Valdemar Books

by Lackey, Mercedes

  He'd never actually seen any jewelry that wasn't fake, all foiled glass and tin, but he could imagine it. He could imagine being able to eat all he liked of the kinds of food he served to Lord Orthallen's guests, too, and possessing fine clothing that wasn't all patches and tears—

  "'Nuff moon-calfin'," Bazie said sharply, recalling them all to the present. "Boy—Skif—be any more i' the pot?"

  "Jes' this," Skif said, fishing out the last of the garments on the end of the stick. Bazie examined it, and grunted.

  "That'll do," he decreed, and Lyle took it to hang it up. "Deek, next lot."

  Deek brought over the next batch of wash, which was of mingled saffrons, tawnys and bright yellows, and dumped it in the cauldron. Lyle got up and took the stick from Skif without being prompted and began energetically thrusting the floating fabric under the water.

  "Ye kin hev two eggs, Boy, an' then Deek'll get ye 'thin sight uv Hollybush," Bazie declared. "Eat 'em on th' way."

  "Yessir!" Skif said, overjoyed, mouth watering at the idea of having two whole boiled eggs for himself. He picked a pair out of the bowl, tucking them in a pocket, and followed Deek out the door and up the rickety staircase.

  Once down on the street he and Deek strolled along together like a pair of old friends, Deek putting in a laconic comment now and again, while Skif nibbled at his eggs, making them last. He'd had boiled eggs before this—they were a regular item at Lord Orthallen's table—but not so often that he didn't savor every tiny bite. Once Deek darted over to a vendor's wagon and came back with a pair of buns, paying for them (somewhat to Skif's surprise) and handing one to his new "mate."

  "Why didn' ye nobble 'em?" he asked in a whisper.

  Deek frowned. "Ye don' mess yer nest," he admonished. "Tha's Bazie's first rule. Ye don' take nuthin' from neighbors. Tha' way, they don' know what we does, an' 'f hue-an'-cry goes up, they ain't gonna he'p wi' lookin' fer us."

  Well, that made sense. It had never occurred to Skif that if your neighbors knew you were a thief, you'd be the first one they looked for if something went missing. He ate his bun thoughtfully, as Deek pointed out landmarks he could use to find his way back tomorrow.

  "I got lessons," Skif pointed out reluctantly, and Deek laughed.

  "No worries," the boy replied. "Bazie won' be 'wake 'till midday. Ye cum then. Look—ye know this street?"

  Skif looked closer at the street they had just turned onto, and realized that he did—he had just never come at it from this direction before. "Aye," he told Deek. "Hollybush be down there—" and pointed.

  "G'wan—" Deek gave him a little push. "See ye midday."

  The other boy turned on his heel and trotted back through the gloom of dusk along the way they'd come, and in a moment Skif couldn't make him out anymore.

  With a sigh and a bowed head, he trudged toward his uncle's tavern and the cold welcome that awaited him. But, at least, tonight he had something to look forward to on the morrow.

  3

  KALCHAN never asked him where he'd been, so long as he came back before dark. He just welcomed Skif back with a cuff to the ear, and shoved him into the kitchen. By now, the kitchen was full of smoke, and the cook coughed and wheezed while she worked. It wasn't just the fault of the chimney, which certainly could have used a cleaning—the cook routinely burned the bottom crust of the bread, burned what was on the bottom of the pot, dripped grease on the hearth, which burned and smoked.

  Skif didn't have to be told what to do, since his duties were exactly the same thing every day. Poor half-witted Maisie, on the other hand, had to be told carefully how to go about her business even though it was all chores she'd done every day for the last however-many years. That was why, if Skif wasn't back by dark and the time when the big influx of customers came, he'd get more than a cuff on the ear. If you gave Maisie one thing to do, then interrupted her with something else, she became hysterical and botched everything.

  First, the water barrel had to be filled again—not because anyone had used much of it in cleaning, but because like everything else in the Hollybush, it was old, used, and barely functional. It had a slow leak, and it cost nothing to have Skif refill it. To have it mended would have meant paying someone.

