“Barley for the poor man, wheat for the king, the wheat make you meek and the barley make you sing” they sang their way home from the battle, every song they each knew together. Barley and Wheat, Ori’s favorite song for Sparrow to sing, had many verses the old man had neglected to tell him. It was during one of those verses, about planting a rich man’s wheat in a poor man’s field, that the troupe came round the Roost.

  The great tower of the Roost had once held a beautiful garden of birds, or so the legends said. Now it mostly held pigeon shit and the meager detachment of watchmen given to the Barrow. Ori knew the Captain, and a kind thin watchman with a chubby wife and truly fat babe named Rod, but the others were just to be avoided. It was one of the avoided who was standing watch on the tower, a fat bellied one who stole as much as any King when his boss wasn’t looking.

  “Ay! Children! There’s a curfew out! Don’t make me roust you!”

  “Bugger yourself, Pigfuck! Come down and I’ll tell the Captain what you did to that boy up in the Crypts last year.” Owl shouted back, throwing up his hands in a universal sign of what the watch could use for his buggery. The boy dodged a rock thrown from the tower height, then the cadre ran into the night back to their masters.

  “What was that with the guard?” Wist asked, rounding the bend to their rendezvous.

  “Oh, just common knowledge. The watchman knifed a boy over a dice game. No one would care about it, only eyes on the scene were his and a handful of Crypt trash.”

  “We could do something about it, right?”

  Ori chimed into the discussion.“You truly are of the blood aren’t you Wisteria Brave. Hit a watchman? Kill a watchman? The whole of the Kings would get strung up unless it’s done the right way, and even then it’s a close chance.” The crew stopped short, staring at the little boy among them.

  “My master tells me stories. He knows quite a bit,”

  “Well, let’s see if he can tell us any more. We are conquering heroes, aren’t we?” Wist smiled, grabbing Owl and Ori around the shoulder and walking with purpose into the courtyard of the Kings. The shouts of the members happy to see their first work done were musical, and while they would have a headache in the morning from the booze of the King’s cock Ori knew the thieves had wanted them to be loose and prepared for the peppering they were now receiving.

  Sparrow was off with some of the old timers so Ori was passed among the rest of his new family. The hierarchy of the Kings was a confusing blur even with his years on the street working with them, but Ori enjoyed those he met during the night. Mole Hill, the blind thiefkeeper and Owl’s mentor, cornered the boy during one of these sweeps, a vice grip on Ori’s sore arm, his breath reeking of the cloudy liquor they called father’s milk.

  “You’re to stay a night with us at some point, Oriole. Sparrow and I worked it out. You know, until you’ve seen the Barrow as a King yaself? Ya don know… Father, I am drunk. Owl! We’re going to head out, where is tha, boy, Ori? Ori? Where is Owl?”

  The boy guided the blind man to his charge, then waited. Quiet and unassuming, Ori felt as if he blended into the background.

  Two men playing a game of knives, dancing sharpened coins across their knuckles. The coins would scrape the skin like a shaving razor if done right, or open a vein if you slipped at all. The woman Ori had called Queen danced with old Heron, their large bodies counterpoints to each, making them appear to be dancing in a room of children. Crane and Owl took up the dance as well, while Wist spoke to his mother and two other Kings dressed in finery.

  You listened, and for that I am grateful. The voice in the back of his mind, Ori turned to find who had been speaking. He found her there, a tall woman with the braided hair of the river folk, her mouth full of some pastry the Kings had stolen to bring for this beggar’s banquet.

  Come to me, Oriole Tanner, and we will speak of many things. You’re a clever boy, but I am far more clever. Her voice seemed to mock the child, and his scalp tickled, the sensation crawling down his back. Ay, the spider is more clever than a fly too, boy. Run. Run for your life. Sparrow’s lessons steeled his resolve, and Ori readied to move, only to feel her hands upon him.

  “Oh, you little bird. Feel your heart beating in your chest. Your little feathers pimpling your skin. You’re drunk, addled to the gullet on poppy. And still you have fought. Vicious pretty bird, you are mine and your master should know it well.” the woman’s smile was sweet and sad, though most of all possessive. She reminded Ori of the little creature one of Sparrow’s fences kept, a furry manbeast called a hanu that smiled that way when Ori tried to pet him.

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  Sparrow had told him. Some creatures smile, Oriole. Some just bare their teeth to show you how sharp they are. Hanu teeth, snake teeth, she wants me for some reason and Sparrow isn’t here to save me.

  “What is he to save you from? You are mine, as soon as you smiled at me. We are friends, partners, married to each other. You are as much my family as my children, my father, my sisters and brothers all. Do you want to walk with me? Learn my secrets?” the woman smiled, her teeth stained red by the wine and cakes. At least that is what Ori hoped.

  “Some day. May I have some time?”

  “All have time, though none know how much. You promise to come to me, don’t you? When you’re ready? When you need me? Of course you will, won’t you? All men come to me in need and hide from me when they want me to stay away.”

