Will Sparrow's Road (2 page)

He loaded apples onto his blanket and slid carefully down from the tree. Slinging the blanket over his shoulder, he took a large bite of an apple, which crackled and spewed sweet juice. Too bad trees did not also bear cheese, he thought. Or chickens. Or almond tarts.

The forest had thinned enough to offer little cover, and walking on the road would be easier and gentler on his bare feet. It would be worth the risk, he decided. Not knowing the direction he had come from, he did not know whither he should go. Finally he shrugged and turned to his left, where the road led over a hill and down, munching as he walked.

As the afternoon wore on, a summer rain, blustery and heavy, began. Hooded shepherds drove soggy sheep through the meadows, and laborers hurriedly gathered grain ere it was ruined in the wet.

The rain meant there were fewer people about to notice him, but Will grew sodden and sorry, and he finally looked for refuge. In a field of lean, tired-faced cattle was what appeared to be a cowshed, near to tumbling down but offering at least walls and a roof.

The floor of the shed was carpeted with old straw, which smelled strongly of cow and horse and rat. The straw was damp with what Will hoped was only rain, but mostly the shed was dry, and he would be off the road there and hidden. Hanging from a nail on the wall was a canvas sack, which he took down and filled with his apples. He pulled off his wet shirt and wrung it out. The button was gone from the collar. It must have happened when the innkeeper grabbed him. Will mourned the button—not everyone had a shirt with a button. He pictured the button bouncing onto the floor of the inn and into a crack, never to be seen again. Or mayhap picked up by a visitor, who put it into the pouch at his waist with a prayer of thanks to whatever saint had sent him so fine a thing as a button.

He sighed as he hung the shirt from the nail to dry and, spreading his blanket on a pile of straw, lay down to sleep, soothed by the rhythm of the rain on the roof.

Awakened after minutes or hours, he did not know which, Will heard the sound of someone coming into the shed. He jumped up, shouting, "Avaunt ye! Go away! I have a sword!” and prepared to hurl apples at the intruder, but a sudden glimmer of moonlight peeping through the cracks in the walls showed him it was a woman. The innkeeper would not have sent a woman after him, Will thought, so he dropped the apples back into the sack, though he stood still and wary.

"Quite a palace you have here, boy,” the woman said. "I have in mind to share it, an it please you. It be raining fit for Noah out there.” She did not wait for his agreement but threw herself onto a pile of straw. "Who might you be and what do you here?”

Will said nothing but backed up and held tightly to his sack of apples.

"Skittish, are you, boy? I mean you no harm.”

Still Will did not answer.

"Nay, do not leave me in silence,” the strange woman said. "I am wet and tired and would have some amusement. You had best talk to me, or I will tousle your hair and tickle your toes and generally bedevil you as I did my brothers.” She laughed loudly. "I be Nell Liftpurse.”

"Liftpurse? You be a nipper!” Will said, startled into responding. And he held tighter to his sack.

"Some say nipper. Some say pickpocket. I say I do but take advantage of opportunities ... and I be most nimble.” She lifted her hand and waggled her fingers. Her hand was marked with a
T,
branded into the flesh.
T
for
thief,
no matter what she said, thought Will. He himself was too clever and too slippery to be caught ever again. He was Will Sparrow, liar and thief. Still, he looked at his own hand holding the sack and rubbed it gently.

"Now tell me,” Nell Liftpurse said, "who be you and what do you in a cowshed?”

Unwilling to be tickled or tousled, Will, with a grimace of reluctance, finally told her his name. Then he gulped. What if she had been sent to find him? Or mayhap she would later meet someone who sought him? Here he was, telling his name to strangers in cowsheds. Some poor runaway he was! He shook his head. He had spoken already, so "I be on an errand for my father,” he told her, "and, like you, found shelter from the rain.” It sounded convincing enough. "My father be, uhh, sheriff, aye, sheriff of this county, very rich and very powerful, and I be his most treasured son.”

The rain still pelted down, and Will was in no hurry to be on the road again, so he dropped onto the straw and put his sack of apples behind his head like a pillow. Wrapped in the blanket, he studied Nell Liftpurse. Even in the poor light, she looked a colorful person: plump red face, white teeth, sky-blue kirtle under a bodice of buttercup yellow, and fine reddish hair peeping out from beneath a soggy green hat. And boots, sturdy boots of heavy leather. Will's bare feet tingled at the sight of those boots as she pulled them off and wiggled her toes with an "Aaah.” Mayhap she would fall asleep, and the boots could find their way onto his feet and out the door and her all unaware. Will Sparrow, clever and slippery, liar and thief, would have those boots.

