A cock crowed in the thick gloom before dawn.

The boy, sprawled on the warped floorboards with his arm curled around an open book and his head bent close over it, looked up. He swept the cowlick out of his eyes with a thin, long-fingered hand, carefully shut the book, and sat back on his heels. Several scrolls, scattered at his side, stirred and rustled with the movement. It was the only noise in the room.

Shelves lined every wall of the small, square room, spilling over with scrolls, stacks of paper, and great heavy tomes. The rest was bare, save for the two stuffed chairs that the headmaster put to use when he entertained visitors in the library that he never read.

The boy rose to his feet, an ungainly movement with a hint of the grace that would come when his body grew to fit his legs. Setting the book in its gap on the shelf and shoving the scrolls after, he turned to the torch in the bracket on the wall. It was sputtering, burning down to a stub; it would not last him more than one or two more nights. He doused it in the pitcher beside him and found his way soundlessly out of the room, torch and pitcher cradled in the crook of his arm.

Through stifling passageways that kinked in odd places, over damp matting and old, slimed wooden floor that was chill on his bare feet, he neither stumbled nor hesitated. He knew the short route like his own self. He did not go into the sleeping bay by the door, which creaked, but let himself in by a broken slat in the wall and negotiated the maze of sleeping figures to his own cold bed.

Fenris stirred as he let himself down. "Mordred," he murmured drowsily.

"Hush, Fenris." Mordred's arm found his brother and descended on Fenris' shoulder, only withdrawing when the muscles had relaxed in sleep again. The air was greying — slowly. Words danced behind Mordred's burning, sleepless eyes, fragments, passages from the reading. He repeated them silently to himself, his lips moving, fixing them in his memory so that he could say them again for Fenris...

A shrill order woke the room. Heads lifted, bodies rolled over, tired groans broke loose from the forty-odd boys as they struggled to rouse themselves. A foot of someone stretching slammed into Mordred's back.

Fenris was up at the first, his thin frame pressing against Mordred; Mordred reached back instinctively to steady him. He wished Fenris would rest longer, stretch and turn like the others, not leap up with eyes so full of fear. A stinging, frantic pain lashed somewhere inside him. What if today — today was another time he could not stop—

"Where were you?"

Mordred did not even glance at the questioner.

"You, baby-face."

Mordred, a little scornfully, bent to pull on his boot.

"Kenhelm boy!"

"Oh," said Mordred, straightening. "You were speaking to me."

They meant Kenhelm as an insult, because of how he had given his full name so proudly when they first came. Orphans did not have surnames.

"Where were you?" The inquisitor was at least three years his senior, scraggly brown hair, a crooked tooth, hairs beginning to bristle on his chin, and assertion of his right to dominance showed in every contour of his angry fist.

Mordred tossed his head. "What do you know about it?"

"I woke up early. Hungry. I heard you come in."

"I might tell you," said Mordred with no small condescension, "if you had asked in a more civilized manner."

He was pulling on his other boot and could not evade the blow. It threw him off balance and he lurched to the floor, up again in an instant. "Go on," he said, still scornfully, edging out of reach but fully aware the older boy had him cornered. "Hit me again."

The fist reared back, hesitated, and balled tighter. The boy nodded towards Fenris. "I'll hit your brother if you don't tell me."

Mordred's hands turned to ice. "You won't," he said, all the dread forming as fury in his voice.

"I'll hit him. Harder than I hit you, Kenhelm."

Fenris took a step back from the threat, the fear up in his eyes. Fenris could tell at any moment, but he would not — and Mordred tensed, panic ricocheting all across his mind, watching the fist, so that when it moved, Fenris would not be the first one in its path—

"Fighting, boys?" The shrill, commanding voice from earlier made the older boy whip around.

"Aye, madam, they were fighting," said someone instantly.

How quick they all were to bear tales on one another. Mordred's disdain rose as he flung his shoulders back and met the matron's eye.

"Who was fighting?"

"Roca and I," said Mordred before any other overeager voices could speak. "Or, the truth as you would prefer not to hear it, Roca was fighting me and I was avoiding him."

"Sass, Kenhelm!" she barked and slapped him.

"Did I speak a lie, ma'am?" He threw the words at her through a tingling jaw, not caring the next punishing strike that came. They all proved his point, with every thing they did, how brutish and sordid and hypocritical they were. Their retaliation did nothing but prove it further.

They did not care that there was a world beyond this pool of drudgery and marsh called Rehirne.

~

Laufeia pushed through the impenetrable web of limbs, flapping, odorous garments, and bodies twice as tall as her. Snarls followed her progress, clouts, vituperation — no-one tolerated interference during eating — but she was as nimble as she was small. The fists never — or almost never — landed. And meals were the one time of day where men and women were allowed to mingle.

At last she saw him, arms crossed, his dark head rising in the midst of the rest. He was so tall lately, he looked like a scarecrow. Disheveled and breathless from her search, she stumbled to a halt and hugged Fenris.

Mordred's aloof stance softened as he saw her. He opened his arms and held her close for a moment, her head barely reaching his chest, and she rested in it, the moment where everything was safe and there was no need for vigilance.

Then she pulled back, her eyes narrowed in a frown. "Mordred, why aren't you eating?"

His grey eyes hardened and his chin went up with a little toss. "Roca and I aren't let to have anything this morning."

"Mordred, what did you do now?" she burst out in frustration.

His chin went up even higher. "He hit me; that ended as you might expect. Then I told the madam the truth. Do not worry about me, sister. I will be fine."

