“Not that I hold that against you, Alana,” continued Orman. “You’re on the border, you could be one of us. I knew your dad and he were a decent sort.”
Orman was a short man, shaved head attempting to disguise that his hair had gone the way of his youth, and with a pot belly from too much time spent in taverns. It was early afternoon and here he was, already a few drinks into his day, illuminating the fact that he didn’t have what you would call a profession.
If you were to ask he’d say he did ‘odd jobs’—code for he’d help you get money back from anyone who owed it to you for thirty percent of the take. Everyone knew what it meant if Orman came to call, and his extended girth and sallow complexion didn’t seem to be impacting his business. A man could live off the reputation of his younger self for a long time.
“That’s fine, no offense taken,” said Alana. “So, you knew Lud since he was lad?”
“Yep. We grew up on the same street. Knew him when we were just old enough to get into trouble.”
“Did you know if Lud and Dyer used to be friends?” asked Alana tentatively, she didn’t want to get him defensive, or even worse, offensive.
“Yeah, I guess so. But he doesn’t go ‘round talking about that much anymore.” Orman stopped talking, and Alana let the silence hang in the air, waiting for him to continue. “Never understood it me self.”
“I’m not going to tell anyone, Orman. I promise. But this is important. How did they become friends?”
Orman grumbled, took a big gulp of the dark brown ale and let out a burp. “I guess it can’t do no harm in telling. Like I said, me and Lud got to know each other as soon as we were old enough to make trouble. To start it was just us two and then as we got older, more kids glommed on. We had a right little gang, all Outer kids.”
“We got a bit older, and the knocking on doors or nicking stuff got to be less fun. Needing something else to do, we got into playing kick.”
Alana nodded. Kick was a game played in the streets of Kingshold. Teams of varying, and not always equal, size would kick an approximately round object to the target of the other team, usually several streets away. There were no rules as she could tell, in fact most of the kicking seemed to be aimed at the opposing players.
“It wasn’t long before we started playing against a gang from the Inner. Dyer was on that team. Him and Lud were the best players by far. They could knock a ball off a wall to go ‘round another player,” Orman pushed his chair back and stood to mime the moves, suddenly becoming alive, “or lift it up over their heads, and they’d both be able to get ‘round without having their feet knocked from under them.
“I guess that’s why they started hanging out. Spent less time with me then, did Lud.” Orman sat back down with a thud, his excitement disappearing and replaced by the look of a toddler who had his favorite wooden toy taken away. “Only cared about games of kick. And it wasn’t long before they started to mix up the teams, Inner and Outer Narrows kids playing on the same side if you can believe it.
“I didn’t like Dyer. Like I said, my da told me to watch that Inner lot. ‘They think they’re special’, he said. And that was Dyer alright. Thought his dad shit gold he did. But his dad weren’t anything special. He didn’t have any hustle, no side game. He just worked for a merchant down the docks.”
“I’m sure you work very hard, Orman,” said Alana, stroking his ego. She could see bringing up the past and the fickleness of his childhood friend was agitating him. And she needed him to get to the good stuff.
“Course I do,” he exclaimed. “Not many who can do what I do. Got to have stomach. And balls.” Orman took another swig of beer. “Anyway, one day it stopped. Lud lost interest in kick, and he stopped talking to Dyer. That’s when the fighting started. Same gangs would meet up and knock three bells of shit out of each other. Now, that was more my style.”
“So why did that happen?”
“Dunno. Maybe he just grew out of it. I wasn’t complaining. Got my best mate back, and I bloody hated kick.” Alana contained her surprise at Orman’s declaration of not enjoying the game given his previous demonstration, but he quickly explained why. “Wasn’t any good at it. I do remember it was right around the time Lud’s dad died though. Guess he thought he had to be a man after that.”
Alana thought about what she’d heard. She was so close to getting to the answer, but Orman didn’t really know what happened. He’d never thought about why his friend had come back, just that he did. Maybe it did have something to do with Lud’s father’s death. Alana was all too familiar with how a death in the family meant that some people had to grow up quicker than others.
