Well of Sorrows Read Free

“Here. Get out of those breeches and linen and into these. Your father should be here any minute.”
    Colin moved to the corner of the room and stripped off his soiled breeches and underlinen, his back to his mother. He shoved his feet into the new clothes hurriedly, head ducked and body hunched. He didn’t like to be naked in front of his mother any longer than he had to any more. Even the thought made his cheeks burn, his chest and stomach tingle.
    He had just cinched the ties of the breeches together when his father stepped into the hovel.
    He swore under his breath the minute he saw Colin, his eyes going black. “Walter?”
    Before Colin could nod, his mother spat, “Of course it was Walter! Who else would it have been?”
    “Any of the goddamned townspeople who were here before us.”
    “Don’t you dare curse in front of Colin.” His mother’s voice had gone soft and flat; Colin involuntarily took a step backward, edging to the right. He hated it when his parents argued, but his father still stood in the doorway, blocking any exit. “And the townspeople here treated us fine when we arrived. They even gave you a job on the docks after the guild turned you away. A job you’d still have if you hadn’t been so arrogant!”
    “It was the arrival of the Breeze —”
    “No!” His mother sliced the air with one hand. “No! You will not blame the loss of your job on the arrival of more refugees from Andover. Yes, more and more of them arrive, practically each day. Yes, they’re fleeing Andover and the Feud. And yes, there are others being shipped here as well—prisoners given a second chance, Armory discharged for suspect reasons, and others. But that is not why you lost your job. You lost your job because you couldn’t stand the fact that you were a guildsman, a carpenter, and you were doing ‘menial’ labor on the docks because the guild here is Carrente and refused to accept a Bontari Family member into its ranks. You had to let everyone know that the work was beneath you. You had to put on airs. And you wonder why the regular dockworkers turned on you, why they made your life even more miserable. You let them goad you into a fight! Forget the fact that it was the only work available at the moment. Ignore the fact that you have a wife and son to support, that we barely have any funds left from Andover. Forget that—”
    But here his mother halted. Colin could see the redness around her eyes, could see the watery tears that she tried to hide by raising a hand to her quivering mouth and turning away. His father had straightened, hands fisted at his sides, but now, staring at her shaking shoulders, he faltered.
    “Ana—”
    “Don’t.”
    His father shifted up to his mother’s back. Reaching for her, he began again. “Ana, I don’t know—”
    But his mother flinched away before he could touch her, and he stiffened. His hands hovered for a moment, then closed into fists and pulled back in frustrated, impotent anger.
    He turned, stared at Colin, his expression tortured, jaw clenched.
    Then, without a word, he ducked through the door, the blanket falling back into place with a rustle. His mother sobbed, hunching forward over the lone table in the room.
    He hated it when they fought. He hated it when his mother cried.
    Colin slid toward the door and shoved his way out into the late afternoon sunlight, hesitated, trapped between frustrated anger at his father and his mother’s sobbing. He glared at the woman sitting outside her own door across from them, at her sympathetic frown, then spun and stormed off into the warren of narrow pathways between the shanties and huts, dodging men and women and children, all of them dressed in what had once been decent clothing but that now looked used and worn, most of them thin, those that had just arrived on ships gaunt or emaciated from the long journey or illness. He ignored them all, ignored the lost look in their eyes, the desperation, a look that had crept into