The Beggar King

by Michelle Barker

  “Now you understand why we’re going to see the grandmas,” said Ophira.

  Sarmillion held his head in his hands and groaned. “Willa warned me you weren’t supposed to come near this door. You, above all. She warned me, and I didn’t listen.”

  “Do you think I want to open it for him?” said Jordan. “I want to save Arrabel, same as you. We just need to find another way. And the seers might be able to help us. They’re our only hope. Work with us, Sarmillion. You’re a palace scribe. You know the prayers and spells almost as well as Arrabel does. We’ll need your help.”

  Sarmillion pressed a pointed tooth against his bottom lip as he considered this. “Three of us traveling together? I don’t like it. We’d be better off splitting up.”

  “Fine,” said Jordan.

  “And I’ll take that bar now, if you please,” said Sarmillion, holding out his hand. “It has sentimental value.” Jordan passed it to him.

  “We’ll meet up in the Alley of Seers, then,” said Ophira, “at Mama Petsane’s blue door.”

  They wished each other safe passage and Sarmillion scurried down the dark corridor before Jordan or his girlfriend could have any ideas about tagging along. He’d performed enough burglaries to know that working solo was the only way to go. As soon as you had to rely on someone else to keep quiet or not drop something, you had earned your leg irons.

  He wasn’t keen on a meeting with seven old ladies — or rather, seven minus Willa — especially not old ladies who could read your mind. He had too much classified information stored away in his. No, he didn’t like this idea at all. Willa had known what he’d done from the second he’d arrived at her workshop. Though of course, she was the youngest of the sisters. With any luck, the others had already gone senile.

  Nineteen

  FOOLISHNESS AND JABBER-BLABBER

  THE VEIL BROUGHT WITH IT A peculiar anonymity. Jordan felt as if he could get away with anything. It was easier to see through than he would have expected, though it was generously scented with a maid’s cloying lavender perfume. He and Ophira stood before the library archives door.

  “How can you stand this thing?” he said, tugging at the smooth fabric.

  “It has its advantages,” she said. “It makes Rabellus think twice — despite what you might believe.” She tilted her head sideways. “You make a fine-looking girl, Jordan.”

  “Shut up.” He rotated the door handle one way and then the other.

  “It sticks,” she said.

  “No. It’s locked. We’ll have to find another way out.”

  Jordan tried to ignore the brass door nearby, though it glowed brightly in his peripheral vision. As they hurried back down the darkened corridors in search of a safe exit, they could hear shouting and the sound of a dish crashing to the floor. A Brinnian party.

  “You’d better go on ahead,” said Ophira. “I’ll follow in a few minutes. Keep your head down and your mouth shut, and no matter what, do not disappear. You must promise me. Go to Mama Petsane directly. Don’t try to go to the prison to see your father.” She fixed her eyes upon his through their veils.

  “I won’t,” said Jordan. She squeezed his hand, and he pivoted on his heel and set off in the other direction because it was the only way he could make himself let go.

  Soon the halls grew lighter and the shouting and music louder. It took every bit of his self-control not to run. He thought of his father, sitting alone in a cell, probably cold and cramped and hungry. Rescuing him seemed as impossible as bringing home his mother from Southern Ut. You could do it — if you used the undermagic.

  A Landguard was approaching. Jordan tensed, on the verge of panic, but the guard passed with nothing more than a small bow. Jordan almost laughed. He could get used to this sort of freedom. He entered the Meditary at the northern archway where another guard sat slumped in his chair, fast asleep.

  As he made his way out of the temple, there was a rumble in the sky. Enormous thunderheads had appeared above the Holy City. Thunder clattered, and a bolt of lightning illuminated the night sky. A moment later, a driving rain began. The cobblestones grew so slick Jordan slipped several times on his way down the mountain and towards the Alley of Seers. Around every corner, in every darkened doorway, he feared only one thing — that he would be there. What could the Beggar King see from his darkened path? But Jordan knew the answer to that: he saw everything. He must know Jordan was planning to defy him.

  The rain made the veil cling to his face. It was so uncomfortable and hard to see through now that it was wet, that he almost lifted it, but stopped himself. He cannot find me. He must not. Thunder roared, and lightning lit the whitewashed stone of the city with unnatural brightness. He was fifteen minutes away from the Alley of Seers — almost safe.

