Barrett The Beggar - 1. In The Night They Come

Two men wearing Army tabards leaned against the open gate watching people, wagons, and livestock enter and leave the city. The guards were chewing something. At intervals, they spat a greenish-brown juice onto the road. The guards nudged one another and grinned when their spittle landed particularly close to a traveler’s feet. Their attitude did not surprise Will. Without making it obvious, he walked on the opposite side of the road and passed through the gate without being questioned—or spattered.

His pace was slow, but purposeful, as if he knew where he was going but was in no particular hurry to get there. He didn’t want to appear to be a stranger (which he was) or that he was vulnerable (which he was not). However, he did want to take the measure of the city and its people.

He saw what he had seen during his travels through villages and smaller towns. The streets were littered with vegetable refuse fallen from farm carts, and with the droppings of the horses and oxen that pulled the carts. A few stoops were clean; one or two gleamed from scrubbing. Most, however, were dirty. The people seemed clean enough. The color of their clothing was subdued: mostly browns and deep greens. Here was a bit of color: a boy or young man sporting bright clothing—a flower growing in the muck of a stable yard. The few women he saw wore dirndl skirts of dark colors. Their shapeless blouses were trimmed with plain white linen at neck and wrist. All the women were escorted by at least two armed figures.

What’s this? Will wondered. A beggar? A man walked down the center of the street. His hair was lank. Dirty, rather, Will thought. The man was dressed in a dog’s breakfast of rags. Something flashed at his wrist. A hook! He’s lost a hand. It’s been replaced with a hook. Where were the healers—? Will stopped his speculation to watch the man sidle toward a trio of tweens. The boys seemed better dressed and more alert than most of the people on the street.

Will barely heard the man’s whispered words. “Penny for a sailor?” The tenor of his voice said what his words did not: the man did not expect alms. His plea had become perfunctory, nearly automatic.

One of the tweens reached into his jerkin pocket and then dropped a copper into the man’s good hand. The beggar’s Thank you was cut off, and his gratitude was short-lived. Another of the boys thrust his foot between the beggar’s legs and pulled the man’s feet from under him. The man flailed his arms; the hook flashed in the sunlight. The three boys jumped away. The man fell, and the penny flew from his hand. One of the boys grabbed the penny from the air. The others applauded his dexterity with cheers and laughter.

Will looked around. The boys’ cruelty had drawn little reaction. Those who had observed the scene looked away. Most of the faces were slack with apathy; however, Will thought he caught a glint of fear in at least one pair of eyes. The three tweens swaggered down the street, their cruel comments and raucous laughter echoing from the buildings.

Will hurried toward the man, who was carefully lifting himself to his feet, using only his good hand for support. Will reached out to help, but then stopped himself. Don’t want that hook through my hand, he thought. Before he could take the man’s elbow, the beggar was on his feet and brushing himself off. He looked at Will.

“Saw you reach out,” the beggar said. “Saw you draw your hand back. Never seen a hook, have you?”

“No,” Will said. “I’m sorry for what those boys did to you.”

“No need to be sorry. Wasn’t your fault, and I should have known better.”

Will had taken a penny from a fold of his coat. “Will you accept this penny?”

The man looked at Will. “New here, aren’t you?” Without waiting for an answer, he continued. “You’ll need your penny. Thank you, though.”

With that, the man turned and walked away.

The street was unremarkable, no different from others he’d passed. To Will’s right, it led toward the wharves and the open sky over the sea. To his left it was lined with close-built buildings. Their second stories projected over the cobblestones and blocked most of the light. In that direction, the street faded into obscure darkness. Will shifted the bundle on his back and turned into the street—toward the darkness.

The street narrowed rapidly, and became an alley. Will picked his way down the alley, unable to avoid completely the filth with which it was littered. The time was mid-day, yet the late autumn sun was low in the sky. Here, a building had collapsed leaving a low pile of rubble. A shaft of sunlight fell through the gap, partly illuminating an alcove in the wall opposite. Will glanced into the alcove. Inside, he saw a person, seated. Will’s mind flashed faster than his eyes.

It was a boy, ragged and barefoot. He was bareheaded and piebald. Malnutrition, perhaps scurvy, had left bare patches of scalp. The remaining hair sprouted in short, black bristles. The boy wore three shirts. The cloth of one poked through the holes in another. His inner shirt had been white. Despite the chill, the shirts were open. The boy’s eyes and attention were directed to his bare chest. His fingers picked at something. Fleas? Will wondered. Yes, and worse, perhaps.

