Death to the Grand Guild

3

The Ankirk Kingdom wanted the Guild’s possessions, so they sent their hordes upon us. It was the Guild’s darkest days, but we prevailed. The costs were high on the Guild’s coffers so Arturo Breeston, the hero of the great war realized the city needed to govern itself.

He appointed a Chamberlain to run the city. A Treasurer to run its finances, and an Exchequer to collect the tolls. A Chancellor followed to administer justice, and a Captain was chosen for the militia.

My father held authority over them, and he demanded loyalty to the Guild before Breeston. It was a fine moment for our Grand Guild. The Guild could now focus on the Guild.

The Grand Guild by Arland Breeston

The Outer Wards

Dearest Uncle,

I was fortunate to find a courier who delivers parchments to Hayston. It’s pricey at twenty silver oaks, but I felt it proper to inform you of our progress.

I doubt that the courier will arrive before Bitters returns. He had come by our quarters to say farewell yesterday after the healers bid him leave. I won’t go into the details of what detained him here. You will hear about this terrible experience from him.

They hung the man who caused us grief along the Triad Road in the Old Street square. He was in dreadful shape. We didn’t believe he was alive until they lifted him by the neck.

He twitched with legs kicking in desperation and then he went limp, and the crowd which was rather seemed to attend out of boredom.

We are both well and found quarters in the Horn ward. The inn looks dismal at first glance, but it has served us at this moment very adequately.

The man who runs it is named Relling, an older man who is kind, but compliments us in annoyance. He fidgets and worries over us leaving. The dreadful circumstance that befell us on the roads has spread all over the wards, and our occupancy has driven onlookers here that have allowed him to rent out all his rooms.

It is called The Frookuh, which I found to my amusement is a pheasant that nests on the rooftops of Breeston. The merchants lure them with the dried grass used in the mattresses here.

They put a wooden cage over them, and place them in coops they built on their roofs. The females will lay an egg a day, near the size of a chicken, but the yolk is a deep, rich orange. They will fatten up the male frookuh with old barley bread crumbs, and the shells from the female’s egg. Then sell the plump male to anyone with coin, put it in a pot with root vegetables, and make a stew.

The commoners live on stews, porridge, and barley bread, along with these eggs. We are fortunate to have a small brazier, with a flat iron plate on top of it in our quarters.

I went to Old Street and bought a copper pot. I have been boiling these eggs. Frying fatty lamb on the iron when I buy coal. It is very expensive, and the Guild tax on goods makes being a merchant here difficult.

The loins and legs I once enjoyed so much have been replaced by this meat, which the commoners call “leavings”, which are the trimmings of fat and chewy meat that isn’t put into a salt barrel.

I have missed the taste of spices. Nutmeg is three times the cost in Hayston. So I have relied on small onions and a clove of wild red garlic that one of our neighbours brings from the Widow’s ward.

It is a paling comparison, but it provides some flavour. Do not stress over what I have explained to you. I am of healthy weight and making my silver stretch as far as it can.

Our misfortune on the roads and another incident are being talked about in all the wards. A Nuhrish man was ambushed in a ward they call Butcher’s Wail by these brigands called Yellow Hand. The lot robs, and rapes during the night they say, but they chose a ruthless man that evening, and he took a score of men with him.

Harwin still thinks it’s impossible that one man killed so many, but the talk doesn’t stop there as this rumour is spreading among the commoners. Several nights ago, his body vanished from the morgue before it could be burned.

The constables who guarded him could not recall much but a knock on the door. The ignorant are now saying he is a phantom, roaming Butcher’s Wail, looking for more Yellow Hand to kill.

I went to the Raines Bank to store my funds, as you recommended. Bitters brought our wares from Captain Wintergarden’s possession. I want you to thank Bitters again for me. The fur blankets will be needed during the winter, and the heavy wool cloaks he had added will serve us well.

I also wanted to thank you for the Minoan iron lock. It’s on my small chest as I write. Very appreciated, knowing someone is looking out for our ignorance while we dwell here.

I’m grateful for the silver you bequeathed us. I added it to my holdings at the bank, but Harwin has spent much of his. Your gift of two hundred silver oaks along with the reward money we received will keep us fed until I start my position soon.

The items Bitters told us to confiscate from the brigands were given Harwin another forty silver to folly with. He has been the fool with it during the ten days we have been here.

We have gained two sordid men that live in the apartment across from us. They are Harwin’s companions, who go by Julius and Osmond Timmons. I find them annoying.

Julius is a quick-witted charlatan I believe, who looks like a rolling dandy, and the latter is a bald, bearded buffoon with a loud laugh. The two are over here every evening and Harwin insists we eat with them in a tavern for dinner.

The taverns have ridiculous names like the Fuzzy Duck, the Yellow Toad, and Biddy Mulligans. They pay for a round of horns and Harwin buys them three back, oblivious to the fact the two are moochers and will abandon him when he runs dry of his funds.

They are often laughing at my ignorance of their barbaric customs, which centre around so many horns of ale. I am surrounded by drunken hoots into my ears and outlandish lies about their life.

Harwin loves them dearly. He even toils with Osmond at the armoury, shoveling coal into the forge’s furnace as he waits for an opening with the constables. I thought it was despicable when Osmond told us how the position became available.

He intentionally hurt the prior lad that held it by dropping a large hammer on his hand, breaking it. The armourer he apprenticed for told Osmond to find his replacement. He convinces Harwin to take his place, which earns this buffoon Osmond a finder’s share of his wage.

The pitiful wage is three silver oaks a week, with two going to Harwin and one to Osmond for an entire year. The commoners have a term for this devious thievery. It’s called “back-dooring”.

The other, this Julius, comes by every morning after Harwin and Osmond leave.

He sits and watches me read. Breaking his fast, interrupting me with questions about Hayston. The life of a farmer, what food they eat, and pulls on his goatee listening as I explain it. Grunting to himself in thought and nibbling on barley bread.

The man does bring useful gifts sometimes, these odd candles made from the reeds that grow around the lake. It’s dipped into a black oil that comes from a cactus growing wild on the plateau. They burn well enough, and the commoners use them because tallow candles are expensive.

