The patron thief of brea.., p.3
The Patron Thief of Bread, page 3
Funny, Duck often thought while chewing on her lip, that while pennies were scant, she had more names than she needed.
Master Griselde was late opening her shop this morning. Already the fruit peddler was nearly out of cherries, and the butcher’s shutters rattled shut — he’d sold the last of his chopped ham moments ago.
But people couldn’t scurry home yet. People needed their bread.
So they hovered at the crafters’ booths, buying trinkets they usually only sniffed at, much to the delight of the crafters, whose income fluctuated greatly depending on how spendthrift the general population was on market days.
Duck was pleased to see that today, money was moving from person to person like the nits. A nice, healthy economy.
Always linger with a purpose. It was one of the most basic of the Crowns’ rules, and one of their most efficient — the last thing you wanted to do when running a scam was to bring attention to yourself. Fortunately for Duck, she avoided attention like it was a malady.
Unfortunately for Duck, it was also against her nature to step forward, to speak for herself, to engage. Her instincts were to observe and to obey. Today, though, she would have to sing out.
A booth with beautiful daggers and embroidered leather sheaths caught Duck’s eye. She strolled to its tables, trying to peruse with an innocent, lollygagging manner that matched the rest of the crowd.
“Is there something special you’re looking for?” The woman selling the goods appeared above Duck like a bird of prey shading its next meal.
Duck fought the urge to whip her hands guiltily behind her back and shook her head. She was just browsing, she reminded herself. Waiting for bread, like everyone else. She had every right.
“Did you forget your voice at home?” the woman said with a good-natured smile.
It wasn’t that Duck couldn’t speak.
Just . . . with Ash around to speak for her, she rarely needed to use her own words. After so many years of letting Ash be her voice, the Crowns now just looked right at him when they asked her a question. Ash always knew her answer.
She offered a word to the woman now, a little one, just to prove she could: “No.”
But the woman was inspecting her anew, taking in Duck’s dirty cheeks, her ragged tunic, her bare feet, and the woman’s demeanor suddenly darkened. “This booth is for customers only,” she hissed, covering her wares with her sleeves. “Get your little beggar hands off my table before you spoil everything.”
Heat climbed Duck’s neck.
Immediately an idea came to her, sharp as a blade — she could pretend to be counting the coins in her pocket, show the woman a glimpse of her silver penny, then walk to the next booth. Let the woman think she had missed a decent sale; maybe then she’d hold her words before she said such rude things to someone again.
Stay calm, Duck told herself. Petty vengeance was a quick way to get remembered.
“The pebble that makes the slightest splash is the easiest to forget,” Ash would say if he were here. And then Gnat would roll his eyes and tell Ash he was talking like a monk again, and the rest of the Crowns would chortle and tease. Ash couldn’t help it — such fancy sentences and wisdom fell out of him the way walnuts tumble from trees in autumn. Maybe if he’d been born to a pair of merchants, he’d have learned to read and write. He would have made a splendid scholar.
But then he wouldn’t have been a Crown. And baby Duck, floating in the river? She would have been fish food.
Ash was the voice in Duck’s head, and so she didn’t stick around to teach the mean-tongued woman a lesson.
And Gnat . . . Gnat was the pulse in Duck’s neck. Gnat would have vanished, folded himself into the crowd like it was a lidded box, and so that’s exactly what Duck did now. She disappeared.
When the crafter recapped her morning at the end of the day, the image of the greasy child with threadbare clothes would be sunk too deep in the trenches of her memory to be easily fished out.
Behind Duck, there was a click and whirring sound.
The deep-green panels of Master Griselde’s shop front furled up like scrolls, revealing baskets of long pleated baguettes, rows of hot cross buns, rye and barley loaves, squares of unleavened bread, and, behind the counter, a confectionary of colorful, delicate pastries almost too tempting to look at.
The bakery was finally open.
