Everyone's eyes widened at the smoked bounty that dropped from the bag. “By the gods, how’d ya manage to pinch that thing?” Jon asked as everyone scooted closer to take a better look.
Steven’s eyes lit up as he grinned widely. “It was the
darndest
thing. I was in the butcher’s shop hoping to pilfer a small sausage or something. I knew it’d been a long time since we had meat, but I was about to give up and leave, that butcher is a eagle-eyed penny pincher you can bet, when the ugliest mongrel dog you ever did see runs in and snatches up an entire chain of those linked sausages."
Steven was doing a good pantomime of the actual event by this point. "Now, the butcher sees this and vaults the counter like a thoroughbred
jumpin
’ a hedgerow and starts chasing the dog around the shop. This woman had just gotten this nice smoked ham all bagged up and was just about to pay the butcher when the dog made his move, and she starts wailing as if her knickers are on fire and runs out of the shop, followed shortly by the mutt chased by the butcher. So I grab the bag with the ham in it and walk out like any good
payin
’ customer!”
“That’s good to hear; for sure we haven’t had a good piece of flesh in some time. Here, look what the boy has chipped in,” Jon said as he passed the coin purse to Steven. We should be able to get mittens, scarves, and decent blankets for the winter this year.”
“That’s fantastic, thank you, kid. You know we almost lost little Beth last winter when the cough caught her something fierce,” Steven said earnestly.
“I’m glad I could help, and I’m glad you got that ham, I’m starving.”
Everyone got a good chuckle as they passed around some bread, ham, and a few bites of cheese. As everyone was finishing their meal, Azerick began his tale of misfortunes that had brought him to this point in his young life. He told of his happy life and fine home in the wealthier part of the merchant district, his father and his murder, being forced from their home, his past year running the streets while his mother worked to provide for them, the way his mother had been killed, and finally about the man he got the knife from and killed.
Everyone was silent as he told his tale; a few even had tears glistening in their eyes as the boy told his tragic story. Jon finally broke the silence.
“Now don’t you worry about that man in the alley, son, you did what you had to do, and he got what he had
comin
’ to him. That inn you were living in, was it in the common quarter?” Azerick confirmed that it was. “You wouldn’t happen to know anything about the fire that took an inn over there last night do ya?” Jon asked.
Azerick swallowed hard and stared at the floor before answering. “He wouldn’t give me my books back. He said the constable needed them for evidence, but he was going to sell them, I know he was! He had them in his room. The fire was an accident,” Azerick said as he looked down at the floor.
“Son, you’ve had some hard times and been through some rough spots and nobody holds anything against you. But you need to know when to pick your fights and when to let alone. You go
chasin
’ down everyone who wrongs you and you’re going to be
chasin
’ and runnin’ all your life. Sometimes revenge may come at a price too high to pay,” Jon said wistfully shaking his head.
Azerick just responded with a “yes, sir” and let the conversations pick up amongst the group. Will, Patrick, and Beth came over and talked with him and soon all four youngsters went into the smaller room that held the door to Azerick’s closet and talked.
“Why did you go back for your books,
Az
?” Will asked.
“They are very important to me. They are like my family, the only family I have left,” Azerick replied.
“Well I guess I just don’t understand ‘cause I can’t read. Besides, now we’re your family so you have more than just books to keep you company,” Will said trying to cheer him up. Which it did but then Azerick grasped what he had just said.
“You can’t read?”
Will and Beth both shook their heads and Patrick said he could read only a little. This shocked Azerick because he could not imagine not being able to read. In fact, he could not remember a time when he was not able to read.
“Well, I’ll teach you if you like. I remember most of the lessons my first tutor gave me that got me started. Most of the books I have are pretty advanced but I have a book of stories that my mother used to read to me to get me to go to sleep. That should be easy enough once you get your letters down. Then we can start on ciphering!” Azerick exclaimed, thoroughly excited at the prospect of being able to share his love of reading with someone.
“Really? That would be so great, Az. Can we see your books?” Patrick asked.
“Sure, I’ll even read a story or two from my story tale book.”
With that, Azerick scrambled up, went into his private sleeping area, dragged out his bag, and showed off all of his books to an eager audience. They all loved the storybook and the history book. Patrick and Will were amazed with the drawings on engineering. The last two were well beyond the comprehension of Beth but she played along and was excited as well.
Such became the routine for the next several months. The winter came all too soon. It was cold and wet with a seemingly constant rain. It snowed only a few times, this being a southern land it simply did not get the frequent winter storms that dumped several feet of snow at times like in the northern cities.
On days that were too miserable to go outside, Jon and the others taught Azerick how to pick pockets and lift small items necessary for their survival. First, from a dummy made of old clothes stuffed with rags. They tied bells near the spot that carried the pretend purse and eventually on the purse itself. Once Azerick had mastered the dummy, he practiced picking the pockets of various members of the family.
They also taught him to move silently and pick locks. They taught him about blending in with a crowd and hiding when need be. While he learned the tricks of the trade, and they all said he was a very fast learner, he taught William, Patrick, and Beth to read. Beth surprised them all with how quickly she caught on and was soon reading Azerick’s storybook to everyone else in no time at all.
