What the Streets Know

One year earlier · Emberwane, 893rd Year of the Count · Averdmouth

Cain hated burnt loaves.

But it was the only bread he could afford without going broke. When he had the extra copper to spare, he always swung by Ansa’s stall to get exactly one loaf.

By the time he reached her, she had already set some aside on a scrap of rough cloth. The bottom was burnt black and crisp.

She took his coin and pressed the bread into his hand. She was looking past him to the next man in line. For the past two years, they had only exchanged a couple of sentences and the arrangement was set.

He preferred it this way. The fewer people who knew him, the better.

The lower city was loud and cold with Emberwane nearly over. The air smelled of salt and smoke from the slaughterhouses, where pigs hung. Workers were putting up salt stores for the coming winter.

A fish vendor whose name he never knew, only her face, leaned over her stall and called after him as he passed by.

“You’re thin as a rope, Kell. That loaf of bread won’t cut it! Buy something off me for once.”

“Not a chance. I’d empty a pouch just looking at yours.”

She laughed, and he told her that he was on his way to work.

Today it was the pier, where a grain merchant named Marleth hired day labor through the guild whenever a ship came in to unload cargo.

Cain had worked for Marleth long enough to know how the job ran.

A ship from Brelland had docked to unload hundreds of sacks of grain. Brelland was a kingdom that sat on the far side of the Gulf, with a busy port that sent ships with mixed cargo to Averdmouth all year.

He got to it, took a sack on his shoulder, and carried it to the stack. He kept at it along with the other workers and paid no attention to the clerk on the ledger.

On one pass, the ledger was open and facing him upside down. He read it without meaning to, an old habit from private lessons as a boy.

He saw that the grain from Brelland was listed at thirteen coppers a load. He remembered seeing a different figure on the board, which was eleven.

He set the sack down near the clerk.

“It’s eleven on the grain,” he said.

The clerk turned the book, ran his finger up the column, and went quiet. “How do you know that?”

“I heard it called,” Cain said, and picked the sack back up.

He had not heard it called. He hauled until noon with his heart going too hard.

He took his three coppers from Marleth’s pay-man and left for the market before anyone asked him.

***

The market square was packed as he cut through to get something for lunch. He kept to the shadowed edge of it when he saw a boy make for a bread stall.

The boy was maybe ten, thin enough that he moved like he was hungry. The bread-seller had his back turned, arguing with a customer. The boy eased in and grabbed two loaves.

He rushed, but his hip caught the corner post and the front rack hit the freezing mud. The seller spun around roaring as he found the kid stuck in it, too scared to run.

But Cain was right there.

He stepped into the mess before the man could reach the boy and put his hands up. “That was me. I’ll pay for it.”

The seller looked at Cain, at the kid, and back at him again, not buying it. Before saying anything else, Cain took some coins from his pouch and held them out. Nine coppers, he counted where the man could see.

The seller hesitated at first but still took his money. “Get out of my stall,” he said as he bent and pulled the ruined loaves out of the mud.

The boy did not wait and he ducked into the lane behind the stalls. He was gone before Cain could speak.

“What am I even doing?” he muttered.

He walked off slowly with a blank face and did not turn around.

***

By dark, the square still felt too open. He wanted to go somewhere quieter because he didn’t like the idea of being watched.

He headed for a tavern called The Spindle, two streets off the pier. Sailors and laborers filled it when the ships were in.

He bought a pint of ale to take the edge off. He stood near the door and just watched as people came and went while he sipped it.

Inside, a bard had them. The crowds always loved a good song, and tonight, he was singing about the night that the king fell.

There was a king who feared his fall,
and would not fall alone;
he kept a devil in the dark
and fed it in the stone.

The houses came at dead of night,
with steel and torch and cry;
the temple bells rang out in fear
and told the king to die.

They found him kneeling on the stair
and heard him beg for breath;
the queen took ship with all the gold
and left him to his death.

Cain marked each wrong line and let it sit. The verses had no faces in them, and that made it easier to hear.

Then the bard came to the prince, and people leaned in.

And where is now the little prince,
the boy that no one found?
The keep was locked, the city ringed,
and still he left no sound.

The bard let the question hang, then grinned and gave them the rest.

The demon ate the boy up whole,
and licked the platter clean;
and them that put the bounty up
still swear he’s to be seen.

The crowd broke into laughter and cheers as the bard finished. Everyone was far enough gone that any tune would do. This one still landed.

Cain laughed with them.

There he was, only one more young man taking in a story. Only he knew what the laugh cost.