The First Binding, page 38
I chose the moment to open my mouth fully and showcase the pulped skin.
Mithu’s throat worked silently, and he looked like he regretted asking the question. I had a feeling he’d come close to retching.
And that gave me an idea I decided to hold on to for later.
Mithu nodded more to Nika than me and ushered me away with a motion of his hand.
I didn’t need a second telling. I left, Nika falling in step next to me as I made my way upstairs. We stopped outside my room, and I waited for her to leave, but she didn’t.
“What are you going to do with the other coin?”
“Hsst.” I nearly lunged to cover her mouth but I remembered her fighting with Gabi and Thipu and reconsidered that idea. “You want to tell anyone else listening at their doors?”
She rolled her eyes, obviously not bothered by that thought.
I sighed and reached a hand into my pocket, idly running my fingers along the coin’s edge. “I’m not sure. I guess I’ll save it for now.” In truth, nothing in the world existed that the coin would be good for.
It couldn’t bring back the theater and my family. It couldn’t bring back Mahrab and my lessons. It couldn’t buy my dreams of being a binder and seeing the world.
I blinked as I realized what I could in fact purchase.
A way to the Ashram. It would take time, but I could slowly piece together enough money to get myself to the place of magic Mahrab had told me about. I could be safe, away from Abhar, and learn to do all that I’d dreamt of. My fingers closed tightly around the coin until an ache formed in my hand.
Mithu had told me to build a small treasure fit for a boy. And I’d do just that.
Nika remained in place like she wanted another answer from me—a better one. But I couldn’t give it, so I asked her something instead. “Why did you help me?”
She pressed her lips tight, as if deep in thought. “You’re not the only who’s had hard first days with the sparrows. And you’re not the only who’s been given nice things by strangers. Maybe I know what it’s like to want to have something to hold on to. Maybe I have something I’m saving for, too, and understand. And maybe I just wanted to give you a gift.” Nika turned without another word and left back the way we’d come.
I knew she was heading back to her duties on the streets and would leave me be. So I slipped into my room, thinking on what she said.
Wonder what she’s saving for? I couldn’t figure it out, but I made a point to keep it in mind until I learned the answer.
The small box in the corner of my room called to me and I fetched the key, quickly stowing my copper round and locking it away.
Small Kaya arrived moments later with a bowl and rag. She bid me to sit with a gesture. She dipped the rag in the bowl and pressed it to my face and a corner of my lip I hadn’t noticed had been cut. The sudden bands of fire across my cheeks and mouth certainly made me aware, though. I winced and nearly cried out, but she had no patience for it. She pressed the bowl to my mouth. “Drink, swish it, and spit.”
I did as she instructed. The liquid brought the same heat and pain through my mouth as it did across my face, but soon, numbness flooded me. I spat back the fluid along with the masticated mango pulp.
She looked at it, then me, frowning. But Small Kaya showed no anger or anything other than an old woman’s resignation. She rose and left me to lie in bed.
My mind turned to Nisha, still out there in Koli’s grip. I thought of the Ashram and how far away it could be. And I wondered about how many coins it would take me to get there and bring Nisha with me.
I couldn’t know the sum, but I knew it’d go a damn sight quicker the better a sparrow I became. So I set my thoughts to it and onto becoming the best beggar thief the kingdom had seen.
THIRTY-ONE
A SPARROW’S CUNNING
Time passed, and not a word of Nisha. No utterings of a name. Until time did what it always does. It put her in the quiet places of my heart and mind … to be buried, but not forgotten.
Six months on the streets of Keshum taught me much, but the more useful things came from the soft arts I’d learned from my old life. I took Juggi’s words to heart and mastered becoming the most pitiful and miserable wretch one could turn their eyes on.
I chewed the peels of lime and mango, turning them into fine pulp that, at a whim, I could spew onto the ground while clutching my stomach. I’d been raised by actors, and I brought their skill to the streets.
Not everyone, of course, turned a sympathetic ear to the pained moans of a vomiting child, but you could always find a few. Sometimes a shopkeeper would pay just to get you far enough out of sight from potential customers.
After all, what’s a few tin chips spent in the face of iron bunts and coppers to make?
But small prices make fine payments for a sparrow.
The agony of the night I’d lost my family had now folded into a different part of my mind—a memory, surely, but one so far back it was almost like a story I’d once heard from someone else.
Now, only Ari the Sparrow remained, and his life with his brothers and sisters.
I taught them every performer’s piece I had learned. Soon, Mithu’s speakers began to bring in a sum that even the clutchers took note of.
But more than sparrows made these streets their home, and those eyes soon turned on us.
* * *
I finished chewing a mix of lime peels, which I’d stripped to ribbons, and a piece of orange flesh. What precious water I had found its way into my mouth to help me break up the half spoonful of turmeric. The bitterness in my mouth could have pulled all the sweet from a mound of sugar. But I grimaced through it, mixing the heinous concoction with every bite and swish. Content I’d done a good job at turning it all to a vile, but appropriately colored mush, I stumbled onto Thippre Street.
