Those Who Walk the Flame Road
The days passed in a blur of speed. At first, Hugo had no idea what he was doing, working in the tavern, but he was busy. From dawn to dusk, there was washing to be done, and cleaning, and cooking. He rolled barrels and jugs of wine as tall as he was by rolling them carefully across the ground.
The tavern opened at night. He delivered food and drink the tavern's customers and cleaned up after them. He learned that bloodstains were particularly difficult to get out of clothing and wood.
Hugo felt like he was working constantly. He fell asleep the moment he was released from work and always woke up sore and exhausted. There were eight other boys of about his age working at Mar's tavern, and the only thing they could really agree on was that Mar didn't pay them nearly enough for all the work they did. The tavern was huge and prosperous, so he likely could have afforded to pay better...but, like Hugo, many other boys in the bar didn't have anywhere else to go.
Mar didn't even feed his workers. They had to make do by eating leftovers from the kitchens, or from customers. Hugo hadn't liked that, stealing a bite or two from customers' plates, but if he didn't do it, the other boys would. And he couldn't just let himself starve, either. Hugo felt awful about himself the first time he stole food, and the feeling persisted with repetition. He felt absolutely wretched for having to stoop that low.
The other boys didn't seem to be as bothered by their food situation as Hugo was. As they all got to know one another better, they shared food from the kitchen or extras from customers with one another, which made Hugo's life a little easier.
The cooks in the tavern all knew that food went missing between the kitchen and the tables, but they didn't say anything. If Mar ever caught one of the workers stealing food from plates, he would scold them harshly--or take the food that they'd stolen and pop it into his own mouth.
Hugo was caught by Mar, once. He'd never felt so helpless in his entire life, stuck under the thumb of the miserly old man. Was this what it was like, being a commoner? Did all of them suffer indignity on this scale?
He felt a brief flash of rage and looked up at Mar, but then he rubbed his hands against a napkin in his hand, steadying himself. As Hugo's rage cooled, he understood that it wasn't an emotion he could safely have: not here. His rage belonged to Hugo Arayutan, the nobleman's son and the warrior that his father had raised him as. If he was going to live as an ordinary person, he couldn't indulge in his old habits.
His first days in the tavern were, without question, the most difficult when it came to remembering who he was supposed to be now. The other boys shouted at the top of their voices, warning the others to get out of the way with their crude speech. Hugo was used to speaking quietly unless there was an emergency, and he couldn't even understand what his coworkers were saying until he learned their slang himself.
Hugo was also still injured when he first started working--he wasn't fully recovered, and recovery took longer when he was constantly on his feet and had so little time to rest. But the injuries he suffered the worst from in his early days at the tavern were ones inflicted to his pride. He knew it was foolish--idiotic, even--to cling to his old pride as part of his new identity, so he learned not to show it. His emotions were subsumed into an unending, unchanging gray mood. He never felt sad, or happy, or enraged, or prideful. He decided that he would feel nothing, rather than feel those things.
But just because his emotions didn't show didn't mean he wasn't feeling them, on some level. All he'd really done was put a heavy pot lid over the boiling broth of his rage. Someday, that lid would fly off... but until that time, Hugo would keep his head down and work.
Hugo had just finished the morning cleaning and was about to head to the kitchen to help peel vegetables. It wasn't quite noon. The other tavern boys were waiting for him by the well, carrying freshly uprooted vegetables in baskets. Most of the vegetables hadn't even been washed yet. Hugo drew water from the well, then worked with the other boys to get all of the vegetables clean before peeling.
When he'd first started working at the tavern, washing and peeling vegetables was a task that Hugo was particularly bad at. He was fortunate that the other boys wanted to teach him. He crouched down, or sat, and rubbed at the skin of the vegetables until all the dirt and mud came off, then rinsed them in clean water. He was grateful that he didn't have to perform this task standing up. He was still working, but being able to do it while sitting felt like a break.
