Adric walked toward the spires. They looked cold and distant, yet at the same time too large, like the fingers of a giant. His legs ached and he smelled, but no one seemed to notice. The crowd surged forward, and when he thought to look, his traveling companions were always different.
Beside him now, a merchant hurried, his chin up, glancing over the heads to something Adric couldn’t see. On Adric’s left, a thread of troubadours pushed the wrong way. One hit Adric, jostling him. Their gazes met, then the troubadour looked away. Here on the street, voices milled and rumbled. Occasionally a horse rode through, and Adric dodged as the others did, watching for hooves out of the corner of his eye. When a carriage passed, he stopped and gazed, hoping to see the unmarked black carriage or at least one with an insignia he recognized. But most of the carriages were small and unfamiliar, pulled by two horses and steered by men in simple leather.
As twilight grew, Adric seemed no closer to the spires. He was tired and hungry, but he wouldn’t let his fear surface. He knew that Lord Ewehl had to find him. The lord couldn’t go back to the palace without Adric.
Someone tugged on his sleeve. Adric whirled, expecting to see one of the footmen. Instead a girl about his own age smiled at him. Her long brown hair straggled around her face. Her skin was thick with dust, and most of her teeth were missing. “You look lost,” she said.
He could barely hear her over the noise. When the words did reach him, they sent a shudder though him, and for a minute his eyes burned with the threat of tears. He took a deep breath to calm himself.
“Where’s you going?”
“To the center of town, the place where the king’s carriage usually waits.” His voice hitched as he spoke. He felt as if he had been alone for weeks instead of hours.
She nodded and took his arm. “I know where that is.”
Adric trembled. Finally a little bit of hope. The girl led him through the press of bodies to the side of the road. There a small side street angled off into the dimness. It looked like the road he had been attacked on: strangely hung signs, the wooden platform, and haphazardly placed buildings. Only this street had no gutter running down the middle.
“This is a quicker way,” she said. Now that they were away from the noise, Adric could hear a lisp in her speech caused by the lack of teeth. She looked him up and down, taking the lace edge of his sleeve and rubbing it between her fingers. “Your clothes are nice.”
“They were nicer this morning.”
“It was a bad day for you, then,” she said.
He nodded, not really wanting to chat. He wanted to move, to find the carriage before nightfall.
“It’ll cost you a gold piece to get to the center of town.” The girl held out her hand.
Adric stared at her palm for a moment, not understanding her. When he finally realized that she wanted him to pay her, he shook his head. “I don’t have any money,” he said.
The smile left her face and her eyes became flat and hard. “Lordlings like you always carry money.”
“I was robbed,” he said.
She laughed and snapped her fingers. “Sure you were,” she said.
Adric opened his mouth to tell her the story when he was tackled from behind. As he landed on the hard-packed dirt, the air whooshed out of his body. Dozens of small hands reached in his clothes, ripping, tearing, searching. His body was cramped and he could barely move. Finally he gasped, filling his lungs. He tried to roll over, but his shoulders were pressed tightly to the ground. A knee dug into the small of his back as the hands moved down to his trousers, cupping and grabbing even his private parts. He screamed and flailed, but he couldn’t strike anything. Then the hands disappeared except for the two on his shoulders. The knee pushed harder into this back, sending a dull, throbbing ache around to his belly.
“I thought you said there’d be coins on this one.” A boy’s voice, cracking and rough.
“He looked like he would,” the girl said.
“He’s no better off than we are.”
Adric pushed against the ground and managed to roll away from the hands and knee. He looked up to see a dozen dirty children looking down on him. “Look,” he said. “If we’re all in the same position, maybe–”
“You don’t know anything,” the tallest boy said. He was the one who had spoken before. His body was stick-thin, and scabs covered his arms and legs. “Look at you.” He pushed Adric’s hip with his foot. “You’re fat and well-dressed, and your hands are soft. You don’t know anything.”
He kicked Adric’s side. Pain shot up through his chest. Adric tried to get up, but the other children leaped on him, kicking and biting and scratching. He managed to raise his hands to his face as he crumpled back to the ground. Thinks popped and snapped in his body. His chest burned and he could barely draw breath. A sharp blow landed on his head, and he must have passed out, for when he opened his eyes, it was fully dark and he was alone.
He looked up, his eyelids sticky with tears and blood. The stars shone above him, the same stars as the ones he saw at home. He missed home. He wondered what Lord Ewehl was doing, if the carriage still sat in its appointed spot in the center of town. He had to see.
Adric eased his arms down, feeling sharp stitches of pain in his shoulders and sides. He still couldn’t catch his breath, and he could no longer feel his chest. It was as if his chest weren’t there at all. His legs throbbed, and he knew he had a long gash near one of his ankles.
He tried to roll over and found that his chest still didn’t exist. The pain was exquisite, so fine-tuned it seemed that if he experienced it long enough, it would send him somewhere else, somewhere better. He toyed with testing the theory, then realized that his mother would worry about him. His mother needed him at home.
Adric managed to sit up, but the movement seemed to take hours. Ahead, he saw a single light burning through open doors, revealing hay, horses, a stable. A boy who was almost a man, whose shoulders were broad but whose body was still child-slim, carried two buckets toward the open door. Water splashed along the sides. Adric licked his lips. He was thirsty and he was tired and he hurt everywhere. If he got a little water, he would be able to make it to the center of town, he knew it.
He tried to stand up, shook, and collapsed on his knees. He didn’t care. He crawled, feeling the dirt dig into his palms, his legs. His clothing hung in tatters around him, and in more than one place he thought he felt the stickiness of blood.
As Adric neared the stable, he could smell the richness of hay mingled with horse sweat and manure. Familiar scents, scents of home. Inside, the boy whistled, stopping occasionally to talk to one of the horses. Adric almost crawled in, then hesitated. Everyone else he had met abused him. He didn’t dare trust this boy. Adric couldn’t take another beating. He swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbling against the dryness, and forced himself to think.
He had to get the boy out of the stable without closing the doors. Adric’s hand closed around a hard clump of dirt. He tossed it, using all his strength, his arm cracking and tiny shudders of pain jabbing him. The dirt smacked against the far wall of the building beside the stable. Adric leaned forward, his chest burning so badly that he had to concentrate on each breath.
The whistling stopped. The boy appeared at the stable doors, his face half shrouded in shadow. His hair was blond, with pieces of straw sticking out of it, his clothing too small but clean.
Adric grabbed another clump of dirt and, willing himself strength, threw it.
The boy turned at the sound, then walked toward it.
Adric had to move quickly. He crawled along the dirt, keeping his head turned so that he saw the boy.
The inside of the stable was warm. The smell of hay, horses, and manure seemed stronger here. Adric found the nearest pile of hay and burrowed into it. The stiff pieces scratched his already wounded body and the hay dust tickled his nose, but he was warm and he was safe, at least for the moment.
“False scare,” he heard someone say, probably the boy speaking to the horses. The whistling started again, and Adric closed his eyes. His pain throbbed in rhythm with his heart. When the boy left and the light went out, Adric would get himself water, and then he would leave. Until then he would rest.
He sighed once and shivered as hay rubbed against his wounds. The whistling continued and Adric concentrated on it, following the rise and fall of the song until he fell asleep.