The woman disappeared into the kitchen as Harlow walked out to the alley next to the tavern thinking that she was slipping out the back to meet him. It was not unheard of for a whore to service a man in the alleys of a tavern that boasted no rooms.
Murder in the streets was so common in the lower wards that it scarcely drew anyone’s attention unless you were the one that killed. However, when his body was found the next day the manner of his death was so gruesome that word quickly spread throughout the district.
He continued searching for clues of his father’s murder and his true involvement with these alleged artifacts but was able to find out surprisingly little. The King’s Blackguard had boarded his ship and found something aboard they deemed treasonous. The guard had arrested him and someone had snuck into his cell and killed him.
Two years of searching had gotten him no closer to finding the murderer of his father. Discovering the sailor that had killed his mother had been a fluke encounter and despite the satisfaction he had gotten from taking his revenge, he still felt hollow inside. His desire for justice still gnawed deep in his stomach.
Azerick was unable to find anyone who had been sailing with his father on that trip. He knew he had crossed the sea for the exotic goods that made him popular amongst the wealthy. Other than that, the trail was cold and no one knew anything, or if they did, they were not talk about it. Days, weeks, and months went by as he did what he must to survive, hoping to one day pick up the trail of who had set up his father. For now, it was all he could do to eke out a living.
*****
Azerick, Bran, and Andrea were staking out the market square, watching for inattentive shoppers or purveyors from which they might be able to relieve a few items of value or at least a morsel or two of food.
He had been friends with Bran and Andrea for a little over a year now. Although Azerick was technically the only homeless one among the three friends, the line of distinction was hair thin. Bran and Andrea lived at home with at least one parents but were every bit as poor as he was and quite honestly, Azerick would not trade homes with either one of them for anything.
Bran was fifteen, just a month or two older than Azerick but a fair bit larger. Despite being bigger, Bran made no qualms about recognizing Azerick as their unspoken leader. The younger boy’s plans and strategies were often what made them successful in their urban forays.
Andrea was a somewhat attractive girl bordering on womanhood. She was nearly a year younger than Azerick, which put her at one of the most vulnerable periods in her life. Running the streets made her particularly susceptible to illegal slavers that would snatch street children in the night, the bolder ones even in broad daylight.
She was nearing the age where she would have to find her own way in the world and being unskilled, uneducated, and poor left her with few prospects. Being poor, she lacked any sort of dowry, which meant the only marriage prospects lay at her own economic level leaving her in the same pit she had grown up in and married to a day-laboring drunk like her father. Being uneducated, she could not hope to get any sort of skilled work or apprenticeship. Her work options left her with washing clothes, working in a bar, or most often, prostitution.
Azerick knew she was desperate to move out of her home away from her father. He felt guilty not offering her a place to live with him in his own private sanctuary, but he prized his privacy above all and still felt the painful loss of Jon and the others. He could not bring himself to be responsible for another. He could not bear the responsibility and the pain of losing someone else that he allowed to get close.
The plan for their current operation was simple. Bran, being and looking the oldest, would buy a loaf of bread from the stall that a baker had set up. Using the finger of one hand, he would dig a small hole into the bottom of the loaf out of site from the baker or other customers and slip a dead mouse into it. Bran would then break open the loaf in front of the baker and as many customers as possible and raise a cry of shock and revulsion at “discovering” the dead mouse that had, by all looks, been baked inside the bread.
He, along with most if not all the other customers would demand a refund for the tainted bread, dropping their potentially tainted loaves upon the counter in disgust. Azerick and Andrea would slip several loaves from the counter amidst the upheaval, demanding a refund for their loaves as well, often pocketing a few for consumption in the process. It was not a scam they could run very often and was usually saved for extraordinarily lean times such as now.
Bran moved in as the crowd looked to be as thick as it was likely going to get, pushed his way to the front, ignoring the glares he received, and dropped his few copper pieces onto the counter in exchange for a small, round loaf. The frenzied baker swept up the coins and replaced it with the bread. Bran picked it up and had the dead mouse inserted with the deftness of a street magician.
He turned and made eye-contact with a few of the other patrons as he broke the loaf in twain, and just for added effect, brought the piece with a dead mouse sticking out of the end inches from his open mouth.
Just as he expected, a woman saw the dead mouse protruding from the bread, moments away from an apparently unsuspecting customer chomped it, and screamed. Customers followed the horrified woman’s eyes to the loaf Bran held aloft and near his face. He looked at the piece of bread in front of him and added his own curse to the chorus of shouting, gagging, and retching sounds of the crowd.
The baker, a balding, rotund man wearing a customary checked apron, stood in shocked disbelief at the mouse-tainted bread and the disgusted and angry crowd. He was shocked into motion by people pressing against the counter, hurling bread at him and demanding refunds. Word quickly spread, and customers that had already purchased and departed began returning, also demanding refunds.
The baker was helpless to defend himself against the demands of the angry crowd, emptying his purse before the crowd became a mob. Azerick and Andrea received refunds for seven loaves they had never purchased and still managed to walk away with six more tucked under their shirts and arms.
