K M Frontain, page 2
Wilf blanched. He and his mother didn’t think to doubt the boy. As much as Wilf liked to rile the minuscule fellow, and Canella to be disgusted with him, Kehfrey was usually never wrong when he got an impression. He was a perfectly odd child, but wholly suited to living by his wits, as a child of thieves must.
Wilf at once grabbed the coins on the table, tossed them into his pouch and shoved the leather packet back into his tunic. Kehfrey popped his dirty cap back on his head, seized the cheese and bread, and stuffed them into the sack. His mother kept the wine bottle. Prodded by Canella’s elbow, the knife toppled onto the packed dirt and, in their haste, none of them noticed the loss.
Wilf helped his mother up while hissing at Kehfrey for details.
“Quick, boy! Tell me what he looked like?” He ushered their mother into the back room, and they made their way across a number of sloppily strewn sleeping palettes toward a corner of the wall.
“Not much point,” Kehfrey said. “He had a big beard, all black and curly. Looked fake to me.”
“Is that how you spotted him?” Canella asked.
“No! He was staring at the door an awful lot.” They reached the back wall of the lodging. “Me first!” he said. “I can check for spies!” He pulled a pair of boards aside and scurried through the opening. He was gone for less than a minute and came back with a bright smile of reassurance, marred by a gap from a missing tooth. “All clear.”
Canella handed the open bottle to him and Wilf proceeded to help shove her very pregnant body through the hole. She had a time of it, swearing she would drop the baby from her womb, there and then. They eventually made it out into the narrow alley, little more than a place to dump refuse even the poor ignored. They stood outside the hole and listened. The overhanging roofs almost connected above the lane, darkening it so much it seemed in permanent twilight. The heat wave had 8
intensified the stink of sewage, and the shelter of the alley had made of the odour a noxious vapour. Canella ended the stillness putting her soiled apron over her nose in an attempt to keep from gagging.
At this moment, Kehfrey stepped a few paces off and whispered at a curious large rat that had poked its head out of the rubbish. It took fright and scampered off. Canella frowned over her apron, thinking she’d heard him tell the greasy thing to make itself scarce. She’d have thought a stone would do better for the task. Rats were known to take a chunk out of young flesh now and again. She considered berating Kehfrey for his lack of wisdom, but he’d been in this alley often, never returning with anything but innocuous bits of garbage and fleabites, and there was nowhere a person could run from fleabites.
“You really will need to buy new stockings,” she said to Wilf after a moment, looking down at the scum on their clothes.
Wilf scowled and kicked a pile of rubbish further into the muck. This lifted the stench to appalling proportions, and she finally did gag, but he didn’t notice her distress as he surveyed his attire. “And breeches and shoes,” he added caustical y.
“Don’t do that!” Kehfrey said. “She’ll barf the baby out!”
Wilf at last noticed his mother’s misery and took her arm. He led her through the dimness toward the cluttered end of the lane, where fresher air filtered through the fetid atmosphere. It was almost worse to have the better air, for the stench of human waste in the alley seemed that much more putrid after each purer gust from the street, where city ordinances prevented the worst sort of pollution.
To the side and unseen by the boy’s family, the heavyset rat poked its nose out of the rubbish and eyed Kehfrey expectantly. The boy flicked his fingers negatively, which sent it off again.
Canella issued a muffled order through her handkerchief. “Kehfrey, go back and leave a warning for your Pop.” The boy seemed to have no use for his nose and no fear of losing it to a rat bite. Let him make the horrid trip back. The watcher wouldn’t bother with a small boy.
Kehfrey turned about at once, but stalled and offered his own suggestion. “Do you want me to distract the spy?”
“No!”
“But I can lead him away long enough for Wilf to get his spare breeches and stockings!”
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“No!” Wilf said. He didn’t want his old breeches and stockings. “I can get new ones. I can’t get a new brother. Now go!”
“Yes, you can. Mum might have one now. You don’t like me
anyway.”
