Book 5 - With Mercy Toward None Read Online Free PDF Page A

against their wills. With his tricks and banter he had stripped the smartest of their money.
    Sing-song, the old man called, "Brush aside a veil, see through the eyes of time, penetrate the mists, unlock the doors of fate... " He attempted a sleight-of-hand involving a black cloth and crystal ball, bungled it.
    The fat boy shook his head. The fool. He could not admit that he was past it.
    The fat boy hated that old man. He had traveled with the itinerant charlatan all his life. Not once had the old man mouthed a kind word. Always he had strained his imagination to torment the child. He had never permitted the boy a name. Yet the fat boy had not run away. Till recently the very idea had been alien.
    Sometimes, when he managed the price, the old man would surround prodigious quantities of wine. Then he would mumble of having been court jester to a powerful man. The fat boy, somehow, had been involved in their falling out. Now he paid the price, whether it had been his fault or not.
    The old man had instilled a strong guilt in his companion.
    He meant it to be his security in his declining years.
    The fat boy, brown as the earthen street, sweated, swatted flies, and wrestled temptation. He knew he could survive on his own. He had the skills.
    Sometimes, when the Master dozed, he performed himself. He was a superb ventriloquist. He spoke through the old man's props, usually the ape's skull or the stuffed owl. Occasionally he used the mangy, emaciated donkey that carried their gear. When feeling bold he would put words into the Master's mouth.
    He had gotten caught once. The old man had beaten him half to death.
    That old man wore a list of names, varying according to whom he thought was chasing him. Feager and Sajac were his favorites. The boy was sure both were false.
    He chased the secret of a true name doggedly. It might be a clue to his own identity.
    Finding out whom he was, now, was the main reason he did nothing to improve his condition.
    He was unrelated to Sajac, that he knew. The old man was tall, lean, and pale. He had faded grey eyes and blondish hair. He was a westerner.
    Yet the boy's earliest memories were of the far east. Of Matayanga. Escalon. The fabled cities of Janin, Nemic, Shoustal-Watka, and Tatarian. They had even penetrated the wild Segasture Range, where the Theon Sing Monasteries, from their high crags, overlooked the shadowed reaches of the Dread Empire.
    Even then he had wondered why he and Sajac were together, and what drove the man to keep moving and moving.
    Sajac appeared to be sleeping again.
    Hunger clawed at the boy's belly. He could not remember not being hungry.
    His hands darted.
    Nothing. The sack was empty.
    The old man did not react. This time he was asleep.
    Time to do something about their naked larder.
    Coming by money honestly was hard enough in the best of times...
    He waddled along, looking incomparably clumsy and slow. And, though he was not fast, he was quick. Quick and subtle. And daring.
    He took the guard captain's purse with a touch so deft that the man did not cry out till he had entered a sweltering tavern and asked for wine.
    By then the fat boy was three blocks away, buying pastries.
    His liability was that he was too memorable.
    The guard captain, though, committed a tactical error. He shouted his promises of punishment before having his criminal in hand.
    The fat boy squealed and took off. He could be enslaved, if not maimed or beheaded.
    He made his escape, and returned to Sajac before the old man wakened.
    His heart pounded on long after he had regained his breath. This was his third close call this week. The odds were turning long. People would start watching for a fat brown boy with quick hands. It was time to move on.
    But the old man would not. He meant to put down roots this time.
    Something had to be done.
    Sajac wakened suddenly. "What have you been up to now?" he snapped. "Stealing my food again?" He seized his cane, probed the bun sack. "Eh?"
    It was full.
    The