Day Boy (14 page)

I can taste the dust. It's red, sticks to the back of the throat, all that iron.
Dain said we're each and every one of us dust, and that's half the reason why the
city exists.

I hawk up a spit at my feet. It comes out chalky and red: it bubbles.

‘You ready to do this?' Grainer asks.

I nod. Course I'm not, but life don't hand us ready. Ready is an illusion. ‘Let's
go.'

Grainer grins, gestures down at the road. ‘Only you for this. Though there'll be
distraction. Be ready when it comes.'

I walk into the markets, clothes dirty, a smear of red mud down one cheek; clean'll
stand out, Grainer had said, and here and now I can see the truth in it. No one looks
like they've bathed in the past week. Just the dust for some.

The streets are narrow, the buildings high. I push my way through, everything tingling,
more people here on this street than in all of Midfield, feels like. I take the next
corner, and there's the shop. But before it there's a butcher's. Wonder how old George
is, back home. I push my face against the glass. I can smell blood. There's roo and
venison hung, shocked of life by blade and gravity. Butcher catches me staring, shoos
at me with a hand clenched round a cleaver.

Next door is where I'm headed. Hardware painted on a sign hanging out front. I walk
past it once, plenty of people there for cover. I might just get away with this.

Somewhere behind me I hear whistling.

Sounds familiar, might as well be Dougie. Swells me a mite, brings a tear to my eye,
and I hurry back to the shop, to show that I haven't lost my nerve. The door jangles
as I open it, eyes turn, but none linger. That's something.

The place reeks of steel and commerce, as Dain might say.

There's big round hessian bags, and the bags are filled with
nails. There's even
a bright yellow scoop for each, like these are sweets—which throws me right back
to Mary's shop, and Anne, and I haven't got time for mooning on the past.

I flick a gaze towards the counter, a man with a hard face is working there and he
catches my eye, and I know at once that he knows what I'm up to. So I flash him a
grin and half expect him to come over, but he just gives me a dark look. Too busy
or too lazy or too fed up with thieves.

I survey the bags, give them the once-over. There's the ones smudged with red paint
and I'm tempted just to reach in, snatch what I need and foot it, but I can feel
eyes burning into my back.

I know predators, I know that prickle of a patient stare. You don't catch a thief
before they steal, you wait and catch them as they're doing it. Proof incontrovertible,
as Dain would say—although it never stopped him from jumping to conclusions.

If I had a watch, I'd be checking it right now.

Good that I don't. There's a bang outside.

‘Roof's coming down,' someone cries. And heads are craning. I'm finding it hard
enough to ignore myself.

Another bang, cursing and howling.

I slip my hand careful and quick into the nail bag, passing the scoop, and draw out
ten of them red nails, then I'm through the door and running, stepping light over
shattered tiles, and a man's on his arse looking stunned, head streaming with blood.
No one cries and no one follows, and I take the turning streets, following those
that rise up towards the mountain.

Grainer slaps my back a block away.

‘Did you see our distraction?'

‘Did you have to hit a man in the skull?'

Grainer shrugs. ‘Blood's the best theatre, my Master used to say when he was feeling
playful. Fella's not dead. Barely clipped him.'

‘So how'd you do?'

I show him the ten, and he frowns. ‘I was hoping for twenty.'

You could bottle the disappointment dripping from his lips. This boy's trouble, and
he's all that stands between me and the streets.

Twenty! I'll give him twenty.

The red-headed nails are long and hard and heavy, I slap them into his hand, and
walk back. There'll be no distraction this time.

Twice in one day. I hover around the door, waiting for business, and when it comes,
when those at the counter are distracted, I step lively to the nail bag. Ten, then
twenty, then thirty.

I grab them, and turn to the door.

‘Thief! Thief!' comes the cry.

Hands grab at me, and I'm swinging out with a fist full of nails. I make it to the
door and out and I don't stop running for several blocks, until. Until I'm somewhere
utterly unfamiliar. But then this whole place is unfamiliar.

People look at me, then look away when they catch my eye. I feel transparent, but
there's no fear there.

