The Apprentice in Hiding

1588-02-05
Maraisbourg

In an alley between the ruins of Maraisbourg I heard the whisper of steel where none should be.
A skinny boy stood there with a stick held like Merryen’s blade, tracing faint compass petals in the mud. He moved alone and hungry, repeating footwork he had stolen from a glimpse of pages.

When I stepped from the shadow he froze. He said he had been bound to a printer. Before the purges his master had been paid to copy sword books. When the soldiers came the presses were smashed and the printer fled. The boy stayed with scraps and memory.

I broke bread with him. I set his feet and opened his chest. I showed one true parry and how to meet force without anger. His hands were quick. His eyes were quicker. I remembered the first time a master slowed my breath and set the count inside my ribs.

Night fell and boots rang on the stones. Soldiers marched the quarter and called the pages treason. Smoke curled along the rafters and the air tasted of ash. We slipped between patrols and flame, the rescued leaves tight against our chests. I led him to a postern gate that few still remembered and paid a farmer for space beneath sacks of grain. The cart rolled north without questions.

He looked back and asked if anyone would keep the art alive.
“They will,” I said, though my path was not yet chosen.

When the wheels faded I turned toward the city and felt a weight that was not grief and not rage. It was a promise. A master is not the one who strikes the hardest. A master is the one who keeps the song alive.