The boy’s skin bore welts of fresh and old insect bites. His trouser legs were rolled to his knees. The soles of his feet were black with dirt. Beside the boy lay a flat basket, woven from reeds. Beside the basket lay the remains of the boy’s last meal: the shells of a couple of shrimp scavenged from the dock, and the blackened core of an apple, fallen, or perhaps stolen, from a cart.

The boy looked up when he heard Will’s footsteps stop. His eyes were wary, but not dull. He held Will’s gaze. Will saw neither fear nor hostility. Will stooped to enter the alcove, and then sat down less than an arm’s length from the boy—an impolite distance. Will shifted the bundle on his back, and rested against the wall.

“My kip,” the boy said. “Get your own.”

“I like it here,” Will replied. His voice was level.

The boy picked something from his head, cracked it between his thumbnail and finger, and tossed it at the interloper.

“What was that?” Will asked.

“Louse,” the boy replied. “I won’t kill the next one.”

Will said nothing.

“I’m not fooling,” the boy said, more heatedly. “It’s my kip, and I really won’t kill the next one.”

As he spoke, the boy looked more closely at Will.

He saw a tween whose threadbare woolen trousers and shirts might once have been brown but were now nearly gray. Will’s shoes of rough-tanned leather were shabby, and appeared to be of different sizes. His hair was hidden under a shapeless cap. A blanket was rolled into a long, thin bundle and slung over his shoulder with a frayed rope.

His inspection over, the boy spoke. “You may stay. Until the night, that is. Then I must hide in the shadows where you now sit. Then you must leave.”

“From what do you hide?” Will asked.

The boy scoffed, and then said, “If you don’t know what to hide from, then you will surely be captured. Or killed.”

Will looked at the boy and said, softly, “Truly, I do not know. Will you not tell me?”

The boy looked hard at Will before asking, “How could you not know? Where are you from that you do not know?”

“I entered Norfork only an hour since,” Will said. “I know that something is wrong. I could see it in the people’s eyes. But I don’t know what it is.”

“And it’s not like that where you’re from?” The boy asked, reminding Will that a question remained unanswered.

“I’m from the south. I was born in the western mountains, but I grew up in the city of Arcadia. I’ve been wandering for a while, now. I don’t like it, but something compels me—” Will’s voice trailed off. His face became pensive. Perhaps only then did he realize the truth behind what he said.

The boy, whose face was still in bright sunlight, didn’t see Will’s face, hidden in the sharp shadows. The boy’s voice was singsong, as if he were repeating something he’d often heard or said.

In the night, they come:
things that dare not walk
in the light of day.
Men with skin of iron,
beasts with eyes of fire.
When the morning comes,
boys like me are gone,
never seen again.
Fighting for the dark,
on the ships that fly
flags of black and gold.

The boy’s voice faltered, and then he was silent. When he spoke again, his voice reflected a deep sadness. “My friend, Zan, he didn’t hide one night. Thought he could find some scraps on the docks. Thought he could stay in the shadows and be safe. He never came back.”

“I’m sorry about your friend,” Will said.

“Why should you be sorry,” the boy asked.

“Because it’s wrong!” Will asserted. “Those flags—the black and gold—it’s the flag of Eblis! This is Arcadia! Eblis can’t take our people like that!”

Will was silent for several breaths before adding softly, his voice scarcely a whisper, “Because you—and Zan—shouldn’t have to be afraid. And no one should have to live like this.”

The question the boy might have asked was stopped in his throat by a scratching sound in the alley. Two figures stepped in front of the alcove and were limned by the sun.

“What have we here?” a tenor voice asked.

“It’s Barrett the beggar,” a second, similar voice replied.

Will tensed. He recognized those voices. They belonged to two of the boys who had tormented the man with the hook, the old sailor. Is the third with them? Yes, I hear his boots on the cobbles. They don’t know I’m here, I don’t think. The sun’s too bright, and I’m in the shadows.

Hands reached into the alcove, and jerked the beggar boy through the opening into the alley. The boy screamed in pain. Will shrugged his bundle from his shoulder. A gesture and the rope fell away. Another gesture and Will’s hand held the sword that had been wrapped in the blanket. Before the beggar boy had drawn a breath for his second scream, Will had jumped into the alley and taken three steps, putting himself between the three tweens and the sun.

“Release the boy,” Will said. “Release the boy, and depart.”

The second scream never came; Barrett’s voice was stopped in his throat by what he saw. A shard of sunlight reflected from the sword fell on the face of one of Barrett’s assailants. No! Barrett thought. Not a reflection! The sun’s behind him. The light came from the sword!

