Sentence The Sixhundredandsixtyfourth

 

Which was, of course how 'Nebless' Nicodemus MacWhirter, member and past Master of the Faculty of Advocates, acquired his epithet, or 'Nickname' for it refers to someone lacking that common facial feature; and with a boot up his arse, he was jettisoned from the Hoose o Kilquhenny, clamping a sodden kerchief to his face in an effort to staunch the flow of blood; Nebless Nick staggered into a snowy evening on the High Street, disorientated, in extreme agony, and stumbling and sliding, he tried to remember the direction to his home, but the swirling snow confused him and it was just a short while later that he stumbled through a door only to discover that he had entered a French

whore-house which he recognised as being one of the Rhodanian hydra then springing up all over Edinburgh as harlots trafficked into the city from craft plying the coastal waters augmented their usual cabotage with this fleshly cargo, believed to be encouraged by the Scotch King's own well-known delight in their tricks and artifices; the Madame, Hortense, greeted MacWhirter, a good customer who always paid the rate without quibble, in alarm, seeing at once that he had been dealt a dreadful blow, and had two of her girls help him through to a back room, while another threw on a cloak and hurried to fetch the nearest surgeon, Doctor De'Ath!