Over the course of the next few months I took great delight in stalking the taverns of an evening. I was young still, yes, but I learned quite quickly that there were three routes I could take to gain more coin as well as keep myself amused.
The first was picking pockets or cutting purse strings. Neither was particularly risky - few people as far into their cups as the tavern dwellers were would notice a sudden lightness where their coin should be and I always made certain to leave a few behind to aid in their overlooking of my actions. If they still had coin about their persons then they would merely think that they had already spent the rest and not search for a child theif.
The second was the lost little girl seeking her parents routine. It was another simple ploy. All I had to do was hunch my shoulders a little, put on an exression of being scared and lost, hang about shuffling my feet a little and, when someone came over to see if I was well, widen my eyes and pretend to sniffle. It was rare that any man or woman would simply walk away after that, instead offering to help me find my imaginary family. When, of course, that failed the kind soul would often offer to allow me a bed in their house for the eve, which would give me ample opportinuty to take a good look around the place whilst they slept as well as a good meal in the morning. A few nights later I would inevitably return to divest the abode of any valuables worth taking.
The third I hit upon quite by accident and it could have easily changed my outlook on life considerably had things not happened the way they did. Much to my continued disgust, it would seem that there a quite a few men out there who have lust for child-flesh. One man, after offering to help me find my parents, took me out of the tavern and along an ally. It was then that I learned of his ulterior motive. Now, even then I was rather acrobatic and slippery, but try as I might I could not get myself out of this mans grip. I was more nauseous than scared, but I need not have worried for another man came along just then and quite deftly knocked my attacker over the back of the head with a stout stick.
His name was Arenlaf. He was quite an attractive young man of around sixteen summers with a shock of thick sandy hair, shrewd blue eyes and a slightly crooked nose that gave him a rakish air. He said he had been watching me working for the past week, keeping an eye on me lest I come up against the sort of man I had that night. I was wary of him; he had an easy grin and a charming manner - I know a player when I see one. However, when he suggested that we team up to split the profits evenly, I had to conceed that he would be useful against men like the one we had left behind in the alley.
Over the course of the next six months or so, Arenlaf and I travelled from village to village together, engaging in all manner of theivery and deception. Most often we would go to a tavern and I would lure a person outside with the lost little girl routine, or with a judicious flash of ankle for those preferred who their meat tender and my partner in crime would subsequently show them the inside of their eyelids before we made off with anything of worth they had upon their person. It was a risky business. Any passer by could have spotted us, we could have been recognised the next day or by a previous victim who had travelled between villages or our target could have been more of a fighter than we had assumed. In truth, anything could have gone wrong for us at any time but the knowledge of that prospect and the dangers that our livlihood presented only made me enjoy it more. It was so much fun!
