Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Help the poor.”

Saint Denis is, quite possibly, the worst place on earth, Arthur decides. And he’s been to some godawful shitholes in his life. Saint Denis is worse than Kettering, Ohio. Ohio, at least, is not mostly swamp, its towns slowly sinking into a reeking greenish mire like the ninth circle of Hell.

Arthur spits. He sits beneath a wall on a metal bench, cradling his satchel in his lap, stretching uselessly against the weight of the air, sitting thick and acrid on his shoulders. Smog hangs like a low ceiling, choking streets grey as newspaper, churned by the rattling tram as it clangs past him on steel rails.

“Help the poor.”

Even sitting still makes him feel dizzy. The southeast of the city is a warren of tangled threads, canals of solid stone and dirt, men and women streaming in all directions like battalions of ants, chattering in so many different languages Arthur stops trying to identify them all. A market sprawls before him, a jumble of stalls and tiny shops crammed into corners, barrels and baskets of produce on display. Fresh Lannahechee fish, corn cobs and peaches, biscuits cooked in a rusting skillet, patterned rugs, furniture, curios, fabric - bought and sold in one chaotic alleyway, laundry strung from the tenements above, and stray cats lounging on the boundary walls. Beggars crowd the dirty ground amongst limbless soldiers, flea-bitten dogs, drunks, refugees, orphaned children, the cobbled alleyways providing a bed, a hospital room, a place to fuck, a place to piss. Babbling creatures in the throes of opium and drink and abject despair huddle and shake in the entranceways, the alcoves, and seabirds cover the grey-tinged skies, fighting pigeons for scraps of bread, voices squawking amongst the cries of the market sellers, calling out to passersby. Whatever is left is taken by the rats.

“Help the poor!”

Much of the city is a slum. The factories spew and cough in the south and west, lining the raucous dock front where ships larger than houses berth, grand steamships and sloops, barges with chugging motors. Great warehouses of wrought iron jostle against the railway line, a lumber yard, steel workers and dockhands and railwaymen and merchants and street performers and shoeshiners and countless others bunched and jammed together like bristles in a brush.

Horses clatter to and fro, and are perhaps the least unpleasant smell in a ripe and reeking mixture, hanging in every street with the smog and swamp-stink. Arthur glowers beneath his hat, and wonders if he shouldn’t have stopped to rest on the other side of town, where the less fortunate are confined to tenement buildings and side alleys, swept behind cypress trees and manicured verges lest they offend some top-hatted bastard named Jacques or Jean-Marc.

“Kind sir, help the poor.”

Compared to this soul-sucking corner, the wider city could resemble some European wonder, with towering storefronts and townhouses strung along the wide streets like bright beads, a tailor’s shop in a garden plaza, a milliner, haberdashers and several hotels, an upscale saloon, art galleries, silversmiths, a theatre. To say nothing of the mansions in the west, each with its own grounds overlooking the northern creek, gazebos and fountains and magnificent French architecture, outlined with balconies and coloured coving like battlements. It might be prettier, and perhaps easier to breathe, but it’s no less repulsive to Arthur.

Why couldn’t he have ridden back to fetch John? Dutch had left only an hour ago, but already Arthur is tempted to find the nearest alligator and offer himself for lunch. Even the mouldering misery of Shady Belle is slightly less unpleasant than this.

“Help the poor.”

Arthur glances at the man on the other side of the road. Some clergyman of some kind, seeing as he’s wearing robes, although with the abject poverty on display around them, it could just be some kind of frugal recycling of a grain sack. He has a dish by his feet, though Arthur hasn’t seen anyone toss any coins his way since he’d got there.

“Help the poor.”

“Ow- Goddamnit.”

Hand snapping up, Arthur sucks his thumb. His needle falls, dangling on the thread suspended from his satchel strap. Hissing, he inspects another puncture wound in his thumb tip, and squeezes it in his palm.

They hadn’t been in the city five minutes before Arthur was robbed by a gang of children. Dutch had found it hilarious. Especially the coughing fit he’d had afterwards, winded and wheezing from chasing a prepubescent brat halfway across town.

