Barnaby the Wanderer

Chapter 38: Crow Swythe

After you croak you find yourself walking a country lane. Easy and familiar, like all your life you've been on this road. The evening shadows make it just a bit worrisome. You know you want to get on before night comes. And to stay on the path, keep moving forwards.

Oh, and you know there's a gate ahead. Got to pay the toll to pass it. No problem for me. I've begun the journey with pockets jingling rich as the purse of a king's whore.

Other folk on the road eye me, my heavy pockets. I keep head down, not speaking. All that matters is getting past the gate before night catches me.

A fellow clears throat behind and I look back, while another from the side pretends to trip, knocking into me. Old game, but they're good. I shove the closer fellow away, he mutters apologies, slips off. I kick at the fellow behind, he grins, hurries on.

I check the coins in my pockets. Less than before. Shit and shave, who'd have thought I'd be taken so easy?

I continue down the road, keeping wary, worrying whether I can still pay to pass the gate. A fellow in rags sits on the roadside, hand out. I shake my head, avoid his eye. Never minded helping a down-and-out in the sunlit world, so long as I had enough left for beer and bedmate. But not now, not on this road. I've got to keep enough to get past the gate.

Something jingles to the ground. A coin dropped by a woman just ahead. I bend quick, scoop it up.

"That's mine, that is," she shouts.

"Isn't," I grin. "Dropped it myself."

I shove it to a pocket. She steps forwards swinging. I step back, bump into an old man with eyes sly as two rats considering a basket of kittens.

"Here, watch where you go," he curses. Pushes me towards the woman, who kicks my knee. I tumble to the bricks. There comes jangle and clangle as my coins spill out, rolling about.

I scream, grabbing for them the way Magpie did for the rings that got me dead. Other folk scoop them up first, laughing, fighting.

I crawl about like a dog, searching. But my coins have vanished quick as butter before a dog. I sit and howl like a dog. While folk pass as though I were a dog; giving the looks you'd give a dying dog

Finally, I stand, feel in my pockets. One coin left. I walk down the road holding it tight. A fellow ahead is chatting with a pretty girl. I set myself, pretend to trip into him, do a quick withdrawal of funds.

He curses, she laughs, I mutter my sorries, hurry on. Check what I won: four coins. I look ahead, wondering how much farther till the gate, how much longer till the night.

The road becomes more crowded, we now walk within reach of one another. I feel a wind on my person, check pockets. A coin is gone. I curse. The light is fading, night's coming, someone hurries by. I check pockets again. Another gone. I moan and groan, grasping the last two coins. Are they enough for the gate? Bet get more.

I put them deep in a pocket, ready my hands. then I slow, let a fellow pass, and slip what I can from his pocket. He shouts but I dodge behind two fools who've come to blows. Safe in the fuss I count what I took: three coins. I laugh and while I do someone brushes past, apologizing. I curse, check pockets. Pockets are empty.

The road grows more crowded, more shadowed. Easier to bump, to reach, to sneak away with a coin or three but soon as you do you feel a wind, a touch and pockets go light again. I reach to the fellow ahead and empty his pockets, move to the side as he shouts at a woman crying beside him. A man behind pushes me aside, I empty his pocket as he empties mine. We both hurry from one another but I bump into the crying woman, we shove each other away but now my coins are gone again.

The road grows more crowded and the light grows darker and for all I grab and push and tangle and lift, when at last I reach road's end my pockets are empty.

They don't waste time. They slam and lock the gate before me. The last light fades, leaving me here, outside in the dark.