Hugo finished washing the vegetables while the other boys drifted away from him, setting up the baskets near the kitchen so they'd be easy to pick up when it was time for peeling. He discarded the muddy water from the well near a flowerbed.
"Oi! You there!"
Hugo turned. One of the cooks was waving at him. Hugo waved back, then asked if the man needed anything from him.
The cook shook his head. "You were standing there by yourself. I was worried that something was wrong." He was smiling. His cheeks were apple-red, making Hugo think he might be drunk. He held up a clean potato, staring as if he were inspecting it. "You're good at this," he said, proffering the clean potato. "Better than the others."
Hugo said nothing.
"You're good at peeling, too. Did you know that the way you peel can change the taste? I can't use badly peeled potatoes in my cooking. When you first came here, I couldn't use the potatoes you'd peeled--not a single one. But you've improved dramatically. You might not stay a tavern boy forever, if you keep improving at this rate."
Hugo had no idea what to say. He bowed politely, since that was what usually got him out of trouble. "Thank you," he said. Peeling is peeling. Is there really that much variability in how people do it?
Still, he knew that he was being praised. The man's speech was slangy, like the tavern boys' was, but he was also making an effort to talk clearly and slowly, so that Hugo wouldn't misunderstand him.
The cook looked him over for a few moments, then said, "You must have come from a much better place than this one."
Hugo's shoulders went rigid. He blinked in surprise.
The cook observed Hugo's reaction, then shrugged. "I wasn't trying to ask where you came from, kid. I just meant that it's obvious you've been educated. You're smart enough to follow directions, even when they're a bit complicated."
The cook was still holding the potato. He bent down to a basket and retrieved one of the small, sharp knives that the tavern boys often used to peel vegetables. "For example... you peeled this potato. I can tell, because after you peeled it, you washed it thoroughly and carefully again. The other tavern boys don't do that, not with any consistency, even though they know they should. To us in the kitchen, washing vegetables that have already been peeled is a critical step, but since you tavern boys don't see what we do, it's perceived as less important work. Out of sight, out of mind.
"I'll tell you one other reason why I know it was you who peeled this one. When the other boys re-wash the potatoes after peeling, they dig their fingers in and bruise them. I can't use potatoes for anything other than flour after that. But this one? Not a single bruise on it." His mouth twitched upward at the corners. "And you clean the blades after they're used, too, so they don't dull as quickly. You notice everything. Nothing gets past you."
So? Hugo wanted to ask. Why did this matter? Before he could ask for an explanation, the cook spun on his heel and went back inside the tavern.
Hugo looked at the door leading to the kitchens for a while, uncertain of what he should do. He was used to being pulled in several directions at once; work was like that, and he was pretending to be someone that he wasn't. He didn't like the idea that the cook had been watching him work this whole time. He only knew the man as a drunk who worked in the tavern because it netted him a discount on liquor.
Suddenly, Hugo remembered watching his mother peel vegetables. He'd never done it himself before coming to the tavern, but he'd watched her do it several times. He felt indescribably lonely--cold inside, cold like the ashes that remained of the burned warehouse. It was an incongruous emotion. The area around the well was resplendent with bright sunshine, and the day was warm. The other tavern boys milled around him, getting ready to peel. They didn't speak to him, but he had no business feeling cold and lonely in this sun-warmed place full of people.
Hugo sighed, retrieved the now-empty bucket from the side of the well, and got back to work.
Hugo had worked in Mar's tavern for a month and a half before he and the other tavern boys received their pay. Hugo came down in the morning and noticed the other boys gathered together, whispering excitedly.
One boy saw Hugo and waved. "Oi! Come here!"
"Hugo!" Mar's voice boomed thunderously loud, quieting the tavern boys. Mar was large and corpulent; the chair he sat in creaked when he stood up. He placed a pile of leather pouches on the desk. The pouches contained the tavern boys' wages. The boys fixed their attention on the pouches, eyes shining with anticipation.
