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Steffen cowered beneath the whip of hishiain He braced his hands over the back of his head, trying to shield the worst of the blow

"I ordered you to remove the chamber when it was full! Now look at the mess you&039;ve made!" his master screamed

Steffen hated to be yelled at Born defor prematurely old, he had been yelled at from the tis, with his friends, or with anyone His parents had tried to pretend he didn&039;t exist, and when he was just old enough, they found a reason to kick him out of the house They had been embarrassed by him

Since then, it had been a hard, lonely life for Steffen, left to fend for hi in the streets when he needed to, he had finally found a job in the bowels of the king&039;s castle, toiling with the other servants in the room of the chae, iron chae fro, with the help of another servant They took it out the back door of the castle, across the fields, to the river&039;s edge, and dumped it in

It was a job he had over the years learned to do well, and as his posture was ruined before he arrived, the lugging of the pot could not have affected it anyh, over tio to other places, to escape in fantasy, to iine vivid alternate worlds and to convince hiift in life had been a great iination, and it didn&039;t take ift was observation Everyone underesti, and he took it all in like a sponge He was much more sensitive and perceptive than people realized

Which hy, the other day, when that dagger had co down the stone chute, into the chamber pot, Steffen had been the only one to take notice He heard the slightest difference in the splash, so in the water that sounded not hu as it settled to the botto So down the chute, so he wasn&039;t supposed to Either it was an accident, or, more likely, it was on purpose

Steffen waited for aand stealthily approached the pot, held his nose, rolled up one sleeve, and reached in up to his shoulder He fished around until he had found it He had been right: there was sorasped it and pulled it up He could feel, before it even reached the surface, that it was a dagger He extracted it quickly, glanced it over,and hid it behind a loose brick

Now that things had quieted down, he looked around, , and when he felt sure the coast was clear, he hurried over to the brick, loosened it, unwrapped the weapon and studied it It was a dagger unlike any he had ever seen, certainly not one for the lower classes It was an aristocratic thing, a piece of art Very valuable, and expensive

As he held it up to the torchlight, turning it every which way, he noticed stains on it, stains which would not come out He realized, with a shock, that they were blood stains He remembered back to when the blade had fallen down and realized that it had co His hands shook as he realized hethe murder weapon

"How stupid are you?" shrieked his ain

Steffen hunched over and quickly wrapped up the blade, keeping his back to his boss, hoping and praying he had not seen it He had left the cha the blade, and it had overflowed He had not expected his , as he did every day, whether he did a good job or not He clenched his jaw, hoping it would end soon

"If that pot overflows again, I will have you kicked out of here! No, worse, I will have you chained and thrown in the dungeon You stupid deformed hunchback! I don&039;t knohy I put up with you!"