The assailant was quite young.
Kamran moved swiftly toward him, sliding a mask of intricate chain mail over his face as he went. He walked into the wind, his cloak snapping against his boots, and only when he’d all but collided with the child did he stop. It was enough that the Fesht boy jumped back at his approach, wincing as the movement jostled his injury. The boy cradled his wounded arm and curled inward, head to his chest like a humbled millipede, and with an unintelligible murmur, tried to pass.
“Lotfi, hejj, bekhshti—” Please, sir, excuse me—
The gall of this child, Kamran could scarce believe it. Still, it was a comfort to know that he’d been correct: the boy spoke Feshtoon and was far from home.
Kamran had every intention of handing the child over to the magistrates; it had been his sole purpose in seeking out the boy. But now, unable to pry loose his suspicions, he found himself hesitating.
Again, the child tried to pass, and again, Kamran blocked his path. “Kya tan goft et cheknez?” What did the young woman say to you?
The boy startled. Stepped back. His skin was a shade or two lighter than his brown eyes, with a smattering of darker freckles across his nose. Heat blossomed across his face in unflattering splotches. “Bekhshti, hejj, nek mefem—” I’m sorry, sir, I don’t understand—
Kamran stepped closer; the boy nearly whimpered.
“Jev man,” he said. “Pres.” Answer me. Now.
The boy’s tongue came loose then, almost too quickly to be comprehensible. Kamran translated in his head as the child spoke:
“Nothing, sir—please, sir, I didn’t hurt her, it was only a misunderstanding—”
Kamran clamped a gloved hand around the boy’s dislocated shoulder and the Fesht boy cried out, gasping as his knees buckled.
“You dare lie to my face—”
“Sir—please—” The child was crying now. “She only gave me back my knife, sir, I swear it, and—and then she offered me bread, she said—”
Kamran rocked backward, dropping his hand. “You continue to lie.”
“On m-my mother’s grave, I swear. On all that is holy—”
“She returned your weapon and offered to feed you,” Kamran said sharply, “after you nearly killed her. After you tried to steal from her.”
The boy shook his head, tears welling again in his eyes. “She showed me mercy, sir— Please—”
“Enough.”
The boy’s mouth snapped shut. Kamran’s frustration was mounting; he wanted desperately to throttle someone. He searched the square once more, as if the girl might appear as easily as she’d evaporated. His gaze landed again on the boy.
It was like thunder, his voice.
“You pressed a blade to a woman’s throat like the worst coward, the most detestable of men. That young woman might’ve shown you mercy but I see no reason to do the same. You expect to walk away from this without judgment? Without justice?”
The boy panicked. “Please, sir—I will go and die, sir—I will slit my own throat if you ask me to, only don’t hand me over to the magistrates, I beg you.”
Kamran blinked. The situation grew more complicated by the second. “Why do you say such a thing?”
The boy shook his head then, growing only more hysterical. His eyes were wild, his fear too palpable for theater. Soon he began to wail, the sound ringing through the streets.
Kamran did not know how to calm the urchin; his own dying soldiers had never allowed themselves such weakness in his presence. Too late, Kamran considered letting the boy go, but he’d hardly begun to formulate the thought when, without warning, the child drove the length of the crude blade into his own throat.
Kamran inhaled sharply.
The boy—whose name he did not know—choked on his own blood, on the knife still buried in his neck. Kamran caught him when he fell, could feel the outline of the boy’s ribs under his fingers. He was light as a bird, bones hollowed out, no doubt, by hunger.
Old impulses prevailed.
Kamran issued commands to passersby with the voice he used to lead a legion, and strangers appeared as if out of thin air, abandoning their own children to carry out his orders. His head was so dense with disbelief he hardly noticed when the boy was lifted from his arms and carried out of the square. The way he stared at the blood, the spotted snow, the red rivulets circling a manhole cover—it was as if Kamran had never seen death; hadn’t seen it a thousand times over. He had, he had, he thought he’d seen all manner of darkness. But Kamran had never before witnessed a child commit suicide.