I will write to you on another day. I expect this Julius to be here any moment, and I don’t want to finish this parchment later, risking that Harwin finds this and we have another argument.

I am always at your service,

Edmund

Edmund was sealing his parchment with the drippings from the commoners’ candle, tying a piece of twine around it to keep it rolled tight. He had plans to drop it off with payment for the courier to deliver.

A gentle rap on his door made him roll his eyes in annoyance. Then it opened without his consent as Julius walked to a chair and sat beside him.

“I don’t see that old book, Edmund. Did you finish it?”

“I had finished it months ago, I was rereading it,” Edmund explained to his curious neighbour who wore a dyed black leather jerkin over a tunic with breeches the same colour.

His boots of black were propped up on the table as he nibbled an apple while his laughing black eyes gazed at him.

“You have problems with your memory, Edmund?”

“No, Julius,” Edmund scoffs. “It’s a good book. I find it a fascinating book to read.”

“It must be quite a book. Do people die in it?” he asked with a mocking grin. “Is it about a randy woman with big bosoms?”

“It’s called the Grand Guild by Arland Breeston. He was a chamberlain appointed for Breeston that had the outer walls built a hundred years ago.”

“The Grand Guild,” Julius spat. “So this was the man who locked us away in here, you mean.”

“You don’t share my enthusiasm?” Edmund asked, trying to get under his skin. “Why do you live in Breeston, if you hate the Guild so much?”

“I was born here, I know no other place.” Edmund never realized it before as Julius grimaced at him. The man had never stepped foot beyond the city.

Edmund then complimented his neighbour, remarking to him that a man of his skill can exist in any city. Julius looked at him for a moment, unsure if he was being mocked or complimented.

“You are trying to aggravate me, aren’t you?” Julius said with a sly smile. “You know what? I think you should toss that book into the privy. It’s full of lies.”

“It’s a treasure. Only nobles own a copy, a view of the history of Breeston.”

“It knows nothing about Breeston! You’ve been nesting in this room every day, thinking a book can tell you about Breeston?” Julius laughed aloud. “You need to leave this inn and wander the streets. You’ll learn more than that fancy book can tell you.”

He brushed off Julius as the simpleton then nibbled on some barley bread, telling his foolish neighbour he walked to Old Street, looking at the merchant houses, before making a trip to Raines Bank, and to the docks for a view of the water. Julius was grinning at him and giggled. His mocking tone was getting on Edmund’s nerves.

“You went to the places patrolled by the tossers.”

Edmund thought it was a stupid statement, he had been warned that anything beyond the Horn ward was worth avoiding, just poor wretches who didn’t have two coppers to rub together.

“Why are you still wearing your home colours? Everyone knows you are foreign, you make them eager to pickpocket you.” Julius asked him, judging the green tunic he was wearing.

“I’m not dressing like the rabble, so I can walk the wards.”

“That’s another thing, you talk like a pompous arse,” Julius adds. “Do I dress in rags?”

Edmund shook his head no, explaining that he misunderstood him, his manner sour from the slight.

“I wear the mark of Breeston. The colours of blue, black, and white. I keep this on my hip if people don’t respect me.” Julius said, tapping the handle on his dirk.

“I walk the alleys in the outer wards, and that is how I earn my way. Your brother has figured this out. Osmond brought him a few nice blue tunics a few days ago, and he says you are the smart one.”

“What else has your brother got Harwin to spend coin for?”

“He likes my brother,” Julius said, raising his voice. “You think we are swindlers? You think my brother and I don’t see your little sneers?”

Edmund admitted he didn’t care for men who gambled and drank too much. He remarked that he was puzzled about how a man can earn the coin they spend and lacks a proper position.

“You want Osmond and me to move out?” Julius asked. “That is why you are always prickly. You think we are vagrants trying to latch onto a couple of vulnerable rubes and pretend to be their friends?”

“You may have a point?” Edmund said to mock him. His words wounded Julius, who became angry.

“Who taught you to be like this? Your father? No wonder your brother hates him.”

Edmund became heated and both rose, invoking a tense stare-down. His height didn’t intimidate Julius, as he was tapping his dirk, threatening to draw steel.

“You have a price? If I gave you and your brother a falcon each, is that enough?” Edmund asked him in malice, hoping he’d agree to his terms and go stomping back across the hall. The man didn’t. He welled with tears in an ire that almost made Edmund wince.

“You want to know what I am, what I do, you tosspot?” Julius growled up at him. “Put on your leathers, get your dirk, and meet me outside if you want to find out.”

“You want me to fight you in the streets?” Edmund asked, disturbed and taken aback.

“I want you to follow me to the wards!” Julius sneered back at him. “You will see how I make a living, and if you find it unfitting my brother and I will leave, and you can stick your gold falcons up your pucker hole.”

Watching him storm out, Edmund knew he was being challenged, and he sure wasn’t going to let a man much smaller be his better, so he opened his chest and grabbed a thick, leather jerkin.

Disturbing thoughts crossed his mind that Julius may lead him out into the wards and kill him. He found his gambeson he wore on the ride from Hayston and tightened his jerkin over it, then strapped on his dirk. It was Gaston’s dirk that Harwin gave him, as he admired it.

"That little scoundrel tries to knife me with that crude blade of his, he will see real steel,” he mumbled as he went down to the Frookuh’s foyer.

He met Julius out front, sitting on the inn’s front step and sulking. Edmund had thoughts of apologizing to him but thought better of it, holding in his hand the parchment he wrote his uncle. “I need this sent if you don’t mind.”

Julius looked at him, annoyed. “Very well, I know where he is. Follow me.”

He walked behind Julius, watching his every move. It was a fast pace for someone who was a head shorter than him. They stopped at the courier’s quarters at the Yellow Frog several alleys away in the same ward, while Julius waited for him along the corner of the dwelling.

Edmund entered, taking his time, hoping it would calm his temper. He was having second thoughts about agreeing to come with him. The courier was stuffing parchment into a pack as he gave him silver. The man had a nice disposition as he took the parchment from him and placed it with his gear.

“My travels are slow until harvest season begins. I will send word back when I arrive,” The courier promised.

“Your name, sir?” Edmund asked him. He didn’t care to know it when they first met, but Edmund thought he could help him.

“I go by Travis, Travis Crane, sir.”