  So back and forth Skif went, doing his best not to slosh the icy water on himself, particularly not down his boots. When the barrel was full, the next chore was to take the bundle of twigs on a stick that passed for a broom and sweep the water and whatever else was on the floor out into the courtyard, where the water promptly froze (in winter) or turned into mud (in summer). Since Skif was the one who went into and out of the courtyard most often, it behooved him to at least sweep it all to one side if he could.

  Next was to bring wood in from the woodpile in the courtyard and mend the fire in the common room, which was also full of smoke, but not as bad as the kitchen. Then he collected the wooden plates left on tables, carried them to the kitchen and thriftily scraped the leavings back into the stew pot over the fire. It didn't matter what went in there, since it all blended into the anonymous, lumpy brown muck, well flavored with burned crud from the bottom, that was already there. A quick wipe with a rag, and the plates were "clean" and ready for the next customer.

  Mugs were next; he'd figured that it was better to take plates in stacked and not try to mix mugs and plates, for if he tried, he'd drop something and get beaten for breaking it. These were crude clay mugs with thick bottoms to make the customer think he was getting more beer than he was. Those didn't even get a wipe with the rag, unless they'd been left in a plate and had greasy gravy all over them; they were just upended and stacked beside the plates. There was no tableware to bother collecting; Londer wouldn't have anything that could be so readily stolen. In this, however, he was exactly like every other tavern keeper around this area. Customers ate with their own wooden spoons, usually hung on the belts beside their money pouches. Some ate with their personal belt knives, although these useful implements were used less often. The food in cheap taverns was generally soup or stew, and didn't need to be cut up—nor was there often anything in the bowl or on the plate large enough to be speared on the point of a knife. Those who had no spoon shoveled the food into their mouths with improvised implements of heavy black bread. Black bread was all that was ever served at the Hollybush; made of flour that was mostly made of rye, buckwheat, and wheat chaff, like everything else associated with Uncle Londer, it was the cheapest possible bread to make. The strong taste covered a multitude of culinary sins, and since it was already black, it had the advantage of not showing how badly it was burned on the bottom.

  When mugs and plates were collected, it was time to add to the stew in the cauldron. The cook put Skif to work "chopping vegetables" while she cut the meat scraps. The stew kept going day and night over the fire had been depleted by lunch and early dinner, and now had to be replenished. Londer's picks at the market were like everything else; more of what better inns and kitchens threw out. With a knife that had been sharpened so many times that it was now a most peculiar shape and as flexible as a whip, Skif chopped the tops and tails of turnips, carrots, whiteroots, and beets and flung them into the cauldron, along with the leftover crusts of burned bread too hard to serve even their customers. The cook added her meat scraps, and began stirring, directing him to deal with the bread she had removed from the bake oven built into the side of the chimney. There were only three rather lumpy loaves, but they wouldn't need more than that. The bread was used mostly as an implement, and secondarily to soak up the liquid part of the stew so that every drop paid for could be eaten.

  Skif sawed at the bread—better bread would not have held up under the treatment he gave Kalchan's loaves, but this stuff was as heavy and dense as bricks and just about as edible. Every slice was thriftily measured out to the minimum that the customers would stand by means of two grooves cut in the tabletop, and once cut, was "buttered" with a smear of fat and stacked up waiting to be slapped onto a plate. No one ever complained that it was stale; Sk
if was not certain it would be possible to tell a stale slice from one freshly cut off of these loaves.

  When the bread was done, it was time to go get plates again; business was picking up.

