The Fly Guild
Page 6
“There you are,” said Huck, who was out of breath. His eyes met Sands and he quickly looked down. “Master Sands, forgive me, I didn’t know it was you. I was trying to catch up to your maggot.”
“Take him away from the docks,” Sands said coldly. He turned his back on them and trod off down the street. Quinton watched him go and saw the ship slide back the gangplank and pull away from the dock, its sails starting to unfurl from the high masts. He sighed.
“Wow, a piglet!” Huck exclaimed. “What a find. But next time you don’t have to run so far, okay?”
Quinton looked at him, glanced back at the ship, frowned and nodded.
“Come on, we still have one more bag to fill before the day’s out.”
The boys spent the rest of the day picking pockets, knocking down vulnerable citizens and practicing general thievery. Nothing matched the quality of the piglet, though. The rest of the haul was a few coppers, one silver coin, a few stale muffins, a small wedge of cheese with only a slight bit of mold on it and some dried beef sticks that looked inedible but helped fill up the bags. The sun was starting to set by the time they gave up and began heading back.
“Come on this way,” said Huck, cutting down a side street. “There’s something I want to show you.”
The boys wound carefully through the narrow streets until they came to a wide avenue filled with taverns, brothels and a population of dangerous-looking people. The buildings here were a little better to look at, some with exposed half timbers and others with stucco. They rose two and three stories high, each level set slightly further in than the last, so when you looked down the street, it looked as though the buildings were all leaning in, as if trying to see what was going on below. At one end of the street, far in the distance, was a large gate with two flanking towers. The tall stone towers looked forbidding in the fading light, their tops covered with a timber roof that rose to a point to keep the rain from collecting. Small openings were visible at the top, like eyes peering down on you.
“This is Pismire Street,” said Huck, as proud as if he were showing off a beautiful family mansion. “Down there’s the Lord’s Gate. On the other side of the gate is the good life. We’re not allowed on that side. Fist has some sort of deal with the lord. They leave us alone, we leave them alone. Anything on the far side of the wall is off limits. Going there is a death sentence. Got it?”
“Yeah, I got it,” said Quinton, who wondered where the ship was by now.
“Pismire, though, is paradise. At least as close as we’ll ever get to it. Come on, I’ll show you around.”
Huck led him down the street toward the gate, pointing out every brothel, prostitute, conman and gambling hall as if he had created it all himself. He was smiling ear to ear, giving an occasional wave to someone who more often than not gave him an obscene gesture back, cursed at him or just ignored him, none of which seemed to affect his enthusiasm for the place. They were almost to the gate. Quinton could see the large iron teeth of the portcullis raised up into the arch between the two towers. The gate was closed, and Quinton couldn’t imagine how you could ever force your way through it. The wood of the double gates was old and gray, but still in good condition and banded in iron. There was a man-door cut in the gates, and it stood open like a missing tooth on the gate’s smile. A large guard, armored in chainmail and leaning on a spear kept watch as people bustled by. Occasionally someone approached, said something to him, he’d nod and they’d pass through the gate.
“They give some sort of password or something,” Huck told him when he saw where he was looking. “Not that it matters. We could just go over the wall if we wanted to. But the place is filled with guards, and if they didn’t get you, Fist would. Come on, you have to see the Pink Lady.”
The Pink Lady was another brothel. It was three stories high and every window had a half-clothed lady hanging out of it yelling at the revelers below. The whole place was covered in stucco, which at one point had been painted what looked like bright pink, but the years of rain and sun had faded it to little more than a pinkish white. The double-sized doorway was wide open and light was spilling out into the fading day. People, mostly drunken men, were stumbling in and out and Quinton could see people beyond the doorway rolling with laughter and drinking toasts to each other, all while topless women walked around filling mugs and sitting on laps.
“Nice, ain’t it?” Huck said with a smile as he stared into the doorway. “That’s the family’s pride and joy. Makes us a ton of money. The girls are the best-looking creatures you’ll ever see.”
Between the women in the windows and those walking past the doorway, Quinton saw blondes, brunettes and redheads of every shape and size, none of them dressed respectfully, some of them not dressed at all. It was the most amazing thing he had ever seen.
“Can we go in?”
Huck shook his head. “No. Sometimes you might get to go in with your master on business, but that’s usually early in the day when things are pretty quiet. You still get an eyeful of sleeping lasses wearing nothing but their skin, but someone will cut your hand off if you thought about touchin’ one of ’em.”
The boys watched for a few minutes longer, ogling everything they could see from the street, before Huck nudged him. “Come on, we need to get movin’. Red eye will be wonderin’ where we are. Lucky for us, we got a piglet, which will shut him up right quick.”