Master Baker
“Fresh bread! Come get your fresh bread, rolls, and buns!” The bakery’s journeyman, a young man wearing a cap on his curly dark hair, clanged the golden bell that hung from the frame of the shop. He then picked up a tray of round, fat trenchers and turned toward the crowd.
In an amorphous movement like a glob of fish, the people pressed toward the loaves.
And then it was mayhem.
Duck’s stomach lurched. She clutched the penny and the wooden coin in her pocket.
The squares of unleavened bread were the first to go, even though they required teeth hard as an ogre’s to chew through the crust. But they were the cheapest, and above flavor, customers wanted cheap.
Next to be picked clean were the baskets of moderately priced baguettes, though within moments of their disappearance a new batch was available, piping hot, steam rising from the crusts in tempting curls. Rye and barley loaves were six a penny, and though Duck had seen slightly lower prices for bread in her days, she’d never seen loaves as hearty as these. With her mouth watering like a horse’s, she inched closer, into the frenzy.
While the journeyman worked the crowd with his overflowing trays, the counter, the baskets, and the confectionary were all handled by the master baker herself.
Duck had not yet seen her in person. Gnat had gone alone yesterday to case the city’s modern square while the rest of the Crowns napped in a miller’s loft.
But now that the baker was in front of her, she understood Gnat’s description when he’d said, “Think . . . cow.”
Griselde Baker was a bull of a woman, tan-skinned, standing tall as a cornstalk. She’d probably easily look the count in the eye, and he, the most powerful man in the region, would likely be ashamed of his own baby-soft face in comparison to hers; the whiskers that sprang from the baker’s chin looked sharp enough to carry thread through cotton. Her rusty hair was fading, streaked with white.
Her hands were strong, speckled rough like an animal’s hide, from hauling baking trays in and out of the ovens. No wonder she commissioned her loaves so large; standard-size breads would seem like grains of rice in those paws.
The behemoth baker’s back was turned as Duck reached the counter. A new stack of barley loaves, still hot from the forging, sat plump as hens, waiting to be devoured.
The baker’s personal seal, a halo of laurel wrapped around a flat outstretched hand with the letters GB — for Griselde Baker — was pressed into the domes of the loaves.
Out came the shining silver coin from Duck’s pocket.
“And for you?” Griselde Baker leaned over the counter to address Duck. “What will you have?” Her hickory-deep voice didn’t surprise Duck, but her eyes did — both orbs unfocused, cool blue, but glazed over with a milky opaqueness.
Someone jostled Duck, reaching for the last oatcake, and she tried to remember what she was supposed to be doing, what she was here for.
The baker tilted her head slightly. Lips pursed in amusement. “Did you leave your shopping list at home, then?” she boomed. “We’ve all done it. No shame in that.”
“I . . .” Duck’s words dissolved, unheard, in the sound of commerce around her. She tried to take in a breath and form a word, any word, but it was as if an entire castle were pressed on her chest.
“Sing out!” Master Griselde leaned even closer. “You’re little more than a specter to my eyes, but I can still hear you just fine. I’m listening.”
At those words, the realization dawned on Duck — the baker was blind.
Those clouds in her eyes were storms in her vision.
Master Griselde frowned slightly at Duck’s silence, and though she hadn’t yet directly met Duck’s gaze, she did so now, tucking her chin down so it rippled against her neck.
“Bread?” the baker said simply, and lifted up a loaf as a reminder.
The divine scent of the baked crust hit Duck, and she managed to squeak out, “Six grain loaves.” Tipping her hand sideways, she opened her clutch and let the sunlight reflect off the coin.
Master Griselde stacked the massive loaves on the counter in front of Duck. “One penny, please.”
Duck clenched the coin and raised it above the baker’s hand.
“Misdirection,” she could hear Gnat whispering in her mind. “You either wait for a chance or you make it yourself.”
She watched Griselde’s eyes carefully — the baker was facing her, waiting patiently, as if Duck were the only customer in the world and all the others pressing up to the counter behind her didn’t count. But it was difficult to know where exactly those milky eyes were looking.
