Barnaby the Wanderer

Chapter 9: First Lessons

Barnaby lay bound hand and foot upon a rough wooden floor. The room held scarce light, but shadow and echo declared it someplace large. He spied boxes and barrels. Beyond the ceiling sounded conversation, laughter, bootsteps going and coming.

I'm in the cellar of the tavern, he decided. This explained the memory of being dragged down steps, as well as the aches and scrapes from that dragging. Granted, the ache in his head came from the blow struck before the dragging.

'Ware wolves on two feet'; that had been wiser advice than he'd understood. At the time he'd pictured real wolves walking upright, as the witch's magic pig Baltazar attempted. But now the meaning shown bright, for all the basement dark. Some folk were wolves on the inside, no matter the human face they wore. Barnaby sighed to admit it.

But: don't gaze overlong on dark things, his Da always said. Barnaby nodded, and did his best. Bound in the dark, he pictured the wonders of the last three days. He'd watched witches at work; met a bard with a golden harp. Said hallo! to a stone saint. He'd helped a poor donkey, buried a stranger and rode in an ox cart. Not that riding an ox cart was extraordinary. But he'd sat by the fire of loud acrobats, listening to tales that would make his mother scowl and his father laugh.

No, he'd met no one more unpleasant than a cow that chased him when he'd sought to drink from its trough. Well, and that farm wife who'd struck him with a broom, before he had chance to bargain work in exchange for a meal. All said, the world was full of good folk, everywhere; until he'd sat with the three smiling soldiers anxious to share cheese, ale and army service.

"Might have been my fault," he considered. "Perhaps I did the toast wrong. Who knows what words mean so far from home?" But no; they'd said he was a soldier for declaring the oath. He didn't feel like a soldier. He felt like a bruised miller, tied up same as a sack of flour.

He considered his bound hands and feet. Leather straps; the kind Da used to bind the flour barrels. Wrap the leather wet, let it dry and it became tight as chains. These felt dry and tight.

He struggled for awhile, not expecting any success and not finding any. A rat darted across the floor. He considered whether he could get it to chew through his bindings. More likely it'd prefer to chew him. Barnaby gave struggle a rest. He drowsed for a while; dreaming that he discussed life and bindings with the rat.

"You fellows are always chewing on what you shouldn't," pointed out Barnaby. "Candles and shoes, toes and the Sunday pie. You might make yourselves useful for once."

"Ha," said the rat, showing yellow incisors. "You sound like your mother."

"Oh, I'm sorry then," said Barnaby, not wishing to hurt the rat's feelings.

Mollified, the rat bowed. "For all the ancient war twixt Miller and Rat, I'd be glad to aid one so polite caught in trap. But I dare not." The rat looked left and right, twitching nose, then confided in the low whisper of night creatures. "The cat's coming." With that he scurried off.

Before Barnaby could call him back, he awoke, shaken by a distant boom that echoed like cannon fire. Perhaps it was cannon fire, from the army hurrying to claim its new recruit. He listened for the call of bugles and marching feet. Then the boom came again; a clap of thunder from the world beyond. He smiled, catching the faint rush of rain-heavy wind. He felt parched, longing to be drinking honest water. And yet, the patter and roar of storm comforted. Bound in the dark, it lightened Barnaby's heart to know that in the wide world beyond waited clean drink, free air.

A trickle of rain began splashing down the wall beside Barnaby. He moved away, wiggling like a caterpillar. Then thirst made him wiggle back, putting mouth to all he could catch. It tasted of stone and dirt, but he drank all he could. When that sufficed, he held his bound hands beneath the trickle. Wetting the leather straps, seeking to soak them. It was a long slow business that left him wet and weary. He fell asleep again.