‘Hey!' someone cries, and I turn. Grainer. I come at him, my hand still tight around
the nails. He takes a step back; he can see my rage, and the hurt in it.

‘You always yell out thief the second time?'

Grainer raises his hands. ‘It's how we sort the wheat from the chaff. The crim from
the dim.'

I shove the thirty nails into his palm. ‘Don't you do that again.'

Grainer lets the nails drop. I feel my jaw go with it.

‘Never needed the nails,' he says. ‘There's a baker's door across, you were the distraction.
Come. Come home, there's bread for your belly.'

And I can't help but laugh.

It's three days of thieving, and I get pretty good at it. Grainer's a teacher, and
his lessons are sharp. But I get cocky. Cockier.

A bakery, noonday crowd, a fresh shelf of loaves. Me and Grainer. A hand closes tight
around my wrist. ‘Don't think too highly of thieves around here.'

Grainer's already gone, faster than smoke. Three loaves of bread missing, and the
baker's shaking his head at the floury shadows on the shelf.

‘Day Boy,' I say. ‘I'm a Day Boy. My Master is Dain.'

The baker's lips purse. ‘And your Master still wants ya? Don't look like you've too
long left in ya.'

I nod my head. ‘I swear it. I got lost, had to steal to survive.'

‘That story won't earn you much sympathy here, boy. Streets are a-plague with the
likes of you.' He folds his arms across his chest, there's flour all over them, they're
the kind of arms that could beat out a sorry, and I'm not feeling too sorry. ‘I'm
sending for the Constabulary, and they will get in touch with your Master. Let's
see if ye've been replaced.'

‘He wants me, he does.' I nod, looking contrite, looking desperate, and maybe I am.

The baker frowns, still considering whether a beating's the more satisfactory option.
Close thing. But he makes up his mind. ‘You better hope he does. Ain't much of pleasant
that happens in the halls of the coppers.'

The baker sends out the scowliest and smallest of his apprentices to find the cops.
They're not long coming, and all that time the shopkeeper keeps his eyes on me, and
the door locked. No escaping for me.

Four of them come, and they're big men like those who waited at the gates, though
better dressed and harder eyed. The biggest of them jerks a thumb at me.

‘This the thief?'

The baker nods. ‘Says he's lost his Master.'

‘Has he now?' He crouches down before me, eye to eye. ‘We don't look too kind on
thieves and liars.'

‘I'm not lying,' I say.

‘You better hope you're not,' the constable says, and they take me from the shop,
marching me in silence along the street, past Grainer, who hardly gives me a look.
There's strong hands closed around my arms, dragging me to the great tower of the
Constabulary. Even if it's where I want to go, I can feel the heat of shame, hundreds
of curious eyes studying me. But we're left alone and by the time we reach the lock-up
I'm almost happy to go through its great brass doors. Swallowed up by the heart of
the Law.

We pass some dire things on my way down the halls to the cells. The hardest sort
of men breaking. Them that aren't broken make me realise just what sort of thing
I play at, and that it's just a game. Nothing tough about me. I could be snapped
in two and worse by these fellas.

‘You,' they shout. ‘You. Come play. Come and play.'

They grab at their crotches, they blow kisses from pursed lips and mouths with teeth
all cracked. And some just stare with eyes dark and cold.

‘Quiet, all of ya. Quiet!' The constable says, and it works some, or maybe they're
just done with their play. Still, quiet or not, I feel them staring.

And when we're past the worst of them, walking by men that hunch in their cells and
sob, the constable lets go of my arm.

‘Men can be the worst monsters of all,' he says with some kindness, shutting me in
a cell by myself. ‘You'll be out of harm here. I'll call your Master's university.'

He must see my confusion, because he smiles a thin smile. ‘We've a line here, direct
with the city. Not some backwards little town, we've working phones and all.'

‘Thank you,' I say. ‘What's your name, sir?'

The constable shakes his head. ‘Ain't gettin' no name out of me. I was a Day Boy
once,' he says, ‘now I'm this. Boys don't stay boys long.'