Mar tossed Hugo his wage pouch. Hugo caught it, said a quick "Thank you," then got out of the way of the other boys. He wanted to count his money, but he knew that he shouldn't get his hopes up. Mar was so much of a miser that he didn't even feed his workers. Maybe there was no money in the pouch at all.
Hugo prepared himself for that possibility, then opened the money pouch. Lowering his expectations had been a good idea; there wasn't much money in the pouch at all, but at least there was some.
Mar really is a cheapskate.
The other boys grumbled a little. One of them laughed brightly. "Well, we've just gotta hang in there a little longer. Eventually we'll be promoted to full-time waiters, and won't have to do all this extra stuff. I've heard that some customers give tips to waiters."
Hugo and some of the other boys nodded. It was true that a lot of customers to the tavern were regulars, and they usually tipped the servers that they knew well. Hugo thought that the tavern boys' wages were also taken from tips--he'd heard something to that effect before--but he didn't know for sure.
Hugo remembered what the cook had said about his work. Maybe some of this money was something he'd earned directly from customers. If that was true, then the more he worked as a waiter, the more money he would earn.
His wage for the past month and a half couldn't be compared to the allowance he used to receive from his mother: the difference in amount was too stark. But Hugo felt a little better knowing that he'd earned every copper coin, and then some. He was trying not to be prideful, but Hugo still had a sense of his own worth. He was smiling, though he didn't realize it. He was supporting himself now. He could keep living this way, and even improve things for himself a little. He no longer felt like he was lost and stumbling in a futureless darkness.
Ryuan and Yoar had helped him so much. He remembered their faces and said a silent thanks to the both of them for saving his life and caring for him until he could take care of himself.
The tavern boys received a half-day off after collecting their wages. They decided to go out to the stores as a group to see what they could buy. Hugo stayed behind, lingering near the kitchen until it was time for work again.
It was a bright, sunny day. The cooks and their assistants took advantage of the weather to smoke and salt meat, then pack it into barrels for storage. The cook who had spoken to Hugo before was working with them, so Hugo decided to say hello.
The cook looked up as Hugo approached. "You're here? Why didn't you go out shopping with the others? You could go home, too, if it's in the city."
"I don't have a home," Hugo said. "And I didn't feel like going out." He counted out five copper coins into his hand and held them out to the cook. "Could I ask you to make some food for me? Not a lot; just whatever this amount would pay for."
The cook frowned. He looked at the coins, then at Hugo's face. "Why?"
"There's someone I'd like to thank, and I'd rather do it with good food than just money," he said.
The cook's expression gradually transformed: he was almost smiling. "Ah, I see. So you want to pay for something we make in the kitchen with your wages?"
"Yes, sir."
The cook cleaned his hands in a bowl of fresh water and dried them. He nodded. "Well, if there's someone you're so grateful to that you want to repay them with my cooking, I certainly can't disappoint you--or them. Wait a while and I'll make you some soup from our fresh vegetables."
"Thank you so much!" Hugo bowed.
"How many portions would you like?" the cook asked.
"Two," Hugo said. "A man and his daughter took care of me for a while."
"Only two?" The cook snorted. "You've forgotten to ask for a portion for yourself, you know. I'll make food for three, but you have to help me."
Hugo grinned. "All right!"
The cook worked quickly, but diligently: he prepared the food as carefully as he would have for a paying customer in the tavern. Watching him work was fascinating; Hugo felt like he could stand next to him all day helping and never get bored.
When the soup was done, the cook poured three portions into a large clay pot and covered it so that it wouldn't cool quickly. Making the stew had taken up most of the day: it was almost sunset. Hugo had to work at night, so if he wanted to deliver the soup, he'd have to do it fast.
The cook passed the clay pot to Hugo. Hugo dashed out of the kitchen and ran to Yoar and Ryuan's house. A flock of white birds were perched on the roof of the house, just like they always did around sunset and sunrise. A taramu peeked at Hugo from inside the house and flew toward him, winding playfully around his neck.
