by JF Smith
In the distance, at the far end of the market, the Snipe could see a disturbance in the crowd. It could only be the expected additional guards pushing their way through and he knew his time was already short and diminishing rapidly. He wiggled and pulled and fought even harder.
The guard holding him bellowed, “Finish your search or make him stop, Pollon! I can’t hold him like this!”
“I’m doing my right best, Bekellor!” rejoined Pollon, frustrated with both his fellow guard and their captive. He stood up straight and looked the thief in the eye. “That’s enough, you! Stop all this!” he yelled.
Pollon pulled back his fist and hit the thief squarely in the jaw, drawing an audible gasp from the gathered crowd of both peasants and merchants alike. It had the desired effect, though, and the Gully Snipe stopped fighting. His tongue felt around inside the back of his mouth for a moment, then he spat a wad of blood and saliva at the feet of Pollon in front of him, his dark hazel eyes glaring at the guard the whole time. Pollon glanced down and saw a tooth mixed in with the bloody spittle and dirt.
Bekellor began to relax slightly as the thief’s resistance died, but the Snipe picked up struggling in his arms again, this time even more stridently than before.
Bekellor pulled his prisoner tighter to his chest, and leaned back to lift him and give the Snipe’s feet less traction on the packed dirt of the streetside.
Finally, thought the Gully Snipe in relief, it took the wretch long enough!
The instant the guard behind him pulled back, lifting him off the ground, the Snipe balled his legs up to his chest and kicked out at the other guard as hard as he could, knocking Pollon off of his boots and flat onto his back. The force of the kick, and the fact that Bekellor’s center of gravity was already off from leaning back with the Snipe, caused them both to fall back into the roadway with the Snipe still held in the guard’s arms.
The Gully Snipe allowed a brief smile for himself as he landed softly on top of Bekellor and heard the wind get knocked out of the guard, even with his hard leather cuirass to protect him. The thief jumped up, throwing his chaperon hood back over his head, and began to dash. He stopped short, though, before either of the guards knew what had happened. While Bekellor was still fighting to get air back into his lungs, the Snipe pressed a foot down on Pollon’s chest, grabbed his throwing knife from where Pollon had stowed it on his belt, and then deftly picked the small moneybag jangling full of swallowstamps and belders out of the guard’s pocket again. It wasn’t much money, but he had worked for it and wasn’t going to let it go easily.
“I’ll be needing these, sir, but I’ll leave my tooth with you!” said the thief to Pollon, and then he was off running again.
The Gully Snipe had to think quickly as there were multiple ways he could run to escape. Luckily, he knew the streets, alleys, and footpaths of Lohrdanwuld very well. Unluckily, after weighing his options, his best one now was to plow straight ahead and through the crowd, which also meant straight ahead and through the three guards he could see rushing to help Bekellor and Pollon. And this time, they had irons for him.
Behind him were Bekellor and Pollon, now recovering from his escape, as well as the full garrison house teeming with Kingdom Guards. To his left, through the market, was a poorer neighborhood with too many dead ends to get caught in, and to his right was a solid line of merchant houses, apartments, inns, and a few meadhouses.
Oh well, thought the Snipe as he pushed forward and the crowd magically parted for him as if he were the pox itself running loose, when did a few armed guards ever frighten me from my path?
He spit another mouthful of blood into the road and stormed ahead, feeling more confident now that he had the hood covering his head and face again. The three guards running towards him were in a standard formation for capturing him, the formation that worked to his advantage — the guards on the left and right a foot or two ahead of the one in the middle so they could flank him.
He ignored the two on the sides and fixed his eyes instead on the one in the middle, whose own eyes were getting close enough now that he could see the glint in them as they all made right towards each other. The crowd closest to them tried to push back for what was surely going to be a bad run in, and the rest of the crowd behind those in front pushed in harder trying to see better.
The Snipe hit his top speed, and in advance of the middle guard reaching him, he jumped up, leaned back, and landed hard on his feet, letting them slide out from under him with perfect timing. He landed hard on his back right as the two guards wound up on either side of him and the middle guard was leaning forward, expecting to tackle him directly. But with the Snipe now on the ground, practically under the off-balance guard, he kicked up with both feet into the groin of the guard and pushed back up over his head, in effect using the guard’s momentum to send him flying overhead, flailing enough to strike the other two guards in the process.
He had used this move enough times that he was now genuinely disappointed that the guards still hadn’t seemed to learn from it and not make the same mistake over and over again. But on the other hand, he had gotten quite good at it.
He heard the guard land behind his head, hard, and take the other two guards down with him in a heap as he landed. Without a thought, the thief jumped back up onto his feet and sprinted off again, only now he had a path free of guards and leg-irons and gallows nooses in front of him.
He didn’t stop running because he knew the guards would still give chase, but now he could get into the warren of streets and alleys in the other peasant neighborhood to his right and lose them there. Behind him, the pointless shouts of “Halt!” and the thundering boots of the Kingdom Guards could be heard. He ignored the commands and set his mind instead to actively dodging the throngs of the crowd that were unaware of the arrest that had so recently been thwarted and were still going about their business in the streets of the capital.
