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work for the lazy
son of a hire-sword.  Odd that he should be called such, considering the
efforts he made to find any work at all to do.
    Pate and Allen clearly enjoyed his downfall.  Several
times Marik had passed the taverns his former master frequented, hearing his
bellowing and guffawing through a mouthful of half-chewed food.  He would hear
his own name drift through the common room’s noise in Pate’s rumbling voice. 
On a slower night he could distinguish their words.
    “What’d I tell you?  Amounted to nothing in the end. 
Just a leech on the town.  Now that his mum’s gone he’s showing his true
colors.  Never comes in anymore, and after all the effort I put into teaching
him the best practices in the business!”
    “Yer right there!  Spends the day wandering around the
town, beggin’ from people, I hear.”
    “Don’t none of you men throw him so much as a crust,
you hear me?  Not a crust!  We don’t need to be encouraging his kind here. 
This is a decent town, by the gods!”
    Decent, my ass!  As if you taught me anything except
how to sweep out your garbage!
    The throbbing in his hands made him aware how
painfully tight his fists were clenched.  If Pate had appeared before him then,
he might have attacked!  That would give the town something to talk about,
wouldn’t it?
    He avoided Pate’s places of patronage from then on,
though he still ran across Allen and his friends despite his care.
    “Hey, dropout!  What’s the matter with my da’s shop? 
Honest sweat too good for your Highness?”
    “Go on!  If ya stay ‘round here, I might forget myself
and clean my shoes with ya!”
    “A beggar boy!  You want my left over bread here?”
    One would usually throw a heavy object near at hand. 
The next time it happened, Marik felt certain someone would end up hurt.
    Tattersfield had become a prison.  A hellish purgatory
existing for the sole purpose of tormenting him.  Rail must return
soon!  Marik needed to leave, yet feared departing on his own.  He had no clear
idea what there might be for him beyond Tattersfield, or how to go about
surviving until he found it.
    All he knew was that he wanted badly to see his father
again.  Except Galemar was enormous.  How would he ever find Rail out there by
himself?  Best to stay where he knew his father would turn up eventually, his
logic insisted.
    But every day he felt the chains wrapping tighter than
the day before.  If he did not decide what to do soon, this town might break
him forever.
     
    *        *        *        *        *
     
    Although everyone else showed him a cold shoulder,
Puarri still held kindness in his heart for a friend’s son.  Marik sat at a
corner table, eating a bowl of stew, when a set of familiar faces walked
through the door.  At first he struggled to place them before the memories
returned.  He watched the one with a scar on his neck and hair dangling over
his eyes throw an arm around the sullen man’s shoulders, rhapsodizing over the
decor in an exuberant manner.  The sullen one seemed irritated by his friend’s
antics, while the shorter one simply walked past them to claim a seat.
    It was the trio who had been in the tavern that night
his mother fell ill.  They must be.  Back in the summer they had been traveling
through the town.  Right?  Marik struggled to recall the memory as best he
could.  Puarri arrived to offer food and drink.
    The sullen one asked a question as the jester pulled a
pouch from his belt.  It sounded like he wanted news of the road ahead.  Hadn’t
they asked that before as well?  Yes, Marik thought they had.  They looked to
be fighters traveling from place to place, but not in uniforms or with a
commanding officer of any kind.  So they could not be a lord’s retainers or
with the king’s army.  To Marik it added up to mercenaries, which might be
useful, might it not?  Ideas rushed into his mind.  He felt a few links in the
chains binding