The Beggar King

by Michelle Barker

  “When you come back from that desert you got sand in places where sand ain’t meant to be, if you catch my meaning,” said Pockface, and Sarmillion pretended to think this was hilarious, banging the table and calling for more drinks. He felt something at his feet and startled, thinking it might be the cobra. The mongoose scrambled across his two-toned leather shoes and darted back towards the snake. You go, little fellow.

  “I hear Elion is lovely in the winter,” said Sarmillion. He waited for the response with the tensely alert patience of a mongoose. And just as Buckteeth opened his mouth to answer, Sarmillion felt a hand on his arm and looked up to see the greasy hair and bulbous red nose of his boss, Piccolo.

  “Sorry to break up the party,” he said, elbowing his way between Sarmillion and Pockface. He plunked his forearms onto the sticky counter, his gut pressing against the bar, and the bartender handed him a Bloody Billy.

  “On the house,” he said, and Piccolo grunted.

  “Who’s winning?” Piccolo pointed to the pit with his grizzly double chin.

  “Anyone’s call tonight,” said the bartender.

  “So, Scribbler? You got something for me?”

  Sarmillion’s stomach clenched. The last thing he wanted was for those guards to find out he’d once worked as a palace scribe. He turned his back to them and lowered his voice. “I’m working on it.”

  “Working on it? Working on it would mean you’re hangin’ around the place waitin’ for the lights to go out. Working on it would mean ye gots the key in yer pocket, or better yet, the loot in yer sack. What the hell, underkitty, work harder. You don’t wanna gets yer name in my big books, now, do ye?”

  Sarmillion cleared his throat. “Of course not, feirhart. You’ll have your . . . items by tomorrow afternoon. My word. I’ll bring them by your tavern.”

  “I know where ye live, underkitty.”

  “Indeed you do, feirhart.”

  “I’ll hunt ye down.”

  “I know that, feirhart.”

  Suddenly the room exploded in boos and cheers. The mongoose had struck and the cobra was dead.

  “Your lucky day, I reckon,” said the bartender, as the Landguards slapped Sarmillion and each other on the back.

  Piccolo fixed him with his dark piggy eyes. “I’ll see you tomorrow, underkitty. And I’ll tell ye this: tomorrow, it’s my lucky day. Eh? Eh?” He laughed and his chest rattled with phlegm and he coughed and spat onto the dirt floor. Sarmillion grimaced in disgust. His hands shook as he gathered his winnings into a velvet sack.

  The Landguards drained the last of their drinks. They were steadying themselves when the beads jangled and in strode Grizelda. Sarmillion cursed her timing because he knew he couldn’t stay. He gave her a wave and a wink and as she purred past he took in the rosewater scent of her and whispered, “Buy you a drink later?” and she said, “Later I might not be here,” and he said, “Wait for me?” and she said, “Are you worth waiting for?” and he said, “You bet I am,” and her red-painted claws skimmed his cheek. “I’ll wait,” she said.

  The Landguards stumbled out the door and into the fresh night air. Sarmillion slowed his pace to theirs.

  “So, where are we off to now?” he asked.

  “We’re staying just around the corner,” said Pockface. “The what’s-it-called.”

  “Here On Inn,” Sarmillion said. “Try their pickled herring for breakfast. It’s the best in Omar.” Blast Piccolo. His conversation with the Landguards had been picking up momentum. Strike and retreat. Here goes. “Riverboat leaves from here down to Utberg, I hear,” he said. “Gets you down south in ten days’ time. Nice ride, folks say.”

  “Who’d want to go there?” said Buckteeth. “The place is a dead zone. Nothing but clay huts and dust and a couple of straggly trees. Talk about getting ripped off on leave. Emp can’t put us up in a fancy resort in Elion? No, he’s gotta send us five miles away from the damned prison camp for R&R. Utberg — steaming goat dung, that’s what I say.”

  So the prison camp was five miles from Utberg, was it? There it was. The cobra was dead.

  “Brinnian coast resorts are cold even in the summer,” Pockface was saying. “Man, we come to Ut, we want palm trees and pretty girls and all the Elderberry Blasters we can drink.”