The Gully Snipe felt close to free and victory, and so he ventured a quick glance behind him to gauge the distance of the guards, with almost fatal results. As he turned back forward, his eye caught on something familiar to his left. He spotted the soft, brown and auburn curls and the emerald eyes of the girl locked with his own for a split second, and he cursed how easily he was distracted under the circumstances. But then, she was watching him, too, so he decided that maybe he could be forgiven for being distracted this time. He wondered briefly what had caught her eye, other than someone running the streets so hard it was like the gypsies themselves were hard on his feet to boil his bones for soup.
Just as he forced his face forward and his mind back onto the more pressing matter of his escape, a carriage being pulled by a large Belder horse, of the kind so prevalent in the Iisendom, had crossed his path and stopped right in front of him. He would have careened right into the beast’s barrel if it weren’t for the fact that Belders were so large and tall. The Snipe managed to duck under the horse’s belly and to the other side, startling it as he did so. The resulting nervous stepping of the large beast caused the guards to decide it was less risky to go around the horse and carriage, even if it gave their prey a small extra amount of a lead.
The Snipe peeled off to the right, down a side street, and with the market behind him and consequently fewer people to thread through, was able to sprint ahead even faster, dodging right and left down more streets and alleys until he was sure he had lost the guards. He even entered the front door of an inn that he knew had a convenient back door that let out into a hidden alley not too far from the Chalk Market. Inside the inn, he slowed to a casual walk and tried to pace his breath and heart. He nodded politely to the pretty young girl that worked it and took the time to remove his chaperon and flip it inside out. The guards that were looking for someone in a black hood would pay no attention to someone wearing a light brown one instead.
He placed his throwing knife back where it belonged in his boot. The knife was one of his dearest possessions and he felt oddly naked without the hilt of it
against his ankle; so precious was it that he would have given up the money before losing the knife. With an extra deep breath, he walked casually out the back of the inn, checking the side of his belt to ensure he still had his moneybag. He exited the alley and melted into the teeming crowd of much poorer people that frequented the Chalk Market.
Not a bad day’s work, after all.
Except for the sore back from landing on it and throwing the guard overhead.
And the tooth.
~~~~~
The Gully Snipe walked through the unused gate in the old city wall. This was one of the original city walls of Lohrdanwuld, back when the city was much smaller than its current size. The gates and barbicans in the old, original walls were still in place, but never used. The newer city walls were further out, to the west of where the city backed up against Kitemount, and were the ones actively used to defend the capital now.
As he passed through the gate along with a stream of others moving from one part of the city to another, he spotted a familiar face. Seated on the paving stones at the foot of the gate was Almonee, what was left of her frazzled white hair sticking out from under her skewed cap as she gnawed on a tough parsnip. The Snipe wondered if he’d wind up in her place one day, with only a few teeth left in his mouth and slightly touched in the head, like her. She made no notice of the hooded, young man standing and watching her from only a few feet away. The busy people of the city avoided her and veered around the Snipe in the meantime.
He reached into his moneybag and pulled out a handful of the coins he had stolen earlier and walked over to hand them to the craggy old woman.
He proffered the coins to her, holding them out in his hand for her to take. She stopped her teething on the vegetable root and eyed him suspiciously. She frowned when she recognized him.
“Don’t need yer charity, Bayle. I do fine, I do. Got me a good meal right here!” she said, holding up the parsnip for him to see, as if it were a gilded treasure.
He knelt down beside her and took her hand to put the money in it. “Take the coins, Almonee. It’s just a few swallowstamps and maybe a belder. You can have something more to eat than just a dirty root.”
“Do I look a beggar to you, boy?” she said, almost insulted.
Bayle hesitated, not wanting to answer honestly. He tried a different tactic, instead. “No one said anything about begging, my lady. It’s a gift to you, nothing else. Take them... please.”
She allowed him to open her spotted and scabbed hand and place the coins of the realm into it, still watching him with her nose wrinkled up like he smelled offensive. She finally set the parsnip down on the paving stone and dug around in her frayed, brown cloak looking for a free pocket in which to place the coins. Bayle hoped she found one without holes in it.
She said as she rummaged for a pocket, “Yeh tell yer mother, Astrehd, I asked after her.”
Bayle said, “Rest easy. I will.” He was used to the fact that she couldn’t quite grasp that his foster mother was dead for a year now. Some things poor Almonee picked up on right away, and others never took hold in her mind.
Once she had stored her coins away, Almonee picked up her lunch and stuck it in her mouth again, off to the side like a pipe. She said, “May the stars watch for yeh, good boy Bayle. “
Bayle stood back up and tugged at the top of his hood in acknowledgement, a smile on his lips for the woman. He had turned to continue on his way when the old woman called after him again loudly, “Ho there! Boy!”
Bayle turned back to her and noticed she had put the parsnip back down on the roadway and was now biting on one of the coins, testing it to see if it would make a better lunch. She took the coin out of her mouth and yelled at him, “Don’t need yer money, yeh hear?! Just holding onto it so’s yer not spendin’ it on mead ’n frivoles, yeh hear me?”