He smiles and gives me a long look. ‘You're old enough to know that, stupid enough
to ignore it. Time's running down for you, either way. You've choices ahead that
will need tending to if you are allowed them.' He shakes his head. ‘Running. You
should have never run. They look hard on it, specially those that decide to come
back. There's a weakness to it. And you know what they think of weakness, even the
good ones. Are you sure you want me to call your Master?'

‘I'm sure,' I say, and I sound it: even if he's lit a bit of doubt in me.

‘Your Master's a good one, then,' he says.

‘Yes,' I say.

I'm left alone in that cell. Hours go by, nothing to pass the time so I spend it
thinking of home: the way the streets are straight, none of this curving of the city.
The curves are what surrounds us, the ridge of trees that runs behind the town, and
the scrub that trails away behind it. And I think of the orchard, and Anne, and Mary
and the boys—those boys all strutting and laughing and mocking like they rule the
world.

It's a long enough wait that I'm half certain this is it for me.

And then the shadow of a Master falls across the bars of my cell.

‘So you have chosen to be found, eh, boy?'

I lift my head and Egan's hard gaze is upon me.

CHAPTER
20

EGAN CAN'T STOP smiling, and here I am in this cage.

‘He says he belongs to a Professor Dain,' the constable says with a touch of tremor
in his voice, and who wouldn't?

‘I'm sure he does,' Egan says. ‘And it is, shamefully, true; if not for long. I'd
come to the city to find this one. I never quite expected he would find me.'

I look at my shoes.

The constable clears his throat. ‘I have some small use for him, sir. Now that I
know he's spoken true. We've troubles that he might know about.'

‘Look at me, boy,' Egan says, and I do, because I have no choice. ‘Tell him whatever
you know. And don't lie, I can tell when you're lying. The whole world can.'

I do what I'm told. I tell him about Grainer and the other boys, and it stings a
little. But what do I owe them? Grainer ran out on me.

When I'm done, to the constable's and Egan's satisfaction,
Egan reaches into a pocket,
pulls out a gold coin—Sun stamped—and presses it into the constable's palm. ‘For
your trouble,' he says.

‘Ain't no trouble,' the constable says, but he doesn't hand the coin back. ‘Not like
some of them that come through here, why, just the other d…' His voice drops away,
he's seen Egan's absence of interest. You never bore one of them, and that's a fact.
‘Ain't no trouble,' he says, then glances to some papers, clears his throat. ‘I best—'

‘Yes, yes,' Egan says. ‘We have taken up enough of your time.'

We all know whose time we've taken up.

I smile, and I get a glare from him that chills me to the marrow. ‘Come with me,
boy,' Egan says, and his voice is a cold blade. Of course, I follow him. I don't
want to all of a sudden, but I do.

There's a carriage waiting for us: Egan gestures that I get in. And when I do he
follows, and there's not a hint of humour in his eyes. Perhaps I should have shut
my mouth and taken my punishment for the theft.

He taps the roof ceiling and the carriage jolts forward.

‘So. You know the scrambling life now,' Egan says. ‘Didn't take you long to find
your feet, however shakily. Dain taught you something at least, even if you have
showered him in dishonour.'

I look away, at the city passing by, those sodium lights. The haze of dust, the smell
of diesel, coke and horses.

There's more silence. We pass through the gates, the city behind us, and ahead of
us. All the light of that deep city and it illuminates Egan's displeasure.

‘Master Dain, is he all right?'

‘I am here, am I not?' Egan says. ‘We do not see eye to eye on much. But I used what
influence I have to return here.' Egan turns his gaze upon the city. ‘Dain was sent
home. You ruined him, broke his heart. My Grove is looking after him. I was ready
to hunt for you, and now—here we are. You and me.'

‘I am to go home?'

Egan nodded. ‘For a little while. No more than a year and probably less. You will
train your replacement, a new boy due in a few weeks. But all this is nothing and
nowhere yet. We've a sharper task ahead. You've been summoned by the first ones,
the ones made on the sixth day of the world: the Council itself. They do not like
it when boys run, it sets the wrong example. Surely you were aware of this. Dain
did not keep you that ignorant, or perhaps he trusted you more than you deserved.
We are to head there directly, and then home.'