he serviced remote demand whilst hooking up with his father for heavier work. He was often away with the army, lugging that great ceramic wagon with him, but he’d always return. And the wealth flowed plenty. Ironically, it was probably strange brother three who would be most successful. That was funny.
Even son number four had something, if only a mediocre education. At least their father was paying for a fourth education, threadbare as it was given the silver that flowed to the priests. Number five had nothing. He was nothing, the boy who wasn’t a girl, and he had to live with that every day. Every day for ten years and counting.
But he did have something more than all of that. He liked to understand things, just like Queen Delfin did. And he had the enthusiasm to persist. He had unjustified and incredible passion. It was just a shame he had nothing to focus that passion on.
“Oi, Jossie.”
And his passion counted for nothing when he was called Jossie. That name would always curse him.
He kept walking, sped up even. Someone calling his name could only mean one thing: bad news. No-one knew his name, unless it was to mock. And mockery usually became plain old bullying soon enough.
He was weaving through the early morning streets of Triosec, trying to avoid those who taunted him. He kept his head low, hitting the main artery and targeting a magnificent building that was set back. It was all stone, with a shallow but elegant sloping roof, and it was a wonderful sight. That was his home, or at least his spiritual home, and that was where he was headed. It was the oasis of his torment. It was his sanctuary.
But it was also where his passion manifested itself most fully, because that building was the library, and in those dusty old tomes he was even able to dream. Those times galvanised him for what lay back in his real home; the smithy. That was the life he tried to forget.
He shook his head and thumbed the book in his hand, appreciating the relief of the leather. There was such artistry here, even in the construction of the volume, and the passion that such perfection drove in him was insatiable. It almost made him want to skip.
“Oi, Jossie.”
The streets were near empty, which was the point, but apparently not empty enough. He looked down to the dust-caked mud-veined road. This was the centre of Delfinian power, and yet the decay was overpowering. He glanced left and right, almost despairing of the poor maintenance, even at his young age. All it would take to re-affix that door was a well-placed hammer and a true nail. But iron was expensive, and steel was nearly precious, so the door just leaned there instead, against the frame. Barely a door at all. But the streets were still in use, and the ignorant strolled by with barely any recognition of the perishing town about them. And this was the hub of Delfinia. It was so sad.
Perhaps other people were too busy to notice the decay? They certainly rushed around a lot. But the neglect in the city suggested a lack of pride in its people, and that seemed strange. These citizens had great potential ahead of them – far more than he did – so why did their passion not burn bright? Even he could, at a stretch, imagine raising this city from the ashes of its distress. Or at the very least, he could fix that door.
“Oi, Jossie. Get back here!”
Of course, it was the Mandari who had left this great nation in this state, stealing as they had the finest principality: Ahan. He had read that as part of his learning, his study, and that story resonated with him in a deep way. Ahan had been lost a hundred and fifty years ago, but the loss was still raw in the Delfinian psyche. And more than that; Ahan was where it all began, where Queen Delfin launched her revolution. That loss was therefore a wound that would never heal until Ahan was reclaimed, and as a child of Delfinia, it resonated with him. Perhaps if Ahan had not fallen, then Delfinia might not be in this state. And then, perhaps he may not be the fifth failure of a blacksmith.
Perhaps; perhaps not. Could he really blame the Mandari for his own sad predicament? Could he blame the Mandari for a life in the gutter?
“Now!”
Fists swept from the alley and grabbed at his shirt, trapping him to their will. Why had he not spotted the ploy? He turned to face his captor, and he gulped. But it was not unexpected.
“Hello little Jossie.”
The boy of sixteen sneered at him, all rancid breath – like he’d been long on the booze – and a row of desiccated teeth, yellow and browned. He whimpered. It had been a while, he supposed. He had to look on the bright side.
The filthy alley seemed to darken threateningly. The exits would already be covered. The biggest bully, a young man of nineteen called Beef – a reference to his intelligence perhaps? – came up behind and laid hands on his shoulders, resting a block of a jaw on his mop of hair. He instinctively puckered his arse. He might be needing that later.
