(Author's Note: Hi guys! A couple things about this novel:

one: If you're here because you really liked Penny Candy and want to read another novel just like it, then you'll probably be disappointed. While there'll probably be homoerotic overtones in this story later on, Adin's not going to have the kind of sexual misadventures that Kaz and Company do.

two: in addition to being a very very very rough draft, the beginning of this story kind of takes a while to get going, so bear with me.

three: in addition to high praise and cookies, constructive crit is appreciated in the reviews.

four: …there isn't really a four. Anyway, enjoy the story!)

BLOODLETTING

By

JAYDEE FAIRE

Please note: Bloodletting is a work of fiction and is © Jasmine “Jaydee” Fairneny. Please do not reproduce this work, or any portions thereof, in any form.

(one)

Adin was furious.

He was also wet, muddy, and, because the rain was soaking through the wool suit that he'd worn to his father's funeral, unbearably itchy.

The guards escorting him, however, seemed remarkably cool by comparison. Adin assumed (somewhere in the small part of his mind that wasn't occupied with outrage) that they did this kind of thing all the time.

There were two of them, one holding Adin's bound wrists behind his back, the other walking beside them. The guard behind Adin was the smaller of the two, but seemed to be the brains of the operation. The embroidered patch on his jacket read "Guardsman Gregor." Adin had seen him around town before, usually lounging in front of the local tavern, chatting up the barmaids.

"Let me go!" Adin shouted, for the fifth time in as many minutes. He tried to jerk his wrists free. To his surprise, Gregor abruptly released him, sending Adin face-first into a puddle of what he desperately hoped was mostly water. The larger guard turned his snigger into a cough.

"Adin--" Gregor began as he knelt to help Adin to his feet.

Adin turned on him. "That's Mister Timberfall to you, you brainless drone, and if you don't let me go I'll--"

"Mister Timberfall, you are a debtor, and according to the law--"

"I'm not a debtor," Adin protested as he was led forward again, flanked by the two burly guards, "my Dad was the one who couldn't keep his money in his pants!"

The guard was starting to sound impatient, and Adin saw this as a small personal triumph. "According to the law," the guard said, "upon your esteemed father's death, all of his possessions, wealth, and outstanding debts are transferred to his heir, which would be you."

"That's a stupid law," Adin grumbled.

Gregor shrugged. "I don't make the laws, Ad-- Mister Timberfall."

"I'm going to write to my Councilman," Adin cried as he was led into the jail house. "See if I don't! You're dragging me to jail for something I didn't do!"

The town's jail house was small and concrete, with only two cells side by side and a battered oak desk. It was dank and depressing, but at least it was out of the rain, and a wood stove glowing in the corner offered a welcome warmth.

Behind the rickety desk sat what Adin knew must be a human being, but looked more like a pile of mashed potatoes wearing a blue guardsman's uniform. The man had tiny, watery little eyes, like peas lost in the vast expanse of doughy face. He made a burping, bubbling sound, squinting at Adin. "Hurrrmp he's a live one, ain't he?"

"Yonnhe, this is Adin Timberfall," Gregor said, looking no less disgusted than Adin felt. "He's got an appointment with the Magistrate in the morning."

Yonnhe gave Adin an appraising look. "And what hnnnnrrrrmmp brings you here so young, eh? Was it the girls?" He gave a cheeky wink. "I don't blame you, son. Girls always got me, too."

Adin shuddered and decided to exercise his right to stare at the ground and wish fervently that he were elsewhere. Gregor spoke up for him. "He's here to settle some outstanding debts. He's to stay in holding until the Magistrate calls for him, understand?"

"Huuuurrrrmgk sure, throw him on into the cell, I'll keep my two good eyes on him," Yonnhe grinned, causing parts of his face to bunch up in unpleasant ways. "He won't go nowhere."

"This is my only nice set of clothes," Adin muttered as he was nudged into a cell and his wrists untied. He tried unsuccessfully to wipe some of the mud off of himself. "Look, now they're all full of mud. Ugh, I hate the way wet wool smells."

Gregor stepped out of the cell and slid the door closed. His eyebrows were inching together guiltily, and he frowned. "I'm sorry about all this," he said. "Your father was a good man."

"When he was sober," Adin shrugged, "and working, instead of throwing away all his money at racing dogs, or whatever it was."

"He built the house I live in," Gregor said, determined to stay in the realm of fond memories. "You can't get skilled craftsmanship like that anymore."

