As soon as the wheels rattled on cobbled streets, Michikatsu felt an immense sense of relief. This was his turf, the city, and he knew more places to hide than a rat.
Approaching the waterside fairgrounds, he saw prisoners in chains being marched aboard a convict ship. It lay in sharp contrast to the festive stalls and banners of the fair.
Akaza eased the coach between a seller of live fowl and a juggler tossing colored balls into the bright noonday air.
"Thanks for the ride, hot-potato man," said Nakime. "Come along, Petunia. Let's fetch us a crowd and earn a copper or two."
Michikatsu collected his battered birdcage.
"Don't rush off, boy," said Akaza, hauling out a canvas load of firewood from under the seat. "Haven't I been listening to your stomach rumbling for the last hour? Do me the kindness of filling the kettle at the pump. Soon as the potatoes are boiled up, we'll feast, eh?"
Anxious as he was to be on his way, Michikatsu hesitated. He was powerful hungry.
Then Akaza laid a coin in his hand. "And while you're at it, stop off at the cow man, the both of you, and get yourselves a couple of mugs to drink."
Michikatsu picked up the handle of the kettle. But almost at once Muzan snatched it out of his hands. "I'll do that."
"You?" Michikatsu replied. "It's servant's work."
"Then who'd take me for a prince, toting water?" He smiled. He laughed. "I've never been allowed to carry anything! Not in my entire life."
Michikatu led the way. He'd never regared fetching and carrying as a privilege. But the sound of merriment lingered in his head. Muzan's laugh sung in his head, he looked down at the ground, blushing faintly. Hardly noticeable. He'd never before heard Muzan laugh.
They dodged acrobats and a stilt walker and a harp player. Through the hubbub came a great voice.
"Michi! Rat-catching Michi!"
Turning, Michikatsu spied a tall boy wearing a checked cap. It was Gyutaro tending a sawdust pit squared off by a board fence--- a dog-and-rat pit. Beside him stood a stack of rat-filled cages and a black terrier leashed to a post.
"Wow, it is you, Michikatsu!" said Gyutaro. "Reckon you call the king by his first name these days."
"Hello, Gyutaro. You've given up mudlarking?"
"I've come up in the world, haven't I? Same as you, Michikatsu. How do you like my dog? Best rat-fighter you ever saw."
With a practiced eye, Michikatsu surveyed the cages. "But those rats look tame enough to eat off your hand."
"Best I could afford. Catch me some castle rats and I'll make a special feature. The king's own rats!"
"Not my line of work in the castle, Gyutaro."
"It's not true you're a whipping boy is it?"
Michikatsu felt a flush of embarrassment and dodged the question. "I've learned to read and write."
"You have?"
"The bottom truth. I've read many a book from beginning to end."
"What's in them?"
"All nature of things. I can do sums, too"
Gyutaro was impressed. "Isn't that a wonder! I never heard of a rat-catcher that could read write and do sums. It doesn't fit. Don't forget your old friends when you grow to be a duke or something.
"I aim to go back to the sewers," replied Michikatsu stiffly. "I'll catch you some rats first chance."
But even as he said it, Michikatsu felt a bleak discomfort. He would miss the shelves of books he'd left behind in the castle. In the sewers, he hadn't been aware of his own ignorance. He saw no choice now but to return. But he realized that he'd lost his taste for ignorance.
Gyutaro was saying. "Who's the cove?"
"What?"
"Your friend."
"This is---" Michikatsu caught himself. He began to stammer. " I mean, this is---"
Muzan answered for him. "Muzan, I suppose."
"That'll do." Gyutaro put out his hand to shake.
Michikatsu caught Muzan's momentary confusion. "He never shakes hands."
"Of course I do," said Muzan with a quick grin. He took Gyutaro's hand. "Glad to shake your hand, Gyutaro."
"Likewise."
And Michikatsu dragged Muzan away. Gyutaro had commited a terrible offense: no one was allowed to shake hands with a prince. "Why did you do that?"
"Because I've never shaken hands before."
"He could be hung for less!"
Muzan was staring at his hand. "It felt friendly... tursting. I may introduce the practice at court when I become king."
Michikatsu's ears pricked up. King, is it? he thought. So it was just lies that you might never go back to the castle. His disappointment showed. I hope you don't want to learn to catch rats first, he thought.
Moments later they came to a woman. Beside her, munching grass, stood a cow with a brass ring in its nose.
"New milk!" the cow lady called out. "New milk, fresh from the cow! Best in the land! New milk!"
Michikatsu handed over a coin. The woman fished two mugs out of the a tub of water, sat on a stool, and began to milk the cow directly into the mugs. Her aim was as skilled as an archer's.
"Have you heard the earful?" she asked. "Our prince has been abducticated. Imagine!"
"Imagine," Muzan replied coolly. She was looking directly at him.
"Our darlin poor king!" she went on. "Weeping his royal eyes out, no doubt. Though why he'd spring a tear for the little toad, I don't know. A mighty terror, they say, is Prince Brat. Pity us the day he becomes king, eh?"
