The First Binding by R.R. Virdi

Author:R.R. Virdi
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates

FORTY-SEVEN

LIES

There is no easy way to run with a small king’s fortune in your hands. Whatever fear I had stepping into the High Quarter, then into Arfan’s rooms, fell far short of that gripping my heart as I fled.

There is a certain safety in being penniless, not that it may seem like it at first. Few people see a sparrow and think to harm them for money. But put a box of gold in his hands and then watch his skin break into sweat and listen to his chest drum away.

I fought to keep my breath and body steady under the weight of coins and panic settling into me. The sight of me running did little to draw attention, fortunately, but I had no idea how long the peace would last with Arfan doing his best to raise a row behind me.

I’d nearly reached the pillars framing the entry into the quarter when I heard the cries behind me. Curses in a tongue I couldn’t understand peppered the air.

The two kuthri at the entrance turned to look at the source of commotion and I slowed my pace to a walk, hunching over to conceal much of the box under the folds of my shirt.

They looked past me in what I considered to be the last bit of luck I dared to trust that day. The men didn’t break into a run, falling just short of the pace as they took off in the direction of the noise.

Thanking Brahm and any other deity I could hope to remember, I made my way out of the High Quarter proper and hailed one of the nearby rickshaws. I gave the man no chance to speak and mutter the usual pleasantries. “Hard Quarter, now. Do you know where the glassmaker is on Dharum Street?”

He nodded, opening his mouth, but I cut him off again.

“No words. No nothing.” I thumbed the box’s lid partially open, just enough for me to sneak a coin out of it and into my palm.

The man bobbed his head, probably used to that level of treatment from other patrons out of the quarter.

I clambered onto the back and urged him go.

He did, and we traveled without exchanging a word until we reached the glassworks. The building stood not more than another half an hour from the House of Sparrows. It would be safer for me to stop here and walk. These streets had enough of my family patrolling them that no harm could befall me, and with the dissolution of Koli’s band of thugs, we were the only ones who traversed the back alleys.

But in the event Arfan’s words held true and people quickly came to know what I’d done, I didn’t want eyewitness accounts of people spotting me near my home.

“Five chips, sahm,” said the driver. His voice had cracked and it hadn’t come from fatigue. The way I’d spoken to him earlier had left an impression, and I got the feeling the kind of people that talked to him like that weren’t keen on paying their fair share for his services.

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