Dark Tidings

Chapter 12 - Hard Times

"I've had a very hard and very sad life," began Tung.

He was gazing into the fire. Reminiscences flashed though in his head like the little sparks which popped off the burning logs. There'd been so much tragedy in his short existence he didn't know where to begin. He supposed he should start by answering the question about how he'd ended up in the dungeon.

How would his life story sound? He didn't know because he'd never told it before, no one had ever been interested in hearing it. Was Madrick really interested? Was Madrick becoming a friend... an old friend, if you took his age into consideration? Was he becoming some sort of father figure; a father figure minus the ale, the gambling and the cruel beatings? Who knows?

His own father had been a strange sort. He liked to call himself a campaigner and he often droned on about his crusade to make life better for the working man. He campaigned for a maximum price for beer and relaxation of the taverns' licencing hours; beer should be cheap and available twenty-four hours a day according to him.

He wanted free admission to the bear-baiting and cockfighting. He thought wives should be beaten at least once a week; husbands had a duty to keep their spouses in their proper place. He wanted more sugar in fruit drinks, more fat in stews sold by merchants and less detail about what was in pies; people didn't need to know what they were eating so long as it tasted good.

He advocated the withdrawal of all rights which had been given to women and the city's immigrants. He demanded that disabled and crippled people should stay at home because they only caused trouble when they mixed with ordinary folk. For example, why would you let blind people into inns when there are already enough normal people bumping into each other? The man was full of... ideas.

However, his most vociferous campaign demanded that children should not be sent to school; they were small and clearly designed to do jobs which bigger people found difficult. For example, they should be sent up chimneys to clean them and their little hands could fit into horses' mouths to clean their teeth... an adult could lose a finger messing with a horse's teeth. And so it went on. As far as Tung could see, the 'campaigning' was just an excuse to booze with his cronies but Madrick didn't need to know what an idiot his father was.

"Hard lives usually stem from the father," said Madrick breaking into his train of thought.

Could this man read his mind? He'd just decided not to say much about his father.

"To be fair, I suppose my father did have a hard childhood too. His family had been torn apart when he was a youngster."

"Yes, a family torn apart can scar a child. Was it emotional breakdown, or infidelity, or money problems?"

"Nah, it was a hungry pack of wild dogs."

"Oh, sorry. Maybe I should just let you tell your story without interrupting."

"Yeah, maybe you should. Anyway, you asked how I ended up in the dungeon, so let me tell you," he began. "I started stealing stuff soon after my mother died. I was twelve years old and there was no other way to get food."

He didn't mention he'd no idea what had happened to his mother. His father said she'd died, whereas he believed she had, in fact, run away.

"My father was never around, so I was left to fend for myself and my younger sister. Her name was Spring. She was a couple of years younger than me and the sweetest little person you could ever hope to meet. She was too young to do anything for herself so she relied on me for everything. And I didn't mind that, in fact, I rather liked it because it gave me some purpose and a sense of worth."

"It's important to have purpose," said Madrick.

"Anyway, the first thing I ever stole was a fat man's coin pouch. He'd far too much money for his own good so I reckoned he was asking for a good thieving. They say you always remember your first time and I definitely remember mine. I'd planned the whole thing carefully and when the day came it went off without a hitch... more or less. I got some money, and the rich man's pouch as a memento of my first successful bit of robbing. It was probably the first thing I'd ever got right in my life. I'd discovered a hidden talent and it sort of set the direction of my life."

"It's important to have direction," said Madrick.

"I spent the money on some very ripe fruit which I ended up giving to my sister because she was sick at the time. She needed it more than me." He squeezed the bridge of his nose hard to help hold back the tears. "She died soon after and I still wonder whether there was something wrong with the fruit. Did it poison her? Did I poison her? The thought that I might have killed her haunts me to this day."

"You shouldn't blame yourself. You were doing your best for her. The fruit was clearly an act of kindness."

"Killed with kindness is still killed, and it leaves you just as dead as any cruel act would. I loved my sister. She was the only good thing I've ever had in my life."

Before he drifted too far into a depression, Madrick snapped him out of it by encouraging him to continue with his tale.

"Go on," said the old man, "I'm listening."

"Yeah, like I was saying I kept the pouch as a memento. I didn't use it but I thought it was worth keeping. Well, not so long ago, I came across it in a box when I was looking for something else. I'd totally forgotten about it and now that I was much older I could see it was a rather classy little item; top quality leather with a beautiful gold design on the front. It probably cost a lot more than I ever had to put in it. I dropped in all my money, a handful of coins, and stuck it in my pocket."

"Things were looking up for you."

"I was pleased with myself. I reckoned I'd been pretty smart to keep it. I was looking forward to showing it off and impressing people with my new-found style. No one was ever impressed with me so this was a chance to get some admiring looks. What an idiot, I was. I'm such an unlucky idiot. That's the story of my life."

The depression was creeping up on him again but Madrick intervened by gently prompting him to keep the story going. "Go on."

"About three or four months after I started using the purse, I was arrested for causing a small disturbance in a church. They preach forgiveness but the priest wasn't very forgiving when he caught me taking a couple of leptons out of the collection box. And he hit me first. I hit him back. Then one of the congregation got involved. I smacked him with the collection box. Then the soldiers arrived. Anyway, to cut a long story short, I was hauled up in front of the magistrate who said I could pay a fine or go to jail."

"So you ended up in the dungeon because you couldn't pay a fine?"

"Nah. It was a bit worse than that and it shows you just how unlucky I am. I had enough money to pay so I pulled out the pouch but before I had a chance to count out my fine the magistrate started screaming at me. He grabbed the pouch and looked hard at it, then he looked hard at me and I looked hard at him. Even though it'd been a long time since the robbery, I recognised his fat face. He was my first-ever victim. I think he recognised me but he definitely recognised his pouch. What I thought was a pretty design turned out to be his initials and the magistrate's crest. It went downhill from there. He called me a dirty thief. I called him a dirty harlot-grabber. He slapped me. I punched him. He kicked me. I hit him with a chair. Then the soldiers seized me. And that was it. The magistrate sentenced me to death by torture, because he could, and I was dragged off to the dungeons."

"Wow. So basically you were in prison because you stole a magistrate's purse when you were a child? That is harsh."

"Yeah, and I guess hitting him with the chair didn't help me much... nor the hatchet. Did I mention the hatchet?"

Suddenly there was a noise at the front door. Someone was coming into the house.