by JF Smith
“She’s our mother, not just mine, Gully,” groused Roald, repeating a correction he found himself insisting on constantly. “And as you know... food will spoil, and ale or mead drunk by others just means more troublemakers for me to deal with. Preventing waste and vice is its own virtue,” added Roald, but Gully had started chuckling at his cheeky airs long before he had finished speaking.
“Without a doubt!” mocked Gully.
“I give Almonee a few coins when I can spare them myself,” said Roald, made to feel selfish and greedy by a thief in his bed, as had happened on more than one occasion. He shouldn’t feel this way towards him, but he was in a way proud of Bayle, the Gully Snipe, the notorious Thief of Iisen. He was proud of the person his brother was.
All the things Roald felt for the person next to him — the comfort, the pride, the affection, the longing — threatened to overflow. If his brother, Bayle, ever disappeared the way others in the kingdom had, especially when he was out in the woods and bogs, it would be more than Roald could take, he felt. Gully had said that Roald wouldn’t know what it was like to have someone he loved disappear. He didn’t, but he knew the agony of worrying about it, of feeling like it would one day be almost inevitable, and the loss that hadn’t even happened yet was almost crippling. The only consolation was that if there was one thing the Gully Snipe knew to the last detail more than even the city of Lohrdanwuld, it was the very woods and bogs of the Ghellerweald that could so easily claim the lives of others. He had been raised there as a child, after all, and had been taught its ways extraordinarily well by the father that had then disappeared himself.
He had tried many times to get Gully to stop going back to the woods and bogs because of the dangers therein. Gully’s point, and Roald had to concede it was a good one, was that people disappeared from the city as well; it wasn’t anything unique to the woods. If the gypsies wanted to steal away someone new, the city walls seemed to provide no protection to stop them.
Before they fell asleep, and before Roald said something even worse, he told Gully, “I know you know this, but I’m glad you’re my brother, Bayle.”
“Foster brother...” insisted Gully.
Gully’s recalcitrance towards seeing Roald and his mother, who had found him alone and wandering on the edge of the woods ten years earlier, as real family instead of nothing more than a foster family always broke Roald’s heart.
“‘Foster’ is but a word,” said Roald, his voice carrying the wound. “Even with your distance and your incessant wandering and your complete disregard for authority, I would not be able to choose someone better than you, Bayle,” he whispered.
He said it and felt better for having done so, even if Gully would understand what he was really saying and would grow a little uncomfortable at his advances. He waited for Gully to push a little bit further away from him despite the bed offering little recourse.
And as expected, Gully turned and faced away from him. But then his brother gave Roald a gift. Gully shifted back to press up against his brother and would-be suitor slightly. Roald sighed and placed an arm around Bayle and held him comfortably, accepting the small gift of affection from his brother. He even ventured to give Bayle a brief kiss on the back of his head.
Gully warned, “As Vasahle is my witness, if I feel your blunted weapon at my backside, I’ll run you through with my knife as you sleep.”
Roald smiled to himself and said, “It would be well worth it.”
He closed his eyes to let himself sink into the sleep he’d waited for all day, but an eye crept back open as Gully said a moment later, his tone now gentler than the threat he had made, “If I am ever to be hauled off to justice for my crimes, I would prefer it to be by your hands before any others’, Roald. I would be proud of you. With everything in me, I would be proud for it to be you to do it.”
Roald closed his eyes again, but did not let himself fall asleep yet. He waited until he heard the slowly paced breaths of the person he held close, and listened for a while to the most soothing sound he could ever hope to hear. Roald prayed again to his parents now twinkling in the sky above him that he would never be the one to run the Gully Snipe to the ground. He prayed he’d never see the Gully Snipe thrown in the pits of the gaol or hung at dawn on the Bonedown.
Slowly, the peaceful and measured work of Roald’s own chest matched that of his brother’s as he fell asleep with his arm around him.
Chapter 3 — Cheese And Insults
“How much for the chicory?” asked Gully.
