The Beggar King

by Michelle Barker

  Jordan let out a long sigh. “I think he’s finally given up hope that I’ll become a scholar, and of course there’s no honour in being a Landguard now. He thinks I should take ecru robes.”

  “Grove-keeper,” said Mars.

  “Yeah. Rabellus will send me into Somberholt to cut cedars, not keep them.”

  Mars studied him. “You’d do well to heed yer father. Being sent to do somethin’ and doin’ it are two different birds now, aren’t they? Think of the thirteenth bridge.”

  In the distance Jordan and Ophira could see charred planks of cedar. The twelve bridges that connected the Holy City to the rest of Katir-Cir had been erected by magic. But Emperor Rabellus and the Brinnian guards were losing patience with these bridges. They wanted to build a thirteenth bridge out of cedar that anyone could cross whenever they liked. Eight times Rabellus had conscripted a group of men to construct the bridge; every time it had been set on fire in the middle of the night.

  “Have the Loyalists been working on the thirteenth bridge?” Jordan asked.

  “Aye, in a manner of speaking,” said Mars. “Ye could do some good.”

  Ophira’s eyes had a mischievous twinkle to them. “I think he’s hoping for a more glamorous task.”

  “Ah,” said Mars. From behind his back he produced a bouquet of tiny yellow flowers and handed it to Jordan with a bow. “Something like this?”

  Jordan’s eyes widened. “Holy slag.” They were sasapher flowers, the official flower of the Holy City.

  Mars tapped him playfully with the end of the hoe. “You got a mouth as foul as the underrats, boy.”

  “Where did you get those?” Brinnians were unaware of the tendency of sasapher to infuse endurance into those who smoked it. Probably they wouldn’t have believed it anyway, though they had been contending for months that dried dung was cheaper to produce for smoking.

  Mars leaned towards them. “I’m under strict orders by Emperor Rabellus to pull up all the sasapher and destroy it, but I never was one for strict orders.” He fixed Jordan with his bright eyes. “Sarmillion tells me ye got promise.” He gestured towards the bouquet with his chin. “You’ll be in a great heap o’ slag just for having them flowers. You’ll be in two heaps for what yer wanting to do with ‘em. Don’t do it unless yer sure ye won’t get caught, ye hear?”

  Jordan nodded, but as soon as Mars had limped away Ophira gave him a stern look. “The grandmas told you not to. Don’t you listen to anyone, Jordan?”

  He smiled but didn’t reply.

  Ten

  WALLPAPER UNIVERSE

  WITH THE SASAPHER FLOWERS TUCKED INSIDE his shirt, Jordan took his leave of Ophira and made his way alone up the long steep road towards the hanging tree. That was what most Cirrans called it now, though Mars didn’t approve.

  “We’re the ones letting Rabellus hang innocent folk from its branches,” he’d said during one of Jordan’s visits to the riverside gardens.

  Today, on his birthday, the Feast of the Great Light, Jordan would sneak up to the tree, recite the customary prayer and place the flowers beneath it. He was doing this for his mother. He was doing it for the tree, which needed reminding that some Cirrans had not forsaken tradition. And he was doing it for himself, the boy who had no gift.

  It was late morning and the day was already warm. Lizards lined the rooftops, and the white-washed stone walls blinded Jordan with their reflected light. Although there were Cirrans milling about the Common, it was unnaturally quiet. Jordan squeezed past a donkey laden with straw and then past a group of scholars in their emerald robes. Having a secret made him feel as if his whole body was humming. He walked a little faster up the cobblestone road, and couldn’t help but smile.

  All too soon the tip of the golden palace came into view. What if they caught him? Rabellus would not hesitate to hang a teenager if the offense were serious enough, and this one would be. Jordan stopped. He was tempted to just go home.

  He noticed a man standing in the shadow of a nearby doorway who seemed oddly familiar. He wore ragged robes, darker than the brown of a carver, but not quite the black of a sorcerer, and while he carried himself like an old man, he did not in fact look old. His skin was pale, his hair long and straggly, grey from one angle and yet not from another. He had the long hooked nose of a bird.

