Juxta at 8 Dad drank all day. Slurred speech, threats of a beating. He wore stained clothes as if unwilling to wash them. Mom washed the neighbor's clothes to earn food. Truth is, never a beating, but Dad grew madder by the seasons. Men of Lynken brew booze from potatoes and barley and hops and grains. Never fruit from a tree, but vines for grapes, great, berry from brambles, good stuff. Never a tree. Dad turned our homestead into a stupid fruit farm filled with trees taking years to even bear fruit. Fruit saved us in long winters. Drying, storing in the cool darkness. Not brewing. The family sunk deep into the depths of debt that would someday be passed to me. He haggled with every druid for a hundred miles to help him propagate fruit. We had the trees and brambles and vines, but I had yet to taste a drop of alcohol from any of it. And whatever dad was drinking likely came from a cheap grain. "You doubt me, boy?" He asked, and I knew he meant me. I couldn't hide it. We would never pay off this debt. Ten lifetimes worth. We had one tree old enough to bear fruit. Apples that fell off the tree before turning ripe. Apples hard to even eat, but we starved. Six months from when the last apples fell from the tree. My dad mostly hid in his barn and kept it locked from us. "You doubt me. My oldest son doubts me," Dad said. My mom stepped forward. "I doubt you." "Come with me, Juxta." "If you beat him," Mom said. "I'll slide a knife in your ribs in your sleep." Dad scowled. "Maybe it would be a blessing." "Don't hurt him." He leaned down to me. "Besides the lean months where I haven't provided, have I ever hurt you?" "No, Dad." He touched me gently on the shoulder. "Come see what is in the barn." He opened the doors. The sun hadn't set, and inside sat barrels and contraptions. Dad held out a gallon mug to me. "Take it." I took it in both hands. He lifted a barrel up high and filled my mug. He spilled more on the ground than went into the vessel I held. I smelled it. Liquor. I had always feared it because I had no real dad because of it. I took a sip. Fortune and glory and I finally saw the truth that my dad wasn't mad, but brilliant. "Drink it down, boy," Dad said. Glug glug glug, down it went. I stumbled away from the barn and fell. For my life, I could not stand or move, but my mind floated between the abyss and the heaven of the one true god. The war god's paradise of fallen soldiers showed me many things. A smart eight-year-old would have puked it up, but I wanted to embrace the heavens forever. Soon darkness consumed me. Not sure if the setting of the sun or my senses drifting to nothingness. Stars lived in the sky. I closed my eyes and drifted. I don't know how long I was down. The smell of smoke woke me. I still couldn't move. The house blazed with fire reaching upwards. I drew strength from some god I would pay later. I raced towards the house. The door barred. The flames singed my hair. I kicked the door, and it flew open but a wave of heat hit me and pushed me back. All consuming heat like every timber and rafter burned. I pushed into the fire again, still with the borrowed strength of some god. I choked and hacked. My heart burned along with the fire around me. I had to have air. I leaped for the door and fell to the ground outside. Fresh air was energy and rage, but the house collapsed in on itself. I lay and wept. Horses echoed in the distance, a few, then a hundred. I stood at the front of the line tossing buckets at the base of the blaze. Buckets came too slow, or I didn't throw them far enough. None questioned if I did the work of a man at eight years old. I fought for my life. The lord came with wagons. I didn't even know the lord's name. Only a vassal, William sat on the throne. The priest of the one true god stood next to him. Other men moved or surveyed. The barn survived with the still and barrels, and dad's countless notes. The lord called out my name. "Juxta!" I approached the group of men. A debt on my head. At eight I knew enough to know I couldn't work the farm on my own. The lord kneeled in front of me. "You know the debts fall on you? You understand?" "I know." "The men will take the livestock, and claim the land. You, Juxta, will spend your youth at the temple of the one true god. I can't promise you what your fate will be. You will be fed, and survive. Is this acceptable to you?" I shouldn't have said it. I should have nodded like a good boy. "Is there another option?" The priest snarled. "Of course, you have choices, a deep lake, a noose from a tree. I have said a prayer, and I believe you want to live." I nodded like a good boy. Gruel and no meat and the priest never touched me in a private place. I had a strong right cross, so bullies gave me respect.

