Bard: Chapter 29

The man’s face was as red as a beet. His eyes bulged with each shouted word, and veins stood out on his forehead and neck. Spit flew from his lips with each furious bellow. Liam stood a pace in front of him, keeping his expression impassive and making sure the shouting man didn’t get any closer to the woman Broff was talking to behind him.

Broff had been training him in the guard for a month, and their days had been fairly uneventful. There was the occasional drunk or a fight that needed to be broken up, but those were easy enough. Several times they’d been called to take report on a theft, but despite Broff’s insistence that such reports were investigated by others in the guard, Liam hadn’t seen anything come of them.

This was the first thing that had put him on edge. The man was livid, blood on his knuckles. The woman was weeping, bruised, her face bleeding. Liam was glad that Broff was taking care of talking to the woman and making sure she had a safe place to go, but he wasn’t sure how much longer he could keep a straight face while listening to the man rant and rave. He had been going since they had arrived and was only getting louder.

“She’s not fucking listening!” the man howled.

“She doesn’t have to listen to you,” Liam muttered. He knew it was a mistake the moment the words left his mouth, but the self-righteous bellowing was getting old.

If possible, the man’s face went even redder, and his rage became entirely focused on Liam, rather than the woman talking to Broff. He drew back one big, calloused fist–still marked with the woman’s blood–and took a swing at Liam’s head.

Liam ducked out of the way, and the man staggered forward, throwing himself off balance. He might be built like a bull, but Liam was accustomed to staying out of the way of much quicker opponents. Based on the scene when they’d arrived, the big man was probably a lot more used to his opponents cowering and crying. Liam put a hand on his sword–guards only carried one. Laura would have already put a knife in him, which was why it was probably for the best that she wasn’t there. Liam grit his teeth and kept his sword sheathed.

The man whirled, spitting with rage and drew his knife

“Now see here!” Broff barked, coming alongside Liam. He jabbed his finger in the man’s direction. “I’ll have you in for assaulting a member of the guard!”

Liam couldn’t tell if the man heard him or not. Regardless, he lunged, swinging his knife so wildly he was unlikely to hit anything whether or not his target moved. Broff jumped aside, but Liam got the man by the wrist of his knife hand, yanked back his thumb, and let him stumble forward and away as his knife hit the ground.

“Right,” Broff spat, unclipping the manacles from his belt and closing in on the staggered man. “You’re coming in.”

It was a long walk back to the guard’s hall, but the raging man was much easier to deal with without the use of his hands, even if he wouldn’t shut up about how he had every right to beat a woman if he wanted. Liam was glad to hand him off to someone else.

“You’re quick, you are,” Broff commented as they walked back out on the street. “Where’d you learn to do that? You got brothers?”

“No brothers. I have a sister,” Liam said. “She’s good with knives.”

Broff laughed, slapping Liam on the shoulder. He probably assumed he was joking, but Liam let the matter lie. He was just glad Broff didn’t ask any more questions about it. While his references in the city were good, Liam wasn’t at all sure how the guard would feel about the time he’d spent running for Vultan, so he’d rather keep it to himself.

The rest of their patrol was mostly quiet. People avoided them, and seldomly made eye contact. They walked the market, being visible and hopefully deterring anything bad from happening. Broff described his different patrol routes again, and told stories of previous arrests, some of which didn’t even make Liam’s stomach twist.

Liam was just starting to think of a reason to break away from his mentor for a few moments, when a shout went up from the far end of the market. A produce vendor waved them down.

“Thief!” the woman shouted, pointing at a boy darting off into the crowd. “Thief!”

“After him, lad,” Broff instructed, and Liam took off.

It was tough to keep the boy in sight in the crowded market, but he was the only one laboring under a large bag–undoubtedly the goods he had stolen. Liam just kept up, until the boy dashed into a side street and away from the market. It would give him more space to sprint, but it made it easier for Liam to keep up as well.

The boy was fast, and clearly knew the area better than him. Liam had to admire how he ducked under carts as they rolled by and used his smaller size to his advantage, squeezing into spaces Liam couldn’t. In the end though, Liam had a much longer stride, and wasn’t carrying a bag that was nearly his size. The boy slowed as he came to the end of an alley, either checking his exit or just plain exhausted. Liam overtook him, snatching the bag out of his hands.

“Hey!” the boy shouted and grabbed at the bag before he realized who had taken it from him. He glared up defiantly.

“It was a good run, kid,” Liam said, giving him a nod, “but I have to take this back.”

The boy let out a frustrated cry, but said nothing. He stood, glowering, while Liam looked inside the bag. It was full of potatoes.

“Was this a dare or something?” Liam asked. The boy didn’t look like he was starving, and he didn’t have the eyes of someone who knew how to cut your hamstrings either.

The boy’s lower lip shook. He opened his mouth to reply just as Broff caught up to them. He grabbed the boy by the upper part of his arm, pulling him around and unclipping his manacles.

“Gotcha, little thief!” he exclaimed. The boy shrieked in protest.

“We got everything back,” Liam said as Broff put the boy in irons. “There’s no harm done.”

“Anyone caught thieving gets taken in and registered,” Broff responded, keeping a hand on the boy’s arm and leading him away. “That’s the policy.”

“He’s a kid,” Liam pointed out. “He can’t be a day over nine. Honestly I don’t know how he could run with the bag.”

“The age of the person doing the thieving doesn’t matter,” Broff insisted. He gave Liam a look of benign commiseration. “I know it seems extreme at first, but we have a certain way of handling things for a reason. He won’t be small forever.”

“Right.” Liam swallowed any further protests. It rankled him that a boy stealing potatoes got the same treatment as a man who assaulted a woman in the street, but the older guard wasn’t going to listen. Something in his gut warned him that Broff would only be understanding of his first few protests, and no more. Aggravating him wasn’t going to help the boy either.

They returned the potatoes, then walked back to the guard hall and handed the boy off, just like the raging man. Liam was glad when his shift was over.