Leathery bastard as you are, I need you for writing in every once so often. I cannot hope to maintain my sanity if I do not. Today I started thinking about my childhood. Oh how sweet those days were.
My oldest memories are of me and my brother playing in the streets of Beggar's Alley. We were small lads and our mother let us run wild as we like as long as we did not create trouble for her at home or elsewhere. Now my little brother, a few years my junior, he was a real pest when he wanted to be...when he wanted to annoy someone, he could, even annoyed our mother so much once that she flung a book at us, hit me square in the face and broke my nose.. Oh I remember the beatings as well.. some times we were too dirty, sometimes we had done something bad.. sometimes we had caught her on a bad day. It started with me having to earn my own coin, by running errands for the older boys, coin if I were lucky I got to keep when I got home. Sometimes I did not even have coin when I got home, and I would be beaten until she was sure I would not make the same mistake again. Then I started earning coin by fighting, while others bet on the fight.. I made sure that I at least got part of the coin bet, as I was the one fighting. Half the time I was bloody when I came home with a few coppers, sometimes even a silver, and if I had none or too few, mother would make sure I was bloody before I went to sleep in the straw for me and my brother. Then one day, mother told me and my brother that we had to move out, I must have been.. 12, and my brother a few years younger, around.. 9, however, he went to some farm near Combe and became a farm boy.. and me, oh I stayed in Beggar's Alley.. had to earn coin for myself now, when I came on 20 or so, I were hired as a guard for some minor caravans.. tedious work, more or less just guarding some fat merchant from brigands in the woods.. and from there, one thing let to another.. and here I am today, all thanks to mother. Last I heard she was dead though, it saddened me, if I could ever repay all she had given me I would. And the same for my brother.. I heard he died of a fever when he was about 12 or so.. I liked the bastard.. Oh well, best not linger on the dead.. nor should I write more in this little story..
Time to close you again, lad. Just my little thoughts when I am bored here on my little journey. I will be home soon, and I will have to hide you again. You will probably collect some dust before next we see.. if I am not dead before we do again. Farewell, lad.
