Peter & Max - Bill Willingham [51]
“Move along,” the goblin croaked in a rough approximation of the Hessian tongue. “Don’t clog the gate!”
And so Peter did as instructed. As much as he was tempted to flee from the city and its terrifying conquerors, the plan among the two families was that they’d all meet up in Hamelin, should they become separated. If any of the others had survived, they simply must be here by now, Peter thought. Goblins or no, I can’t even consider abandoning my family, or Bo Peep, or any of her sisters or parents.
So, seeing no other choice, he’d entered.
If anything, Hamelin seemed bigger on the inside than out. And it was crowded with more people than Peter had ever imagined existing at all, much less squeezed into one place. From the bits of chatter he could overhear just by having to struggle through the crowds, he’d learned that many, or most, of them were recent arrivals and refugees, just like he was. They’d journeyed from smaller towns and homesteads all over the countryside, some of which had been burned during the invasion, while others had been forcibly taken for the sole use of the invaders.
A town this crowded will make it harder for me to find my own friends and family, he thought. Then again, it might help me stay free longer to look for them, since one small boy can better lose himself in a crowd, the bigger the better.
But Peter couldn’t start looking for the others yet. He’d arrived here with only the clothes on his back, Frost in its dull, leather carrying case, and nothing else. More than ever he dearly missed those seventeen fat gold marks that he’d been forced to abandon in the deep woods. Peter was experienced enough to know one absolute and unchanging rule of any town, no matter who ruled it. No money meant nothing to eat. The first thing he’d have to do, even before beginning to look for his loved ones, was to find a tavern or guest house, play his pipe, and pass the hat. Of course that assumed he’d be able to borrow a hat. His had been left in that long lost campsite, along with the gold.
“Has the rot gotten to your head, boy?” the innkeeper said, after Peter had proposed to play for his evening customers. “There’s no singing and playing allowed in public houses no more — not since the gobs took over. It’s forbidden now. Are you trying to get yourself chopped into bits? Or, worse yet, are you trying to get me killed?”
“I didn’t know,” Peter said. “I’m new here and —”
“Well, that’s no excuse, is it? Just ask those who tried to plead ignorance. You can usually find their heads lining the East Wall, provided the crows and rats haven’t got to them yet. You got to learn the rules, boy, or a gob ax will fix you certain.”
It was the same in every other public house that Peter had tried. One innkeeper had actually struck him just for asking, lest any of his customers overhear him even having such a conversation and think to curry favor by denouncing him to the guards.
After a night spent cold and hungry, sleeping in an alley, Peter had decided to look for other kinds of work that didn’t involve playing music. He quickly found there was none of that to be found either.
“I can’t let you work, young man,” a stable owner named Krupf told him, “not without a pass signed by the new Ministry of Labor. Not even a single sweep of the broom can I allow you.”
“How can I get such a pass?” Peter said.
“Well, that