The First Binding, page 37
“Looks like we got a lost bird. One of Mithu’s sparrows without a dog to protect him,” said the one I figured to be Thipu. He had a build almost equal to the first boy, with nearly matching clothing, almost as if it were by design. His hair was a curly mess, each lock short and matted close to his scalp.
Both of them were older than me, maybe near their fifteenth year or just shy of it.
I ignored the pair, keeping to scraping my mango clean.
“This bird doesn’t know how to speak up, I guess? We’re talking to you.”
I said nothing and resisted the temptation to stow my other coin. My heart hammered like heavy rain on a sheet of brass, but I kept it from showing on my face. The same feelings the night my family had been murdered swelled in me. Fear; it flushed me with cold water. The heat of the fire followed, burrowing into the muscles of my arms as they flexed hard.
A part of me wanted to let out the anger and resentment that had built after that night. Something hot and feral and completely removed from my rational mind.
“Looks like Mithu’s new sparrow is a rude little shit, Gabi.” Thipu rubbed his hands together as he drew closer. “Maybe we should see if we can make him sing, huh? Hey, little bird, do you know how a sparrow sings with a broken beak?”
At this point I knew I had nothing to gain by ignoring them other than their increased anger. Boys like that are looking for trouble, and they mean to find it no matter what you do.
“No, I don’t.” I still kept from meeting their gazes as I answered them.
“Neither do we, but I think we’d like to find out. Besides, you little sparrows are good at picking up coins. Koli’s always got us fixed on running the joy to people, but he doesn’t mind when we stop to bother a little bird or two.”
I stiffened at the mention of Koli’s name and stared at the boy who’d said that—Gabi.
He met my look. “Oh? I say something that bother you? What’s wrong, sparrow?”
“Koli.” The word left my mouth as a half-whispered curse.
The two boys exchanged a look. “That’s what I said. Are you dumb, boy? Your mom throw you out because you were too stupid to know eating dirt from eating shit?”
I said nothing. My fingers flexed around the mango and the coin until my nails dug into the flesh of my hands.
“I think we should find out if this sparrow’s found anything shiny today, right, Gabi?” Thipu stepped closer.
Something else the boys had said struck something in my memory. They worked for Koli. He too ran children like Mithu.
… Nisha. Oh, no. In my terror during my flight from the theater and then the confusion of being adopted by Mithu, I had forgotten her being under Koli’s thumb and keep. And the remembrance hit me with the weight of cold stone.
“Nisha. How is Nisha? Where is she?” I lunged toward Gabi and the world tilted as crimson streaked my vision. The ground kissed the side of my cheek, the same one that had been struck earlier, but I couldn’t feel it much.
When did I decide to lie down?
“You don’t talk about one of Koli’s girls like that. You don’t talk one word about ours, yeah?”
I couldn’t pick out if it had been Gabi or Thipu who’d spoken. When your head has been rung harder than a temple’s brass bell, you lose track of the subtle differences in voices.
“Hey, he does have something on him—look!” The voice cleared and I recognized it as Gabi. “Shit’s got a copper. A whole copper.”
“Nnno.” I could barely articulate the word and fumbled to see where I’d lost hold of the coin, but I couldn’t. My vision had stabilized and I realized the copper round had slipped through my fingers and lay just outside my grip. I reached for it more on desperate reflex and instinct than anything else.
Gabi’s bare heel crunched down on my fingers.
I screamed, only to have it choked off as Thipu felt the sudden need to drive a foot into my stomach. At least, I wagered he’d aimed there, but he connected with my ribs. Bits of the mango came back up, leaving a trail of acid burning along the back of my throat. More weight from Gabi’s foot came down on my hand, but not enough to break the small bones inside my fingers.
I tried to get him to stop. I tried to voice it. But nothing came out other than a weak moan. Another kick from Thipu silenced my cries.
Gabi removed the pressure from my hand and knelt by my side, reaching for the coin.
I watched him take one half of all the money I’d come to in the world. As soon as I’d had it, life saw fit to take it from me.
