Roberson, Jennifer - Cheysuli 08 (7 page)

           
"But I'm—" Kellin broke
off in astonishment as the men looped a rope around one wrist, then the other-
Prince or no, he was snugged tight as a gamebird. "Wait!"

           
The man nodded patiently. "Come
along, then, and I'll see to it you have a decent meal and a place to sleep.
I'll free you first thing in the morning if anyone comes to fetch you."

           
The furious challenge was immediate.
"If I had a lir—"

           
"What? Cheysuli, too?" The
giant laughed, though not unkindly. "Well, I'm thinking not. I've never
yet seen one with green eyes, nor leathers quite so filthy."

           
Kellin did not know Mujhara well. In
fact, he knew very little about the city he would one day rule, other than the
historical implications Rogan had discussed so often; and even then he was
ignorant of details because he had not listened well.

           
He wanted to do something much more
exciting than spend his days speaking of the past. The future attracted him
more, even though Rogan explained again and again that the past affected that
future; that a man learning from the past often avoided future difficulties.

           
Because he was so closely
accompanied each time he left Homana-Mujhar, Kellin had come to rely on others
to direct him. Left to his own devices, he would have been lost in a moment as
he was lost now. The big red-haired man led him like a leashed dog through the
winding closes, alleys, and streets, turning this way and that, until Kellin
could not so much as tell which direction was which.

           
He felt the heat of shame as he was
led unrelentingly. Don't look at me— But they did, all the people, the
Summerfair crowds thronging the closes, alleys, and streets. Kellin thought at
first if he called out to them and told them who he was, if he asked for their
support, they would give it gladly. But the first time he tried, a man laughed
at him and called him a fool for thinking they would believe such a lie; would
the Prince of Homana wear horse piss on his clothing?

           
Don't look at me. But they looked.
Inwardly, Kellin died a small, quiet death, the death of dignity.

           
I just want to go home.

           
"Here," his captor said.
"You'll spend the night inside." The giant opened the door, took Kellin
inside, then handed over the "leash" to another man, this one
brown-haired and brown-eyed, showing missing teeth. "Tried to steal a
goodwife's basket of ribbons,"

           
"No!" Kellin cried.
"I did not. I fell against her, no more, and knocked it out of her hands.
What would I want with ribbons?"

           
The gap-toothed man grinned.
"To sell them, most like. At a profit, since you paid nothing for them in
the first place."

           
Kellin was outraged. "I did not
steal her ribbons!"

           
"Had no chance to," the
redhead laughed. "She saw to that, with her shrieking."

           
Kellin drew himself up, depending on
offended dignity and superior comportment to put an end to the intolerable
situation. Plainly he declared, "I am the Prince of Homana."

           
He expected apologies, respect, and
got neither.

           
The two men exchanged amused
glances. The gap-toothed Homanan nodded. "As good a liar as a thief, isn't
he? Only that's not so good, is it, since you're here?"

           
Courage wavered; Kellin shored it up
with a desperate condescension. "I am here with my tutor and four
guardsman, four of the Mufharan Guard." He hoped it would make a suitable
impression, invoking his grandfather's personal company. "Go and ask them;
they will tell you."

           
"Wild goose chase," said
the redhead. "Waste of time."

           
Desperation nearly engulfed injured
pride. "Go and ask," Kellin directed. "Go to Homana-Mujhar. My
grandsire will tell you the truth."

           
"Your grandsire. The
Mujhar?" Gap-tooth laughed, slanting a bright glance at the giant.

           
Kellin bared his teeth, desiring
very badly to prove the truth of his claims. But his leathers were smeared with
filth, his bottom lip swollen, and his face, no doubt, as dirty. "My
boots," he said sharply, sticking out one foot. "Would a thief have
boots like these?"

           
The redhead grinned. "If he
stole them."

           
"But they fit. Stolen boots
would not fit."

           
Gap-tooth sighed. "Enough of
your jabber, brat.

           
You'll not be harmed, just kept
until someone comes to fetch you."

           
"But no one knows where I am!
How can they come?"

           
"If you're the Prince of
Homana, they'll know."

           
The giant's eyes were bright.
"D'ye think I'm a fool? You've my eyes, boy, plain Homanan green, not the
yellow of a Cheysuli. Next time you want to claim yourself royalty, you'd best
think better of it."

           
Kellin gaped. "My granddame is
Ermnish, with hair red as yours—redder! I have her eyes—"

           
"Your granddame—and your mother
to boot—was likely a street whore, brat ... no more chatter from you. Into the
room. We're not here to harm you,'just keep you." The red-haired giant
pushed Kellin through another door as Gap-tooth unlocked it. He was dumped
unceremoniously onto a thin pallet in a small, stuffy room, then the door was
locked.

           
For a moment Kellin lay sprawled in
shock, speechless in disbelief. Then he realized they'd stripped the rope from
his wrists. He scrambled up and hammered at the door.

           
"They won't open it. They
won't."

           
Kellin jerked around, seeing the boy
in the corner for the first time. The light was poor, admitted only through a
few holes high up in the walls. The boy slumped against the wall with the
insouciance of a longtime scofflaw. His face was thin, grimy, and bruised. Lank
blond hair hung into his eyes, but his grin was undiminished by Kellin's
blatant surprise.