If they could see anything of the coin at all.
In the secrecy of her outstretched fist, Duck shuffled the coins. The silver penny moved flat against her palm, and she held it there, tucked under her thumb.
The wooden coin went between her fingers.
No need to wait for misdirection, she decided, when the mark is blind.
And then, with a single breath, the false coin went into Griselde Baker’s hand.
The baker closed her fat fingers around it.
“Good morrow, Master Baker!” A man leaned above Duck’s head. She looked up, and her heart dashed into her throat.
“Good morrow, Constable Deveraux!” Griselde Baker pocketed her wooden coin; Duck tracked it the whole way into her apron. “Can I tempt you with some sweet honey rolls?”
Above Duck, the constable pretended to hem and haw. “I really shouldn’t . . .”
“What if I told you I baked them for you special?” Griselde took an already-tied bundle from behind the counter that smelled of orange zest and beehives. “What if I told you I couldn’t possibly sell these to any other customers, on account of they’re just too delicious?”
She passed the bundle to the constable, who hesitated before accepting it.
He peeked inside the bundle and murmured. “Well, now, would you look at these?”
“Would if I could, Constable,” Master Griselde replied with a grin that crinkled her eyes.
It was all very rehearsed. Duck sensed it was a weekly routine.
“You say hello to the missus for me,” Griselde Baker said, and the constable nodded his thanks and left.
Then Duck wondered: Had she just witnessed a bribe? She hadn’t seen Constable Deveraux pay.
She couldn’t wait to share this information with Gnat. He kept a running list of such exchanges between law enforcement and villagers everywhere they went — a bit of blackmail in their pockets, just in case. He’d be thrilled with Duck for uncovering their first one here in Odierne.
Master Griselde looked back down at Duck without losing her grin. “Something else?”
Duck blinked. Strewn behind the baker was the confectionary, all of the pastries far greater glittering jewels than she was expected to bring back to the Crowns.
But something was tickling Duck’s chest — the spark of victory and a bit of excess bravery that had nowhere else to go.
Should she try to get her hands on some of the pastries, too?
But a better idea sprang forth — from the baker herself. “Of course!” Master Griselde slapped her forehead. “I forgot your change! You gave me a coronet, did you not?”
Duck had not. She’d baited the baker with an old penny and had given her an old chunk of wagon wheel instead.
“One coronet minus a penny.” The baker reached into the till and held out a stack of coins. “Here’s your change.”
Eleven pennies.
Eleven pennies in her hand.
Duck held her breath, mentally counting the steps between her and the alleyway: one, two, three . . .
“Does that look right to you?” Griselde studied Duck with her hazy eyes.
Duck didn’t even glance at the coins as she took them; she didn’t say another word to anyone.
She gathered her six loaves in her arms and put the pennies in her pocket as she pushed her way out of the crowd.
Then she ran.
The exit is as tricky as the lift itself — you should walk away as if you are as innocent as a spring lamb.
Duck knew she should slow down, but fear overtook her legs.
If the bread loaves were stacked end to end from the ground up, they would be more than half her height; they thumped against her chest as she left the square.
And in her pocket, the silver penny she’d brought to the bakery jingled like a song as it hit the other coins she’d tricked out of the baker.
When Duck was certain there weren’t footsteps following her — that the master baker hadn’t sent that chummy constable or her journeyman after her — she let herself walk.
Twelve pennies — that was an entire coronet! Twelve times the amount of money they’d brought with them to Odierne. This would be a fortune to the Crowns. They’d never had a whole coronet among them. Not all at once. Not in a single day.
They could get fabric for new tunics. They could get leather wrappings for shoes. They could get Drippy some of the fancy new spectacles Duck had seen rich people wearing to correct their poor sight — then he wouldn’t have to squint with his good eye to see farther than a stone’s throw.
And they could eat, of course. Eat well, eat long.