“Shut your gob, Kehfrey!” Canella said. “We want to keep you. None of your wild ideas, now. And Wilf does, too, like you.”
“Does not!”
They were coming to the end of the alley and were forced to stop bickering. Wilf jerked his head at the boy, blue eyes warning him to get on with the duty, or else. Sulkily, Kehfrey handed over the wine, bread, and cheese, and made his way back to their recent home. He crawled through the hole, followed by the rat. It bit his worn-out heel for attention. He hissed at the pest that the cheese had gone with his mum and that it had best be off looking for her crumbs under the table. As the rat went to the indicated area, Kehfrey fetched a piece of charcoal from the cold brazier and went out to visit Perce again. He sauntered into the open with the utmost equanimity, but remained at his side of the street.
“Why’d you leave without finishing the story?” Perce demanded with a hurt voice. He’d been waiting in the centre of the lane. The moment he realized the other boy wasn’t going to cross to his side, he ran to meet him.
Kehfrey eyed him wisely. He and Perce were the same age, but they were widely separated in experience. Perce was larger and his clothing less worn, for they had not been handed down through a multitude of previous owners. He was the image of a well-kept innocent who had never starved a day of his life. Kehfrey had just made Perce promise him a pie for the rest of the story, but now he’d have to go without, just to keep the watcher from being the wiser.
Feigning to mess about as any child, he told the remaining half of the narrative while drawing on the wall of his building. He created a sloppy picture of the constricted street, including a rather ugly dark-bearded man. In the corner where he scribbled a mess of trash, the warning sign was clear for any who knew to see it.
Five times he surreptitiously ordered the rat back into the house and out of view. A rat that big often ended up as some beggar’s roast. He’d warned the damned thing, but it was a stubborn cuss. Thought of nothing but food. The first time they had met, it had been in the middle of the night, the rat on the verge of biting off one of his brother Gamis’s 10
toes. Aside from thinking this funny, Kehfrey had been amazed at the size of the pest, for which reason he had warned it off from eating people parts. A rat that big needed to be preserved, just to see how much bigger it could get. He was peeved he’d have to abandon his project before ascertaining if the rodent could grow any fatter, without letting it resort to human appendages again.
“That’s an awful picture,” Perce said after Kehfrey had finished.
Kehfrey knew it. He’d been drawing his worst. He made certain the boy followed him to the other side of the door, where he offered him the charcoal. “You draw on this side. I’ll come back later to see if it’s better.”
“Where are you going?” Perce asked.
“Mum wants me to massage her feet. She’s going to have my sister, you know.”
“She’s as big as a cow!”
“I know,” said Kehfrey, laughing. “I’m going to have a giant sister.”
He smacked his naive friend on the shoulder and headed back in. He grabbed his father’s knife from under the table, having at last noticed it, and found the worn out sheath for it lying beneath the cold brazier. He tucked the knife into its home and hid the weapon beneath his tunic at his back. In the back room, he found the rat scuffling about inside his grubby blankets. He shook his head at it.
“Don’t be stupid. I didn’t hide food in there.” He poked it with a toe and had to shake it off when it grappled with him for fun. Eventually he managed to toss it back onto the mat. “I’m leaving now. You keep away from people, you hear? The desperate ones eat rats as easily as desperate rats eat people.”
It ignored him, once more rummaging inside the blanket. The boy shook his head again. Fat rat! Thought of nothing but eating, just like his brother Gamis.
“Bye, Gamis,” he said. Smirking, he met Wilf and his mother in the alley shortly after.
“What was with the huge drawing?” Wilf said. He’d been spying as best he could from the distance. A mountain of ant infested rubbish closed off the end of the alley. He had been bitten on his legs when the insects had crawled up his stockings.
“I couldn’t just draw the warning sign,” Kehfrey said.
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“I hope you didn’t leave one of your cussed works of art. Everyone will be staring at it then.”
“Trust me. I was brilliant. It’s crud.” Kehfrey laughed and said,
“Perce is drawing another one on the other side of the door right now.”