The place was a venue to stalls and carts that sold the finer sort of appointments for oneself and one’s home. A few shopkeepers had done well enough to own buildings proper on the row and use floors above for extra storage.
All of it meant this was a street of showy wealth, and that meant the customers with the coin to support it.
I crashed shoulder-first into a cart, doing nothing to destabilize it and turn the owner’s wrath upon me. If his goods were in danger, all sympathy would be out the door and I’d earn more than a cuffing across the ear. “Help.” I parted my lips, letting some of the artificial sick seep through.
The man took one look at the color and backed away. “Don’t bring anything ill near me, nayak—gunth.” He’d practically called me a ne’er-do-well and filth.
I stumbled forward anyway, pressing the moment as more people watched the scene. “Please, just water. Anything. I’m sick.” My stomach knotted and I tensed the muscles in my neck, helping push the vomit out as I doubled over. The mixture splattered across the ground, and I made a sound that would unsettle anyone’s stomach to hear.
I knew the man wouldn’t risk parting with a drop of water. One, I’d dirty his drinking skin. Two, it would keep me around his shop longer if I stopped to drink. Three, I was obviously Sullied, and giving a coin to shoo me away was easier to bear than sharing food and drink.
The little ways we spurn others say a great deal about ourselves and the world. It’s a lesser sin to part with money than break bread with those you think are beneath you. I never learned why, but it’s the world Brahm made and left to us all.
“Please. Anything. I can’t get help.” I decided to take things further and retched again, letting my tinged spittle slop over one sleeve cuff.
The man looked like he’d follow my example and vomit himself. He reached at his side and plunged his fingers into an open purse. Coins flew free with an indiscriminate toss or consideration for what he was giving. “Get…” He trailed off and realized what his actions could be taken as. “Get yourself some help. Medicine, anything. Please-please. Poor thing.” Every word came clipped and with about as much honesty as a thief selling you back your own silk.
I fumbled for the coins, letting a few fall to the ground. “Thank you. A thousand thanks, sahm.” I scrabbled for the few precious bits of money along the road, scooping them up into my hands and bolting away.
The metal sat comfortably in my grip, my fingers never parting to betray a hint of glint in the morning light. A Sullied child, a sparrow no less, with money to their name marked you as a fresh target for many. And counting it openly was among the most foolish things for me to do.
I bustled past a trio of men from Laxina, dressed in slim-fitting robes cinched tight along the chest and waist. They raised porcelain tiles, speaking the Trader’s Tongue with the shopkeeper in hopes of using him as a money changer.
I kept my thoughts on their decision to myself. If some fools wanted to use a local vendor to break coin and porcelain, then they had the sort of easy trust that deserved for them to be taken advantage of. The shop passed from view as I turned off into an alley, making my way down it into another.
A group of men sat slumped against the walls and their legs stretched out into the path.
I swallowed a sigh, not wanting the noise to rouse them. But moving past them would be a problem.
They dressed in simple robes and cowls, long and oversized, all folded over themselves for equal measures of comfort and warmth in the night. The drawn-up hoods prevented what light made its way into the alley from reaching their eyes.
Cotton-eyes. I’d learned to stay away from them. White-joy, a drug distilled from the resin of a plant and that looked like liquid cotton, took the minds and faculties of any who abused it long enough. It turned the whole of their eyes to a uniform and milky white, leaving them hypersensitive to bright lights. Their teeth bleached to a color brighter than fresh cream, along with their gums at times.
And they were utterly ruthless in the pursuit to score more of the drug. There were stories of men and women selling anything they had to their name to get another hit. Then anything that belonged to others. Then, when all was exhausted, they’d sell whatever they could of themselves. Anything. Anyone.
Nothing was sacred. And no one was safe.
I slowed my pace, not wanting to draw undue attention to myself. A sparrow in a hurry meant one of two things: trouble behind them, or coin in hand. And both signaled an easy victim.
The cotton-eyes remained in the stupor, only one bothering to tilt his head and pay me any mind.
I ignored him and walked by as if completely unbothered by their presence.
He shuffled in place, extending a hand, palm open.
I sucked in a breath and knew that avoiding it could bring me more bother than I cared for in the moment. But giving a coin, no matter the amount, could cost me more. If the cotton-eyes knew I carried marks for Mithu, I ran the risk of being set on by them for even more money. As much as they could take.
I made myself as pitiful as I could without the aid of any props, stooping a bit lower as if my back nursed pain and I hadn’t slept well in weeks. My throat shook as I rattled out a weak cough and one of my hands trembled. I let a coin slip through my fingers into the man’s hand, taking care to use the quivering motions to shift a specific piece of currency into position.
I’d been on the streets long enough to know the difference between tin chips, copper rounds, and iron bunts all by feel now. And to know the subtleties of silver and gold were but just a dream to me at this point.
A single tin chip fell into the man’s palm. “Brahm’s blessing,” I said, keeping my voice as dry and tired as the ground below us.
The man’s hand closed around the coin and pulled back into the folds of his robes with a fluidity of practice that let me know he’d been a cotton-eyes for a while. The maneuver had been old and familiar to him. He said nothing in return to me, probably having only enough wits and energy to tally the new coin to whatever sum he’d already hoarded, and how much white-joy that could buy him.
