Shadow's Son by Shirley Meier, S.M. Stirling and Karen Wehrstein ...

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"Raise yeh full copper," said the one-armed man. "Hey, boy of gold! Put my bet in for me."
He must have a really good hand, Rasas thought, as he moved the copper chain from the man's pile to
the center of the table,if he isn't even willing to let go of it to put his money in himself. Still, I didn't
think a hand where none of the cards look like any of the others either in numbers of spots or
color was any good… maybe it's because I'm not good enough at telling the symbols .
Rasas wasn't sure where exactly they were, except that it was the basement of a decrepit country house,
the foundation-stones seeping water, and out-city. He was supposed to stay in the basement, but
sometimes they let him come upstairs where it was dry and warm. He could even sleep there, as long as
it was in one of their beds—and he'd peeked out a crack in a shutter. Huge wide fields, such as he'd
never seen before in his life, except in his dreams.
"You know why we call you boy of gold?" one of the others said. There were five around the table,solas
andfessas gone to seed and fat, with uncombed beards and stained jerkins. Watching them play, Rasas
suspected they'd never had other skills, though when he thought about it he realized they must have.
Patappas, for instance, would still be fighting if he had two arms.
"Because you're going to make us all boys of gold!" All five burst out into guffawing, their loudness
enhanced by the wine they were drinking. It was almost a ritual, the joke. The first time they'd said it,
he'd had the sudden image of five gilt statues; then he'd understood, they meantrich .
He'd heard stories of kidnappings before, of a favorite boy being snatched and held until his owner,
pining for him, coughed up a huge ransom. He'd always thought it would be an adventure, imagining a
handsome highwayman in satin and gold heaving him up over his noble destrier and galloping off into the
country. While they were in hiding, the highwayman, struck by Rasas's plight, would change his mind and
refuse to return him to Nuninibas, even when the lord, desperate, offered a million gold chains. The
highwayman, who had dark eyes as well, would adopt Rasas as his son, kidnap and adopt Ardas as well
so they really were brothers, and take them to his secret estate in Kassabria or Korsardiana. He'd teach
them how to use a sword, and they'd raid evilAitzas and give the money to poorokas , like the
green-dressed gang in the old story, and he'd be able to dress in suave satin instead of pleasure boy's
lace. No one would ever smother him or Ardas again, and they'd live happily ever after.
So he'd imagined it, at any rate. None of these men quite fit the part; for one thing, they had no noble
destrier, only a bow-backed old pony with a tangled ragged mane. And they smelled, no surprise, since
the house didn't have a bath. They'd go off somewhere to bathe only every few days, and he thought it
must be in a river or lake nearby, like the lowest of the poor. He only bathed every few days too, when
they brought him water, which made his hair itch and him feel base and worthless, but at least he didn't
have that rank grown-up smell.
Nor did they look about to refuse the ransom; rather, they slavered over the prospect of getting it,
constantly. No matter; he'd just go home then and things would be as they'd been before. They hadn't
hurt him much taking him. It had just been a big hand waking him up, torchlight in his eyes, and then arms
hefting him up over a shoulder, though they had knocked out the dancing boys' quarters guards; he
noticed them lying sprawled as he passed. He'd wanted to ask politely, "Sirs, will you take Ardas too, if
you please? He doesn't weigh much, less than me," but they d threaten to slit his throat if he said anything
(part of the whole tradition of kidnapping, he knew), so he hadn't. They'd put him in a flour-sack to get
him up the cliff-lift. "Give your oath you won't move or make a sound, or we'll sap you," they'd said, so
he had given his oath, and then kept it as he felt the lift raise him smoothly up.