all monsters were supposed to do. The worst it had done was compliment his drawing and to blow on him – odd certainly, but not violent.

Suddenly, inwardly, Economous was five years old again, just returned terrified but elated from the hearthwood copse that had grown behind the row of high-houses on the edge of his home village of Lo far out west on the fringes of the parishlands of the Page. Such coppices are a dangerous necessity in any rural setting, providing firewood easy to hand but always a potential haunt for some wandering bogle or nicker. Sure enough, little Economous had been seeking delicious bird’s eggs out in the forbidden trees with three childhood chums when a nasty slavering nicker all spines and talons had reared out from some dense blackberry thicket, snatching the little Economous in its cruel grip and sending the other boys to wild hollering flight. Still able to conjure the whirling, thought-emptying panic that had gripped him, one notion had stood clear in his little mind: this was his end. Yet in a great and tumbling violence, little Economous found himself free. Kicking and flailing to his feet, all he glimpsed before flying into the trees and home was a brown-skinned horned and bearded creature grappling with his wicked abductor, pounding away at the slavering black nicker with terrible mighty blows. Home once more and barely believing what had happened he immediately confessed to his parents of his profound fortune.

“I was attacked by a bad monster but a good one saved me!” he had cried in child’s delight and wonder, thrilled by such an astounding discovery, his humours racing at so miraculous an escape.

Yet rather than the delight that such a revelation of such a wondrous rescue of their only son, his parents had scolded him bitterly for telling such a horrid falsehood.

“There is no such thing as a good monster!” his father had bellowed.

“Never ever speak of this to anyone!” his mother had hissed in wide-eyed worry.

Not one gleam of relief that their own son was safe, just this great dread of other people’s regard, of ill-rumour – all too ready,  and of the black consequence for being found a monster-loving sedorner.

In the days after he had appealed to the witness of his friends yet none of them ever said a word in support of the truth or even of a supposed comrade.

Something had shifted inside little Economous so long ago, and it had never righted itself since…

“Jumpin’ at shadows are we, mate?”

The water caddie’s garbled voice broke into the dark charm of memory.

Tricorn tipped back on his crown to scratch at his brow, the fellow was squinting at Economous closely.

Equanimity returning, it took a beat for Economous to understand what the fellow had said through shockingly broken and protuberant teeth. “Well,” Economous began. “I –”

“She’s a curious plot of glebeland, that’s a’certain,” the fellow pressed, nodding towards the park and shrugging his shoulders against the heavy leather strap of the puncheon where it had worn the cloth of his olive-drab frockcoat to a greasy gloss. “Not willin’ to let go her threwd for no labour. I have watched ye as I amble on me common rounds, go in day on and day off like no common folk do. I caution ye: loiter a’long in that yonder park and ye are might to reckon on sights of things not prop’ly there…”

Economous frowned. “Well…” He was too keen an observer, too used to rigourously discerning what it is his eyes beheld to be duped by so simple an effect as the swiming shadows of breeze tossed branches. Perplexed now, Economous straightend and drew in the city’s pungeant air. Somehow, the creature’s breath lingered yet in his nostrils, sweet and sour and loamy at once. No, he had seen what he had seen and there was no getting around it. “Jumping at shadows.” Economous muttered, more to himself than as an answer.

However this seemed enough for the smiling water-carrier and he immediately took hold of this small opportunity. “A goose for a gulp, m’lord,” he asked.

Economous paid two cobs – or four guise – and took four full swills from the communal pewter ladle that hung by a long leather cord from harness that held the puncheon high on the caddie’s hunched shoulders.

With a wink the caddie went on his way.

Returning trews and shoes and coat to their rightful stations on his frame, and taking his lank black hair up in a bow and setting his thricehigh firmly back upon his head, Economous transformed himself from an unshod, bare-headed, tree-embracing wilder to the civilised city-dwelling soul he usually played. Thus comported, he made his way south down South Arm and for home, perplexed by a muted yet definite glow of peculiar and unfounded … positivity – if that was a word – that had crept into his bosom.

