Barefoot Pirate (14 page)

A hard hand clamped on her shoulder, jerking her backward
and shoving her through the squeaking door.

A couple minutes later she was locked in her cell, alone.

o0o

“How do you find him?” Joe asked, as he walked with Tarsen
and Blackeye.

“We will show you,” Blackeye said softly.

Tarsen sent a look around, his face comical with his obvious
attempt not to grin, and he said in a low voice, “Some kids love to run the
warts around by writing fake codes and mysterious letters, and letting them be
found. Kids!” He repeated, and snickered. “I love that word!”

Blackeye smiled faintly, but Joe could see she was troubled.
She was calm and efficient as always, though; Joe was glad, suddenly, that no
one expected him to be a leader.

“Goats, bears, kids,” Tarsen muttered, snickering again.

Joe smiled as well. Over breakfast they had compared slang
in their languages. Tarsen’s language had a slang word that worked like the
English ‘kids’ but it turned out to mean bear cubs. Tarsen thought the idea of
children being baby goats was the funniest thing he’d ever heard, and he’d
laughed about it through half his breakfast.

“Here we go,” Blackeye said. “Pay attention!”

They had reached an intersection where four narrow, windy
streets met. Just outside a candle-maker’s shop were three or four kids of
various ages, all playing some kind of game on the cobbled stones next to the
wall of the shop. One small figure with dark curly hair gave Joe an unexpected
pang. Of course this kid wasn’t Benny—a moment later the boy looked up, his
face completely different. Still Joe looked at the kid, missing his little
brother with an unexpected ferocity. What was Benny doing now? How cool he’d
think this world!

Did he miss Joe?

Joe shook his head, disgusted with himself. Here he was, on
another world, with plenty of action ahead. Nobody traveled to other worlds and
got homesick for their little brother. He turned back to the kids playing the
game.

“Hey,” Tarsen said. “Let me in!” Pulling some glass markers
from his pocket, he flung himself down among the other kids, who made space.

Joe glanced at Blackeye for a hint of what he should be
doing. She just bent over as if absorbed in watching the kids play. So Joe
looked down and saw a kind of little mud city, with the kids moving markers
back and forth on the streets. It was kind of like chess or checkers, only with
a city instead of a board. But what did that have to do with their meeting?

Tarsen was busy playing. With yells of triumph and shouts of
insult, he and the other kids moved the markers around almost faster than Joe
could follow. Then Blackeye bent down and flicked a leaf off one of the mud
huts, and threw it into the street. The leaf must have been stepped on, or
pressed in, because it had left its impression in the mud, and under it,
half-buried, was a green marker.

As Joe watched a girl leaned over and her brown hands
reshaped the mud hut, making it smooth again. She threw the marker back onto
the game, all of this without looking up once. Then she went right back to the
game.

After a short time Tarsen let out a howl, the other kids laughed,
and Tarsen swept up his markers. “You think you’re so nacky,” he snarled. “I’ll
be back.”

“And you’ll lose again,” the girl said. “Hah, hah!”

“Hah hah yourself,” Blackeye said. “Come on, let’s go.”

They turned and walked back up the street, turned another
corner, and Tarsen spun around, did a handspring, then straightened up, his
face serious for once. “No one following. We’d better be fast—it’s green-change
right now.”

Green change—noon, Joe translated to himself. Then he
understood what he’d seen. The play city was actually Fortanya, and the marker
in the mud hut with the leaf meant a specific time at a specific building. “Cool,”
he muttered as they hurried through the market-day traffic. These kids were
totally amazing. Just how many of those mean-faced soldiers had walked by,
ignoring the kids playing with mud-pies in the street?

“Are all those kids in on it?” he asked Blackeye as turned a
corner under an old-looking arched bridge with two houses built over it.

“Just the shopkeeper’s girl,” Blackeye replied quietly. “We
have five or six good games that are played with mud-maps. Some of the kids who
play the most have no idea what the maps are really for—even wart kids play,
which is why no one has ever suspected.”

“Wart kids?” Joe repeated, astonished.

But she only said, “Shhh,” as they slowed down and sauntered
along a street whose signs all advertised weavers.