  Buckteeth began describing the girls he was particularly interested in, but Sarmillion wasn’t listening. Utberg was about as far away from the Holy City as you could get. At least now they knew what they were up against. He would meet with Mars tomorrow and give him the news. They could dispatch spies immediately to Utberg to assess the situation. It might be the beginning of redemption for the Scribbler.

  He’d done his duty this evening — perhaps he’d make a good spy after all. Now a white Persian undercat with red-painted claws awaited him and he wouldn’t have to think about Utberg or Piccolo’s blasted candlesticks until tomorrow.

  Nine

  PRIVATE REBELLIONS

  JORDAN STRUTTED THROUGH THE CIRRAN MARKETPLACE, his pockets filled with stolen tomatoes. On this day, in the year that bore the Brinnian designation 1329, it was finally his sixteenth birthday. He did not deserve to feel so happy. Sometime this month he would have to take his robes, and he still had no idea what his gift might be. But today he would fulfill a different purpose.

  Beyond the market, Jordan passed one of the enormous portraits of Emperor Rabellus that had been painted onto building walls all over the city. Jordan hated that smirk, those hooded eyes scrutinizing you whenever you walked by. Checking to make sure there were no Landguards, he faced the likeness and crossed his forearms in a curse.

  Today was the first anniversary of the Brinnian coup. It was also the Cirran Feast of the Great Light, but there was no question of holding a traditional celebration. It was forbidden.

  Besides, the Brinnians were using the Meditary that night for another one of their Fire and Feasting parties that some Cirrans planned to attend. For those who were disgusted by the scent of once-sacred deer roasting in their once-sacred hall, there was nowhere to go except the Common.

  Rabellus had doubled his Landguard patrol, expecting trouble. Jordan’s jaw tensed: he would personally ensure that the emperor was not disappointed. When he’d confided his plan to Sarmillion, the undercat had pretended to disapprove, but the way his whiskers had jittered Jordan could tell even he was excited about it.

  Finally he reached the Alley of Seers, a crooked narrow passage made up of the attached stone homes of the Seven Seers of Cir. Each door was painted a different colour, though according to Ophira, the dwellings themselves were connected by back stairways and hidden doors and rooms you’d never guess at. Jordan had never been farther than Mama Petsane’s kitchen, and it was at her bright blue door that he knocked this morning.

  “Ach, come in already, Jordan,” she called from the other side of the door. As Jordan entered, he was met with the fragrance of countless herbs simmering in one of Petsane’s famous stews. The smell made him think of shade trees and Cirsinnian pastures just before harvest.

  “Good morning, Mama,” he said, flashing her a grin and producing, with a flourish, a tomato in each hand.

  Mama Petsane stood before the big black woodstove in the kitchen, a green apron around her waist, her head bare. She waved her long-handled stew spoon in the air with a grimace. “Where’d you get those, boy?”

  “I grew them in my garden,” he said with a wink, and won for himself one of Petsane’s rarest gifts, a brown-toothed, big-gapped smile.

  Mama Manjuza, who had been seated at the kitchen table, rose awkwardly and took the tomatoes from Jordan. “At least he brings something worth stealing,” she said.

  “You sixteen today,” said Mama Petsane. “Big day, uh?”

  “Big day, no robes in sight,” Grandma Mopu piped up from the divan. Mopu was a tall woman with long teeth and a horse-like face. She was the one whom everyone called the Monkey-Maker, on account of her tendency to make fun of things. It was amusing, as long as you weren’t
her target. While Petsane and Manjuza giggled at this comment, Jordan’s face fell.

  “Maybe I just won’t take any robes,” he said. “I’m not obliged, you know. Lots of people aren’t bothering with them anymore.”

  “Yeah, maybe you just be a tomato thief for the rest of your life,” said Petsane.

  “Your father will be so proud,” said Mopu.

  “You all know which robes I’m going to wear.” Jordan hadn’t meant to whine. He cleared his throat. “Why won’t you tell me?”

  “Maybe we don’t know,” said Manjuza.

  “Maybe we already told you but you don’t listen,” said Mopu.

