The Forest

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1493

Waves gently lapped the sides of the River Thames. It was midsummer and a rather lovely day.

“No, no, not like that. Here, let me,” Edward said, rolling up the sleeves of his robe and helping the dockworker move the hoisted rowboat over. He hauled with all his might, his face growing red from the effort. “Good lord. John!” he shouted, turning to two boys fighting each other with sticks.

John looked away from his game, only to be rapped on the arm.

“Ow, Swain!” he shouted, “That’s not fair, I was distracted.”

Swain smiled, “And you’re not going to get distracted in a real fight?” With a circular wave, he flicked John’s ‘sword’ out of his hand and into Swain’s. “You’d better go to your dad,” he said with a grin.

John rolled his eyes and walked over to his dad, rubbing his arm. “Father?” he asked.

“Could you help move this over, lad. We need to get it over to that part of the dock,” he said, pointing to an empty patch of stone dock.

John dutifully ran over to the rope last bit of rope that his father was holding on to and gripped it tight in his hands.

“Ready? Heave!” the dockworker shouted. John pulled, the slack of the rope tightening in a moment. His strength waned as he reflected on how little he was probably contributing, being a small lad of twelve.

John’s attention drifted to the water of the dock, so still and only mildly tempered by a touch of breeze. The waves enticed him, beckoning with curling fingers. The subtle crashing of ripples into ripples that stretched off past the mouth of the river and into the horizon.

“John!” Edward shouted, snapping John out of his stupour.

John looked at his father, staring down with a furrowed brow.

“Yes?”

“You gotta keep pulling, son.”

“Oh, right, sorry.”

He tried to focus with each heave, but a chill wind blew across the harbour. Those workers far away on high platforms across the harbour visibly shivered, and others were trying to keep their tunics from fluttering around.

---

“Edward!” shouted a lively, high-pitched voice.

Edward turned to face the quiet morning street. Through the wisps of mist, a man walked towards Edward with outstretched arms. Edward grabbed the man’s arm warmly and smiled.

“Eustace, it’s been so long.”

John glanced over to Swain, still holding both sticks, who shot back a glance of ‘What is going on?’ John gave a similar look and took a step back to Swain, but Edward grabbed him by the shoulder and brought him closer.

“This is John.”

“John,” Eustace said, beaming down on the kid, “It’s been a long time for you too.”

“Uh, I’m sorry but I don’t know who you are.”

“I should hope not,” Eustace roared, “The kind of people who know me are not the types I want my nephew becoming. Not like your father, certainly.”

John’s eyes widened.

“Wait, you’re my un---”

“You are just so terribly funny,” Edward said with flat sarcasm, “You think of that while the people who paid you got executed?”

“Wait, what---”

“Hey, I still got paid, didn’t I?” Eustace said, suddenly bursting into laughter and bringing his brother in for a tight embrace, flattening his beard against his brother and almost causing Edward to clobber John on the back. “I’ve missed you so much, brother. We have mountains to catch up on.”

Eustace broke the embrace and motioned down the street.

“Come, come. Lots to do, drinks to drink. Let’s celebrate.”

John looked back at Swain apologetically, not even knowing where to begin explaining.

“You coming, John?” Edward shouted.

John gave a hurried wave goodbye to Swain, who shrugged and walked back down the side of the dock. John gave one last look to the water behind him. A gloom had moved in.

***

The sun blared louder as the day went on and they drew further into the bowels of London. Houses, stacked haphazardly together like firewood, flanked the men on either side as Edward and Eustace alternated between reminiscing and uproarious laughter, alarming the many stray workers that rushed about the streets. Little time was dedicated to talking about anything that had happened since they last met as they grew drunker on nostalgia. As they moved deeper, though, the conversation died down, Eustace whistling a jaunty tune and flicking a key in his hand.

John, seeing the conversation fizzle out, sped up slightly to walk beside his father.

“So,” he muttered, “Is that really my uncle, or is ‘nephew’ more of an affectionate thing?” he asked.

Edward raised an eyebrow.

“You really don’t remember that man, do you?”

John looked discretely at his uncle, who was glancing around at the chaos of London’s streets like a wide-eyed kid, and looked back at his father.

“I feel like that’s not somebody you forget easily.”

“Definitely not. He IS my brother, thought, for better or for worse.”

“For worse? Is this related to what he said earlier?” John asked.

It was Edward’s turn to check if Eustace was listening. They stopped at a door, Eustace giving a muffled “Ah,” and he began unlocking the door.

“Eustace was right about himself, as much of a joke as he made it: You should not ever need his services unless something has gone terribly wrong.”

The door opened with a click, and Eustace turned around to give a bushy grin as though he had solved some great puzzle.

“You’re father’s right. I’m great company, but the company I keep are all scoundrels for a reason. Ones who are rather awful at muttering quietly.”

Edward shot back a red-faced scowl at his brother.

“But,” John said exasperated, “Neither of you have told me what y---”

“Get out of the way!” Edward shouted as he pushed John, narrowly missing a stream of liquid being dropped from above. Edward stared daggers at the apologetic looking woman in the upper window, who sheepishly held a chamber pot in her hands.

