Paulino

Introduction to one of the main characters

Paulino awoke to the too familiar sound of shouting. It was his mother of course, his father never yelled. He fought with silence, and distance. He fought by disappearing. It happened a lot. His mother would get unhappy and scream for an hour or two. His father would let her yell until she got tired of trying to fight, then the house would settle into an eerie calm for a day or two. At some point, his father would simply go out and not come back. Sometimes he left in the middle of the day, sometimes in the middle of the night. He never left right away, and Paulino never knew exactly when it was coming, but he always left and it never took long. In a way, it was a relief when he left. With him gone there was no fighting, and the strained silence after the yelling could be so tense that it made it hard to breathe.

Paulino rolled off of his matted hay and shrugged out of his heavy nightshirt. He pulled on a jerkin as he walked to the window. Light was just starting to slide through the rickety wooden shutters. He eased them open and, with a nervous glance behind him, slipped out. I gotta get out of here, he thought. This place is a nuthouse. He headed west, toward the central market, though he didn't have much to spend. A handful of coppers jingled in his pocket, but it was barely a silver's worth. It was all he had left from the last time his father had given him an allowance, and he'd managed to keep his mother from finding it so far. It wasn't much, but it would have to do.

As he entered the marketplace, a few of the vendors smiled and nodded at him. He didn't know them well, but they knew his father. The furniture he sold was well-built, and known for its craftsmanship if not for its beauty. Quiet furniture, quiet dad, Paulino mused as he made his way aimlessly from stall to stall. At first he wasn't sure where he was headed, but the smell of roasted meat helped him make up his mind. Chicken for breakfast, he thought, and maybe some brown bread. The sun was barely up, and already he'd found a reason to smile.

***

Paulino crawled out his bedroom window and thought back to the last time he'd seen his father. Had he known it would be the last time they'd see each other? Surely not. If he had, he'd not have been so eager to spend what little money he'd saved. He could have made the money he'd spent on brown bread and chicken, which he'd so happily eaten at a sitting, last a day and a half. Was that the last time he'd been happy? He couldn't be sure. He'd expected his father to be home in a few days. When he'd been gone a week, Paulino went to the carpenter's stall and collected his father's earnings, explaining that he was ill and couldn't go himself. The next week he'd done the same. A third and fourth week went by and, without his father to make more furniture, the money ran out. That was when things had gotten hard.

Paulino shook his head, clearing it, and brought his thoughts back to the present. He'd climbed out his window into the morning, then. This time he was slipping out into the evening. He walked west, careful to be quiet but not quite sneaking, toward the marketplace. It didn't take long before he reached a shadowy bottleneck of an alleyway. He took two deep breaths, calmed himself, and waited.

Paulino could wait like a stone, his inner self vacant as the outer world passed by. Sometimes he had to wait for a full hour or two before he got his chance. He couldn't risk stealing from men or even groups of boys, and he didn't want to hurt anyone. He had to pick his targets carefully. He didn't have to wait long this time. Within a few minutes he heard footsteps and what sounded like two boys bickering. They wouldn't be paying attention to what was going on around them, and if there were only two of them he wouldn't have much to worry about. They rounded a corner and Paulino saw them, but " as expected " they didn't see him. They kept right on bickering, arguing about some girl as they passed, carrying a large box of groceries between them. Paulino palmed his hefty piece of copper rod, stepped quietly into the alley behind the boys and punched the larger of the two boys as hard as he could in the back of the head. Silent, he fell like a stone. As his side of the box clattered to the ground, the second boy turned, swearing loudly.

“Ey then! Carry your...” His recriminations were cut short by a gout of blood from his nose and a sharp cry of pain. He began to roll around on the ground sobbing. Paulino didn't waste time. He tucked a loaf of bread, a cabbage and a large piece of smoked pork into his jerkin and ducked down the alley toward home. He heard the crying boy's sobs grow quiet then stop, and knew they wouldn't follow him. A short while later he was home, the pork and cabbage simmering in a pot. He glanced into his mother's room, not surprised to find her sleeping, her thinning hair pasted to the side of her pale face with sweat. I wonder if she'll eat tonight, he wondered as he tucked himself away in his room. He would eat, regardless.

 ***

It was three days before he had to go out again. He didn't like going out so often, but he could only stretch a pot of soup and a loaf of bread so far. He made his way past the market this time to intercept those headed to the West Gate. He didn't like to set up in the same places regularly, it just wasn't safe. Despite the sun being down, it was hard to find a proper spot. Someone had put up torches at most of the intersections, and shadows were hard to come by. He put one out, and settled in at a place where three alleyways came together, hoping to get home early. He glanced around and rubbed the sweat from his palms on his leather breeches, clearing his mind and waiting. The minutes ticked by quickly, and few people passed by. Once, a group of older men in guard uniforms �" people not to be interfered with �" walked by and re-lit his torch. Luckily, they'd not seen him. Not knowing whether they'd return by the same path, he shifted to a new intersection. It wouldn't be worth raising their suspicion should they pass by again only to find the same torch had been extinguished yet again.

The new alleyway was wet. It smelled of old fish and chamberpot, and didn't seem a likely path for those on a stroll, but the others nearby were simply too open, too well lit, or both. He tried to wait, but he was frustrated and had a hard time focusing. He sat in the dark while the moon rose and the air grew chilly. I've missed my shot, he thought, and groaned inwardly. Rising to his feet, he heard a low voice in the dark.

“What have we got here?” A figure in dull, rust-colored plate stepped into the alley. Paulino turned to run and was met by another man, heavily cloaked, behind him. He hesitated for just a moment as he realized he was trapped, and the world went dark as he collapsed. The tall man in plate stood over his unconscious body. “This one'll do, yeh?”

“Yes,” said the robed man. “He'll do nicely.”