it bits of life.
Just as the man too began to emerge from his hovel, a boy naked but for a cloth and a complete suiting of grime ran up the alley shouting:
"They are going to kill the slaves today. They're bringing them down now."
To the young Beggar's questioning glance, the man replied, "Word is some Of the king's own slaves caused a trivialling
disturbance. It appears he has ordered this death as an example."
"Where?"
"About a half league farther down the valley, where the centre is found, there is the execution ground. The bodies are then left on slabs for vultures to pick at.
On a windy day the smell climbs higher than even here.
A reminder of the perpetual feast."
The Beggar reached out to the man’s hand and shook it "Thank you for your hospitality and words. Take care of yourself and your family. I must go now.” With that the Beggar picked up his stick and moved towards the direction the man had pointed.
A hand held his shoulder. "Don't go there. Yours is not of idle look. But interference will be death. Soldiers tolerate no philosophy."
The Beggar replied: "This much I learned from a wise man: Ease a man's burden, then lift up his soul. Down there, today, men have the burden of killing other men only because they do not know they are both men. I know and that
has become my burden."
With that, the Beggar stepped away and began merging into the crowd already thick in its flow towards the Valley's centre.
More and more people joined the descending crowd that it became a slow moving snake of legs and gossip. Finally, he reached the near centre’ close to the execution place. So packed was the outer circle of the valley's centre with people crushing, weaving, jostling for a view, that the Beggar was forced to crawl on his hands and knees under the legs of this circling centipede of curiosity.
The filth of the town, the filth of the people came as a gag of stench squeezed low and tight along this path the Beggar moved.
Shuffling feet bruised his fingers, the rigid soil licked his knees raw for its blood.
Yet it was perhaps this approach which allowed him into the inner square safely. For in a ring all around the centre were guards, these guards allowed the crowd to press behind them but
held ready sword to slice any hand or arm or head which dared trespass this assigned perimeter. Had the Beggar simply stepped
from the crowd he would have been slaughtered.
As it was, however, the Beggar came through precisely under one of the guards. Discerning some light and fresh air, he misgauged his distance and rose up directly under the guard.
The soldier taken by surprise was tossed backwards into the crowd, a great many of whom collapsed under the weight of the others.
The other guards seeing this did not rush upon the Beggar but rather in fear of their own backs, turned upon the crowd, swords ready for assault, either the crowd's or by their captain's command. The Beggar, fearing a slaughter boiled to blood by his carelessness shouted the only command he could think of for both crowd and guards. "Stop in the name of the king!"
Thereby saving a crowd and sentencing his own death, for no king takes kindly to
orders issued in his name especially by beggars. A very foolish fraud indeed.
The captain of the guards had turned at the spill of the first guard but had not yet decided the danger or action required
as all he saw was one man with a stick and a crowd very reluctant to be perceived hostile by the menacing swords. He had just been about to shout for order when he heard the Beggar's incredulous command.
The young Beggar watched calmly as the captain came towards him in even strides, a muscular, though short man, a broken nose a little twisted gave his piercing eyes an illusion of screwing into a
a man's skull. A breastplate of gold was stamp engraved with a large hawk. This partially covered a soiled tunic which , with thick sandals and leather leggings completed his bodily attire. On his head was his second most precious symbol of rank: a golden helmet with short leather side flaps and crowned with a great curving ostrich feather. His most precious decree of rank never left his side, his hand to its silver hilt always, a long curving scitar in a plain leather scabbard.
Stopping within a foot's distance of the beggar, he glared, his eyes hunting the beggar's face for insolence. "What king's name does this dog nip with?"
"The City's Guardian," answered the Beggar.
The captain's eyes held a darker cast. "Name the king, playful tongue, or my sword will taste your last spilling meal."
The Beggar finished his coming sentence with "King Hindus then if you dare deny the previous title."
The captain's hand caressed the hilt a little tighter but did not draw. Only one thing curbs authority and that is the sound of more authority.
