Casket of Souls

watching from a distance and awaiting their chance.
    Silvermoon Street was the grandest avenue in the city, home to both the royal Palace and the villas of the mostprominent nobles. Alec happened to be on duty in his one-armed beggar’s garb when he saw a carriage leave and caught sight of the duke’s face at the open window. Instead of heading for the Street of Lights, however, the carriage went west.
    It was an easy matter to follow. It had been another muggy day, and many nobles were out taking the air in carriages, on horseback, or on foot. The heavy traffic made for slow going.
    Alec’s dirty, bandaged face and empty right sleeve drew a few disgusted or pitying looks, but little surprise, beggars being a common sight in all parts of the city. His hair was well hidden under a grimy head rag.
    He nearly lost the duke when the carriage turned into Emerald Street. Alec narrowly missed being trampled by a band of drunken horsemen as he dodged across the street, managing to keep the carriage in sight until it turned in at the carved gate of one of the larger villas there, one they hadn’t seen Reltheus go to before.
    The gates remained open but were guarded by several armed men in green livery. Alec waited a few minutes, then limped over to the open gate, holding out his wooden begging bowl. “Penny for a cripple, kind sirs?”
    One of them took out a few pennies and tossed them into his bowl. “Go on now, boy.”
    “Maker’s Mercy, sir. Who’s the master of this fine house?” Alec asked. “Does he have a heart of charity? Maybe a crust in the kitchen?”
    “Marquis Kyrin can’t be bothered with the likes of you!” another guard told him. “Now get before I take my cudgel to you.”
    “Bad luck to hit a beggar,” the kind one said.
    “Worse luck to have the marquis find this creature hanging around the front door. Go on, boy, off with you!”
    Satisfied, Alec made them a fawning bow, then limped away to take up his position across the avenue beneath a tree, waiting for it to get a bit darker to have a closer look. Kyrin had been mentioned in Princess Elani’s letter. Sitting on the ground, he set his bowl in front of him and began to rock slowly back and forth, droning his tale of woe.
    “Maker’s Mercy, kind people, a penny for a cripple,” hewhined, keeping his gaze averted from any sharp-eyed acquaintances. Most people ignored him, but some paused to toss a coin or two in his bowl.
    He wasn’t the only one begging among the rich; there were more about this summer than he’d ever seen in the city. Half a dozen other ragged folk had staked out a position as he had, or wandered among the crowd, bowl in hand. A hollow-eyed man with an equally hollow-eyed boy on his shoulder passed by and gave Alec a nod. Some of the rich citizens were generous with these unfortunates; others simply averted their gaze, or looked through the beggars as if they weren’t there. There was no doubt that their sort wasn’t welcomed here, as Alec soon discovered.
    Before he’d collected the price of a cheap meal, rough hands hauled him to his feet and he found himself surrounded by five blue-coated men of the City Watch. One of them ran his hands down Alec’s sides and gave him a nasty grin as he felt Alec’s perfectly good arm hidden beneath his dirty peasant’s smock.
    “By the Flame, look what we have here,” he exclaimed loud enough for some of the well-dressed passersby to hear. A few even stopped. One of them was Lady Mallia, a good friend of theirs, on the arm of some blond nobleman Alec didn’t recognize. Alec kept his head down, heart hammering in his chest.
    The bluecoat tore the shoulder of Alec’s smock open and yanked his arm out. “You know what the penalty for false begging is, my boy?” he asked, giving him a hard shake.
    “Pity, your honor!” Alec mumbled.
    “Twenty lashes in the Tower,” one of the other bluecoats informed him, as if Alec didn’t already know. “And the pillory. Let’s see what we have here.”
    He reached for the bandage shrouding nearly half of Alec’s face. Mallia was looking on with evident pity, murmuring something to the gentleman with her. One of the bluecoats still had Alec by the arm. The other four had him hemmed in pretty well, and most of them were a good deal taller and heavier than he was. Before the one reaching for his face could touch the bandage, Alec twisted his arm free, droppedinto a crouch, and sprang between two of the men at knee level,