Bayle had no idea what “frivoles” were. He nodded at her and called, “Of course, Almonee. Better than a banker, you are! And far more trustworthy!”
As he walked off, he shook his head in amusement. She still insisted on calling him boy most every chance she got, even though he would very soon reach twenty years of age. A few years ago, it bothered him, but now he accepted it with a grin and a casual resignation.
Bayle rounded the public oratory tower, the nicest one in town, and came upon Bonedown Square. The north end of the square was home to a large, splashing fountain honoring the royal family of veLohrdan. There were a few rabble children playing in it, and a few others divided into teams and playing an informal game of oxen dart with a worn leather ball in the wide open space of the square.
Looming over the Bonedown, on its low promontory and brilliantly lit in the afternoon sun, the Folly itself stood watch over its city, over its entire realm, really, as it nestled up to the mountain of Kitemount behind it. Leading up to the barbican, a queue of a few fine carriages and mounted horsemen waited to pass through into the castle grounds of the Folly, perhaps to meet with the state treasurer or some other administrator. Bayle cynically thought to himself that those waiting were most likely representatives of other noble families of Iisen, come to petition the administrator of the crown to be allowed to raise taxes yet again.
He didn’t dwell on those with business in the royal castle, though. If he had to choose with whom he had more in common, it would be the gentleman he spied at the far end of the Bonedown. The one swinging from a noose out over the crevasse along the southern edge of the square. My own future, but for the grace of the stars at night, thought Bayle, letting slip through his mind the old maxim that the religious folk of Iisen liked to repeat.
He wondered if the executed man was a thief like he was. Then he wondered how many crimes he had been found guilty of to warrant a public execution. The crown, or rather the Domo Regent since the throne was empty until the prince came of age, wasn’t quick to execute, so Goodsir Danglefoot hanging there must have been a bad one. Most egregious criminals were left to wither away in the deep recesses of the king’s gaol. Bayle couldn’t decide which would be worse — the slow, lonely death while practically buried under the city, or a painfully public hanging. He decided the hanging would be better. A quick snap, a moment of spasms, and then it was all finished. Besides, he had never liked being cooped up inside for too long.
The hanged criminal turned in the early summer breeze coming around Kitemount and a sudden fear gripped its cold hand around Bayle’s heart. His feet slowly made their way, of their own accord, closer towards the noose and its grim passenger. The man’s face... if Bayle pictured the face he so easily brought to mind, and added ten years to the memory, it could possibly be what he saw in the man’s face dangling there, at least from a distance. The chilled grip on his heart grew tighter as he got closer until the hung thief spun again and Bayle finally got a clear view of his face. He exhaled, scarcely aware he had been holding the breath captive in his lungs, when he saw the man. Yes, the age was probably about right, but it definitely wasn’t him. Bayle wiped his hand over his face in relief.
He turned back and was about to find a bench so he could sit and rest after his exhausting escape earlier. He was anxious to count his money and see if his jaw would stop throbbing where the void was that had been a tooth that morning. He glanced up at Kelber Peak to the north of the city, and then behind both Kelber Peak and Kitemount, to the northeast, was the impressive Thayhold. Even behind the other two mountains, Thayhold was huge and bare of all but rock and sediment; it was so tall and steep that it was named thus because legend had it that the top of the mountain, rarely seen due to constant clouds around it, supported the very sky and stars themselves. The three mountains together formed the Trine Range, the royal symbol of the ruling veLohrdan family and the whole of the Iisendom itself.
He spotted a free bench to rest on from his earlier adventure, but he never got the chance to even sit upon it. Instead, he turned away from it and discreetly pulled his hood closer around his face. The bench wasn’t the only thing he had spotted; there
were also two separate squads of Kingdom Guards making their way through the square, and Bayle wasn’t in the mood for any more attention from anyone.
He doubled back, passed back out the old city gate he had come through a few minutes earlier and turned down a side street in the wealthy part of town that was near the square. He never ceased to be amazed at the size and perfect upkeep of the townhouses the wealthy merchants owned in this section of town. A few streets over and he would have passed in front of the grand townhouse that belonged to the merchant family of a certain girl with red curls and emerald eyes, in fact.
Mariealle... even the name was as impressive as her father’s wealth. Mariealle.
He had allowed himself to be distracted again by her as he walked and took an unfamiliar turn, rare for him, and found it to be a dead-end. But it was quiet and there were no people there looking down their noses at him because he didn’t belong in such a wealthy enclave. Even for no more than an alley, the backs of the houses here and courtyard walls were made of stone and brick, another sign of the wealth of the neighborhood in which he was lurking.
Bayle sat on some steps next to a planter bursting forth with the tiny yellow flowers of foxblush. He’d seen fields wild with foxblush before, the breeze lifting the leaves and exposing the pale pink tips of their undersides in fanciful waves of color across the small meadow. If he had known how limited and precious those memories would turn out to be, even as a nothing more than a child, he would have paid more attention.
He freed his pilfered moneybag and slowly counted out the coins, careful to add correctly. The swallowstamps and belders added up to about three half-crowns in total, with a few swallowstamps in excess, if he had summed correctly. Not a great amount, but not bad, either.