Quinton was about to turn away from the heavenly scene when a particular girl caught his eye. At first she was obscured by some other people frolicking in the doorway, and all he could see was her hair and part of her face. He was immediately enthralled with her. Long, slightly curled red hair hung down below her shoulders, pulled back with a white ribbon. A few tresses hung down the side of her face. As she turned toward him, he could see she had beautiful eyes, a delicate nose and unblemished pale skin. A green velvet dress was tied at her thin waist, and ample cleavage was enticing many of the guests to flock around her, one even dumping a girl off his lap to do so. She was much younger than most of the other girls, though none of them were really that old. In this city, there were only a privileged few who got to experience their youth.
Huck had taken a few steps when he noticed Quinton wasn’t following and turned back to see where he was. He saw the other boy still staring through the doorway and glanced over to see what he was looking at.
“Ah, you’ve discovered Kate,” said Huck. “Ain’t she beautiful?”
Quinton didn’t even hear him. He was too busy trying to get another glimpse of her through the crowd.
“She’s probably the best-lookin’ one in there, though there’s so many sometimes it’s like choosing one stone from a pile of jewels. She’s probably not much older than us, really, but around here, who can really tell? This city has a way of aging people. Don’t get too attached to her, though, because you’ll never be able to afford her. Only the richies from the other side of the wall can afford her.”
He turned away, this time grabbing Quinton’s arm to make him follow. “Come on, lover boy, we got to go.”
As he took one last glance, Kate looked out the door, saw him staring at her and a smile crept onto the corner of her mouth. Quinton smiled back, then tripped and almost fell flat on his face. He looked back at the doorway, but there was a large number of people standing on the steps now, and he could no longer see her. He smiled to himself and followed Huck back through the maze of the city to return to the guild.
When they got back to the door, Huck pounded on it twice. A bar was pulled back on the other side and the door swung open. Master Red eye was waiting for them.
“You’re late,” he whispered, his eyes seemingly more bloodshot than they had been that morning.
Huck bowed slightly. “Forgive us, Master Red eye, but I hope you will think that our delay was worth your inconvenience.” Red eye’s expression was blank and he seemed to be staring through them. “With my compliments, from two of your students, master.” Huck handed him the two bags.
Red eye snatched the bags out of Huck’s hands. He opened Huck’s first and scowled, dumping the contents on a table inside the door. It was covered with a similar collection of coins, foodstuffs, a wineskin, a small barrel of beer and some personal items like clothes, combs and quills. He opened the second bag and his eyes went wide for a second, and he almost smiled before composing himself and returning the blank expression to his face.
“Who’s responsible for this?” he asked, his voice barely audible.
“He is,” said Quinton, pointing to Huck.
Red eye looked at Huck who said, “We worked together to get this, master.”
Red eye nodded. “Go to dinner now.” He carried the bag with the piglet in it at his side and disappeared through another door.
“Guess that’s the only thanks we get,” said Huck with a smile. “Come on, let’s eat.”
Dinner proved to be not a whole lot better than breakfast. There were a few pieces of meat that were mostly gristle, a broth of some sort and some wormy bread. Foul taste didn’t stop Quinton from wolfing every bite. He had lived on the streets too long and been hungry far too many times to be concerned about the quality. The boys ate with the other maggots in the same nondescript room where they had breakfast. He looked around for Teli but didn’t see him, though there were a number of the boys missing and he suspected they were already done and had gone somewhere else.
“What happens now?” Quinton asked Huck, who was chewing a particularly tough piece of meat.
“Drawing lessons,” he said between chews, the words barely understandable.
Quinton got a puzzled look on his face. “Why do we need to learn to draw?”
Huck smiled and kept chewing. “No, idiot, we draw lessons. There’s a pot with some numbers in it. You draw one to see which lesson you go to. You study under a master for a while, then it’s back to work.”
“Back to work?”
Huck kept chewing and nodded. “Back to work. More stealing. This time only money or good stuff. We’ll be stalking people and picking pockets mostly. Do you want to work together again? I think you’re good luck.”
Quinton shrugged. “Sure. Don’t know much about pickin’ pockets, though.”
Huck finally gave up chewing and swallowed the difficult chunk of meat and smiled. “That’s okay, most of the people are so drunk it’s not too hard. But you do have to be careful, ‘cause some of them are armed and will run you through if they catch you.”
The boys put their empty bowls on the table at the front of the room and headed out into the main hallway. Huck led them through one of the doors, which led to another hallway with more doors.
“This place is very confusing,” said Quinton.
“It’s meant to be. If someone ever attacked us or tried to break in, their confusion would give us time to make good our escape.”
“Attack us?” Quinton asked as he followed Huck through one of the doors, trying to make a note to himself which one it was so he could find it again.
“Yeah, attack us. You know, rival gangs, city guards, pirates, Orcs, who knows.”
“Has anyone every attacked us before?”
“Not since I’ve been here, but that’s only been a couple of years now. Fist has the other gangs on the run, and some of them have been destroyed. I guess before I came here, things were really rough. Lots of fights and people getting stabbed in the streets and stuff like that. Nasty business. But the Fly Guild now pretty much controls everything.”
