the-small-print
05-05-2007, 01:38
The warm tropical rain clattered against the haphazard panes of the window, making a sliding, moving sheen that blurred and rippled everything outside. A pair of dockhands scrambled to bring some crates of coloured silk in under the palm-leaf awning before they were ruined by the rain, the coppery storm-sun glinting off their soaked bodies.
A pair of grey eyes watched with a detached boredom as the men slipped and cursed on the cobbles. They belonged to a boy; tallish and gangly, with the look of someone who has grown much in a short time. His features were sharp and strong, but marred by a large purple bruise across one cheekbone and a scabbed lip.
The air was warm and humid, making his tongue tingle and his tunic stick clammily to his back. Behind him he heard the simpering giggle of the bloated landlady chatting to a customer. Her insincere, ratty voice jarred at his nerves as she named the price of his mother to another crack-toothed corsair and ushered them away, hastily outlining the house rules.
Something burned at the back of his throat, and his face twitched, causing the split on his lip to reopen painfully and bleed onto his chin. Cursing, he wiped the blood away with his forearm and made for the door, thinking to walk for a while in the fading rain, and maybe find some food.
"Dog! Where do you think you're going? Come 'ere!"
Scowling at the shrill voice, the boy turned on his heel to face the landlady and glared at her. Her jowely, bulldog-like face gave him a look of sharp impatience. He found it hard to believe that she had once been a courtesan too, let alone a successful one.
"Out. I'm hungry"
"Out is it, eh?" she cut in shrilly. "Youse going ter get some lead an' fix that damn leak is where youse going, Dog. Get some money from the kitty, and don't go stealing none, 'cause I've got it counted, mind, ev'ry penny"
The boy she called 'Dog' considered for a moment hitting the ugly old hag's face, but there would be no point. Sdapeze, the bouncer, would stop him before he could do any real damage, he'd get a beating, and things would go back to how they were, only a little worse. She didn't care enough to kick him out.
He nodded, and gritted his teeth as the woman's haggard features twisted into a look of triumph. He pushed past her, and went to his dingy little room to retrieve his battered leather pack.
Ten minutes later he was trudging the muddy street, his sandaled feet splashing through deep, brown puddles of luke-warm rainwater and enjoying the refreshing coolness that comes after a heavy downpour. He shouldered his way through the soaked crowd, another unremarkable face among many, nothing to mark him out except for a slight tension in his step that one would have to be watching closely to notice.
He pushed past one of the masons at the entrance to the builder's yard and earned himself a slap around the back of the head for knocking the man's elbow, which he took without reaction. He stopped in front of the counter, where a wiry man with a stubbly chin was chewing his quill as he pored over a large, dusty ledger. The man looked up distractedly, his one eye not quite lining up with the other, and said,
"What?"
Dog shuffled a little and responded in turn, "Roofing lead, for a leak. Two ells by one."
Grumbling, the thin man stood and loped off behind a stack of part-worked column segments and shoring blocks, and emerged a minute later bearing a shiny-edged roll of lead the length of his forearm, holding it as if it weighed nothing. He tossed it down onto the ledger and took up his quill again. Without looking up, he said "...two crowns," and crossed out some numbers on the page. Dog dropped a few coins onto the ledger and took the lead, and began to push his way back through the marketplace.
No one looks at me.... look at them, all walking along, staring at the pavement ahead or talking to one another. They don't spare a glance. But what would they see? The whore's son and errand boy. Why waste time looking at filth like that? But I don't need them to approve....
His pace quickened and his scalp began to tingle in anticipation. The sack clinked slightly at his back, and its strap bit into his shoulder. He moulded the roll of malleable lead in his hand.
Shouldering his way through the bustle of the market square, his roving eyes landed on something revolting but somehow fascinating: Cato the Slaver; a little man with a squint, who smelled of pork grease and unwashed male. He was backed by his two tall, grim-faced Haradrim guards with their scarified skin like carved ebony.