If I hadn’t been in such pain, I’d probably have let out a dark laugh over the matter. Khalim had put on plays about men with such luck that no matter what they did Brahm’s bad fortune would find a way to spit in their eyes and spike their feet.
“We could buy something for the girls with this, Thipu. You think Nisha would come alone with me to the joy rooms Koli has at home?”
Something about what Gabi said and how he said it tripped a latch in my mind. Nisha became the sole focus of my attention. I couldn’t manage the folds, but I was able to conjure the candle and the flame, and I fed all my anger into it.
Pain still filled me, but I grew dull to it, pushing it away. I managed to claw my way back to all fours as the two boys gawked over the copper coin. They paid me no mind, and I used the freedom to let my hatred grow, fanning the fire until I could stand. I lunged at Gabi, forgetting everything I had learned at Vithum’s hands.
There was no room for swordplay and clever movement in my footwork and hands. I fell on Gabi like an animal, like an angry sparrow.
I screamed something shrill and broken, raking my fingernails against his face. He cried out and let go of the coin. I fell on him, using my weight to keep him down for a second as my hands blurred. I scratched, pulled, and tore.
Pinpricks sparked against my scalp as I realized Thipu had grabbed hold of my hair and yanked sharply. Some of the locks tore but I stayed on Gabi. Then the world tipped the other way and I was back on the ground again.
“He scratched me? I’m bleeding. Brahm’s tits and asses … I’m bleeding! Little shit bloodied my face. My. Face!” Gabi punctuated the two words with a kick at my sternum. Thipu, good friend that he was, joined in.
I didn’t know how long they intended to keep going, but I knew I couldn’t weather it much longer.
Gabi must have been able to read minds, because he decided to cut the beating shorter.
And not to my benefit.
He moved by me, retrieving a half-broken brick that could have come from the alley walls. Gabi held it up overhead, the implication clear.
Juggi was right. I would learn what it meant to be a speaker, and it was a painful lesson. The worst of which was yet to come.
Gabi smiled and brought the brick down.
THIRTY
A DOG’S GIFT
Gabi stumbled, eyes snapping shut. The brick never struck my head and fell harmlessly by me.
I couldn’t revel in my good luck, as most of my body had forgotten how to do anything other than sit in the massive amount of pain I’d been introduced to.
Gabi and Thipu turned to see who’d thrown the small stone at the back of his head.
Nika. He stood in the mouth of the alley, bouncing another stone in his hand.
“Nika!” Gabi balled his fists. “You here to save this little shit? There’s two of us. And I can get more. This isn’t going—” Gabi yelped, pawing at his face as another stone fell to the ground. “Bitch hit my mouth.” His T’s sounded like F’s, and I wagered his lips had swollen. “Get her, Thipu.”
Her?
Thipu made no move toward Nika, turning his attention the other way down the alley like he wanted to run. “I’m still sore thinking about the last time, Gabi. We should go.”
“I fold you to hit the bitch!” Gabi shoved the boy toward Nika.
The girl blurred into action as Thipu stumbled toward her. The flat of her foot snapped into the boy’s stomach. He crumpled forward, clutching his gut, completely unaware of Nika’s next move. She lashed out with a quick kick to his throat that left him choking.
Gabi spat at the ground between her and Thipu, blood making up most of his saliva. “Koli’s going to do something about this one day. And when he does, he’s going to make you one of his too, you know that, right?” Gabi sank to his knees, grabbing hold of the brick he’d meant to smash me with.
What little strength I had left let me wriggle forward and dig my fingers into Gabi’s arm.
He shook, then froze hard as he realized I was still there. Nika took the moment to finish the fight. She rushed him, taking one of his ears in her hand. She wrenched it and hauled him to his feet.
He stammered something I didn’t make out, but she silenced him with two knees to the groin. He crumpled to the ground, mewling.
A piece of copper rolled free from his clutches.
“My coin.” The words scratched my throat raw as I spoke them.
