The Gully Snipe (The Dual World Book 1) (7 page)

The instant he was outside, he walked back and behind the tavern where he set the satchel down long enough to turn his surcoat back right-side out. As he walked back out of the alley from behind the tavern, he glanced at the driver sitting upon the carriage and laughed to himself,
would that all my thefts were this easy!
He even wondered if he should have told the driver that veBasstrolle wanted him to bring up his moneypurse as well.

Gully began strolling down the road in the opposite direction, his step much lighter than when he had started out that day. Despite the poor weather, he whistled an airy tune the way he remembered his father doing.

~~~~~

Gully slipped into Roald’s apartment, finding it the same as he had left it that morning. It had been cramped before Astrehd had passed away the year before with the three of them there. Had Roald’s father been alive when Gully came to live with them, it would have been unbearably crowded. But Roald had almost a comfortable amount of space now that it was just him most of the time. The far end had a humble stone fireplace with a few pots next to it. The bed he and Roald had always shared was on the backside of the room. Roald had removed the wooden bed his mother had used and reclaimed the space for the luxury of a small garderobe — a honey bucket in the corner and surrounded by a heavy piece of fabric for a little privacy. He had obviously been thinking of Gully when he put it in since there was little need for something like that if he expected to be alone. There were a few stools and one wooden chair with a short back to it sitting around a small eating and work table, and then a short bench in front of the fireplace. Another longer, narrow table against the front wall served as the larder by way of some baskets for provisions and a couple of water jugs, which Gully was happy to keep filled for Roald at the public draw.

The apartment seemed a little emptier without Astrehd’s seamstress tools and materials and her washtub for when she took in some occasional washing for others. All that was left of his parents was a piece of fabric adorning a wall that his mother had embroidered with a view of the Folly, and then a few glass pieces his father had made.

Gully sat the satchel down on the rough wood table, causing it to wobble slightly on its one foreshortened leg. He stood, hands on the table, and stared at the bag, ignoring the water dripping off of his face and his surcoat he was so fascinated by it. He opened the leather flap and took the cheese and mead out, his mouth practically slavering at the very sight of them.

The desire to cut into the cheese and enjoy it now, to drink the mead and let it cushion the rest of his day, was almost agonizing. Gully sighed and pushed it to the far side of the table; he would resist and save it. Roald was to be done with his watch later that night and Gully would share it with him. It would be great fun to tell Roald the story of his adventure and how he came to have such a fine cheese and mead, but Roald strictly forbade that kind of talk from him. Roald always said it was bad enough knowing items were stolen, but knowing the details of his crimes made it far worse.

Gully emptied his surcoat pockets so he could take the wet garment off and dry himself until Roald returned, laying his moneypurse, his small leather roll of lock-picks, and the ground chicory out on the table. As he doffed his surcoat, he decided he would allow himself a hot drink of the ground chicory instead of the prize cheese and mead. Roald liked a chicory drink as well, so he promised himself to save most of it for his foster brother.

He busied himself stoking up the fire with a poke or two and then hanging a small pot of water in it for his chicory drink. While the water was heating, he sat down in the chair and examined the leather satchel with more care. It was a fine bag, well-crafted of a thick leather, and Gully regretted he would have to toss it somewhere. The leather was conspicuously and finely tooled with the veBasstrolle crest, characterized by the noble family’s ancestral stars in the middle — the constellation of the Watch Tower.

His fingers ran across the supple hide, feeling the dips and ridges of the embossed insignia. Gully wondered how much a fine quality leather satchel such as this would cost. He thought it would probably cost 4 or 5 crowns at least, as much as a peasant farmer, such as the good man Brohnish, might make in an entire year working on veBasstrolle’s land.

Gully set the satchel aside and took the hot water from the fire. He prepared his chicory drink and resumed his seat so he could savor it. While he waited for the chicory to cool a bit, his hands found the satchel again. This time, he looked inside. It was empty, which had made it a convenient tote for the cheese and jug to begin with. But as he examined it, he looked in a leather pocket sewn into the inside, where he found a piece of parchment.