  “Until then?”

  “Yes, until then. May I give you advice, my little bird?”

  “Of course ma’am.”

  “Don’t drink and drug. Your head will need clear headway or else others will find you. Our brothers and sisters, long before you ever touch me. They’ll learn who you are, and make you find me. They’ll take me, and murder me, and cast my body to the sea. And then?”

  Then there will be nothing but death. And I will not have time to spend with my sweet Oriole.

  She was gone, and the whole place seemed darker. A cloud played over the moon and Ori found the whole world a little darker for it.

  “Ori? Did you finally pass out?” Crane elbowed him, and he felt himself rise into the pain.

  “I think so. I was dreaming nodding off, a beautiful woman.”

  “Oh. Well, I didn’t know I was waking you from a wet dream. Carry on.”

  “It wasn’t like that, and you know it.” Ori struck back, but his body was too weak to really do much but brush his companion back. “She was beautiful like, like the summer storms. Beautiful like fire from the sky or the great winds.”

  “A woman like that and you came back from death to speak to me? Well Ori, you may be a fool after all.” Crane’s smile gave away her intentions, and she grabbed his hand to make him stand. “Do you wish to dance or eat? I need a partner in crime, and the others have all paired off.”

  “No. I think I need to spend some time alone, get my head together.” his smile gave a lie, the lie that he didn’t want to be alone but Crane was not the company he wanted to keep. “I think I may walk home, try to get things going.”

  “Heron lets me keep my own place, you know. I could walk you there. The fools who attacked us may be down for the night, but what if they have friends?” Crane took his arm, and Ori let her make the decision for him.

  He thought of Her in the light and in the dark. Every change of light that came over the dark streets seemed to draw his eye, looking for the woman who threatened him and made him feel this way. He knew nothing, he knew too much. The walk sobered him, and Crane was quiet, his moping uninterrupted. Through the Barrow, right up to the Fleasbridge gate, past Heron’s rooms and up into the loft of the gatehouse.

  “Do you share the space here?”

  “Heron and a few beaters. I’m the only permanent woman in this place, though they have their dalliances. A bachelor’s house with one poor lady to keep them in line.” Crane smirked, pushing Ori into her room as she unlocked the place.

  It was well appointed and nothing like Ori had expected. Pillows piled in a corner with furs and roughspun blankets hanging from a post near them. A wooden half wall divided the whole large single room into four compartments, each with a smaller pile of pillows and various tables, cabinets, and artifice. Ori even saw a few baubles of the Art, including one of their strange spherical ovens that sat on a tripod of iron legs.

  “This is yours? All of it?’

  “You keep acting so surprised, Master Tanner. Heron found me and I was already a holy terror. My brother and I fenced half the south Tannery before Heron was paid to come find me, and then he clouted me and taught me how to fight and keep quiet. Now that my brother is in the Trap? The place is all mine.” Crane lost her smile, then brought it right back as if to ask Ori to defy her and say it had left in the first place.

  “You can show me all of it, but I am sore and wish to sleep. Where is your brother’s bed?” Ori took the boots off, tapping his feet for feeling and stretching his back as he finished the process.

  “We slept on the pillows, a makeshift thing. If you promise not to try to poke me you can sleep there as well. I’m not one for foolish boys, or boys at all.” Crane pulled him to the pile, and they distributed a harem bed of comfort. “Alright, let’s get ready for bed then.”

  “I am ready for bed, Crane.”

  “You sleep in all your clothes? Is this a Tannery custom? In the Barrow we sleep in the clothes the Mother gave us. If you need some peace I can avert my eyes, but you don’t have anything my brother had before you.” she smiled at the boy then. He stripped himself quickly, breeches and shirt, and hoped he didn’t seem to thin or mottled to share a bed with. Crane made it a game, shucking off her own clothes piece by piece, tossing them over Ori’s head to form a pile as she readied herself to bed.

  She was Barrow born, if the scars and scrapes said anything. The light from the drowsing moon fell through the windows and dappled her skin, making Ori think of some beast leaving those marks in the dark. One long slash across her belly arched up to just under her ribs, another across a hip. The worst crawled up her wrists and forearms, irregular cuts, the training scars.

  She’s beautiful, but not for you. I am yours, and you mine. She is warm meat, and I am what I am. She’ll die soon enough, the lover she’ll choose to do her in. Why try?

  “You’ll swallow a rat.” Crane joked, wrapping herself in one of the blankets as she sat down beside Ori. They sat in the dark, quiet for minutes, until Crane’s hand entwined in his. “Did you like what you saw?”

  Ori stayed silent. Crane laid down with her back to the boy, curving herself like a crescent, the least amount of her to possible touch him.

  He tried to wrap his arms around her as he heard her sob, but she slapped him away. The time seemed to have passed for whatever Crane had wanted, and Ori went to the window, peering out into the moonlit Barrow. He heard the laughter in his head as he stood, right until he fell into the pile of pillows and the sun rose over the valley.