Rojer started awake, his heart racing. Dawn had broken over the high walls of Fort Angiers, soft light filtering in through the cracks in the shutters. He held his talisman tightly in his good hand as the light grew, waiting for his heart to still. The tiny doll, a child’s creation of wood and string topped with her lock of red hair, was all he had left of his mother.
He didn’t remember her face, lost in the smoke, or much else about that night, but he remembered her last words to him. He heard them over and over in his dreams.
I love you!
He rubbed the hair between the thumb and ring finger of his crippled hand. Only a jagged scar remained where his first two fingers had been, but because of her, he had lost nothing else.
I love you!
The talisman was Rojer’s secret ward, something he didn’t even share with Arrick, who had been like a father to him. It helped him through the long nights when darkness closed heavily around him and the coreling screams made him shake with fear.
But day had come, and the light made him feel safe again. He kissed the tiny doll and returned it to the secret pocket he had sewn into the waistband of his motley pants. Just knowing it was there made him feel brave. He was ten years old.
Rising from his straw mattress, Rojer stretched and stumbled out of the tiny room, yawning. His heart fell as he saw Arrick passed out at the table. His master was slumped over an empty bottle, his hand wrapped tightly around its neck as if to choke a few last drops from it.
They both had their talismans.
Rojer went over and pried the bottle from his master’s fingers.
‘Who? Wazzat?’ Arrick demanded, half lifting his head.
‘You fell asleep at the table again,’ Rojer said.
‘Oh, ’s you, boy,’ Arrick grunted. ‘Thought it’uz tha’ ripping landlord again.’
‘The rent’s past due,’ Rojer said. ‘We’re set to play Small Square this morning.’
‘The rent,’ Arrick grumbled. ‘Always the rent.’
‘If we don’t pay today,’ Rojer reminded, ‘Master Keven promised he’d throw us out.’
‘So we’ll perform,’ Arrick said, rising. He lost his balance and attempted to catch himself on the chair, but he only served to bring it down on top of him as he hit the floor.
Rojer went to help him up, but Arrick pushed him away. ‘I’m fine!’ he shouted, as if daring Rojer to differ as he rose unsteadily to his feet. ‘I could do a backflip!’ he said, looking behind him to see if there was room. His eyes made it clear he was regretting the boast.
‘We should save that for the performance,’ Rojer said quickly.
Arrick looked back at him. ‘You’re probably right,’ he agreed, both of them relieved.
‘My throat’s dry,’ Arrick said. ‘I’ll need a drink before I sing.’
Rojer nodded, running to fill a wooden cup from the pitcher of water.
‘Not water,’ Arrick said. ‘Bring me wine. I need a claw from the demon that cored me.’
‘We’re out of wine,’ Rojer said.
‘Then run and get me some,’ Arrick ordered. He stumbled to his purse, tripping as he did and just barely catching himself. Rojer ran over to support him.
Arrick fumbled with the strings a moment, then lifted the whole purse and slammed it back down on the wood. There was no retort as the cloth struck, and Arrick growled.
‘Not a klat!’ he shouted in frustration, throwing the purse. The act took his balance, and he turned a full circle trying to right himself before dropping to the floor with a thud.
He gained his hands and knees by the time Rojer got to him, but he retched, spilling wine and bile all over the floor. He made fists and convulsed, and Rojer thought he would retch again, but after a moment he realized his master was sobbing.
‘It was never like this when I worked for the Duke,’ Arrick moaned. ‘Money was spilling from my pockets, then.’
Only because the Duke paid for your wine, Rojer thought, but he was wise enough to keep it to himself. Telling Arrick he drank too much was the surest way to provoke him into a rage.
He cleaned his master up and supported the heavy man to his mattress. Once he was passed out on the straw, Rojer got a rag to clean the floor. There would be no performance today.
He wondered if Master Keven would really put them out, and where they would go if he did. The Angierian wardwall was strong, but there were holes in the net above, and wind demons were not unheard of. The thought of a night on the street terrified him.
He looked at their meagre possessions, wondering if there was something he could sell. Arrick had sold Geral’s destrier and warded shield when times had turned sour, but the Messenger’s portable circle remained. It would fetch a fair price, but Rojer would not dare sell it. Arrick would drink and gamble with the money, and there would be nothing left to protect them when they were finally put out in the night for real.
Rojer, too, missed the days when Arrick worked for the Duke. Arrick was loved by Rhinebeck’s whores, and they had treated Rojer like he was their own. Hugged against a dozen perfumed bosoms a day, they had given him sweets and taught him to help them paint and preen. He hadn’t seen his master as much then; Arrick had often left him in the brothel when he went off to the hamlets, his sweet voice delivering ducal edicts far and wide.
But the Duke hadn’t cared for finding a young boy curled in the bed when he stumbled into his favourite whore’s chambers one night, drunk and aroused. He wanted Rojer gone, and Arrick with him. Rojer knew it was his fault that they lived so poorly now. Arrick, like his parents, had sacrificed everything to care for him.
But unlike his parents, Rojer could give something back to Arrick.
Rojer ran for all he was worth, hoping the crowd was still there. Even now, many would come to an advertised engagement of the Sweetsong, but they wouldn’t wait forever.
Over his shoulder he carried Arrick’s ‘bag of marvels’. Like their clothes, the bag was made from a Jongleur’s motley of coloured patches, faded and threadbare. The bag was filled with the instruments of a Jongleur’s art. Rojer had mastered them all, save the coloured juggling balls.
His bare, calloused feet slapped the boardwalk. Rojer had boots and gloves to match his motley, but he left them behind. He preferred the firm grip of his toes to the worn soles of his bell-tipped, motley boots, and he hated the gloves.
Arrick had stuffed the fingers of the right glove with cotton to hide the ones Rojer was missing. Slender thread connected the false digits to the remaining ones, making them bend as one. It was a clever bit of trickery, but Rojer was ashamed each time he pulled the constrictive thing onto his crippled hand. Arrick insisted he wear them, but his master couldn’t hit him for something he didn’t know about.
A grumbling crowd milled about Small Square as Rojer arrived; perhaps a score of people, some of those children. Rojer could remember a time when word that Arrick Sweetsong might appear drew hundreds from all ends of the city and even the hamlets nearby. He would have been singing in the temple to the Creator then, or the Duke’s amphitheatre. Now, Small Square was the best the guild would give him, and he couldn’t even fill that.
But any money was better than none. If even a dozen left Rojer a klat apiece, it might buy another night from Master Keven, so long as the Jongleurs’ guild did not catch him performing without his master. If they did, overdue rent would be the least of their troubles.
With a ‘Whoot!’