Behind the revolting little man there were four long wooden cages, bound with iron staples and filled with grubby-faced men, women and children, all looking distinctly ragged and strained. They were crouched in the corners; pacing up and down; staring out from between the bars with expressions of hatred, fear, grief, sadness or simple blankness, or holding one another and speaking reassuringly in their own tongue. Always that same tone, the hushing, reassuring whispers one might use to calm a spooked horse. Dog found it almost enchanting to listen in on them.
He wandered up and down the cages, examining their occupants. Very few even of them looked at him either, except....
...a tingle ran up his spine as a pair of eyes locked briefly with his own. They belonged to a girl, roughly his own age and despite the filth of the cage and her tattered clothing, he could not take his eyes from her. She was being held by what could only have been her brother, whose defiant face was a remarkable reflection of Dog's own; proud and stubborn, grey eyes and silken black hair - now tousled and greasy - and a split lip. As the girl hastily looked away and buried her face in her brother's neck, he felt a stab of loss, and knew clearly what it was he longed for.
He was going to run away anyway - it had been laughably easy to distract the house guard long enough to empty the savings kitty - so why not? He would have less to live on, but still....
A rushing force of impulse made up his mind and he sidled over to Cato's table.
"Get out of it, boy. Ain't nothing 'ere you can afford, so stop ogling."
Dog frowned
"That girl there... how much?"
Cato leered at him. "Too much for you, an' we don't do rental. Now bugger off."
Dog glanced back at the girl, who was watching them with a worried expression.
"I can give you four hundred crowns for her," he said, confidently. An odd rush rippled through his veins. Somehow it felt like being in a fight with one of the other boys, but without the pain, just the excitement. Cato glanced at him shrewdly, trying to judge his expression.
"Where's the likes o' you got four hundred crowns from?" he asked disbelievingly. Dog gave such a look of contempt that the Landlady would have been proud.
"That's not your concern, you filthy little creature, now what do you say, four hundred?"
Eyes were upon him. Angry eyes, bemused eyes, look of passing interest. But still, not enough.
"I could get eight hundred for 'er at Indre's place, no trouble."
"For her?" Dog scrabbled in his memory for scraps of relevant information. "She won't stay, look at her.... You've got to be careful of buying siblings, they always say. They'll do anything to get away. You know that; it would halve her price, for a start. Besides, it dosen't look like she's been treated well, look... shackle sores, might go nasty, could do with some feeding up, and some bulk too. She'd be no good for work at the moment. You'd need to invest to get her in condition."
"All right, all right. Six fifty, no lower."
"Five hundred."
"Yer what?" Cato gave him a disgusted look. "She's worth that much in the arena. Gotta pay more for a keeper."
"Alright, six."
"Six fifty, final. Any less and I'll get Manek 'ere to toss you in the cage with 'er, see how cocky you are then."
One of the Harad guards leered.
"Right, six fifty it is then. I'd shake your hand but I might catch something," said Dog, aping the tone of the better class of patrons to the Landlady's establishment.
A swell of victory rushed through his chest as he counted coins into the man's greasy palm, and signed his name on the necessary scrolls. He felt secretly proud of himself: at the auction, a girl as pretty as this one - no matter her condition - would go for at least nine hundred crowns.
He watched silently as the guards opened the cage and strode in, and wrestled the girl apart from her brother, who was screaming curses in his language so loud that all eyes were drawn to him. One of the guards hit him hard in the gut and he doubled over onto the floor of the cage, gasping for breath. The girl was shoved forwards until she stood in front of Dog, pale-faced and quivering.
The blood pounded in his ears, and he was aware of the eyes of every slave boring into him like hot pokers, none more fierce than the tear-rimmed glare of her brother. There was a moment of serene, unreal quiet as he rested a hand upon her shoulder and felt her flinch like a bird. There was a yawning flutter in his stomach. He gave her a reassuring smile and said, in the common tongue so she could understand:
"It's alright. I'm going to set you free."
...and then the noise returned with a rush. She collapsed to the ground as the roll of lead hit her fully on the side of the head, and the square echoed with gasps, cries of outrage and panicked shrieks. In the middle of the tumult Dog stood, every sense burning like wildfire as he repeatedly hit her on the ground again and again, until the strong arms of two Umbarian guards grabbed him and yanked him backwards away from the stricken body. He glanced around the square, a manic grin across his blood-freckled face and yelled out;
"She's mine! Look at the papers! Right there! I can do what I want!"