“The chicory, ye say? Eh, let ye have a couple o’ scoops fer, I say, oh... well...” said the old man. “Let me thinks on it... hum...” He scratched at a scab on his head while stalling, and Gully could instantly tell he was hoping to see if any other vendors in the South Peddle market were selling it or not. Gully smiled to himself, finding it foolish of the old man not to have checked earlier for competition that might drive his prices down.
Gully helped him out. “Won’t find any other chicory in the South Peddle, old man. No one to undercut your prices. But I could go over to the King’s Market and get a couple of scoops’ worth for four swallowstamps.” It would be so easy to lie to the man and trick him into selling it too cheaply, but Gully wasn’t out to take advantage of him. The chicory was a convenient excuse to start a conversation; he was far more interested in talking to the old man than he was in the buying and selling of goods.
The old man laughed in relief and said, “Four swallowstamps, then, for two fair scoops. Bigger scoops than yeh gets at the fancy King’s Market, I’ll wager! And I saves ye the walk!”
“And what’s this you’re selling?”
“Ah, that be lemon balm, and the dried leaves here are ahramanic leaf!”
“Ahramanic leaf? Don’t often find that for sale here. Do you grow it yourself?”
The old man smoothed his white hair back and said, “Nay, nay... know where it grows wild. Better’n the farmed variety, ’tis.”
The South Peddle market was quieter than usual, even for the early afternoon, probably because the sky was heavy and ready to unburden itself of its raindrops at any moment. No one else was pressing up against the peddler’s small square of ground with its few baskets and leather pouches that displayed his wares.
Gully asked, “I don’t recall seeing you peddle here before. Do you pick it near here?”
The old man’s face turned nervous and he pursed his lips in a rapid succession a few times as he thought how to answer. He finally replied, “Where I pick it ’tis me own business!”
Gully laughed out loud and said, “No cause for alarm, sir! I’m not looking to pirate your trove of ahramanic! I’m merely curious as to where you’re from...”
“Ah... live to the south of East End, I do, on the edge of the Ghellerweald. Me wifey and I have a place near to the South Pass Road. We grows the chicory in a patch out back, but the ahramanic I gets down near to the boggy woods, below the South Pass Road.”
The man instantly interested Gully even more. He moved in a little closer and checked to make sure no one was nearby or listening to them.
The old man clucked his tongue thoughtfully and continued, “Normally sells at the market in East End, buts there’s a want of people parting with their coins lately. I venture throughs the mountain pass to the land of Maqara sometimes to trade and sell, if they lets me in. But theys a strange people to the like o’ me, so I decided to try me luck selling here in the capital this time.”
Gully had never ventured into Maqara, but had heard some tales of its people. It was a much larger and more powerful kingdom to the east and the only thing that really protected Iisen from the Maqarans was the all but impassable mountain range called the Sheard Mountains, which separated the two lands. The Maqaran Pass was the one navigable passage between the kingdoms.
He asked the old man, “How is that? How are they strange to you?”
“Looks at me like an animal, they do. And theys enslave their own people. Men, womenfol
k, and even the little wee ones! Think naught of it, they don’t, owning their own folk like property!” said the peddler with distaste. “Wish it was we had nothings to do with the lot of ’em, but when our Prince Thaybrill gets his crown closely nigh and then marries that princess of theirs, we’ll have more of ’em round than we want. It’ll all come to bad, says I!”
Gully was barely paying attention to the old man’s rant about the politics of the Iisendom and its neighboring land. His mind was wondering about other things.
“When you travel to our fair city here, do you, perchance, take the East End Road, or do you come through the forest itself by way of the South Pass Road?” asked Gully.
“Oh, takes the South Pass Road. Always have when making me way towards Lohrdanwuld.”
