Chapter 5: The Stray Boys - Scene 3 (excerpt)
One of our amateur-sleuths, Ryhunzo, a young noble, who is a page of Prince Anaxantis, has disguised himself as a peasant boy to gather information about the murder of a young girl. In a tavern with a varied and colorful patronage, the Cranky Goat, he makes the acquaintance of a group of orphans who call themselves the Stray Boys. He congratulates himself on blending right in and is in high spirits. Then nature calls….
Once outside, his eyes, still adjusted to the dark inn, blinked against the bleak afternoon sun. His nose told him where the outhouses were. The stench was so revolting that he wondered why Agneth had felt the need to warn him for them. He guessed most people preferred going into the nearby fields and patches of wood to take care of business. Ryhunzo removed the cap which he had kept on inside to hide his unruly curls, stuck it halfway under his belt, and walked up to the ditch that marked where the grounds of the tavern ended. He opened the flap on the front of the coarse pants. The fresh wind tickling his dick made him giggle and shudder with delight. He let out a grunt of relief and satisfaction as he guided his urine stream to fall upon a thistle that grew on the edge of the ditch.
He heard steps to his right and turned his head to see who it was. Olno too needed to empty his bladder apparently, but his stream was a lot stronger and landed with a clattering sound in the ditch.
“Nice afternoon for the end of Stormer, isn’t it?” Ryhunzo said.
“If you say so, my lord… I mean… Yes, Ry.”
Ryhunzo concentrated on his urine stream as if it were very important that it kept drenching the thistle. There fell an even more awkward silence than the one not so long ago when they had first met.
“What gave me away?” the page asked eventually, his voice completely devoid of its usual sparkle.
“Everything. Almost everything.”
“For instance?”
“For instance your hands.”
“I took great care to make them dirty before I came here. I dug a hole somewhere in the woods, not far from here, to that end alone. Afterwards I wiped my hands on my pants.”
“That may be, but it’s obvious that if you wash them in a bucket with water—even without using soap—they will be clean again. Ours won’t. The dirt is lodged firmly into the grooves of our palms. Our fingernails are chipped. Yours are… not.”
I paid three sarths to the barber-physician of the castle to clip them, Ryhunzo remembered.
“And your clothes… It’s clear you haven’t slept in them. Not a single night. Either they’re freshly washed or they’re brand new.”
“Both,” Ryhunzo mumbled, downcast. A hundred and twenty sarths Varsia the seamstress asked for them, and they didn’t disguise me for an hour. It was a mistake, but, even if I had somehow thought of it, where was I to get used clothes without drawing attention to myself? He closed the flap in front.
“Were you bored, my lord?” Olno asked. “Did you think it would be fun roughing it a bit and mingling with the village lads? Don’t you have your own waterhole, exclusively for young people of your exalted standing?”
Ryhunzo closed the flap on his pants and tied the laces.
“Yes, we do, and it’s boring. I didn’t come here to make fun of you guys, if that is what you’re thinking.”
“You must understand, my lord, that we’re even more lowly than the town boys, than village boys, more lowly than peasant boys even. We could get in trouble for looking the wrong way at a soldier, let alone at a young nobleman such as yourself. We might have a good time this evening and exchange jokes. Tomorrow one of us greets you in the street and you might think him presumptuous.”
“I would never… I would never turn on you like that.”
“So you say now, my lord, but tomorrow is another day. Besides, it doesn’t have to be you. Your highborn friends might think you were insulted. It’s not easy being us at the best of times, what with Lorseth Castle, the garrison, and His Highness so nearby.”
“Olno, please don’t tell the others… I was—”
“Enjoying yourself? Having a good time?”
“Yes. Yes, I was. What’s so wrong with that?” Ryhunzo shouted, suddenly angry with frustration.
Then he noticed that his outburst had made Olno cower away from him.
And I said I wouldn’t turn on them… “I’m sorry, Olno,” the page tried to remedy the situation. “I didn’t mean to frighten you. Please, don’t tell—”
“They know, my lord,” Olno whispered, slumping his shoulders. “They already know. I can tell by the expression on their faces. Even you should be able to tell, especially when you look at Agneth.”
“Can’t you keep calling me Ry, at least?”
“If you wish, my lord… eh…”
Ryhunzo laughed out loud, his curly hair shaking in the wind. It made him seem younger than he actually was and completely harmless.
“I haven’t told you yet, but I am one of the prince’s pages and as long as we are in his service we’re not supposed to use our titles. I think it’s meant to teach us humility or something. By the way, my name is Ry, but I usually go by Ryhunzo. Not a long story, but I’m not telling it all the same. Who knows… maybe, later, when we get to know each other better we might change our minds, you and I both.”
“You’re planning to come again then?”