Hugo supported the clay pot against his hip for stability, then knocked on the door. Ryuan opened it right away.
"Hugo?" Ryuan asked. There was a taramu around her neck, too.
Ryuan looked concerned. Hugo had run all the way here and was red-faced and out of breath, so maybe she thought that something was wrong. Hugo smiled to put her more at ease. She smiled back.
This was home now, Hugo realized. Now that he was here, he didn't want to go back to work. Ryuan set her hand on his shoulder and said, "Come in, come in!"
Yoar was home from work. He noticed Hugo coming in with Ryuan. "Oh, a visitor?" he asked.
"It's me, Hugo. Can I come in for a while?"
Yoar wiped his hands on an apron, then came closer to the door. He smiled, eyes crinkling at the corners. "Well, I'll be! If it isn't Hugo coming to see us again. You don't need to ask to visit, you know. We're not strangers."
Hugo raised up the clay pot full of soup. "I, uh, brought dinner for us. Can we eat together?"
Ryuan accepted the pot from Hugo. She lifted the lid and smelled it, then looked at Hugo with wide eyes.
Yoar was curious about what Hugo had brought for dinner. "Hm? What's this?" He smelled the soup, then rubbed his hands together. "Excellent! There's meat in there, right? How could you afford something so fine?"
Hugo grinned. "I know one of the cooks in the tavern. He made this for me. I haven't tried it yet, but I'm sure it tastes great!"
Yoar looked between Hugo and the pot, eyes wide. "Did you really come all this way just to have dinner with us?"
Hugo blushed. "Well... I never really got to thank you for helping me before. And I really wanted to, so... Anyway. I know it must have been hard to support me for all that time. So thank you."
There were tears in the corners of Yoar's eyes that didn't fall. "When you put it that way..."
Yoar didn't say anything else. He gripped Hugo's shoulder and pulled him into a brief one-armed hug. He and Ryuan started setting the table for dinner. Hugo offered to help, but Ryuan shook her head. She and her father kept shooting one another excited smiles.
When the table was set, Ryuan, Yoar and Hug sat down and took their first bites of the soup the cook had made for them. "It's delicious!" Yoar exclaimed.
Ryuan nodded. Spoke to Hugo through the taramu. "I've never tasted anything this good before." Ryuan usually ate slowly and a bit disinterestedly, but now, her chopsticks moved so fast that they were practically a blur. She was crying--maybe from happiness, maybe from the spices in the food. Or maybe both.
Hugo smiled, satisfied, and made a mental note to thank the cook again later.
"This is wonderful," Yoar said. "Who cooked this for you? Shigan?"
"Uh, yeah. I think that's his name," Hugo said. "Do you know him? He's tall, kind of fat, and always looks like he's drunk."
Yoar nodded. "Yep, that's the guy. He's well-known for not being able to hold his liquor... but his cooking's reasonably well-known around here. He could do a lot better for himself if he stopped drinking. He doesn't get along too well with others... still, I can't fault his skill at cooking now that I've tasted it for myself."
Hugo frowned. "What do you mean, he could do better for himself?" Hugo had never noticed anything like that at the tavern. "You say that like he's gotten into trouble before, or something."
Yoar waved his hand dismissively. "Let's leave things there for the moment. It could just be talk, for all I know."
Hugo's eyebrows drew together. "What kind of talk?"
Yoar thought for a moment. "Well, I heard that he worked at Rotaru for a long time, or maybe Tomuran. You wouldn't know, but those are some of the most famous restaurants in the city. People knew Shigan by reputation. He was a very famous chef, though that was a long time ago now.
"I don't know exactly what happened, but alcohol was almost certainly involved. He attacked someone in the kitchen and pulled a knife on them. Whatever Shigan did was serious enough to get himself thrown into prison. Mar was an old friend of his from when he was a kid, and he bailed him out and gave him a job at the tavern. I don't know how much bail was, but I'd guess it was a pretty penny. Shigan works in the tavern where you are to pay off that debt."
