Cade 5

A heavy autumn rain had come down in sheets all night. Although it was only a drizzle by morning, more water than light was coming through the floor above and it made the hideout a dark, dreary place to spend the day. Come afternoon, Cade couldn't stand it any longer. He stripped down to his breeches and shimmied up the rope, pushing the boards aside as he pulled himself through the hole in the floor. Cade stood, taking a moment to hike up his pant legs. He was about to head out when Whistle called up to him.

“Aw hell, you don't have to beg. I'll come with you if you just wait up a minute.” Cade looked down into the basement and saw Whistle rubbing his eyes blearily. Pole looked irritated.

“Leave those boards off, Card. I doubt anyone's out wandering now anyway and I don't feel like sitting here alone in the dark,” he griped. Shine had gone off to wherever he sometimes went. He'd save up his coins then disappear for two, sometimes three days at a time. Once, when they were all sitting around bored, Whistle had asked him where he'd go.

“Now now, if I wanted ye to go with me I'd take you, wouldn't I?” As he'd answered, Shine had slapped him hard on the back with a wide, toothy grin as if being jocular, but pain showed on Whistle's face. No one had bothered asking since.

Whistle heaved himself up and wound up face down on the floor. “We really do need a ladder,” he said under his breath for the thousandth time. The dust on the floor had turned to a thin coat of mud, and it was streaked across his considerable chest and stomach. He brushed himself off ineffectively, managing only to spread it around a bit more evenly than it had been. Both boys pretended not to notice; they'd be clean soon enough. Whistle bowed with a flourish. “After you good sir,” he pronounced. With that, they broke out in laughter and tumbled into the alley.

Running, laughing, splashing and jostling soon turned to wrestling. Fifteen minutes later they sat, chests heaving, waist deep in a puddle. Cade's breath hitched in his throat as he struggled to contain his laughter. Both boys were red in the face. Whistle managed a halfhearted splash in Cade's direction and said, “You're not...” he paused to gasp for breath, “tired, are you? Let's...” He took another deep breath and continued, “go down to the market and see...” He clearly had more to say, but he gave up. Cade composed himself and staggered to his feet, offering Whistle a hand. He took it and the boys jaunted off toward the market, splashing through the flooded streets.

The boys traveled through alleys and back streets by habit. Neither even considered stepping onto the wide, banner laden thoroughfares that ran from gate to gate. They would have been less fun �" no puddles, far better drainage �" and were often trouble for boys such as they. They were the domain of traveling Nobles, escorted tradewagons and the Guards of the Watch who tromped back and forth proudly, pretending the rest of the city wasn't lawless.

Central Market was a free for all. A dark skinned woman, half-dressed in revealing colorful scarves, hawked foreign fruits of deep red, gold and purple. Two pale women in heavy woolen cloaks, twins by the looks of them, sold tapestries and blankets. There was a tiny dwarf of a man with scraggly white hair who worked glass, and a burly one-armed smith whose apprentice wielded a large, soot blackened set of tongs. There were penned livestock for sale, beasts and birds aplenty, and even a live fish “pond” in the back of a tar-sealed wagon. The air was alive with raucous bickering from the mouths of man, goat and goose alike. The earthy scent of new rain, sawdust and cow s**t made Cade smile. He turned to Whistle and began to speak.

“Hey, we should g...” He stopped speaking as he noticed that Whistle wasn't listening. It took him only a moment to spot what had captured his attention so thoroughly. She was young, perhaps as old as them but Cade thought that was unlikely. Her frilly blue and white dress must have come to her ankles under normal circumstances, but the soggy ground forced her to raise it, revealing milk-white skin and muddy baby blue slippers. Her dress, wide as it was, caused the crowd to part before her as she walked. An attendant in leather armor walked behind her, hand upon the hilt of his longsword. Cade noticed that the girl was chattering animatedly as she walked. It took him a moment to realize she was talking to her attendant, as he wasn't responding and she wasn't looking back. In fact, he looked positively bored. Cade turned to Whistle once again, who was still transfixed. They stood that way, Cade watching Whistle and Whistle watching the girl, for nearly a full minute as she made her way out of the marketplace and headed north.

“She's noble,” Cade said matter-of-factly.

“She's beautiful,” Whistle responded, sounding dazed. Cade laughed.

“And she may as well live on the moon. Let's go home, I'm hungry.” Whistle shook his head and rubbed his face with his hands as if he'd just woken up. As they turned and walked toward the mouth of a narrow alleyway, Cade wondered if he had ever seen Whistle speechless before. No, he decided, he hadn't.

They were half way home when they heard the sounds of a struggle, and close. Slow going as it was, hip deep in water, going back and coming in from another direction might add as much as forty minutes to their trek home, but they couldn't continue forward without potentially running into whatever lay ahead. Cade turned slowly as if to sneak back the way they'd come, but Whistle crept forward. When he realized Whistle wasn't coming with him, he turned and gestured frantically. Whistle had his back turned, and couldn't see him. Cade was left with a choice. He could leave his friend behind, or he could follow. Calling out to him might end in disaster and was out of the question. Realistically, it was no choice at all. Exasperated, he crept forward after Whistle, who'd already reached the corner and was peering around it at whatever lay ahead.

As Cade reached the corner, Whistle pulled back and made room for him. His face was pale and sickly. Cade looked around the corner and saw two men in plate mail and dark cloaks standing in the middle of the alley, with another, much shabbier man stretched between them. One was holding his feet, the other was holding his head under water. Their victim ceased his flailing and floated lifelessly in the murky water. The men made their way to his sides, bowed their heads and stood over him, palms outstretched and pressed together. They stood that way, as if paused halfway through a child's game of patty cake, while one of the men spoke in tones too soft to overhear clearly. In a moment it was over. They turned and made their way down the alley in the opposite direction. With a sigh of relief, Cade realized he had no idea what they'd have done if the men had come toward them.

Cade's heart was hammering in his chest. Despite his year on the street, he'd never seen a man die before. He didn't think Whistle had either, from the look on his friend's face. They waited in silence. The minutes dragged on like hours. Finally Whistle broke the silence by turning and vomiting, violently. Cade looked around the corner, eyed the dead man, and started to speak. Before he could say anything, Whistle whispered, “I can't. Let's go back.” They did. By the time they arrived back at the hideout, both boys had decided not to talk about what had happened with Pole or Shine. Whistle thought it was best to forget the whole incident, and Cade wasn’t inclined to argue. He only hoped he could; the drowned man's last moments kept playing and replaying in his mind.