They passed a small blacksmith shop with a huge man pounding out iron products on his anvil. Prin noticed her feet walked to the beat of the hammer ringing in the morning air, and she glanced at Sara to find the same. She wondered if the blacksmith speeded up his job, would they walk faster?
The edge of the city abruptly changed. The dirt road became a paved street that ran between buildings two stories high and joined one another at the sides. The norm seemed a small shop that made or sold products on the lower floor, while the family lived above.
Not many of the people they passed were friendly or even took the time to glance at them, which didn’t bother Prin at all. She walked with a sense of security as she carried her load of apples and ate one. Without noticing, she had eaten all the flesh and most of the core. She spat a few seeds and tossed the remainder to a thin pig.
It was as if they walked with a family of mutes until the older boy slowed and said, “Watch it.”
His eyes were looking at Prin. She turned to find a skinny, dirty-faced man of about thirty walking right at her heels. He snarled as he spun away, “Mind your business, boy.”
“That was my business,” he called after him, then he looked at Prin. “You better be more careful, or you won’t have anything.”
“Do you know him?”
“Nope. But he was trying to make a grab for that leather bag of yours.”
Prin said, “A grab?”
“Grab and run like hell,” the boy said.
“Watch your language,” the woman said, never even turning to look at him.
Prin walked and thought about the gold inside the bag, and wondered what her life would be if the man had been successful. She didn’t like the answer. “What should I do?”
The boy said, “If it were me, I’d hide it, but since it’s too late and too big for that, I’d twist the handles around my arms and carry it in front of me. Then I’d make sure nobody got close.”
“Good advice,” the father said as he paused and watched her do as the boy suggested. “Then you can walk in front of us where we can keep a good lookout for you.”
Sara said, “Are there that many thieves around here?”
“In this part of town there are,” the boy said. “You don’t want to be here unless you have to.”
The words were no more than out of his mouth when a boy of fourteen or fifteen darted out from a doorway behind them and sprinted to the youngest boy and his load of apples. He grabbed the edge of the bag the boy carried over his shoulder as he raced past. The intruder swung it around, spinning the boy with him. Apples fell out and rolled. More boys appeared from the corner of a house, racing to grab apples before they could be retrieved.
Prin’s hand went under the long skirt and came out with the thin knife. After leaping between the gang and young boy, she held it low and threatening, weaving a pattern in the air with the point. She snarled at them, “Who’s first?”
Five ruffians in rags pulled to a stop in a rough circle around her, just out of her reach, and out of reach of the apples. The small boy went to his knees and retrieved the ten or twelve that had rolled onto the street, while Prin waved the knife in figure eights and acted like she knew how to use it.
With all the apples back in his bag, the youngest boy said, “Sorry Dad. I shouldn’t have fallen for that.”
“You couldn’t have helped it.”
The older boy carrying apples said to Prin, “Where’d the knife come from?”
Prin noticed that Sara was also looking at her oddly. Sara knew about the knife between her shoulder blades because of watching Prin practice her throwing at the target called Treeman, a trunk of a tree used so many times the bark had come off in a circle the size of a man. As Prin’s throws became more accurate, the wood near the center showed the results of hundreds of knife cuts. But Prin had never mentioned the knife strapped to her thigh, the one she found in her father’s apartment. She lifted the skirt enough to slip it back into the scabbard.
“Someone told me to always have a weapon ready when you visit a new place,” Prin said before she noticed that Sara reacted with surprise to her statement. Why? Prin replayed the words in her mind.
She’d said, “visit a new place,” which was a slip of the tongue that never should have happened if she was careful. It said that she had never been to Indore. It was the sort of mistake she couldn’t afford.
Sara said quickly, making up for her mistake, “Well, your hidden knife paid off this time. I’ve never been to this part of Indore, either. We’ve always stayed near our home at the center of the city.”
Prin’s senses silently thanked Sara for rescuing her so efficiently, and at the same time warned her about how easily lying came to Sara. It was something to keep in mind, but the lie seemed to have been effective. She ignored the anxious glance Sara aimed her way.
The rain began to gently fall again. Prin wondered about the wash hanging on the lines to dry, but decided it was already wet so wouldn’t matter. Meanwhile, water soaked the strips of cloth wrapped around her bare head and dribbles ran down her forehead to her eyes and face. Trickles of water running down her back chilled her. Sara knew a magic dry-spell that would keep the rainwater off them, but she couldn’t use it with the apple family walking behind. She chuckled at the name, but it fit them perfectly.
They continued down the paved streets in the direction of the river. The tall masts of the ships poked above the highest roofs, a way to always know which direction they walked. Just before reaching the river-walk, they took a wooden walkway intended to keep feet out of the muddy banks of the river.
A wide area opened between buildings and piers. The square was far more than the usual market set aside for a few farmers to sell their crops. It was a city market, set up with narrow lanes between colorful tents and awnings where almost anything was sold, but especially goods intended for sailors and visitors. Food, clothing, tools, weapons and jewelry were for sale in the first few stalls. The apple family moved smoothly through the throngs of people to an area set aside for small vendors.
They placed their apples on a blanket for display. The rain began falling harder, and the family settled to sit behind the father in the shelter of an overhanging roof. He took his place right behind the apples where he could talk with prospective buyers. He thanked Sara and Prin for their help and held out two more apples for their efforts. Prin would have refused, but after a chance glance behind at the wife, she understood that refusing would offend him.
They left the apple family to sell their produce, and wandered up and down the rows of items for sale. Prin paused before one stall and said, “We need to buy some things. This is a good place to start.”
“Not too much because we must carry what we buy and we don’t know for how long,” Sara warned,
Prin walked under a canopy of red and white stripes, Sara following behind. She looked at sailor uniforms, shirts, wood carvings, and leather goods. A seller at one stall displayed weapons, some blades longer than her arm, wicked war axes, iron arrow tips, and more. But Prin ignored all of them in favor of the knives.
“Are you searching for kitchen knives? We have an excellent selection I’m sure you will like.”
She looked up at the tall vendor, a man with a nondescript hat that circled his head with a small brim that shed water equally to all sides. He was older, enough so that his beard had twin streaks of white on the sides of his mouth, and he was missing two upper teeth on one side. Probably knocked out when he didn’t have a weapon nearby to defend himself. She smiled at her small joke, refusing to scowl at his comment about cooking knives.