  “Greetings,” the man said, but then he didn’t follow it with, “Rabellus is great,” or even a discreet, “May the Great Light shine upon you.”

  Jordan could not afford to take any chances, so he ignored him and continued on his way. But the man kept up with him.

  “Where do we go?” he asked.

  “Nowhere,” said Jordan.

  “And yet we go there at a determined pace.”

  Jordan slowed. “Where I am going is none of your business, feirhart.”

  “Have we not one groder to spare for a poor fellow?” he said, resting a pale, scrawny hand upon Jordan’s shoulder. There was a musty smell to him, like a closet that had been closed for too long. Jordan backed away from him.

  From one angle the man had blue eyes, from another brown. Were those wrinkles around his eyes, or not?

  “I’m sorry, feirhart, but I have no coin,” Jordan said. Had he any, he would have given the man one just to make him go away.

  “A gift for one who has none,” the man said quietly.

  Jordan froze. “What did you say?” The way he said gift, it made Jordan think of that day so long ago in the Omar Bazaar, of that man who was not a merchant, the one who’d known of his birthday. Was this the same person?

  The man held his hands together as if cupping something precious. “A gift. Perhaps you fancy one? For we are inclined to want, are we not?”

  “I thought you had no groder,” said Jordan.

  “Ah, but I do not speak of coin.”

  “I don’t care much for trinkets,” said Jordan and walked away.

  “I offer something far greater, young man,” he called. Jordan was about to ask, “What?” but when he turned around, the man had already gone. He tried to recall his face, but it slipped away, like water running through his fingers. He frowned and kept moving.

  Finally Jordan reached the plateau at the top of the mountain. The palace’s main courtyard, which had always been open to the public in Arrabel’s time so that people could go to the Meditary whenever they pleased, was now closed off and guarded. The hanging tree was some distance away from that courtyard but still close enough for a guard to notice someone approaching. Not even mourners whose loved ones had been hanged were allowed to come pay their respects to the dead.

  Jordan’s heart was pounding. He should just call the whole thing off.

  Then, out of the shadows appeared Sarmillion, dressed in a mauve smoking jacket, black silk pants and two-toned leather shoes. With his slicked-back fur, pierced ear and sunglasses, he looked more like a gangster than a scribe.

  “What are you doing here?” Jordan said.

  “I came to watch out for you,” said Sarmillion, “you being a Loyalist now and all.”

  Jordan threw his shoulders back. “Really?”

  Sarmillion removed his sunglasses. His expression was grave. “This isn’t like stealing tomatoes, old friend. You won’t be able to run fast enough if they see you.”

  “I know,” said Jordan.

  “Some of the others argued that you should let yourself get caught,” said Sarmillion. “Let them make a martyr out of you. But I told them to go get stuffed. Don’t let them take you.” The undercat placed a gentle hand upon Jordan’s forearm. “We’ve had news. Arrabel and the others are being kept down south, near Utberg.”

  Jordan’s chest tightened. “Are they all still alive?”

  “We don’t have details, but we’ve sent spies to scope it out, along with courier hawks to bring the news back as fast as possible. If they capture you, Jordan, you could make things a lot worse for your mother. ”

  Jordan gave a short nod. Everything suddenly seemed too bright.


  Near the main courtyard, a commotion had erupted. A man in dark robes stood before the guards, yelling and shaking his fist, claiming he’d been robbed. Cirrans had begun to cluster around him.

  “Robbed, my eye,” scoffed Jordan. “I met that fellow a few minutes ago. He asked me for a groder.” He offered me a gift.

  Sarmillion gave him a push. “It’s the very diversion you need. Run, friend. Speak the invocation as you go. Don’t linger at the tree. Go!”

  Jordan focused upon the great blackened oak and raced towards it. “Blessed is the Great Light, light of all lands of Katir-Cir, light of our path.” The words came out in huffs with his breathing. “We pay homage to the holy tree, light of our darkness, lamp to the world.” His feet reached the mosaic stone pathway set in meandering patterns along the approach to the tree. “Thankful are we for the many mysteries of this world that keep us seeking wisdom. Guide us upon the paths we’re meant to take,” and he almost choked on the words. “Why have you given me no gift?” His tortured cry burst in upon his recitation.