Handcarts were how everything too heavy to carry got moved around the Narrows. The narrow confines, abrupt turns, and throngs of humanity on the streets at any time of day or night made it impossible to get a beast-led cart through the streets. A mule with some bags on its back would work, but who in the Narrows had money to feed another mouth?
Petra walked alongside the handcart being pushed by Aymer—a friend of Dyer’s—being careful not to get caught under its wheels as he would zig and zag around people and the large muddy puddles that could often be deeper than the harbor. Aymer had tanned skin from being out in the sun all day, but somewhere in his family's history he probably had roots from somewhere south of the Emerald Sea—no one really gave any mind to that in this part of the city, no one had two coppers to rub together and that made them all the same.
The cart was full of cabbages, already turning brown. Cabbages that were not good enough to sell in the main market anymore, but good enough for the people in the Narrows. In fact, it hadn’t been too long ago, after Petra and Alana’s parents had died, that they’d had to scrounge to buy a cabbage like this to make soup. And it would last them a week.
“What do you be wanting with me then, Petra,” said Aymer in his raspy voice. “I don’t want word to get back to the missus that I’m walking out with a beauty like you. She might get the wrong idea.”
Aymer laughed at his own joke. Petra flashed him one of her best smiles.
“Very true, Aymer. I don’t want to get on the bad side of Mildred, now do I?” Petra laughed along too, nudging his arm with her elbow. Aymer nodded, with more seriousness than Petra expected. “I thought seeing as you have known Dyer for so long, you might be able to tell me how him and Lud became friends. And then why they stopped?”
“And why do you want to know that?”
“Oh, I’m writing a book on the history of the Narrows,” replied Petra brightly.
“Heh, good answer,” said Aymer, catching on. “Well, it’s not every day I get to help a scholar now is it? I think we originally got to know the Outer Narrows lot when we would play kick against them. Bit of fun you know, keep us out of trouble for a bit. Excepting that it would often turn into other trouble.
“Especially when Dyer and Lud started being friends. Kick would turn into nicking stuff. Always Lud’s idea. Like they say, apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.”
“What do you mean?”
“Lud’s dad. He was a thief. Everyone knew it. He lost an ear once at the Judiciary after getting caught for something.”
“How long were they friends?” asked Petra.
“Oh, must have been a couple of years. Thick as thieves they were.” Aymer laughed again at his own inadvertent joke. “Then one day, Dyer didn’t want to see him anymore. So, we went back to playing kick with just us Inner lads. Until the Outer gang jumped us one day. Cowards had sticks and gave us a right hiding.” Aymer stopped pushing his cart, and pointed to a scar above his eyebrow. “But we got ‘em back. Then that was it—always about the fighting it was. Working out plans when to ambush them. Pick off their lot when they were on their own. Even when we got old enough to get interested in girls and ale, there’d still be fights.”
Petra considered this. Was she getting anywhere? She could talk to twenty people and hear as many stories again about them fighting. “But why did they
stop being friends?”
“Dunno. I know Dyer’s dad didn’t like it much, him hanging around those Outers. Might have had something to do with it. Heh, you could ask him but you’d have to go out onto Corpse Hill with a witch to help you. What with him being dead.”
Petra clucked her tongue, a habit from when she was a child—for some reason it helped her think. “Is there anyone around who knew his dad?”
“Hmm,” said Aymer, stopping to stroke his chin. “There might be. Haven’t seen her in a while though…”
“You’re going to have to speak up dear!” shouted the old lady from the deep folds of the pillows enveloping her in the beaten oak arm chair. This was Nanny Earma, Dyer’s great aunt and his only surviving family member. And though she held a tarnished old brass trumpet to her ear, she was having problems hearing Petra.
“I said, Nanny, that I wanted to talk to you about Dyer and Lud.” Petra practically shouted down the open end of the trumpet, slightly afraid she would deafen the old lady, but then realizing that was impossible. Petra called her Nanny because all the kids had grown up knowing her as nothing else. Nanny had never been able to have children of her own, and so she became well known to the children of the Narrows as a kindly old lady who would always welcome someone hiding out, whether from their parents, older siblings or more official trouble. And if you were lucky, sometimes you would get treats.