  And then he rounded a corner and there stood Piccolo, huddled with two underrats in the doorway of a smoke shop.

  “Oy!” called the one whom Jordan recognized as Jack-Jack. “Pretty lass. Come in out of the rain.”

  “You’ll spoil yer swanky veil,” said Piccolo with a leer. “Now wouldn’t that be a shame. We’d have to peel it off ye to see what’s underneath.” The three of them whooped and guffawed.

  Clearly not everyone respected Cirran tradition. Jordan kept walking, shoving his trembling mannish hands into the pockets of his robes.

  “Lassie,” called the leather-bound rat named Marco, “Come share a glass. We’ve got mug-wine aplenty, and a spare pipe of dried dung.”

  Jordan was about to shake his head when from somewhere behind him a man said, “Greetings.”

  His knees went weak with terror. Don’t turn around, but he couldn’t stop himself. There was the Beggar King wearing deep black robes. His long hair was wet with the rain, his skin pink, his lips a living red. Jordan was stunned. He couldn’t move. He knows. He had to. A simple veil, saffron robes — how could these be enough to fool a sorcerer?

  But the Beggar King merely smiled and said, “Forgive them their rudeness, feirhaven. They are not accustomed to dealing with ladies.”

  Jordan forced his head into a bow. Go, now. Get away. But he couldn’t make his legs work.

  “He looks like that Brinnian feller we was talking about before,” Jack-Jack said. “Oy!” he called to the Beggar King. “Yer the one what sells them little boxes of salty nuts, eh? We could use a little box of salty nuts right about now, eh Marco? Eh?”

  The Beggar King’s eyes were trained on Jordan. “Might we have a word, feirhaven?”

  Jordan looked up, his entire body quivering beneath Ophira’s robes.

  “I seek a boy by the name of Jordan Elliott.”

  “That rascal,” Piccolo grumbled. “Ye won’t be having him, not if I gets him first.”

  The Beggar King didn’t take his eyes off Jordan. “Might you know where to find him?”

  Jordan shook his head.

  “Tell me, feirhaven, what is a shrouded lass doing out at this hour on such a stormy night?”

  Jordan cleared his throat, trying to keep himself from speaking, when someone grabbed him by the arm.

  “There you are, Claudelle,” said Ophira. She faced the others. “Excuse my sister, she sleep-walks. I’ve been up and down the streets looking for her. I hope she hasn’t caused you any concern.”

  “None at all, feirhaven,” said the Beggar King. And then he said, so quietly Jordan was not even certain he heard it, “Heed me, friend, and soon, or I will carve you like one of your father’s pieces of wood.”

  “I swear he’s that merchant we was talking about,” Jack-Jack was saying. “I fancy a little box of salty nuts, I do.”

  Ophira pulled Jordan around the corner. “Don’t say a word,” she murmured, “just keep moving.”

  Finally they reached the Alley of Seers and Sarmillion wasn’t there.

  Jordan stood before the bright blue door and cried, “Mama Petsane! Let us in.”

  “Shh,” said Ophira. “She knows we’re here. She’ll come.”

  It felt li
ke ages before the door finally opened. There stood round Mama Petsane in a long flowered night-dress, her cheeks reddened with anger at having been awoken, her jaw jutting out as second sight raced after first.

  “Jordan Elliott,” she said. “What in the name of the cedars do you be thinking, showing yourself here at two in the morning wearing those robes? Ach, Ophira, you’re a drowned mess. Look at ye both. What you been up to?” And she grabbed each of them by the sleeve, hauled them inside, and sat them at the kitchen table.

  Grabbing her long stew spoon and waving it in the air, she growled, “I smell mischief and it be a foul soup. Out with it, now. And take off those robes, Jordan, ye look like a damned fool.”

  He lifted the wet fabric off his face but Mama Petsane wasn’t stopping for breath quite yet. She screeched at Ophira. “What’re you thinking about, dressing him in saffron robes? Have ye lost your senses, girl?”

  Ophira took off her veil. “He had to hide, Mama. I can explain.”

  Jordan held up one hand, which was still shaking. “Let me. I’m the one who got myself into this mess.”

  “Yeah, yeah, you’re a fugitive. I seen the renderings. Damned Brinnians can’t draw.”

  “Mama,” Jordan said, holding an image of the Beggar King in his mind. “Can you not see it?”