A pair of grey eyes watched with a detached boredom as the men slipped and cursed on the cobbles. They belonged to a boy; tallish and gangly, with the look of someone who has grown much in a short time. His features were sharp and strong, but marred by a large purple bruise across one cheekbone and a scabbed lip.
The air was warm and humid, making his tongue tingle and his tunic stick clammily to his back. Behind him he heard the simpering giggle of the bloated landlady chatting to a customer. Her insincere, ratty voice jarred at his nerves as she named the price of his mother to another crack-toothed corsair and ushered them away, hastily outlining the house rules.
Something burned at the back of his throat, and his face twitched, causing the split on his lip to reopen painfully and bleed onto his chin. Cursing, he wiped the blood away with his forearm and made for the door, thinking to walk for a while in the fading rain, and maybe find some food.
"Dog! Where do you think you're going? Come 'ere!"
Scowling at the shrill voice, the boy turned on his heel to face the landlady and glared at her. Her jowely, bulldog-like face gave him a look of sharp impatience. He found it hard to believe that she had once been a courtesan too, let alone a successful one.
"Out. I'm hungry"
"Out is it, eh?" she cut in shrilly. "Youse going ter get some lead an' fix that damn leak is where youse going, Dog. Get some money from the kitty, and don't go stealing none, 'cause I've got it counted, mind, ev'ry penny"
The boy she called 'Dog' considered for a moment hitting the ugly old hag's face, but there would be no point. Sdapeze, the bouncer, would stop him before he could do any real damage, he'd get a beating, and things would go back to how they were, only a little worse. She didn't care enough to kick him out.
He nodded, and gritted his teeth as the woman's haggard features twisted into a look of triumph. He pushed past her, and went to his dingy little room to retrieve his battered leather pack.
Ten minutes later he was trudging the muddy street, his sandaled feet splashing through deep, brown puddles of luke-warm rainwater and enjoying the refreshing coolness that comes after a heavy downpour. He shouldered his way through the soaked crowd, another unremarkable face among many, nothing to mark him out except for a slight tension in his step that one would have to be watching closely to notice.
He pushed past one of the masons at the entrance to the builder's yard and earned himself a slap around the back of the head for knocking the man's elbow, which he took without reaction. He stopped in front of the counter, where a wiry man with a stubbly chin was chewing his quill as he pored over a large, dusty ledger. The man looked up distractedly, his one eye not quite lining up with the other, and said,
"What?"
Dog shuffled a little and responded in turn, "Roofing lead, for a leak. Two ells by one."
Grumbling, the thin man stood and loped off behind a stack of part-worked column segments and shoring blocks, and emerged a minute later bearing a shiny-edged roll of lead the length of his forearm, holding it as if it weighed nothing. He tossed it down onto the ledger and took up his quill again. Without looking up, he said "...two crowns," and crossed out some numbers on the page. Dog dropped a few coins onto the ledger and took the lead, and began to push his way back through the marketplace.
No one looks at me.... look at them, all walking along, staring at the pavement ahead or talking to one another. They don't spare a glance. But what would they see? The whore's son and errand boy. Why waste time looking at filth like that? But I don't need them to approve....
His pace quickened and his scalp began to tingle in anticipation. The sack clinked slightly at his back, and its strap bit into his shoulder. He moulded the roll of malleable lead in his hand.
Shouldering his way through the bustle of the market square, his roving eyes landed on something revolting but somehow fascinating: Cato the Slaver; a little man with a squint, who smelled of pork grease and unwashed male. He was backed by his two tall, grim-faced Haradrim guards with their scarified skin like carved ebony.
Behind the revolting little man there were four long wooden cages, bound with iron staples and filled with grubby-faced men, women and children, all looking distinctly ragged and strained. They were crouched in the corners; pacing up and down; staring out from between the bars with expressions of hatred, fear, grief, sadness or simple blankness, or holding one another and speaking reassuringly in their own tongue. Always that same tone, the hushing, reassuring whispers one might use to calm a spooked horse. Dog found it almost enchanting to listen in on them.
