But there were shadows here, too. As I surveyed the street I spotted a pair of men lurking in the alleyway across from me. Their masks were quite good, bloodred and fierce. One had a gaping mouth and the other a grimace of pointed white teeth. They were both wearing the traditional black hooded robes, which I approved of. So many of the demons Waterside didn’t bother with the proper costume.
The pair of demons slipped out to follow a well-dressed young couple who were strolling idly down the street, arm in arm. The demons stalked them carefully for nearly a hundred feet, then one of them snatched the gentleman’s hat and thrust it into a nearby snowdrift. The other grabbed the woman in a rough embrace and lifted her from the ground. She shrieked while the man struggled with the demon for possession of his walking stick, obviously flummoxed by the situation.
Luckily his lady maintained her composure. “Tehus! Tehus!” she shouted. “Tehus antausa eha!”
At the sound of Tehlu’s name the two red-masked figures cowered, then turned and ran off down the street.
Everyone cheered. One of the shopkeepers helped the gentleman retrieve his hat. I was rather surprised by the civility of it all. Apparently even the demons were polite on the good side of town.
Emboldened by what I had seen, I eyed the crowd, looking for my best prospects. I stepped up to a young woman. She wore a powder blue dress and had a wrap of white fur. Her hair was long and golden, curled artfully around her face.
As I stepped forward she looked down at me and stopped. I heard a startled intake of breath as one hand went to her mouth. “Pennies, ma’am?” I held out my hand and made it tremble just a little. My voice trembled too. “Please?” I tried to look every bit as small and hopeless as I felt. I shuffled from foot to foot in the thin grey snow.
“You poor dear,” she sighed almost too quietly for me to hear. She fumbled with the purse at her side, either unable or unwilling to take her eyes from me. After a moment she looked inside her purse and brought something out. As she curled my fingers around it I felt the cold, reassuring weight of a coin.
“Thank you, ma’am,” I said automatically, I looked down for a moment and saw silver glinting through my fingers. I opened my hand and saw a silver penny. A whole silver penny.
I gaped. A silver penny was worth ten copper pennies, or fifty iron ones. More than that, it was worth a full belly every night for half a month. For an iron penny I could sleep on the floor at the Red Eye for the night, for two I could sleep on the hearth by the embers of the evening fire. I could buy a rag blanket that I would hide on the rooftops, keeping me warm all winter.
I looked up at the woman, who was still looking down at me with pitying eyes. She couldn’t know what this meant. “Lady, thank you,” my voice cracked. I remembered one of the things that we said back when I lived in the troupe. “May all your stories be glad ones, and your roads be smooth and short.”
She smiled at me and might have said something, but I got a strange feeling near the base of my neck. Someone was watching me. On the street you either develop a sensitivity to certain things, or your life is miserable and short.
I looked around and saw a shopkeeper talking with a guard and gesturing in my direction. This wasn’t some Waterside guard. He was clean-shaven and upright. He wore a black leather jerkin with metal studs and carried a brass-bound club as long as his arm. I caught scraps of what the shopkeeper was saying.
“…customers. Who’s going to buy chocolate with…” He gestured my way again and said something I couldn’t catch. “…pays you? That’s right. Maybe I should mention…”
The guard turned his head to look in my direction. I caught his eyes. I turned and ran.
I headed for the first alley I saw, my thin shoes slipping on the light layer of snow that covered the ground. I heard his heavy boots pounding behind me as I turned into a second alley branching off from the first.
My breath was burning in my chest as I looked for somewhere to go, somewhere to hide. But I didn’t know this part of the city. There were no piles of trash to worm into, no burned-out buildings to climb through. I felt sharp frozen gravel slice through the thin sole of one of my shoes. Pain tore through my foot as I forced myself to keep running.
I ran into a dead end after my third turning. I was halfway up one of the walls when I felt a hand close around my ankle and pull me to the ground.
My head hit the cobblestones and the world spun dizzily as the guard lifted me off the ground, holding me by one wrist and my hair. “Clever boy, aren’t you?” he panted, his breath hot on my face. He smelled like leather and sweat. “You’re old enough, you should know not to run by now.” He shook me angrily and twisted my hair. I cried out as the alley tilted around me.
He pressed me roughly against a wall. “You should know enough not to be coming Hillside either.” He shook me. “You dumb, boy?”
“No,” I said muzzily as I felt for the cool wall with my free hand. “No.”
My answer seemed to infuriate him. “No?” he bit off the word. “You got me in trouble, boy. I might get written up. If you aren’t dumb, then you must need a lesson.” He spun me around and threw me down. I slid in the greasy alley snow. My elbow struck the ground and my arm went numb. The hand clutching a month of food, warm blankets, and dry shoes came open. Something precious flew away and landed without even a clink as it hit the ground.
I hardly noticed. The air hummed before his club cracked against my leg. He snarled at me, “Don’t come Hillside, understand?” The club caught me again, this time across the shoulder blades. “Everything past Fallow Street is off limits to you little whore’s sons. Understand?” he backhanded me across the face and I tasted blood as my head careened off the snow-covered cobbles.
I curled into a ball as he hissed down at me. “And Mill Street and Mill Market is where I work, so you never. Come. Back. Here. Again.” He punctuated each word with a blow from his stick. “Understand?”
I lay there shaking in the churned-up snow, hoping it was over. Hoping he would just go away. “Understand?” He kicked me in the stomach and I felt something tear inside of me.
I cried out and must have babbled something. He kicked me again when I didn’t get up, then went away.
I think I passed out or lay in a daze. When I finally came to my senses again, it was dusk. I was cold to the very center of my bones. I crawled around in the muddy snow and wet garbage, searching for the silver penny with fingers so numb with cold they would barely work.
One of my eyes was swelled shut and I could taste blood, but I searched until the last scrap of evening’s light was gone. Even after the alley had gone black as tar I kept sifting the snow with my hands, though I knew in my heart of hearts that my fingers were too numb to feel the coin even if I chanced across it.