Spring came and started to open up into summer without anyone catching a serious illness, thanks in large part to the blankets and clothes Azerick’s money had been able to purchase. Such was not the case for some of the more unfortunate homeless people.
On more than one occasion, a body turned up in an alley or near one of the abandoned buildings, dead of exposure as often as a blade thrust between the ribs. They were all busy plying their trade trying to eke out a living in these hard times. Azerick was a valuable asset to their group and contributed greatly to their ability to bring home enough food or enough coin to buy food when such could not otherwise be stolen.
Azerick and the others did not always steal to support themselves. They took jobs whenever they could find work, but with the large number of conscripts returning now that there was peace on the border, along with the shaken economy, there were far more people than jobs. This great imbalance between supply and demand reduced the already pathetic wages unskilled labor brought.
While most men congregated about the docks hoping to get jobs scraping barnacles from hulls, sanding and calking ships, unloading cargo, or stacking it in warehouses, Azerick, William, and Patrick split up, looking for any opportunities for work around the middle and upper class sections of the city.
It was luck that found Azerick walking in front of a fine manor house, not so dissimilar to his own former home, when a fat man wearing the apron and the tall hat of a cook shouted to him from behind the iron bars of a gate closing off a flagstone courtyard.
“You there, boy, come over here!” the man demanded sharply.
Azerick crossed the clean, well-maintained street to see what the man wanted. He had to be weary. Youths his age were prone to disappearing, favored by the slavers that haunted the streets and lured victims into their clutches with promises of work then clubbed or drugged. They would often awake aboard a ship heading south to a Sumaran slave market or tied and gagged in the back of a wagon and sold to one of the more unscrupulous men of means about the kingdom.
The fat man was on the other side of the closed gate and it was broad daylight so the risk was small, and he could not afford to pass up the opportunity to earn enough coin for a couple loaves of bread.
“Yes,” the man said as Azerick drew near. “You are just about the right size I think. You are here looking for work, yes? You certainly do not live around here.”
Azerick ignored the man’s words and his look of disdain. “Yes, sir, I am looking for work.”
“Excellent, I have recently discovered a rat problem within the manor that must be taken care of immediately, before the master realizes the severity of the infestation. I will pay you a copper for every rat you kill, discretely. You do know what that means don’t you, boy?”
“Yes, sir, it means to judge or act on one’s own while displaying judicious reserve or acting without pretension or ostentation,” Azerick replied before remembering that people like the fat cook did not appreciate excessive wit or intelligence in the help.
The cook narrowed his eyes at the boy. “Yes, quite. You will need to crawl through the crawlspace in the ceilings as well as hunting the vile vermin in the cellar. I hope you do not take issue with dark or enclosed spaces.”
“No, sir, no problem there.”
The cook motioned to a liveried man nearby and the gate opened wide enough to admit Azerick inside. He followed the sweating, waddling cook to the kitchen entrance where the cook handed him a burlap sack and a long wooden rod slightly shorter than his own height and as big around as a man’s thumb.
“I suggest starting in the cellar where you may remain out of sight.”
Azerick descended the wooden stairs down into the cellar armed with his stick, bag, and an oil lamp. He immediately saw rats scurry away from the light of his lamp and squeaked their protest at his intrusion into what they considered their domain.
Azerick hung the lantern from a peg in a ceiling beam and began chasing after the swift-moving rodents, laying them out with his stick whenever he got within reach or was able to corner them. The work was brutal, slow, and exhausting, but Azerick’s bag was filling and getting heavier by the hour. He was often forced to sit perfectly still for up to an hour, waiting for the vermin to work up the courage to come out of their hiding spaces and renew the process all over again.
By late evening, Azerick earned twenty-eight copper pieces and told to return first thing in the morning. There was indeed a severe rat problem in such a fine home. Most people not living in the streets would scoff at the handful of copper, but it was enough to buy bread for the entire family. The cook had also fed Azerick from the kitchen. The food alone, though not near the standard the master and his family enjoyed, was worth the work by itself. The bits Azerick stuffed into his pockets when the cook was not looking were all bonus as far as he was concerned.
Azerick returned to the mansion in the morning. He had set out several improvised traps designed after similar setups he had read about in one of his books written to educate someone on the tricks of wilderness survival.
The guard at the ornate wrought iron gate expected the rat catcher’s return and let him in with instructions to go around to the kitchen entrance. The smell of fresh baked bread, fried sausage, and eggs hit Azerick’s nose like a physical force as he neared the kitchen door. The door swung open when Azerick was only a few feet away as the cook burst through to dump a pot of dirty water out onto the ground.
“Good, you’re back. Come on in then,” the cook commanded.
The cook saw the rat boy—he did not remember his name nor did he care to—eyeing the small loaves of bread he had just pulled out of the oven for the master and his family’s morning meal.
“You’ll be fed when you get some work done, not before,” the cook said brusquely as he handed Azerick his stick and sack.
Azerick did not comment on the cook’s rudeness. He had quickly learned that the man did not possess a kind disposition and seemed to enjoy abusing the position of power he held over most of the other servant staff.