TATTOOS AND INFECTION

Getting a tattoo is common practice by many in this day and age. With an on body art form that can

be used to express yourself, it’s no wonder so many people enjoy getting tattoos. This is all good and 

well but what happens when a tattoo goes wrong or becomes infected? This can be a traumatising 

and depressing experience so it is important to make sure that you know exactly what you want and 

that your tattooist is a reputable artist. 

It is important when picking out your tattoo that you make it clear to the artist what it is you want. If 

there are any details of a design you do not like, make sure that you point this out, remember it is 

your body that the design is going on and so you must be the final decider. Tattoos that you should be 

extra careful about are those with letters or numbers in them. The last thing you want to do is get the 

spelling wrong or dates wrong, because once it’s on your body there’s no changing it. 

One of the most worry things however about a tattoo is the risk of infection. The most common cause 

of an infected tattoo is lack of aftercare and not down to the tattooist. They can however also become 

infected due to poor hygiene in the tattoo studio such as dirty needles and equipment not being 

sterilised properly. 

If you have just got your first tattoo it may be difficult for you tell whether or not it is infected or just 

healing. A number of symptoms that would indicate an infected tattoo are listed below.

• Extreme redness or irritation
• A fever
• Increased, persistent or shooting pains
• Swelling
• A funny odour
• Discharge
• Red streaks or sores

A seriously infected tattoo has the potential to kill a person if it gets out of hand, it is therefore 

extremely important that you take the proper care precautions after having one done. If you feel as 

though your tattoo is infected and you are becoming worried about it you should firstly see your 

tattooist as they should be able to inform you if it is infected or not. If you are still worried however 

or have had an infection confirmed you should make an appointment to see your doctor immediately. 

The treatment of an infected tattoo will generally be a course of antibiotics prescribed by your doctor. 

Some doctors may ask you to take a blood test depending on the seriousness of the infection. It is 

important that if you do have an infected tattoo to keep it out of direct sunlight and away from water. 

Author Bio:

Jake is a keen writer who has a particular interest in tattoos, piercing and their aftercare. He often 

writes about tattoo supplies and the aftercare of tattoos.

Onwards we go with Economous then \o/

Thank you all for your continued thoughts and reactions. I wondered too about having a more conversational start, to reveal some things about EM through chatter at an alehouse with fellow spedigraphers and other arterly types. We shall see - info-dumping is a common first draft symptom, so perhaps - if this goes to a second working - such an issue will be resolved.

I am thinking to post 1000-1500 words every Monday (Oz Monday that is, so this may vary for other parts of the world, late Sunday in the US and its neighbours for example). How does that grab you?

Economous Musgrove Chapter 1 Part 2

Here we are with the next instalment of Economous Musgrove - a Half-Continent tale, that I hope to be releasing with regular frequency. What do folks think: twice weekly? Once? Thrice? 

Thank you everyone for your encouragements, I shall press on and let the cross-fertilisation go on.

Economous

musgrove

    

© D.M.Cornish

PLEASE DO NOT PUBLISH OR REPRODUCE WITHOUT MY PERMISSION

Chapter 1, part 2

His most recent employment at a grand gala held a month past by the Duchess-in-waiting of Naimes – in which he performed the required entertainment of spedographer – hasty portraitist – he thought he had gained a reference of the truest excellence. Yet it turned that even so exulted a recommendation as that of the Branden Rose – surely one of the great lights in Brandenbrass society – actually produced opposite outcome of spoiling the interest of patrons. 

“Oh, that’s not much chop,” potential customers would say with the same sour yet subtle sneer. “She takes on just about anyone these days…”

All Economous knew was that it had been a glorious night brimfull with swirling noble souls of the highest of high stations, each one costumed in glittering fancies of such gorgeous magnificence the would-be fabulist was certain the cost of just one could probably cover a year of his own expenses. It had been a bizarre, gleaming, all-to-brief moment to punctuate his ceaseless run of dogged days and every “customer” had declared themselves well pleased with his spedigraphs. Were it not for the first-rate sum the would-be fabulist was paid for his portraits of the gala guests – one month’s wage for a single night’s work – Economous would be pinched and starving and desperate indeed.

