43 A Crow

Far away in the south many years ago grew a young boy. He had been born in the slums of the southern kingdom. Like all the other orphans in the slums, he had no name. Some of the other kids called him crow, because he liked shiny things.

One day, crow had "found" a baked potato. That couple who was going off to have a picnic would just have to deal with one missing potato. He had run off so the older kids wouldn't take it from him. Crow ran down an unfamiliar alley. He knew this was dangerous. Kids disappeared when they went to other places. They never came back. But crow hadn't eaten in days. This potato would fill him up. He wanted to be full just once in this lifetime.

Crow looked around this quiet spot. ...Well...not so quiet. There was a steady banging coming from the other side of the wall. But there weren't a lot of people. It seemed safe enough.

Crow looked around and saw something shiny by the place with the steady banging. Tossing the last bite into his mouth he was drawn to the shine. There were scrap metal pieces that looked like they were full of debris and chaff. Crow picked up and polished the hunk of metal with his shirt a bit. He saw a broken file and moving on instinct began to shape the object with the file. He didn't even notice that the steady banging had stopped.

Jameson had just finished molding the metal into a fine steel blade shape. It was going to be a very pretty dagger. But it had not yet been sharpened. He needed a break first. He also wanted to say his final farewell to his favorite file that finally broke this morning. He had that thing for years. Jameson went out back to see a little beggar playing with his scrap metal and in the child's hand was a file. His file.

He watched what the boy was doing. His movements were fluid enough. It almost looked like the child had been trained to file metal before. But that was impossible for such a small orphan. The boy couldn't be more than six years old.

Jameson approached the child and looked at what he was doing. The scrap metal that he had tossed away had begun to take a triangular shape. Was this child sculpting this metal with a file?

"What are you making there boy?" Jameson asked The boy startled, dropped the hunk of metal and the file and began to run. He didn't even take three steps before he was caught by Jameson.

"You've got a lot of talent, little one," Jameson said. "Come with me and I'll show you a better file. Bring that metal piece you are working on." He let go of the boy and turned to go into his shop. He hoped the boy would follow him. He could use and apprentice, and the boy could probably use a home. But he was not like other people. He would not force a child to follow him.

The boy didn't follow him.

But the next day... Crow sat outside the place just as he had the day before and filed away on his piece of metal. Jameson had not thrown it out, and has done the most foolish act of leaving that one piece with the broken file in the alley next to his building.

Jameson gave the boy a sandwich. He could tell the kid was not fed enough and was under nourished. The slums weren't far from his neighborhood. He knew about the living environment there. But he had never seen what someone from the slums looked like until now.

Crow day by day began to trust Jameson more. But one day he disappeared. He didn't come back for about a week. When he did finally show up there were the remnants of cuts and bruises on the boys arms and legs.

He must have been beaten. Pretty badly for him to not show up until now. Jameson made the boy take a bath because he was "stinking up the workplace." and then he made the boy eat and take a nap because he "would work harder if he was fed and rested."

Crow could tell the man was just trying to take care of him. It was an awkward feeling.

Jameson realized something when crow took a bath. The boy was a very good looking child. If he were a noble it would be an excellent thing to look as good as he did. But he was not a noble. He was a poor kid from the slums. It would be very dangerous to send the kid back to the slums looking as pretty as he was. Jameson decided then and there to take care of this kid. If he had never met him, and never seen how well the untrained child could use a file he would not have even known to care. The boy would have been one more statistic. But now he had met the kid. He knew him now. He couldn't leave this child to the horrible fate that would surely follow him in the slums. The only thing that waited for these kids was slavery or the Southern Church.

For the next few years Jameson taught crow what he knew. Crow was now eight years old and could make a fine blade with beautiful intricacies. Crow had just surpassed Jameson in skill. But Crow was an orphan. He had no ID and no name. As much as he wanted he could never be an official apprentice.

Jameson told the boy that he was too young to have his own seal be on his work. Jameson marked every piece of Crows work with his own seal. He had told the boy that it would be dangerous for him to reveal his talents outside of the shop. The boy wouldn't understand that this was all done to protect him until much later in his life.

One day a traveling foreigner came into the shop. He needed his blade sharpened. Jameson hid crow behind the counter. He knew slave traders often disguised themselves as foreign nobility or merchants. The foreigner stayed looking over one of the daggers that crow had made. It was beautiful. "I could have sworn that such work could only have been made by the god Tvastr!" the man exclaimed. Who had such skill to make a blade of this caliber?"

Crow peeked his head out from behind the counter. He was genuinely curious about which blade had caught the foreigner's eye.

Jameson already had to keep the boy hidden from the eyes of the nobility and slave trader scum. The boy was very good looking. Even if it was just for his looks, the boy would fetch a pretty penny. And now the little kid had revealed himself to a foreigner.

"Ah," the foreigner exclaimed. This must be your son. "Pay attention to your father, young man. He can teach you many things. Then you can come and work for me." The foreigner smiled innocently.

Crow nodded. Jameson was grateful for his foresight in not letting Crow sign his own work. If he had, there was no doubt in his mind that the foreigner who was eyeing crow would have stopped at nothing to take him.

About 3 months later, Jameson was killed on his way home. Beaten to death. The church had evidence that James had kidnapped a child that was not his own and was making the child work like a slave. A commoner owning a slave was a sin. The only ones allowed to own slaves were the nobles. Because only the nobles had enough to support the people working under them. No one was allowed to speak up against the Southern Church. If they did they were sentenced to death.

The church "rescued" crow. They also decided that since crow was already used to the life of a slave it would be a shame to take that kind of life away from him. They branded the boy and sold him to a slave trader who was headed to the north part of the country. There were some rich nobles from Cernealia who were not allowed to buy slaves in their own country.

They got around this action by "Hiring new people" for their mansions. The brands did not allow the slaves to get away from their owners. If they tried to run away, they would collapse from the pain caused by getting far away from their contracts. The branding irons were forged by the god Davier himself. There was no getting out of these contracts unless it was burned in the very fire that forged the branding iron.

Crow would be a slave for the rest of his life.