He took it out, unfolded it, and found that it was a letter. He pulled the chair over to the fireplace so he could better read the note by the light. He had to work slowly at it, forming each word in his mouth one by one. His father had taught him to read a little, but he was still slow at the task. Roald was much better at it since he had to be able to read, and even write, as a member of the Guard. Gully had never learned to write his letters or how to spell words.

Slowly, he sounded the words of the letter out loud, which read:

My Dear C.,
I hope I do not have to emphasize this to you again, but you cannot arouse suspicions with what you round up to sell to the Maqarans. We must be of one mind on this matter. Too many will cause questions and unrest.
However, whatever of the forest animal kind you catch, let yourself feel free to sell them for as much as you can get. The only thing to remember is that you must cut their tongues out first as always, and they must be delivered with the silver binding as required. As long as you can honor those requirements, you have my blessing with respect to the animals. Sell all of the vile lot to Maqara for all I care.
K. D. ~ 22 Waning Winter, Year 385 IR

Once he had worked out the words of the message, Gully began to puzzle over its meaning. It had been written during Waning Winter of only the previous year, so it wasn’t very old.

It was addressed to “C”, which Gully thought could possibly be Lord veBasstrolle himself since the head of the noble veBasstrolle family had the given name of Chelders. The initials K. D. had no familiarity to Gully at all and he was at a loss as to who had authored the note.

The content of the letter itself was mildly curious. It would make sense that veBasstrolle would be trading with the Maqarans since his fief bordered the Sheard Mountains. And it was unremarkable that he might be trading animals with them in addition to fruits, vegetables, and herbs. But the nonsense conditions the Maqarans placed on the trades were certainly queer. Brohnish had been right that the Maqarans were a strange people to demand these things for the privilege of trading livestock and wild game with them.

Gully dug down into the satchel to see if he could find any other letters or objects that might be of interest, but found nothing. He tossed the letter into the hot embers of the fireplace to dispose of it and settled back to sip his chicory, letting his mind drift back to the topics he and the peddler Brohnish had discussed while the piece of parchment burned to ash.

In all the years he had been searching, he had never managed to find anyone that knew or even recognized his father. Even given how he and his father kept to their cabin in the deep woods most of the time, they did go to the cities on occasions, so it seemed to Gully that
someone
old enough would surely recall him. If there were such a person, though, Gully had not discovered him yet.

It was painful to feel no hope for his father, and yet it was painful not to be able to give up on looking for him, either. If he didn’t search for him, then what was his life? Who was he?

We are all born somebody, Di’taro, but whom you choose to become is all that matters.

The very words his father, Ollon, had spoken to him on more than one quiet evening while he sat in his father’s lap in front of their fireplace cut into him. He had done what he had to do so that he would not abandon his father, so that he would not forget the one person who meant more to him than all others, so that he could remain the son of Ollon. That was whom he chose to be, and he accepted the good and the bad that went with it.

He leaned back in his chair and sipped the bitter chicory, letting the slightly woody, slightly piquant liquid rest on his tongue before swallowing it down.

One day, he would find someone who knew something, anything, about his father.

The best thing that could be said about rain in the city of Lohrdanwuld and the muck and foul odor that accompanied it is that, regardless of how long it lasts, it needs must all come to an end sometime. Gully set the platter with the Grand Glenoval cheese and some dark bread on it down and looked up at the wide expanse of the sparkling sky above the benighted city. He lay back on the roof of the apartment for a moment to take it all in. The stars were brilliant now that the rain had drifted off to the north and the air had dried. The trickster moon was still occupying her wide swath of the western sky, only a slim crescent very dimly lit to no more than a sooty gray while the rest of her disc was almost a pitch black hole in the sky. It would be hours yet before the laughing moon made her appearance, illuminating the world below in her cold but vivid light as she dashed across the firmament. The only other light came from the myriad twinkles and sparkles of the variously colored stars — the constellations of the Iisen nobility’s lineage with the stars of the rest of the Iisendom’s people filling in the nooks and crannies between them. To the east, towards the Kelber Pass city gate, he could make out the dark outlines of Kitemount and the mighty Thayhold, and then Kelber Peak to the north. If Vasahle had already been out, Gully would probably have been able to see the top of the Folly’s castle from his vantage point.