As it might be, geese aren’t fatted to be kept, he reminded himself with a second sigh.

Rumour – learnt only yesterday from a supercilious underwriting clerk at the Letter & Coursing House  – spoke of strange excentricities amoungst the Branden Rose’ staff and even some dark disconcerting hint of the crime of sedony, that is of kindness or an inclination of the same towards monsters. This was as grave as rumour could get, for in Brandenbrass – as in all decentsocieties – the monster was the supreme foe utterly bent on the ruination of the kingdom of everymen and deserving only of expulsion and destruction. To be found a sedorner – a monster-lover – was to be guilty of the worst stripe of betrayal known to all history and civilization, of which death – usually prelonged or painful – was the only just and fitting consequence. Economous had seen such poor souls exposed at the edge of Lo or on the road in to Brandenbrass languishing in gibbet-cages or strung spreadeagle upon tall Catharine wheels grown about with thorns to prevent their families from rescuing them.

No one would surely dare such a blatant and dangerous accusation with the great woman herself about, but the Branden Rose was no longer in the city and tongues were free to wag. And so her sanction proved Economous’ disadvantage, and he was back to much as he was when he first arrived in Brandenbrass two years ago.

With Lestwich – year’s end – nigh upon him, he was all too aware that even so handsome a figure as five sous would not last him longer than two or at best three months, certainly not now that his rent had been raised by the second time that year. He also knew that the steady income of steady – that is, dull and wearying – employment was not his lot. Yet without some proof of constancy and income how ever was he to impress upon Madamine Grouse, his landlady, that he was a good match for her beautiful daughter, Asthetica.

His soul soared upon misty mooning admiration for the raven-haired magnificence that was Asthetica Grouse with her flashing grey eyes, fine manners and then plummeted at the thought of her demoralizing string of suitors… The most recent and most daunting of all of these pretenders: Monsiere the Lord Sprandis Fold, Reive of Lot-in-the-Hole, man-about-town, weak of chin, so very fine of dress, heir to some fine mercantile concern and a peer of state. Though Economous could plainly see that none of her daughter’s beaus meant truly well for Asthetica – the Monsiere least of all – Madamine Grouse happily encouraged such acquaintence. For she bore high hopes that Asthetica’s fair face and fine figure would make her an eligible for a match to some gentleman of elevated station and deep purse. As properly book-learned and handy with a cudgel as he might have been, to Madamine Grouse Economous was a parish-born bumpkin, irredeemably obscure and “… poor as poorhouse rat!” as she so often reminded him.

What I need, Economous confirmed to himself with dark determination, is some great exploit to join that pays handsomely at the outset, or a wealthy patron to commision whole bodies of work like they do of the great master illuminators.

That very week Economous had gone to apply to join as an official recorder in the champaign being planned against the nickers occupying the fortress of Winstermill up north – a calamity presenting to him glittering opportuinty. Unlike – it seemed – many of his fellow citizens who had never known of the place until the report of its attack barely a month ago – Economous had some idea of the place. Serving as the main staging for a battalion of Imperial Lamplighters, it was a minor Imperial bastion much vaunted as being inpregnable, built upon old Burgundian foundations of Winstreslewe. Yet, clearly, Winstermill had been “pregged” after all, and worse still, by vicious monsters. Now its fall was all anyone ever sought to talk about: the great and dread threat of the north, the blighted nicker come to swallow the precincts of everymen at last! If so unbreechable a place had been breeched, how long could Brandenbrass several rings of lofty walls hold such a ravening at bay? The entire city was submerged under a pall of heavy and anxious watchfulness as if the entire world of monster-kind might at any moment surge upon Brandenbrass’ mighty walls and bring ruin to them too.

