How do I even begin to describe these days. I set out with a game in mind. Fun, even. And what fun it was. Risky even for me. I learnt my tricks from Mabel, a feisty dark haired Bree-girl I may have mentioned before. She was a competent thief. In those days I must have known Rannie. But we never spoke. There were many faces in the Alley I do not remember. My appearance has changed much since those grubby days as well. I had jet black hair, the brigands had mashed some strange concoction together and smeared it in my hair to change it's colour so as I would not appear foreign. I still remembered the ingredients. I tried to keep clean, to look presentable. As I had always done so when I was a younger boy. But it was futile in such bleak conditions. Where were two young teenagers supposed to go after escaping the conscription of brigands out in the hills? There was nowhere to go but the Alley, Tom was the name I went by in those days. I never laid with Mabel, we never saw each other in that way. She was more... like a sister. Than anything else. No, I can not speak of it. I can not speak of her. The blood that stains my hands. Her blood. Her pleading face. She did not betray me. I was her brother and I hacked her to pieces. Refusing to believe her protestations of innocence. The kill of Cyfier so anticipated and then not forthcoming I had worked up far too much of a blood-thirst. And I took it out on her. Oh, why must I drag up such memories.
To the world at large I am a caravaner. I always was since my arrival here. Though that is a more recent occurence. That's the latest story I tell. People forget you know? You can reinvent yourself over the years. Change details. Most won't notice if you do it commendably enough. I suppose I am not lying when I tell you that I have had experience of caravans since I was thirteen years old. Just I was robbing them. Not guarding them. Now don't make any snap assumptions poor reader, I made no kills. I merely accompanied them on their raids. No, the first time I was to bloody my hands proper was when the red-head Eacanwyn pooled out over the marbled floor. We merely observed the men killing, Mabel and I.
The brutality of Brunmar, a stout and ginger exile of my country who had enslaved us both knew no bounds. It was my duty to lure in hapless travellers the rest of the time along with her. Two sweet children, destitute. Starving along the road. Thin, almost looking malnourished. I became rather good at it. Playing all the different characters. Oh please help me sir, please help me I would cry. My little sister lays dying by the road-side...
And when they were in position then the trap was always sprung. That is only merely an example. A cliché even.
Of course, she was not. But before you judge me too harshly you should know that I never did these things through choice, only to survive. I have never really put this to parchment. The cruelty I would witness Mabel endure at their hands for her willfulness was unbearable. I still remember the lash marks. My own skin is relatively unmarred by comparison. I learnt swiftly how to read the men's mood, how to manipulate them. How to avoid the beatings. I was such a good, obedient little pawn. I had a good teacher in Brunmar after all. He taught me how to speak Westron, I earned their trust. But in teaching me how to play so many characters where necessary. He never saw our escape coming. Later, I was to kill them all. Much later. But that's a whole other story. One I may or may not tell, I am not writing a novel simply for your amusement after all. My secrets are my own to keep, I will share them as I promised right at the beginning, but at my leisure and with shifting parameters. I spent two years in the Alley with Mabel, creeping through houses in the neighbourhoods south of the hedge wall and liberating them of their valuables was our favourite pastime. I must not speak of her. They were dark days. Foreshadowing dark days and darker days to come.
I won't even begin to describe the things I did for Eacanwyn, What she made me do. No, that can wait as well.
In other words, you will simply have to wait the time it takes my erratic mind to be bold enough to put pen to paper.
But I seem to have gone off on a tangent and made this entry all about the past. Funny. I could go on, I could actually write you a novel. It reads as a series of unfortunate events. I'm not going to though.