The Beggar had given shield to the captain's force by the blatant charge of this assumption.
The captain replied, "I deny no role of King Hindus, only guard the scattering of his name by careless heralds. By what
seal or stamp, do you use this authority."
"That a beggar's clumsiness can propel riot, then only a king's name can stall it just as only a wing's shadow can plug the worm's hole," was the Beggar's answer.
"Then you are nothing to the king?" "No , I am something to the king." "Yet you carry no proof of his task or duty."
"Where I go, would a king entrust precious things to be lost amongst thirsting knives or hungry fingers? Do all of the king carry his seal from mule to diplomat, every errand, every trudge, every duty outside the palace gates?"
The Captain replied “The cook's helper buying cabbage does not evoke the king's name to kneel the market. Beggars who promote themselves too high a dignity had best have their own tongues cut out, before it makes their heads roll."
To this threat, the Beggar _took even more took an authoritative stance asking, "No offence, Captain, but beside your doings of the King's butcher's deed, what proof have I you speak for the king?"
The captain, astounded at this challenge, did not react in the manner which normally he would have dealt upon any other offending subject. A swift glint of death arcing from scabbard to insolent throat. This beggar was so bold, so sure, his relaxed presence a voice the captain could not silence. Only a nobleman, or one close to him, could be this arrogant, as if rebellion in all before him was not even signified by a flicker of comprehend. The way a man commands large dogs.
So the captain simply stammered back in an offended tone, "I wear the ostrich feather; the rank of captain in the Royal Protectorate.”
Yet even with this spoken, his mind continued exploring why he had not simply killed the beggar instead.
The Beggar replied, "But surely, between you and I, there is more than an ostrich feather?"
The captain replied: "What do you mean?"
The Beggar: "Say I am only a beggar, I have no ostrich feather to make me more. If thou set your helmet to the ground are you then cut to a beggar's place? I think not. You are the captain, not the feather. Your men follow you, if they followed only a symbol then at battle they would be found fighting with their heads in the sand! Therefore to have or have not a seal makes no less of the man or the task of the man.
Some how this strange way of a compliment beguiled the captain enough to ask, "So we have proven who I am, yet you are as
doubtful as before. I'll grant that without seal you still maybe more.
What your hands cannot prove, your tongue might. Tell us the more of it. What is your task?"
Beggar: "If a man must have a task like a caravan must have maps, say then, my task is to observe for the king."
Captain: "You are a spy, then?"
Beggar: "No, spies are paid. And the paying in time blinds the seeing.For the more they see, the more they are paid. In thinking of more pay, they think of more to see till in the end they are being paid for what they think they saw. An observer is
not paid. Coins do not lodge before his eyes."
Captain: "And the king sent you to observe?"
Beggar: " Some men , because of their height or size or glint
of position cannot truly observe since their very presence disturbs. Like a giant amongst ants, he cannot know the ways of ants since all is hectic about him. For how can a king judge the
stature of all around him when his very presence drives all to their knees? Kneeling men cannot be compared! So a king will send out quiet men to test the wind and weather. Men amongst same who alter no facts. Yet should these men be paid their truth may be coloured with copper as we have said before.
The best truth for a king is not who he sends out but rather who he sends for. Those men who have observed truth and offer its gift to a king with no reward, what could they say? They may tell of injustice where the king believed justice; Plot where the king knew not; treason where the king held loyal;
tyranny where the king had sent mercy.
Now say some observer has gathered these cups, knowing full well a king's keen appetite to taste them, for are they, not of what is next the inner wall of a king's gut?... His city, his subject?
He being of their welfare, he of theirs. For a king to be king he
vI
must have subjects just as subjects need a king. What is false or dangerous to one dangers the other like a man and horse fleeing a tiger.
If a man observed such and knew a way of escape, would he speak out or wait to be asked? No, if he loved the man or even loved the horse he would cry out the way of escape.
And if in his truth of observe, the king and