The road was empty and the morning was good and Shade was skipping. One foot then the other, duffel bouncing against his back, moving down the dirt road, he was also singing.
"I'm on my way, I'm on my way," he informed the trees on both sides of the road, who did not respond. "I know the world is far apart, but I know deep inside my heart, I'm on my way. I'm on my way."
"If there's a guard I'll find, I will rob them till they're blind, I'm on my way. I'm on my way." He considered the next line. "I would tie them to a tree, leave them with sore behinds, I'm on my way. I'm on my way."
He felt a presence at the edge of the tree line, somewhere in the treeline to his left. Multiple, they were spread out and watching him.
Then, almost immediately, gone. Shade shrugged and kept skipping. "I'm on my way," he continued, slightly louder.
He felt nothing for another ten minutes.
Then the road curved and he heard it before he saw it. Many hooves, the sound of a military patrol. He stopped skipping, looked at the road ahead, looked at himself. He looked at the bushes.
"Okay," he said quietly. "Okay okay okay okay."
He threw the duffel into the bushes beside the road, covering it quickly with a handful of dead leaves and branches.
"I got this, I got this. I'm a poor homeless bastard. I'm a poor homeless bastard. Come on." He slapped his own face lightly twice.
"You got this.
You haven't eaten in six days. You're poor. You're poor. Fucking poverty. Come on." He took a breath. "Embody the poverty. You are one with the poor. Become the poor."
His shoulders dropped. His back curved. His knees bent slightly, unevenly, one leg dragging.
His breathing went ragged and shallow and his eyes fell half-closed and his mouth came open to look like someone who had been surviving on air and determination.
He sat down heavily against a rock at the roadside and slumped against it. The patrol came around the curve, dozens of soldiers on warhorses, armed and armored, moving in tight formation with synchronized efficiency.
They were searching, probably for him. Tough luck, he just pulled a Michael Jackson, hee hee. They came to a halt.
"You there."
Shade looked up slowly, like the effort of lifting his head was a negotiation with his body.
"Water," he said. His voice came out thin and cracked. "Water, my lords. Please."
"Who are you and why are you this far from the city?"
"I am but a common villager, my lords, please, water. A bit of bread." He sniffed loudly. "I can smell it from your pouches. Just a morsel. I am faint. I have not had a meal in two weeks. I have survived on leaves and berries and I require sustenance."
He began crawling toward the nearest horse. "My village. Bandits. They attacked and I fled. I was hoping to reach the city for help, please, my lords."
He reached out and gripped the boot of the nearest soldier with both hands, looking up at him with his best expression of complete destitution.
"Food. Water. I beseech thee."
The soldier looked down at him with an expression that moved through several stages before settling on disgust.
"Off me, you vagrant."
The kick caught him in the side and sent him rolling. He rolled well, you'd think he was prime Neymar, coming to rest face down in the dirt at the edge of the road and staying there.
"Please," he said, into the ground.
The soldier sighed from his horse with the exhaustion of dealing with something beneath his notice. "Toss the rat some bread and water," he said to his squire.
"Lest he die on the road and begin to rot." A pause. "Beggars everywhere. We continue."
Something landed on Shade's head. Then something else.
The patrol moved past him. He lay in the dirt and listened to the hooves recede and the dust settle and then he lay there a little longer just to be certain.
One of the soldiers spat near his feet as they passed. When the sound of hooves had completely gone, he sat up.
He looked at what had landed on him. A canteen of water, cold and heavy. A wrapped piece of bread, dry and dense, the kind baked to last.
He ate it anyway. All of it, quickly, washing it down with long pulls from the canteen, most of the water running down his chin and neck. He was actually hungry. The fruit from earlier had been good but it hadn't been much.
The bread sat in his stomach and he was grateful for it. He finished, laid back on the road for a moment, and stared at the sky.
"I guess poverty works everywhere."
He stood up. Dusted himself off. Retrieved the duffel from the bushes, checked that everything was still there, and slung it over his shoulder.
"I'm on my way," he started again, picking up the skip where he'd left it. "I'm on my way."
He felt the eyes come back.
More of them this time. Closer. Spread wider through the treeline, flanking both sides of the road in coordination rather than coincidence.
Shade stopped skipping. He stood in the middle of the road and looked at the treeline on his left, then his right, then his left again. He exhaled through his nose.
"You know what," he said conversationally, to the trees, "yeah. I know you're there. I've known you were there. And hiding in the bushes like some weird uncle at a kid's birthday isn't going to help you." He tilted his head. "Get out here."
For a moment nothing happened. Then they came out. One by one and then several at once, emerging from both sides of the road with weapons already drawn.
Swords, clubs, knives with faces covered with cloth. Twenty of them by the time they'd all stepped out, forming a loose circle around him.
Shade looked at all twenty of them.
"Well shit, I guess my bandit story really did check out."