The Verdigris Pawn

by Alysa Wishingrad

A hush descended and the merchant turned to the cart driver. “Tell them again, exactly what you told me.”

  “I was jumped, robbed, right below Topend.” The driver’s voice was shaky, and Beau had to strain to hear him over the crowd’s low grumbling chatter. “Thieves, not sure if they were from the Bottom or Lower Middlelands. They got my purse, gave me a fat lip and this lump on my head. At least they left me the skins.”

  The crowd erupted in a buzz of whispers, while someone shouted out, “Soon they’ll be robbing us all in bright daylight! Right here in the square!”

  “Let him finish!” the man in red shouted to the crowd.

  “Himself rode out yesterday, surrounded by his elite guard headed to the North Hills and Torin’s territory.”

  At the mention of Torin’s name, worried grumblings began echoing through the square.

  “Calm yourselves!” the wool merchant warned. “A deal with Torin is a great boon for us. They’re coming to protect us, guard us.”

  “How do you know?” someone shouted.

  “Because the Manor tells us so!” the wool merchant scolded. “Himself values us, our goods, our coin. We’ve already seen what can happen as the fever takes ever more guards. There are bandits roaming the roads. We’ve had two shops broken into at night! We should be grateful to have Torin guarding us. He will protect us, keep things from getting any worse. By the Goodness of Himself, we will be safe from the thieves, pilferers, and villains who want to take what’s ours. As for all of you, rest your gossiping tongues and get back to work knowing the Manor is looking out for our safety.”

  “Those Lower Middlelanders are just waiting to take what’s ours!” a woman clutching an infant tightly to her chest cried out. “Not even Torin could keep us safe if they spread the fever to us here!”

  “The fever hasn’t moved beyond the guards’ barracks,” the wool merchant scolded. “The only thing you need to worry about, Mary Bellwright, is making sure you can pay your taxes.”

  The woman withdrew, but the crowd was no closer to calm.

  “It’s the work of a charmer!” another woman shouted. “There’s one among us.”

  Nate leaned in and whispered, “If only there were still charmers. This lot deserves to suffer as much as the rest of us. Another flood or maybe a drought might teach them.”

  It was a terrible thing to say, but there was some truth there. From what Beau could see, the people of the Upper Middlelands showed little interest in the common good, unless it benefited them.

  “That’s enough now!” the wool merchant shouted the crowd down. “There are no more charmers! The Manor has it all under control. Now go back to your work, and put your trust in Himself. He will see that we and those in Topend are safe.”

  “We should get out of here,” Nate whispered as the crowd begrudgingly began to disperse. “This lot doesn’t sound like they’d take to new faces. Which way do we go?”

  Beau tried to muster some semblance of confidence as he led Nate down a narrow lane, then down another, and yet another. He’d hoped they’d eventually wind up in the outskirts of town, but in truth they were only going in circles.

  “Do you even know where you’re heading?” Nate’s bitter tang cut deep. “I need to eat. Now. And I don’t care how we get it.”

  He was right. Everywhere they went the smell of food cooking followed, turning pangs of hunger into a stifling ache. Why had Beau promised to find them food? What did he know about it? The most work he’d ever had to do to fill his belly was open the dumbwaiter.

  Beau was ready to admit defeat, when he landed on the answer. He turned and marched into the center of the marketplace, his head on a swivel looking for just the right thing.

  “Glad you changed your mind,” Nate said, his fingers twitching and ready to pick some rolls off a nearby stall. “My stomach says it’s worth the risk.”

  “Not like that. There’s where we get our next meal.” Beau pointed out a cartman slowly loading barrels onto a wagon.

  Nate squinted at the cart. “Why would he give us food?”

  “Not give, pay in exchange for our labor.”

  “He doesn’t look like he’s got two coins to rub together. We need to hit on someone who looks prosperous.”

  “I don’t agree. Look at him struggling. His arm is bandaged, he needs help. And if he can’t pay us, we’ll try someone else.”

  “You better be right,” Nate grumbled. “I’ve done enough work in this life for no pay.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Half a Coin

  “Wait! Let us help you!” Beau called as he and Nate rushed in to help the carter lift his cask onto the wagon.

