Eatin' isn't a time for talkin' with the mates. Mostly we just wolf down what we've got, usually too fast, and then the younger ones get sick. We tell them to stop copyin' us and they clean up the mess.
Tonight I was bushed. Me and Slug were tryna keep our lamps open as we gave the kids their food, stumblin' and trippin' like tumblers - only they stay on their feet. In the middle of our cursed rounds, I sat smack in the middle of the room, grabbed a bowl of beans, and just sniffed. (Usually at meal-break my body don't have the time or patience to taste the blessed stuff, so before I gobble, I smell it.) Slug was lookin' at me like he wished he could do that too, and kept on goin'. He scraped the last bit from the pot for Weevil, 'cause the bottom has the most grease, and shoved it over, bitter-like.
"'Anks, Slug," Weevil said with gusto. 'Ese beans is scrumptious!" It was a word he learned from a noble lady passin' by and he always blushed crimson when we caught him usin' it. I guess it just slipped, 'cause fat loosens your throat.
"Hey, Weevil," someone whispered. "The Thief-Lord's here."
We all went quiet, starin' at the entrance with keenness. It was almost awe, what we felt.
He walked in slow, takin' his time. His tin-disguised-as-silver tooth shined in the torchlight. "Roach. Slug. Show me your goods."
Slug jumped and pulled a brass ring from his breeches, tremblin'.
"That's all you got?" He stared at it like it was a chicken to his peacock of a ring, which was also brass. "Roach?"
I showed him my garnet earrin'. He stared, raised an eyebrow, and plucked it from my fingers. On his blunt boots, he turned quietly to Weevil. With a forbiddin' look in his eye, he motioned him to step up.
"Weevil." He paused. "You let a lady enchant you, eh?" Long and hard, he watched, dragging it out. "Getting attached means you've left the circle. Getting attached means you've let your loyalties stray."
Our mate cast his eyes down, lookin' horrible, like he was goin' through some kind of torture.
"Well? Do you love her?"
He didn't answer.
The Thief-Lord glanced at him for a second, and walked out of the openin'. "I knew it."
'Twas then I wanted to break from the circle. I had a secret too.
But I stayed.