There is a price that comes with change, and it may not be one that Judd Marshall is willing to pay.
This work contains CWs for: misogyny, and antisemitic/homophobic/transphobic slurs.
The Coronation of Judd Marshall by habaniah and
xexnoncores
Judd Marshall is on the forty-third minute of a thirty-minute meeting. He is a single sip of whiskey deep; he’s barely been able to metabolize the stuff since he went on new meds around his 130th. Twenty feet up, the abstract, swooping crow-shaped logo of Valravn Corporation looms in white paint on a vast pinewood wall, its eyes glaring without beholding, and hating without knowing, even at someone like him, one of the three most important executives of Marshall, Carter, and Dark Ltd.
Nate Hansen, Midwestern Regional President of Valravn, finishes signing the last of a stack of papers. A collection of vacant glasses sits beside him like trophies, courtesy of the office’s open bar diplomacy. Ian Whitten, of Valravn’s legal team, has worked through his pile of forms and is attacking a smorgasbord beside him at a steady, deliberate, and impressive pace.
Marshall smiles, attempting a joke. “I see why Wisconsin needs to make so much cheese.”
Hansen looks up, drilling three fingers with heavy rings on them. They’re all made of bronze and silver. “What the hell else is he supposed to do with his mouth?”
Whitten, down a tongue from a long-ago involuntary secondment with the Serpent’s Hand, glances over at Hansen with a look of disgust. He eats another cube of cheddar.
Hansen pulls out the final page and passes it along the table to Marshall, who signs and gives it back without a word.
“Won’t you need some other sign-offs, Judd? Of the other two keys to the kingdom?” Hansen asks.
“Pardon?”
“You know. Layla and Iris. Iris and Layla.”
“We’re not a vetocracy,” Marshall replies curtly. “I have the final say-so over projects in my purview. And it’s Mayhew. Iris and Mayhew. Layla’s just his wife.”
“Oh, you can keep your little shibboleths,” Hansen spits. “We know Layla’s calling the shots over there. At least, since May-hew Car-ter decided thinking was too strenuous for him.”
Mayhew’s heart attack. Ah, it feels like it happened just yesterday—in actuality, it occurred eighteen months ago. The change in authority was as swift as it was without any time to mourn; Layla had the yoke broken upon her as soon as she was able to say yes to the prospect, most likely not entirely aware of what she agreed to.
Marshall smiles. It is not only fake but obviously so, not only obviously so but intentionally enough as to communicate its falsity. His reminiscence makes it all the more so. “I’m just here to protect our interests at the Cortez site. I only ask for your typical arsenal, and your Valkyries… That’s all. You know how much the ore mines matter here.”
Hansen bolts upward; Whitten turns toward him, evident anger in his eyes. Marshall turns toward him, also—there’s a bubbling beneath the waves he’s seen many a time between partners at other meetings. Valravn had its splendid facilities, within which the High Table carried on its fine practice of corporate administration, but the truth was that it filled those facilities with animals. And those animals often stank up whatever room they were allowed to fill unless collared by someone with more silver in their pockets.
“Well, as long as you’re here, I’ll tell you what’s really going on.”
Marshall wants to roll his eyes. But the night is young, so he’ll let himself be drawn in. Mayhew used to be really good at taking these kinds of leads on, tempting bulls like this. “What’s really going on?”
“A lot of us here at Valravn are starting to chafe. Grumble. Regarding the new MC&D.”
Marshall clears his throat. “I’m not sure what you mean, Nate. Especially by new. We’ve had the same basic contract for six years.”
Hansen clicks his tongue. “You know what I mean.”
“I don’t think I do. We’re your largest client by a factor of four, and we’ve been very good to the High Table. Mercenary work is an industry where demand is a lot harder to come by than supply, especially since Constellis launched that hub office in the Portlands.”
“It’s not about the bottom line,” Hansen says, a deep hatred riding in his voice.
Whitten, silent always, remains so. But his expression darkens.
“That’s news to me," Marshall says. He didn't even know he could smile so wide. "Then what are these complaints for?”
Hansen waves his hand, scowls, shows his teeth for the first time.
What ugly veneers, Marshall thinks. A maid could do better.
