Young Writers Society

Jimtide squeezed through the throng with a scowl, leaning into each shove with unnecessary force. His irritation earned him more than a few curses and barely-dodged blows as he pushed his way toward the end of the pier. He just didn’t understand why all these people would come out and stand under the hot afternoon sun, sweltering and too high up to even dip their feet into the green waters below, just to see some ship. He’d much rather be further up shore, wading calf-deep in dying waves and flipping over black stones in search of shellfish. His exasperation doubled as just the thought of the sweet, slick flesh, fresh from a little fire, made his mouth water. Torrom would pay for this.

He elbowed his way past a washerwoman with gray in her hair, who thrust her basket hard against his back in punishment; he winced and threw a glare back at her, before nearly tripping over a small child. Too many people! And how as the thirteen-year-old, already small for his age, supposed to see past all these fools and find an even smaller boy with a partiality to tight hiding spots?

With an angry grunt, Jimtide pushed his way to the other side of the pier, away from the mouth of the Roydene, and cupped his hands around his mouth. “Tor Amory!” he bellowed. “Torrom Amory, get your skinny bum to me now!”

“Oi, boy, shuddup!” a thickly built man nearby said, raising a hand in promise of a retaliatory strike, should Jimtide cross his nerves again. “We want to hear the trumpets!”

“Ye can’t hear ’em anyway,” the boy grumbled. The royal barge was too far out as of yet. Still, Jimtide was no fool; he skulked away from the man and his broad palms and didn’t resume his shouting until he was a ways further down the pier.

It wasn’t the expected towheaded child who answered Jimtide’s calls; instead, a dark-haired girl from their neighborhood came out, clutching her ubiquitous toy, a stuffed creature of unidentifiable identity. “Jimmer!” she cried, running over to tug happily on his vest. “Jimmer, ye’ve come to see the ships after all!”

He reached down to pat the girl’s hair, but shook his head. “Na, I’ve come looking for Tor. Ye seen him, Yara?”

She giggled. “He’s been here since morning. Down at the very end.” She pointed, and with a last rub of her hair Jimtide hurried down, dodging people. It was easier to move on this side of the wide pier, but if he knew Torrom, the boy had found a spot right on the very edge—facing the Roydene, of course.

Indeed, he had; Jimtide wormed through the crowd to find his younger brother seated by the last piling, his thin arms wrapped around the weathered wood and one knee tucked up to his chest while the other swung free, his toes wiggling a good length above the water. “Torrom!” he said, his scowl back in place. “I’ve been looking for ye for hours, boy! Mam’s in a right snit about you disappearing. Damnfool thing to do, with her already anxious ’bout the new baby and—Tor Amory! Are you even listening to me?”

He shook the younger boy’s shoulder and hauled him to his feet, but even when Tor turned his face toward Jimtide as though listening, his eyes were rooted out over the water. “Lookit, Jimmer!” he said, pointing. “En’t it beautiful?”

Jimtide, who was not at all pleased at being stuck on the end of a hot pier in a mass of sweaty, stinking people commoners (the peers all had their private boats out on the water to greet the royal family in a floating procession), glanced out, took in the wide barge with its purple, red, and gold trappings, and looked back at the boy. “Yeah, it’s pretty. Now c’mon! Mam wants ye home, now.”

“Pretty?” Torrom looked up indignantly. “It en’t just pretty, Jimmer! It’s—it’s—”

Jimtide rolled his eyes as Torrom’s stammers were swallowed up by the crowd’s happy roar. “It’s a damn boat, now c’mon!”

“It en’t just a boat!” the younger boy maintained, wrenching his arm out of his brother’s grip and pointing to the boat in a gesture that seemed strangely accusatory to Jimtide. “It’s the king’s own boat! His fambly’s on there—”

“Family!” Jimtide corrected irritably.

“—and their servants, and they’re all heading to Pengrove for the hot weather! En’t it great, Jimmer? We’ll be living near the king!”

“Aye, and we’ve lived near the king for longer’n either of us have lived, and not a single Amory’s ever set eyes on him or his family, ’cept in the portraits in Tribunal Hall!”

Tor shook his head, a slow, radiant smile spreading over his sun-browned face. “I got a good feeling about this summer, Jimmer. I’m going to meet the king, for certain-sure!”

Jimtide rolled his eyes as Tor gripped the piling and leaned out over the water as the barge approached. The boy was always lost in his fancies, of kings and peerages. Ice wasn’t a nuisance in the winter to Torrom Amory; it was a delicacy of the summer, one he’d never partaken of but one he was certain he would soon. The priests had long since given up knocking any sense into that thick head.

“Aye, and Mam’s going to whip your bum good if we’re late for supper,” he said, losing patience and shooting one hand out to pinch the younger boy’s earlobe hard. “Now c’mon!”

Whimpering and whining Torrom followed his brother home, and though his ear was sore and his arms were bruised, he dreamed of summer ice.