Once his stomach was full Azerick almost felt badly for the cruel manner in which they had swindled the baker. He and the others would begin spreading rumors among the district that the baker had been the victim of a cruel hoax. None of them had the desire to drive a man out of business, even one that obviously never lacked for food as they so often did. It was not a swindle they could pull off very often otherwise people would become wise to it and would set the crowd against the perpetrators.
The trio of friends had a reasonably successful week, enough so that Azerick was able to spend a few days reading and tinkering with his alchemy set, brewing potions with various reactions. His latest resulted in a stench so foul that he had to open the hidden door to the sewer to bring in a fresher source of air.
The pungent concoction convinced him to climb out of his hole and find out what Bran and Andrea had been up to lately. Azerick crossed the market square and saw that the bald baker was back in business, thanks largely in part to the success of their counter-rumors proclaiming his innocence in the matter.
He spotted Bran’s tall form moving through the crowd and noticed that his older friend was not moving with the careful grace that would indicate he was looking for a mark to pickpocket. In fact, his normally carefree face was shadowed with a look of concern. Azerick wondered if he had gotten into some trouble recently.
Despite the fact that it did not look as though Bran was currently working the crowd, years of habit caused Azerick to move smoothly and quietly up to Bran’s side instead of shouting to get his attention.
Bran realized Azerick was by his side before his friend had a chance to say anything. “Azerick, have you seen Andrea around in the last couple of days?”
Azerick sensed the tension in Bran’s voice and instantly knew something was not right. “No, I was going to ask you where she was. I have not seen her since the last time all three of us were together a few days ago.”
Bran’s lips disappeared into a thin line as he clamped his mouth closed. “Damn it!”
“I am sure she is all right. Maybe she got a job or something and has been busy.”
Bran glared at Azerick, both knowing it was a stupid comment. “You know as well as I do that she would rather risk getting tossed in jail than wash clothes, serve drinks, or—anything else she might be hired for.”
“You’re right, I was just hoping. Have you gone to her house?” Azerick asked, already knowing the answer to that question too.
Bran shook his head. “
Naw
, you know her old man and I don’t get along.”
“I think we need to though.”
“Yeah, let’s go.”
The two young men walked to the docks district towards the rows of shacks mostly owned by fishermen that often spent weeks and months at sea. They were shabbily-built and intended primarily as temporary shelters just to keep them through the winters until the ships sailed out once more. Andrea’s father, when he did manage to sober up enough to work, usually managed to attach himself to a fishing boat hauling in nets or unloading cargo from the merchant ships. He was one of the few people that made Sailor’s Row his year-round home.
Azerick and Bran approached the house, which was little more than a one room fishing shack with a small iron stove used to cook and fight off the many drafts that found its way in through the single ply walls and the winter chill.
Azerick knocked on the door while Bran stood behind him. He had to knock three more times before they heard the sound of movement within. Azerick could already smell the alcohol fumes before Andrea’s father jerked the door open with a scowl on his face.
His scowl deepened when he saw who had interrupted his breakfast, which sloshed about in the bottle in his hand only half finished.
“What you two vermin want?” he demanded through squinted eyes.
Azerick ignored the barb as he physically recoiled from the fumes that erupted from the man’s mouth. “We are looking for Andrea, is she here?”
“No,” he replied and began swinging the door shut.
The slovenly drunkard glared as Azerick blocked the door with his foot. “We have not seen her for a few days. When was the last time you saw her?”
“Huh, I thought she’d been with you little pukes.” A lewd grin spread across the man’s grizzled face. “Maybe she finally made herself useful and whored herself out. Outta make a good bit of coin if that one ain’t ruined her already,” he slurred as he looked pointedly as Bran.
Before Azerick could issue a retort, Bran’s fist sailed over Azerick’s shoulder, past his ear, and smashed into the foul-mouthed man’s nose sending a spray of blood across his face. Andrea’s father reeled backwards from the blow, dropping the half-finished bottle of cheap booze on the floor next to several empties.
Bran shoved violently past Azerick into the shack after the staggering drunk, murder clearly evident in his eyes. The tall lad hit the surprised man twice more, sending him sprawling backwards onto the floor. He reached down, grabbed one of the empty bottles by the neck, and broke it against the stove in the corner before lunging towards the fallen man’s throat with the razor-sharp edge.
Azerick and Bran both liked Andrea but Bran’s affection was of a different sort, a kind that went deeper than mere friendship though neither of them had really spoken of it directly. Bran was going to kill her father for what he said, but Azerick could not let him do that. Not because Andrea would be particularly upset at the matter, but because Azerick knew Bran was not a killer, not like himself.
Azerick knew what it was like to kill a man. He knew what it did to a person’s soul, and he felt he was a harder sort than Bran was. Bran had a light heart and gentle nature. Azerick did not want to see that destroyed in an act of rage like his had been. He grabbed his friend by the wrist just before Bran was able to bring the bottle across the vile man’s throat.
“No, Bran, don’t! He is not worth the cost,” Azerick shouted, barely able to restrain his friend.
Bran turned and looked at Azerick’s pleading eyes before dropping the broken bottle and standing up.