“Travis, the man that came with me. The one scowling outside, do you know of him?” The courier peered out his window at him.

“Everybody knows Julius Timmons, had several horns with him.” he laughed in amusement.

“Can you trust him? Please be direct with me, I won’t repeat if they are sordid,” Edmund insisted.

“He’s a good bloke, won’t cheat ya, nor his brother either. You don’t want to play monarchs with them, they’ll clean your pockets of coppers in no time.” the courier replied kindly.

“What are monarchs? I’m ignorant of it.”

“It’s a dice game.” Travis chuckled. “You may like it, but don’t throw dice with him.”

Edmund thanked him, not sure what he should say to his disgruntled escort as he reunited with Julius, who was now sitting on the packed earth.

“You took your time with Travis. Did you insult him as well?”

Edmund could see he was still angry with him, so he tried to be pleasant. “I am ready to go,” Edmund responded in an attempt to be courteous. “My pardon for keeping you,” he said, ignoring his slight.

Julius scoffed at him then continued his brisk pace, leading Edmund on the southern inner road away from the docks, and out to an archway through the huge outer walls to where the outer wards began. A place Bitters told him to avoid, as Julius stopped and turned, startling him in his tracks.

“Now listen, you stay close. You notice someone grab the back of your arm, you draw steel. Someone bumps into you, turn fast, and grab the handle of your dirk. You glance behind, and if someone looks to be coming at you, you yell at me and I’ll handle it.”

“Where are you taking me?” Edmund asked.

“To the Bollox ward. I got to meet a friend of mine, he is holding something for me.”

They followed the dirt through the shuffling crowds, past a small open plaza with a well that had a long line of lads with buckets waiting for their turn. “This way.” Julius pointed outward after they crossed a few pathways as Edmund was disoriented with the shifting through pathways and alleys.

Edmund looked around at rows of daub and wattle structures on mud bricks. Topped with flat, slanted roofs made of thatch, and small chimneys sticking through the roof’s centre.

The dwellings had two large timbers jutting out their front, roofed, that provided shelter from the rain at the front entrances. The doors were nicked from use, and a few of the meagre cottages used curtains in their place, he noticed.

Julius led him at a brisk pace, in what seemed to be a different ward, as they approached a few two-story brick structures in the main square, an open plaza that widened out from the dirt street, serving as a trading hub for the few merchants that scratched a living there.

The people were suffering, the worst he had ever seen. He watched in shock while many lay sleeping in the dirt during the daylight.

“Are they ill?” Edmund asked, concerned.

“The mist as we call it has put its claws in them, an evil thing that just appeared in the outer wards. They smoke this in their pipes. It’s poison, turning them into layabouts, to forget how poor and pathetic they are,” Julius remarks then spat at one. “Most of these fools will die soon.”

Edmund then watched in horror as a woman squatted, lifting her long, threadbare dress, and urinated in front of them. The commoners didn’t glance her way, but many were looking at him.

They knew he was foreign and Edmund had a fear festering in his gut. “If Julius loses me in this ward, I am as good as dead,” he mutters under his breath.

His journey continued down more alleys, then up a small, dirt street approaching one of the small hovels. Julius then knocked and waited as a slow-witted man opened the door with a face that lacked any happiness.

“Julius, what kept you? It’s been miserable here since the sun came up,” the man complained, his back bent and in desperate need of a bath. The smell from his home was rancid, forcing Edmund to back away a few steps as Julius held his nose with a laugh.

“Jeter, I am sorry for my delay. Here is your coin,” he says as he handed the man some coppers, then told Edmund to wait outside as the door remained open.

Peering into the crude house, he was curious as to what Julius was doing in there. He then looked warily around him, worrying about pickpockets as Julius returned from the dwelling, pushing a one-wheeled barrow cart.

It suffered from the same foul odour of the old man, and then Edmund realized that was the foul itself. The cart was full of dung, and he stood there feeling awkward as Julius gave a few lads who were gawking at them nearby some coppers to push the cart and signalled Edmund to follow.

“I don’t understand,” Edmund asked Julius as they followed the cart up an alley and then down another dirt street.

“You’ll see soon enough.”

“You haul off dung for coin?” Edmund asked him.

“Now you sound as ignorant as your brother, be serious with me, Edmund,” Julius said while looking at him like an imbecile. “This is from the kennels, and several men of the militia owe me, so they shovel it up to pay, rather than in coin.”

Edmund was too baffled to ask anything further, while he continued through the labyrinth of huts and alleys. Onward toward a wall that served to separate the wards, and under another archway, passing by a constable who began laughing at them, as Julius nodded to him like he knew him.

He then began yelling at the lads, pushing them to keep moving as they panted heavily into the ward’s square that began to permeate a rank near as foul as Julius’s cart. Edmund began to cough until he lost his breath and Julius began to laugh.

“This is Tanner’s Square and making leather is a foul craft,” Julius replied, taking a short break. “It’s a safe ward,” Julius chuckled again to prod him, nodding with a grin to explain. “Most pickpockets avoid it.”

Moments passed as Edmund recovered to continue. Julius had the lads go a little further, pushing his cart to one of the two-story stone structures on the corner of the square, dismissing them with more coppers as the two ran back to their wards.

A lad, noticing them, scuttled out from the building to take the cart from him as he turned to speak to Edmund, informing him the load was as good as silver.

“I get this at a broke man’s price. This cart is four silver oaks off what he owes me, the tanner who buys it gives me ten oaks.” Julius explains proudly pointing to the entrance of the establishment.

“Let’s go inside, put this over your nose,” Julius said, handing Edmund a thick, wool cloth. It had a pleasant, flowery fragrance that helped with the sting from the rancour.”

Every window of the place was open as Edmund tried to go further, but stopped at the doorway and wretched. He was on one knee, his eyes stinging in pain while Julius was inside talking to the tanner, retreating to the centre of the square while waiting on Julius in discomfort.

Edmund noticed commoners carrying tosspots, walking into other foul places as he struggled to collect himself, wiping away tears when Julius returned, roaring with laughter, with the tanner in tow who got in on the jape. “Everyone sells their urine down here.”