Nika looked at me, then the coin. She gave Gabi another kick for good measure before retrieving the copper round. “Can you get up?”
I grunted and tried to make my way to my knees, realizing I could barely manage that much. She slipped her arms under my own and helped raise me to my feet. “We should go. Gabi’s got Koli’s ear. He’s not worth much, but Koli might send more of his runners looking for us. Move.” Nika gave me a push back toward Hadhi Street.
I paused as I passed Gabi, then figured that I should follow Nika’s example and give the boy a kick. Then I remembered she’d given him several, and not one to be a poor imitator, I did the same.
Her face remained perfectly neutral as I did it, but her eyes twinkled just a bit.
We made our way back onto the street, falling in step with two other sparrows we’d seen walking ahead of us. They looked me over, then Nika. The pair easily surmised what happened to me.
“How bad they get it, Nika?” One of them grinned almost like he knew the answer.
“Same as usual.” She shrugged. “I don’t think Gabi’s going to be spending any time looking sideways at any of Koli’s girls, not that they’d even look back at him.”
The two sparrows laughed, then cut it short as their eyes fell on me.
“How bad did he get it?”
I tried to glower at them, but my face couldn’t muster even that little bit of effort.
“He did all right. He cut up Gabi’s face pretty bad. And he took the beating good. He didn’t lose his seed either.” She held up the copper coin.
I swallowed a bit of spit, adding another layer of sting to my throat as Nika offered up my coin. And if she’d come to my rescue, it brought a pair of questions to mind.
Had she been watching when the woman had given me the coins? Did she know about the other?
I fixed her with a look, which she returned with all the expression of a wall.
“You two should go check in with Juggi if you’ve got seeds to hand over. He’ll tally them up.” Nika motioned with a hand, urging the two sparrows ahead. They listened without further word and moved off.
Nika put a hand on my chest, stopping me. The gesture brought a dull ache to my core, as it was just close enough to where I’d been kicked. “Stay with me for a moment?” It wasn’t a command.
I nodded. “Thank you … for…” I trailed off and pointed toward the alley we’d left behind.
“It’s my job. I watch the sparrows so no one hurts you too badly.”
Too badly. So we are expected to catch a beating. I kept that to myself and voiced the question on my mind. “How long were you watching me?” The act of speaking racked my throat harder.
“Long enough to see that lady give you two copper rounds. Long enough to see you eat the mango. Long enough to see you hide one of the coins.” Nika’s face remained impassive. She reached into one of her pockets and pulled free the remaining mango rind I’d dropped earlier and pushed it toward me. “Chew it. Some of the juice will help, and it’s bitter enough to stop the hurt a bit. It’ll sting first, but then just feel better.”
I did as she said. The mango lived up to her words, the juices biting at my throat with a new wave of acidity as the bitterness of the peel’s tissue flooded my mouth. Soon, I tasted nothing but my throat’s own tiredness. “Thank you … again.”
She ignored my gratitude, tumbling the copper round between her fingers. “You know this is more than most sparrows bring home in a day. For some, it’s more than they see in a week’s worth of begging, and same with some clutchers. The bad ones anyways. Mithu will be happy.” She stowed the coin. “I’ll tell him the coin came from you and he won’t ask any questions.”
I tried to arch a brow and managed an awkward half squint and tilt of the head. “Coin?” I emphasized the word.
She smiled. “It’s your first day, and it cost you a lot. Mithu doesn’t need to know. You also fought back against Gabi and Thipu. Most would have run.”
A part of me wanted to point out that I had only really attacked Gabi, but I didn’t see any harm in letting her run with that account of things.
“I like it when someone messes up his ugly face.” Her smile widened.
Then deeper realization set in. “Wait … you saw them follow me into the alley. You watched them pummel me!”
She grabbed one of my arms tightly and hauled me further down the street. “Hsst. You’re yelling. That’ll get the kuthri looking for whoever’s making noise. Nobody wants to trade and sell with yelling kids around.” Nika led me back to our sparrow home, knocking on the door. “Yes, I watched them come after you. I had to. They couldn’t know I was there.” Something in the way she’d said that left me to wonder if there was another part she hadn’t voiced.