Yoar ladled himself a second helping of soup. He was about to dig in again, but then he frowned. "Most chefs of Shigan's skill wouldn't be content working for other people. And the man definitely knows his own worth. If he took an interest in you—enough to feed you something like this—then there must be a reason."
There were tears in Yoar's eyes. "I know I'm not your father, but--for you to gain his notice, being so new--that's a reason for you to be proud. I'm proud of you."
Hugo's throat felt tight. He looked down.
Ryuan stood up and crossed the room. There was an old basket that she and Yoar used to store clothes in the corner. She lifted the lid from the basket and plucked out two folded garments. She came back to Hugo and said, "Please change into these."
Hugo's eyes widened in surprise.
"They're dad's, so they're probably a little too big, but they're clean," Ryuan said. "You can go back to the tavern in these, and when you come back, I'll have washed your clothes for you."
Hugo nodded in understanding. Ryuan had prepared the clothes that he'd left the house in the month before. They were caked with sweat and stained all over now. He really should have given some consideration for other clothes before, but he hadn't had any money, and all the tavern boys lived more or less the same way he did. He could have washed his own clothes, but he'd been so busy that he'd never found the time.
Still, he should have washed his own clothes. Looking at Ryuan now, he realized that the main reason he hadn't was that he didn't really know how. It wasn't something he'd done before, and when he'd watched Ryuan do it, she had scrubbed so hard and used an odd tool like a brush. He wasn't sure he could get similar results just by dumping his dirty clothes in well water and rubbing at stains. And he would have to be naked, or close to it, to even wash his own clothes.
Hugo hesitated. Ryuan had done so much for him already; he shouldn't keep relying on her to do his laundry when he was capable of doing it himself.
Ryuan sensed his hesitation. She shook her head and smiled. "Let me do at least this much for you, now that you're not at the house anymore. I made those clothes for you, y'know. If it'll help you, even just a little bit, I don't mind washing a few more clothes."
Hugo looked Ryuan in the eyes, then nodded. He hadn't realized that Ryuan had made the clothes he was wearing especially for him.
Whenever Hugo had a partial day off from work, he used it to go to and visit Ryuan and Yoar. Over time, they got to know one another very well, and there was no more formality or awkwardness between them. Yoar and Ryuan were illiterate, uneducated and desperately poor, but Hugo became as attached to them as the family that he'd lost.
Hugo's speech and mannerisms changed. He mimicked the other tavern boys and lost the accent he'd been raised with. That upset Hugo a little, but it couldn't be helped. He was able to make new friends in the lower city and speak with them easily, without needing to think about how he said something, which made his life easier and more enjoyable. He was often praised at work, and started earning a bit more money.
Once, Hugo called Ryuan his older sister by accident when addressing her. She seemed so happy that he decided to keep calling her that. Yoar could never replace his father, so Hugo started calling him "uncle Yoar," and Yoar didn't object.
Hugo became accustomed to his work and could do it much faster than he'd been capable of at the start. After he finished his assigned work, he was permitted to help serve drinks in the tavern. After his shift, he helped everyone clean up, then went to spend time with Yoar and Ryuan. It was a somewhat punishing schedule, but Hugo always looked forward to getting up in the morning. The work was still hard, but it was getting easier, and he had people that he wanted to see.
Hugo was the son of a noble warrior: his father had been in service to the Mikado himself. Hugo understood that his position in society had fallen considerably, but he didn't consider that much of a loss. He found life in the lower city interesting, and making his own way in the world was unexpectedly satisfying.
One evening when Hugo was on his way back to the tavern after delivering a few things in town, Hugo saw some people working late in their workshop. The sun was nearly set, and the shadows moving across the workers’ faces were blue and purple. The workers sat on long benches with their backs to Hugo, but their hands were busy. Hugo decided to take a closer look at what they were doing.