  Skif could not imagine what brought all these customers to the Hollybush, unless it was that Kalchan's prices were cheaper than anyone else's. It certainly wasn't the food, which would have poisoned a maggot, or the drink, which would have gagged a goat. And Maisie was no draw, either; plain as a post, with her dirty hair straggling down her back and over her face, she skulked among the tables like a scared, skinny little starling, delivering full plates and empty mugs while Kalchan followed in her wake, collecting pennybits and filling the mugs from his pitcher. Only Kalchan dispensed drink; the one time that Skif had dared to do so in Kalchan's momentary absence, his cousin had left stripes on his back with his leather belt. No one actually ordered anything—there wasn't anything to order by way of choice. You sat down at a table and got beer, bread, and stew—or beer alone, by waving off Maisie's proffered plate or sitting at the fireside bench with the steady drinkers. When customers were done, Skif came around and collected their plates and mugs. If one wanted more, he waited until Maisie came around again and took another laden plate from her; if not, he took himself off. This way Kalchan never had to worry about a customer complaining he hadn't been served when he'd paid, or about a customer sneaking off without paying. The only exceptions to this rule were the folk occupying the two benches in front of the fireplace. They got beer, period, and signified they wanted refills by holding up their mugs to Kalchan. When they were done, they left their mugs on the floor—which were usually claimed by another bench warmer before Skif could collect them.

  Skif made his rounds in an atmosphere thick with smoke and the fug of unwashed bodies, grease, stale beer, and burned food. Light came from tallow dips held in clamps on the wall, and from the fire in the fireplace. It wasn't much, and all the smoke dimmed the light still further. He couldn't have made out the faces of the customers if he'd wanted to. They were just an endless parade of dark-shrouded lumps who crammed food into their mouths and went their way without ever saying anything to him if he was lucky. Every so often one would fondle Maisie's thigh or breast, but if Kalchan caught him at it, he would have to pay an additional pennybit for the privilege.

  There wasn't any entertainment in the Hollybush. Kalchan didn't encourage self-entertainment either, like singing or gaming. Most of the customers didn't know each other, or didn't care to, so conversation was at a minimum. As for fighting—it was wisest not even to consider it. Kalchan discouraged fighting by breaking the heads of those who fought with the iron-headed club he carried at his side, and dumped the unconscious combatants outside. The drunks here were generally morose and quiet, and either stumbled out of the door on their own two feet when their money ran out, or passed out and were unceremoniously dumped in the street to free up space for another customer. Once in the street, an unconscious, former customer had better hope that friends would take him home, or the cold would wake him up, because otherwise the thieves would strip him of everything of value and drop him in a gutter.

  Difficult as it was to believe, customers kept coming in, all night long. The benches and tables were never empty until just before closing; Skif and Maisie never had a moment to rest. He'd tried once to reckon up how much money—in the tiniest of coins, the pennybit—Kalchan took in of a night. There were four pennybits to a penny; beer was two a mug, bread and stew were three for a plate. Just by way of comparison, a mug of good, clean water from something other than a pump in dubious proximity to a privy cost two pennybits (but it wouldn't get you drunk—and a mug of sweet spring water was three) and a bun like the one that Deek had bought him this afternoon was a full penny. So you could have something wholesome, though not much of it, for the same price as a full meal in the Hollybush. Evidently, bad as it was, there were enough people who felt they were getting value for their money to keep coming. The two fireside benches sat four each, and the four tables accommodated six eaters. Unless they planned a night to get drunk, the tables cleared pretty quickly. Skif figured that there were probably a couple hundred customers in here over the course of a day.

  That was where Skif's grasp of numbers broke down—but he reckoned that the Hollybush brought in a couple hundred pennies in a night, and maybe a third of that during the day. Uncle Londer obviously had a good thing going here. His costs were low, buying cheap as he did, and the hire of his help was even lower. Maisie was a half-wit; Uncle Londer paid some relative of hers for her services. Whatever he paid, it wasn't much, and she never saw any of it; all she got was food and a place to sleep. Skif's labor was free, of course, and he seldom ate here. And the cook—

  Well, he didn't know what the cook got. He never saw her getting paid, but she stayed, so she must have been getting something. It couldn't have been that much; even he could cook better than she did.

  Maybe the attraction for her was the unlimited supply of beer. He never saw her without a mug somewhere nearby, and she had the yellowish color of someone who was drinking herself to death, although her shuffling footsteps were steady and she never seemed drunk.

  The upshot was, this place was mostly profit for Londer, that much was for sure. Skif wasn't going to feel at all guilty about vanishing in a moon. Uncle Londer could just find himself another boy or do without.