  Now he was close enough to the charred trunk to see the knots and furrows that gave it the look of a wise but angry man. There was no point in checking behind him to see if that man was still arguing with the guards. Jordan stopped, pulled the sasapher flowers from inside his shirt, and brought them to his face to inhale their strong lemon scent.

  A body hung from one of the branches. Crows surrounded it, and one had perched on the dead man’s shoulder. They had already taken the man’s eyes. A wave of nausea washed over Jordan.

  “Get,” he hissed at the birds. In a flurry of wings they took to higher branches. “May the Great Light have mercy upon you,” he murmured to the dead man.

  Then he resumed his feast day prayer. “Let our eyes remain open to small wonders. Let our hearts remain a dwelling place for spirit. Let our . . . ”

  “You there!”

  His hand shaking wildly, he placed the yellow flowers at the base of the tree. “Some of us still remember,” he said, then faced the group of black-clad men running towards him. Two of them had drawn their daggers. For some reason he thought of those finches that used to dance upon the treetop.

  Run! But he just stood there.

  And then a different voice, a man’s, said, “The world is merely wallpaper. You’ve known that all along. Hide behind it. Here is your gift. Take it, and save yourself.” Somehow Jordan knew what to do. He pulled at the edge of the tree trunk as if it were a doorway. A great rushing sound around his head made him think of the wings of a thousand birds, and then he stepped out of the world and disappeared.

  At first it seemed as if he was simply hiding behind the tree, but he could sense it was more than that. He was hiding behind the air behind the tree. It was dark and musty and his own heavy breathing sounded in his ears. He examined his shadowy surroundings and saw a narrow dirt path. And then one of the shadows moved.

  “Greetings,” said a voice Jordan recognized, and he tensed. It was that fellow he’d met earlier. “I have waited such a long time for you. You have accepted my gift, then.”

  “This? You did this?”

  “Now you have a talent to be reckoned with,” and the old-young man flashed a crooked smile at him.

  Pandemonium had erupted in the world Jordan had left behind — Landguards yelling and waving their long black sticks in the air, a crowd of Cirrans talking and pointing with excitement towards the tree — but it all came to him from such a distance. He could see and hear it, yet he was no longer a physical part of it. If the world was only wallpaper, then he had stripped it back to see what the walls of this house were really made of.

  “Where’s that boy?” one of the Brinnian guards cried over the cheering and applause.

  “You let him get away!” said another.

  “Someone better go after him. If the emperor finds out . . . ”

  “Shut your mouth. Find the boy.”

  “And if we don’t?”

  “Find someone. What about that beggar? Arrest him.

  Where’d he go?”

  104

  And the old-young man standing next to Jordan laughed. “See how it is with us? We have the power now. They’ll never catch us, Jordan Elliott. Do you see?”

  Us? Jordan flinched. “How do you know my name?”

  “I know what’s worth knowing.” The man winked at him. “Return to the world at a safer location. Tell no one about the Beggar King,” and he was gone.

  Jordan stood very still. Beggar King?

  A guard ground his boot into the delicate sasapher flowers that Jordan had placed beneath the tree. Jordan turned his back on the scene and felt his way along in the dark, all the while crossing the plateau between the hanging tree and the palace. As he walked, he could hear Cirran onlookers spreading the news of what he’d done. An elderly man gestured wildly with gnarled hands about the sasapher flowers. A woman hid her beaming face behind a notice for the Fire and Feasting party.

  Finally Jordan reached the edge of the city. He curled his fingers around the air, heard the loud whoosh of wings in his ears, and appeared back in the world directly behind Sarmillion.

  “There,” he said, grinning. “I did it.”

  Sarmillion wheeled around. “Embers and ashes, boy. How . . . ? I thought you were done for. I thought . . . but then you were gone. And now here you are.” He grabbed Jordan by the arm. “We must get you away from here. They’ll be searching for you. Rabellus will want your head.”

  “Where can I go?”

  “We’ll take the back routes down the shadow side of the city and then cross into Omar. You can stay with me for a while. I’ll see what I can do about protection.”

  “But my father . . . ”

  “I’ll get a message to him.”

