Naomi’s stomach churned and rumbled, reminding her that freedom didn’t mean much if you starved to death. She didn’t bother checking her tent; there would be no food to be found there. Gazing across the city rooftops at the way heat already rose in waves from their white plaster, she considered waiting for nightfall. But, she’d had no luck last night, and not eating for a second day would make her sluggish. Any longer, and she wouldn’t be able to dodge the hands of men as they tried snatching her from the street.
She tightened her brown sash belt to keep up the loose flax fiber pants that were too big but would last a few years yet, then she pulled a yellow scarf from her pocket and tied it around her head to look more like a boy. With a stub of charcoal from another pocket, she looked into a mirror fragment to draw a reasonable looking kima, or guild mark, in the shape of a downward facing dog’s paw onto her left cheek. The pel’janeshi guild of messengers and errand runners were one of the most numerous in the city, and it raised no suspicion to see a dog’s paw marked boy running between guild territories freely without having to pay the business tax or receiving harassment from other guild houses. If there were any guilded in this city who could be considered close to being free, it was probably the pel’janeshi. But even they had their masters, and they were often turned into sacrificial scapegoats when inter-guild cooperation inevitably fell into accusations and bloodshed.
Still, the mark would serve its purpose as long as she kept her head down and followed the lines in the sand, or paradunes as they were called; the ever fluctuating and never physically drawn borders of the guild territories within the Orynthis capitol city of Ka’veshi. Every citizen of Ka’veshi kept a mental map of who owned what street, and rumors spread quick as the summer wind when ownership changed. To lose your way along the paradunes could lead to debt and disaster, even for a messenger.
The dog’s paw was easy enough to draw, and she smiled at her handiwork in the mirror shard. Her rumbling stomach broke apart her self-admiration, so she placed the mirror back into her tent and grabbed the leather messenger bag she’d pilfered from a trash heap. It had only needed minor repairs. The latch on the front had to be held down by a bent metal hairpin and it had a roughly sewn patch on one side, but it functioned well enough and gave more credibility to her being a messenger boy. Tucked inside was a forged message vague enough to be intended for the head tallymaster for whoever’s guild territory she found herself in, should she become mired by some suspicious fool who had no respect for the unspoken laws of the Ka’veshi streets.
She could only read a few words of the message herself, which was more a good thing than bad. Messengers were as trusted for their illiteracy as they were respected for their quick legs and silent tongues. Reading was for tallymasters and those rich enough to read books instead of worrying when their next meal would come. You couldn’t eat words, as they say, so she was fine leaving her mind to focus on the skills that would keep her alive in a cutthroat world where your greatest crime was being born to parents with the wrong kima on their cheeks.
Pushing aside unwanted, useless thoughts of things past, Naomi sucked in a deep breath of warm air then ran across the flat roof with bare feet calloused and dusted by the very plaster that gave her the grip and speed she needed. With a leap through shadows and sunbeams, she landed on the next roof over then shimmied down a rope used to secure a tattered purple awning. Her feet touched the dirt caked alley and she peered out to the sunbaked street beyond.
“Spears lost the Crown last night,” said the old man stooped in his doorway, his voice as weathered as his wrinkled face. He sputtered through a cough and smacked his dry lips. “And Crows have moved into the Flats.”
Naomi spared him a short glance then stared back at the street as a large-wheeled barrel cart rolled by. “No one wants the Flats after that spat between the Skinners and the Purple Hand, so the beggars are welcome to it. Who took the Crown?”
“Good question, that,” said the old man.
Naomi squinted at him, in no mood for his riddles, even if he was one of the few in this city she may call friend. “Come now, Adibe. The sun grows hot and I have errands to run.”
He gave her a squint right back and let out of a mischievous chuckle before giving her a small shrug. “The Water says Merchants, the Earth says Brokenbacks. Others say the paradunes haven’t yet settled. A wise man says best to stay clear of the Crown until they do.”
“Merchants and Brokenbacks pushing out the Spears?” Naomi muttered, not liking the way her gut became unsettled by the news. “Think there’s another guild war coming?”
“Always is, child,” he replied. He examined her in silence for a moment in the way the old sometimes stare at the ghosts of their youth, then he cast a hand out towards the street. “Best be off, before the sun grows too hot as to melt that charcoal off your cheek.”
She smirked sheepishly, knowing the old man may very well be the only one in the entire city who would care if she did not return to the alley by nightfall. “Thanks, Adibe. I’ll see if I can get you a
