a/n: please read and review.
Chapter Three: Heaving Line Knot
Adds weight to the end of a rope.
He was hungry, but what else was new? He licked his dry lips as a family passed bearing cupcakes and loaves of bread and hunks of cheese; unconsciously he angled his body towards the smell that wafted past him, and he caught the nose of the mother turn upwards as he inched nearer. The family hurried off.
"What are you doing?" A hiss from beside him brought him back to reality and the painful twisting of his empty stomach. He hunkered back to his position, nonchalant, against one of the walls of the square, looking down idly at his boots—three sizes too big and already worn. He scratched his nose in irritation.
"We could have had that family," John muttered, not so much angry as annoyed, and Eugene rolled his eyes in aggravation, biting his tongue to keep a sharp remark from slipping out, like, Hey, kid, remember yesterday when we almost got one of those royals to give us a gold piece before he caught you trying to pick pocket him? Yeah, good times.
It was midday. He'd been standing in this square for nearly three hours and the most that he and his partner-in-crime-sort-of had been able to scavenge had been a roll that some passerby dropped unsuspectingly. And they had had to share it, so that didn't really count at all.
"Eugene, I'm tired of this. Can we go back now?"
He thinks sickly of the kids sitting back in that orphanage ten streets down, rail-thin and dark-eyed, and most of all hungry, and knows today he has to hit the jackpot, something big, something like an entire loaf of bread or a turkey—that would be fantastic.
"You can. Send out Glen when you get home."
"Fine." He watched as John pushed himself forward, rather laboriously, and stumbled off down the road, families and merchants and shoppers splitting before him as if he smelled like rancid apples. Which he probably did, but that was hardly the point. Eugene eyed the market once more but saw nothing of importance. He waited impatiently for Glen, and only stopped taping his foot when he saw the small shock of brown enter his vision.
"Hullo," the boy side-stepped underneath the overhang, and Eugene had to stoop to look him in the eyes. Glen was one of the younger boys, with wide eyes and baby fat still hanging in folds off his cheeks. He attracted concerned citizens in hordes; even so, Eugene hated to have to use him. There was something about begging, actually begging and not trying to pawn off something from its owner with clever words or a well placed smile—eyes bright, lift the lip slowly, smolder —that rubbed him the wrong way. But food rations at the orphanage had been scarce lately, and the heads of state there, or whatever they were, weren't about to do anything about it.
After all, they were getting fed just fine.
"Hey, Glen," he sighed, "you ready?"
"Uh-huh."
"Good. You know the drill."
Glen held out his hands obediently and began walking around the square saying things like, "Please sir, some change?" or "Money for those let fortunate," except fortunate came out foshunate with his clumsy tongue. However, he moved about like an expert, weaving in between shoppers to families who looked most likely to pay over a large sum.
Eugene rubbed his eyes, not for the first time that day, and blew a stray lock of brown from his forehead. After half-an-hour or so, during which he was supposed to be on the lookout for guards but was really just counting the number of holes in his tunic, he pushed up from his lean against the wall and headed to the street. Glen was currently making pouty eyes at a grandmother looking figure, who was reaching in her bag, and suddenly, inexplicably, Eugene could not stand it—
"I'm so sorry," best smolder, eyes bright, good, "but my little brother has a tendency for lie thank you for the money though" and blah blah blah, ignore the confused look on grandma's face and the even more confused look on his young partner in crime's . Too much, too much right now. He took the few coins—three silver pieces and two coppers—from Glen's outstretched hands and pocketed them deftly.
"Good work, bud, are you ready for lunch?"
"Awright, but why'd you stop me from getting money from that lady, Eugene? Huh? She probably had a lot—"
Money. Money. Stupid money, always the damn money. It was as if the world was made of it, as if people were ruled by it. He hated it.
He said nothing, because the coins felt simultaneously like lead and freedom in his pockets and he could not quite work out his thoughts at the moment. Not for the first time, with such money in his possession, he thought of leaving. Of running away and not being the oldest or the leader or the one everyone looked up to but simply Eugene. Living for himself. No poverty. No orphanage. No worries—
He caught Glen in his peripheral vision and all plans stopped. He couldn't let this kid down. Hell, he would have no problem letting John down, or Michael, but Glen? No way. Nathan? Bryon? He couldn't picture it. So, sighing, he suppressed his unspoken dream and motioned to the corner bakery. He wasn't going to get a whole turkey with this kind of money, but three loaves of bread and two rolls for himself and Glen were doable. As he took a step towards it, he saw the guards.
Eugene had been hanging around the market long enough for most guards to know his face. It was his good looks, mostly, but also the fact that they sometimes stole, most of the time loitered, and a little of the time begged. They were menaces, but, Eugene thought gladly, smugly, they hadn't been caught yet.
"Hey, Glen," he stepped closer to the boy and pointed towards the contingent of red and gold, "we have to book it, come back to the bakery later."
"Awright." Glen kept his head smartly down and, dragging him by the shoulder, Eugene shot towards the nearest side street, thankful for the crowds to hide their escape and sticking close to the shaded sidewalk.
"That was close—" he grinned down and missed the door to the shady bar open and close, missed entirely the guard, tipsy from lunch but not so drunk he was impaired, until it was too late and he had run into him.
"—oh." He grimaced, stumbled backwards, into Glen, and the two went sprawling into the alley way. "Well, there."
"Watch out, boys—" the guard blinked. "It's you!"
Smolder incapable of working at this time.