The rest of the alley-dwellers left me be, thankfully.
I made my way to the end of the street and turned right, slinking deeper into darker paths off the main roads.
But if you want to keep secrets safe from sparrows and the like, you need to be willing to nest where few birds go, and where fewer still will cheep-cheep about it.
I reached halfway down the alley and stopped before a section of brickworks where the mortar had cracked and chipped away. One particular area had most of the white binding scraped and hacked away, leaving a noticeable space between the surrounding bricks. I slipped my fingers into it and wiggled the block free.
Behind it sat what treasure I could truly call my own. What I kept back in my chest in Mithu’s home had been carefully tailored to not arouse suspicion. But this little hiding place had come to be where I kept the precious pieces I couldn’t bear to give to the sparrows as tithe.
Two small pouches rested in the hole, and I’d amassed what could be considered a fortune to a Sullied boy and sparrow. Two copper rounds and eighteen tin chips. To many, it wasn’t a great deal, but for me the sum could have bought me a month of bedding and meals outside of Mithu’s home and safety.
I looked down at the sum I’d acquired from the trader, sifting the coins through my open palms. Five tin chips and a copper round. A good haul, better than most. But I’d have to keep the proper sum in hand to pass to Mithu. Too much coin would lead him to expect more of me, making it harder to set aside pieces for myself. Too little would earn me punishment and a tighter eye on my activities.
I could afford neither.
The copper round would appeal best to the sparrow patriarch, but I knew the lone coin was too clean an offering. Long gone were the days I could show up with an evenly round number of coins, especially a decent single one. I pushed two of the chips onto the copper and closed my fist.
A good-enough sum to please Mithu and not have him wondering if I’d earned anything more. The remaining three tin chips joined my small collection of coins. I returned the brick and walked toward the other end of the alley.
A sharp whistle screeched down the path from behind me.
I didn’t turn to look and pocketed my coins for Mithu.
The whistle came again. “Oi, little sparrow.” I knew the voice—Gabi, and Thipu would likely be joined at his hip.
Shadh. I didn’t let the swear pass my lips. Nika would be patrolling streets with more sparrows on them, focusing her attention on where lay the greatest risk. My decision to beg for money in a farther part of the quarter meant she’d not get to me anytime soon. And I’d have no family members nearby to catch sight of what was going to happen and run to fetch her.
I sped up, hurrying toward the mouth of the alley.
Feet hammered against the ground loud enough to tell me the two were nearly on me.
My collar tightened around my throat and I jerked backward. Someone had closed a fist around my clothing. I gave them no chance to get in the first blow, spinning and swinging a fist into the side of a face.
My strike connected with Thipu’s cheek, knuckles almost catching an eye. He reeled to one side but the hand holding me didn’t let go.
Because it was Gabi’s grip, and the boy wasted no time exacting the due toll for what I’d done to his friend. An open palm crashed against the side of my head, snapping it to one side.
Iron and salt, warmth and wetness, all filled my mouth.
“You don’t remember what happened last time, sparrow?” Gabi sneered at me, curling his fingers into a tight fist as a clear message.
I spat a pool of blood, striking his nose and watching it splatter across bits of his face. “Do you? Nika pounded you two like the—” Violent crimson painted the world around me until I saw nothing else. Another stream of blood pooled out from a nostril and onto my lips. My nose and everything behind it felt like they’d been used as drums.
I shook in place, knowing the only thing keeping my feet beneath me was Gabi’s strong hold.
He used his other hand to rub a splotch of blood from his forehead. “Think I broke your nose there, little sparrow.”
I couldn’t tell if he was right, but the truth of it hardly mattered in the moment. The pain radiating through my face said there was little difference between a broken and badly battered nose in how much they hurt.
“Looks like the little bird finally learned his lesson.” Gabi’s voice sounded like it came from inside my own head as well as down from the alley.
My vision worked its way back to some clarity and I saw what he spoke of.
Sitting on the ground by my feet were the coins I’d intended to give to Mithu. My tithe. And the only thing ensuring I’d get dinner and that he’d make good on his word about going after Koli.
“Grab them!” Gabi’s bark echoed through the alley and Thipu moved on command, scooping up the coins.
“He’s gotten another copper round. You pull good, huh, sparrow?”
I glowered at Gabi’s lackey. Well, it would be a lie to say the face I made was anything close to that. The sheer act of contorting my mouth tweaked my nose enough to send me into another spiral of red agony. So I settled for narrowing my eyes and hacking up another globule of spit, which I launched at them with all the venom I could.
Thipu reciprocated in kind with a slap he must have learned from Gabi.
My head tilted again and the world streaked white this time. No more blood touched my tongue or my gums, so I counted that as the small blessing it was.
“Been watching you make the runs for weeks now, little shit.” Gabi mimed a pair of legs walking with two fingers. “Knew you’d be coming here. Seen you do it a couple times now.”
Thipu grinned. He looked like he’d like nothing more than to have an excuse to pummel me again.
I didn’t feel like giving it to him.