  “See what?” she shrieked. “All I see is a boy what thinks he’s a girl.”

  “Him,” said Jordan. “Can’t you see him?”

  “What’s he on about now?” Mama Petsane asked Ophira.

  The stairs creaked and Grandma Mopu appeared in a frayed brown housecoat. When she saw Jordan, she hooted. “My second sight must be failing me. I would never have predicted you taking the veil.”

  “This be no time for foolishness,” Petsane snapped. “Explain yourselves.” And the spoon came down on the table with a thunk that made both Jordan and Ophira jump.

  “Tell her about the Beggar King,” Ophira said. “Tell her what you told me.”

  “Phht!” said Mama Petsane. “Ain’t no such person.”

  “He gave me a gift,” said Jordan.

  “Thank the Light someone did,” said Mopu.

  Petsane’s face creased in suspicion. “What gift? What’re you talking about?”

  “Jordan can disappear,” said Ophira. “I’ve seen him do it.”

  “Oh yeah?” said Petsane. “Show me.”

  “I can’t,” said Jordan.

  “You wear yer lies like a coat that don’t fit, boy. Talk to us straight.”

  “Mama, he’s hiding from the Beggar King,” said Ophira.

  “What Beggar King?” said Mama Manjuza as she hobbled into the room, with Appollonia following close behind.

  Appollonia said, “What’s Jordan doing in those robes?”

  “Ain’t no such thing as the Beggar King,” said Mama Petsane. “I heard all them stories a million times. ‘Tis a sailing man’s tale, nothing but foolishness and jabber-blabber. You telling me you can disappear? Do it, then.”

  “I can’t,” said Jordan. “He’s waiting for me. He’s asked for . . . payment.” He hesitated, wondering how much he should reveal to the grandmas. He’d expected their anger, but he’d never anticipated that they wouldn’t believe him.

  “What kind of payment?” asked Manjuza, hunching over the worn wooden table and studying Jordan as if he had sprouted horns. “Does he take tomatoes? Let me talk to him. I’m good at bargaining.”

  Appollonia’s rocker had been moved nearer to the woodstove. The old woman settled herself into it and creaked back and forth. Jordan addressed her. “Mama Appollonia, you told me. You said it on my birthday. ‘Little boy in too-big shoes, he find his gift.’ You said it was wretched, and you were right. You must remember.”

  “Ach, she don’t see nothin’ with that glass eye,” said Mama Petsane, but Appollonia had gone quiet and thoughtful, and slowly the room settled until all you could hear was the chair rocking and her soft humming. She grabbed Jordan’s hand and closed her eyes.

  Mopu said, “Open the door. There’s a wet undercat coming to see us.”

  “An undercat? Mind the silverware,” warned Mama Petsane, moving stiffly to the door.

  “Good evening, feirhaven,” said Sarmillion. Jordan winced at the forced charm. It might fool Omarrian tavern folk but it wouldn’t go far with the grandmas. Thank goodness he’d left his prying bar elsewhere.

  “I should’ve known there’d be an undercat mixed up in this foolishness,” said Mama Petsane, wielding her stew spoon like a weapon. “State yer business or be on yer way.”

  “It’s all right, Mama,” said Ophira. “We asked him to meet us here.”

  Sarmillion was a sorry sight as he entered the dimly lit kitchen, his black suit jacket dripping with rain, his fur disheveled. He removed his fedora, and water splashed from its brim onto the kitchen floor. Mama Petsane glared at him.

  “My apologies,” he stammered. “Didn’t mean to interrupt your little soirée.”

  “I know you,” said Grandma Mopu. “You were a palace scribe.” The twinkle in her eye made Jordan nervous. Grandma Mopu was called the Monkey-Maker for a good reason. “What are you writing these days, undercat?”

  “A one-way ticket to success, feirhaven,” simpered Sarmillion.

  “Is that what they call prison these days?” Mopu said. “Actually I think hanging’s the punishment for your sort of crime.”

  Jordan’s eyebrows rose. “Grandma Mopu,” he said, “Sarmillion’s a friend.”

  “A dangerous friend,” she replied.

  Ophira said to Mama Manjuza, “We need to speak to you about the undermagic.”

  “Here comes more jabber-blabber about yer Beggar King,” said Mama Petsane.

