Chapter 4

“That was good of you,” Ezhno said.

“Um, you’re welcome? What did I do?” Mato asked.

The ox tail was delicious. Meaty, savory, with a fuller flavor than the local meats. He cleaned the bone and picked up another piece.

“Turning down the silver in the market.”

Mato lifted his eyes from his plate to study Ezhno. Ezhno met his eyes frankly.

“You followed me?”

“Of course.”

“Why?”

“I am interested in your character. We have not known each other long, and if I am going to show you how to steal, kill, and lie, I need to know you will be very careful about when you do these things. And that you choose your victims with great care.”

Mato’s eyes widened and he set his piece of oxtail down.

“You’re teaching me to fight, to defend my home and my city. To travel to other places in safety. I do not want to steal or kill.”

Ezhno chuckled. “Well, at least I can still teach you to lie.”

“No!” Mato said. “Not that either. I want to protect people.”

“Perfect. Finish your dinner. We have work to do.”

Mato took a bite and chewed it slowly. His eyes flickered to his teacher’s face every few seconds. What had he gotten himself into? There were things he didn’t know, all too many of them, but he was certain Ezhno had been serious about the stealing, killing, and lying.

“I don’t think I should stay here,” Mato said.

Ezhno leaned back and lit a pipe. It was the first time Mato had seen him smoke. The scent of smokeleaf filled the air.

“Well?” Mato asked.

“I have taken the early measure of your character,” Ezhno said. “Now you must take mine.”

Mato finished his oxtail and started on his vegetables. In the oxtail gravy, they were almost as good as the oxtail itself.

He finished his meal, cleaned the dishes, and Ezhno finished his pipe.

“This is like before,” Mato said. “When you told me not to ask questions, but then showed me I needed to ask questions. You say I must learn to lie, steal, and kill. But you took me in and are teaching me for free. You checked to see if I would be tempted by silver, and complemented me for refusing. You are preparing me for something difficult, but you are not a criminal.”

“That is good. Keep your eyes open. Watching good people will only teach you to appreciate their strengths, and let you know how you can help them with their weaknesses. Always watch.”

That evening Ezhno started his wrestling training. They worked until it was dark, then continued by the tiny amount of starlight coming in through the skylight.

* * *

Something grabbed Mato’s foot and dragged him out of bed. He hit the hardpan floor, and his head bounced. Lights flickered in his vision.

Someone punched him in the stomach, and he tried to curl up, but they straddled him and started hitting him in the head. He closed his eyes and tried to protect himself with his arms, but that only drew blows to the ribs and abdomen.

After a few seconds he realized the blows were just hard enough to be painful, but they weren’t injuring him.

“Ezhno, stop!”

The attack halted, and his teacher stood up. Mato shook his head and pried his eyes open.

“Get dressed,” Ezhno said.

Mato held up a hand, and Ezhno helped him part-way up, then tripped him.

“Get dressed now.”

Mato pushed himself to his feet and went to dress.

Ezhno kicked him in the behind. “Now, Mato. Not tomorrow.”

Every muscle hurt. Mato was unused to the feeling--he worked hard every day. He played with friends and family, then worked some more.

They exercised for what felt like hours, but must have been much shorter. At the first signs of dawn they ate the leftover food from last night--which wasn’t much--then went into sword training.

“Use the point, Mato. Slashing is useful, but stabbing is better.”

“No, Mato, no. You are a swordsman, not a statue. Move.”

“Stop dancing around like a flea. Stand and fight.”

“You are weak as a baby. Use both arms.”

“No, Mato. Using both arms limits your speed and reach. Use one arm.”

“Get up, Mato.”

“Get up.”

“Stop laying around, Mato.”

Mato stopped and let his sword fall to his side. Everything hurt. His muscles refused to obey, his skin was covered in welts, and his hands and knees were scraped from repeated knock-downs.

“Aaaahhhhhhh!!!”

Ezhno started laughing. He slapped his thighs and cackled like an old woman.

“Stop laughing at me,” Mato said.

“You do not pay me for my teaching. Laughing at you is the only payment I get. You are not a very generous soul, Mato.”

* * *

Ezhno took him to the Abo grill for lunch. It was a massive sun oven focused into a round room. Diners surrounded it in a large circle. If it tasted good grilled, and you could find it in Abo, they served it here.

They had seared orangefish, roasted coconut, crispy quail, plus as many blackened onions and peppers as they could eat. To go with it they had generous amounts of pomegranate wine.

Mato sagged back in his chair. “This is so much better than being pummeled.”

“Have you considered dodging, or blocking?” Ezhno asked around a mouthful of crispy potato slices.

“I’m still trying to decide on one,” Mato said with a false glare.

“I recommend using them both,” Ezhno said. “Often I use them together.”

“You mean I have a third choice now? This is going to take forever.”