  “Kind of you,” the carter said, yielding the barrel to the boys. “Had a little accident yesterday, it’s slowing me down.”

  The man tugged at the bandage on his arm, a small pool of dried blood staining the wrappings.

  “We can load the rest of your barrels, if you like,” Beau offered.

  “For half . . . a full coin,” Nate emphatically added.

  The carter looked the boys over. “All right. Half a coin each if you load the entire wagon.”

  Nate brightened. “For half a coin each we’ll drive it too!”

  “Might take you up on that.” The cart man winked. “Go on, get to work. I got places to be.”

  Beau was nearly bursting with pride as he and Nate got to it. His idea had actually worked. With every barrel they moved, they were that much closer to finding Doone, to freeing Cressi. And, if everything Nate said about Doone was true, liberating Mastery House.

  By the time they’d finished loading the last barrel onto the wagon, Beau’s arms were aching from the labor, his stomach howling with hunger. At least their meal would be an honest one.

  “Fairly done.” The carter counted out two half coins from his purse. “Too bad I won’t have help this good down the way.”

  “Down the way?” Nate asked, his palm out and ready to receive payment. “Where down the way?”

  “Lower Middlelands. I’m hoping to do some trading there.” The carter poured the coins from one palm to the other as he leaned in to whisper, “There’s a gathering.”

  Beau had never even heard of such a thing, but Nate was practically salivating. “You mean like they used to before they were made illegal? With music and games? That kind of gathering?”

  “And all the food you could ever want. Too bad you can’t come along. I imagine your mothers will be missing you for supper.”

  Beau and Nate exchanged a look.

  “Actually, we’re heading south too,” Nate ventured. “We have an aunt down there. She’s not well, and we’re being sent to tend her pigs.”

  “Imagine the chances.” The carter’s smile exposed a mouthful of crooked, yellowed teeth. “I’ll tell you what, you come with me to the gathering, unload my wagon, and I’ll pay you double. A full coin each. Unless your dear aunt can’t wait.”

  “She can wait!” Beau and Nate replied in unison.

  “We’ve a deal then.” The carter dropped the coins back in his purse and tucked it into his pocket. “There’s room for you in the back. You can watch the barrels, make sure they don’t move.”

  “Oh . . .” Nate hesitated, as he watched the coins disappear out of sight. “We thought to get some food first.”

  “You got nothing packed for your journey?”

  “We forgot.” Nate shrugged. “Too worried about our aunt.”

  “Right.” The carter nodded. “Well, I’ve got bread, a cheese rind, and a couple of pears. If that’ll do you, it’s yours.”

  “That’s perfect,” Beau said. “Thank you.”

  And with that the two boys climbed aboard the wagon, ready to ride out of the Upper Middlelands, with full bellies no less.

  “I’m thinking I should change your name again.” Nate wiped away the beads of pear juice dripping down his chin.

  “Why?” Beau asked between bites of bread.

  “Seems like Lucky might
be the better name for you. Every time I tried to run, I always got caught before I could find my way onto a wagon. Then you come along. We get a free meal and a ride on a southbound wagon that just fairly pranced right through the gate on our way to a gathering! You’re not a charmer, are you, Crafty? You the one causing the fever? If so, watch out, I might just turn you in for the reward.” Nate laughed, then in a swift shift of mood added, “You gonna eat that pear?”

  Grateful to not have to answer, Beau surrendered the fruit. Nate was right again. It wasn’t only Himself and Barger who suspected a charmer was behind the fever. As the sickness spread, people were getting anxious and hungry for answers, or in the absence of truth, a scapegoat. Beau needed to find Doone and fast.

  “I could eat these all day,” Nate crowed, finishing the pear. “Only fruit we got in Mastery House were half-rotten gostberries. Nasty, seedy things. But I did once have a peach hand-pie. It nearly ruined me. Made going back and facing a bowl of watery gruel too hard. After that, I told Fledge to spare me the knowing.”