  “On the contrary,” said Sarmillion. “Just last night I was down in Omar at Willa’s workshop and she said the Beggar King was right here on the streets of — ” He stopped mid-sentence. Every eye in the room was on him. Jordan gave a sharp shake of his head and Sarmillion said, “Oh, of course, well, I don’t generally hold with anything Willa says. I mean, she says so much and means so little, isn’t that so?”

  “Yes,” said Mama Petsane, “it is. Now here is what I’ll say about yer beggar man. There was something fishy about Willa’s illness when she was but a young woman, and the fishiest thing was how all the blame for whatever went wrong in her pointed little head landed square on the shoulders of a man who don’t exist.”

  “Don’t you get started on that old tale, now,” said Mopu, rising to her full height. “Not even the healers could figure out what was truly the matter with Willa.”

  “But I’ll tell ye something else,” continued Mama Petsane, her stew spoon raised. “If our Willa says a beggar’s coming to be king, you can count on one thing: ye won’t be seeing any such person on these streets or any others — ever.” Whack went the spoon onto the table and Jordan didn’t need a translation, it meant ‘end of discussion.

  ’ Just then, Mama Appollonia shrieked, and her rocking chair moved so fast Jordan was afraid she might take flight. “He opened the door,” she cried, her good eye closed. “He felt the undermagic,” and her long gnarled index finger shot towards Jordan and poked him in the stomach. “He knows the man what lives half a life. He’s made promises. He owes him.” The rocker slowed down, and then she let out a long contented snore as if she’d simply been in the middle of a dream.

  “Is this true?” asked Mama Manjuza.

  Jordan let out a long breath. “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.”

  “Tell us again,” said Mopu. And Jordan did. He told them about the gift he’d accepted, the man who called himself the Beggar King, the brass door, and Rabellus’s plans to hang the prisoners in seven days.

  “We must stop him,” Jordan said desperately. “But I can’t see any way other than to use the undermagic.”

  “Horse manure!” said Mama Manjuza. She pointed her hairy chin at Sarmillion. “You a scribe, uh?”

  “Yes, feirhaven
.”

  “Then you must know yer Book of What Is like ye know the twin moons.”

  Mopu’s face went wide and sunny as she said, “Oh, he knows it.” And all four women stared at the undercat, and he backed away until he was in the corner of the room.

  “Tell the truth,” said Mopu, “or we’ll curse your feather pens.”

  “All right!” he cried. “I’m guilty. I did it.”

  “Did what?” Jordan glanced at Ophira in confusion.

  “I’m the one, I gave it to them. I mean, they knew I had the keys, they would have tortured me if I didn’t give them up, and Willa knew, she knew I would do it even when I was fifteen, she said so but I didn’t understand and maybe if I had — if ever a prophet could speak clearly in her blasted life — it might have stopped me. I mean, how was I to know?”

  “Sarmillion — ” Jordan interjected.

  “And if it was foreordained,” the undercat went on, “does that mean it was really my fault? Oh, confusion. Oh, poor judgment. I mean — ”

  “Sweet sasapher!” said Jordan. “What are you on about?”

  The undercat stood before everyone and hung his head. “The Book of What Is — the book Rabellus burned. I was the one who gave him the keys to Arrabel’s onyx chest.” He let out a long sigh. “I wish I could say I’d done it for some higher purpose, but there was none. Those black-booted Landguards took me to Rabellus, and I was afraid. I gave in before they could even threaten to pull out my whiskers. I’m a coward. There it is. That’s why I wanted to open the brass door and save Arrabel and the others — to redeem myself.”

  The room was quiet.

  “Tell me I’m a blackguard, a traitor. I’m ready for it.”

  “How about you start on your redemption right now?” said Mopu.

  “Yes, of course, I’ll do anything, just say the word,” rattled Sarmillion.

  “Do you know any of the Prayers for Desperate Situations?”

  “Feirhaven,” he said, rubbing his jeweled hands together, “I know every one of those prayers by heart.”

  Mopu said to Ophira, “Fetch the scribe some parchment and ink. I believe he has a feather pen in his pocket, though it has not been used for writing in some time.” As Ophira went to do her grandmother’s bidding, Mopu faced Sarmillion. “For shame, using a pen to pick locks. Now, sit down and do the work that the Great Light made you for.” She turned to her sisters and said, “So. What do you propose we do about a gathering?”