His satchel hadn’t fared much better. The lankiest of the local street urchins had a face like the skin on oatmeal, and had sliced the strap hanging over his shoulder while a shorter, grubbier urchin pointed out the local church. It might've been impressive, had it not happened to Arthur himself and led him on a near-fatal run after the little shit.

Ohio is paradise compared to this.

He resumes his stitching. By chance, the old trapper Arthur had met months ago near Riggs Station has some kind of permanent stall in the marketplace. After Dutch had left, he’d wandered his way towards the outskirts, unconsciously gravitating towards the shoreline, where at least the factory smoke isn’t quite as thick as elsewhere. An easterly breeze blows from the Lannahechee, a dilute mist of locomotive coal dust and swamp mud, but the air moves, and that’s better than the still, cloying heat of the city’s heart.

The trapper - Arthur has no idea if he even has a name - had lent Arthur two leather needles and a run of waxed thread to repair his severed satchel strap. And so he’d set himself up opposite the marketplace, Belle hitched at the roadside, sewing an ungainly saddle stitch between his one hand and his teeth. It won’t be neat, or tight enough, but it’ll do for the time being.

“Help the poor!”

The father - or preacher, or whatever he is - opposite manages to win a coin from a passing couple, and grasps the hands of the nearest to him, smiling so kindly, so warmly for such a miserable place. A muddled labyrinth of stone and iron, rats and Catholics and dogs with mange. How can anyone maintain a sense of charity in a place like this? Especially this side of town, where most of the people Arthur sees look to have less than a coin to their names. Perhaps the preacher should visit the saloon - the Bastille, he thinks it was - where three dozen eyes had turned to look at Arthur like he’d stepped through the doors completely naked, expressions running the full gamut of unpleasant reactions, from disgust to shock to grave offence. One button severed from one waistcoat in that place could surely ‘help the poor’ until next century.

Satisfied with his stitching, Arthur knots his thread and pulls it tight, as far as he can with only one strong hand. He then cuts the excess with the knife on his belt, and gingerly tests the strength of the join, letting the satchel hang precariously from the repaired strap. It doesn’t break, so he sets it in place at his hip, strap over his shoulder, and stands from the bench.

Belle twitches her ears to him as he gets up. “Back in a sec,” he says, and crosses the road, grateful for the familiar weight against his hip, satchel bumping gently as he moves.

The market is streaming with people. Like a flock of birds, figures flit and swerve around the clustered stalls, children ducking between legs and under tables, a loose chicken chased by grabbing hands as it flaps uselessly a few feet into the air. Cigarette smoke and snuff tobacco hang with the air, the smell of cooking, spices and strange aromatics, sweet tea and black coffee, twisting with a dozen different languages, raised voices, a dog barking, the railroad track clattering on the other side of the market. A cat is lounging on the entrance wall, stone and iron, sunning itself between the hanging signs, and Arthur mumbles a greeting to it as he passes beneath the arch, excusing himself through the crowds to get to the trapper’s stall. His hand remains on his satchel there and back.

The short walk is exhausting, and he lingers on the sidewalk before returning to Belle, watching a wagon trundle past. All cities are chaotic places. They never stop moving. How anyone is supposed to exist amidst so many people and buildings and so much noise is beyond Arthur. He’d go mad within the day.

“You, kind sir,” the preacher says, and Arthur sighs, wondering how to pretend he hasn’t heard. “Will you help the poor?”

With a hand to his cheek, rubbing his eyes of the sun glare, Arthur turns to look at him. He’s a young man, with soft features, a warm voice despite its overuse. Shaven head, but a full beard, almost the same colour as his robes, tied around his waist with a scrap of rope. Compared to the dreary stone behind him, the iron bars in the recesses where a window might once have been, a barely legible poster clinging in the pits and dents like ancient grout - he seems untouched by the destitution and dirt, hardly any lines in his face, and a bare smile. It’s a little like Charles’ smile.

“I ain’t so kind,” Arthur says wearily, and adjusts his hat, feeling sweat clinging in his hair where the leather has been sitting. He looks absently across the road, as if he has somewhere else to be, something to be doing.

“Yes you are, sir.”

Arthur frowns at him. The man brings his hands up, a heartfelt gesture. “You have it in you, I can tell.”

“I’m a nasty bit of work, Father.”