“Dyer and Lud, you say? Such sweet boys they are. Always coming ‘round to help out.”
“Nanny, they are both over forty now. I don’t think they come ‘round to help anymore. That was probably thirty years ago.”
“Oh,” said Nanny Earma, her face falling at the instantaneous passing of time. “I guess you’re right. I don’t remember seeing them in a long time. Especially that Lud.” Nanny Earma squinted her eyes, the wrinkled eyelids almost meeting, creating the look of something like a pair of walnuts. “Now that I think about it, I’m not supposed to like that Outer Narrows lad. Bad boy.”
“Why do you say that?” asked Petra, leaning forward on the edge of the wooden stool, which until recently had been the resting place for Nanny’s feet. Nanny had already explained in great detail how her varicose veins had been giving her some trouble today.
“Pooh, he did a bad thing.” The old lady shook her head vigorously, her thin grey hair coming undone from its perch on top of her head.
“And? What was it?”
“Pie!” barked Nanny. Petra jumped involuntarily.
“What do you mean pie?”
“You know Dyer’s dad never liked Lud.” Petra nodded, wondering at the change of topic. “Never liked him. But Dyer always vouched for him. Said he was different from his thieving dad. But he was wrong.”
“What do you mean?”
“Dyer’s dad worked so hard for his family. So, so hard. Doing whatever that miserly old Iothan merchant said. Then one day, he had an opportunity! A chance to move up in the world.” Petra leaned in as Nanny Earma warmed to her subject; she could almost imagine the flood of memories coming back to her. “A nobleman from Pienza had come visiting Kingshold. Big fat man. Wanted to eat all the Edland food. He’d heard about flying pig pie and he wanted to try it. Dyer’s dad had been there when the fat man offered five gold crowns to whoever brought him the best pie.”
Flying pig pie. Petra mused on this. A strange dish of pigs’ feet and pigeon, both fairly plentiful in and around Kingshold, and it was definitely famous; but that didn’t mean she would ever actually eat it. The pigeon was usually stringy—and a bad pie maker was sure to leave some small bones and gristle in there to pad out the contents—and the trotters brought a certain slimy and gelatinous element that some generous folk said helped with swallowing.
“Dyer’s dad sent him to the shop he knew that had the best pie. This was his chance, see. His chance to go up in the world. Before Dyer went, his dad sat him down and made sure he knew how important it was. And then, when he got to Dibbler’s, there was Lud…”
“Flying pig pie.”
“Pardon, Miss Nini. What was that?” asked Alana.
Alana had found Lud’s grandmother in a small house near the curtain wall, after asking what had seemed like half of the neighborhood for directions. The door had opened itself when she’d knocked, and she’d been invited in with a call to find Nini sitting in a chair by the fire, shawl wrapped around her shoulders and a walking stick leaning against the wall nearby. Nini had thought it was one of the neighborhood ladies coming in to check on her. Alana had to explain who she was, which became a long game of who-knows-who until Nini was happy enough with Alana’s ancestry to tell her to put the kettle on and make some tea.
Over tea, Alana had asked about Lud and his friendship with Dyer, and Nini had been happy to talk. Unfortunately, the story started with Lud’s birth and Alana’s attention had started to wander as Nini told of how Lud once got stuck in a chimney when he was three.
“Flying pig pie. That was Lud’s dad’s favorite,” explained the old lady in a strong but quiet voice that meant Alana had to lean in to fully hear. “Not that I ever used to make it. We couldn’t afford that most of the time. But he’d have a slice some times and he loved that crispy pastry wrapped around the meat.” She paused in recollection, a beatific smile on her face. “Mmmm. I love a bit of flying pig pie too.”
“Did Lud like it too?”
“Oh no, he hated it. Fussy eater.” Nini shook her head and pulled a face at the shock of her grandson not liking something that was so clearly a delicacy.