“Let me tell you a little about the way things were a few years ago,” Hansen starts, pointing at Marshall. “You and Mayhew, you two, well, you were the type of people that guys like me and my men could feel proud about working for. We liked you, we liked your strides, your attitude.”
Another sip of whiskey. Behind him, Whitten bites his lip.
“And Iris, well, Iris we could tolerate. She could show face to the press. Someone approachable. Nice…" Hansen laughs a little. "Nice cheekbones. Though I'll admit I'm not much for the Adam's apple.”
Whitten rises, slaps Hansen, grabs his arm. The two trade blows on the floor for a moment. Marshall stares, impassive, soon a micrometer from laughter. They wouldn't kill each other—not here, not yet.
He checks his watch. Within a minute, Hansen, bruised, stands again before him; Whitten, less bruised, slinks back to the cheeseboard.
Violence accomplishing little. But what else could he possibly be here for? The unprofessionalism Valravn could have was why you could trust them not to obey national treaties going into less-than territories.
“…Iris has been called a great many things,” he begins. “But I’ve never heard anyone call her approachable.”
“Our boys think women are born approachable. Despite what’s between their legs.”
“If you can have sex with her, I guess it doesn’t matter what she is, hm?”
Marshall lets out a short, cruel laugh.
Hansen smiles. His teeth are too perfect, too square for what they should be. “Knew we could work with you.”
“So,” Marshall begins, “let me get this straight—you’re saying opinions us within Valravn’s rank-and-file have deteriorated somewhat since Mayhew’s…incapacitation. Correct?”
“That’s right,” says Hansen. “It’s not about the projects. It’s not about the pay.”
“You just don’t want to work for Layla and Iris.”
Hansen leans forward. “Yeah. Our boys call them the K. and the D."
Whitten's knuckles dig hard into the table again.
"Gosh," Marshall says, almost like a child at a birthday party asking for the big surprise from their parents. "What does that stand for?"
"The kike and the dyke. Some folks say faggot. Not me, though," Hansen says, giggling like a rattlesnake. "Because that doesn't rhyme."
“Ah,” Marshall says.
"Well, doesn't the shoe fit?"
He shrugs. “Well…you’re certainly right about Layla Rosen-Carter’s heritage.” He cracks his knuckles, taking a deep breath. “I believe her great-grandfather was a deck-rat on the Exodus. But Iris Dark prefers the company of men, you’re aware of that, yes?”
“Maybe she does,” says Hansen. “Doesn’t really change who she is.”
"I don't get it," replied Marshall. "I have seen your Valkyries. You guys have no problem working with them."
"Valkyries are not women. Not fully at least." Hansen flashed a repugnant smile. "Don't get me wrong, they are one of our finest products. But still a product at the end. We don't work with them, they serve us. You may want to take some note there."
Marshall sighs, running sore hands down the side of his face. “So what do you expect me to do about this, Nate?” He again stills what trickles down through his head; he’s not lived this long without learning to offer up his irrationality upon the crucible, his contemplative notions that may align against what Iris wants. “About this dissatisfaction in your ranks? What makes you think I can change anything?”
“Don’t talk to me as if this is just Valravn, Judd,” Hansen says, pointing at him again. “They’re deadweight, as everyone can see them. You could, and should cut them both, and strike out on your own.”
“Strike out on my own?”
Hansen nods. “Mhm.”
Marshall simply shakes his head, putting in only the bare minimum effort to dissuade those thoughts from intrusively latching upon his mind. “Do you have any idea what the enterprise value of MC&D is?”
“I don’t,” Hansen replies.
“Of course.” Marshall stands up, wiping imaginary dust off his clothes like he was some kind of royalty. “Regardless, I will take your comments under advisement. In the meantime, seeing as the contract is signed, I’d like to wish you both good evening.”
“Hey, don’t brush this off so easily!” Hansen yells, rising from his stool and stepping toward Marshall. His breath is rank. “Advisement? I think you should consider this a warning, honestly. This stuff filters upstream faster than you think; you’re bleeding reputation here. You’ve got nowhere to go.”
“Nate, please.” Marshall’s head is buzzing. “I am here to get your help with Cortez. Only that.”
Hansen shakes his head.
It would be better, professionally, for Marshall to leave. Better yet to have left ten minutes ago. But he got where he was by nodding – to Mayhew, to Iris – and assent is a difficult habit to break.