Nell threw the boots behind her, leaned over, and thumped Will on the knee. "Where you goin' to?”

"Nowhere,” he said, tugging his mind away from her boots. "I be goin' from.”

"A runner, are ye? Least little thing goes wrong and ye run.”

Will's temper boiled over. He sat up and grabbed the bag of apples. "'Little thing,' you say? My father traded me to an innkeeper for beer. That be no little thing.” Will's anger was mingled with an odd bit of pride: certes no other father in the world misprized his son so.

"My own daddy, he ne'er would have done as yours did,” Nell said, lying back in the straw. "We lost our land when the scurvy lord took it. He dammed the river, and the whole village disappeared beneath a lake he used for mock sea battles. We was eight and no mam, but ne'er did my daddy think to rid himself of us.” Nell frowned and was silent for a bit. "Your own father, you say? May turnips grow in his nose! Why, had I a son like you, a brave and bonny boy, I would ne'er treat him so.” She slammed her fist against the straw-strewn floor. "Were the man here,” she declared, "I would cuff him about his ears, I would.”

She panted in outrage for a moment and then asked, "What be in that sack you're cuddling like a babe? 'Twouldn't be someut to eat, would it?”

Will clutched his sack of apples. "Nay, 'tis nothing. Only the ... the remains of ... of ... a cat. An old cat. I did pledge to my dear granny that I would bury her cat ... er, in a sunny place. Aye, in a sunny place by a stream, and so I will.”

Nell still looked curiously at the sack, so Will added, "He do be starting to stink some.”

Nell shivered and waved him silent. His apples, Will thought, were safe.

Of a sudden there were voices calling in the field outside. Nell jumped up. "Do someone seek ye?” she asked.

Did they? Will shrugged, then nodded, then shrugged again. Was the innkeeper still on his trail? Or the carter?

"I aim to hide myself, boy,” Nell said, "burrow into that straw like a mole. You might do the same, and they will find no one here.” She gave him a small shove. "Go. God save ye, boy,” she said. She shook her head. "Traded for beer, the poor wee wretch.”

Will slipped into his shirt, still damp from the rain, and crouched in the corner, pulling great masses of straw over himself. He would hide just long enough for the voices to pass, and then, before Nell showed herself again, he would have her boots and be off. Will was grateful for her sympathy, but boots were boots.

Pieces of straw poked in his mouth and tickled his nose. A sneeze began, and grew, and grew. Will muffled it with his arm, but then came another and another. He wiped his soggy hand on his breeches and waited. Had he given himself away?

The voices outside came nearer, and Will heard someone say, "Mayhap the baggage is in the shed.” And the door swung open and shut.

Had they come in? Will's heart pounded so loudly, he was certain it could be heard even to the next county. Belike he would be back at the inn before morning. His belly grumbled at the thought.

There came a shout from outside. "There she goes!”

And another: "Nellie, girl, we got you now. Nellie! Nell?”

"Blast it,” said the first voice. "Where has the she-devil gone?” and their voices grew fainter as they moved off.

Will was bewildered. Gone? She was gone? Was she not hiding in the straw? He stood up, brushing straw from his hair and his clothes and his mouth. He was alone. The men had not come
in.
She had run
out.
And they had called her Nell. They were after her all along and not him! Horses and thieves were worth following and recovering, but he was not, it appeared.

He looked around the shed. Nell was gone indeed, and so too were her boots. And his blanket and the sack of apples. Gone, the lying thief, the villainous harpy, may maggots build nests in her hair!

He opened the door and peered out. No one was there waiting for him, so he stepped outside. "Begone and stay gone, you baggage!” he shouted. "I hope my apples gripe your guts and rats eat your toes right through those fine boots!”

It appeared Will Sparrow was not the clever thief he thought himself, for he was left with no boots, no apples, no blanket. Outsmarted by a woman! Nell had acted kindly toward him and then stole what little he had, the foul and ugly toad. Fie upon it, he would not make that mistake again. He would speak to no one, listen to no one, and let no one get close enough to take what was his.
I care for no one but myself,
he thought, kicking at the straw-covered floor,
and nothing but my belly. And boots.