  “Fledge?” His friend’s name yanked Beau out of his thoughts. “The master of the stables?”

  Since Cressi knew Fledge, it made sense Nate did as well. But somehow it stung that Fledge had kept them hidden from Beau.

  “Me and Cressi used to sneak out to go see him. He’d feed us, then send us back with food and sometimes warm clothes for the others. He’d teach us things, too, like how to read. But after Cressi got sent up to service, I stopped going. Couldn’t trust anyone else with Fledge’s secret.”

  “His secret?” Beau asked as blithely as he could muster.

  Nate leaned back against the barrels. “I shouldn’t say it, but since you and I are bound to each other now, I guess I can tell you. Fledge came from the Badem. Himself’s charmer wife brought him to the Manor. She told Himself she wouldn’t give him a child until he vowed to protect Fledge, always. So Himself made Fledge apprentice to the old master of the stables when he was a ten, and that’s why he is where he is now.”

  The story hit Beau like a blow to the head. “That’s not true.”

  “You’re calling me a liar?” Nate leaned in, a hint of smoke smoldering under the surface.

  “No,” Beau backed down. “But I can’t believe that’s true.”

  If Fledge had known Beau’s mother, he would have told him.

  He should have told him.

  Why hadn’t he told him?

  Beau pitched forward over the edge of the wagon until all he could see was the ground racing past in a blur. Road became indistinguishable from rocks, truth from lies. Friends from enemies.

  “Well, there are stranger things than that,” Nate laughed, brightening. “You wanna know my secret?”

  Beau hesitated. He couldn’t handle knowing Nate to be anything other than brave, smart, and his friend.

  “Well, I have two, actually,” Nate said. “The first is stupid, probably every kid in Mastery House has the same one. See, up until I was a five or a six, I used to think I was there by mistake. That I’d been stolen from my parents, sold to the Manor by their enemies, and any day they’d figure it out and come for me.”

  “Every child sold to Mastery House has been stolen from their parents by their enemy.” Beau shook his head in disgust since that enemy was his father. “That’s why we have to see them all freed.”

  “True enough,” Nate agreed. “But I used to think my parents were rich and lived in one of those fine Topend houses I’d heard so much about, so when they came for me, I’d be rich too. But know what? Even if they were the richest people in the Land, I wouldn’t want that now. To live like that when so many others don’t, means you only see what you want to see. That’s not me. I see it all. You know?”

  Yes, Beau knew all too well.

  “I’m a lot like Doone in that way,” Nate continued. “I tell you, Crafty, we’re so close to finding him, I can taste it.”

  But no sooner had Nate spoken than the scent of roasting meats wafted past on the breeze.

  “Or is that a roast? You smell that?” Nate asked. “Where’s that coming fro—”

  And then they saw it. Just off the right side of the wagon, down below in a wide bowl-shaped field lay a glorious assemblage of tents, wagons, and people. The gathering.

  The sight of all those people freely laughing, dancing, playing set Beau’s blood bubbling. With so much to do, to see—games, hammer throws, dancing—it was like some kind of dream of freedom.

  “Once we get paid, I’m going to watch that lot over there playing Hazard.” Nate pointed out a tight huddle of people gathered around a game of dice. “Study the game. Afterwards, I’ve a mind to try turning our two coins into a whole lot more.”

  “No, we can’t chance losing what we have.”

  “If you want more, Crafty, you’ve got to be willing to risk what you’ve got.”

  “I know, but we need to keep going. Find Do—” Beau began when the cart man appeared at the end of the wagon.

  “You not gonna find anything until you empty my cart,” he snarled.

  “We’ll get it done.” Nate jumped off the wagon. “You only need worry about having those coins warmed up and waiting for us.”

  “You mean these?” The cart man plucked two coins from his purse and waved them in Nate’s face.

  “That’s them.” Nate tried to snatch the coins away, but Beau stepped in between them.

  “Don’t worry, sir,” Beau said. “We’ll get it done.”

  The cart man pulled a long-bladed dagger from his boot and outlined a large rectangle on the ground. “Line them barrels up in rows of five right here. Not one over the line.”