There were wart kids? This idea bothered Joe. He’d assumed
the warts were all creeps—adults. But they probably had families, and if they
did, they brought their kids up as warts. Did this mean they were all creeps?

Not that he could think about it now.

There was nothing that made this shop different from any of
the others. Most offered sail cloth and nautical-related weaving, and some
offered other kinds of cloth. Joe glanced with brief interest at the huge loom
in the back of the room they entered. The huge bolts of cloth smelled of cotton
and some kind of weed, and a little of the dyes used for color.

The weaver was busy with two customers. He gave the kids a
brief glance. “My daughter’s in the back working. Don’t interrupt her long.”

Blackeye and Tarsen nodded, and all three trooped into the
back through a hanging tapestry, where they found several kids sitting on
barrels and boxes as a tall, thin red-haired girl worked swiftly at trimming
and hemming cloth.

Joe looked around at the others, wondering which one was the
leader of all the gangs. None of them looked anything like Warron, who was
Joe’s idea of the perfect leader-type.

Instead, a short, plump boy with a long brown braid hopped
off his barrel and came over to them. “I’m Noss,” he said, his greeny-brown
eyes friendly but searching. “You say you’re from another world?”

Joe grinned at the idea of pretending to be from Earth. “My
name is Joe Robles, and I came here with Nan from the USA. That’s on Earth. What
do you want to know? My knowledge of Earth history isn’t all that great, but I
can tell you anything you want about what kids like, and don’t like, and what
they wear and watch on TV and in movies right now—” Those words came out in
English.

“Hold, hold,” Noss said, laughing as he raised a hand. “I
believe it. All right, what’s going on?”

“The warts got our other off-worlder,” Blackeye said.

Noss whistled softly.

“Do they know it?” the red-haired girl asked, not pausing in
her work.

“If they did, she’d already be dead, and every wart within a
day’s march would be out searching for him,” Noss said, pointing to Joe.

“Can you do anything to get her out?” Tarsen asked, perching
on the edge of a precarious pile of boxes.

“Perhaps,” Noss said. “But not before tomorrow. I’m afraid
we have a long, nasty night ahead of us.”

Joe’s stomach lurched. “Why?”

“Because she’ll get three choices. One, she can get herself
hanged tomorrow. Or she can choose hard labor, which is the way they usually
deal with people our age. Even the toughest warts don’t like to see children
hanged, and Nitre knows it. If that’s her choice, maybe we can do something,
though there’s no way to let her know that, because Nitre makes a point of
keeping people isolated and scared so they’ll make the third choice.”

“Which is?” Tarsen asked, making a terrible face.

“Blabbing,” Noss said. “He promises freedom and silver, and
if he believes them, he offers them a job spying.”

“And if he doesn’t believe them?” Joe asked.

“Then they get hanged anyway,” Noss said grimly.

“Blackeye will come,” Nan told herself firmly. “She thinks
I’m a princess, and she told me the plan she made with that Noss, the leader of
the city kids against the warts.” Nan thought over everything Blackeye had told
her. It was a great plan, and Noss and his group sounded almost as interesting
as Blackeye’s gang, with their map-games for secret communications, and their
many hideouts all over the city.

But as the hours passed by, doubt came, at first in the form
of questions, then of images of what would happen if she didn’t come. Nan tried
to dismiss them, but it got harder and harder—there was nothing to do, she was
tired, uncomfortable, hungry and thirsty again, and on top of it all, cold.

She made the mistake of trying to sleep during the day, in
order to forget her surroundings, which meant that she was awake through the
very long night—and alone with her worsening fears.

What if Joe told them there are no princesses in America? Would
Blackeye think that because she lied about that, she’d lie about the plan?

She rescued Shor and Mican...

Thinking about Mican made Nan angry. For a little while she
daydreamed about telling Nitre all about Mican, just so
he
could spend
some time in a cell. After all, what had she done to him? Nothing.
But he’s
already been in one of these—and was almost killed...

Nan crouched on the floor with her arms wrapped tightly
around her bent legs, her chin grinding on her knees.