The man’s expression changes, eyebrows raised. “Wrong on two counts, sir,” he says, and sounds both austere and amused, the same translucent smile on his lips. It isn’t unkind. “I’m a humble Brother. A penitent monk, not a priest, and- You’re a magnificent bit of work.”

Blinking, Arthur shuffles his weight, eyeline dropping briefly to the ground before he recovers it, ears feeling hot. He jams his thumbs behind his belt buckle to give his hands something to do. The monk keeps talking. “You may have made some… Some poor choices. But which of us hasn’t?”

At a loss, Arthur laughs. Snorting and humourless, he shakes his head, grinning like some predatory fish. “You have no idea.”

“But you do. And God does,” the monk says, gentle but certain. “And that’s enough for me and for him.”

“We shall see,” Arthur says.

“That we shall, sir.”

A tram passes, running on the steel tracks embedded in the road, a jangling bell warning riders to make way. The words ‘Cornwall City Rail Company’ are emblazoned on the side. From the open trolley door, the driver raises a hand as they pass, peering through the windows of his strange city train, and the Brother waves in turn, watching the tram as it clatters and clangs, guided on its overhead wires.

“But,” the Brother says, once the noise has passed. Arthur looks at him again. “Why don’t you hedge your bets, and give two bits to the poor?” He gestures at his collection bowl, on the grimy stone beneath their feet. Mostly empty. “There are so many who will go hungry tonight.”

With another sigh, Arthur shifts his weight, and rifles in his satchel. “Sure,” he says, as though tempted not to bother, and tosses several coins into the bowl.

“Bless you, sir,” the Brother says, with his tiny smile.

“How you gettin’ on anyhow?” Arthur asks quickly, pulling his body back from the bowl, and burying his thumbs behind his belt buckle again. “Alms collecting?”

A small exhale, and the Brother moves to inspect his meagre collection. “These are a somewhat...apathetic lot, I’m afraid.”

Arthur grunts, nodding, and gestures vaguely with his good hand. “My, um… My mentor. He says that America is designed to ‘induce apathy’ in people.”

“That’s a wonderful insight.”

The monk moves closer, animated. “He must be a wise man, your...mentor.”

Laughing, Arthur wheezes, clearing his throat to dislodge some of the dust and city grime. “Well.” He meets the monk’s hopeful eyes, his hands lingering around his waist again, as if ready to clasp together in prayer. “Sometimes he’s a downright fool,” Arthur says, voice dry. “But… Usually he’s the best man I know.”

“That’s wonderful.”

Strangely, it sounds genuine.

“The- The thing is, with this city, I’m…” Frowning very slightly, the monk hesitates, as if unsure whether to keep talking. He meets Arthur’s gaze, and seems to decide Arthur is worthy of hearing whatever it is, a conflicted expression turning his mouth. “Well… Poverty will always be with us, as long as profit is placed before people, but slavery…”

Arthur’s brow creases. The monk turns, and stands against the marketplace wall, peering through the iron bars bracketing the stone arch. Above them, the lounging cat’s tail flicks in lazy agitation. “I-I thought we had banished that.” Frowning, Arthur follows his line of sight, searching through the bars. “But Saint Denis is acting as a staging post for shipping slaves out to some of the islands.”

With a snort, Arthur barks a derisive laugh. “I don’t believe you, it’s 1899!”

“Maybe you should take a look for yourself.”

Gesturing to the market entrance, the monk moves to look through the archway, smiling absently at the nearest patrons. “I’ve heard,” he says, quieter than before. “That the pawnbroker down the block around the corner, the one with the green door...” His head nods towards the far corner of the marketplace, a dingy cluster of doorways and walls. “Well… They say he sells more than forlorn trinkets.”

Frowning still, Arthur looks from the monk back to the chaotic market. “There isn’t much I can do by myself,” the monk continues. “If someone were to take a look, well… It’d be interesting to know what they find.”

He shares a look with Arthur, the same placid expression on his face, and then moves back to his collection bowl, outstretching his arms to the nearest passersby. “Help the poor.”

Pausing at the threshold of the marketplace, Arthur again adjusts his hat, and places a wary hand on his satchel, before once more entering the fray beyond the arch, stepping into the bustling courtyard. Some kind of statue sits in the middle of the entranceway, inconveniently, surrounded in stone and filled with spreading plants, moss and vines overhanging the sides. People manoeuvre around it, squeezing past stalls, barrels, wandering dogs, ducking beneath canvas canopies to browse wares.

