For Boredom's Sake: Eric's Tale - Chapter 12: Other Doings

For Boredom's Sake: Eric's Tale

Chapter 12: Other Doings
By Eric Greer


"You have got to be kidding me!" yelled the Baroness, watching as the young hoodlum ran away with her handbag, disappearing into the crowd. Her personal guards were nowhere to be seen. With a scowl she gave chase, expertly weaving between people, jumping and turning, barely touching them as she passed.
Despite being dressed in an intricate attire of lace and leather, with her red hair tied back in a delicate-looking decorative knot, she managed to achieve an astounding speed. She had secretly been trained by some of the best combat instructors in the land, learning self-defense and the subtle arts of assassination - but despite these skills, she had been distracted when the child struck (if she had been alert, the child surely would have lost a hand for his effort).
While her training allowed her to nimbly pass through the crowd with nary an effort, the child had the size advantage, able to duck between legs and under tables. Her mind was sharp though, and through quick deduction and reasoning, she always found herself on his trail again in a matter of moments.
Almost as quickly as the chase had began, it ended - or so she thought. She had managed to grab the child by the shirt just outside of the market entrance. She had just started to turn the boy around when a large company of shirtless boys (monks in training, brandishing their newly earn tattoos - dragons and birds and sigils of great power) spilled from the market, engulfing them. Before she knew it, she was holding a shirt in her hand as the children passed by.
She towered over the children in her rage, growling as her eyes darted to and fro, scanning the milling crowds exiting the marketplace.

The boy looked around anxiously as he moved among the sea of legs, clutching his prize close to his chest. The sun was setting, and he had wandered the market streets as long as he could before heading towards his home.
The woman had looked like an easy mark - another newly arrived aristocrat, letting her guard down as she took in the sights of Romar - but as soon as he had her handbag in his hands she was after him. Her speed had surprised him, but he had been prepared. He knew the child monks would be heading through the market on their way to the north temple for their evening prayers - in a series of misfortune and dumb luck, she had gotten hold of him before he could reach them, but the children in turn had been early. Slipping out of his best shirt, he did his best to blend in with the children, moving slowly to the side before ducking between a group of merchants.
He looked around again. He was sure he had lost her. Making a sharp turn to the right, he ducked under a table and through a small hole in the wall. After crawling a short distance he found himself alone in a backstreet behind the shops. He and other children often used these service alleys (passing through tunnels made for cats), but he always felt uncomfortable and vulnerable in them - no crowds meant no cover to blend into.
The boy quickly and quietly moved through the alley, silently passing into a shop (almost literally under the shop owner's nose) and out into another alley. He knew the alleys well - a street urchin had to in order to make a living: being able to escape was an essential skill for his kind.
Finally, after passing through a labyrinth of shops and alleys, he found himself standing in front of a dilapidated building, the remains of a once grand store, it's doors and windows now boarded up. He cautiously looked up and down the deserted street before pulling a board from one of the windows. Squeezing inside, he then reached out and replaced the board. There were many children inside, the majority of them thieves, all of them orphaned, either having been left to rot on the streets by their parents, or washed out from training to be monks. None of them seemed to pay him any mind - he was nothing special here, just another face passing through for the night. The abandoned shops in the corners of the market were rarely checked (if ever) by the city guard, and the only adults to visit were information brokers seeking to hire the odd child to collect illicit information from various individuals, offering food or the odd gold coin.
He made his way up stairs and found an empty room. Kneeling, he emptied the contents of the handbag onto the dusty surface of a table: a mirror, several pieces of makeup, a vicious looking knife, and a bag of gold coins - quite the haul!
Emptying the bag of coins into his hand, he began to count them - all the while, a shadowy figure silently crept through the broken window. When he ran out of numbers (street urchins can only count so high), he started counting another pile, and another, and another as the shadow moved noiselessly across the room behind him.
He had eight stacks of gold coins so far, each twelve high - and he still had more to count. As he pulled out more coins he felt something else in the bag. Pulling it out, he found that it was a dull pewter vial, the top sealed by a metal clasp. Moving it around in his hands, he could feel liquid churning inside. He sat the bag of coins on the table and made to open the vial.
Suddenly, he felt a strange, cold sensation on his neck: a knife blade.
"I'll have my things back, thief," said a voice from behind him. He watched as the woman's free hand swept everything back into the handbag. His eyes went to the door. Downstairs he heard the crash of the front door and the screams of the children mixed with the voices of grown men.
"Catch every last one of them!" yelled one of the men downstairs. "I want this rat's nest cleared in five minutes!"
He was frozen. What had he done?
"And this," said the woman, taking the vial out of his hands.
The door burst open. Two members of the town guard rushed in, followed by two men dressed in black hooded robes.
"Baroness, have you recovered your personal affects?" asked one of the guards.
"Yes, I have, captain. This is the one who stole my handbag," she said, kicking the boy across the floor. "Have him separated from the others - I'd like to deal with him myself." She slipped her blade back into it's sheath with a snap.
"Yes, Baroness," said the captain as he and his cohort roughly picked the boy up from the floor.
She didn't look down at him as she passed by, disregarding his presence now that the hunt had come to an end.
"Come," she said to the hooded men as she moved across the room, "we're very late." They bowed their heads and followed her outside. While the woman had moved silently before, like a shadow, her footsteps now rang out confidently on the wood floor, echoing over the muffled sobs of the children downstairs.


 Copyright 2013 by Eric Greer. All rights reserved.