Chapter Seventeen

NDER THE SPELL of Pablo Ibin Arriaga, Steven was soon running all manner of errands throughout the great house. After the fire was built and drink was served, there was food to prepare and a tub of water to bring for Pablo to soak his ankle in. Steven gathered a pillow from the master bedroom for Pablo’s back and a silver chalice from the cabinet in the dining room for Pablo to drink from. Steven marveled at the size of the house. It seemed most of his village could have lived in its many rooms.

“Now,” said Pablo, as he was settled comfortably in his chair, “how does a dragonslayer come to be in the great city of Byziatica? It seems far from where a dragon is likely to be found, and even given your skill with a bow you seem poorly equipped to do battle with a dragon.”

“Oh, I’m to see an armorer this morning and buy a sword and shield,” said Steven excitedly. “Perhaps I will even buy a horse so I can ride to battle. I’ve been with the knights of the king and I know how to care for chargers.”

“My!” said Pablo. “You must have a wealthy patron to supply you with such lavish armor.”

“I have earned gold coins to pay armor,” said Steven. “I have learned much about commerce on my journey.”

“Gold coins, eh?” Pablo looked interested.

“Yes,” said Steven. “Only I don’t know where the armorer is now. I sort of lost track of where I was while I was chasing you. How do people tell directions in a city? There are so many twists and turns. The sun is even invisible much of the time.”

“Well, now,” said Pablo, “I can help you with that. I can teach you exactly how to find your way in the city. I can even help you get the armor that you need. There is plenty to be had in Byziatica, and I can get it for you wholesale.”

“What does that mean?” asked Steven.

“Cheap,” said Pablo. “You may not have to pay a thing.”

“How can that be?” asked Steven. “Do you mean I should trade something instead of using my gold coins?”

“Well, not exactly,” said Pablo. “It would be best if I told you a little story.” And so, without further prompting, the roofrunner began his tale.

The Generous Thief

NCE UPON A TIME, in the childhood of those who remember, in the exotic city of Baghalonia, there was born a small child to a very poor family. Thought hard workers, the mother and father scarcely were able to put bread on the table for their little family. In the course of time, there came a great plague to that city and the mother and father and brothers and sisters of the small boy all died leaving the lad to fend for himself in the big cruel world.

For let me explain to you that the world is a cold and cruel place for a child with no family. Often the boy would find himself hiding near the livestock pens to snatch a husk of corn or a scrap of grain from the animals. But if he was caught, he would be beaten within a breath of his life. Cold, hungry, and desperate, the child joined with other children orphaned on the streets to forage in the dumps and protect each other from the guards who protected even what the rest of society deemed worthless from those who might benefit from it.

In this society of beggars, the lad grew. But he was not blind to the wealth around him, nor to the needs of his little band of children who had no hope but to beg on the streets for the rest of their short, miserable lives. It seemed a shame to the boy that while he and his friends fought starvation daily, there were those in the city who had abundance and still could not see that there were children in need around them.

One day as he contemplated a small scrap of bread he had been given where he begged, a smaller child came near him and looked fournfully at the piece of bread. The child’s belly was distended with malnourishment. It looked as though it would faint with hunger before our hero. Without even thinking of his own empty belly, the lad gave this little child his scrap of bread and watched as he ate. As he watched, the boy came upon a great realization. It was a world of plenty, but a few people controlled the wealth of food and withheld it from those in need. There needed to be a great redistribution of wealth in the City of Baghalonia. Thus he set out on his mission to care and provide for those less fortunate than himself.

It began in the market. He learned that while a person was distracted with buying one thing, another could be take from him without notice. And so he proceeded through the market watching for wealthy people or their servants buying food. As they made one purchase and put it in their bulging bags, he would remove another from the bag and slip away. He enlisted other children as his confederates so that the food was passed from child to child out of the market. Thus no child was caught taking the food in the first place. He became so successful at redistributing the food that his little band grew into a great underground society. Daily it became more and more difficult to provide for such a large group by simply redistributing market-day gleanings. It was clear that he would have to expand his endeavlors.

Now, like in most big cities, there were certain districts that seemed to have more than their share of everything. The young economist began frequenting these areas, watching to see how life worked there. He found out when people were in their homes and what doors the servants used. He found what goods went into the homes and planned carefully how certain goods could be gotten out of the homes. And then he began to redistribute the wealth of the city. He began by slipping into a wealthy home when no one was there and removing food from their larders, and then taking it to his “family” of the poor in the city.

This was when the young thief, for we cannot call him else than that, discovered the next great mystery of wealth: coins.

It happened that one day he was appropriating a ham from a wealthy patron that he tipped over a bowl in the pantry and discovered to his surprise that it was filled with coins that the servants used to buy food in the market. Now it was always the practice of the thief to remove only a portion of the goods in a pantry. A patron who was missing a ham might shrug and think they had already served it, but a patron who came home to find his pantry bare would surely raise the alarm. So he determined to do the same with the coins. He removed one of every ten coins in the bowl and took them with him. He distributed the coins among his band and sent them to the market. They returned with more food than he had ever been able to steal in a day. This was a great turning point in the thief’s career, for now he had found a way to feed more people with less effort, for coins were also easy to conceal.

The difficulty with searching for money in the wealthy houses was that people often hid the coins in different places. While searching a house for coins, the thief discovered there were other small things that might go missing unnoticed, but that could be traded for other goods, clothing, and food. Soon his underground community was thriving and he had taught the art of wealth redistribution to many. His family was able to care for its own and many became legitimate traders who with the start they were given by the generous thief, were able to start their businesses. These always remembered their roots and returned their tithe to the community of poor which thrived through their generosity, and kept them from unofficial visits by independent entrepreneurs. The generous thief kept his family safe and protected those traders and merchants who shared their wealth.

In the course of events, however, there were some wealthy patrons who did not like the concept of wealth redistribution, and the generous thief found that it was prudent to move to a new city and teach the poor of that city to participate in the bounty of their patrons. The thief found that the more frequently he moved from city to city, the less likely he was to be caught and beaten or have his hands cut off, so he wanders from city to city to this day, teaching new economic theories and helping those who will hear to provide for themselves.

That generous thief’s name is Pablo Ibin Arriaga, and I am he.

“Generous indeed!” exclaimed Steven. “You have once upon a timed me without asking for a story in return. I am in your debt!”

The thief was surprised, but not unpleasantly so. To have the dragonslayer believe he was in his debt would be to his advantage.

“But,” Steven continued, “I do not understand how this could be. You live in a house as big as my village, yet you are alone here. Surely such a thief, fabled for his generosity would have those he cared for living near him.”

“Ah!” laughed the thief. “Did I say I lived here? No, my friend. I have merely shared in the bounty of this great man’s home for the evening, and I have seen you in need and brought out to share. Speaking of which, we should probably be about our day’s business and away from here before the servants arrive to prepare the house for the return of its master. Now, tell me, did you see any little bags of coins lying around while you were getting pillow and drink?” Pablo stuffed the silver goblet into his bag and stood to leave. He suddenly seemed to remember his bad ankle and called out for Steven to support him as they left the rich man’s house and returned to the streets in the early morning light.

Chapter 16
Chapter 18