“Edmund, this man here is Terrence Schultz,” Julius said while Edmund tried to gain his composure. “His fathers and their fathers have been making leathers for over a hundred years.”

“You can tell he hasn’t lived here long,” the rasping voice of the tanner spoke. The poor man had skinny shoulders that tapered into a pot belly as if he had suffered from some illness. His hair was a dull yellow, and his skin was the colour of it too as if he washed with what was in those tosspots.

Edmund stood, disturbed, glancing at his chest and back hair that had the colour of silver poking through the holes of a ragged tunic.

“Got barley bread freshly made, if ya want,” Terrence offered as Julius was nibbling on a heel. Edmund lacked the strength to shake his head no. “I think he is getting pale, Julius, it’s hard to tell with these Panheads.”

“I appreciate your hospitality, you will have to forgive me. I’m not used to this climate,” Edmund struggled to say, his stammering words brought a smile to Terrence’s face, his teeth a dull black, making him look frightful.

Julius was amused watching him in his anguish, lingering and chatting with Terrence as a bent-over crone approached, carrying a chamberpot.

Edmund noticed it was full as Terrence greeted her with a smile. He took the pot and looked inside, held his nose close, and took a huge whiff.

“That’s a fine batch, Maggie, get my lad in there to give you a copper.” He winked his dreary eyes, flirting with the old woman.

A lone top tooth the woman had, and she wasn’t embarrassed to hide it. Julius complimented her dress, a faded, long blue tunic that went to her ankles with a pair of dirty feet. Edmund looked up, disgusted, as the crone looked him over in wonder.

“He’s a tall one, I haven’t seen many of his height.” She was smiling at him with her hand extended.

“He’s foreign to our customs,” Julius apologized. “You have to take her hand and kiss it, Edmund. It’s good manners to kiss an elderly woman’s hand upon the first introduction.”

“It’s lucky, too,” Terrence added.

Edmund looked at the withered hand as Maggie stood there. She didn’t appear to give him any pardon from this custom.

He bowed and kissed her hand, smelling foul, and he could only imagine that what she was toting in that tosspot had gone over the rim and spilled upon it. The crone bowed to him as Julius slapped him on the back with a devious grin.

“We must go, I have another engagement. Terrence, I will see you another time. Maggie, it’s always a pleasure to see your charming face.”

“You keep bringing me that treasure!” Terrence barked out as they walked away. “I will send my lad back with the cart to Bollox after we shovel it good and clean.”

Edmund was embarrassed as he was led back the way they came. “You are trying to murder me in a vile way,” he remarked as Julius smirked at his remarks.

“You are being ridiculous, my friend. I love your brother too much to do such a deed, and I’m deathly afraid of him as well,” Julius replies. “I’m doing you a great service. Did you plan on sitting in the Frookuh? Waiting for a summons, then going back and forth from the docks to the inn?”

That’s absolutely what Edmund planned to do. “If you were in my position, wouldn’t you stay out of the wards as well?”

“This ward is where Osmond and I were raised,” Julius answered as they crossed back into Bollox he believed. “We could have been gong farmers like our fathers, been men used by the Guild. We chose a different path, and it plays out well.”

“You call me a snobbish man, but you and your brother could save more coin living here,” Edmund suggested.

“You are trying to shame me into guilt,” Julius replies, stopping him in the plaza of the ward. “Osmond and I are five years removed from looking as pitiful as these people. You think I haven’t seen the looks of repulsion on your face since we crossed here?”

“You are determined to better yourself. I can admire that, but it doesn’t excuse you from what I believe about you,” Edmund argued. “I still think you look at us as a mark. You are not a thief or a charlatan, but you make your coins by exploiting a situation for an opportunity.”

“Now I’m understanding your lordly behaviour,” Julius says with a frown rebuking him.

“I am not—”

“But you are,” Julius interrupted. “You have not a title, and you don’t have a drop of noble blood in you. An orphan just like me, but more fortunate.” Julius says to mock him. “Not once have we asked your brother to spend coin on us. He has been generous, and that bothers you.”

“My brother is foolish. He would spend his last copper to keep your admiration. Will you still knock on our door when he lacks coin?” Edmund’s answer pricks at Julius, his face twisted as he reared on Edmund and cursed him loudly.

“We find your brother endearing, but we stomach you, a wanker!”

He was mad at Edmund for belittling his brother. Julius could admit to finding his brother Osmond annoying, but he’d never be ashamed of him.

Osmond could walk away and make more coin working with him in the wards. He agreed his brother had a stupid idea, but he loved him and supported him no matter how foolish it sounded to him.

“Your brother got you exiled with him. My brother told me that. I get the ill feelings you hold.”

“He wasted a privileged opportunity, and he feels his life as a soldier is finished. His story is a big bollock, telling my brother everything except what he did that got him such a punishment.” Julius was disappointed as he glared at Edmund. “Is he a murderer, a thief, or a criminal? Maybe I should look down my nose at you since you’re exiled with him.”

“He is a waste, not a criminal. Too proud to tell you his mistakes, and how he has wasted his potential.”

“That is your choice, but sitting across from him with folded arms and a scowl won’t help him either. You’re gifted, I can see that. You have a lord’s education while I can barely read.” Julius tells him. Edmund stiffened up his shoulders, almost provoked to strike him.

“And that is your whole problem with him. He won’t play the role he should play and be a bootlicking heel like you,” Julius added, wearing a hard glare judging him. “He does what he wants, and that doesn’t sit well with your uncle or your pious father. He is just a Panhead, a poor refugee that owes them for taking him under their wing.”

“You are ludicrous,” Edmund protested.

“When he gets talked crossly to, your brother slaps the cross out of them. You yield and cower, trying to pander for their approval. You look down on him because he isn’t weak like you.”

Edmund frowns but it only encourages Julius further. “You don’t like what I have to say to you? Does that truth sting you? You are pathetic.” Julius guffaws walking away, then suddenly turns back. “If you want to keep learning what I do, then follow me. It’s not my concern anymore, you know the way back to the Horn.”

Edmund glanced around the square, knowing he could never find his way back. He was livid and hated what that lowlife had told him.

He hated it because it was true as he cursed under his breath losing an argument to such a vagrant as Julius was still in sight, rapping on a door of a two-story stone structure as Edmund walked in a huff toward him. Julius hearing his steps, turned on him with a hand on his dirk, ready to draw as he stared down Edmund.

