“Not long ago you were fearful of an attempted assassination, and now you want to stroll through the rookery on foot with a bag of coin?” Zander mocks.
“Why? Is it dangerous here?” It can’t be worse than some of the shelters I found myself in, back in the early days, before I made friends and learned how to navigate the city’s system. Some of those places were more hazardous than sleeping on a park bench.
“Not with me beside you.”
The elderly man’s desperate gaze is on the velvet bag within my grasp as they wait patiently for a handout. Nearby, a younger, more nimble man eyes the situation closely. An opportunist. I know his kind—he’ll swoop in to collect whatever the elderly couple isn’t fast enough to gather.
“Then be beside me. They’re people, not a flock of geese. I’m not throwing coins at them like bread crumbs. Help me off this horse.” I turn, softening my voice to add a “please.”
Zander’s piercing eyes bore into me for a long moment before he calls out, “Hold!”
The horses come to a standstill.
“Elisaf, take the reins.” Zander slides out of the saddle to land on the stone path with poise. “Well?”
With considerably less grace, I grip the bag of coin and the horse’s robust neck while easing my leg over. Strong hands seize my hips and guide me to the ground as if I weigh nothing. Zander does not release me immediately, leaning in from behind to whisper, “If this is a ploy to escape …”
“Yes, yes … off with her head.” Though I’m not sure the guillotine is part of the square’s repertoire.
He inhales sharply, his grasp of my body tightening, though not painfully so. “You enjoy testing me.”
Maybe I do, which means my fear of him is waning. I don’t know if that’s good or bad. “I’m sorry, you told me to speak freely. Would you rather I bite my tongue and smile like a mindless fool?”
“In front of others, that would be ideal.”
I peer over my shoulder and up at his handsome though hard face, and flash him the widest, fakest grin I can muster. “Better?”
With a strangled sound, he releases me, only to set a hand on the small of my back. I coax myself into relaxing against his touch and together we walk forward.
Boaz’s expression is pinched. “Your Highness, would it not be better if a guard—”
“As you are,” Zander cuts him off as we pass.
Apprehension laces the aging couple’s face as we approach, the stench of unwashed skin filling my nostrils. The man’s shoes are torn, his toes hanging out. “Your Highness. Your Highness,” come the murmured echoes. The woman curtsies deeply before us. The old man attempts to bow, but it’s clear his hip won’t allow it.
“Please do not trouble yourself, sir,” Zander says with kindness in his voice that surprises me.
Up close, the woman reminds me of Inwood Park Ina, a woman who lost everything to medical bills and crippling depression after her husband passed away. When she wasn’t doing daily safety checks of her fellow homeless friends, she could be found down by the river, building inukshuks on boulders. I heard she died last year, alone by the water.
I reach into the bag and drop a handful of coins into this woman’s waiting hand.
Her eyes widen. With a sputtered whisper of “Fates bless you, Your Highness!” she glances around furtively before tucking them into her pocket for safekeeping.
Zander guides me along to the next shanty. “Maybe one per person going forward? My generosity is not bottomless.”
“And yet you live in a castle painted with gold,” I mutter.
He snorts. “That is rich, given what you have come from.”
A three-hundred-square-foot studio apartment with a noisy toilet, I want to say, but I know he isn’t talking about me.
We work our way down the street, the horses moseying alongside us, their riders ready to leap at the first sign of trouble. These people are not looking for anything but help. They’re visibly nervous as we greet them—varying degrees of fear and confusion in their exhausted eyes. Some have rattling coughs, the kind that never goes away. They remind me of the destitute I knew in New York, a community who guard their meager belongings while looking out for their neighbors, who move slowly, with limps in their step, and hunches in their shoulders, whether from physical pain or simply too many years of bearing the weight of a heavy life. Many of these people are missing limbs.
This rookery is full of people who were once slaves to the immortals. I see the scars in their ears, holes that will never close after so many years filled by metal tags. On some, the cartilage is damaged as if the cuff was too tight and cut into their flesh. A few are missing entire chunks of ear where the marker must have been torn out. Those people duck away, attempting to hide their secret with scarves and hats, as if afraid of being apprehended.
I merely smile and slip two coins into their hands instead of one, because their situation must have been especially grim for them to maim themselves. But that begs the question—what did they run from? What have these people endured?
By the time we reach the end of the road and the end of the velvet bag, my chest is both light and heavy, the bleakness of these people’s lives climbing under my skin.