Memoirs of a Fallen God

Chapter 4

It was later in that same prickle corn season that I chanced upon my first bit of good luck in quite some time.

The season was nearly over, and the corn was mostly picked, so we slaves were spread out, going over the bare stalks for stray ears. Which meant a long, boring day, without even the solace of conversation to make the time pass. Scratch and I would have had to shout to one another, which would have earned us a beating. We knew it well; we'd tried before.

On this day, I had just taken a small break from the boring search for leftover ears to answer the call of nature, out on the edge of the field. And that’s when I saw it, glittering up at me, half buried in a muddy boot track. A twinkle of silver. My eyes widened, and the call of nature was promptly forgotten.

I cast a furtive glance around me to make sure no one was paying any attention, and, quick as a flash, I darted my hand down and snatched up the bit of silver. I had no pockets, nor even any shoes I might tuck it in. So I did the only logical thing I could think of; I popped it in my mouth. I didn't even bother to clean it off first.

Then I returned to my place in the field and went back to work, trying my best to act as though nothing was amiss. I must have succeeded, for no one paid me the least bit of attention. Even Scratch hadn't looked my way.

Inside, though, my little boy mind was racing. I'd been quick as I snatched it up, but I'd had just enough to time to confirm that the object was as I'd suspected; a silver coin. I had only the vaguest understanding of how currency worked, of the relative value of things, then, but I did know that a silver piece was worth an awful lot. A week's worth of pay for one of the farmhands, at the least. Maybe a month's.

I knew for a certainty, though, that the cold, unfamiliar weight of metal resting beneath my tongue was a thing, quite literally, worth more than my life.

I could hardly spend such wealth. Slaves weren't allowed to possess money. In fact, it was against the law for a slave to own any property, all the way from land right down to the clothes on their backs. Anything a slave had could be taken away by the least of free workers, without so much as a by-your-leave.

Most of the time, this wasn't quite so terrible as it may sound. We were the lowliest of the low; nobody really wanted what we had. But in the case of cold hard currency...well, such a thing would not be ignored.

All that didn't stop us from desiring wealth, and even in some cases acquiring it. It just made things a bit trickier.

I thought hard, trying to find some way to turn the situation to my advantage. It was dangerous, I had known that the instant I saw the fleck of silver in the mud. In all likelihood, the first person who caught sight of my newfound treasure would snatch it forever out of my reach, whether they were another slave or no. And they might or might not throw a beating into the bargain, too, depending on the who.

So what I needed was someone smaller than me, someone agreeable, someone who could make use of the coin where I could not...

Then I saw the answer, not twenty feet away, working the field far more diligently than I. He'd always been a hard worker. His name was Brim, and he was a slave much like myself. But there were a few key differences between Brim and I.

First, Brim was small. Not small simply as a consequence of age, as I myself was, but small in the manner of someone who will always be small. Delicate. At nine, he was at the very least a year older than me, but I was the taller, and I fancied I could take him if it came to that.

Second, Brim had a on his hands a thick, homespun, comfortable-looking pair of gloves. I wanted those gloves.

Third, and perhaps most importantly, unlike me, Brim was no orphan. His mother and father worked the fields right along with him, not a hundred feet away. If he came into possession of something as valuable as a whole silver coin, why, he could give it to his parents, and they'd know just what to do with it.