“I think we have cleared the air, me and you,” Edmund said to him with his hands up, trying not to offend him anymore. “The point of continuing this argument is moot.”

“You have a problem with apologizing, don’t you?”

“I do sometimes, but I am lost at where we are,” Edmund muttered, defeated at the moment.

“Now the air is clear, now you need the charlatan,” Julius said as the door opened. “Edmund, this is Ridley, a friend of mine.” The introduction caught Edmund in a stupor.

“I am honoured,” Ridley said under a mop of black curls, grinning wide while leaning on a carved hickory cane. “We are ready when you are, Julius. I can’t pay more but I could use the help.”

“He is working to pay off a wager to me” Julius quickly mentions, so no need to alter our arrangements.

The man grinned wide which Edmund found confusing. “Please come in, sir, let me show you my abode.” The man was all smiles, words too, as he was pointing and telling Edmund, still dumbfounded, his profession as a merchant while they walked the modest warehouse.

He noticed a set of stairs along the far wall that lead to a small living quarters upstairs. Julius nudged at him, laughing quietly while putting a cudgel in the loop of his belt. He had a small log in his hand, sharpened to a point.

“What is it that we are doing?” Edmund asked, feeling baffled as Julius gave him the pointy stick.

“We are going out in my cart, selling my wares on the square,” Ridley informed him.

“Why is Julius handing me a pointed stick and a cudgel? Why are you doing this?” Edward asked, frowning.

“We’re his men until he is satisfied. Our job is to keep anyone from filching what he is selling today,” Julius said while pointing his stick at Edmund.

“What wares are that?” Edmund asked, feeling leery holding the crudely carved cudgel.

“I got apples,” Ridley boasted behind a grin while pointing to his cart. A sheet of canvas was covering it, as he called out a name aloud while Edmund looked around in confusion.

“The first batch arrived on a cog from Billingsley last night, and I doubt many know they’re here. I want to get going, so I can get another load.”

“This should be a fast job,” Julius says, slapping his hands together in approval.

“Why is this so exciting?” Edmund asked, bewildered.

“Apples are the least taxed item from the Guild, making them affordable to folks in the outer wards. It’s the quickest coin a merchant like me can make here.”

“I get a copper for every apple, and the people get excited when the first loads arrive. You can boil them, cook them on a hot iron, and roast them over a fire.” Ridley kept going on about the wonder of apples.

“And the sticks?” Edmund asked while looking at the point of the one Julius handed him.

“We see a thieving hand, we poke it. We get rushed upon, we crown them with a cudgel,” Julius told him coolly.

The merchant rapped his cane alongside the wagon’s side, yelling out the name again which summoned a large muscled man that was behind a stack of empty crates that hid his presence. “Dudley, open the door, and let’s get started,” Ridley barked out at him.

The unamused brute did as he was bidden, opening the twin doors wide that made up half the side of one wall of the warehouse, then he picked up the two handles of the cart and pulled it into the square like an ox.

“Dudley is a strong one. He is tall like you but broader. He isn’t bright, but he’s a hardened lad that I rely on in these dreadful times,” Ridley told him as the cart slowed to the middle.

His hair was black with hints of brown, woven together in a long tail. His eyes were the colour of smoke, and he heard only one voice, and that was Ridley’s, never once looking his way.

The merchant had an empty crate with him. Turning it upside down to stand upon, leaning on his cane as Dudley stood mute on command.

A crowd of people began gathering to see what he would unveil, and with a motion of Ridley’s hand, Dudley pulled back the tarp and picked up a cudgel that was lying in with the apples.

The crowd amassed into a desperate mob. Edmund’s mind was boggled that apples could send people into such a frenzy, as they formed lines while Ridley began barking out on his stool. Swapping coppers for apples at a fevered pace as Julius glared around the crowd. “You see one run to you, give him a taste of that stick,” he yelled in Edmund’s direction.

This is madness, Edmund thought, but soon he saw Julius poke a youth, who tried to swipe one on his side.

The action was fast. A sea of hands raised as they bunched to the back of his cart. Ridley had sold enough apples for a place to stand in the back of the cart. More gathered, and many were looking his way.

Edmund saw one rush the wagon, and it put him in a panic. A boy that looked ten reached out, and he did as Julius beckoned, jabbing him hard in the arm as the boy spat back at him.

He poked another, then another, and hit an older man in the wrist with a cudgel. The man came at him with an object, a crude nail embedded in a stick of wood, jabbing Edmund as the nail went through his jerkin.

Edmund stood back, stunned by the fear of getting stabbed, but his gambeson absorbed the blow. Angry, he let his cudgel fly and crowned the man, knocking him flat on his bum.

“Now you are getting it, mate,” Julius yelled over to him.

He didn’t have time to glance at him. He swatted another, but a young kid snatched an apple while he was distracted and ran away.

Beside him, the mute Dudley threw a kid into a mob of others, then blasted a brutish-looking thief across the jaw, sending teeth flying into the square and knocking the man into a stupor as Ridley was halfway into his cart, swapping apples in a haste.

Ridley had been doing this for a long time. Taking a copper and slipping it into a leather pouch draped around his waist. Never dropping one or letting one spill from his pouch.

He was handing out apples two and three at a time with one hand and holding his cane with the other. The women were the best customers and the children were his worst.

Edmund was sweating in buckets while swinging and poking furiously at the kids as they swarmed like biting hounds. A lad would reach in and filch an apple while he poked or swatted three others, sending them in a mad curse.

They threw pebbles at him; one hit him in the face as a larger boy rushed the wagon. He got by Edmund, but Ridley sent him back with the handle of his cane, crashing in a heap, holding his head.

Edmund was in a fury, kicking the lad and swatting him with the cudgel as the boy yelped.

His rage sent the pack scurrying as Ridley was at the end of his wagon. Julius jabbed a lad in his forehead, sending him crying back to where he came, then poked another in the chest and laughed. Edmund was exhausted, his mind and body begging in small curses for the ordeal to end.

