15. Sam Of Marvels #5
“Sam,” Cris said to me in a warning tone. The door opened and Sullivan stepped out. “Don’t make trouble for me,” Cris said. “It’s not worth it.”
I gave him a withering look as I walked out after Sullivan.
He was standing on the dirt road, lighting a cigar.
I cast my eye over Saddle Street quickly, considering what materials I had to work with.
A small crowd of children, grown men and women had gathered around the beautiful horse attached to Sullivan’s coach.
The driver stared on impassively as the children petted and admired the horse.
Underfoot, the dirt road was surely a degree worse than horse, coach, and driver usually frequented.
It was grooved and pocked from horse travel and frequent flooding.
Piles of horse manure lay about here and there, gathering flies.
As Sullivan took a puff from his cigar, I cast an enchantment, hiding the manure and making the road appear suddenly clear of obstacles.
Then, remembering my first encounter with the marvelous in Salem, I gave speech to the horse.
The children around it burst into laughter, and the driver stared in plain astonishment.
Sullivan couldn’t yet hear the horse’s words, but he took a step into the road, drawn by the unexpected laughter of the children.
Now the horse, who’d started by complaining about the heavy coach, looked up at Sullivan and snorted.
I waited a moment so that Sullivan would be sure to hear.
“And that one,” the horse whinnied in a plaintive voice, “stinks so badly, I can smell him against the wind.” The children laughed even more, and even the adults standing with them chuckled faintly, though most of them knew better.
Sullivan was nearing his coach, and now I dropped the first enchantment so that the horse manure was visible, both on the road and on the elegant boots that Sullivan wore.
He’d stepped in it twice, even more than I’d hoped for, casting fine, dark splatters all the way up the side of his trousers.
Sullivan reached his coach, and though he was too dense to grasp quickly the mechanism that had brought it about, he understood that his clothing and boots were filthy and that a cluster of children stood laughing at him.
Angrily, he handed his package to the driver and stepped into the coach.
As he did so, he turned to look back at my brother’s shop.
His eyes settled on me for a moment, and I gave him an easy wave. He scowled.
Cris wasn’t happy with me. When I came back into the shop, chuckling, he looked at me darkly. “That will cost us, Sam.”
“He doesn’t even know it was me! Men like us aren’t enchanters, Cris,” I said wryly.
“Nevertheless, it will cost us.”
“So you would have allowed him to leave having stolen your work, without even some admonishment?”
Cris shook his head. “I know Sullivan’s type. Malicious, untouchable. It’s better to let those go.”
“I can’t agree with you, Cris,” I said, incensed by his passivity. “It only teaches men like Sullivan that they can walk all over us.”
“Is that what you think I’ve done?” Cris asked, angry now as well.
“I do. Your work should not be free. Those times are done.”
My brother rose from his seat, and for a terrible moment I thought he might come around the worktable and strike me.
But then my mother appeared, having heard our raised voices.
“Samuel, Cristóbal!” she exclaimed, coming up to me and placing a hand on my arm.
“Enough. You will settle this disagreement in a civilized manner.”
Her presence had been enough to calm us, and we fell into an uneasy quiet.
I felt the sting of indignation, still furious that Cris would permit himself to be taken advantage of in such a manner.
But as the afternoon wore on in heavy silence, I began to see the matter differently.
I began to think of the servants at Sullivan’s house who would have to clean his boots and trousers, and the inside of the coach.
I considered who was most likely to bear the brunt of my mischief, and it wasn’t Sullivan.
Moreover, Sullivan would remember Saddle Street, and he would not remember it fondly; what further vengeance might such a petty man exact?
I couldn’t bring myself to admit that Cris was right, but I no longer felt that my actions had been wise.
Was accepting the insults and ill-treatment of men like Sullivan, of men like my classmates at Commonwealth who merrily spilled beer, really the only recourse?
The afternoon was marred; I felt unhappy, for I didn’t like the answer to my own question.
And yet I returned to Commonwealth with all my tokens.
I became Byron again. I clung to my deceit, because, like Clem, I prized the study of enchantment too greatly.
There, that is all I needed to tell you; now you will perceive how similar we were, despite our differences.
We both required peculiar armor to study at Commonwealth.