“Be gentle, Chick. This one’s delicate.” In his head, he liked to call them the Farmyard Friends. He’d never actually say that though.
A hand left his right shoulder, and he tensed instinctively. He gulped, not taking his eyes off Chick, but sensing Beef behind him. The expected punch came soon enough, and the pain scorched his lower back such that he crumpled to the floor. The laughter was foul.
“Whoops. I broke her.”
The sniggering from the group crawled all over him. He was nine years Beef’s junior, so how was it that this idiot still sought out the pleasures of the bully? He supposed that even low filth had the pleasure of wiping their feet on the lower scum. He was rock bottom, and the best solution was to stay concealed. It had become a game of ignorance and deception, this dance with the Farmyard Friends, and he was quite good at it. But not good enough. They always found him eventually.
“Are you going to take her?”
That voice crawled out of the shadows and grabbed him by the throat. It was familiar; too familiar.
Brother four, Brin, stooped out of the gloom and pulled up behind the gang leader. His breath would have caught if he hadn’t been winded. That was his brother!
And yet this wasn’t the same young man from the smithy. This Brin was different. This was not the downtrodden glare that brother four normally wore. This creature had a disturbing lust in its eyes.
“Nah, not this morning. I had my fill last night. You wanna go, Brin?”
The look of his brother sharpened for the briefest moment, but then subsided to what could only be interpreted as disappointment. Presumably then Beef was unaware of their family ties. Either that or he was sick, which was, admittedly, not without the bounds.
His brother seemed to consider something worrying, but thankfully he shook his head. The rest of the group turned down the offer too, which was nice. His sphincter relaxed. Then he had to smother a laugh as a cough. The Farmyard Friends probably didn’t even know what a sphincter was.
“Let’s just punish her for the insolence, shall we?”
What insolence? At least this was the easy way out.
When the young men had finished with him – his brother at least restrained from the beating – his entire body was a rich tapestry of punishment. One eye was swollen shut, and the other was a weeping mass of pain and scorched light. He was also certain that a rib or two were cracked, but that pain barely registered. His near-crippled hand clawed at the dusty ground, and his attackers sniggered at their victory. One final jab to the lower back and he vomited instinctively. Then he lay his face in the acidic discharge.
“Come on boys. I think she’s had enough for one morning.”
So much pain; so much humiliation; so much hatred. As he tried to lift his cheek from the vomit-puddle, red-hot tremors scorched, and he dropped his head. It hit the ground with a wet slap. His vision faded, and the last thing he saw was his library book being ground into the dirt. In some ways, the desecration of that fine artistry was the saddest part of all. A tear escaped and his mind faded to black.
________
When he awoke, the city was alive with noise. The
heat on him suggested it was near to midday, if not early afternoon, but there was no way to tell. Not while he was still face down in vomit.
To be fair, the sick had now dried, and he was tempted to stay there indefinitely. If he didn’t move, the pain stayed quiet. Feet moved horizontally and absently in front of him; the busy patter of shoppers and self-important people. None noticed Jossie. None noticed the near-to-death ten-year-old laying at the side of the road. Why would they? They were busy.
He reached out for the ruined carcass of his book and caused a woman in a long colourful robe – a fashion which was perversely imported from Mandari Ahan – to trip, hopping herself to rights. She spun around, looked right at him, witnessed the state he was in, and scowled.
“Watch it.”
Most likely she thought he was a drunk. A ten-year-old drunk. Looking at him, what was there to help? He was beyond help. He couldn’t blame her. There was no point in any case. The anger swelled deep within, feeding his passion, fuelling the stubborn resolve to consume all he was offered. But on the outside, to the world that mocked him, he was maudlin. Sad. What good could come from his outward objection? And besides; he didn’t have the right. He held his anger coiled deep within, as he always had done.
It was definitely mid-afternoon by the time he dragged his sorry carcass into the library. He recognised the