Meric pushed himself deep into the shadows behind a wagon that was up against the wall and gripped tightly the bag he carried. His senses became more sensitive as his fear grew. He could smell pjek dung nearby, hear the tread of several feet moving in the alley toward his hiding place, and he could feel his own heart as it pulsed. He knew the boys saw him. Otherwise, why would they come into this dead end alley? For that matter, he mentally kicked himself, why did he come into this alley? His curiosity once again got him into trouble, but he couldn’t help it. Master Ghun was always telling him that his curiosity was a personality flaw. Meric tended to agree with him at the moment.

“I thought you said he came in here.” The voice of one of the boys broke the silence of the alley.

“He did Gart,” whimpered one of the other boys. “I saw him. He was carrying a bag. It looked like food.”

Meric looked at the bag he was carrying. In fact, it was food. Master Ghun asked him to come into town and see if he could find any pastries. It took Meric a while to find someone who sold pastries and even longer to negotiate the price. Master Ghun gave him five pennies and told him to come back with nothing less than a dozen pastries.

Meric smiled to himself remembering how he convinced the baker to give him a baker’s dozen for the two pennies even though the original price of the dozen was five pennies. As soon as he left the bakery he sat down on a bench in front of the shop and ate the thirteenth pastry. He could still taste the sugar and smell the scent of warm cinnamon. But then the smile on his face disappeared as he thought about what would happen if he returned to Master Ghun without the pastries. He had to find a way to keep the bag of pastries even if these boys caught him.

The sounds of scuffling feet stopped close-by the wagon and Meric dared to peek around the edge of the wagon. He hoped the shadows would hide him enough so that the boys would not see him. Yahte was not with him. When he peeked out, the biggest of the boys happened to be looking in his direction.

“There he is!”

Meric tried to run past the group of boys. But, he knew it was no use. His run was at best a walk and at its worst a shuffle. He had been born with a back that caused him to hunch over and that meant he could only see a few steps in front of him unless he strained his neck and that often brought new pain. The only way he could see very far was to turn his body to the side and then turn his face in the direction where he wanted to look. This caused him to see much of the world sideways. The muscles in his legs were contorted so that it was difficult to lift his feet more than an inch or two off the ground and his feet were turned at a precarious angle. If he wasn’t careful when he walked he would trip over them.

At this moment, fear seemed to grip and contort his muscles even more and his attempt to run ended in him tripping over his feet and he sprawled on the ground. The boys began laughing and Meric attempted to stand hoping he could still make an escape.

“Grab him!” the one called Gart commanded as he grabbed the bag and wrenched it out of Meric’s grasp. The boys immediately stopped laughing and two of the bigger boys reached down and lifted Meric off the ground. Meric was fifteen winters old, and the oldest of the boys in the group could not have been much older than thirteen and the youngest eleven. But, standing to his full height with his head bent and his legs bowed from his deformity, he was still shorter than the shortest boy in the group.

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“Let’s see what this little cripple has brought for us today.” Gart brought the bag to his face and looked in. Meric heard him take in a deep breath. “Ahhhhhh! Yertin’s pastries!”

“What…let me see!” one of the boys holding Meric dropped the hold on his arm and reached for the bag. Meric thought for a moment that he was going to get away with losing only his bag of pastries. But then, Gart stepped away from the other boys still holding the bag.

“Now, now, now…there’s plenty here for everyone.” Meric turned his head upward and saw that there were six boys including Gart. “But let’s not get too hasty. Let’s see if crip boy here has anything else.”

The boy still holding on to Meric spun him around so that he was facing him and then balled up fist and punched Meric in the stomach. Meric felt the air leave his lungs and then he felt the involuntarily heave of his body as it tried to breathe. Several pairs of hands reached for his pockets and pulled on his clothing checking for anything that might be hidden.

They found the three pennies he saved from his bargaining with Yertin and he felt them leave his pockets. With them he felt his chances of going without a beating today vanish.

“He doesn’t have anything else Gart,” one of the boys finally said after handing over the pennies.

“Let him go then and let’s enjoy our food.”

“It’s not your food.” Meric didn’t know why he said it. He knew that it was only a technicality. No, it wasn’t their food, but they did have it and it was unlikely that he would be able to get it back. Still, he felt that he needed to at least try so that when he returned empty handed to Guhn that he would at least be able to tell him that he had tried to get the pastries back.

“What’s that?” Gart asked as he stepped toward Meric.

Meric didn’t answer. He knew the boy had heard him and although he was willing to challenge the possession of the food, he wasn’t willing to purposely antagonize a boy twice his size with five friends.

“I think this little cripple wants to try and take our food. Are we going to let him do that?”

A chorus of “No” came from the other boys.

“Well then, I think we should teach this cripple what citizens of Rweil do to those who try and steal other people’s food.”

Gart drew his fist back and Meric was able to duck just enough so that the punch glanced off the top of his head. However, the next punch connected with his cheek bone and he fell heavily to the ground. Meric curled into a fetal position as several of the boys took the opportunity to kick him.

The beating wasn’t the worst beating Meric had ever taken. In fact, Meric didn’t even rank it in the top ten. But, as he lay there listening to the boys walk away and hearing them mumble through the mouthfuls of cinnamon pastries he could feel the bruising already beginning to tighten his muscles. He knew he would be sore tomorrow and he hadn’t yet faced Master Guhn who would be less than gentle with Meric when he found out that his money and his pastries were gone.