After a brief hour of sunlight, the clouds had gathered again and, accompanied by thunder, rain fell on Targheiden in sheets. Duran looked out the open door at the water rushing by in the street and gave up on the notion he might have any customers this afternoon.
Despite the open doorway, the thick clouds cast the interior of his shop into deep shadow. Duran walked back to the counter, reached for his flint, and struck a light. Cupping an oil-soaked rag between his hands, he carefully lit the lamp and drew the glass down around it.
Its feeble glow barely reached the walls of the narrow shop. A large yellow dog rose from its place on the other side of the counter and ambled through the shadows toward Duran, its tail swinging side to side.
"So, Dog," Duran said, glancing out the doorway to the street, "now you want to go out. Well, go then, though gods know you won't like it much."
Dog nuzzled Duran's knee in passing, stood for a moment on the rain-spattered threshold, then carefully ventured onto the overflowing walk. The rain was easing somewhat, but Duran did not expect the dog to go far.
He turned away from the door and found a long splinter of wood. Lifting the glass side of the lamp, he kindled the splinter and lit the lamp that hung over the counter. No more, he cautioned himself, unless customers come. Fish-oil's not getting cheaper.
Wind gusted through the doorway, setting both lamps to flickering. Duran considered closing the door for warmth but that would reduce the light and discourage customers. He sighed quietly, and sat down on the high stool behind the counter to wait, disconsolately, for business. In the street, water overflowed the gutters, poured off roofs.
Ha. The only people who will visit me this afternoon are the drowned.
Behind him, neatly arranged on wooden shelves that ran up the wall, sat his herbs and medicines, each resting in small pottery jars. He was not rich enough to afford glass, so he had labeled each jar in small, neat printing. His more precious medicines sat in a locked cabinet toward the rear of the shop; he kept the key on its chain around his neck at all times. Certain crazies would kill a man for what rested in that locked cabinet.
He laughed to himself. From the Queen of Sciences to herb--pottery. Here he sat in a narrow shop, surrounded by herbs, poultices, and whatnots, visited by the poor folk of Old Town, for whom he was the only thing coming close to a doctor. He healed their fevers, their sores, dispensed drugs that took away pain, and even more dangerous drugs that ended unwanted pregnancies. Those he never admitted to having, and the women who sought him out—even the whores—knew that blackmail worked both ways.
There was his cure of the sexual pox; gods knew he saw enough business from the poor who could not afford to go elsewhere, but he occasionally treated richer folk who desperately wished to protect their identities, and keep the knowledge of their disease from the High Town doctors—in which cases, Duran never asked any of his clients more than the most general of questions, and they were happy to return the favor, and to pay at least what kept the shop going. Not more. There were ways and ways to guarantee a poor apothecary's silence: one preferred a modest coin—and risked no higher fees.
Oh, Father, Duran thought, settling back against an upright in the shelving. What would you say of your son now? How far have I fallen?
Thirty-five years in Old Town sat on a man, made him grey and grim and bent with study in dim light. Duran's blond hair had whitened, his gaunt shoulders stooped more than in his youth, and he had to hold things decidedly farther away these days to see them clearly.
Time, and time—the marks of which were deeper in Old Town than in the High City up the hill, despite that his art had kept him free from sickness and hunger: rain still caused his joints to complain. He grimaced, realized he had not had his midday meal yet, and got down from the stool.
A hunk of cheese and a fresh loaf of bread sat on the shelf under the counter. He cut a slice of that bread and the end off the cheese, wishing he had something besides water to wash the meal down . . . naturally, as if drawn back on a string, Dog appeared at the doorway, dripping rain-water, tail wagging in hopes of his share.
The rain had nearly stopped by the time most folk in Old Town closed their shops. Duran stood in the opened doorway, watching a grey steady drip off the second story overhang onto the street . . . the rush of the gutters grew quieter as the storm rumbled off to the north. Duran snorted: save for old Mother Garan, not one customer had darkened his door all afternoon, and the old woman had only bought willow tea for her headache, one of the simpler and least expensive of Duran's physics.
Dog lay curled up by the doorway, dreaming in the late afternoon, his ears twitching and his tail thumping now and again on the wooden floor—chasing rabbits in his dreams, Duran guessed, though in this part of town it might as likely be mice or the occasional young cat unaware of where Dog's territory began—Dog, just Dog, because Duran had never come up with a name that fit his companion: and Dog had never complained.
Neither had Duran repented the expense of Dog's healthy appetite. Dog's presence served as a deterrent to burglars, and gave Duran a sense of security. Though he never made much of what he kept in his locked cabinet, a large protective animal on the premises eased his mind somewhat.
Duran sighed, giving up hope of making more than his one afternoon sale, and looked at the inn that sat across the street from his shop. "The Swimming Cat" was the inn's name—a name given it generations back by its owner whose cat had fallen into a half-full rain barrel one night. Old Puss had survived the ordeal, and the innkeeper found her the following morning, clinging claws hooked to the side of the rain-barrel, water up to her neck—a stubborn talisman for a tavern always borderline on ruin.
The "Cat" was somewhat seedy now, but still reputable. As the largest inn in this section of Old Town, it catered to travelers who could not afford the better inns farther away from the harbor—excellent food for the price, a gathering place for the neighbors, as well as passers-through from the harbor.
Duran took his cloak down from behind the door, gathered up his keys, blew out the lamps, and stepped outside—Dog, lost in dreams, opened one eye, yawned, stretched, and went back to sleep. Duran locked the door, put the keys in his belt pouch, and started across the street to the inn.
"Bad rain, eh, Duran?"
The woman's voice made Duran wince and turn: it was his neighbor, the seamstress Zeldezia.
"Aye," he said. "Nearly drowned coming back from the docks."
Zeldezia leaned against her doorjamb, shoving a lock of her brown hair back over one shoulder. She was near Duran in age—not ill-favored, but one seldom saw her smile. "We been having more rain than usual, don't you think? Them as says it's witchery—"
"Aye, that we have. Perhaps it will end soon." Duran put on a stubbornly pleasant smile, nodded to her, and turned away. A conversation with Zeldezia was the last thing he wanted on a gloomy afternoon. Damned woman. Enough to curdle a man's appetite.
He stepped over the stream of water flowing down the gutter and made for the "Cat's" doorway. One benefit of the rain, even Old Town smelled better for it, washed and clean, refuse swept away in the gutters—redistributed down the block, generally. But not near the "Cat." Tutadar, the innkeeper, kept his frontage and his alley clean, holding it bad business to have his clients stepping over garbage.
He kept the inside the same—scrubbed. The inn was more crowded than usual for this time of afternoon; doubtless the rain had kept folk indoors who would have otherwise been elsewhere. Duran paused at the doorway steps, letting his eyes adjust to the dimmer light inside.