Gully decided to ask. “As a small child, I grew up not far off of that road. Perhaps you met my father, in the woods of the Ghellerweald or on the road running through it. Even in East End, perchance. He was a broad man... coal black hair, coal black beard, thick but kept short. He had piercing eyes. Never carried a sword, but had a throwing knife near to hand at all times.”
The old man rubbed his chin and thought back, but then asked, “What be his name?”
“He is named Ollon. He and I traveled to East End a few times,” said Gully. The trips to the city of East End, and the more infrequent ones to Lohrdanwuld itself, always frightened Gully as a child. There were too many people and the cities were too busy and confusing to him. But his father had always sensed his unease and kept him close and made him feel safe. And loved. His father never let him feel unloved for even a single moment. And so now, those times with his father were far more precious than all the money he had ever stolen.
“Ollon, eh? Hmm...” The old man thought some more.
Gully grew dispirited at the man’s face. He explained to him, “’Twould have been ten years ago now.”
The old peddler shook his head sadly, “Nay... can’t says I recalls an Ollon.” The old man scrunched his face into a pained look. “Was he... your father... was he one of the disappeared?” he asked quietly, sympathetically.
Gully nodded, his own pained expression now joining the old man’s. “Yes, vanished one day,” said Gully in a whisper.
The man frowned even more. “Me own daughter, me only child... she vanished four years ago now. Not a trace. Barely 14 at the time, and sweet as treacle, she was.”
“I am sorry to hear that,” said Gully.
“Took me wife a while to gives me a child. Little Luessa was all we managed to have,” replied the man. “Now I gots no one with a youthful vigor whats can help me work our bit of land, an’ the bones of old Brohnish Pelkurc don’t hold up to what they used to,” he said, holding his hands out from his sides to show his age and failing strength.
“You don’t recall seeing anyone on the South Pass Road that might be my father?”
The man thought back again, then shook his head. “To speak of, never met naught of anyone on the South Pass ’cept the rare cart of his Lordship veBasstrolle carrying apples or pannyfruit to sells to them Maqarans. Ye say ye grew up in the deep of the forest bogs? And ye lived? Never heard of a soul like that me whole life!”
“I did. Know them as I know my own hands,” said Gully.
“What be yer name, kind sir?”
Gully hesitated. “My name is Bayle Delescer,” he finally admitted. He was always reluctant to give away anything that tied him too much to Roald for fear it may cause his foster brother harm one day. “But that is the name my foster family gave to me. My father, Ollon, called me by the name Di’taro.”
“Di’taro, eh?” repeated Brohnish, scratching at his chin. “Queer sort of name. Never heard a boy called such in all me heap o’ days.”
“My father and I had a pet fox that was named Pe’taro. My father said it meant ‘Big Fox.’ And I was named Di’taro, which means ‘Little Fox.’” Gully loved the name and had sometimes wondered about what old or strange tongue his father knew that was the source of these words. But no one else ever seemed to recognize them. When he was young, and Astrehd took him in, Roald had teased him of his “silly” name. Gully had defended it to the best of his ability, but Roald was two years older than he and much bigger, so fighting back did little to change things. Astrehd decided on ‘Bayle’ to end the bickering and make him truly a part of their family. Astrehd meant well in doing so. But to Gully, it felt like she was trying to kill his father.
The old man shrugged. “But ye be lucky, Di’taro of the bogs; I see the thieving street rats most orphans become here in the city. No one wants an orphan, and theys left to their own wits and cruel fate most times.”
Gully pulled four swallowstamps out of his coin pouch and gave them to the man. “Two big scoops of your chicory, sir, as you promised.” Gully retrieved a small pouch from one of his pockets and let the smiling peddler scoop the dried and ground up root into it.
The old man said, “Might sorry about ye father. Wish I had some hope fer him I could sell you for another ’stamp or two.”
“So do I,” said Gully. “It would be well worth the coins. I wish you the same, good Brohnish. May you be blessed to see your daughter again one day.”
The peddler Brohnish hung his head and sighed, “If the worst be happened, at least me sweet Luessa is with the humble stars of me family now.”