Juxta at 10 A dismal summertime in the temple of the one true god meant feast over famine. Somehow Juxta pulled duty weeding. Why him and him alone made no sense. Questioning priests led to being hit with a stick, not an answer. A measly gruel of last year's barley, a few small chunks of potato and carrots, filled Juxta's belly, but boredom with the food ate at his soul. Only the priests ate meat. At least in the morning, if chicken lay eggs, they ate eggs. Summer the eggs filled Juxta's lifeblood as much as the rage he carried. Food at sunrise and sunset. Nothing midday but a water break. Pull a basket of weeds, shake off every chunk of dirt, run it, not walk it, back to the waste pile where the great god above will turn it to dirt. Juxta knelt pulling weeds as fast as he could. A slow worker beaten. He weeded off in the far reaches of a field. Somebody whistled. Juxta looked. A man no more than twenty years old stood behind a tree. He held up a silver coin. The first coin Juxta had seen in two years. Did this young man want to kill him and eat him? Priests often talked about cannibals who stole young boys to roast over a fire. Juxta no longer believed in the priests. This man held out a silver coin. Juxta stayed down low so a far-off priest wouldn't notice anything. The other man put the coin into his pocket. "I have a job." A job any better than pulling weeds by the acre? "My name is Felix," he said. "I'm living very comfortably in the temple. They catch me they'll tan my hide." Felix undid a belt around his waist, with a sheaf and knife attached. He held it out to Juxta. "So nobody will tan your hide again." Magic words. Felix could be a devil or a cannibal or murderer, but he spoke words from above. Juxta strapped the blade to his middle. The leather tired, well worn. "The one true god says to not trust those bearing free gifts," Juxta said. "You made that up, it's not true." "It's one of the teachings!" The boy said. "It's a lie, but the gift isn't free. I want you from something." Juxta drew the blade with a quickness like he'd practiced it a hundred times. A low growl escaped his lips. "Boy, I'm faster than you, my blade is longer, but it blesses my heart you would cut the hand that feeds." How could Juxta not like this new man? A smile spread across his lips. Felix looked the boy in the eyes. "You must lower yourself by rope, into an open window, stay completely silent, and steal a fine blade with a jewel-encrusted hilt. Ten silver pieces will be your cut, and no negotiating a penny more." "Ten silver pieces? How much is that in meat?" "Three to six months, a slab of meat every day." Deep down, this Felix owned Juxta now. Felix started walking, and Juxta followed. "The merchant traveling through always stops at the same inn," Felix said. "He drinks and feasts, then sleeps on the top floor with the window open." Stealing, Juxta's last option? He felt strongly about stealing stuff, different from spilling blood. They walked through a small town and came to an inn. Felix pointed at the top of the structure. "You see the window?" "Yes." "He's not here tonight. Maybe in a few days." Great, Juxta has no food, no lodging, and Felix was obviously quite insane. Felix walked in an opposite direction. Juxta hesitated, with doubts floating in his mind as a fast-running brush fire fueled by wind and storm. "You can go back. You can always seek shelter with the priests," Felix said. "You have food?" Juxta asked. "I'm no cook, but I'll advance you one silver from the ten. You must spend it wisely, for there will be no second silver until the sword is in my hands." The two of them walked into an inn. A woman shouted, "Felix, you dog." "I'm no dog!" He said. "You got no honorable profession. Now you got this boy? From where?" "Cathleen, meet Juxta, he has lost his way and has kin in the capital." What? Juxta knew enough to keep his mouth shut. Felix bent down to look Juxta in the eye. "Cathleen has the fairest prices and best food of any inn in all of Lyken. You will stay here until needed." "Okay." Within a week, no merchant came. Juxta sat at a bar in the inn. Three coppers to