Arthur excuses himself to a tiny lady carrying a basket of what could be dried mushrooms, dodging a milk churn topped with a lantern fashioned from a wine bottle and candle, and nods to the trapper behind his stall of pelts and furs as he passes. The courtyard splits ahead, yawning into two wide forks, lined with people and stalls, barrels, carts and crates. Lanterns are strung from wall to wall with the telephone wires, bobbing on chimney smoke.

He takes the left fork, squeezing through a bottleneck of furniture sellers and sacks of grain, mumbling unheard apologies to people he passes, though he’s sure only a few of them are speaking English. A newspaper boy calls out as he turns a new corner, perching on a soapbox to gesture to the front page of the Saint Denis Times. Whatever the headlines are, Arthur’s sure he doesn’t want to know if Rhodes is mentioned, nor the massacre at the Braithwaite manor.

Tweaking his hat’s brim, he meanders further through the maze, skirting a rare patch of greenery amongst the grey city stone, a huge cypress tree pressed against the buildings bordering the market courtyard, the laundry-lined balconies of the tenements above almost touching its branches. Roots have broken through the paving bricks, and scrubby grass and plants grow about the trunk, wide glossy leaves like green pennants drooping in the heat. The largest plant looks like a banana palm, only Arthur is certain he’s never actually seen a banana tree outside of an illustrated encyclopaedia, and he doesn’t think the monk would appreciate him stopping to sketch the thing for a closer look. Nor would the supposed slaves being ferried to the islands.

Slavery in 1899. Cities truly are shitholes.

The shop he approaches is squatting between multiple storeys of rundown apartments, a small green door almost unnoticeable amidst the hubbub of the market, buried in the far corner through a twisting alleyway of crates and barrels. Arthur ducks beneath a canopy of hanging ivy, and blinks as his eyes adjust to the sudden shade, pushing the door inwards and stepping through.

An uncanny mirror of the marketplace, the pawn shop is a maze, a warren of shelves and bookcases from floor to ceiling. The space is narrow, and creaks continually, paper rustling, clattering shaking the ceiling above, making the whole building seem unsteady, as if built out of papier-mâché, the workings of Saint Denis audible through the walls. Whenever the train passes by, the glass must shake itself from the windows.

A bell jingles as he enters, and an unseen clerk calls out from the shop’s depths, accent nasal and probably French, Arthur assumes. Shelves block his path ahead, teeming with oddities and trinkets, objects taking up every available space. There are rows upon rows of books, impossible to recognise without rifling through each one, and Arthur peers wistfully over the hoard of potential treasure as he traverses the narrow walkway, ducking a chandelier, a taxidermied eagle hanging from the ceiling. Rugs carpet the floorboards, posters and paintings covering the walls, empty frames stacked against the bookshelves with stray furniture pieces, a varnished card table, a tatty wingback chair, what looks to be an ancient spinning wheel. It’s a veritable paradise for knick-knacks and antiques, Arthur unable to help how his eyes wander, a writing desk catching his eye as he takes two uneven steps up to the rear of the shop, then a collection of fishing rods on the far wall, and finally a tiny wooden carving beside a shelf of camera equipment, no bigger than his thumb. A simple bison, honed roughly from a block of wood, his noble head raised to look out at the surrounding shop, guarding over a packed umbrella stand. Arthur huffs to himself in lieu of a smile, and pauses before the clerk’s desk, buried in yet more shelves.

The clerk is a small man with eyes like black buttons, sewn deep in a taut leather face. His hat is shaped like a pudding bowl, and he mimes tipping it as Arthur peruses the room, clearly looking for something.

“May I help you, sir?”

Arthur makes a noncommittal noise, and his eyeline lingers on a small alcove opposite the clerk, a dead-end space containing one solitary bookcase. “Depends,” he says absently, and turns back to the clerk, eyeing the carriage clock on shelves behind him, the spinning copper fan rattling as it turns, the various pots and pans suspended from the ceiling. “Bit of a strange question,” he says, glancing again to the alcove behind him. “But you heard tell of slavers ‘round here, buddy?”