  Omar. Jordan hadn’t been there since he’d met with Willa the door-maker almost a year ago. He hadn’t realized that perhaps he’d been avoiding it. Perhaps he’d been afraid. Of what, he wasn’t sure.

  “They’ll love you in Omar,” Sarmillion said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Omar is where many of the rebels have been hiding. There’ll be lots of sympathy for your cause. Mice alive, you’ll be a hero.” “Really?” Jordan stood up straighter.

  They made their way quickly and carefully down the north face of Cir, the darker, more hidden side of the mountain. Sarmillion was watching Jordan with wary eyes.

  “We’ll need to talk,” was all the undercat said as they hurried from one bridge to the next in an attempt to cross the river. Finally they both embarked upon the only bridge that would grant them passage: Peril, a rickety affair made of worn rope and rotting wood.

  Eleven

  THE LIFE OF A THIEF

  AS JORDAN AND SARMILLION ENTERED THE Omar Bazaar, goat meat sizzled and flutes competed with mandolins over the hollering of merchants and their customers. There were baskets of different coloured beans, glimmering displays of knives, leather belts, hand-knotted rugs, and donkeys pushing everyone out of the way.

  “Read your palm?” said a woman in a dark veil as they passed, her silver bracelets jangling all the way up her arms.

  “Hey, Sarmillion,” breathed a white Persian undercat with red claws, glittery whiskers and a black sequined dress. “Will I see you later?” The ‘r’ of later seemed to stretch into next week.

  Jordan couldn’t hear Sarmillion’s reply. “You know her?” he asked. “Grizelda,” Sarmillion said with a sly grin.

  They passed stall upon stall of malachite headdresses, fuchsia jackets and indigo shawls. Jordan inhaled silk perfumed with sandalwood, and saw the wind take a dress and transform it into a flower. The air seemed to be alive with flowing cloth. And then Sarmillion veered into a hidden alley and pushed through a pair of swing doors.

  Jordan rested his hand on the tavern doors. He’d often imagined the music and sweet smells in a tavern, the fun with friends — though of course Elliott had forbidden it. But his father wasn’t here.

&
nbsp; It took Jordan’s eyes a moment to adjust to the bluish haze of pungent dried dung smoke that hung in the air. A couple was having coffee at a small round table, and near one wall a group of young men slumped against each other as if they’d been sitting there since daybreak. The darkness seemed unnatural in midday, like a sick room.

  A sweaty-faced man appeared behind the bar and called, “Hey, Scribbler!” He smiled at Sarmillion, revealing crooked teeth. His hair was long and thin and pasted to the sides of his head. He had a red nose and a round belly, and though he nodded and simpered, his squinty eyes seemed to be calculating what he could get from you.

  “Piccolo,” said Sarmillion with a bow, as they approached the bar.

  Piccolo banged a glass onto the bar counter, filled it with billy beer, threw in a shot of tomato juice and set it before Sarmillion. “Bloody Billy for yer friend?” he asked the undercat in a phlegmy voice. “Or maybe he’d prefer fruit juice.”

  “He’ll take a Bloody Billy,” said Sarmillion.

  “I’m not thirsty,” Jordan said sharply.

  “Watch yourself,” Sarmillion murmured. “We may need him.” He opened a leather satchel and passed Piccolo a silver necklace adorned with glittering blue stones.

  “Nice job,” Piccolo said, handing back a small velvet sack that clinked with coins. “For yer troubles, feirhart.”

  Three tall stringy men had entered the bar and went to sit upon stools at the far end. Each took up a twanger made of sticks and rubber bands. The men had long pointed beards and wore tall hats, striped pants and long jackets.

  “The Rubber Band,” said Sarmillion. “We’re in luck.”

  But instead of playing, the three musicians set to arguing.

  “You’ve been coming in a beat too soon.”

  “You’re flat.”

  “I’m never flat.”

  “I’m never early.”

  “Slag, Binur, you’re always early.”

  Piccolo called out, “Sing Sarmillion’s song, boys!”

  “F-sharp?” one of them asked.

  “Why not?” the others answered and they began a monotone off-key twang, stomping slowly in time to the beat.