She bit her lip, the exasperated frown deepening. Always the same words.

He shifted away from her disapproval. "Did you sleep well?"

She yielded to the dismissal of the matter, though not without a sigh. "Yes, Mordred." He never belittled her, never invoked his age over her, despite having fifteen years to her twelve; she could argue with him like an equal. But he never listened.

Fenris had ceased eating, looking at Mordred with anxious eyes. Laufeia picked up his fallen hand like a mother. "Eat, Fenris." It was no good trying to share with Mordred. Someone would see and tell. And Fenris must not deprive his own self because Mordred had been stupid.

There was silence. The three of them stood together while the early-morning moments sped by, no words to say, just silence.

It was enough to be together.

~

The end of the meal came with the announcement of work distribution, and Laufeia sped away, the long, pale braid swinging behind her tiny figure. Mordred put an arm swiftly around Fenris and led the way to their grouping.

Two hours later, they were in the streets of Corune, rain spattering down at odd moments, all the unpleasant smells of a city hanging in the air. Twenty boys, twelve to sixteen. One boy to a street.

There had been a fire on Mordred's street. The house had collapsed into the middle of the road, sending charred timbers to both ends. Mordred went back to the overseer to request a hatchet in addition to his shovel and barrow, and set to splitting the wood to manageable lengths. He heaved them into the barrow, filled the remainder with shovelfuls of ash, rubble, and street filth, and took the load to the waiting cart in the square. A second load. A third.

A band of street boys came up on him and watched from the opening of the street. "Cota maga, cota maga," they called in a singsong. Orphan trash.

Mordred heaved another shovelful and did not answer. Let them jeer.

He thought of Fenris while the hours of morning and afternoon dragged by. He hated most the jobs that separated him from Fenris, the ones where he could not see him and know whether he were all right. Could not stop things.

At least Fenris would be alone too; not with the overseers, not with the other orphans. Mordred brought down the hatchet with a fierce, reckless crack. Again. And again. Fighting back the frantic urge to turn and run and see to his brother.

Until he flung down the hatchet and ran.

He ran without strategy, cutting down street after street, not caring who saw him. The shouting sent him skidding to a halt, and a cold dread gripped him. He did not have to turn the corner to know it was Fenris.

"Streets don't clean themselves! What is it when a street is half as done as any of the rest? Your kind is for work, boy, not play, not shirking — if there is one law that says orphans are to shirk, may I drop dead right here — Speak, boy! Enough of those dead-fish eyes! Have you got no tongue? A tongue is for talking — talk!"

Fenris' eyes were dilated, his slight shoulders trembling under the assault. No tears, no pleading. He was frozen with fear.

The overseer was working himself up angrier and angrier. "You son of sewer rats, worthless block of wood, mute street-trash, a maid of ten could clean a street quicker than this!" His hand slapped heavily across Fenris' face. Again, again. Back and forth.

Mordred, already halfway down the street, tripped over the shovel as the first blow fell. He sprang to his feet, white-hot fury and agony ripping a core inside him. Too late—

He was between them, thrusting Fenris back, sucking back the pain as a fist exploded in his eye.

The overseer looked startled when he saw whom he had struck. "Get in your own street, Kenhelm boy."

"I shall not. Let Fenris be. Why do you think he cannot work, you liar? Fenris does not shirk. He works in fear of all of you until he cannot stand any longer and has to rest shivering with exhaustion, waiting for his legs to bear him again! Is it his fault that he is smaller and thinner than any other boy of thirteen in this orphanage? Why do you expect of him what you expect of someone three inches taller and half as strong again?"

The next blow caught him in the jaw. He shook away the tears away and plunged blurrily on. "Why do you punish him for his laziness by denying him the bare scraps of food he gets to stay alive, and become angry when his effort is weaker still? Beat him for not performing a task to your satisfaction, and revile him when he can scarcely stand the next—"

His head snapped sideways under the impact to his cheek, and he reeled, struggling to keep his balance. Fenris, where was Fenris? He fell, stumbled up, was knocked down again. He could not think anymore. His stomach, light and queer all day, seemed to be expanding to fill his whole body with fluttery, pain-tipped wings. The only thing that kept him awake was Fenris.

He wrenched himself up groggily, and hands pushed him down. He struggled against them, his senses coming back halfway. It was another orphan holding him; the overseer must have called for help. He continued to thrash, to squirm, but it was no use. It was never any use, he thought dazedly. It always ended the same. The tears burned his cheeks as he tried to swallow them back, his face in the filth of the road.

It always failed.

~

Mordred was not let to have supper either after his infraction that afternoon — nor was Fenris, which cut harder. He saw Fenris safely to a mat as the orphans gathered to their separate bays and lay down on the next one, his face throbbing and the world a little strange and distant. "Fenris," he murmured.

"Yes, Mordred," said Fenris softly.

Mordred sat up in the dimness. Snores and sleeping breath rose and fell around them. "I'll tell you what I read, now."

The words came back to him, slowly. "The last king of Rothalon was named Huras — Huras the Black — and on the night he celebrated his fortieth birthday, with much feasting and rejoicing in the capital, the Gontish armies crept up silently in the darkness..."

There was a world beyond Rehirne, where men wrote books like that.

Someday, Fenris, you will live in that world.

You and Laufeia.

I promise.

***

I'm totally not crying right now.

anyway it's late and I need to go to bed so this author's note will have to be cut short. What did you think?