"Run, run, run," he pushed Glen backwards, to his feet, and together they ran into the square where the lunch crowd was just leaving. From behind him he could hear: "It's those pick pockets! The thieves! Get them!"
Crap. One pick pocket job too many. Or rather, one botched pick pocket job too many.
"Which way?"
"Uh." He couldn't afford to pause and swung left without thinking, the younger boy hot on his heels, onto a narrow, winding street he had, so far in his life, avoided. It had its fair share of visitors who stared in disdain as they raced pass, feet pounding out a staccato rhythm on the sidewalk. There was a rumble he felt more than heard and he knew the guards were still behind him. He cut down an alley and into the next main thoroughfare—the palace was just visible over the tops of buildings, bulbous and grand and ornate and at that moment in time he hated the people who lived there. Just a little.
"Eugene!" Glen's sweaty hand pulled his own towards a small, unassuming shop, right by the alley's entrance, and, sensing brilliance and hoping for something-he-doesn't-know-what, Eugene followed the boy inside. Together the two hid beneath the window, panting heavily, as a group of armored guards clanked pass.
"Here," Eugene scooted closer to one of the shelves lining whatever store they were in and tried to make himself as small as possible. The door opened, and he clearly saw the back of a guard.
"Have you seen any boy run in here? Two of them? " The man asked and Eugene heard a voice respond, "Not that I am aware of, no. Is it always your practice to barge in as such to people's shops? It's bad for business, you know."
The guard huffed something about a royal decree and, luckily, unbelievably, left without turning around. Eugene let out a breath he didn't know he was holding and said, "Good thinking, Glen."
"Thanks." The younger boy drew out his 's' a little, and Eugene shook his head with a smile. He looked around and noticed they had run into a book shop. He unfolded himself from his hiding place, suddenly intrigued. He knew how to read a little—more than the others, at any rate. The books lined the shelves and the shelves lined the room and all he could see was books and one little, frail, wisp of a man with failing white hair. He was eyeing them with blue eyes beneath spectacles, and when he spoke it was the voice of the man who had sent the guard off. Eugene wondered if he should thank him.
"Hello." He adjusted his glasses. "Abnormal entrance, there, boys."
Eugene got to his feet slowly, a sudden anger welling up inside him. He hated this. Well, technically he hated the orphanage for wasting money on stupid things for the stupid adults of the place and not spending it on food, where it was needed. He hated them for not noticing the children wasting away underneath their gaze. He hated the king and queen for not helping. He hated royalty for being rich. He hated. He hated.
He hated a lot, didn't he?
"Can I assume that you boys are here for a book? Or were you really just trying to elude those guards?"
"Elude?" Glen asked.
"Escape." Eugene replied curtly. "And of course we're here for a book. Right, Glen?"
"No, we were escaping."
Eugene mumbled and headed up the first aisle of books, not waiting to see if the younger boy would follow. Instead he meandered passed titles that had no meaning for him, for they were part of a different world to which he did not belong. He came out of the first aisle and headed up the second, running an already-calloused hand against spines velvet-soft with age whose titles couldn't even be read. He noticed Glen had picked up a thin looking volume of some sort, and as he got closer he realized the backing was a forest green and on the front it had in large letters, THE ADVENTURES OF FLYNNIGAN RYDER with a faded, crudely drawn illustration of a man holding a sword. Eugene frowned.
"What's it say?" Glen asked quietly, enthralled by the picture.
"The Adventures of Flynnigan Ryder."
"Can we get it? Please Eugene? Can we?"
"We have to buy food…" the prospect of owning something, anything, was extremely tempting indeed. He tried to head up the aisle but the boy hooked on to his arm and was waving the book around in his face and would not, for anything, let go.
"Please? Please? Please? You can tell use stories! We never hear good stories!"
"Alright, alright," Eugene said, smiling and taking the book from Glen's grip. He headed back to the front of the book seller's and asked, putting on his best face, "How much for this one?"
"Ah, The Adventures of Flynnigan Ryder, first edition. Rather old. An antique, I would say."
Oh.
"May I ask, young master, how much you are willing to part for it?"
The money was burning a hole in his pocket. Silently he extracted two of the three silver pieces, and the copper piece.
"Ah." The old seller examined each coin carefully, then peered at Eugene, then at Glen, and then at the book. Finally: "Well, I am truly sorry, but it seems that I cannot accept your payment."
"The coins are good though!" Eugene was indignant. Like they would even dream of bringing counterfeit.
"Yes, I know. But I can't take them." The old man shook his head. "Not with a good conscious, anyway. You seem desperately in need of something more useful than a novel, to which that money can be put to good use. However, I can let you borrow the book."
Not own. Borrow. Never own. Why should he own anything?
"Borrow?" Glen asked, standing up straighter to get a better look of the counter.
"There's nothing in it for you." Eugene pointed out logically. "Letting me borrow this book. It doesn't make any sense."
"Borrow or don't borrow. Take it or leave it."
"Conditions?" He couldn't believe this. At all.
"Oh, I expect it to be returned someday. It was my favorite book, after all. And perhaps coming down for some chores would not be too bad, either." The old man wiped his glasses on his shirt sleeves and eyed the boys, looking wide-eyed back at him, with something very, very close to a grin.
As Eugene left the shop he felt heavy, strangely so, mostly because he had agreed to a job at the book store next week but also because something weighed down his hand and the money still burned a hole in his pocket; he continued down towards the bakery, Glen bounding in excitement behind him, and, swinging from his fingers in a slow, hypnotic sort of fashion, was The Adventures of Flynnigan Ryder.