"No, you can't," Adin took off his jacket and draped it over what was probably supposed to be a bed. "Seeing as he's dead."

Gregor sighed. "I'll go down to your house and get you a fresh set of clothes. I'm sorry about all the mud."

"I'm sorry I called you a brainless drone," Adin said, pulling off one muddy shoe and feeling like a heel. "I didn't mean it."

Gregor nodded. "You take care, Mister Timberfall." He turned to go. "Yonnhe, he'll need an extra blanket, understand? That's an order. He's only in holding, he's not a prisoner."

Yonnhe snorted. "Hnnnurk yes sir, and some cookies and milk as well, I'm sure."

"He's only a kid, come on. And his father's just died." Gregor paused at the door. "I'll be back in fifteen minutes. I expect to see that boy dry and warm by then."

Adin thought about stripping off his wet trousers, but glanced at Yonnhe uncomfortably and thought better of it. He sat down on the bed, only to feel something wet dripping down the back of his neck. The hole in the wall that served as a window high on the wall had bars on it to keep prisoners in, but nothing to keep the rain out. There wasn't enough water coming in to do any real damage; just enough to make things even more miserable.

-- --

It had been raining for nineteen days.

A few splashes of rain were common at this time of year, especially in the Lowlands, well known for rich soil, plentiful crops, and the occasional horribly devastating flood that everyone was sure would never happen again in their lifetime. While waiting for the doctor to come and confirm that yes, Adin's father was really really dead, and then waiting for the mortician to decide whether he should bother embalming a body that had already been thoroughly marinated with alcohol, Adin had heard that the Trade river had risen so far above its banks that it was now more of a very long lake with the remains of a few villages floating in it. And, according to very serious, bespectacled men whose job it was to know these things, it was only going to rain harder.

It had rained all through his father's funeral, which Adin supposed didn't matter much, since the only people attending were himself, the priest, and the two men with shovels waiting impatiently to fill the hole they'd dug and get back into the warm to have a smoke.

Adin had cried, a little. He'd considered his father dead for a long time, but there had always been some part of him hoping that Dad would get up one morning and bang around in the kitchen making eggs and toast again before going off to work, real work, the kind that actually brought money into the household. He'd waited for his father to stop drinking whiskey like a man in a desert and gambling as if they'd actually had any money left. He'd held onto that little flicker of hope, cared for it, nurtured it.

And then the world had come along and dumped a bucket of cold reality over him.

Adin had remained stoic while the doctor examined his father's body, and even while the mortician measured him for the cheapest coffin they had. But when the priest had tossed a handful of damp ashes into his father's grave, and the men with shovels had come forward to splat mud onto the coffin lid, Adin had broken down.

Not because his father was gone. He'd been gone for a long time.

He'd cried because it wasn't fair.

It wasn't fair.

And of course when the guards had grabbed him outside the cemetery gates, something inside Adin had snapped.

-- --

Whatever had broken out there in the rain was slowly mending itself as Adin spread his clothes out to dry on the floor of the cell and laid back on the bed, telling himself that if a firm mattress was good for the back, then a plank of wood like this must work miracles.

"I could use a miracle about now," he sighed, watching a spider make its cautious way across the cracked ceiling.

The cell door clanged open to admit Yonnhe. Adin watched in fascinated horror as the man waddled in, listing far to one side and then the other, his enormous gut swinging like a pendulum. The jailer tossed two scratchy wool blankets onto the bed, sneering. "I don't care who yer hnnnnngurrrh father was, or if you're Gregor's little pet project of the week. If you're a debtor, you're goin' off to the labor camps and nowhere else."

Adin clutched the blankets closer, pretending to be in the throes of grief stricken muteness. Yonnhe stood bubbling for another moment, then snorted in disdain and went back to his desk, slamming the cell door shut behind him.

Labor camps.

Adin was young—he was still waiting around to turn seventeen—and he'd lived in the same house, in the same town, all his life. He'd never been farther than a few miles towards the river, and that was only because he'd gotten lost. He didn't know what a labor camp was, exactly, but it was one of those words, like hematoma or gangrene, that had a sinister ring to it. He sincerely doubted that he'd be sent there to build fires and roast marshmallows.

He folded the blankets around himself, shifting and rolling to get them tucked down tight to keep the heat in, and lay his head on the dusty pillow, listening to the rain hissing outside and Yonnhe's damp and muddy sounding coughs a few feet away.

Adin curled closer into himself, sighing and trying to fall into a wet, miserable sleep.