Kit Haddow

Kit Haddow was born in Farmhold to a washerwoman and no father anyone would own to. He had quick fingers from the cradle, and Mabel Thistlewood fed him more suppers than his mother did. At sixteen he took the militia's badge from Sergeant Halvard, because Halvard was the first man who ever looked at Kit and saw something worth trusting. So when Halvard took the militia's pay-chest and went into the hills, it was Kit who carried it. He stayed two years. He watched Red Halvard become a king of nothing, and after the Hollow Moon he watched him grow cruel: tithing the carts of families who were fleeing the Raid with nothing but their children. On the night Halvard ordered a cart from the Landing stripped to the axles, Kit cut its horses loose and ran. He has hidden in the Drowsy Ox ever since. Mabel will not give him up, because he is a Farmhold boy, and Farmhold does not hand its own to anybody; but he does not sleep well. He knows where the pay-chest is buried. He has never had the courage to dig it up.