The clerk stands as though his shirt has suddenly been starched with him wearing it. His pitted eyes dart like buzzing gnats, and Arthur can’t help the flare of jubilant disgust he feels in his gut, a confirmation of the monk’s suspicions. He’s in the right place.

“What? Whatever do you mean?”

With a huff, Arthur turns back to the alcove. A useless bit of space, about a square yard of nothing tacked on to the shop for no apparent reason, unless of course there is more to it than first appearances.

He approaches the bookcase, books pressed tightly onto every shelf as if made to fit the space. It’s heavy, and solid, and the floorboards beneath are scratched heavily in two arcs, as though something both heavy and solid has been moved back and forth on a hinge.

“Sir, what are you doing back there?”

The clerk gestures from behind his desk, leaning to see what Arthur’s up to as he stoops to inspect the scratches, drawing perfect lines from the edges of the bookcase. “There is nothing much over there, I’m afraid…” the clerk calls, pitch rising. “Just a few old books.”

“What’s back here? Looks like this pulls out or somethin’.”

“Pulls out?”

Chuckling like the rattle of the fan, the clerk shakes his head, making a grand display of how humorous he finds the suggestion. “No, no… It’s just an old bookcase. Seen better days.”

Arthur stands, and tentatively pushes the bookcase, seeing if it will move. “I must say, you’re acting very strange!” the clerk says, caught between staying behind his desk and moving out, hands clasped on the surface. “J-Just… What is it you want?”

Gritting his teeth, Arthur manages to make the bookcase wobble, and adjusts his grip to pull the frame with his able hand, sinking his bodyweight behind it. There’s a groaning sound, like a heavy door being forced.

“Maybe you should leave now!”

“Maybe…” Arthur says, breathing hard as he tries to pull the case from the wall.

He pauses to rest his arm, and stares across at the dithering clerk, tempted to smile. “You should leave. ‘Cause I’m comin’ for you once I find the folks you got down here.”

“I-I’ve had enough!” the clerk says, taking a brave step towards the alcove before his confidence fails. “I- You’re crazy! I’m going to get help!”

Grunting, Arthur hauls the bookcase towards him. Some kind of mechanism clicks behind it, and the case comes easily away from the wall, scraping the floor as it opens. “There y’are,” Arthur breathes, stepping back to brush his hand off on his jeans, presented with an ominous doorway and a set of stairs leading downwards.

There’s the sound of footsteps running, a door banging open, and as he glances to his left, the clerk has disappeared. He snorts, and presses forward into the dark, carefully starting down the stairs.

A timid voice calls from within. “H-Hello?”

“Shh- ¡Cállate!”

Every footfall creaks, a disconcerting sound in the almost complete darkness into which Arthur descends. The smell is the first thing to hit, the cloying scent of human waste, thick in the still air. He winces as he takes each step, and cannot help how viscerally he remembers the same smell clinging to him, the same despair and neglect festering on his skin, feeling it like a wall he pushes against with every further stair. It feels like he’s walking into some kind of miniature hell, his steps slowing, becoming hesitant.

As his eyes adjust, he finds the glow of a hanging lantern at the bottom of the staircase, revealing a small basement, doused in a curtain of shadow like a funerary wagon. The light flickers and drifts, indistinct as it reveals and then obscures the features of the room, making the space seem transient and mobile, made of something shifting and formless rather than brick and stone. He shuts his eyes for a long moment, and breathes through his mouth, harsh, a sickly dizziness threatening to overwhelm him, or throw him clumsily down the last few stairs.

Space opens up to Arthur’s left, and the ground becomes dirt, soft and compacted, his boots suddenly silent as he manages to find the bottom of the staircase. The orange light wavers, waxes to touch the webs of spiders in the corners, brushing against the gunmetal black of hanging manacles, welded to the walls, matching shackles chained to the floor. It then wanes again, hiding the horrors from view, plunging the walls into shadow.

It’s some kind of holding cell. A dungeon basement. Cold recollection seizes his stomach, squeezing his insides, and his ankles burn with the feeling branded into his memory. His head swims, drowning in the combined weight of his blood and organs, crushing his lungs, pressing on his eyes.