Even in the best case, it would still be some time before Roald was relieved of his watch and allowed home, so Gully permitted himself some time to relax before going back down into the apartment to fetch the mead. In the dim light, he could barely make out the posts standing up on the roof of the apartment and could not see the taut cords running between them at all. Roald had mostly removed the few items in the apartment that belonged to his mother that were no longer of use, but the lines up on the roof where she had hung wash out to dry for others were left undisturbed.

Down below, on the street that ran past the apartment, Gully could hear the faint sounds of people passing every so often, or the clopping hooves of a sturdy half-mule bearing a burden when it probably preferred to be in a stable asleep.

Gully scratched at his palm and lay back. He had gotten his hopes up earlier when he found out that Brohnish had frequented the South Pass Road. The effort and time to reach East End by way of the South Pass Road and East End Road was almost equal, but most chose the East End Road since it followed the edge of the wood rather than plunge directly through its heart. The darkened woods of the South Pass Road were too daunting and frightening for all but a few. Gully had seen the infrequent cart of fruit and vegetables making its way to or fro along the South Pass as well, just as the peddler had.

But Brohnish had recalled no memory of his father. Gully couldn’t help but feel helpless that one day soon, if he found no one with a memory of him, he’d start to doubt whether his father ever existed in truth. Perhaps, as a child, he had merely conjured the man out of thin air.

It was a feather-headed thought and Gully put it out of his mind angrily. His father was real, even if he was the only person in the world ever to recall his face.

He had had the intention to stay in Lohrdanwuld a week to put a few more coins in his pocket, but now Gully resolved that he would leave the next morning. He would go back to the cabin, he told himself, to check on it, although a deeper part of his mind wanted to prove it really did exist, and thus did his father, too. And once that was accomplished, he would begin to search the northern half of the Ghellerweald with a more organized zeal than his few forays of the past.

His purpose renewed, Gully went to fetch a few mugs and the jug of mead.

An hour later, and still with no Roald, Gully allowed himself a small taste of the cheese. It was everything he had heard such a fine cheese would be; it was smooth and rich, with the cracked peppercorns it was made with causing the flavor to practically dance on his tongue. And once he had sampled the cheese, it was forgone that he would need to sample the mead as well. No sooner had he worked the cork stopper out of the glass jug did the aroma hit his nostrils. And it wasn’t just a mead. It was a plum mead, the scent of the fruit mixing with the alcohol and honey and making his mouth water. He poured a small amount into his mug and tasted it, letting the flavor of the fruit and the sting of the alcohol roll through his mouth and down the back of his throat.

He instantly put the cork back in the mead and pushed the platter with the cheese away. Roald must arrive soon or his willpower would fail him and his foster brother would arrive to nothing but a platter devoid, an empty jug, and a fattened Gully Snipe.

Gully was in luck that night, as no more than another ten minutes passed before he heard Roald’s boots on the steps leading from the street up to the apartment door. When Gully was sure he had reached the landing, he let out a brief, peculiar whistle that Roald would know was his so his brother would know where to find him. There was another wait of a few minutes for his brother to put his sword and daily armor away, and then Gully heard the boot steps again ascending the narrow stairs to the roof.

“I’m glad you whistled,” said his brother, “or I would have wondered what had befallen you today.”

“No chases in the streets today, and none of your fellow swordsmen got flipped onto their backs like helpless turtles, I swear to you,” said Gully.