“Is the spy in the same place?” Canella asked, to which Kehfrey nodded. “How are we going to get out of this alley without him seeing?”
“I told you I should distract him,” Kehfrey huffed. His brother and mother looked at each other worriedly. “You know I’m right! The longer you stand around here, the more likely a friend of his will show up to cover this alley. If I distract him, that’ll give you time to get out without getting torn apart by ants. You can climb that end over there. It’s has something in it the ants don’t like.”
“What exactly?” Wilf said.
“A body. These ants like regular rubbish.”
“Oh, gods!” his mother whispered, at last noticing the horde of flies lifting off that side of the alley entrance.
“Don’t worry, it’s completely covered. I buried him again after I looked. He’s so rotten even the rats won’t eat him now.”
Canella almost turned green.
“All right! Go!” Wilf relented.
Grinning, Kehfrey darted back down the disgusting alley and arrived at his friend’s side in seconds. “You win!” he told Perce at once.
Perce left off drawing and glared at him. “I’m not done!”
“Let’s go get the pie now,” Kehfrey said impatiently.
“I have to wait for my sister to come home from the dressmaker’s!”
Perce hedged.
“Oh, come on! You already have a pie. I saw her come in with it this morning. You know she’s not likely to get a second today.”
“But my mother—!”
“Tell her I stole it,” Kehfrey suggested. “Come on! You promised!”
“I can’t tell her that! I wouldn’t do that to a friend!” Perce looked at Kehfrey as if he’d just grown two heads. Both heads would have had the same challenging grin had this been the case.
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“Go on, now. I give you permission. You aren’t afraid to snatch a pie, are you? I’ll share it with you.”
A crafty gleam entered Perce’s brown eyes. Ah, ha! Kehfrey knew instantly this sort of theft had occurred before in Perce’s household. In silent accord, they hurried across the street to Perce’s building, where Perce told Kehfrey to wait at the bottom while he rushed up the rickety flight to the second floor. He returned quickly with the goods.
“Mum was sleeping,” he said with a triumphant grin. He at once dunked his fingers in the pie and gobbled a mouthful.
“Here now!” Kehfrey protested. He grabbed the tin and made off with it. Perce shouted and chased after him. Despite his smaller stature, Kehfrey was quicker. He dodged nimbly away and headed for his target.
“Good-bye, pie,” Kehfrey said sorrowfully to it.
Just before he reached the bearded man, he pretended to trip. The pie flew into the air and struck the target dead on the chest. Kehfrey rolled to his feet in an instant. Because the man looked uncertain as to whether he should be angry or amused, Kehfrey determined he needed help deciding.
“What did you do that for?” he shouted. “You ruined my pie, you big uglier-than-a-cow’s-butt, fart from a goosed pig!”
The spy lunged at him. Kehfrey darted away. Perce screamed and ran home. While Perce called desperately for his mother, Kehfrey dashed up the street away from his family. He had his escape route planned. He was on it before his pursuer managed to get within three arm lengths of him.
Making use of the vines on a trellis, he scrambled up the wall of a building. Of course, the owner of the building came out to bellow at him.
“Get off my vine, you elf-begotten brat!” This man wiped his sweaty face with a dirty rag as he stepped into view.
“Little bastard threw a pie at me!” the pursuer said.
“Threw a pie at you! I wouldn’t waste a pie on you! Pig fart!” Kehfrey clawed the last of the distance up the vine, turned on the roof and glared jubilantly down. This particular edifice belonged to a single well-to-do family. It had no outer stairs on the front leading to an upper flat, therefore no way up to the eaves but the vine. “You owe me a pie!” he hollered down, quite safe from reprisal.
“Come down here!” the pursuer shouted back.
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“Not on my vine!” the vine owner said. “You get off my roof, boy!”
“What do you want? For me too fly?” Kehfrey scrambled further back from the edge.
“You’ll fly to a hell when I get my hands on you!” the bearded man shouted.
