Chersey didn’t worry about Paradise, but charity toward the Nighter had lightened her heart. She’d trimmed his dark brown hair and supplied him with new garments—
Well, not new garments. The changing house stored great quantities of secondhand garments. The boy, bless his soul, hadn’t cared that his new clothes weren’t. Chersey had given Dace a pair of boots, too. He’d appreciated the footgear, but his eyes had sparkled brightest for a carved-wood crutch her husband, Bezul, had dug out of the warrens.
Bezul admitted the crutch was one of the first items his family had traded after they’d descended to Wriggle Way from their former home among the city’s goldsmiths. Fools they’d been then: Folk didn’t come to a changing house when they needed crutches.
Except Dace.
The youth didn’t talk about the swamp; he didn’t need to. His life was written in his scars and, of course, in his withered right leg. He’d never used a crutch. What good was a crutch in a swamp?
Between the crutch and boots, Dace’s first days at the changing house had been a series of stumbling disasters. Chersey had come within a breath of banishing him from her kitchen. If she had, then neither she nor Dace. would have discovered that he was a kettle wizard. The boy need only taste a dish or smell it on the fire to deduce its ingredients. Chersey had been preparing food as long as she could remember, but Dace prepared meals.
Dear Bezul had been diplomatic, insisting that no one could make a better stew than his wife, but he’d come around when Dace began doing things that Chersey could never have imagined. Bezul’s redoubtable mother, Gedozia, had taken longer, in no small part because Dace wanted to take over the marketing and marketing was Gedozia’s domain.
A gimpy Nighter can’t bargain! They’ll take one look at him, raise their prices, and we’ll be on the street before we know it.
Then, overnight, Dace shed his Nighter twang as easily as he’d shed swamp dirt and rags. He spoke common Wrigglie now, and it was easy to forget he wasn’t cityborn.
That boy is shameless, Gedozia said when the two of them returned from the market; and, coming from Gedozia, that was a compliment.
When the first sultry spell of summer had settled over the city, Gedozia declared that her ankles had swollen and the thrice-weekly trek to market was more suffering than she intended to endure. Dace, whose every step had to be more painful than any Gedozia had taken, leaped at the opportunity to carry the household purse.
The household was eating better and spending less money—because Dace was not only a better bargainer than the old woman, he didn’t skim padpols for his own indulgence. Chersey had to tell him to keep a coin or two for himself. Youths his age needed a few padpols and she needed to assuage her guilt.
Like some high-born lady, Chersey consulted with her cook while the family ate breakfast.
“Any ideas for tonight’s supper?”
Dace looked up. He was chopping last night’s leftovers into the stockpot. Dace wasn’t a handsome youth. His grin was lopsided, as if whatever had crippled his right leg had touched his face as well, but his eyes were lively and his gaze was direct as he said, “Depends on what I smell along the Processional.”
Chersey laughed. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were looking for a finer kitchen than this one.” When Dace shook his head, Chersey continued in a more serious tone: “Really, you need to be careful—”
“The Processional’s there for everyone, Governor’s Walk, too. The guards don’t hassle me and if the nabobs don’t want me sneaking their recipes, they should tell their cooks to close the doors.”
“The guards aren’t there to protect you, not on the Processional. You’d be wiser to take the Shambles bridge—the way is shorter and if you smell anything around here, we can afford the spices.”
“Ser Perrez says not to worry, we’ll be rich soon.”
Perrez was the only household name Dace hung a handle on. He’d learned that flattery was the way to deal with Bezul’s younger brother, Gedozia’s favorite son. Chersey had watched Perrez grow from a dreaming youth into a scheming manhood and was wise to his dreams. She wished she could bestow that wisdom on Dace, but there was no putting old heads on young shoulders. If the youth’s wits were as sharp as his nose, he’d uncover the truth about Perrez soon enough with no help from her.
The morning chill had vanished long before Dace made his last purchase. Chersey had given him an uncut shaboozh because it was Shiprisday and on Shiprisday, Dace bought extra bread and cheese. The mistress didn’t demand a precise accounting of expenses and wouldn’t have raised an eyebrow if Dace had come home without a padpol. She was generous that way, and trusting—totally unlike the family Dace had left behind.
The changing-house folk didn’t pry into Dace’s past, and he was grateful. His kin weren’t worth remembering, though Dace hadn’t managed to forget them … yet. A year ago he’d seen a shaboozh clutched tightly in his uncle’s hand, but he’d never held one, much less spent it all in a single morning.
Dace took his responsibilities to heart. Gedozia had taught him to bargain, though, truth to tell, Gedozia was sharp and bitter and lacked the friendly patience that yielded the best prices. Dace had memorized each farmer’s name, his village and his welfare. He bantered as he bargained, shaving a padpol off the asking price or gaining an extra onion as his reward. Today hadn’t been a good day for bonus produce, but he’d wound up with three leftover padpols.
The broken black bits were knotted securely into a pouch he wore inside his trousers where it wouldn’t come loose or attract unwanted attention—not that three padpols bouncing on the Processional’s cobblestones would attract attention. Folk on the Processional didn’t stoop for padpols. They scarcely stepped aside for a cripple in secondhand homespun.
Dace sated his curiosity about Sanctuary’s richest and best-fed families with quick sniffs and glances. Someone had dropped a coin at the feet of a juggler who was putting on a show outside the whitewashed mansion of Lord Noordiseh. Dace stood on tiptoe—a stance both awkward and painful—at the crowd’s fringe. He caught glimpses of the bright-clad sailor swirling five knives between his rapidly moving hands.
He’d seen jugglers on the streets before, but none who’d added the element of danger to their routine. Each time the juggler caught a knife, there was the chance he’d grasp the flashing blade. Dace couldn’t tear away from the spectacle. His ears were deaf to the commotion at the mansion’s door until it was too late—
“Make way! Make way!” burly retainers shouted as they shoved through the crowd.
The juggler caught his knives without trouble; Dace was not so fortunate. Already unbalanced on his tiptoes, he crashed to the cobblestones when someone jostled into his crutch. More mindful of his purchases than his bones, the youth clutched his bulging sack to his chest as he fell. His crutch flew and he landed on his back, not hard enough to break anything, but hard enough that he lay motionless, waiting for his body to become his again.
The crowd had vanished like smoke on a windy day.
“Damn insolence! Move him out of the way!”
Dace turned toward the sound and snagged eyes with Lord Noordiseh himself, resplendent in billowing silk and an equally billowed silk-and-feather hat. Three thoughts burst into Dace’s mind. The first two—Find your crutch and Get yourself away from here!—were wise choices, but the third—He’s wearing a fake beard—was more compelling, at least until one of the burly retainers reached for Dace’s sack.