She handed over the pair of mugs. Michikatsu drank the warm milk down in unbroken gulps. But then he noticed Muzan standing motionless, a vague, unseeing look in his eyes. For certain he knew everyone called him Prince Brat behind his back, didn't he?
"Drink up, boy" said the lady. "My gosh, I've never seen such rags on a boy. They look like castoffs from the old-clothes man." She gave out a joking laugh. "Drink up before you scare off business."
Muzan drained the mug and shuffled away.
As they filled the potato kettle at the pump, he looked at Michikatsu. "Treasonous woman, I could have her tongue ripped off for lying."
But there was no steam in his voice. Taking a whipping was bad enough, but to learn that his subjects dreaded the day he'd grow and become king had deeply shaken him.
"She meant no harm," Michikatsu murmured, keeping his eyes alert for soldiers.
"Is that what they call me--- Prince Brat?"
Michikatsu nodded.
"Does everyone hate me..?"
"More than likely."
"What about you..?" his voice breaking softly before finding strength again.
Michikatsu hesitated for a moment. "I did. But maybe I don't." Michikatsu couldn't sort out his feelings. "The pot's full. Let's go"
It took the two of them to carry the iron kettle, now full of water. They passed a magician with a bald head, a street fiddler, and an umbrella seller, his wares opened around his feet like black silken mushrooms. Suddenly there loomed up a soldier on horseback, his eyes on the search.
There was nothing to do but brazen it out. Michikatsu took a tighter grip on the handle, but was ready to fly if he had to. The soldier passed by with only the merest glance.
What was he looking for, a prince in fine velvets and a crown cocked on his head? Was it clothes that made a prince, Michikatsu wondered, just as rags made a street boy? He had a notion that the prince felt secretly disappointed not to be recognized by any of his subjects. Wasn't he getting his head stuffed with surprises!
Before long, potatoes were boiling in the pot. Not far off, Nakime had drawn a crowd with Petunia, now balancing a gentleman's hat on her nose. And then the bear began passing the hat for tips.
Michikatsu no longer felt the slightest concern about the soldiers. He had no doubt that Sanemi would trace him and the prince to the fair.
Hadn't they fallen into the company of a girl with a trained bear? Where else would she be going?
Finally, Akaza began spearing boiled potatoes, and Nakime returned with Petunia.
"We could eat a bushel!" she exclaimed, jingling a handful of coins.
"Courtesy to fellow artistes," said Akaza, refusing the money. He split open a pair of plump potatoes. "Salt and pepper?"
"Pepper for me, salt for Petunia."
AKaza reached into one coat pocket for a pinch of salt, and into the other for pepper.
"Salt for me," said Michiaktsu.
"And you?" Akaza asked Muzan.
The heir to the throne balked for a moment, and Michikatsu knew why. He'd certainly never eaten a potato before. In the castle, roots were regarded as peasant food. "I--I don't know," Muzan stammered.
"When in doubt, salt," chuckled Akaza. And then he began calling out to the passing crowd: "Hot-hot-hot potatoes! Captain Soyama's hot-hot potatoes!"
Michikatsu gorged himself, anxious to be off and not certain when he would eat again. Muzan nibbled at first, with his fingers, and then threw his royal pride to the winds. He bit off whole mouthfuls.
A ballad seller was working his way through the crowd, crying out his wares. He waved a bamboo pole with long paper streamers fluttering from the tip.
"Three yards of songs, a copper! Old songs, new songs! Sing them yourself! Ten verses of 'Poor Pitiful Polly"---- will make you weep! Sixteen verses of that notable highwaymen Hold-Your-Nose-Nemi!"
Michikatsu's ear pricked up as the ballad seller began single a sample of his merchandise.
"Hold-Your-Nose-Nemi, a wild man is he,
Hang him from a gallows tree.
Here he comes, here he goes:
Don't forget to hold your nose."
The street song had once amused Michikatsu. But now he only sharpened his eyes.
He wiped his hands on his sleeves and turned to Akaza. "Thanks for the food, sir."
"Where are you off to?" asked Nakime. "Here's the place to put a jingle in your pockets. Can't you turn cartwheels or something?"
"I catch rats," said Michikatsu simply.
"Rats?" Nakime made a face. "What on earth for?
"There's good money in sewer rats. The meaner, the better."
"My!" exclaimed Nakime. "Don't you get bit?"
"Many times," said Michikatsu.
Akaza cocked an ear. "What's that running patterer yelling about?"
A crowlike voice pierced the air. And then the news seller appeared, his tongue wagging like a bell clapper, a bundle of broadsides under his arm.
"PRINCE SOLD TO GYPSIES! THE TRUE AND GENUINE FACTS! INK STILL WET! WHIPPING BOY CHARGED WITH DASTARDLY SCHEME! KING OFFERS REWARD FOR THE UNSPEAKABLE RASCAL! DEAD OR ALIVE! FULL DESCRIPTION! GET YOUR COPY! KEEP YOUR EYES PEELED AND CATCH THE REWARD!"
The running patterer was selling his broadsides almost as fast as he could yell.
The facts were cockeyed, but Michikatsu grabbed his birdcage, backed off--- and was gone."
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FIRST CHAPTER WITH OVER A THOUSAND WORDS! :D
Word Count: 1852