  “Maybe I don’t have a gift,” he said. He stood beside Mama Petsane and lifted the lid on the stew. Petsane tapped his hand with her wooden spoon.

  “Sit, Jordan,” said Mama Manjuza, gently patting a wicker kitchen chair. Jordan came and sat across from her.

  “You be good with goats?” she asked.

  “No. They chase me and bite at my shorts.”

  “You ever try carving, like your father?”

  “He says I was born with two left hands.”

  “But you sure be good at dreaming away an afternoon beneath the cedars,” said Petsane, her large backside facing them as she attended to her stew.

  “Yeah, but there are no robes for that,” said Mopu, shuffling over and sitting down. While all of the seers were obliged to wear their saffron robes whenever they left the house, at home Mopu insisted upon wearing a multi-coloured dress because, as she claimed, she was good at everything.

  “What you gonna do to celebrate your day?” asked Grandma Appollonia from her worn rocker in the corner of the large room. Jordan turned to see which side of Appollonia had spoken. It seemed she was squinting at him with her good eye. The left eye, made of swirled blue glass, remained fixed straight ahead. That was the one you wanted to watch out for. Strange things happened when she spoke from that side.

  “He’s gonna get a haircut,” said Mopu. This was a perpetual threat amongst the grandmas who all agreed Jordan’s mop of curls was far too unruly.

  Jordan laughed. “No way.” Then he said nonchalantly, “I don’t have any plans.”

  The kitchen fell silent as the four old women glowered at him.

  “Don’t you dare,” said Mopu.

  “What?” said Jordan, struggling to keep his face neutral.

  Manjuza stood and waved her cane at him. “You do it and you be the next one hanging from that tree, Jordan. It would kill your father. You’re all he has in this world.”

  Jordan focused on the empty staircase and wondered what was taking Ophira so long to come down.

  “Ach, Manjuza, forget it. Ye know he’s gonna do it no-how,” said Petsane. “Anyway, I saw it first.”

  “Now that’s a load of dried dung,” said Manjuza, slamming the kitchen table with the flat of her hand. “All the Cirrans say Mama Manjuza sees farthest.”

  Mopu pushed her chair away from the table. “Yeah, yeah, you all see so far, but none of you can see what you’re doing to this family. Bunch of blind old farts.”

  “Don’t you be starting on that Willa business again,” grumbled Petsane. Jordan could sense he was about to get caught in the middle of a storm, so he went to sit in the empty chair next to Appollonia. Her glass eye was open but her good eye was closed, and she kept up a steady snore.

  Then she snuffled and murmured in a sleepy voice, “Little boy in too-big shoes.”

  “What was that?” asked Jordan.

  Appollonia stared at him with her disturbing blue-glass eye, almost as if she were wide awake. “Little boy in too-big shoes, he find his gift. Oh, wretched gift.”

  Jordan jostled her shoulder. “What do you mean? What did you just say?”

  Her good eye blinked open. “Eh? Why you wake an old woman when she be napping?”

  The other three seers were chuckling and coughing about something between them. When Jordan looked up, there was Ophira at the top of the stairs in her saffron robes — unveiled.

  “Go,” Petsane waved at Jordan with the spoon. “Take her for a walk to the river. It’s yer birthday.”

  Ophira came down the stairs, stepping lightly in her embroidered slippers, and Jordan rose.

  “Pick me up some billy grain for our biscuits,” Petsane said to the girl, making a show of placing a silver groder on the table and glaring pointedly at Jordan. “She’s gonna pay for it, so keep yer sticky fingers in yer pockets. And put yer veil on!” she cried as Ophira pushed the front door open.

  Jordan followed her out and shut the door behind them. “What’s up with Mopu?”

  “Oh,” said Ophira. “It’s about Grandma Willa. You know how Mopu cares for her. Poor Willa has fallen into complete disgrace since she showed up last year in the Meditary with her head bare — and in rubber boots.”

  “So it doesn’t have anything to do with this?” Jordan tugged at the sleeve of Ophira’s saffron robes. “The seventh seer of Cir? You’re taking Willa’s place, aren’t you?”