“Sorry, sirs,” she said.

“Watch where the bloody hell you’re tossing your piss, woman,” Edward snapped in reply.

The woman turned a deep shade of crimson and slammed her window shut. Edward took a deep breath out and saw the others staring at him.

“Like I’m odd for not wanting to smell of urine before our meeting.”

“I think I do, unfortunately,” Eustace said, motioning to his now-wet shoes, “I may take a bit longer to join you all.”

***

Edward and John sat crammed into the corner of a dingy drinking area around a central round wooden table of the bottom floor. John could only stare at it, its chips and scars and planks that coalesced at awkward angles barely held their tankards of drink up, Edward with ale and John with a significantly more watered down ale. John couldn’t look anywhere else, he was sitting next to an angry bear.

He shot a glance up at his father, who had that ever-familiar look in his eye, technically here, but with his mind still on what just happened, a slight red burning deep into his pale cheeks. John said nothing, just staring down and occasionally sipping his diluted yeast drink, as that was all it felt like to him.

For the first time since arriving, John had a moment alone with his thoughts. He was still short about a dozen answers from his father, like why they were in London, what they were doing, what his uncle did, and why his father had woken him up in the middle of the night to take the first ship out from their village. Any answer John received amounted to an evasive ‘You’ll see,’ and Edward was only able to shut John up when he agreed to bring Swain with them, on the condition that he slept outside and Edward didn’t have to feed him. In his words: He’s an urchin, he’s used to it.

Swain had a few choice words for John when he relayed the message.

Edward craned his head up, with a suddenness that snapped John out of his stupour. The angry red of Edward’s cheeks receeded as another man walked into the establishment. John realised that he had adopted an iron grip on his mug, and loosened up allowing the blood to rush back into his hand.

The man took a moment to scan the dingy room and spotted Edward, waving him over. Edward nodded and stood up, turning to look at John and holding his shoulder.

“I have to sort out a few things; you stay right here. It’s almost time,” he said, the last sentence coming out as it would have an excited teenager. Before John could say anything, Edward scooched round the table and rushed over to his associate. John sighed and began massaging his eyes in frustration.

“He did that to me when we were younger, too,” Eustace said beside John.

John looked at him, now sporting a different, more ratty pair of foot wraps.

“What do you mean?”

“Oh, it was always Something that he had going on. Smug bastard couldn’t wait to show you but he never told until it happened.”

Eustace noticed the half-drunk mug of ale that Edward had left behind and slid behind John, pressing John’s gut against the corner of the table, and plopped himself down on the chair, grabbing the mug and taking a great gulp.

“Does being evasive and speaking in riddles just run in the family?” John asked, exasperated.

“At least one of us seems to be all about directness, huh?” Eustace said, grinning.

John let go of his drink and turned to face Eustace.

“You should give it a go. How about starting with what you do.”

Eustace pursed his lips and looked off in the middle distance. For all his revelry and constant joyful ribbing of his brother, for the first time since Edward had met him the grin left his face.

“Kid,” Eustace began, “Sometimes there are things you don’t want to know the answers to.”

Edward folded his arms and continued staring at Eustace. Eustace took a deep drink from his tankard, seeming to hide behind the mug as he flitted his eyes from his nephew and his brother. He placed it back down, beads of ale dripping down his beard, and sighed.

“I would never tell you what I’m about to tell you if you weren’t family. But do not tell your father about this. He would kill me if he found out, the little hot-head.”

Edward nodded, gripping his tankard tighter in anticipation.

“I move people.”

“You…move people?”

“I smuggle them. Anybody in trouble can come to me and I

Edward loosened his grip.

“That’s it? That’s not so bad.”

“Yeah, thing about working like this: It’s rather hard to be known to the right people. You help one person and they tell their friends, that’s how others trust that you won’t sell them to the nearest lord. But then you’re only known to one kind of person.”

“And who are you known to?”

“Murderers.”

John’s eyes widened and he looked down at his drink. He stared at the ripples of the ale, and stewed in quiet understanding.

“And you wouldn’t rather do anything else?” he said, turning back to Eustace, “Why don’t you find a different profession altogether?”

Eustace chuckled, bringing the drink to his lips without looking at John.

“I rescue murderers for a living, son. I don’t think the job is the problem.”

***

Edward’s eyes widened at his associate.

“When were you going to say we were being watched, Sewel?”

“I came as soon as I was able. This isn’t the kind of information I withhold from my associates.”

Edward shot out of his chair and craned his head down over his associate.

“How long have you known?”

“Sit down, please.”

Edward looked around, only seeing his son and his brother sitting next to each other looking quite miserable. He saw Eustace looking surprisingly morose. The shock of the thought alone cooled Edward down a bit. He grumbled and plopped back down on his chair.

“Like I said, I’ve only known for a little bit. My informant in the town guard says they’re aware that you’ve gotten off the boat.”

“And how bad is that?”

“You’re known to them, that’s bad enough. I think you need to call this off.”

---

“Why am I here, father?

“I want to show you how a deal is done.”

---

---

---

“There’s so much more I wanted to teach you.”

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