“Faster than you think,” Hansen repeats, waltzing over unsteadily to poke Marshall in the ribs. “You know what our hires for you are saying in the barracks?”
Marshall looks down at Hansen’s outstretched finger. Swollen diamonds glint in the incandescent light.
“No,” Marshall replies. “What are they saying?”
“They’re saying they work for the Three Queens.”
“…Three?”
“Yeah. Three.” Hansen cackles like a hyena. “You’re running with a pack of bitches. Why shouldn’t you be crowned with them?”
"Ah," says Marshall. But it's deeper. Lower. It's only once it's through his lips that he realizes he is genuinely pained.
Why can’t Marshall bring himself to leave?
Hansen smiles, wicked and unapologetic.
“Ha, look at him. Snake got his tongue.”
Behind Hansen, a cracker splinters in Whitten's tensed hand. But Marshall feels heavy, immobile. Like there's a cannonball in his chest.
“…I take it these difficulties aren’t affecting performance,” he begins. So dull. So flat. “Since you had no issues last month in Khartoum."
Valravn stays on the books, Iris had told him before he came here. Their services are expensive, but the intimidation they produce is plentiful and cheap.
“…You seem to be suggesting a problem to something which I cannot solve.”
“Says who? Just backstab the whores."
Marshall can only roll his eyes. This wine’s dryness is getting on his nerves. Hansen grabs his drink as soon as he sets it down to finish a shaky, paltry swig, and it takes everything, with everyone watching– his own long-forgotten frailty, his own self-preservation– not to take a fist to his head.
But that’s what Mayhew would have done. He slapped Layla in the face at the autumn ball. Even in front of her parents, both younger than him.
Marshall swallows his sour spit and exhales cleanly.
“Alright, well…I shall consider your words for tonight.”
“You better.”
“But I must be going now."
“I’m pleased this is going so smoothly,” Iris says while eating an apple. “Layla, this might have been before your time, but last time we… played around there, there was no end to the difficulty.”
“Well, Valravn can easily level a town or two down there, right?” Layla puts a perfect grape into her mouth. “With those…what did they call them? Valkyrie machines?”
"Valkyrie models,” Iris corrects her. “And mechanically, yes. Politically, no. The troubled lands of Colombia still contain horrible things, and Valravn has given them more of an understanding of their precarity."
His coworkers. Judd is silent. They’re his equals in every way, allegedly, on paper, on every transaction and sign-off, but tonight he can’t tell how he feels about it. Everything they touch, eat, and talk about is made of porcelain, of million-dollar signatures, as shiny as their faces and strong as their wills.
With fingernails polished, colored red and purple, Layla eats like she’s always been here, Iris as if she never knew Mayhew was gone.
“I’m surprised they take me seriously,” Layla says with a bite of her lip. She wipes juice off her chin and cranes her head to the ceiling.
“I’m surprised they took Mayhew Carter seriously.” Iris peels back a marble-colored piece of cheese. “But then again, you two never looked as far apart in age as you actually were.”
Layla was twenty-two when Mayhew took her hand in marriage, he a ripe seventy-nine. She was thirty-four now, and though she looked younger than that, like the twelve years had not fully passed her by. Mayhew had promised magic, but he had never even been able to get it to work for himself – not as well as he had wanted it to work. Mortality had advanced upon him and rendered him a frozen husk. Judd and Layla would go that way eventually, though it would take them longer. Far longer.
It was Iris who would outlast the rocks.
It was Iris who would keep the gears of Marshall, Carter, and Dark going after those preceding names faded, no doubt eager to exchange them when that time came.
It was Iris who would stay.
Judd feels like he should say something. He feels like he needs to push the air out here, for some reason. Everything is too quiet.
Layla looks at Iris with blank, untilled eyes; their vibrant brown hasn't quite given way to life yet. But the longer she stares, the more alike their images become to him. Two women sitting in velvet-sewn chairs, surrounded by floralesque wallpaper that feels just a decade out of fashion. Skinny, prim, perfumed and trimmed. No different from him and his starched suit. His salt-and-pepper hair, optimized for respectability.
“Judd, any word on your contractors from Valravn yet?”