“Except the walled part of the city,” Quinton added.
“Hey, I guess the lord should get to control somethin’, shouldn’t he?”
Huck walked up to a large pot that was sitting on a pedestal in the middle of the room. He reached in and drew a number. “Five. That’s stalking. Not too bad. Now you draw one.”
Quinton reached his hand in and drew out a small wooden coin with the number eight on it.
“Eight, that’s languages. Hope you’re pretty smart. Otherwise, that’s a tough one. Mistress Glitter teaches that one. She’s nice to look at, so even if you don’t take to the languages, you can stare at her tits.” Huck winked at him. “Come on, this way.” Huck led him through a door and into another hallway. This time the doors all had numbers on them. Huck stopped in front of the door with his number on it. “You can figure out the rest, can’t you?”
Quinton nodded, glancing down the hallway where he could see the number eight door.
“Good. I’ll meet you outside. If you get out before me, just wait across the street from the main door.”
“What’s the point of all this schooling?” Quinton asked, as Huck started walking away.
“Only the best can be masters. It’s what sets us apart from other gangs. We’re smarter.” He pointed at his head, sporting anything but a smart look on his face. “Honestly, I think it just makes the masters feel more important.”
Quinton watched Huck disappear through the doorway before slowly opening his own door and entering. Inside was a barren room with no furniture, save for a small table at the front. A woman was standing over the table, looking through a pile of scrolls neatly piled on the table. She was probably in her late 20s and had a youthful face, with eyes that looked much older. Her dirty blond hair was worn in a long braid that hung down the middle of her back almost to her waist. Her crimson dress had several beads sewn on the front of it near the neckline, which sparkled in the light of the fading sunlight that came through the room’s only window. The dress at one time had probably been stunning, but the years hadn’t been kind to it. Small stains and tatters were evident upon closer inspection. The dress had a small cutout below the neck that exposed her large cleavage, which Quinton stared at. The woman glanced up at him, said nothing, and went back to picking through her scrolls. After another moment, she looked up at him again and frowned.
“Sit down,” she said disgustedly. “First time?”
“Yes,” Quinton stammered.
“Sit down with the others,” she said, motioning to the dozen or so other maggots who were seated on the floor. Quinton recognized a few faces from the boys who were arrayed in an arc around the table. They were looking at him with a blank expression, so he made his way to the end and sat down on the rough wood floor. “I’m Mistress Glitter, for those of you who haven’t already been under my tutelage. This is languages. Who in here can tell me why languages are important?”
There was no answer, and Glitter’s face turned to a scowl. “Come on, now, someone answer me or I’ll start knifing each one of you until I get an answer.” The look on her face told Quinton that she meant every word that she said.
A boy in the middle raised his hand half-heartedly, his arm barely pushing his hand above his head.
She acknowledged the boy with a simple flick of her head.
“Because it will save us some day?”
Glitter sighed. “Yes, maggot. If you are lucky and can pull your head out of your ass long enough to take a look at the world around you, you might realize that something you are looking at is something that you have seen before in this class. And at that moment, you might realize that what you are reading is a wizard’s curse, or an Elvish warning or the Dwarvish symbol for gold vault.” She paused to move a scroll that was trying to roll off the crude desk. The boy next to him whispered, “I ain’t believe in Dwarves” before Glitter continued, “And at that point, you will know what to do. If you don’t read the symbols properly, then you’ll be guessing.” Her eyes scanned the class, hesitating at each boy for a moment. When she got to Quinton, he stared back at her. She was quite pretty, and would be more so if she smiled, but he doubted that she had ever smiled in her life, or at the very least, not for a very long time. He wondered what circumstances had brought someone like her into the world of the Fly Guild.
“Guessing gets you killed,” she said, still looking at him. Her gaze was so powerful he finally looked away, especially because she put extra emphasis on “killed.”
“What is it?” she demanded. The graceful script was a giveaway. No one wrote as beautifully as the elves.
“Elvish,” three or four of the boys said together.
She unrolled another. The marks looked familiar, but he couldn’t remember which one. Many of them were so similar he couldn’t figure out how you could tell them apart. They all looked like random collections of dots, dashes, lines and slashes. No one had an answer. Glitter slowly walked in front of all the boys, holding the scroll in front of her. “Not one of you can tell me?” She got to Quinton, paused, then spun around and slowly walked back the other way.
“Men of the east,” said Quinton flatly. He couldn’t believe he said that out loud. It just sort of popped into his head.
Glitter whirled on one heel in an instant. Her eyes narrowed and she walked over to Quinton and lowered the scroll. He looked back at her, again feeling the power of her gaze, but this time refused to yield.
“You have a good memory, maggot.”
He swallowed hard. “Forgive me, mistress, but I didn’t really remember it. I guessed.”
Her expression was blank. Quinton wasn’t sure if she was going to kill him, kiss him, or just walk away. “Then why did you say what you did?”