“Faithless little musk cat! Didn’t I tell you to stay and tend to the dipping! And here I find you mucking about on the beach, with the tallow gone hard in the pot. They’ll be wanting more tapers up at the keep this night, and what am I to sell them?”
“The three dozen I set this morning. That was all you left me wicking for, you drunken old sot!” Molly got to her feet and stood bravely despite her brimming eyes. “What was I to do? Burn up all the fuel to keep the tallow soft so that when you finally gave me wicking, we’d have no way to heat the kettle?”
The wind gusted and the man swayed shallowly against it. It brought us a whiff of him. Sweat and beer, Nosy informed me sagely. For a moment the man looked regretful, but then the pain of his sour belly and aching head hardened him. He stooped suddenly and seized a whitened branch of driftwood. “You won’t talk to me like that, you wild brat! Down here with the beggar boys, doing El knows what! Stealing from the smoke racks again, I’ll wager, and bringing more shame to me! Dare to run, and you’ll have it twice when I catch you.”
She must have believed him, for she only cowered as he advanced on her, putting up her thin arms to shield her head and then seeming to think better of it, and hiding only her face with her hands. I stood transfixed in horror while Nosy yelped with my terror and wet himself at my feet. I heard the swish of the driftwood knob as the club descended. My heart leaped sideways in my chest and I pushed at the man, the force jerking out oddly from my belly.
He fell, as had the keg man the day before. But this man fell clutching at his chest, his driftwood weapon spinning harmlessly away. He dropped to the sand, gave a twitch that spasmed his whole body, and then was still.
An instant later Molly unscrewed her eyes, shrinking from the blow she still expected. She saw her father collapsed on the rocky beach, and amazement emptied her face. She leaped toward him, crying, “Papa, Papa, are you all right? Please, don’t die, I’m sorry I’m such a wicked girl! Don’t die, I’ll be good, I promise I’ll be good.” Heedless of her bleeding knees, she knelt beside him, turning his face so he wouldn’t breathe in sand, and then vainly trying to sit him up.
“He was going to kill you,” I told her, trying to make sense of the whole situation.
“No. He hits me, a bit, when I am bad, but he’d never kill me. And when he is sober and not sick, he cries about it and begs me not be too bad and make him angry. I should take more care not to anger him. Oh, Newboy, I think he’s dead.”
I wasn’t sure myself, but in a moment he gave an awful groan and opened his eyes a bit. Whatever fit had felled him seemed to have passed. Dazedly he accepted Molly’s self-accusations and anxious help, and even my reluctant aid. He leaned on the two of us as we wove our way down the rocky beach over the uneven footing. Nosy followed us, by turns barking and racing in circles around us.
The few folk who saw us pass paid no attention to us. I guessed that the sight of Molly helping her papa home was not strange to any of them. I helped them as far as the door of a small chandlery, Molly sniffling apologies every step of the way. I left them there, and Nosy and I found our way back up the winding streets and hilly road to the keep, wondering every step at the ways of folk.
Having found the town and the beggar children once, they drew me like a magnet every day afterward. Burrich’s days were taken up with his duties, and his evenings with the drink and merriment of the Springfest. He paid little mind to my comings and goings, as long as each evening found me on my pallet before his hearth. In truth, I think he had little idea of what to do with me, other than see that I was fed well enough to grow heartily and that I slept safe within doors at night. It could not have been a good time for him. He had been Chivalry’s man, and now that Chivalry had cast himself down, what was to become of him? That must have been much on his mind. And there was the matter of his leg. Despite his knowledge of poultices and bandaging, he could not seem to work the healing on himself that he so routinely served to his beasts. Once or twice I saw the injury unwrapped and winced at the ragged tear that refused to heal smoothly but remained swollen and oozing. Burrich cursed it roundly at first and set his teeth grimly each night as he cleaned and redressed it, but as the days passed he regarded it with more of a sick despair than anything else. Eventually he did get it to close, but the ropy scar twisted his leg and disfigured his walk. Small wonder he had little mind to give to a young bastard deposited in his care.
So I ran free in the way that only small children can, unnoticed for the most part. By the time Springfest was over, the guards at the keep’s gate had become accustomed to my daily comings and goings. They probably thought me an errand boy, for the keep had many of those, only slightly older than I. I learned to pilfer early from the keep’s kitchen enough for both Nosy and myself to breakfast heartily. Scavenging other food—burned crusts from the bakers, sheel and seaweed from the beach, smoked fish from untended racks—was a regular part of my day’s activities. Molly Nosebleed was my most frequent companion. I seldom saw her father strike her after that day; for the most part he was too drunk to find her, or to make good on his threats when he did. To what I had done that day, I gave little thought, other than to be grateful that Molly had not realized I was responsible.