Fie on Nell Liftpurse, the hag! Fie on all women! He had nothing good to say for them. His mother had run off when he was small enough still to need a mother. No more than five he was when she left, the selfish wretch. Will hated her and hoped she was grown ugly, crooked, and wartish.

His stepmother, the green-eyed Ysabo, who had appeared before his mother's chair was cold, had left them soon after for the miller, who was pockmarked and stooped but had promised her two new dresses and fresh bread every week. She told Will so before she left, their last chicken under her arm.

He hated both of them but especially his mother, with her silver gilt hair and her soft laughter. Fie upon her! Thinking of his mother grizzled his liver, so he shut the memories away as if in a cupboard and locked them in.

Will felt the dawn chill on his face. It was time to go. The rain had stopped, and the fading moon was yet bright enough to light his way. He was far enough from the inn, he thought, that it would be safe to walk on the road as long as he kept his wits about him.

Snuffling loudly, he kicked at a puddle. No one was seeking him here. He was not worth that much to the innkeeper and worth nothing to his tall, redheaded father, the Devil take him! Village schoolmaster the man had been, insufficiently learned though handy with the switch, but a man of some consequence until his wife left and he took to drink, forfeiting his position and his friends and his prospects. "'Tis your fault she be gone,” Will's father told him often. "She could not abide you, and no more can I. Look at you, you dark, skinny runt. I mistrust you are mine. A changeling, most like, left by fairies when they took my own son. My real boy...” He mewled and blubbered like a babe, lost himself in drink, boxed Will about the ears regularly, and sold him to the innkeeper.

Will picked up a rock and hurled it at the nearest tree. He was no changeling! Will hurled another rock. Although he was not tall and redheaded, nor soft and silver haired, but small and dark, he was no changeling. He was Will Sparrow, wary and sly, liar and thief, with knobby knees and a gap-toothed smile. He could whistle through that gap, spit through it, and thrust the tip of his tongue through it when he thought or wondered or worried, as he did now.

Will was alone, farther from home than he had ever been, with no plan, no one to depend on, no one to trust. He took a deep breath of the rain-washed air. In sooth, everything lay ahead of him. He was no inn boy, no chimney sweep. He was free and on the road to somewhere. A tiny flicker of hope flared in his belly.

IN WHICH WILL EARNS
BUT IS CHEATED OF A SUPPER

T
HE DAY
grew hot and late-summer dry, and the puddles disappeared in the sun. Tired of walking and weary in his bones, Will trudged through the brown grass.
Scritch-scritcha-scritch,
it sang as he walked, and he was suddenly attentive.
Scritch-scritcha-scritch.
If he put one dirty bare foot on the road and the other in the grass, he could change the tune:
thud-scritcha-thud.

By moving back and forth from grass to road, he could make music:
scritch-scritcha-thud-thud, thud-scritcha-thud. Bump-bumpa
went a rock as he kicked it, and Will added that to his song.
Scritch-scritcha-thud-thud, thud-scritcha-thud-bump-bumpa.
He chanted it aloud as he walked:
Scritch-scritcha-thud-thud, thud-scritcha-thud, bump-bumpa-bump-bump.

So intent was he on his music making that he nearly walked into a wagon parked at the side of the road.

"Watch yourself, boy,” a voice said, "or you will end up with a bump-bumpa-bump-bump on that head of yours.”

Will stopped, ready to run, but saw from the corner of his eye what appeared to be a giant tooth wobbling in the breeze. Surely his pursuers would not chase him in a wagon topped with a giant tooth.

"I see you admiring my embellishments,” said the man with the voice, who was standing next to the toothed wagon. He was shaped much like an egg: small at the top and bottom and rounded in the middle, stuffed into a padded doublet of stained and spotted green. "I be Doctor Hieronymus Munster,” he said with a little bow, "tooth puller and traveling purveyor of remedies. Need you extraction or distraction or satisfaction, I can likely provide.”

Will said nothing and resumed walking. The man was not the innkeeper nor the carter who would take him to sweep chimneys, but as likely as not he was up to no good. Will's encounter with Nell Liftpurse had taught him that wary as he was, clever and slippery as he was, it was not enough for a boy in a world of grown-up liars and thieves.