Gully turned to leave and told the man, “Safe journey on your return to your home. May the stars watch out for you and keep you protected from the rumored monsters of the Ghellerweald!”
“Aye, thank ye, lad! Thank ye a might!”
~~~~~
Within an hour, the clouds roiling in the skies over Lohrdanwuld decided to lighten their load and the rain began to fall. It wasn’t a heavy rain, but nonetheless, what did fall seemed to befoul everything and turn the roads into muck. Even the nicer streets that were cobbled now ran with rivulets of filth. Gully had to be careful of where he stepped, but he still wanted to be outside a while despite the mire and rainfall.
The crowds of the city thinned more as the weather worsened, giving Gully less prospects to find a mark that he could relieve of a few coins if the right opportunity presented itself. So he filled his time wandering around the southern part of the city instead, in the streets and neighborhoods surrounding the South Peddle.
In the meantime, his mind was still on his father. His conversation with Brohnish in the market earlier, one of hope at first that turned to disappointment as every similar one had, put him in a mind to remember the times of rain while he was a child in the deep woods. In the city, the rain seemed to make everything dirtier. The smoke from the countless chimneys would seem to sink and linger in the wet air. In the woods, it was the opposite.
He remembered back to the times, in the warm rains of Mid Summer and Waning Summer, his father would take him to go check the traps and snares he would set to catch the small wild pigs that lived in the bogs, or the hares that lived in the open meadows that were dotted around. Gully remembered his father lifting him up onto his shoulders, giving an exaggerated grunt and telling Di’taro how big he was getting. He would ride his father’s shoulders, his little hands around his father’s neck and beard holding on. Sometimes, their beloved pet fox, Pe’taro, would scamper along with them, scouting ahead one moment and then dropping behind the next as he pleased. Other times, Pe’taro would stay behind, sitting on his haunches and watching from the open door of their hut as they made their way out into the woods to check their traps. The raindrops would fall from the sky and drop from the canopy of forest leaves overhead until they landed on him, or on his father, glistening like jewels in his father’s shiny black hair.
The smells of the forest would come alive in the gentle rains, the smell of pine and peat and wild pannyfruit mixed with the smell of Pe’taro’s damp fur and the oiled leather of his father’s vest. His father had taught him how to even catch the scent of rabbit and pig on the air so he could tell if the trap held something or n
ot before they reached it. The moisture in the air during and after a rain always seemed to enhance the smells, carrying more of them farther through the woods than the dry air could.
Gully’s mind snapped out of his fond memories and he realized his hand had once again gone to his neck, feeling for the pendant hanging there under his tunic. The pendant and the throwing knife were the two things that had belonged to his father and now to Gully, the only two relics of the man that had disappeared. His father had taught Gully to use the throwing knives well, even as a small child, and when Ollon disappeared, it was the one weapon of defense the nine-year-old boy knew to take as he finally abandoned the small cabin that had been his home.
The pendant, though, was more of a mystery to Gully. From his earliest recollections, barely a week went by that his father didn’t instruct him on where the pendant was and his command for Gully to take it if anything ever happened to him. His father had told Gully, if it came to it, to put it on and never take it off for anyone or for any reason. And Gully had done exactly that. When he gave up on his father returning, he took the round symbol of cut crystal with its leather cord from its safe spot behind the loose stone next to the fireplace, put it around his neck, and had never let it from his sight in the ten years subsequent. He had never understood why it was important to his father, nor why his father hadn’t simply worn it himself to keep it safe.
Finding the pendant in its rightful place around his neck, Gully scratched at the itch that sprang up in the palm of his left hand and forced his mind to more practical issues.
He thought about what Roald had said the night before, about joining up with the Kingdom Guard. He had considered that advice more than once. Or part of it, at the least. He didn’t have the heart to tell his foster brother that, for a while now, he had been considering leaving Lohrdanwuld, but not with the intention of coming back to join Roald in the Guard one day.