“Is that ugly beard real? I just have to know. You look like you pasted on something from between a woman’s legs. I should know. I’ve seen what they have up there. All you have to do is stand under a stairwell.
You must know, too, because what you have on your face is a perfect match.”
At that, the pursuer grabbed the vines with the obvious intent of climbing up them. The vine owner protested, but when this amounted to nothing, he grabbed the climber by the legs and shouted for his neighbours to get the constabulary.
“I am the constabulary!” the bearded man hollered. He dropped down from the vines and stared up at Kehfrey, a sudden narrowing of suspicion to the lids of his eyes. The sweaty proprietor stepped back to gaze at the officer nervously.
“Come down here, boy,” the constable said. “I’ll go easy on you.”
Kehfrey lifted a disbelieving brow. He decided it was time to leave. If his brother hadn’t spirited his mother away by now, then he had been born into a family of complete idiots.
“Taste the pie and tell me how it was first,” he said. The man scowled up at him. The pie had fallen to the street long ago. Only a stain on the constable’s tunic remained to remind Kehfrey of the missed opportunity and, off in the distance, a fat rat gobbling the flung treat in plain view of everyone. Damned stupid rat.
“Come down here and taste it yourself,” the constable said.
Grinning, Kehfrey just backed away. Loose slate skittered down the slope onto the heads below. The constable cursed some interesting insults, all of which Kehfrey committed to memory as he scuttled up the incline. Shortly, he’d gone over the apex onto the other side. By then, the constable had left off cursing and Kehfrey caught a clear view of him heading for the alley.
Kehfrey rose and balanced on the point of the roof. The vine owner shouted he’d break his fool neck. Kehfrey ignored him, because he’d most certainly break his fool neck getting caught and hung. He ran down 14
the roof, likely convincing the man he truly was mad, and took a running leap onto the building at the opposite side of the alley. He was quicker going up this incline, using his momentum to reach the peak. He gripped it firmly, hauled himself over, and hung down the other side by his fingertips.
Presently he heard the constable wading through the rubbish, mouthing curses still, some of which were directed at his own person.
Kehfrey listened intently. After a moment, the constable called out to him. “Hey, boy! Come out! I have all day to catch you! You aren’t getting away from me!”
There ensued a loud racket, the sound of refuse being tossed about and rats squeaking in protest. Kehfrey waited a few minutes more, long enough to hear the man berate himself for getting distracted by a brat boy, whom he described with a number of commonplace invectives. No longer interested, Kehfrey crept down the roof toward the street on the further side.
The awning waited just below, open as usual, one floor lower down, large and green and very inviting. He had already attracted attention from passers-by on the street. He hung off the gutter to an outcry of concern and dropped down onto canvas. The awning dipped perilously, threatening to collapse. The proprietor shouted from beneath. Kehfrey rolled down the canvas and hung by his hands off the edge.
“Hi there, Master Cobbler,” he greeted brightly. “Wilf will be coming by to order new shoes from you. Mind you don’t make him the too fancy ones that Vik likes.”
The cobbler, standing between two displays of his finest work, blinked up at him in surprise. Recognising the offender, he scowled thunderously. “Get off my awning, brat!”
Grinning, Kehfrey thumped to the ground. His skullcap was half off, his red hair awry, his face grubby with dirt and charcoal, and his faded clothing further torn from the climb up the vine. He looked every inch the irrepressible hellion. He took off at once, running into the crowd and out of view. The cobbler shouted something after him, but since it wasn’t a very interesting criticism, Kehfrey ignored him and continued on.
From behind the cobbler, a tiny woman wearing a violet, hooded cape stepped out to get a clearer view of the fleeing boy. The cobbler remembered his customer and made a polite bow. He wiped the sweat from his forehead with his apron as he straightened. He’d chafed his skin 15
from having done this all day long. The weather had been hot for days and endless days. Amazingly, his customer wore a silk cape without exhibiting the least perspiration. Odd little creature. Must have lived to the south for some time. Had blood made of water perhaps.