After a time, she ran out of what-if daydreams, and had to
face the truth, terrifying as it was: soon—at dawn—they’d come for her, and if
she didn’t tell them what they wanted to know, they might just execute her.

Anger boiled inside her. It wasn’t fair. She’d never done
anything to anyone that warranted being killed over. Maybe Blackeye’s group
had! How long had Nan known them anyway, a few days? Was knowing people a few
days—people who might have hated her, just like people on Earth, if they hadn’t
thought she was a princess—worth dying for? Why did Blackeye have to tell her
stupid plan anyway! Didn’t she know how dangerous that was?

That Nitre promised they’d never know if I told,
she
thought.
I’d have to go away, but at least I’d be alive. And one thing for
sure, I’ll never, ever, get mixed up in this kind of mess ever again. It’s too
dangerous, and I don’t care who is on the throne anywhere. It has nothing to do
with me. I just want to learn magic...

Just want to learn magic, and—

Nan rubbed her burning eyes. She didn’t want to think but
her mind didn’t stop yammering.

She laughed at herself, bitter, hiccoughing laughs at the
great plans she’d had. Oh, yes, she’d become this powerful magician, and go
around saving reject kids and changing people’s lives—only she’d never be in
any danger.
I know what those dreams mean now. I wanted to help people out
as long as it was easy. As long as I was never in any danger.

That wasn’t being heroic. Blackeye was a hero, risking her
life to help others. Parading around with a crown on, or a magic wand, or on a
fabulous horse with crowds cheering along the roadside, those didn’t
make
you a hero. Being a hero had to come first.

Maybe that’s why ordinary folk become warts.

So... did that mean the warts weren’t bad people, they were
scared people? When the ruler was good, there was no problem. When the rulers
were bad, the people stayed quiet and obedient and hoped they could go on with
their lives, that their families would be all right. Facing danger, risking
lives, was someone else’s problem.

But not Blackeye.

Nan thought back to that wonderful adventure at the castle,
and Blackeye talking to her afterward, leader to leader—friend to friend.

Blackeye trusts me not to talk. And if she can’t trust
me, who can? If I learn magic, will I turn into a rotten sorceress, one who
can’t be trusted? I think I’d rather go back to scrubbing floors for Mrs.
Evans...

Except that was no longer a choice.

There was only one choice before her now. And one of the
alternatives meant that there might be no more choices—ever.

o0o

Joe sat hunched over his mug of hot cider, brooding.

They were back at the inn, and had just had dinner. Tarsen
chattered with unimpaired cheer with the others, as if nothing was wrong. Joe
tried to feel some encouragement in this, but it was tough. The real fact was
hard to escape: it was very likely that the kid he’d come with was either going
to hang or else blab about the plan, which meant they might all be in serious
danger.

He stared down into his cup, his insides knotted with tension.
The kids here were not playing a game. This was for real—and despite his wish
all his life for some adventure, he knew he didn’t want to play for keeps. He
didn’t want to face a bunch of trained soldiers who would just as soon skewer
him because he was one of Blackeye’s gang. No after-school detention here, no
probation officers, no juvenile court.

A hand thumped onto his shoulder, making him jump so hard he
splashed his cider. He looked up into Warron’s dark, slanted eyes.

“Time for a run,” Warron said.

“Now?” Joe’s body ached at the mere thought.

“Got to get into shape,” Warron said with a slight shrug.

Joe opened his mouth to plead a stomach ache—which was true
enough—but Tarsen gave a merry laugh. “The thing we need most!” he declared.

“‘Tis true,” Sarilda proclaimed from behind. “Take our minds
away from poor Nan, and Nitre’s filthy dungeon.”

Joe swallowed his protest and followed the others.

Pretty soon he was sweating freely despite the fine rain
falling in the chill night air as they sped down the narrow, twisting streets. At
least the rain seemed to wash the streets clean enough that his feet didn’t
hurt at every step. He pounded along next to Tarsen, working hard to keep pace
with the kid who seemed to run without expending any effort at all. Joe wished
that he had gone out for sports with Terry’s enthusiasm, because he’d be in
better shape.