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He sighed and patted my hand that was wrapped around his arm. “Patience, my young apprentice. One must have an infinite amount of such when dealing with unscrupulous individuals. They’re like rabbits in that regard. A hint of danger and they run away from questions.”
I snorted. “That doesn’t answermyquestion.”
“We must hope that our ‘friend’ slips and tells us more than he intends,” Ben explained as he turned us off the busy thoroughfare down which we’d been walking.
The new street was less than inviting. The homes showed signs of wear in their unpainted fronts and weed-choked gardens, those that had them. The shops had broken windows and many were completely boarded up. Even the street itself changed its shape, changing from a straight line to a twisting serpent so bent that I could hardly see around the corners.
I scooted a little closer to Ben. “Nice place.”
A soft sigh escaped his lips as he studied the area. “Not everything in my great city is pleasing to the eyes. Darkness lurks in the deepest shadows, and sometimes those shadows creep out to inhabit what was once a thriving neighbor. That is, in my father’s time.”
An irritated child’s voice broke the smothering silence that inhabited the street. “Damn! I already have that one!”
The sound came from one of the offshoots of the road on which we walked, and a moment later a group of a half dozen children aged eight to twelve sauntered into view. They were not the same group we had met the previous day, though the tallest among them was once again their leader.
The one who bemoaned their luck was one of the younger children. They held up a card in front of them and wrinkled their nose. “The stupid lamb again. All I get are lambs.”
One of his companions clapped him on the back. “That fits you perfectly! You’re a lamb yourself!”
The others laughed at the joke, but the boy was not amused. “Well, what did you get?”
His friend held out two cards. “The eagle and the lion.”
Ben turned our feet toward the group and raised his voice. “Greetings, fellow travelers.”
The kids had confusion written across their faces, and more than one of the younger fellows scooted behind the largest of their number. For his part, he stretched himself up to his five-foot height and gave Ben a sharp look. “What’s wanted?”
“Your assistance,” Ben told him as we approached the wary group. “Do you have time to show us how to play the game?”
The older kid looked him up and down. “Why’d you want to play this, mister?”
“A nephew of mine has taken up the game and wishes for me to play it,” Ben explained with a look of warning at me. “I don’t wish to have him make a sport of me by my losing horribly, so I deigned to come here to learn. Will you be my master?”
The kid shrugged. “Sure, why not?”
Ben gestured to a nearby flat rock in the yard of an abandoned house. “Then let us play.”
The kids scurried over to watch this display of ineptitude, but I lingered and dragged Ben along with my shuffling feet. I leaned toward him and lowered my voice to a whisper. “You’re seriously going to learn how to play?”
He smiled down at me. “It would provide a more compelling story that I am interested in the game than our being curious as to the cards.”
“Are we playing or not?” the boy shouted.
“Of course!” Ben assured him as we strolled over to the group. “But first introductions are in order.” He held out his hand to the older boy. “I am Count Benjamin Castle, but you may call me Ben.”
“Mac’s the name, and Puck’s my game,” the boy introduced himself as he shook Ben’s hand.
“Puck?” I repeated.
Mac plopped himself down on the dirt and rolled his eyes at me. “Yeah, Puck. That’s what the game’s called. Sheesh, do you know anything about this stuff?”
“I’m beginning to learn,” Ben assured him as he took a seat on one side of the stone. “Now please show me how to play.”
“It’s easy,” Mac told him as he began to lay out a dozen cards with the faces up. “You just set the corners together like so and see who wins.”
He pressed two fingers down on a card with a lion and slid it over to one with a cow-like creature. The hideous sight of the polla had distracted me from noticing the intricate intertwined lines in each of the four corners of every card. The cards had different colors, with the lion one being golden and the cow a spotted black and white. The bands created a Celtic-like design, but all that changed when the two cards met.
The bands came alive immediately upon touching one another. The lines slithered over to their foe and wrapped around each other like dueling snakes. After a brief fight. the golden color of the lion completely squeezed the cow’s lines beneath its bands. The lion gave a roar and all was still.
