2. THE KINGS AND THE THIEF
THE KINGS AND THE THIEF
The Port of London, England
How does a street thief become a king?
On a dark night, in a dingy tavern in the Port of London, two gentlemen were finishing their drinks. The whisky worked its way smoothly into their blood, fueling their latest argument.
“I say, my good brother, a gentleman is not born but cultivated!” said Uriah, the older brother, thirty-five years of age. “There is no such nonsense as blue blood. Why, look where we are!”
The Mawr brothers, Uriah and Alfred, the owners of Mawr Diamond Industries, were better known across the world as the Diamond Kings.
Despite their distant relation to French royalty and a fortune they’d amassed in diamond mining in India, the two brothers sat at Ol’ Days, a dingy tavern close to the docks from which their ship, Saint Catalina , was about to sail off to India.
“See that?” Uriah pointed with his half-full glass at a boy around nine years of age, who was drinking ale at a lone table across the room. “Torn shoes, dirty clothes, thievish glances. He is searching for things to steal. I say he is from the slums but young enough to relearn.”
“This must be a joke,” responded Alfred, the younger brother, smoothing his mustache with two ringed fingers. He narrowed his eyes on the boy. “You do not truly suppose you can make him a gentleman. He shall never think like one. Nor shall he be like one. He looks like a little monster, truly.”
At that, Uriah’s gaze darkened.
Though brothers by blood, the two couldn’t be more different.
Alfred was handsome and barely thirty years of age, with a flair for expensive things, good whisky, and gambling. He fancied horse races, loud parties, and attention. Reckless and careless with money, he was nevertheless the charming face of Mawr Diamond Industries.
Uriah was older and the true mastermind behind their successful enterprise. But fate hadn’t been kind to his appearance. His face was marred with extensive scars from smallpox as a child. Called a “monster” behind his back when young, he’d heard the word too often, a word he’d made peace with.
But right now, he didn’t like the sound of it coming from his brother’s drunk mouth.
And the word, yet again, made his blood simmer with deeply engraved anger for his reckless brother.
“Don’t you know the best fairy tales?” Uriah argued coldly, though bitterness burned him to the core. “A monster usually turns into a charming prince.”
Alfred dismissed his words with a wave of his loose glove. “By God, Uriah, you have the silliest ideas. Whatever do you think can change him?” He lit a cigar and exhaled a cloud of smoke at his brother.
“Is that a bet?” Uriah pressed on, accustomed to proving himself right.
“You fancy sending him to a school? Oh, my!”
“I fancy taking him with us.”
An amused chuckle escaped Alfred as Uriah retrieved a diamond-studded watch out of his pocket.
“The ship sails in two hours,” Uriah said, checking the time.
He rose and walked toward the little fella, who stilled like a possum at the sight of the approaching lord.
The boy’s name was Drasko, last name unknown.
He was nine years of age—perhaps ten, or eight.
The boy himself wasn’t certain, nor did he care.
What he did care for was that it was raining outside, and as he had no home, and the thieving business was quite poor at night, he needed a place to warm up, perhaps find a corner to sleep in for himself and his friend Zeph, who was also on thieving business at a nearby tavern.
Drasko’s shabby patched-up coat was drenched with rain. Water squeaked through the holes of his boots. His trousers and shirt were too big for him—he had stolen the clothes from a drunk passed out on the street. His lucky day!
When a stranger walked up to his table, Drasko shrunk into himself.
He had already appraised the man’s expensive suit from afar. But rich men never approached him. This was most positively bizarre.
“May I?” the man asked, pointing at the spare chair at the table, and took a seat.
Drasko looked over his shoulder, making sure the fancy lord was indeed addressing him.
He looked like one of those lords with a title, the golden chain across his suit jacket thicker than any that Drasko had stolen before.
His gloves were made of leather thinner than silk. Drasko knew—he had touched silk once.
“Do you like this?” The lord’s eyes followed Drasko’s glances at the chain. “Where I am going tonight, there is plenty of gold.”
Drasko’s ears perked up. “Where’s that?”
The lord wiggled his head from side to side. “India.”
“Inn-dee-ya,” Drasko drawled. He didn’t know where that was. “Far?”
“You have to sail on a ship.”
Drasko had never been to Inn-dee-ya or on a ship.
“But there are better things than gold there,” the lord said, his mysterious tone drawing Drasko in like those street magicians.
Drasko smiled and shook his head in disbelief. “There’ nothing betta’ than gold.”
The man raised his eyebrows. “Oh, there is! New gold. Shiny. Light like pebbles,” he said softer and even more mysteriously, then leaned on the table toward Drasko. “One pebble worth Buckingham Palace.”
“Nah!” Drasko’s face split into a grin that right away disappeared.
The man looked dangerous, his face dotted with scars, his eyes smiling cunningly—a man in charge, certainly. That gold chain dazzlingly reflected the candlelight.
“Whas’ it called?” Drasko asked suspiciously.
The man’s lips curled into a peculiar smile as he leaned forward even closer to him across the table and said a word that only Drasko heard. “Diamonds.”
Drasko repeated it slowly, tasting the sinister syllables. “Die. Mons.” He swallowed hard. “Soun’ dangerous.”
But he couldn’t hide the awe that shone in his eyes brighter than gold nuggets.
The lord cocked a brow. “You don’t take risks, you don’t drink champagne, young man.”
Young man?
No one had ever called Drasko that before. Nor had he ever drunk whatever stuff that rhymed with “pain.” Everything that came out of the lord’s mouth sounded dangerous but mysterious. There were no mysteries in the slums. And no gold. And no ships.
The lord’s eyes were locked with Drasko’s, just like that snake he had once seen at a street magic show. A pie-thon —a delicious name, really.
Drasko’s belly suddenly howled with a loud need for food. He hadn’t eaten in two days. But he’d forgotten all about it, for he knew right then and there that if he followed the strange lord, the future would bring more than food or gold. So much more!
“Are you hungry?” the lord inquired as if he were a devil reading Drasko’s thoughts.
Drasko nodded timidly, forgetting about the die-mons and some-pain .
“My name is Uriah Mawr.” The man offered his hand for a shake.
Drasko gawked in disbelief. Hesitantly, he wiped his dirty little hand on his soaked trousers and slipped it into the lord’s gloved one. He’d touched silk once. Now he’d touched the finest leather. No one had ever looked twice at him, let alone shaken his hand. Until this lord.
“Drasko,” he whispered, his little heart thudding loudly, then cleared his throat and, straightening his shoulders, said more confidently, “Drasko,” and added, “Sir.”
“Very well. Let us get some food in you,” said the man. “And afterward, perhaps, you’d like to see my ship.”
Drasko nodded absently, high on the thought of food and perhaps some warm place to sleep. He wished Zeph were with him.
He didn’t know that he would board Saint Catalina that very night and sail across the giant oceans and past exotic lands.
It would be six years before he would see the English shore again.
But by then, he would be called a monster behind his back, and he would have lost the most important person in his life, the first of many.
Meanwhile, the younger Mawr brother smoked his cigar and observed the unfolding scene with great amusement.
“Madman,” he muttered to his brother. “You will lose the bet and ruin the boy.”
Little did he know that, twenty years later, the bet would ruin many lives, including his.