When they were finished eating Ezhno pointed to the nearest kitchen. “See the jade pendant hanging on the back wall?”

“Yes.”

“It is mine. I made a deal with the chef to hang it there. Your task is to retrieve it. If you are seen, the chef will report you to the city guard. If you fail to obtain the pendant, you fail. If you break the pendant, you fail.”

Mato looked at the busy place and the pendant hanging on the back wall of a kitchen with no back door. The other side of the back wall was the sun room, so he could have to get in through the front, or not at all.

“How long do I have?”

“Until closing time.”

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The kitchen would remain open until a couple of hours after dusk. That probably gave him eight hours.

“Does the chef know my face or my name?”

Mato looked around, but Ezhno was gone.

“Alright. What is the simplest way to do this?”

After a minute of thinking, Mato approached the kitchen. The chef was a medium height, slightly chubby man with a leather vest. He was working feverishly chopping vegetables, turning things that were already on the grill, and serving customers.

“You look like you could use some help,” Mato said.

He glanced up. “You know how to work a kitchen?”

“I cook a little at home. I could chop, or clean, or mind the grill.”

The chef looked him up and down, then tapped a finger on his knife a few times. “What is your name?”

“Mato Stone Foot.”

The chef smiled. “I buy ingredients from your parents sometimes.”

“My father passed recently.”

“Oh, no. I am so sorry to hear that. How?”

“We were robbed. Right in our home.”

“I see. Please come in. You can finish chopping these, and then we will see what else needs to be done. I will pay you two scales to stay until closing.”

“Two?” Mato asked. “I will not have worked the entire day.”

“It’s alright. Just get in here and get started. My name is Adoeette.”

The kitchen was hot. Heat radiated off of the back wall, and of course the grill was sizzling. The system was built around a skylight surrounded by mirrors that directed the sunlight into the bottom of the sun room. There the light warmed a huge piece of iron.

Where the grill was located a chunk of iron penetrated the sunroom wall, conducting heat. They controlled the temperature of the grill by placing bricks between the hot iron and the base of the grill. More bricks would cool the grill, fewer allowed more heat to pass.

Mato chopped vegetables, skinned quail and cavi, broke eggs, and cleaned. There was always something to do, and he didn’t see how Adoeette had managed to keep up during the morning hours.

“Do you always work alone?”

“No, no. Normally my wife works with me, and often one of our sons. Today she was not feeling well, and the boys had plans to visit the mines.”

“Well, I hope your wife is better soon, and that your boys hate the mines.”

Adoeette laughed. “That is what I hope as well. They are seduced by the gold, but it is dangerous work. Much better they take up my profession. The occasional burn is far safer than rockfalls and bad air.”

Mato kissed his fingertips and touched them to his forehead, and Adoeette did the same.

The grill was on the back right of the kitchen. On the back left they prepared meat. Vegetable preparation was on the right side of the front counter, and the left side was for customers.

He was practiced at preparing cavi and quail. A few quick slices, a bit of detail work, you had the organs out, the skin off, and the animal was ready to cook. The pendant hung right in front of his face, in arm’s length.

He couldn’t take it. Not yet. If he tried to leave early, Adoeette would be suspicious. If he took it and tried to continue working, someone would search him and find it. So frustrating.

He cleaned the grill with a flat rock, polished for this purpose, and prepared for the evening rush.

A delivery man brought them additional ingredients, and helped put them in the baskets underneath the counters.

He moved on, taking his supply cart to the next kitchen, and Mato got more cavi out and started cleaning them.

The pendant was gone. Right there, in front of his face, the delivery man had stolen it.

“Adoeette!” Mato pointed to the wall.

Adoeette’s eyes widened. “Thief!” he screamed.

Mato ran a few steps out in front of the kitchen and looked around. The delivery cart was abandoned, and the delivery man was nowhere to be seen.

Guards surrounded the area in moments. They took Adoeette’s story, then searched the kitchen, Adoeette, and Mato thoroughly. They tried to get a description of the thief, but he was just some tall guy with a produce cart and a long beard.

Mato spent the rest of the day trying to figure out what had happened. Clearly, the delivery man had taken the pendant, but how? His hands had been full. He brought a basket over, swapped it for an empty one, then returned to his cart. At no point had he looked at the pendant, let alone reached for it.

When they finally closed up, Adoeette split the leftover food with him, and paid the promised two scales.

“Thank you so much for your good work today,” Adoeette said. “You are welcome back any time, and if I need the help I’ll hire you in an instant.”

“Thank you for the pay and the food,” Mato said. “You have been far too generous. I’m sorry I didn’t pay better attention. Perhaps I could have stopped the thief.”

“Not your worry, my boy. Not your worry. Now go on. You need some rest after a day like this.”

He staggered home on aching feet and found Ezhno reclining against a wall, reading by candlelight. Mato put the food down on the table, and Ezhno held out a hand.