A voice speaks again, reaching through the dark. “¡Por favor, ayúdenos!”

“H-Help, please.”

Arthur breathes, fast and rough. He swallows, and wades into the dark.

Two men are chained to the opposite wall. They are young, perhaps no more than twenty, and crumpled against their shackles like refuse, limbs folded in on their hunched frames like the cloth body of a rag toy tossed from a child’s cot. Scraps of clothing cling to them, as filthy as their bare skin, caked in grime and the sticky dark of blood, thin wrists shivering in the bite of the manacles. Both of them look more skeleton than flesh, cheeks sunken inwards, eyes wide and terrified.

“Hey, hey,” Arthur says, whispering, voice barely there at all. He wipes his face in the crook of his elbow, and extends his open hands, stooping to find the men’s eyes in the dark, keeping his body low. “It’s alright, it’s gonna be okay.”

The man directly in front of him seems the weakest of the two, barely holding his head up, a mop of dark hair falling unevenly around his face. Arthur approaches slowly, showing his palms, and the slick colour of blood catches the unsteady light, most of his hair matted into a nasty cut above his brow. It’s likely he can’t even feel it anymore. Can’t feel the flies, the cold earth of the ground below him, can’t smell the blood, or the piss on his legs, or the damp on the walls. It was a strange thing, to have his senses so abused, so thoroughly overwhelmed, that he could no longer see or hear or process anything happening around him, as though the brain itself had shut down. Had stopped trying at all. Arthur remembers it, an eerie and disorientating numbness, his awareness defined only by pain.

Sometimes, he remembers Charles’ arms around him. The movement of a horse, and breath at the back of his neck. It means nothing. He has no context for the memory, if it is even a memory at all, and not a false vision or patchwork approximation of some unrelated event. His lungs burn, and he gulps the fetid air, shaking his head to collar his bolting thoughts.

All but crawling, Arthur approaches the nearest man, and kneels beside his chains, inspecting the shackles. Ratchet design, easy to break. Movements slow, Arthur opens the flap of his satchel, and pulls a tiny key from an inside pocket, little more than a threaded stub of metal. He extends his hand and the chained man inhales, sharp, his bare feet pushing weakly at the ground.

“Shh, hey,” Arthur says, and shows the key clasped between thumb and forefinger. “Please, I’m on your side, I’m here to help.” Trying to stop his hands shaking, he carefully approaches the cuffs again, thumb pressing blindly to find the lock in the dark.

He had used a chisel, he thinks, to escape his own shackles. Or perhaps a file? Was he shackled at all? Perhaps by the end, he had simply been left on the floor.

Slotting easily into the locking mechanism, the key is a universal fit, and the shackles open with a metallic clunk, dangling on chains welded to the wall. With a tiny noise, the man cradles his hands, rubbing his raw wrists, and Arthur nods to him. “It’s gonna be okay.”

Careful, he moves to the second man, the lantern glow revealing further restraints on the walls, and various buckets and bowls tucked into corners. The smell is like a wall, and Arthur digs his teeth into his bottom lip, fighting the rising fear that he’ll find himself back in the cellar beneath the old house, somewhere along the northern shore of Flat Iron Lake. That he’ll turn and discover he never actually left, that the O’Driscolls managed to drag him from the beach and back into the stone cell after his failed escape, and he’ll be forced to relive what his mind has tried to erase.

He swallows his nausea. His eyes burn, and he wipes his face before he manages to free the second man, tucking his handcuff key back into the pocket of his satchel.

“Right,” he says, voice rough, dry in his throat. “Let’s get you outta here.”

Both men can stand, though they both shiver and tremble, knees knocking with the unfamiliar burden of carrying their own weights. Arthur communicates as best he can without words they can understand, beckoning them to the staircase, helping the first man when he stumbles, toes rejecting the effort of walking after God knows how long imprisoned. He remembers the feeling. His outermost toes are still numb to this day.

“Gracias señor,” the stronger man says, as Arthur leads them up the stairs, into the trinket shop. “Muchas gracias.” The clerk is absent, the rattling fan still running behind the desk, and light streaming through the shelves from the open rear door, the heat and bustle of the marketplace encroaching from outside. As they pass through the shop, Arthur plucks the tiny bison carving from its shelf, and pockets it, sure it won’t be missed if the clerk ever returns.