Much vexed by a recent Imperial Bull altering the naming of the last months of the year in honour of yet another Imperial Grandson, the sneering clerks at the grand knaving house were especially venemous as they refused him. “The Arch-duke and his supporters have imagineers enough for the purpose and are, I am sure, more concerned with fighting the monsters than scetchingthem!”

So, for Economous the Mouldwood had become the best of places to the escape the endless searching, the dour and frettful speculation, the demeaning clerical disdain, and forget, if but for a moment, the grim futility of his own life. 

TOP TATOO FACTS

As we know how hard it is to grow credibility as an artist we want to give every young artist the possibility to showcase their work as long as we like what they do of course :)

so here are the top tattoo facts by Kate Critchlow.

1.

Tattoos are an interesting topic and certainly have an interesting history; while we might not know a huge deal about tattoos no one can deny that learning about them is interesting, nor that they have a much more complicated past than we might have first suspected. The following are some interesting facts about tattoos and their history. The exact date of the first tattoo or the invention of tattoo technology is not known, however we do know that it is a very old technology and one that has been improved and modernised only recently.

2.

In 1991 a frozen Bronze Age hunter was found, the body is estimated to be around 5000 years old and has been named Özti the Iceman, and one of the most interesting things about this body is that it features a number of tattoos. The meanings behind these tattoos is not clear, however they consisted of six straight lines located around 15cm above the kidneys, a series of parallel lines on the ankles and a cross on the inside of the left knee. Scientists have suggested, due to the location of these tattoos against the location of certain pressure points on the body, that the tattoos may have been given for therapeutic reasons; the tattoos were located in areas that are frequently targeted in acupuncture therapy.

3.

Tattoos have a very strong history when it comes to the Christian faith. It states in the bible (Leviticus 19:28) that ‘Ye shall not make any cuttings into your flesh for the dead, nor print any marks upon you’ however there were many early Christians who has religious symbols tattooed onto their bodies; in particular their arms and faces. It was not until AD 325 that the Emperor Constantine prohibited the act of tattooing the fact, insisting that the human face was made in God’s image and must not be disfigured with ink. It was in AD 787 that tattoos were completely renounced by the Christian faith. Much later it was brought back and used as an ‘act of kindness’ towards slaves, some slaves would receive a representation of the crucifixion tattooed on their back to prevent their master’s from whipping them.

4.

There was a sharp rise in the number of babies being tattooed by their parents after the Lindbergh baby was kidnapped, this was because the body of the baby found could not be positively identified as the same child that had been kidnapped due to the state of decomposition and the body was very quickly cremated. Over the following decades many men, and even women, came forward claiming to be the lost child, parents who heard the story worried about how they would identify their own children if they were kidnapped which lead to many children being tattooed from the late 1930s and into the 50s. It was more recently made illegal to tattoo anyone under the age of 18 in most countries.

5.

During the early days of tattooing the colours were often made using soot and brick dust, which had to be bound using a missing agent, many tattooists used their own spit and even urine to mix the colours before they could be used. There were a number of ways the tattoos could be done, whether it meant cutting the skin and rubbing the colour into it, dipping the point of a pen in colour and then stabbing quickly and repeatedly or whether it means dipping a length of threat in the colour then threading it through the skin. Tattoo parlours now have machines that make the process much faster and easier, however in many prisons the old methods of tattooing are still used, making use of whatever the inmates can get hold of.

6.

Getting a tattoo on an area of the skin that is close to the bone hurts more than getting one on a fleshy area; tattoos to areas like ankles, knees and shoulders can be some of the most painful while tattoos to the chest, stomach and buttocks are the least painful.

7.

In the first few years following the social security cards being issued in 1936 one of the most popular tattoo options among both men and women became their social security numbers; many people had these tattooed onto their arms to help them to remember them. Less than twenty years later in 1955 the assistant secretary of defence in the US started recommending that people get their blood type as a tattoo on their arms, in case there was an attack.

Author’s Bio

Kate Critchlow is a young writer with a very quickly developing interest in tattoos, with everything from the process of selecting a tattoo to the aftercare of a tattoo.

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