  What Kalchan was getting out of the situation was less clear; certainly he had Maisie's dubious charms to enjoy whenever he cared to, he did get real food rather than tavern swill, and he had his own special butt of drink that no one else touched, but what else was he getting? Every night after he locked the front door, he waddled down to his father's home with the night's takings, and came back empty-handed except for the box that held his own dinner. He slept in the common room on a greasy featherbed piled high with blankets that were stored during the day in the unused staircase. Was Londer splitting the profit with his son? If he was, what in Havens was Kalchan spending it on? It wasn't clothing, it wasn't women—not even the shabbiest streetwalker would touch Kalchan with a barge pole without a lot more up front than the penny or two Kalchan was likely to offer.

  It had occurred to Skif lately that maybe Cousin Kalchan was just as stupid as he looked, and Uncle Londer gave him nothing in return for his labors at the Hollybush. If so, he didn't feel in the least sorry for him.

  By the time that Kalchan dumped the last of the bench warmers outside and locked the front door, Skif was absolutely dead on his feet. Not tired—he'd had that nap in the wash house—but aching from neck to toes and longing for a chance to sit down.

  Kalchan threw the bolt on the front door, and waddled out the back; when Skif heard the door slam shut behind him, he dropped down onto a bench to rest for a moment. The cook brought in three plates of stew and bread, and dropped them on the table. Skif took one look at the greasy, congealing mess, and pushed it toward Maisie, who had come to rest across from him and was already shoveling her food into her mouth as if she was afraid it was going to be taken from her at any moment. The cook had brought her own mug and picked up the beer pitcher that Kalchan had left on a table, shaking it experimentally. Finding there was still beer in it, she took it, her mug, and her plate to the fireside and settled down facing the remains of the flames, her back to her fellow workers.

  Maisie finished her plate, picked up the platter in both hands and licked it, then went on to Skif's portion. She never said thank you, she never said anything. She never even acknowledged his presence.

  Skif shuddered, got to his feet, and plodded into the now-deserted kitchen.

  From his cubby, he took a tiny tin pot and a packet of chava leaves that he'd filched from Lord Orthallen's kitchen. Dipping water out of the barrel, he added the leaves and brewed himself a bedtime cup of bitter chava. The stuff was supposed to be good for you and make you feel relaxed and calm; at any rate, at this time of year it made a nice warm spot in his belly that let him get off to sle
ep.

  He drank it quickly to get it down before Kalchan came back and then retreated to the cubby. The tin pot was shoved into the farthest corner where he kept a few other things that Kalchan didn't think worth taking—his own wooden spoon, a couple of pretty pebbles, some bird feathers, a spinning top he'd found. Then he wrapped himself up in his cast-off blankets, pillowed his head on his arms, and waited for Kalchan to get back, feigning sleep.

  The only light in the kitchen came from the fire, and it was dying, it was the cook's job to bank it for the night, but she forgot more than half the time, which was why he had to start it again in the morning. When Kalchan came back, grunting and snorting, it was hardly more than a few flames over glowing coals. Kalchan pulled the door shut and dropped the bar over the inside, paying no attention to Skif.

  Which meant that it had been a good night by Kalchan's standards. If it hadn't been, he would either have hauled Skif out and knocked him around a bit before letting him get back to his bed, or he'd have bawled for the cook and had her lay into Skif.

  Kalchan's return was the cook's signal to go on up to her loft. She shuffled in, dropped the curtain over the door, shoved ashes over the coals, and limped up the stairs. There was some sound of fumbling with cloth overhead, then silence.

  Meanwhile, Kalchan settled down to his dinner, which he had brought back from his father's kitchen. In theory, half of that dinner was supposed to be Skif's, but in all the time he'd lived here, he'd never gotten a morsel of it. Kalchan "shared" it with Maisie—that is, he dropped tidbits to her as if she was a dog, in return for which—

  Skif generally tried to be asleep by that time, the moment when Kalchan's bedding was arranged to his satisfaction beside the fireplace, and Maisie was arranged to his satisfaction in it. And tonight, both exhaustion and the unusual circumstance of having had three decent meals in a day conspired to grant him his wish for slumber.