Finally, he was relieved when Ridley yelled in a booming merchant voice that he was done as Dudley let go of the man he had throttled by the neck. Saying nothing as he lumbered back to grab the cart, lifting it as Edmund exhaled from fatigue as the wheels rolled back to Ridley’s dwelling.

The square grew quiet while Ridley threw the tarp over what apples he wanted to keep and the madness that surrounded them dispersed.

His head was soaked in sweat as he followed them, watching Julius, who was still anxious to fight the crowds, and laughing hard as Edmund was breathing like a woman in childbirth.

Ridley looked at Edmund and threw him an apple.

“You did great, lad, I only got filched a dozen times, maybe less. If you hadn’t accompanied Julius, we may have lost fifty or more. You need work, you come to see me.” the merchant suggested as he jingled the coppers in his pouch.

Edmund nodded to be cordial as Julius went inside to settle their arrangements, but he’d be damned before he’d go through that again.

The crowd glanced his way as he caught his breath, the kids scowled at him but never wandered in his direction since the cart was gone.

Julius returned with a small sack of apples, laughing as they strolled out of the square, behind Ridley’s warehouse, and beyond the ward to the inner street from where they started.

“You look famished, do you have any coin on you?” Julius inquired as Edmund stared back at his callous question.

“You are having quite the rib at my expense, and now you want to have a few horns and gloat?” His complaints made Julius laugh louder.

“I don’t like to drink until my day is over. I know a girl in the Widow’s ward, she makes a good stew.”

“This has been a humiliation,” Edmund says in a spiteful tone.

“My pardons, Edmund, but I recall giving you a way out.”

“You told me to bugger off.” Edmund reminds him.

“I thought we cleared the air. I promise you, this next place I’m taking you will be pleasant. It will be the best food you have eaten since you got here, and she only asks for three coppers.”

Julius offered to pay, gloating over the forty coppers for such a loathsome task. “You saw how it gets out there, you see the value in paying a man for such a thing.” the man laughed. “I can sell these apples for two coppers in the Horn.”

“It is a shame that the city is crawling with thieves.”

“You are thinking about it the wrong way, Edmund,” Julius said while crossing through another arched entrance in the Horn ward. “You should wonder why they have to steal. They have no money, these kids here.”

Julius informed him that most of these lads’ fathers got sent to the mines for months, and many die there. The mothers then resort to disgraceful ways, often prostitution to live. Another man doesn’t want a kid lingering around while he is having his way.

The thought disgusted Edmund as he was ignorant of the dangers of working in the mines. The kids are not born thieves, Julius mentions, they get made into one by the rumbles in their bellies.

“The ward bosses see them, scoop them up, and teach them dishonest ways. They send them out, and they become pickpockets, wandering the wards.”

“The Horn is their favourite, so you learn to keep your purse deep in your leathers.”

“I am not following you. You said they get sent to the mines,” Edmund asked out of ignorance. “I was told prisoners only makeup part of the workers there.”

“So they say.” he laughs. “In my youth they did, but it became easier to arrest people for this. Only criminals toil in the darkness there.” Julius informs him.

“The city has that many criminals?” Edmund asked, unable to process what he had heard. The mines employ thousands in the Triad lands.

“You’re looking at it the wrong way again, Edmund.”

Julius told him they had more mouths than they had jobs. Fewer wages to keep money flowing through the wards, making a criminal out of a man fast when he sees his family starving. “These people love just like you do. You can relate to this, I hope.”

“It makes no governing sense. The money dries up, the city chokes itself because it cannot supply enough taxes from the merchants because no one can afford their goods anymore.” Edmund was explaining as Julius shrugged, not understanding his meaning of governing.

Julius interrupted and became frank with him, informing him that when the mines need men, they alert the Chamberlain, and he will have Wintergarden release the militia into the outer wards.

The brutes grab anyone that looks able and arrest them. Fatten them up in the dungeons, then ship them out in irons on a cog headed north.

Julius could only argue when he was trying to explain the details of simple business while they dined on rabbit stew in a hovel that was owned by a young widow named Lucy.

Edmund had an audience with the two at her table, and the pair giggled the whole time telling Edmund that it sounded like a lordly tale.

Lucy was short and buxom, brown curls rested onto her neck and she wore a proper dress along with shoes that were more belonging to a woman in the Old Street area of the city along the harbour.

Julius told him she was a seamstress and made many tunics and gowns for the merchants there. She even had plenty in his size if he had any coin on him.

She barked at Julius, for making Edmund feel guilty and insisted that he enjoy his stew.

The meal was better than the taverns they have dined at so far. It was full of real meat, with carrots and parsnips.

Edmund glanced at her and she had a sweet look and her smile matched it. She was comely, and a childhood friend to Julius, as he demanded she shows Edmund her tunics and whatever else she had that might fit his boney frame as he described it.

Lucy looked embarrassed at his boldness, so Edmund nodded to relieve her, and as she pulled back a curtain that concealed the small cot and dresser where she slept. Julius remarked that her husband died of fever while at the mines over a year ago.

Edmund felt pity for her as she opened a small chest and looked to have emptied the entire contents on her cot.

She held up one as she came back to the small table, and Julius quickly snatched it and told Edmund to stand, holding the dark blue garment high to see if it fit his shoulders and covered his waist.

“Feel that wool, Edmund. It’s been softened well at the fullers, you remember that line of people with the tosspots?” he laughed aloud. “Something about the urine from these wards that make the softest wool.”

Lucy hits him on the shoulder for being rude, berating him for his candour as Julius remarked that he was being honest. He told Edmund that Lucy made the tunics that Osmond brought to Harwin.

“And how much did my brother pay?” Edmund asked, figuring out this whole ruse. Julius, he bet, had promised Lucy that he would bring her a customer. He almost let out a laugh thinking of how this man had put him in this circumstance.

“Osmond retrieved some money owed to me weeks ago,” Lucy spoke up before Julius could answer. “I owed him two tunics, a merchant in the Horn wanted to stiff me on what was owed me after he sold eight of my best dresses.”

“My brother felt obligated to do something nice for Harwin, they have grown quite close shoveling that coal and banging on bronze,” Julius remarked. “I’m a bit jealous.”

Julius laughs and tells Lucy about their first meeting, a tale among tales he boasted as Lucy smiled at him.

