The Burning City Read Online Free Page A

Whandall’s arm.
    â€œThis is dangerous, isn’t it?” Whandall asked.
    Shastern nodded.
    â€œSo what’s going to happen?”
    â€œThey’ll let you in. Maybe.”
    â€œIf they don’t?”
    Shastern shook his head. “They will. Lord Pelzed doesn’t want a blood feud with the Placehold family.”
    Blood feuds meant blood. “Is he really a Lord—”
    â€œHe is here,” Shastern said. “And don’t forget it.”
    When they brought him back in, the room was dark except for a few candles near Pelzed’s chair. Shastern whispered, “I knew they’d let you in. Now whatever happens, don’t cry. It’s going to hurt.”
    They made him kneel in front of Pelzed again. Two men took turns asking him questions and hitting him.
    â€œWe are your father and your mother,” Pelzed said.
    Someone hit him.
    â€œWho is your father?” a voice asked from behind.
    â€œYou are—”
    Someone hit him harder.
    â€œSerpent’s Walk,” Whandall guessed.
    â€œWho is your mother?”
    â€œSerpent’s Walk.”
    â€œWho is your Lord?”
    â€œPelzed…. Argh. Lord Pelzed. Aagh! Serpent’s Walk?”
    â€œWho is Lord of Serpent’s Walk?”
    â€œLord Pelzed.”
    It went on a long time. Usually they didn’t hit him if he guessed the right answer, but sometimes they hit him anyway. “To make sure you remember,” they said.
    Finally that was over. “You can’t fight,” Pelzed said. “So you won’t be a full member. But we’ll take care of you. Give him the mark.”
    They stretched his left hand out and tattooed a small serpent on the web of his thumb. He held his arm rigid against the pain. Then everyone said nice things about him.
    After that it was easier. Whandall was safe outside the house as long as he was in territory friendly to Serpent’s Walk. Wanshig warned him not to carry a knife until he knew how to fight. It would be taken as a challenge.
    He didn’t know the rules. But one could keep silent, watch, and learn.
    Here he remembered a line of black skeletons of buildings. The charred remains had come down and been carried away. Whandall and others watched from cover, from the basement of a house that hadn’t been replaced yet. Kinless were at work raising redwood beams into skeletons of new buildings. Four new stores stood already, sharing common walls.
    You knew the kinless by their skin tone, or their rounder ears and pointed noses, but that was chancy; a boy could make mistakes. Better to judge by clothing or by name.
    Kinless were not allowed to wear Lordkin’s hair styles or vivid colors. On formal occasions the kinless men wore a noose as token of their servitude. They were named for things or for skills, and they spoke their family names, where a Lordkin never would.
    There were unspoken rules for gathering. There were times when you could ask a kinless for food or money. A man and woman together might accept that. Others would not. Kinless men working to replace blackened ruins with new buildings did not look with favor on Lordkin men or boys. Lordkin at their gatherings must be wary of the kinless who kept shops or sold from carts. The kinless had no rights, but the Lords had rights to what the kinless made.
    The kinless did the work. They made clothing, grew food, made and used tools, transported it all. They made rope for export. They harvested rope fibers from the hemp that grew in vacant lots and anywhere near the sluggish streams that served as storm drains and sewers alike. They built. They saw to it that streets were repaired, that water flowed, that garbage reached the dumps. They took the blame if things went wrong. Only thekinless paid taxes, and taxes were whatever a Lordkin wanted, unless a Lord said otherwise. But you had to learn what you could take. The kinless only had so much to give, Mother’s Mother