  Ophira struggled to speak, as if something were caught in her throat. “I can’t talk about this with you, Jordan. Yes, I’m the seventh seer of Cir, now. That’s all.”

  That’s all? It was quite enough. Jordan didn’t speak until they reached the extensive gardens that lined the riverbank walkway around the entire Holy City. The Balakan River was wide and long, the waters dividing around the mountain-island that was the Holy City of Cir before they continued past Omar and south into Ut. Jordan loved the sound of the rushing water and the way the river’s breezes carried the Balakan Garden’s fresh scent of flowers. Low boats passed now and then beneath the twelve bridges, bearing cargo or passengers from the provinces. Sometimes you could hear the singing of the oarsmen below deck. He settled himself on a stone bench, and Ophira joined him.

  “I hate this birthday,” he said. “Everyone expects me to decide the rest of my life, when I can hardly make up my mind about what to eat for lunch.”

  “You’re lucky to have a real birthday,” she said.

  “What do you mean? Everyone has a birthday.”

  “Not me. The grandmas just chose the day they found me on their doorstep.”

  “Do they really not know who your parents were?”

  “Sometimes they talk of a Circassic healer and a wandering belt-dancer when they think I can’t hear them.” She paused, as if lost in thought.

  Everything about Ophira was a mystery to Jordan. So were love potions, and love itself. Lately he’d been struck by the idea that the world around him was merely a backdrop. The stone buildings, the river and trees, they weren’t the real things. It was what was behind them that was important, the things you couldn’t see.

  He gazed at Ophira’s veiled face. “Would you take it off? I feel like I’m talking to you through a wall.”

  She hesitated. “I’m not supposed to. The grandmas . . . well, they worry.”

  Jordan let out a snort. “About what?”

  “About you. You know what happened to Mopu’s fiancé. It’s not just a superstition.”

  “I think I can take care of myself,” he said, fighting the blush that threatened to creep across his face. “Anyway, what are they going to do about it?”

  Ophira shrugged. “Mama Petsane has threatened to make a paste of billy grain and mug-wine to glue the veil to my head.” She bent forward and let it fall into her lap. For the first time Jordan noticed how pale her face appeared against her hair, and how her blue eyes were ringed with dark circles.

  “You look so tired,” he exclaimed. “Aren’t you sleeping well?”

  “I’m needed at night,” she said.

  “What do you mean?”

  She shook her head. “There are things I can’t tell you.” She glanced down at the pile of yellow fabric in her lap. “It’s my fourth one,” she confided.

  Jordan’s eyebrows rose.

  “I threw the first one into this river. The second I shredded with Petsane�
��s carving knife and I cut eye-holes into the third.”

  Jordan burst into laughter.

  “The grandmas didn’t think it was funny. Well, Mopu did.”

  “Who would ever suspect you of being a rebel?” He thought of the grandmas. “How do you manage to keep anything from those old women?”

  Ophira’s lips were pursed, as if she were guarding something, but her gaze was as clear as ever. “You have to make a place in your mind for secrets, a corner where they wouldn’t think to check.” She watched the tall mellowreeds swaying in the breeze. “I put you there sometimes.”

  What did she mean? Ophira’s long elegant hands were curled in her lap, and Jordan wondered if he would regret what he was about to do. He decided he was past caring. He took one of her hands in both of his and held it gently. Please don’t pull away. She grinned. “You do know it’s hopeless, right?”

  “Superstitious nonsense,” he mumbled.

  “The grandmas are right to be afraid for you.” But she kept her hand in his.

  Mars came hobbling towards them along the riverbank walkway, carrying a long hoe. The way the gardener’s body curved, like the plants he tended, he seemed to be made of dancing. Whenever Jordan saw his bald head, weathered brown face and bushy grey eyebrows, he couldn’t help but feel happy.

  Mars bowed slightly and whispered, “May the Great Light shine upon you.”

  “And upon your family,” Jordan and Ophira responded quietly. The traditional Cirran greeting was now dangerous enough to get anyone who spoke it arrested.

  “‘Tis yer birthday. The year of your robes,” Mars said to Jordan. “What will ye take?”

  He grimaced. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  Mars’s smile was warm. “What does your father say?”