Seeing only a figure with a sword, one of the assailants drew his own sword and stepped toward Will. Will’s eyes flickered from one of the assailants to the other. The one holding the boy…he’s drawn his dagger and it’s moving toward the boy.

Will’s sword flashed, not at the tween with the sword, but at the one holding the beggar boy. The dagger and the hand that held it fell to the ground. The boy who had held the dagger screamed and dropped to his knees. Will spun a quarter turn and parried the sword of the second attacker. The force of Will’s blow numbed the boy’s hand, and his sword clanged onto the cobbles. His eyes grew wide, seeing his own death. But he did not die. Will turned to the third boy, who also had drawn his sword.

He’s not a coward, Will thought, I’ll give him that. The boy stood his ground in the face of Will’s attack. They exchanged blows that rang against the stone walls of the alley. Will assessed the situation. The boy he’d disarmed was no longer a threat. He was running down the alley, leaving his sword. The boy whose hand Will had cut off was about to faint, perhaps die, from loss of blood.

He’s protecting his friend! He is not entirely without honor, Will realized. Aloud, he cried, “Pax! Your friend will die if the bleeding isn’t stopped.”

The beggar boy (Barrett, his name is Barrett, Will thought) watched Will bind the wounded boy’s arm. “Take him to a healer,” Will said. “Take his hand, too. Quickly, though. The hand can be restored if not too much time passes. He may have a chance, not like the sailor you tormented today.”

Will watched as the boy carried his wounded companion away. When they were out of sight, Barrett spoke. “Who are you?”

“If I told you, you would be in danger,” Will said.

“I’m already in danger,” Barrett answered. “Before, I was in danger only of being carried off by iron men with glowing eyes. Those boys wouldn’t have hurt me. Well, not too badly. Now, they or their friends will kill me if they find me. I can’t kip here, any more. I don’t know where to hide tonight. I can’t go into the market lest those boys find me.” His voice was more resigned than bitter.

Will thought for a moment, and then asked, “Did I make things worse by trying to help you? Would they not have hurt you?”

The boy was silent for a long time, thinking. When finally he spoke, his words were slow and careful. “They’ve never hurt me before. Just bruises, mostly. Once, they caught me in the baths. I had a farthing, and was more dirty than hungry. Two of them raped me. No, I don’t think they’d have hurt me. But you didn’t know that, did you?”

While Barrett spoke, Will cleaned his sword on the hem of his shirt, and wrapped it back inside the blanket. He tied the rope around the bundle. Barrett asked, again, “Who are you? I saw the sword’s magic.”

“Then I’m afraid it’s even worse than you thought,” Will said. “If you saw the magic of the sword, then those boys may have seen it, too. Eventually, they’ll remember, and they’ll wonder. And they’ll want very badly to know who I am. They’ll think you know, and they’ll hurt you to make you tell.”

“If I am to be hurt to protect your secret, I must know it,” Barrett said.

“Barrett, I’ve already put you in danger, more danger than I realized. If people thought you knew my secret, they would hurt you…to the point of death…to make you tell.”

“You must tell me. I promise not to tell. If I come to harm because of your telling, I promise not to hold you to blame,” the beggar boy said.

Barrett thought further. “I think that’s all.”

Will stepped toward Barrett, and took the boy’s hands in his. “Your argument is sound. In trying to defend you, I have wronged you; I hope I am not wronging you further. My name is Will. I am a prince.”

Barrett did not try to break Will’s grip, but stood for a long time before he spoke. “You are either telling the truth, or you are insane. Either way, you have put your life in my hands. Therefore, my life is in your hands. Will you kill me, now?” The boy’s voice was strangely calm.

Will started, and pulled the boy closer. “Oh, no. I’ll not kill you! If I am to rule, it will be to protect you, and all the people of Arcadia!”

Barrett’s eyes widened when Will said this, but Will did not see.

“Since we have agreed that I will not kill you, although you still think me insane, will you share boy magic with me?” Will asked.

“Euuw!” Barrett said. “You’re filthy, and so am I.

“The inn around the corner has a bath,” Will said.

“Cost a ha’penny,” Barrett said. “Penny if you wait until after dark.”

“I have a penny,” Will said. “It will pay for us both.”

“Save your penny for bread. You’ll need it.”

“I have another penny for bread,” Will said. “Will you share a bath and yourself with me?”

“I’m not a catamite,” Barrett said, using the form of the word that meant prostitute rather than beloved.

“Good,” Will said, looking directly into the boy’s eyes, “for I do not seek a
whore.”

Barrett was startled by the vulgarity, but nodded. “Then yes, thank you. I will share a bath with you—and boy magic.”