Amiri of Caro

Friends

"The cane if you please, boy."

Amiri's face burned, but he pushed up from the bench and fetched the bundled reeds from their place in the window. Slow, halting steps took him to the front of the classroom. He held out the cane.

"Are you trying to lessen your punishment?" The school master indicated Amiri's linen-bound hands.

"No, sir." Amiri unwrapped them, but even at his slowest, the cloth dragged and pulled at the welts from the day before, re-opening the barely healed wounds.

The soft plink, plink of blood dripping to the floor was lost among the mocking whispers that arose from the other boys.

Boys Amiri had once called friends. Boys whose brothers hadn't been left fatherless, forcing them to stay home some days when their mothers were healing sick people at the school, working desperately to keep their sons in school.

Each strike of the cane upon Amiri's open palms brought forth another cruel laugh, another taunting jeer―callous words the school master did nothing to stop. Ten strokes, then twenty and Amiri could bear it no more, snatching his palms back amidst cries of, "coward!"

"Feckless worm!"

"Can't take a caning like a man. It's only your hands!"

"Your insolence will get you whipped, boy!"

"You know I had to stay home yesterday. My brother was ill. I saw you read the note from my mother," Amiri said through gritted teeth. His hands throbbed, staining red right through the rags.

"As admirable as your dedication to family is," the school master said, "you've no excuse for not knowing the answers when called upon―hire a private tutor."

Ah, and with what money? What they had would last Amiri until the end of this schooling season, no longer. He'd already asked Anul and Julius and Iton for help with the work,and they'd all laughed in his face, like they were laughing right now, as the school master indicated between the whip and the door.

Amiri looked at the whip.

At his bleeding hands.

At the scrolls that held so much knowledge―a chance for him to rise above his station and be respected when he was a man grown. The whip would be painful, but at least it wouldn't cripple his fingers. Fingers that could barely hold a stylus because of the swelling.

"I'll take the whipping," he started say, but Julius cut across him.

"Father says it was money earned of the blood of dead men what placed you here. How can you seek knowledge when your hands are stained with that?"

–

Amiri stumbled along the dusty streets of Caro toward home. Yakov happily tumbled into him when he opened the door, and he played with his little brother until he heard the quiet footsteps of his mother.

"Amiri! Your hands! Did the school master not read the note I sent with you?"

Amiri let his silence speak for him.

His mother folded her hands gently over the bandages.

"I'll speak with Julianous in the morning. His son can help you catch up when you have to miss a day."

Amiri shook his head. He swallowed again and again, trying to stymie the grief manifesting as a tight blockage in his throat.

"Julius ha-hates me. His f-father too. I'd not be w-welcome there. He's there-re-reason I'm, I'm, I'm–"

His mother looked at him. Really looked at him. Took in the wraps that hadn't yet stopped seeping. Saw the untouched lunch she'd made for him on the table. The empty space where Amiri normally set his tablet and stylus after copying out his glyphs in the wood. Her voice became as soft as the touch of her hands.

"Amiri, where are your school things?"

Amiri burst into tears.