Iris looks up at him from her laptop, her eyes diaphanous and glassy, like waning lilacs.
“No,” he replies blankly. He maintains steady eye-contact with her as easily as he breathes. “There seems to be no dissent or concern among them about the job. Layla’s plans will come to fruition soon.”
Indeed. Her plans. Layla loved the beach, and therefore asked so innocently if there was any way for the company to invest in some upscale accommodations. She was a traveler at heart, even before her husband’s heart attack, and the world called to her, in all things, without resistance or reservation.
And just like him, she too had grown fond of subjugation. Of taking, taking, taking. Extracting as she took, savoring it in her mouth, making numbers out of mincemeat and people as she took.
Does he resent her for that? For taking Mayhew’s place? Their sons weren’t yet old enough for the family business. And Judd would be a liar if he said he wouldn’t have preferred one of their kingly visages here over her…
Layla bows her head. Judd sighs. Iris closes her laptop, and stands up.
“It’s settled then. Layla, you should go home and get some rest. You’ve done enough for this week.”
“Have I?”
Judd watches Iris’s gaze peel over to her.
“For now. You are adjusting to your new workload quite quickly.”
“I was in marketing before this, I hope you know…”
“I’m aware.” Iris’s voice turns stagnantly acrid. “You didn’t know of what we did before then though. Your husband—”
“He kept it from me, yeah, yeah. G’valt, you don’t need to bring him up every time we see each other…!”
Judd watches Layla put on black satin jacket, tightening her ponytail. She leaves quickly, her auburn-brick hair leaving a void where she once stood despite everything. It is quiet void.
Now, Iris’s eyes turn to him.
His phone rings.
She doesn’t say anything. He has to answer it.
Turning around, Judd’s voice declines to a whisper. He does not consider himself to be afraid of Iris. Not even in Mayhew's day. But one lowers one's voice for a reason.
“Yes?”
"I hope you don't intend to call me about every package I receive. I told you to open them and set them aside."
“…Oh. I see.”
“Really? You’re sure it’s from them?”
“Yes, I agree. It's very peculiar. It still has the rings on it?”
"No, it's not a threat. Maybe it's like Freud. Sometimes a finger is just a finger?"
"Old joke. Ordinarily it's… oh, forget it."
“From a business partner, most likely.”
From the sound of it, Nate.
Judd is relieved. And impressed. They want the brutality of this “apology” to reinforce their contracts. They want their hatred to remain under the table, insulated from the good grace of their well-off clients. Valravn thinks about the "other" as the cat thinks about the mouse, touches them solely through thaumic fires. Through snipers guided by fae sights, dressed in dragonskin-reinforced armor.
“…Throw it away,” he says, finally. This is obeisance to who crowned him with his money and good fortune. Iris’s eyes are boring into his back and he cannot cut them away.
He thinks of the many wives he's had and lost for some reason, like a man upon the noose. The children to whom he does not speak. The heir and the spare and the spare and the spare and the…
“In the end it means nothing,” she says. Her word is final.
Dial tone. Judd clicks off the call and turns around. Iris is staring and her face has nothing readable upon it.
“…You knew.”
“Don't state the obvious.” Her voice shifts to its factual tone. “I knew. Yes. But I knew before I knew.”
His eyes bore into her, but they go no deeper than a foothold. A deep breath fills his chest involuntarily with the ferrous scent of her rather masculine cologne, stitched together by its cobblestone high notes and asphalt lows.
“…Valravn have impressive anti-magic capabilities.”
“I'm pleased to see you read the first paragraph of the briefing.”
She says her words with such a butchering tone that Judd relents quickly, in both mind and soul, pursing his lips together as he runs a hand through his hair. It’s weighed down by an invisible concrete crown.
“Layla is going to give you pushback on this.”
“Well, she will understand quickly how little this matters. Stray words aren’t going to kill her.”
He raises an eyebrow, a lump catching in his throat at the sheer audacity. “You really don’t mind what they said about you?”
“What do you think of me, Judd?”
Judd blinks several times. He knows it is the kind of question that must be answered quickly, if it is to be answered at all. But he racks his mind for several long moments. For the level of sincerity required. For the latent intent in the query.
Until she steps back, and at last a series of words drip out of his mouth like tar.