           
"Urchin," the boy said
cheerfully, answering the unasked question.

           
Kellin was distracted by newborn
pain in his cut hand, which now lacked Rogan's bandage. He frowned to see the
slices were packed with dirt and other filth; wiping it against his jerkin
merely caused the slices to sting worse. Scowling, he asked, "What kind of
a name is that?"

           
"Isn't a name. Haven't got one-
That's what they call me, when they call me." The boy shoved a wrist
through his hair. His eyes were assessive far beyond his years, "Good
leathers, beneath the dirt .. . good boots, too- No thief, are ye?"

           
Kellin spat on the cuts and wiped
them again against his jerkin. "Tell them that."

           
Urchin grinned. "Won't listen-
All they want is the copper."

           
"Copper?"

           
"Copper a head for all the
thieves they catch."

           
Kellin frowned, giving up on his
sore hand.

           
"Who pays it?"

           
Urchin shrugged. "People.
They're fed up wi’ getting their belt-purses stolen and pockets picked."

           
He waggled fingers. "Some o'
them took up a collection, like . ,. for each thief caught during Summerfair,
they pay a copper a head- Keeps the streets clean of us, y'see, and they can
walk out without fearing for pockets and purses." Urchin grinned.
"But if you're good enough, nobody catches you."

           
"You got caught."

           
"Couldn't run fast enough with
this." Urchin extended a swollen, discolored foot and pufty ankle.

           
"Dog set on me." He was
patently unconcerned by the condition of foot and ankle. "If you're not a
thief, why're you here?"

           
Kellin grimaced. "I was
running. They thought it was because I was stealing."

           
"Never run in Mujhara,"
the boy advised solemnly, then reconsidered. "Unless you be a fine Homanan
lord, and then no one will bother you no matter what you do,"

           
Kellin glanced around. On closer
inspection, the room was no better than his first impression, a small
imprisonment, empty save for them. "Not so many copper pieces today."

           
Urchin shrugged. "The other
room is full. They'll put the new catches in here. You're the first, after
me."

           
Kellin peeled a crust of blood from
his chin.

           
"How do we get out?"

           
"Wait till someone pays your
copper. Otherwise we stay here till Summerfair is over, because then it won't
matter."

           
"That's three days from
now!"

           
Urchin shrugged, surveying his
injured foot. "Be hard to steal with this."

           
Kellin stared at the swollen limb,
marking the angry discoloration and the streaks beginning to make their way up
Urchin's leg. It was a far worse injury than the few slices in his hand.
"You need that healed."

           
Urchin's mouth hooked down.
"Leeches cost coin.”

           
Morbidly fascinated by the infected
limb, Kellin knelt down to look more closely. "A Cheysuli could heal this,
and he would cost nothing."

           
Urchin snorted.

           
"He could," Kellm
insisted. "I could, had I a lir."

           
Urchin's eyes widened. "You say
you're Cheysuli?"

           
"I am. But I can't heal
yet." Kellin shrugged a little. "Until I have a lir, I'm just like
you." The wound stank of early putrefaction. "My grandsire will heal
you. He has a lir; he can." And he will heal my wounds, too.

           
Urchin grunted. "Will he come
here to pay your copper?"

           
Kellin considered it.
"No," he said finally, feeling small inside. "I think Rogan will
do that, and I doubt he will like it."

           
"Few men like parting with
coin."

           
"Oh, it is not the coin. He
will not like why he has to do it, and it will give him fuel to use against me
for months." Kellin cast a glance around the gloomy room. "He would
say I deserved this, to teach me a lesson. But it was the Lion—" He looked
quickly at Urchin, breaking off.

           
The Homanan boy frowned. "What
lion?"

           
"Nothing." Kellin left
Urchin's side and retreated to a pallet near the door. He pressed shoulder
blades into the wall. "He will come for me."

           
"That tutor?" Urchin's
mouth twisted. "I had a tutor, once. He taught me how to steal."

           
Kellin shrugged. "Then
stop."

           
"Stop." Urchin stared.
"D'ye think it's so easy? D'ye think I asked the gods for this life?"

           
"No one would ask it. But why
do you stay in it?"

           
"No choice." Urchin picked
at his threadbare tunic. His thin face was pinched as if his leg pained him.
"No mother, no father, no kin." His expression hardened. "I'm a
thief, and a good one."

           
He looked at his swollen ankle-
"Sometimes."

           
Kellin nodded. "Then I will
have Rogan pay your copper, too, and you will come back with me."

           
Urchin's dirt-mottled face mocked.
"With you."

           
"To Homana-Mujhar."

           
"Liar."

           
Kellin laughed. "As good a liar
as a thief."

           
Urchin turned his shoulder: eloquent
dismissal.

           
With his pallet nearest the door,
Kellin awoke each time a new arrival was pushed into the room throughout the
night. At first he had been intrigued by the number and their disparate
"crimes," but soon enough boredom set in, and later weariness; he
fell asleep not long after a plain supper of bread and thin gravy was served,
and slept with many interruptions until dawn.

           
The commotion was distant at first,
interesting only the few recently imprisoned souls who hoped for early release.
That hope had faded in Kellin, who found himself reiterating to a dubious
Urchin that indeed he was who he said he was, and was restored only when he
heard-the voice through the door: the red-haired man, clearly frightened as
well as astonished.