The workers were all inside the workshop, so Hugo spied on them through a window. The benches in the room he was looking at were full. There were kids standing near the door counting something on their fingers. The men working kept their heads down and didn't talk to one another. Hugo had passed by this workshop several times before, but he'd never been able to figure out what the men and the kids were doing.
At first glance, it looked like the workers sitting at the benches were drawing pictures, but there was no paper in front of them. They painted flat, circular discs different colors with brushes. After the discs dried, another worker placed them all on a tray and carried them to a different part of the workshop that Hugo couldn't see from the window.
What are they doing here, anyway? Hugo's curiosity was piqued. He made a special effort to look at the tray as the cart passed by.
The flat discs were painted clay plates that hadn't been fired yet. Hugo remembered his mother bringing out decorative ceramic plates painted with fancy designs for special occasions. Hugo's heart felt heavy—he was about to cry—but he didn't look away. There was a young man—surely not much older than he was himself—painting a plate. The design was beautiful. The man's brushstrokes were perfectly even. He made the work look easy, but Hugo guessed that it was much more difficult than it looked. The man painted thin, delicate lines atop the colors he'd painted, and the image of a flower emerged by slow degrees. Hugo felt like he was watching a living flower bloom on the plate as the man painted it. It was like magic. The special plates that Hugo's mother had owned must have been made in just this way.
The wind carried the smell of frying fish to Hugo's nose. He heard a mother scolding a disobedient child in a shrill voice some distance away. The child objected to being scolded and yelled at their mother in an indignant tone.
Hugo had lingered here for too long. He turned around and walked back to the main street, hauling an empty jug and boxes back to Mar's tavern.
The spring passed, and it was summer. The canals that had been shut down and blocked off by Talsh were repaired and functional again. Hugo saw many boats traveling the canals, including a number of small ones that didn't appear to be Yogoese in design. The unofficial lockdown imposed on the city ended, and people were permitted to move freely again, though they weren't allowed to leave the city itself.
The very poor in the city stored and sold their own excrement as fertilizer. No one wanted to smell that kind of thing within the city walls, so the people who made their living this way loaded up their fertilizer on boats and shipped it to the Akano Plains, which were just outside Hoshiro. Hugo saw these boats from time to time as he walked along the edge of a canal while running errands for the tavern.
The Akano Plains had not yet recovered from the last terrible battle between the Yogoese and the Talsh the previous winter. The bodies of the Yogoese soldiers had been left to rot, and some were still easily visible. Hugo noticed fresh furrows in the earth and wondered how the farmers managed to work the land with all these dead people cluttering it. He'd never thought much about food production before.
Hugo saw boats leaving the city toward the plains all the time; lately, he'd observed more boats heading into the city, too, along different canals. Did the food that Hoshiro ate come from these plains? Or from even farther away?
It was likely that many of the soldiers lying dead had been farmers themselves to start with. There'd been forced conscription of the common people at the end of the war. The farmers that remained would be shorthanded when it was time to bring the harvest in. Fathers, uncles, brothers: every family had lost someone, and often more than one person. The farmers that survived were forced into slavery by the Talsh. News of this development wasn't widespread in the city yet, but Hugo expected that it would be soon.
The Talsh had enslaved the farmers. Merchants and those who lived and worked in the city might be next. Sometimes, Hugo heard mothers asking after their sons in the street, or parents calling out the names of their missing daughters, but he never spoke to them. He kept his eyes down and tried not to think about what was happening to the city. Listening to people desperately searching for their families caused him great pain. He couldn't join his family—if there were even any of them left. It was safer for him, and them, if he didn't go looking for them.
There were so many war widows. Seeing them holding hands with their young children and fighting back tears when they heard the news of their husbands' deaths was Hugo's least favorite sight.
By the start of summer, the Yogoese warriors who had survived the last battle in the city had all been captured as prisoners of war. They weren't killed—the rumor was that they'd all been sent somewhere. Maybe that was a lie, but Hugo wanted to think that at least a few of them were still alive.
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