“…What you do is your own business,” he replies stolidly.
“And that extends to who I am,” she says, hanging herself up in a manner Judd has seen before. He knew of her transition, and had no opinion on it. Iris treated it with great privacy, one which only mattered on the rare occasions she needed to remind someone what the minuscule rune on her left shoulder was. It was an archaic Sarkic “E”, at least its closest equivalent.
Pure neutrality was the cleanest way to live. Bow your head and ignore who your neighbor was, for it was none of your business. It would never be any of your business. It’s not your business to know their troubles, of the belligerents who threaten them and pound on their doors. It’s not your business to know what the words created to specifically harm them mean, just keep quiet if something happens.
If the glass breaks, sweep it up and throw it away.
It’s only your business to make money, after all. Raze down others, bleed their veins, and watch their blood dye your field until next year’s harvest of jewels came in. Who gave you the right to pry into their personal life, their personal histories?
“And how long do you think it will take Layla to get used to this?”
The banality stings him for the first time in a while. Thinking about Layla coming into work every day like he and Iris do, like Mayhew once did, the color in her eyes fading as a line went up and her circle of influence grew.
“Mayhew had mud slung at him for marrying her. He got used to it rather quickly.”
You’d be willing to ask that of her so easily? is what he would say if he was a more recalcitrant man, but he’s not.
“And if she doesn’t?”
Iris scoffs. “Weren’t you poor once?”
Both of them quiet as soon as the words finish. Judd realizes quickly it’s a non-sequitur meant to put him in his place, but instead it brings up reminiscences that he had longer buried under a mine of gold.
Lucky for him, they do not mean much as they wash over. But the polluted water erodes unto him the understanding from his past circumstances he, Iris, and Layla are only afforded this great privilege by virtue of their money acting as the most perfect of insulators. If Iris were a more common street rat like what he had been once, she’d be squeaking a different tune.
He doesn’t laugh at the image in his head. He would if he was alone, though.
“Also, Judd?”
Oh, she seems to have one last thing to say. Good, he needs to be getting home for dinner. He needs to be throwing away this gift of uneasiness as soon as possible.
“Her grandfather was on the Exodus,” she finishes. “Not her great-grandfather.”
Judd sighs. He runs another hand through his hair as he flattens his lips. “My mistake, of course. Do I want to know how you found that out?”
Iris taps her foot and slides her laptop into a slick dragon-leather purse. If you put your ear close enough to it, you could still hear its soul lingering.
“No more answers. This is a matter in which our interests are adverse.”
Judd relents finally. Enough relevancy has been extinguished. Enough tiresomeness has been wrung.
“I’m sorry. For what I said.”
Why is he saying that?
Who is he saying that for?
Himself? The unseen Layla? Her husband he’d been partners with for fifty years? If Mayhew was here, this wouldn’t be ending so somberly… He always knew a way to make Iris stare at the both of them silently before dropping the inane subject all together.
Iris shakes her head, almost mournfully. “Oh, Judd.”
“Why do you keep Layla around if you think she will fail?”
“You only miss Mayhew now that he’s gone.”
He hesitates. “That’s…That’s always the way.”
“That’s right.”
“And what will you say about me, if I go? And someone comes around missing me?”
He knows he shouldn’t have asked that. He knows this conversation shouldn’t be happening.
But he’s already been weak enough today. Weak in ways indescribable, undescribed actually, for there was a void where his actions were, not an outpouring of thought and notion.
He shouldn’t be here. They shouldn’t be here. Iris should be gone. He should be home for dinner. The schedule’s important; the way out is to do things as they’ve always been.
Always been, always been.
Has there always been a crown upon his head? Was he coronated when he joined this company, his fate sealed when he watched Mayhew take as his bride a young nothing star who was barely old enough to drink?
“When you go,” she corrects him.
Iris started this company, and by whatever god exists in this universe, if one existed at all, she will be here if it ever sees its end.
She grabs everything of hers and leaves without a word. He is now left alone, alone, alone in the Darkless dark, a Rosenless room, without the chartering of the Carter that used to light it up.
And like he has done many times and will do many times again, Judd Marshall blanks his mind. It is an easy thing to do when he can occupy himself with asking what car will be taking him to what house of his tonight. There’s three here just in town.