his name that he couldn't stop counting. Wondering deep down what happened to the rest. Meat and bread and ale. Cathleen approached. "What are you doing here, boy?" She asked. Juxta didn't have an answer. Felix previously gave him a stock answer to use. "Passing through with Felix." "I have seen you spend money like it's no better than rainwater. Yet you wear rags and a tan only working in a field will bring on." No answer presented itself. No more money from Felix. Three coins a paltry sum at an inn. He definitely didn't spend the coins like rainwater. Or did he? A boy had to eat. Cathleen reached over and touched his hands. "Breakfast, work, what I say, when I say, a fat dinner, sleep in a bed, not the barn. One bath a week, starting tonight." Juxta hated himself for asking, but Felix rubbed off on him. "Coins?" "Ain't no coins in this bargain. Maybe if you work hard enough, not lazy, no slack. Run when I say move. I add a fourth copper to your three." "Did Felix send you?" "Ain't no business of yours." Juxta held out his hand to shake. "I accept your deal." "Bathe first, then I'll shake your hand. Not a deal so much, but pity on a boy with no parents, no kin." "If it's about pity, you can keep it." "Keep that fire handy, if I decide I need it, otherwise use soap all over." The bath went well, except the tub sat behind the inn and nobody ever thought to put up walls around it. Any passerby could watch. Hell, Juxta didn't care, soap mattered. He went inside. The inn filled through the night, and Juxta raced from table to table filling glass cups with water. The ale poured into clay mugs and not Juxta's job. Well past sunset, and Juxta cared not for the setting of the sun. A patron who had no mug of ale but drank with an insatiable thirst, passed Juxta a copper coin and said thanks for the water. Cathleen shuttered the place. Cathleen and Juxta filled bellies with stew. "You smiled at every customer and made eye contact," she said. "You will go far in this business." The honest work filled Juxta with a bit of a glow, and he slept with dreams of being a great king. A week passed. Six coppers jingled in Juxta's coin purse. Headway against all odds. Felix came for him in the night. They moved silently to prop a ladder against the wall of a different inn. Felix produced a harness and rope. They discussed the plan five times. Juxta donned the harness. Felix lowered him to the window frame. Once Juxta's feet stood firm, he undid the harness and dared not breathe. The sword belt hung from a cloak hook. A ruby sat in the center joint between hilt and blade. Jade skulls adorned the ends of the four-armed guard. Juxta ran for the window and leaped out to grab the harness with the sword belt looped around his neck. Felix rapidly loosened out the rope. Juxta hit dirt and ran. He coiled up the rope. They met at their predestined point. Felix put the ladder back where he got it and wrapped the sword in a blanket. The harness and rope went into his backpack. "Return to Cathleen's inn. Three days we flee, and you will be paid," Felix said. Juxta ran. If anybody noticed them, Juxta didn't know. He worked hard in the inn. Felix showed at dawn. He handed a coin purse to Juxta. Nine silver pieces. Cathleen approached. The inn was empty but those three. "I heard a story," Cathleen said. Felix reached into a pocket and drew three silver coins. Cathleen pocketed them. "An uninteresting, poorly told story, which I have since forgotten." "I am opening a clothe merchant in Lynken's capital," Felix said. "If you ever have a need. Come along, Juxta." Cathleen bent down and pulled Juxta in close. "It's been a pleasure, young man. You don't have to go with that scoundrel. You can stay here." Juxta looked from one to the other. Cathleen pushed him away. "I cannot teach you what it is to be a man. Felix is hardly a man, but you should learn from him, not me." "I'm a fully functioning adult male. Juxta is no apprentice or pupil. He knows what it is to be a man," Felix said. "What I'm selling is adventure and stories to tell our grandkids." "Go," Cathleen said. Juxta squeezed her tight and followed Felix.