Jack raised his arm and pointed. “That’s the potters,” he said. “They’re the ones I seen yesterday. I watched them for a good long time, Master. I talked a fair bit to one of them apprentices, a boy named Wat. He told me about their trade. They make jugs and cooking pots and such. But business is getting poorly, so he says. His master is worried that they might have to find another vocation.”
“Business is that bad?”
“Oh aye. So he said. But he is just an apprentice.”
“I find the word of apprentices more and more valuable these days.”
Jack missed the compliment. His attention was taken by the many ovens as they cleared the corner, of the young men carrying buckets of clay hanging from yokes over their bent shoulders, of young boys balancing vast bundles of sticks on their heads.
It was hard to believe that this industriousness might all be for nought. Crispin watched silently from across the lane, staying in the shadows. Jack fairly vibrated beside him, no doubt impatient for Crispin to do something. But Crispin had no need to do anything as of yet. He, too, wanted to watch the work, especially the men and even women he could see through doorways, their feet pushing at a wheel while they worked their alchemy on a shapeless slab of clay. With hands drenched in murky water, they brought forth tall hourglass-shaped jugs and squat, round-bellied pots. Decorations were daubed onto the sides in diamond patterns and basket weaves, or merely rolled on with small wheeled instruments.
Quick as a wink, a pot was done, pulled from the wheel, and placed on a shelf. Another blob of clay was thrown to the wheel, and the potter began again, something new emerging from his clever hands.
“Aye, Master,” said Jack. “I could watch them all day. I nearly did. It’s a right fine skill, that is. But I ain’t clever with me hands. I’d best settle on using me mind and becoming a Tracker, like you.”
He snapped a sidelong glance at his young charge. “I know it is a step down from a potter, Jack.”
But Jack suddenly straightened and speared his arm outward. “There’s Wat now!”
A stick-thin boy with gaunt features and straw-colored hair staggered under the burden of a bundle of fuel a donkey might have balked at carrying. It was not an unusual sight to see such young boys working harder than beasts, but Crispin felt a strange sensation in his belly watching this lad. It seemed he noticed all the young boys in London now, seeing them as potential victims and wondering how on earth he was to protect any of them.
“Wat!” Jack sprinted toward him and immediately took the sticks from his shoulders, carrying them himself. Wat’s look of relief was heartbreaking.
“Jack,” said the boy. A smile spread on his face, stretching the chapped skin to a shiny sallow color. But when his eyes lifted to Crispin, the smile vanished.
“Wat,” said Crispin mildly. “I am pleased to make your acquaintance.”
Wat looked uncertainly at Jack. “This is me master, Crispin Guest. Worry not. He’s a good soul.”
The boy seemed disinclined to believe this and remained standing beside his stick bundle.
“This business of pot-making,” said Crispin, sweeping the row of ovens casually with his arm. “It is fascinating work. Your master must be very skilled.”
The boy said nothing. His hollow-eyed stare was becoming unnerving.
“And so,” said Crispin, trying like the devil to think of something to say to draw the boy out, “I am most interested in how it is done. Perhaps you can enlighten me.”
Wat’s glassy stare rested on Crispin for a long while before he turned it back toward the workers. “There ain’t much to tell,” he said in a slow, careful voice. “You get the clay and you keep it in the slip, and put it on the wheel and then . . . you work it.”
“So I see.” Crispin nodded importantly, not truly understanding. He rocked on his heels. “And the clay. Where does it come from?”
The boy squinted. It ruined his already long face by twisting it strangely, and gave an expression that rather assumed Crispin was a simpleton. He thumbed behind him. “It comes from the Thames, don’t it?”
“That it does,” he said, feeling a bit foolish. “Perhaps I can talk to your master.” Crispin dropped his friendly tone and used one reserved for menials. The boy certainly recognized it. He snatched the stick bundle from Jack and hefted it up to his shoulders.
“I’ll take you to him.”
Jack scrambled happily beside his new friend while Crispin took up the rearguard. They threaded through the busy path of muddy snow and clay. Freshly fired pots stood in a row in the mud outside a few shops and huts. Women wove through the streets, bringing bread and salted fish to some of the men.
Wat lumbered on, finally dropping his bundle with a great sigh when they came to a hovel at the end of the row. He didn’t look back as he entered and Jack followed him right behind. Crispin was a bit more cautious as he ducked his head to enter the low doorway. He looked around, his eyes adjusting to the dark space. The floor was made of rotting planks covered in a layer of dust, except for the places where water had been sloshed or muddy footprints had tramped.
A man, bald except for a fall of ginger hair streaked with gray hanging down his back, sat at a wheel, urging its turning with his toes. He stared at the clay that climbed as he pulled it until it was shaped into a tall drinking jug. It was only then that he looked up and frowned.
“Eh? Wat? Who is here?”
Pained by the fearful look on Wat’s face, Crispin stepped forward with a slight bow. “I am Crispin Guest, good Master. And I have come to examine your wares.”
“My wares?” The man slowly rose and glared from Crispin to Jack. “My wares? They are just like everyone else’s.”
“Indeed.” Crispin looked idly at the tilting shelves of pipkins, bowls, and small jugs. They might not even be as good as some of the other wares he had seen, but he certainly did not voice this opinion. “Well, truthfully, there are a few things I am most interested in knowing. For one, if a man should want a large quantity of clay, how should he acquire it?”
Jack, who had been trying to chat with Wat, suddenly fell silent. His face was turned anxiously toward the potter.
The man rose to his feet and dipped his hands in a basin of clear water, washing away the layers of dried clay up his forearms. The water instantly turned brown. His sagging stockings seemed to have a perpetual splatter of wet clay. His back was to Crispin when he spoke. “I am only a poor potter, sir. I do my job, make my wares. That is all.”
“Yet if a man should want such a thing. . . .” urged Crispin, stepping closer.
The man turned. His wide-spaced teeth bit into his lower lip. “It is a strange request. I remarked upon it the first time I heard it.”
Crispin felt a surge of excitement burn his chest. “The first time?”
“Aye.” The man reached up slowly and scratched his bald pate. “A man—oh, it was a good long time ago now—asked for bucketfuls of clay. Not from me, you understand, but from some of us. I remember hearing it. ‘Bucketfuls of clay?’ I asked. What would a body be doing with that? And him a gentlemen, so they said.”
“A gentleman? Who?”
He stuck a finger in his ear and reamed it good before pulling it out again. Crispin ignored the finger the man stared at before wiping it down his tunic. “He didn’t say. Now I ain’t the suspicious kind, mind you. But I did wonder, as did my fellows here. And there was only one scheme we could reason out.”
Crispin leaned in, curious. “And that is?”