Free Labyrinth by Kate Mosse

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    “Hey! Watch what you’re doing,” a woman yelled.
    “I never touched it,” he shouted, darting out of reach of her broom.
    The Cite was buzzing with the sights, smells and sounds of market day Wooden shutters banged against stone in every thoroughfare and alley, a; servants and householders opened their windows to the air before the sun became too hot. Coopers watched their apprentices rolling barrels over the cobbles, clattering and bumping and jolting, racing each other to get to the taverns before their rivals. Carts jerked awkwardly over the uneven ground, their wheels creaking and sticking from time to time as they rumbled toward the main square.
    Sajhe knew every shortcut in the Cite and he scampered in and out of the jostling arms and legs, dodging between the tapping hooves of sheep and goats, the donkeys and mules laden with goods and baskets, the pigs, lazy and slow, as they plodded their way through the streets. An older boy with an angry expression on his face was herding an unruly gaggle of geese, which honked and pecked at one another and at the bare legs of two little girls standing close by. Sajhe winked at them and tried to make them laugh. He went right up behind the ugliest bird and flapped his arms.
    “What do you think you’re doing?” shouted the boy. “Get away!”
    The girls laughed. Sajhe honked, just as the old, gray goose spun round, stuck its neck out and hissed viciously in his face.
    “Serves you right, pec ,” said the boy. “Fucking idiot.”
    Sajhe jumped back from the snapping orange beaks. “You should control them better.”
    “Only babies are scared of geese,” the boy sneered, squaring up to Sajhe. “Is the baby frightened of a harmless little goose? Nenon.”
    “I’m not scared,” boasted Sajhe, pointing at the girls, who were now hiding behind their mother’s legs. “But they are. You should watch what you’re doing.”
    “And what’s it got to do with you, el”
    “I’m just saying, you should watch out.”
    He moved closer, switching his stick at Sajhe’s face.
    “And who’s going to make me? You?”
    The boy was a head taller than Sajhe. His skin was a mass of purple bruises and red marks. Sajhe took a step back and held up his hands.
    “I said, who’s going to make me?” repeated the boy, ready for a fight.
    Words would have given way to fists had not an old drunk, who was slumped against the wall, woken up and started yelling at them to clear off and leave him alone. Sajhe took advantage of the diversion to slip away.
    The sun was just climbing over the higher roofs of the buildings, flooding sections of the street with slats of bright light and glinting off the horseshoe outside the door of the blacksmith’s forge. Sajhe stopped and looked in, feeling the heat from the furnace on his face even from the street.
    There was a crowd of men waiting round the forge, as well as several younger ecuyers with their masters’ helmets, shields and hauberks, all of which required attention. He presumed the blacksmith in the chateau was overwhelmed with too much work.
    Sajhe didn’t have the blood or the pedigree to be apprenticed, but it didn’t stop him dreaming of being a chevalier in his own colors. He smiled at one or two of the boys of his own age, but they just stared right through him, as they always did and always would.
    Sajhe turned and walked away.
    Most of the market traders were regulars and had set up in their usual places. The smell of hot fat filled Sajhe’s nose the moment he walked into the square. He loitered at a stall where a man was frying pancakes, turning them on a hot griddle. The smell of thick bean soup and warm mitadene bread, made from half barley and half wheat, stimulated his appetite. He walked past stalls selling buckles and pots, woolen cloths, skins and leather, both local goods and more exotic belts and purses from Cordoba or farther afield even, but he didn’t stop. He paused a while by a stall offering knives