The Gully Snipe (The Dual World Book 1) (3 page)

He proffered the coins to her, holding them out in his hand for her to take. She stopped her teething on the vegetable root and eyed him suspiciously. She frowned when she recognized him.

“Don’t need yer charity, Bayle. I do fine, I do. Got me a good meal right here!” she said, holding up the parsnip for him to see, as if it were a gilded treasure.

He knelt down beside her and took her hand to put the money in it. “Take the coins, Almonee. It’s just a few swallowstamps and maybe a belder. You can have something more to eat than just a dirty root.”

“Do I look a beggar to you, boy?” she said, almost insulted.

Bayle hesitated, not wanting to answer honestly. He tried a different tactic, instead. “No one said anything about begging, my lady. It’s a gift to you, nothing else. Take them... please.”

She allowed him to open her spotted and scabbed hand and place the coins of the realm into it, still watching him with her nose wrinkled up like he smelled offensive. She finally set the parsnip down on the paving stone and dug around in her frayed, brown cloak looking for a free pocket in which to place the coins. Bayle hoped she found one without holes in it.

She said as she rummaged for a pocket, “Yeh tell yer mother, Astrehd, I asked after her.”

Bayle said, “Rest easy. I will.” He was used to the fact that she couldn’t quite grasp that his foster mother was dead for a year now. Some things poor Almonee picked up on right away, and others never took hold in her mind.

Once she had stored her coins away, Almonee picked up her lunch and stuck it in her mouth again, off to the side like a pipe. She said, “May the stars watch for yeh, good boy Bayle. “

Bayle stood back up and tugged at the top of his hood in acknowledgement, a smile on his lips for the woman. He had turned to continue on his way when the old woman called after him again loudly, “Ho there! Boy!”

Bayle turned back to her and noticed she had put the parsnip back down on the roadway and was now biting on one of the coins, testing it to see if it would make a better lunch. She took the coin out of her mouth and yelled at him, “Don’t need yer money, yeh hear?! Just holding onto it so’s yer not spendin’ it on mead ’n frivoles, yeh hear me?”

Bayle had no idea what “frivoles” were. He nodded at her and called, “Of course, Almonee. Better than a banker, you are! And far more trustworthy!”

As he walked off, he shook his head in amusement. She still insisted on calling him boy most every chance she got, even though he would very soon reach twenty years of age. A few years ago, it bothered him, but now he accepted it with a grin and a casual resignation.

Bayle rounded the public oratory tower, the nicest one in town, and came upon Bonedown Square. The north end of the square was home to a large, splashing fountain honoring the royal family of veLohrdan. There were a few rabble children playing in it, and a few others divided into teams and playing an informal game of oxen dart with a worn leather ball in the wide open space of the square.

Looming over the Bonedown, on its low promontory and brilliantly lit in the afternoon sun, the Folly itself stood watch over its city, over its entire realm, really, as it nestled up to the mountain of Kitemount behind it. Leading up to the barbican, a queue of a few fine carriages and mounted horsemen waited to pass through into the castle grounds of the Folly, perhaps to meet with the state treasurer or some other administrator. Bayle cynically thought to himself that those waiting were most likely representatives of other noble families of Iisen, come to petition the administrator of the crown to be allowed to raise taxes yet again.

He didn’t dwell on those with business in the royal castle, though. If he had to choose with whom he had more in common, it would be the gentleman he spied at the far end of the Bonedown. The one swinging from a noose out over the crevasse along the southern edge of the square.
My own future, but for the grace of the stars at night
, thought Bayle, letting slip through his mind the old maxim that the religious folk of Iisen liked to repeat.

He wondered if the executed man was a thief like he was. Then he wondered how many crimes he had been found guilty of to warrant a public execution. The crown, or rather the Domo Regent since the throne was empty until the prince came of age, wasn’t quick to execute, so Goodsir Danglefoot hanging there must have been a bad one. Most egregious criminals were left to wither away in the deep recesses of the king’s gaol. Bayle couldn’t decide which would be worse — the slow, lonely death while practically buried under the city, or a painfully public hanging. He decided the hanging would be better. A quick snap, a moment of spasms, and then it was all finished. Besides, he had never liked being cooped up inside for too long.