  “Easy coin.” Nate winked at Beau. “You roll the barrels to the edge, I’ll grab them off the wagon and line them up, neat as a pin. You’ll see, Crafty, we’ll be on our way in no time at all.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  The Power of Power

  The thrill of leaving the Manor for the first time carried Cressi far into the night. Watching the Manor recede into the distance filled her with a joy she had to fight to contain. She sat primed and ready, wedged into a wagon between the two Manor guards, pawn in hand, waiting for it to tell her where to find Beau and Nate.

  But several leagues past Topend and the pawn still remained silent.

  There were no movements, no feelings welling up to overpower her own. The only thoughts occupying her mind were hers alone.

  All she could do now was trust that something was pushing her forward.

  Eventually the journey grew tedious, the rumbling over rutted roads wearying. She slept on and off through the night and into the next day, waking to the sounds of the guards eating, arguing, and snoring. It was only after the late afternoon sun began its lazy journey to the west that they entered a large town.

  Unlike the Manor with its one magnificent building surrounded by workshops and outbuildings on the outskirts, here there were buildings of all sizes, shapes, and ranges of magnificence. Some were as tall as three stories, others low and squat, and most hosted shops on the ground floor.

  “Where are we?” Cressi asked.

  “What, don’t your pawn tell you?” Keb laughed.

  “That’s not how it works,” Boz snorted.

  “What do you know about how it works?” Keb shot back.

  “Forget about the pawn,” Cressi said. “Where are we and why have we stopped?”

  “Upper Middlelands.” Boz climbed out of the wagon and tied the horses to a hitching post. “You and that pawn ain’t getting us nowhere, so we figured we’d ask around if anyone’s seen the heir.”

  “Are you serious?” Cressi pressed. “No one is meant to know he’s gone from the Manor.”

  “You ain’t too smart, Miss Pawn,” Boz clucked in pity. “We’re not gonna mention his name. Just gonna ask who’s seen a boy with nice teeth and clean hair.”

  “As if they won’t figure out who two Manor couriers are talking about from that description!”

/>   “No, they won’t,” Boz countered. “You don’t know nothing about being a spy. We been trained. Don’t go telling us what to do.”

  “Yeah,” Keb added.

  As the two guards proceeded to launch into a series of one tall tale after another about their supposed spy craft, Cressi caught wind of a scent on the breeze.

  Flowers? Trees?

  No. Something else, something far more powerful . . .

  Cressi looked up and down the street searching for the source. But the fishmonger’s, the baker’s, nor the cordwainer’s shop could be home to what she was smelling. Then she spotted it. A tidy little apothecary shop tucked in at the end of the lane.

  “You know,” she said, interrupting Boz, who was busy bragging about how he single-handedly discovered who was stealing cabbages from the kitchen gardens, “I think you’re right.

  “We should ask if anyone’s seen a boy of that description. As long as we don’t mention it’s the heir, they won’t suspect a thing. Although . . .” Cressi shook her head as if terribly disappointed. “We should split up; all go in separate directions. It’ll go faster that way.”

  “No way, missy,” Boz said. “Barger said to keep you in our sights at all times and that’s what we’re gonna do.”

  “You’re right.” Cressi threw her hands up in surrender. “It’ll be fine. So what if it take us three times as long? We’ll still have two and a half days before Barger expects us back. All right then, let’s go.”

  Cressi made to set off, but she could see Boz was considering the idea, his face twisting and contorting as he tried to look for the trap. Finally, after a quick huddle with Keb, he grumbled, “Fine. You go asking, and we’ll go asking. But don’t go pulling anything funny.”

  “I want to find the heir as much as you do,” Cressi said. “I’m going to go ask at that row of shops. You can follow me, spy on me, do what you like, but I intend to find him.”

  If Cressi had been mesmerized by Cook’s pantry, the effect was tripled the moment she stepped inside the apothecary shop. Three entire walls were lined with shelves and drawers, all filled with plants, flowers, and barks of every variety. Cressi stood there, her eyes wide and her mouth agape until the proprietress stepped out from behind the counter.