Busy as ever, the marketplace dazzles the two captives, hitting a wall of solid sunlight as the shop door opens. Arthur gestures for them to follow, and leads them slowly through the throngs of unaware people, the crowds of obstacles and noise, winding through the market to the entrance arch, the lounging cat still resting on the wall beside. The two men hold and speak to each other, whispering in hushed and fearful Spanish.

Finally they reach the archway, and the relative calm of the road. The monk is still where Arthur left him, and he looks around as Arthur beckons the two freed men closer, staring from one to the other with clear shock. “Brother…uh...” Arthur says, and the monk turns his gaze to him instead, blinking at him as though he’s offered him a gold ingot for his collection bowl.

“Brother Dorkins, friend,” he says, expression agape, his hands close to his chest.

“Arthur. Arthur Morgan.”

Unsteady on his feet, the weaker of the two men stumbles slightly, and Arthur reaches to take his arm, steadying his shoulder. “Hey, easy now. C’mon, this man’ll help see you right, I promise.”

Owlish, the man searches Arthur’s face, and then looks to Brother Dorkins as he approaches, wary, as though expecting further harm. Arthur can’t blame him, and can’t help the familiarity he feels upon seeing the man’s body language, his darting eyes, wobbling stance. “You were right,” Arthur says, gently squeezing the young man’s upper arm as he lets him go. “Found these two imprisoned in that shop.”

“Oh, my… That’s…”

Brother Dorkins peers over the stone wall, and shakes his head, clearly fumbling to find something adequate to say. Arthur knows firsthand that there is nothing. “Well...I- They are...blessed to have met you, Arthur.”

“Trust me, in that they are very unusual,” Arthur says, mumbling.

He paces a few steps to either side, gesturing, breath still heavy. “Don’t think they speak much English.”

“My brothers,” Dorkins says, so heartfelt it makes Arthur feel like he shouldn’t be listening, like he’s intruding on something not meant for unholy ears. “Come. You’re safe now. Let’s get something to eat and some water to wash.” At the blank expressions on the two men’s faces, he mimes eating, bringing some imaginary food to his mouth. “Manger… Uh. Comida. Food.”

“Comida?” the strongest man repeats, and Brother Dorkins smiles, nodding.

“Comamos,” Dorkins replies, and goes to usher the two men away, taking them beneath his arms like the protective wings of a mother bird. “Están a salvo.”

Arthur turns back to watch, and then calls out, stooping to pick up the collection bowl from the sidewalk. “Hey!” he says, and jogs a few steps towards the three, holding out the bowl. “You forgot this.”

“Oh, yes, thank you, I… Uh…”

Brother Dorkins stops, his hand outstretched, hesitating. “Here,” he says, in the gentlest voice, and offers it back to Arthur, “Payment. For your services. I could not have freed these men myself.”

Eyeline dropping from Dorkins, Arthur stares at the bowl in his hand, the handful of coins glinting dully in the daylight. It’s not much, but it’d buy some fresh meat for camp, restock the ammunition supplies, maybe stretch as far as some fresh milk or butter, some vegetables too. The captive men linger behind Dorkins, all but clinging to each other. One has barely any weight on him, his ribcage revealed by his scrap of a shirt, bones stark beneath his skin, his clavicle like a puncture wound.

With a sigh, Arthur shakes his head. “Give it to the poor, Brother,” he says, quiet. “Get these fellers somewhere safe.”

“Thank you,” Dorkins says, and withdraws the bowl, looking down at it as he holds it close.

His smile is meagre, barely there at all, and he nods as he looks to Arthur again, expression beautiful. Humble and kind, like he is looking at his god. Arthur thinks it must be the same expression he gives to Charles. “I will.” He turns, gesturing again to the men. “Like I said, magnificent. Now come. Come, come, come.”

With his new charges beside him, Brother Dorkins follows the sidewalk, and turns to call to Arthur once more as they leave. “Come see me again sometime! I often work at the old church. On Gaspar Street, in St. Frances!”

“Sure,” Arthur huffs, offering a small wave, and chuckles to himself as the motley trio disappear around the corner at the end of the street, the sunlight swallowing the view beyond.