The hanged criminal turned in the early summer breeze coming around Kitemount and a sudden fear gripped its cold hand around Bayle’s heart. His feet slowly made their way, of their own accord, closer towards the noose and its grim passenger. The man’s face... if Bayle pictured the face he so easily brought to mind, and added ten years to the memory, it could possibly be what he saw in the man’s face dangling there, at least from a distance. The chilled grip on his heart grew tighter as he got closer until the hung thief spun again and Bayle finally got a clear view of his face. He exhaled, scarcely aware he had been holding the breath captive in his lungs, when he saw the man. Yes, the age was probably about right, but it definitely wasn’t him. Bayle wiped his hand over his face in relief.

He turned back and was about to find a bench so he could sit and rest after his exhausting escape earlier. He was anxious to count his money and see if his jaw would stop throbbing where the void was that had been a tooth that morning. He glanced up at Kelber Peak to the north of the city, and then behind both Kelber Peak and Kitemount, to the northeast, was the impressive Thayhold. Even behind the other two mountains, Thayhold was huge and bare of all but rock and sediment; it was so tall and steep that it was named thus because legend had it that the top of the mountain, rarely seen due to constant clouds around it, supported the very sky and stars themselves. The three mountains together formed the Trine Range, the royal symbol of the ruling veLohrdan family and the whole of the Iisendom itself.

He spotted a free bench to rest on from his earlier adventure, but he never got the chance to even sit upon it. Instead, he turned away from it and discreetly pulled his hood closer around his face. The bench wasn’t the only thing he had spotted; there were also two separate squads of Kingdom Guards making their way through the square, and Bayle wasn’t in the mood for any more attention from anyone.

He doubled back, passed back out the old city gate he had come through a few minutes earlier and turned down a side street in the wealthy part of town that was near the square. He never ceased to be amazed at the size and perfect upkeep of the townhouses the wealthy merchants owned in this section of town. A few streets over and he would have passed in front of the grand townhouse that belonged to the merchant family of a certain girl with red curls and emerald eyes, in fact.

Mariealle... even the name was as impressive as her father’s wealth. Mariealle.

He had allowed himself to be distracted again by her as he walked and took an unfamiliar turn, rare for him, and found it to be a dead-end. But it was quiet and there were no people there looking down their noses at him because he didn’t belong in such a wealthy enclave. Even for no more than an alley, the backs of the houses here and courtyard walls were made of stone and brick, another sign of the wealth of the neighborhood in which he was lurking.

Bayle sat on some steps next to a planter bursting forth with the tiny yellow flowers of foxblush. He’d seen fields wild with foxblush before, the breeze lifting the leaves and exposing the pale pink tips of their undersides in fanciful waves of color across the small meadow. If he had known how limited and precious those memories would turn out to be, even as a nothing more than a child, he would have paid more attention.

He freed his pilfered moneybag and slowly counted out the coins, careful to add correctly. The swallowstamps and belders added up to about three half-crowns in total, with a few swallowstamps in excess, if he had summed correctly. Not a great amount, but not bad, either.

He replaced the coins in the bag and made sure it was secure in one of his pockets. Only then did he look up, and his shoulders sagged at what his eyes landed upon.

The first thing he saw was the vivid violet of the tabard with the panny-colored design of the Trine Range constellation — the livery of the Kingdom Guard. His brow furrowed and he said aloud to the lieutenant of the Guard leaning on the corner of the only exit from the otherwise pleasant alleyway, “Oh, now I truly am being hounded beyond reason!”

The lieutenant said, “You’ve cornered yourself, Gully Snipe. Honestly, I expected more from you than this.”

The lieutenant’s casual attitude irritated Bayle. He had been in a tight spot or two with this one before, and this guard was too big to stand against or fight directly. The lieutenant may have had only a half finger-length in height over him, but he was substantially broader, and knew how to use his weight advantage well. The swordsman eyeing him warily was still fresh-eared in the Guard, but advanced enough to already be a lieutenant.