They could even get a full deck of playing cards. They’d been collecting individual cards on the streets for years, one lost card at a time. They were still missing a Five of Acorns and a Telgarian Trumpeter.
Duck had never been so aware of the power of a single penny.
She’d also never been so aware of how many places there were to lose a coin. A penny could fall through a gutter slat. It could be kicked by a boot, sliding behind the wheel of a parked cart. It could disappear under a stall. A bird could carry a penny off, or a rat — or a penny could simply slip out of her sweaty hand and roll away, lost forever in the labyrinth of Odierne’s streets.
So she hitched the bread higher in her arms and scurried down the Rue Grande as quick as she could without looking suspicious.
The Crowns couldn’t afford to have one of their own get caught.
Getting busted as a thief was bad enough on its own. The watch was not known for its leniency, even if the criminal was technically a child.
Prison, though, was miserable — dark and dank, with no fresh air or clean water, only mush for food, cells full of bugs and toads and real criminals: outlaws and cutthroats, conspirators and murderers.
The Crowns were criminals in the way sparrows were predators — to the worms they snatched out of the ground, yes, but did anyone ever bemoan the death of a worm?
But sparrows, hawks, bears — to the watchmen, they were all the same. And if the Crowns ever got snagged, there would be no hope of mercy. So Duck stuck to the safety of the shadows as she made her way to the secret meeting place, a dusty abandoned cathedral in the western quarter of the city. Only pigeons lived there, along with random remainders of human passersby: chicken bones, empty wine jugs, a lonely shoe buckle on the porch.
Remnants from the cathedral’s halted progress were scattered everywhere, too: piles of loose stones, splintered lumber, half-finished tapestries that had never been hung. There was a foundation for a lesser bishop’s palace that had likewise been abandoned, souring yellowed weeds poking up between the stones. No need for a bishop without a cathedral.
“It’s perfect,” Gnat had said yesterday when the Crowns had scoped it out. “Near enough to the shops in the square, far enough away to avoid suspicion. There’s lots of good places around here we could hit. Plus,” he’d said with a nasty smile, “there’s plenty of garbage for you, Garbage.”
A few other Crowns had snickered, and Duck had gotten the feeling it was mostly out of relief that they were not the targets of Gnat’s antagonism. Duck never knew how to react when he made such jokes, and he seemed to be making them a lot more lately. He teased the other Crowns, too, make no mistake — but it was never with the same barb that he reserved for Duck.
Was it because she was the youngest? Was it because until now, she’d never run a scam of her own? Was it because she’d handled only smaller swipes, and reluctantly — coins out of purses, pears out of baskets?
Or was it something else?
The cathedral sprawled along a street otherwise occupied by a few shops that never seemed to be open and a run-down abbey.
Beyond that, the Sarluire, recently unfrozen, made a lazy springtime trickle, weaving past the cathedral and on to better things.
Duck readjusted the loaves steady under her chin. Their scent was so intoxicating, their crusts a hard warm comfort against her body as she walked out of daylight and into the chilly morning shade created by the towering cathedral. She inhaled, and a note of something unexpected hit her nose.
Rosemary.
That was the herb that always found her. Rosemary.
A curl of steam escaped from a slight crack in a loaf’s crust. She followed it up until it faded against the roof. No clock tower, no spires. Only a haystack of wooden slats and stones piled into an imagined steeple . . .
She leaned back, squinting. Five granite figures hunched on the roof — gargoyles, particularly nasty ones, all of them crackling and crumbling on their perches. Ugly little watchmen.
But they didn’t seem to mind the Crowns. Perhaps they were happy for the company, Duck thought as she climbed the steps of the porch and went through the arched doors.
The inside of the cathedral was even more of a mess than its decrepit exterior, but the Crowns had stayed in worse places. They’d made shelters in dark, rocky caves, beneath bridges, in piles of rancid hay, in drippy underground holes more suited for rats than humans, in dangerously high towers that were one windy day away from toppling into ruins.