“I need to. One of my friends is in trouble and I need information to clear his name. You see, I didn’t come here just for the fun of it.” Ryhunzo blew a curl from before his left eye. “Though I did enjoy myself.” He grinned.
“You think we know something that could help your friend?”
“Or maybe you can help me find out something that could help him.”
Olno remained silent for a while.
“I understand you want to help your friend, my lord, and maybe there was a good reason you wanted to conceal who you are.” He hesitated. “This would be easier if you told me what it is you want to find out.”
Ryhunzo took a deep breath.
“I need to find out who killed a certain girl of the town. Who really murdered her.”
“I see,” Olno sneered. “Because it couldn’t possibly be your noble friend who killed her, could it? Unheard of. One of you noble brats in heat courting a town girl, making her heart race, telling her sweet lies, and, after using her, throwing her away like a used handkerchief? Impossible.”
Ryhunzo understood Olno’s anger, but it still took him some effort to remain calm. He managed it, remembering how scared Olno had been at his outburst only moments ago.
“I’m not saying that.” The page kept his voice even and conciliatory. “You could very well be right, though I have reasons to think otherwise. Just one of those reasons is that this particular noble brat was in love with the girl. He was hoping to marry her, but she disposed of him like a used handkerchief when she learned his father had disinherited him.” He looked Olno straight in the eyes. “For wanting to marry a commoner girl,” he added.
Olno had listened with open mouth as he realized who exactly they were talking about.
“Iselda. The girl’s name was Iselda, wasn’t it?”
“Yes.” Ryhunzo confirmed. “You knew her?”
Olno gave out a disdainful snort.
“We knew of her. We’re the dregs of the town. I don’t think she would ever have acknowledged our existence, so far beneath her kind are we. Or that’s what she thinks… thought, anyroad.” He frowned. “Maybe it wasn’t your friend who did her in, but it still could have been one of you nobles, you know.”
“I’m well aware of that possibility, and I couldn’t care less if that was the case. Let them hang whoever killed her, for all I care. If you knew Eynurm like I do, you’d know he never could have murdered her. It’s not in his nature. I won’t vouch for the other pages, though. A lot of them are stupid bullies. Or worse.”
Ryhunzo must have sounded earnest enough to make Olno waver.
“I heard you asking after the daily takings, if I’m not mistaken. You meant money, didn’t you?” the page asked.
“We need to eat, my lord. We need new clothes once in a while and… stuff.”
“I’ve hung around in the market place but I didn’t learn much. You saw right through my disguise, so maybe others did as well. If I understand you correctly several pages like to go around in peasant clothes.”
“One or two. Not several. Peasant or merchant clothes. More of the latter than the former.”
“Maybe people can easily detect us?”
“Probably, my lord. It’s not enough to just put on different clothes. You can’t erase the life you’ve led until now. The way you bear yourself, the confidence you exude, the way you don’t look out for food, or don’t finish it, the way you talk… it all betrays a kind of breeding we simple folks don’t have.”
“That’s exactly why I need you,” Ryhunzo said, flashing his most charming smile. “You’re the real thing. I need the real thing to be my eyes and ears—”
“I never agreed—”
“How much are your ‘takings’ usually?”
Olno stared at the page, deliberating whether he would tell.
“Between ten and twenty sarth a day, sometimes less.”
“Aha,” Ryhunzo crowed. “I’ll pay you. I’ll pay you ninety sarths for the first two days of work. If I find out what I need in a day or even a few hours, I’ll still pay you ninety sarths. I’ll pay an extra thirty sarths for each day longer I need your services.” Ryhunzo tilted his head and grinned. “Come on, it’s a good deal.”
For the first time Olno laughed too.
“Yes, it is, my lord,” he conceded, “and we need the money. But why not make it an even hundred sarths?”
“I’ll pay you ten sarths extra to call me Ry and to forget that stuffy ‘my lord,’ okay?”
This time it was Olno’s turn to laugh out loud.
“You’re a strange one, that’s for sure.”
“You’re not the only one who thinks so.”
“Fine, let’s go back inside. I’ll tell the others that you’re all right and we’ll go sit at a table apart, you, me and Agneth. He’s my… he’s my—don’t laugh—lieutenant.”
“Why would I laugh? The only thing I find strange is that he seems a few years older.”
“He is. I offered him the position of leader of the group, such at it is, a few days after he joined us, but he declined. ‘You were the leader, you stay the leader,’ he said. ‘You have the brains and I haven’t,’ and that was an end to that question.”
“A good man.” Ryhunzo said while they entered the back door of the Goat. “Every leader needs men like him. Prince Anaxantis has several.”
Dagger of Deception is the first Rahendo & Ryhunzo Mystery.
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Welcome Wanderer,
He ate his breakfast—dark bread, beans, and a little piece of salted pork—with relish. The simple, honest food was thoroughly satisfying.