Nika picked up on my silent question. “And … I wanted to see how you reacted. I had to know.” I opened my mouth to respond with something rather uncouth when she spoke over me. “You’re different than most boys. They don’t like it when a girl saves them.”
I shut my mouth at that, pausing to consider what that meant for Nika. It couldn’t have been easy being among the sparrows, all made to look like boys, and then to be the one constantly fighting and protecting them. Especially so when many young males would hold a grudge against her over something as innocent as being who she was.
Few things are as brittle as a young boy’s pride. And it’s a cause for a great deal of pain. Some, fortunately, learn to grow out of it. I’d like to think I began there, on the street of Hadhi.
I smiled in earnest. “Well, if I have to expect more of that”—I gestured back to the alley where Gabi and Thipu had set on me—“you can save me anytime.”
She grinned back, a strange thing given how much she could wear a face like stone, and the look was brighter than all the colors on the street. Nika leaned forward quick as a cat and pressed her lips once to my swollen cheek before pulling away. “You’re sweet.”
It bears pointing out that I had already been under the hot morning sun for hours, and a passerby had taken the liberty to smack me handily. Add to this that Thipu and Gabi had taken their shots as well and you’ll understand that the reddening of my face had already happened. It certainly had nothing to do with being kissed on my cheek.
I stood there, half tempted to raise a hand to the spot to confirm Nika had in fact done what she did, but she brushed by me as if nothing happened.
She knocked on the door, which was answered by another sparrow on watch duty. We entered and she asked the young bird to fetch Mithu, which they ran off to do.
The leader of the sparrows came down the stairs into the common room. He looked at Nika, then me, pursing his lips as the only sign of communication.
“He’s done for the day.” She raised the copper round up between a thumb and index finger for him to see. “He’s pulled good coin and he got a hard lesson from two of Koli’s runners. He needs to rest and maybe have Small Kaya look at him. They hit him pretty hard.”
I’d been hit pretty hard at various points in my life up until that day, and that fell remarkably short of describing how painful the thrashing the two boys gave me had been. But I kept quiet, feeling it better to let her control the conversation.
A rest did sound wonderful, and if I could make a good impression on Mithu through Nika, so be it. I would take it.
Mithu reached out and plucked the coin from her, turning it over in his grip. His lips pursed another way now—appraisal. “A full copper on your first day, hm? Maybe I didn’t just find a sparrow, but a lucky sparrow.” He laughed.
Nika joined in and, to my ears, it came out as the most forced thing I’d ever heard.
I didn’t get the joke so I remained a silent lump of pain and confusion.
“Or maybe you have a bit of crow in you to go after such shiny, big taking.” Mithu laughed again and so did Nika.
A sharp jolt lanced through my ribs from where she elbowed me, flashing me a knowing look. I resigned myself and joined in on the laughter.
It ended nearly as soon as it had begun. Mithu pocketed the coin and looked me over another time. “The beating’s not so bad.”
I had a feeling he’d never been kicked and pummeled by two boys who outweighed him by half a dozen sacks of lentils.
“But he’s earned the day off. A copper round is no small pull. Good job, Ari. I’ll send Small Kaya to your room with something for your face and the pains.”
I thanked him with just an incline of my head and moved off.
“Wait.”
I stopped, not turning fully to look at Mithu.
“Did you happen to find any treasures for yourself today? Any small trinkets a little sparrow would like to keep?” The question held an edge I couldn’t make out. Something about it unnerved me, like it didn’t carry the honesty of the words themselves. It was like he wanted to know if I found anything else he might have liked to have.
I swallowed, eyeing Nika for the space of a wink.
“I watched him get the coin and get attacked. He was only able to pull the one coin and didn’t even have time to cry for a second.” Nika frowned, looking to the ground in thought. “Oh, and a shopkeeper gave him a piece of mango. He’s still got the rind in his mouth. I told him the bitter would help him with the pain.”