“So what’s that got to do with Lud and Dyer?”
“Well it was Lud’s dad’s dying wish to have a pie. A whole pie. For the first time in his life. He’d had an accident at work you see. Got a long cut on his arm and didn’t go to a good barber to get it cleaned up. Green rot took hold. I can still see it now,” she said, her hands clutched to her chest, “the tendrils that crept up the inside of his arm like a vine, closing in on his heart. He knew he didn’t have long left, so he sent Lud to the best shop in the city.
“And when he got to Dibbler’s, there was Dyer…”
Petra was waiting in Alana’s room at the Royal Oak when her sister returned. She had taken the opportunity to lie down on her sister’s bed and rest her feet that throbbed from walking all over the city. Her eyelids had started to droop, and the siren call of a nap pulled at her when the door to the simple bed chamber opened. Petra smiled to see her sister, but she noticed that Alana’s face turned to a scowl as she saw Petra sprawled on the bed.
Too late, she realized she hadn’t taken off her shoes. Always a peeve of Alana’s.
Petra scrambled to sit upright on the bed, feet on the worn wooden floorboards.
“Alana, I figured it out!” said Petra.
“Me too,” said Alana, dropping onto the only chair in the room. “It’s all Dyer’s fault. What a horrible piece of work.”
Petra was momentarily puzzled. She considered her sister, who looked tired too. Those bruises must still hurt, and she’d worked at the Palace that morning before joining Petra on their afternoon investigation. She must be mixed up. “No, Alana. I think you mean it’s Lud’s fault. You must be exhausted and got it turned around.”
“I’m not confused, Petra.” Alana spoke slowly. Condescendingly. Petra hated it when her sister would assume she needed to explain things to her. Petra could feel her blood starting to rise. “I got the whole story. It was a fight over a pie. Can you believe it?”
“I know. But it was a bit more than that wasn’t it?”
“You’re right,” said Alana. Petra momentarily smiled, expecting to hear her sister agree with her after all. She quickly realized she was mistaken. “Lud wanted the pie for his dying father. His last wish. Can you imagine? I always thought flying pig pie was a cause of death, but I guess there is no accounting for folk. Anyway, what could be more important than that?”
“Dyer needed it for his dad too. He had a chance to get new work, make a little windfall and
get his family out of the Narrows,” said Petra, before she explained the story of the fat foreign gastronome.
“That sounds far-fetched to me.” Alana shook her head. Petra knew her sister, once she thought she’d figured something out she’d cling on to it like a randy terrier on your leg. “Why wouldn’t this rich nobleman just go and buy it himself?”
“He was a foreigner. Obviously. He didn’t know where to go.” It was Petra’s turn to shake her head. “I’m not saying that a father’s dying wish is not important. It is. But we’re talking about the living here.”
“That’s what Dyer said! To someone who was supposed to be his best friend!” Alana exploded, waving her hand dismissively as she spoke. “Of course, you would take his side. Always trusting whoever tells you anything, Petra. Come on. Think for once! His dad was dying! Wouldn’t you want to have done the same for our parents?”
“Think? Think! Why don’t you think about what you’re saying?” Petra had leapt to her feet and was waving a finger in the direction of her sister. “You wouldn’t talk to me like that if Mum and Dad were still around. And this was a once in a lifetime opportunity for Dyer’s dad. Our Dad would have understood that. He did everything he could for us.”
Alana stood too; Petra could see her nostrils flare, her eyes staring wide—signs of danger but she wasn’t going to back down.
“Right! Trust you to bring up Mum and Dad. I know you were their favorite. Don’t you think I don’t remember that every day? Don’t you think it didn’t stab me in the heart and twist every time the neighbors came and consoled you, and only you, after they died. Come on. Who gets out of the Narrows with a pie?”
“Why not?” asked Petra, pushing her blonde hair from her face, her hands shaking with anger. “The little things matter, Alana. Look at us—”
Tales of Kingshold Page 12