“These two Panheads come in on a fancy wagon with dead Yellow Handers in tow, with the captain of the entire Hayston militia speaking on their behalf.” Julius describes it in an overblown manner. “The older brother, a soldier under his employ, bollocked something, and is exiled for a mysterious offence, and this one we haven’t a clue of what he did.”

“I did nothing, I just have never had a day without my brother since we were found in a crib after our father died.?” Edmund tells him.

Lucy became angry with Julius again and berated him for prodding a secret that wasn’t any of his business.

She apologized profusely and thanked him for visiting her, and that she was happy to meet one of the men that all the wards are talking about, adding that she felt embarrassed even worse, the tunics were requested.

“I was ignorant of who they were for, and Julius had given her an old brown thing and told her to match it,” Lucy says while staring coldly at Julius. “I know now, it was your tunic he took.”

“I did not, Harwin was the one who took his tunic.” Julius protested and became annoyed that his ploy was revealed.

Julius complained that Edmund needed the colours to keep him from harm, acknowledging the ploy, but guilty of nothing except concern for his new friend’s safety.

The pair started to bicker as Lucy told Julius she didn’t appreciate being hoodwinked into making things for a customer who did not know of such, then pushing him into buying it out of guilt to help her.

Edmund said nothing as Lucy stood up, telling him to leave her home at once, pushing him out the door, and slapping his face as he turned in the doorway.

She then slams the door in his face, fuming as the red in her cheeks made her more attractive to Edmund. She was about to apologize again, but Edmund insisted on the goods, placing in her hand a gold falcon from his purse he kept hidden

Lucy began to tear up as she glanced upon it, letting out a sob in relief as times had been so hard for her she admitted. “Please, don’t be too hard on him sir, he has been helping me since my husband died. They were mates and he and his brother felt obligated to find work for me.”

She protested the amount, offering more tunics owed for the sum but Edmund declined, then she hugged him tightly, kissing his cheek and insisting he comes again for another bowl of stew if she gets another rabbit, it will be a gesture she demanded for his kindness.

Edmund finished his stew as Julius peeped through the slats in the window’s shutters as he waited while she tied the garments with some twine she had, securing it in a roll so he could carry it under his arm.

Lucy smiled again, embarrassing Edmund while he tried not to glance back in admiration. He turned to leave and scowled at Julius through the shutter.

He thanks her as she follows him outside to the awaiting Julius, who cunningly grins back at him, appreciating that he bought the tunics. “She likes you, I believe.

They walk from her hovel, out of earshot as Julius nudges him by the arm. “If you need a warm body under your sheets, I could think of worse,” Julius says, leading them down a path through a back alley to turn onto another dirt path. Edmund glares back bitterly.

“You are mad at me?” he adds.

Edmund was annoyed at the remark, but it almost made him laugh, but he had a question, so Julius replied to ask him freely.

Edmund wanted to know if their altercation this morning was a ploy as well. How much of this was planned and how much of it was true?

“Harwin was right, you are sharp,” Julius says while pulling on his goatee.

“Your brother told me to get you out of the inn. He said if I wounded your pride I might get you to follow me out of stubbornness. It’s a quality you both seem to share, but I believe yours is the strongest trait between you two.”

“Can we now go home? Edmund asks as Julius looks, pondering on Edmund’s face trying to read it for emotion.”

“I have one more errand,” he says as Edmund sighs in annoyance.

Edmund says little as they walk, and his thoughts go to his brother, and he instantly gets angry as his entire life was uprooted thanks to him. His hope on this journey was to see if a way could be found to bring Harwin home.

He could sacrifice comfort if it would save his brother because, in this wretched place, he was sure to die or end up in the mines, or worse, in a stockade waiting to be hanged.

Julius tells him the tale of the Widow’s Ward as he broods, the place Lucy lived, and how it allowed no prostitution and offered a chance for women to hopefully make coin by teaching them a skill.

Lucy apprenticed as did other women and many found their way onto a job in Old Street making finer goods for the Guild. As for him, he said he was a bard of the wards, finding work in all except in Jack Dobbin’s ward. It was overrun with undesirables he mentioned.

“What brings us to this ward, then?” Edmund interrupts his endless babbling, imagining what Julius could put him through now.

Julius then lowers his voice in nearly a whisper as if he was wary of being heard, informing Edmund of a great healer that had been curing many of the urges of the Mist, explaining to Edmund that “the Mist”, this deadly object, had taken hundreds since it made its way into the outer wards.

He went on about the mystery of how it just appeared like a fog, not a tongue had wagged, telling anyone of how it got here.

Julius insisted on avoiding the square where the popular savagery had happened. This ward was the Butcher’s Wail, and it was haunted, as far as he was concerned since the constables lost the man’s body.

He stopped him suddenly, as if the next place they were visiting was too peculiar for him to explain, pointing to a dwelling twice the size of Lucy’s with a large heavy wooden door marked with a white circle.

It lacked any of the usual things that told a person someone lived there. It had no frookuh coops or stools under the front canopy, no coal buckets or tosspots like the others.

“I don’t mean to act rude, Edmund, but this is one of my most unusual friends. The healer has been sick, and I have been running errands for them for a month since they arrived.”

“I check on them every day before I go back to my quarters,” Julius says in a serious tone, pulling his goatee. “His apprentice is a woman, the most exquisite Nuhrish woman I have ever seen.”

“Nuhrish?”

“Yes, but don’t get excited yet. She’s the vilest thing I have ever met, hating everybody, and that includes me.”

Edmund did as Julius requested, standing across the street from the dwelling.

He saw the woman’s face from afar and Julius was not kidding. He had never seen such. She was lean and taller than Julius.

Her hair was blonde, with streaks of brown intertwined that hung well past her shoulders. She wore a cloak concealing much that Edmund wanted to look upon, but she was armed with the cruelest scowl, and she was berating Julius worse than Lucy was earlier.

Julius was shrugging his shoulders. She never let him inside the dwelling, looking Edmund’s way, with a glare that looked like she wanted to harm him.

She finished what she had to say. Had one more ghastly stare at Edmund and shut the door hard behind her.

Julius turned to come back, shrugging his shoulders and then cracking a smile. “Did you see what I was telling you? She is something to behold. What I would give if she wasn’t such a brute.”

