“Only if it does not cost you a hand!” he warned as she dashed off down the alley, her bare feet leaving footprints in the dust.
Soap Street held an energy in contrast to the quiet alleyway Naomi left behind. Ox-pulled carts stacked with goods rumbled on wooden wheels over uneven cobblestones that had been laid a thousand years ago and not seen a day of maintenance since. Naomi had to watch her toes as the wheels, taller than she, rolled past. A donkey brayed loudly in an argument with its master about the heavy sacks it had been made to carry, and three Washerwomen, their cheeks marked by a water drop tattoo, unloaded one cart that carried dirty laundry from the Rose Garden. Naomi paused a moment to eye the fancy silks, beaded bodices and finely woven undergarments. They smelled heavily of floral perfume, with an undertone of patchouli incense. Naomi’s nose wrinkled and she darted between two carts. It would be a wet day in the desert before she ever smelled of roses and patchouli.
“Watch it, boy!” a wagon driver angrily called out to her as she sped past his two oxen. “No message is worth getting trampled!”
Naomi didn’t disagree, but a message wasn’t what she had on her mind. With a sliding duck between two men carrying a rolled rug, she took a right at the next junction. If she hurried, she could get to the Harvester’s Market before the Herdsmen took all the good fodder that had gone unsold the day before. She also had to beat the Crows, and those beggars flocked early and in large numbers. If they had truly moved into the Flats, they’d be closer to the market and in prime position to get the less rotten food before the Herdsmen took their pick. Goats may not care if the fruit is more rotten than not, but Naomi certainly did.
She could hear the Crows before she could see them. They spoke loudly amongst themselves, sharing stories and tidbits of rumors they’d gained during the night before. Whereas Herdsmen traded in goats’ milk and Harvesters haggled over crops, Crows bartered in information. Beggars and thieves, the lot of them, but they had earned a place within the city same as all other guilds. Their lips could bring wealth on the winds of a good trade opportunity, or they could bring carefully seeded negotiations to ruin. Catch a Crow alone, and they would cower and beg for a spare coin on a harsh night. Together, a whole flock of Crows stood stronger than an individual Merchant or Spear.
Naomi gave the flock a wide berth but paused beneath a shaded awning when she heard a loud, most likely drunk, man boast of being in the Crown the night before when the Spears fled. Despite her rumbling gut and better judgement, Naomi crept closer, ducked behind a stack of empty baskets and peered around the corner. There were ten or more Crows cawing at one another, each trying to be the center of the tale they wove.
“I’ve never seen Spears flee so fast,” said the man through a rotted grin.
“I wouldn’t have stayed either, be I them,” said an old woman in tattered black rags.
“A truth there,” a different woman agreed, her mouth more gums than teeth. “What’s one to do when Brokenbacks and Merchants both come to bare grievance?”
Both? Naomi could scarce believe it. The Merchants Guild ruled over a dozen smaller guilds from the higher casts of Ka’veshi, from artisan guilds like the Purple Hand and the Silver Loom, to opulent guilds like the Bards and the Roses. Brokenbacks represented lower casts, those who broke their backs to make a living like the Harvesters, the Herdsmen, the Washerwomen and the Skinners. Just one week past, there had been a brutal battle over the drying flats between the Skinners and the Purple Hand. A few people had died, and in the end no one successfully claimed the territory. Merchants and Brokenbacks hated each other as much as they each hated the Spears. To think of the Merchants and Brokenbacks setting aside their differences sounded like the outlandish boast of drunk old Crows.
“Earth says war be brewing,” the old woman advised.
“Water, for once, agrees,” said a toothless man sucking on a tobacco pipe. “What says the Fire, I wonder?”
“Why don’t you go find out,” suggested a younger man looking equally as ragged, with eyes reddened and speech slurred by the opium younger Crows often smoked in a futile attempt to forget their lot in life. Brokenbacks may represent some of the lowest casts in Ka’veshi, but Crows were so low they remained outside the larger fold. It had probably been the opium that got the young man the black feather on his cheek in the first place, if not his parent’s debts, or both.
“Pah,” tutted the toothless man as he tapped clean his pipe. “You’re young. Why don’t you go ask the Fire?”
“I’m young,” the man replied. “But I’m no fool.”
“Let fools burn,” the group cawed in a chorus as they began walking in the direction of the Harvester’s Market.
Naomi cursed herself for wasting time and hurried after them. They were sure to be the first of many Crows making their way from the Flats before the sun rose beyond the eastern tower. Unlike other guilds who had tallymasters, no one knew exactly how many Crows there were. Transient by nature, the number of Crows in the city at any given time fluctuated with more irregularity than even the paradunes. A handful or a boatload, they’d pick the best fruits clean all the same.
The group of ten turned left. Naomi turned right down a much more narrow alleyway that looked to be a dead end. Just before the wall of broken plaster and a faded mural that had been baked monotone over a hundred summers, Naomi