He wandered up and down the cages, examining their occupants. Very few even of them looked at him either, except....
...a tingle ran up his spine as a pair of eyes locked briefly with his own. They belonged to a girl, roughly his own age and despite the filth of the cage and her tattered clothing, he could not take his eyes from her. She was being held by what could only have been her brother, whose defiant face was a remarkable reflection of Dog's own; proud and stubborn, grey eyes and silken black hair - now tousled and greasy - and a split lip. As the girl hastily looked away and buried her face in her brother's neck, he felt a stab of loss, and knew clearly what it was he longed for.
He was going to run away anyway - it had been laughably easy to distract the house guard long enough to empty the savings kitty - so why not? He would have less to live on, but still....
A rushing force of impulse made up his mind and he sidled over to Cato's table.
"Get out of it, boy. Ain't nothing 'ere you can afford, so stop ogling."
Dog frowned
"That girl there... how much?"
Cato leered at him. "Too much for you, an' we don't do rental. Now bugger off."
Dog glanced back at the girl, who was watching them with a worried expression.
"I can give you four hundred crowns for her," he said, confidently. An odd rush rippled through his veins. Somehow it felt like being in a fight with one of the other boys, but without the pain, just the excitement. Cato glanced at him shrewdly, trying to judge his expression.
"Where's the likes o' you got four hundred crowns from?" he asked disbelievingly. Dog gave such a look of contempt that the Landlady would have been proud.
"That's not your concern, you filthy little creature, now what do you say, four hundred?"
Eyes were upon him. Angry eyes, bemused eyes, look of passing interest. But still, not enough.
"I could get eight hundred for 'er at Indre's place, no trouble."
"For her?" Dog scrabbled in his memory for scraps of relevant information. "She won't stay, look at her.... You've got to be careful of buying siblings, they always say. They'll do anything to get away. You know that; it would halve her price, for a start. Besides, it dosen't look like she's been treated well, look... shackle sores, might go nasty, could do with some feeding up, and some bulk too. She'd be no good for work at the moment. You'd need to invest to get her in condition."
"All right, all right. Six fifty, no lower."
"Five hundred."
"Yer what?" Cato gave him a disgusted look. "She's worth that much in the arena. Gotta pay more for a keeper."
"Alright, six."
"Six fifty, final. Any less and I'll get Manek 'ere to toss you in the cage with 'er, see how cocky you are then."
One of the Harad guards leered.
"Right, six fifty it is then. I'd shake your hand but I might catch something," said Dog, aping the tone of the better class of patrons to the Landlady's establishment.
A swell of victory rushed through his chest as he counted coins into the man's greasy palm, and signed his name on the necessary scrolls. He felt secretly proud of himself: at the auction, a girl as pretty as this one - no matter her condition - would go for at least nine hundred crowns.
He watched silently as the guards opened the cage and strode in, and wrestled the girl apart from her brother, who was screaming curses in his language so loud that all eyes were drawn to him. One of the guards hit him hard in the gut and he doubled over onto the floor of the cage, gasping for breath. The girl was shoved forwards until she stood in front of Dog, pale-faced and quivering.
The blood pounded in his ears, and he was aware of the eyes of every slave boring into him like hot pokers, none more fierce than the tear-rimmed glare of her brother. There was a moment of serene, unreal quiet as he rested a hand upon her shoulder and felt her flinch like a bird. There was a yawning flutter in his stomach. He gave her a reassuring smile and said, in the common tongue so she could understand:
"It's alright. I'm going to set you free."
...and then the noise returned with a rush. She collapsed to the ground as the roll of lead hit her fully on the side of the head, and the square echoed with gasps, cries of outrage and panicked shrieks. In the middle of the tumult Dog stood, every sense burning like wildfire as he repeatedly hit her on the ground again and again, until the strong arms of two Umbarian guards grabbed him and yanked him backwards away from the stricken body. He glanced around the square, a manic grin across his blood-freckled face and yelled out;
"She's mine! Look at the papers! Right there! I can do what I want!"