“What do you want?” Mato asked. “I have cavi, quail, yams, mushrooms--”

“But do you have my pendant?”

“It’s probably in your pocket,” Mato said.

Ezhno studied him for a few seconds, rolled up his scroll, and stood. He reached into his pants’ pocket and withdrew the pendant.

“What was the point of telling me to steal it, and then taking it yourself?”

“There are lessons there. Can’t you think of one?”

“I needed a faster plan.”

“Good.”

“I assumed I had until after dark to act. I shouldn’t have.”

“Very good.”

“My teacher is sneaky.”

“You should have already known that.”

Mato ate a few bites, enjoying the taste of the food he’d spent the day making.

“Why do I need to learn to steal?”

Ezhno licked his fingers before answering. “First, any skill you can acquire may be useful in the future. Second, when we are on the trail, people will try to steal from us. You need to know how to stop them. Third, I am a trail master. Sometimes people ask me to find what has been taken from them. Often it is easiest to simply take it back.”

“Making me fail wasn’t the point. Showing me how to do it faster, and giving me a chance to see the guards respond was the point.”

“Very good, Mato. It is also important to remember that if you are trying to steal something, someone else may very well be working on it too.”

“Tomorrow we will have our morning sword training. After that we will make a circuit of the city, outside the walls. Planning that trip is your job. You will decide what to bring, and how much. Then we will do it.”

Mato went to sleep that night thinking about the problem. A circuit of the city. Sometimes there were races around the city, but he had always been busy helping his family keep their shop supplied. Holidays were never a day off for shopkeepers.

He woke to a rustle in his blankets. Quietly he reached up and took a mug of water from the shelf above the bed, then ripped the curtain back and threw the water where he thought Ezhno’s face would be.

The sound told him he had succeeded. Ezhno sputtered, then chuckled. “Very good, Mato. Now get up.”

* * *

The trek was awful. Mato’s old sandals had been in no shape for it, so he had purchased new ones. He knew the sun was unforgiving, so he bought a hat woven from twigs, much like Ezhno’s. His shirt and pants were light colored linen.

Ezhno said it would take about three hours, so Mato brought a few sticks of dried meat, and a pair of water skins.

They left via the east gate. As soon as they left the road, the texture of the salt changed. There was a thin layer, with little crystals underneath, and his foot would sink in about a knuckle deep. That let salt into his sandals, and he was constantly shaking them out.

Ezhno brought exactly the same equipment and walked along behind Mato.

The sun was merciless. Not only was it unbearably hot, but it shone off of the salt so brightly that within the first hour Mato could barely see.

The hot salt dehydrated his feet, and before long they felt burnt along the sides.

Ezhno taught him to recognize the signs of cold stroke, which Mato knew nothing about. Then they discussed heat stroke, which seemed a good deal more relevant.

Mato emptied his first water skin about the time they passed the north gate, which meant they were a fourth of the way. He squinted back at Ezhno and realized his teacher had barely touched any water yet.

When they passed the west gate, Mato’s feet were bleeding, leaving a faint trail behind him. A few glances at Ezhno showed his teacher was having the same difficulty.

“I brought the wrong sandals.”

“Yes.”

“Should we go in and get the right ones?”

“Treat this like walking a real trail, and not a circle.”

“Okay. We can’t just go back and get better sandals. What should we do?”

“Keep going.”

Sweat soaked his shirt, and he wished the wind would make up its mind. One minute there was a breeze, and the next minute it was still. All he could see, other than the city, was salt. Endless miles of salt.

He finished his water just after they passed the south gate. Only a fourth of the way left. His feet hurt in ways he’d never experienced. His body felt dry and crusty. His lips were cracked, and his face felt sunburned, despite his hat.

“You’ve crossed the plains before?”

“Many times,” Ezhno said.

“How? We’ve been out here for less than half a day, and I’m worried I won’t make it.”

Ezhno handed him a water skin, and he drank a few swallows, then handed it back.

“What am I supposed to be learning right now?”

“Lots of things. You forgot to ask questions.”

Mato felt like slapping himself in the face.

“You neglected to speak to anyone who had traveled that way before. Even if you could not ask me--a faulty assumption--you could have asked someone else.

“You could have looked at my travel supplies. See what I usually take with me.”

Mato gasped. That idea was also hideously obvious.

Ezhno went on and on, detailing options for making a trip like this more successful. Don’t take dried meat. It’s a short trip. Take some fruit. Bring a tin of tallow to put on dry skin. Bring some kind of shade, so you can rest as needed. Put a cloth over your face. The sun reflects up from the salt, and even with a hat you will get burned.

By the time they returned to the east gate, Ezhno was hanging on to Mato’s elbow, pulling him along. The gates had never impressed him before. They were just big doors in a hardpan wall. Today they looked like the entry to paradise. He almost cried when they entered the first patch of shade.