After being escorted back to his room and kicked in the rear by the departing Furgo, Gord lay down with a sigh upon the heap of dirty straw and old rags that was his pallet. Not bad at all, he thought. After all, he wasn’t dead. There was no muscle-wrenching toil to be done now. His belly was full. The rags and straw were as good a bed as he’d ever known. He shut his eyes and, although it could not have been more than midafternoon at the latest, fell asleep instantly.

He dreamed of fat, bald ogres and trolls dressed as guards, but they didn’t trouble his slumber at all. In his dreams, Gord was always able to break out of their grasp, steal what they had, and slip away.

Chapter 4

Pain was the only sensation that could penetrate his brain. It was at least a sign that he was alive, and Gord accepted it as such. How long he could hold his position he did net know, but he was determined not to admit defeat and to persevere until Furgo said he could stop. That there were several others undergoing the same torture was indeed consolation to Gord. Perhaps if one of them broke first, he would follow, but until then he was determined to endure.

What the youth was suffering was simply training. Training to be a contortionist, to be able to assume the guise of a maimed and hopeless cripple. Part of the education necessary to field a corps of beggars each so pitiful and pathetic that the hardest-hearted passerby would have ruth and drop a drab or two into one’s bowl.

Each morning Gord began the day with exercises, calisthenics that kept his young body lean and supple. If he did well, he was then allowed to break his fast with the dozens of other apprentice and journeyman beggars quartered in the Beggarmaster’s building. Failure to please meant no food, at best, but Gord preferred not to think about that. Following the meal came lessons in the secret sign of the beggars-a means of communication that was supposedly unknown to the uninitiated, an amalgam of the Thieves’ Cant and the secret speech of the Merchants’ Guild that had been perverted to the ends of the lowly Beggars’ Union. Thereafter came more physical training and then mental disciplines once again-usually memory training and then lessons in assessing people. Gord was quick to learn, and the lessons gladdened his heart. The skills and knowledge he was gaining were tools that would enable him to break out of the prison of the Slum, the Old City, and become something far greater than a successful beggar, let alone a beggar’s apprentice. The actual goal was a secret, one kept closely among the chosen of the Beggarmaster-and Gord had earned his way into that select group! As he fought with body and mind to keep the pain from getting the best of him, Gord began to silently recall what he had learned and experienced in days recently gone by….

Those who dwelt with the Beggarmaster were unlike other members of the Beggars’ Union. The latter simply paid a tithe to the master in return for a select location and the promise of aid when in trouble. But those indentured to the Beggarmaster had to turn over every iron drab, bronze zee, or food scrap they garnered. After two months of service, and general instruction inside Theobald’s “mansion,” Gord had been sent out with a group of other apprentices and journeymen under the watchful eyes of a pair of master beggars. Since he did well in his efforts to swell the Beggarmaster’s coffers, he was allowed to go on more of these field trips, and he soon developed a well-deserved reputation as a good scavenger. Whether he went out in morning or evening, to New City or Old, Gord had managed to come back with more coins and food than any of the others. Of course, sometimes he had had to resort to theft when soulful pleading for alms had failed to net what he felt would be an acceptable take. Early in his “career,” Gord had been beaten once for failure, and he vowed to himself that such would never happen again.

Continued success brought the reward of being initiated into the Beggarmaster’s inner circle. Each initiate swore an oath never to reveal, on penalty of death, the secret of the circle. When Gord was accepted as a member, he learned that the master was dissatisfied with his alliance with the Thieves’ Guild. The arrangement between the groups was simple: Each beggar kept his or her eyes open for any likely prospects, signaling a mark to a nearby thief or bringing back word about potential targets for burglary or robbery. In return, a thief always gave to a beggar he encountered on the street, and a successful escapade by a thief meant a tithe from the Thieves’ Guild to the Beggars’ Union. However, this tithe was only one-tenth of that portion of the take paid by the thieves to their guild. Thus, if one hundred silver nobles were lifted from someone’s strongbox, the thief would pay the customary one-tenth share to the guild, and of these ten coins the Beggarmaster got one. This was insufficient-Master of Beggars Theobald would have it all!

His scheme was simple. The Beggarmaster had enlisted renegade thieves, promising to pay them handsomely for their services. These professionals then trained the most promising beggars in the arts and crafts of thievery. Now there existed a cadre of beggars who were as skilled at cutting purses, picking pockets, and filching valuables as any of the rogues roaming the city under the auspices of the Thieves’ Guild. The original instructors had “disappeared” in the meantime, so now only those whom the Beggarmaster had in his palm knew the secret. It was whispered among the talented apprentices that someday they would be the leaders of a host of beggar-thieves who would vanquish the guild and make any surviving thieves swear fealty to the Beggars’ Union. For the time being, they must all bring in coins by the sackful so that assassins and mercenaries could be enlisted when the master decided the time had come….

“Rest!” Furgo shouted, and all of the apprentices but Gord collapsed on the floor, grimacing and gasping. With his reverie broken but his resolve intact, the youth slowly lowered his left leg from its position behind his back and brought his right arm as slowly down to his side, flexing both to restore full circulation, but without apparent effort or pain.

“You there on the floor!” said Furgo. “Observe Gord. He isn’t whining or wheezing. That’s how you should all be. On your feet for more exercise now! For a break, we’ll practice on the blade-dummy later.”

As they groaned quietly and darted hateful looks at Gord, the other boys and girls of the group arose and returned to training. Although all wore beggar’s rags, each was clean beneath the garments. Gord hadn’t liked the bathing at first, but it was not optional. At times they would be required to assume a role other than that of a crippled, maimed, or diseased beggar; looking dirty was easy, but pretending to be an honest citizen of standing was not. The light stretching and bending exercises were easy, compared to what they had been through before them, and they would help a lot when dealing with the test of the blade-dummy. The apprentices took to the calisthenics with vigor, for all feared what was coming and wanted to be as prepared as they could be.

The blade-dummy was one of many manikins used for training. The simplest was just a dummy for beginners’ practice. A different one was mounted on a pedestal and slowly turned, to make it difficult to approach. Yet another was covered with bells so that the slightest miscue by a would-be pickpocket caused a jingling.

The blade-dummy was the worst. Its robe, girdle, and tunic pockets were lined with razor-like blades positioned differently each time the thing was set up. As an instructor counted, each trainee had to take a turn at testing sleeve, breast, pocket and-worst of all-the purse tucked into the girdle. While a slip in some other area would inflict a painful cut, the purse was a double challenge. To get it free without encountering the blades surrounding it was difficult, and if it was removed too hastily, with too much force, or clumsily, then a spring blade from the girdle would scythe upward. A hand slowly pulled away would be gashed-or even severed, if its owner was too hesitant. All of the apprentices were too quick to be seriously hurt, so long as they were careful, but it was hard to be confident about the blade-dummy, and the strain was terrible.