The lieutenant’s hand went to the sword at his hip and he commanded, “Yield, Snipe! Your luck has ended! You have nowhere to run this time, and my squad is right behind me!”

The two of them stared at each other for a moment, each judging the situation. In the tension of the pause between them, Bayle scratched absent-mindedly at his left palm, which had chosen the moment to begin itching.

Bayle finally bent down and picked up a small pebble and threw it at the guard. It bounced off the thick breastplate of the guard’s cuirass and tabard harmlessly.

The Snipe said triumphantly, “Take that!”

The lieutenant’s shoulders squared even more, but his face seemed disappointed. “We’ll see who thinks this is a merry joke!”

The Gully Snipe abandoned his ready stance and frowned at the guard instead. He pointed at him and began, “Your...”

The lieutenant waited, then prompted, “What?”

“Your tabard has come disoriented, goodsir!”

As soon as the lieutenant glanced down, Bayle darted as fast as he could. He didn’t run for the alley exit, though, because that would have meant instant capture. Instead he ran for a cart that had been left untended near a courtyard wall between two townhouses. He ran and leaped up from the edge of the little cart, narrowly grabbing and catching a rope hanging down from a hoist beam at the top of the townhouse’s gable. His momentum swung him up to where his leg could grab the top of the courtyard wall and he climbed up on it.

The lieutenant realized his split-second mistake and was after the thief instantly. He climbed on the cart, but the Snipe threw the rope onto the roof of the building where the guard couldn’t get to it.

The Snipe ran along the wall even as the lieutenant was attempting to grab the top of it to lift himself up, but was unable to do so. The Snipe called in amusement as he ran to the far end of the wall, “For shame! Have you become that easily distracted?! Have you become this fat and lazy since joining the Guard of the Iisendom that it takes no more than
this
to get past you?”

The lieutenant made a few more futile jumps, trying to grab the top of the wall but still always a few fingertips short, while he cursed at the Gully Snipe the entire time.

Before he clambered onto the clay tiles of the roof at the end of the wall, Bayle turned and bowed politely to the swordsman below him. And in a flash after that, the Gully Snipe disappeared across the roofs to any part of the city that was without pesky guards who would recognize him.

Roald rose up from his knees, trying to not disturb the other supplicants and peniters pressed up against him at the top of the oratory tower. Prayer was one of the times he actually appreciated the greaves he wore as part of his uniform as they made the kneeling easier on his shins. The land may have been closely swaddled in night, but the sky was clear and the stars dazzling, even if a large portion in the west was obscured by Pelaysha, the trickster moon; her fat, dark disk was almost more a spot devoid of stars than an object in the sky of its own right. Pelaysha may have obscured a great many ancestors in the sky with her dark silhouette, but there was still a crowd gathered upon the tower for the other stars in the rest of the sky.

Roald, his own prayers complete, carefully threaded his way through the quiet throng to make his exit from the open top of the tower, making sure the sword at his hip did not strike or disturb the others kneeling all around him. He had spent fifteen minutes or so praying to the small patch of sky where the stars of his own mother and father now resided, visible in the sky along the silhouetted edge of Thayhold.

As always, he had spent his entire time in prayer asking his parents for forgiveness and understanding since they could see his whole life laid bare, having taken their leave of the world below and now watching him from above. He even ventured to ask for some support if they would see fit to send it to him. Mostly he asked this on behalf of his brother, but sometimes, like this night, he asked for a little for himself as well.

It was good to ask, even if he knew he’d likely never have their forgiveness or understanding, much less their support. But he was sincere in asking for it, and it always felt good to be near both of them again for a few minutes.

He made his way down the winding wooden steps of the stone tower, passing others on their way up for their own time at prayer. At the bottom, he nodded at the robed elocutor priest waiting to assist the faithful and making sure they contributed as well. Roald placed a belder coin in the collection box at the entrance to the tower for the church, earning a kindly smile from the elocutor, and then he emerged out onto the road. His duties complete for the day, both to the crown that employed him and to his faith, he was free to go home for a much needed long sleep.