Edmund was past ready to go back to the Horn, and Julius could sense it, wearing a smile as he admitted that he made this day fun for himself. He was a bit miffed at Edmund’s manners since they met, saying it was time someone pulled on the handle of the spoon in his arse.

“I hold no ill will to you Julius, your offer to move isn’t necessary, but you are a charlatan,” Edmund remarked to his slight as Julius looked at him for a lingering moment, then laughed aloud.

“I don’t even know what that word means, but it sounds noble. Ah, now you are ready to become a true Breestoner,” Julius jested as he slapped him on the back.

They made their way to the Frookuh. His brother was there waiting for him as it was now evening. Harwin and Osmond were admiring the new dirk his older brother had bought.

He purchased Osmond an axe, a throwing kind in the Minoan fashion, his brother boasted. It didn’t bother him like it would have this morning, promising to himself to let petty things go.

“He doesn’t look so sour,” Osmond remarked that evening while sipping a horn at the Mockingbird tavern that evening.

“We went into the wards,” Julius told his brother. “Let Edmund tell you, he has been introduced to Breeston life. I’m in suspense about what he has to say.”

Edmund was in an odd position. He’d never been among a group and been asked to tell a story, and was often ignored, especially by Harwin.

His brother was looking at him in anticipation. He was thinking hard about his words, swallowing, he let it all spill, telling every detail, beginning with the argument he had with Julius to begin the chicanery.

“It gets better,” Julius assured them.

He told them about the wretched cart and the tanner’s awful smell, then kissed the crone’s hand, and how ugly Terrence was.

Osmond and Harwin laughed at him while Julius just listened, pulling his beard and sipping on his horn as his thoughts appeared somewhere else. Then Edmund went on about the apple cart, swatting and poking the petty thieves, and getting stabbed.

Osmond scolded his brother for putting him through such an ordeal, as Julius pulled on his point.

Edmund talked about their second argument and he had a burning feeling in his heart and his eyes were welling tears, and then he mentioned Lucy, his new clothes, and many eyes were upon him as he described the daub and wattle homes of the wards.

The faces of the people and their struggles as their eyes looked at him, bewildered like he was taking them to a foreign place. Those eyes got angry when Edmund repeated Julius’s words about the Guild and how they had taken much from the citizens. Edmund could feel a tear fall down his cheek.

“They can all die!” he could hear a man behind him say.

“A fine story, lad,” the tavern maid hooted at him with another round of horns, but he began sobbing, and Harwin poked him, asking him what was wrong.

“You don’t get it, brother,” Edmund tells Harwin as his brother looks back at him in confusion.

“What is bothering you, lad? It sounds like you had a wonderful day.” Osmond slapped the table, breaking Julius’s attention. “I need another horn!” he shouts, breaking Julius’s trance.

“That girl brother, the miserable one. The healer is leaving.” Julius says as if he was unengaged in Edmund’s sorrow.

“That was good coin, a simple errand for a silver. A dream for a lad in the wards,” Osmond mentioned.

“I think I am leaving with them.”

Julius’s words seemed odd to Edmund as he didn’t witness that conversation to be very long, and he never saw Julius say a word. It took Osmond by surprise as he spewed ale all over the table.

“What are you babbling about, where are they going?” Osmond barks in annoyance.

“They want me to escort them back to Lonoke. I must help them.”

“You lost your wits? We have never set foot out of Breeston. You tell that woman, no matter how fair she is, to bugger off.”

His brother hit the table again to break him out of his trance. “You don’t have a clue what’s out there, and I got a job I have to keep. I can’t abandon it. Do you know how hard it was to acquire that apprenticeship?”

“You need not go,” Julius replied, wounding his brother. “They have requested me to find them trustworthy men. They are offering good coin, and we could use it.”

“What could that be, a few falcons? You’ve been enamoured with that pair far too long,”

“Fifty falcons a man and they cover the costs to get us there. I threw that number out there, hoping to shut the woman’s mouth.” Julius’s words made his brother silent. “I refused her many times, and she was livid with me.”

He then shrugged. “I told her fifty falcons, that is such a sum of money. The healer was so ill that I assumed they would decline. He made it known that my offer was accepted. I’m obligated to help them now. I tried to refuse today, even Edmund could see how angry the woman was towards me.”

“I will go!” Harwin spoke.

“I counted on you,” Julius answered.

“What nerve you have, putting me in such a place. Damn you for knocking on that door,” Osmond growled in a huff.

“I am sorry, brother. If I find them four lousy men who rob them along the way, what does that say about me? They are offering me an opportunity to buy our place.”

Julius then mentions to his angry brother. “It would be a hundred falcons together. We could buy an inn, serve our horns, and rent out rooms. We know these streets, brother, I can find good people who will work for us.”

“I will go,” Edmund spoke.

“Hush, fool. Are you drunk on ale, little brother?”

“How much are they willing to spend?” Edmund asked.

“They told me they could cover any arrangements that needed to be made, no matter the costs.

“We can buy passage on a cog. I will go to the harbour and inquire tomorrow,” Edmund said.

“Shut up,” Harwin interrupted again. “If something happens to you, our father will send Bitters to kill me. You’re here because of me; you don’t have to die because of me, too.”

“I can make my own choices. When you cuckolded our cousin’s bride on his wedding night, it disgraced our house.”

“You never say that again!” Harwin’s booming voice had created silence in the tavern.

Osmond’s eyes were as big as his wooden bowl. Julius even let his beard go during the dreaded mood.

“You have had enough.”

“You have no right to lecture me, brother.” Edmund knew he had crossed the line. He had promised to let his brother tell that story in his own time, but his tears had turned into anger, and he slapped his brother hard, drawing blood as Harwin scowled but took it while they both stood as the entire tavern watched.

“Your impulsive attitude has cost more than just you, it cost many and now you volunteer to leave and strand me here,” Edmund yelled back.

“I’ll give you that one as a courtesy brother, but don’t push your luck any further this evening.” They both glare at one another, both relenting as they sit back down. The patrons sensing the tone easing begin their chatter, with the occasional glances their way.

“Well, bollocks with the armoury. I will go, too, I guess,” Osmond spoke out in ignorance.