Mercedes Lackey - Take A Thief

And with those astonishing words, Beel turned and left, as he always did, as if nothing out of the ordinary had ever transpired between them.

After a moment, Skif shook off his astonishment and slowly left the building. Once out in the sunlight, he decided that whatever Beel was hinting at didn't really matter, because he had no notion of going back to the tavern during the day anyway. He was going to meet Deek, and get his first lessons in the fine art of thievery!

Deek wasn't lurking anywhere on the way to the building where Bazie's “laundry” was, but Skif remembered the way back to Bazie's, including the secret passages, perfectly. He suspected that this was his first test, and when he rapped on the door in an approximation of Deek's knock, it was Deek himself who opened it with a grin.

“I tol' ye 'e'd 'member!” Deek crowed, drawing Skif inside.

“An’ I agreed wi' ye,” Bazie said agreeably. “If 'e hadn', 'e wouldn' be much use, would'e?”

There was new laundry festooning the ceiling today — stockings and socks. Only Lyle was with Bazie and Deek; the third boy was nowhere to be seen.

“ 'J'eet yet?” asked Lyle, as Deek drew him inside. At Skif's head shake, the other boy wordlessly gestured at the table, where half of a decent cottage loaf of brown bread waited, with some butter and a knife. Beside it was a pot of tea and mugs. Buttered bread, half eaten, sat on a wooden plate next to Bazie. All in all, it was the sort of luncheon that wouldn't disgrace the table of a retiring spinster of small means.

Not that Skif cared what it looked like — he'd been invited to eat, and eat he surely would. He fell on the food, cutting two nice thick slices of bread and buttered them generously, pouring himself a mug of tea. Bazie watched him with an oddly benevolent look on his face.

“Eat good, but don' eat full afore a job,” he said, in a manner that told Skif this was a rule, and he'd better pay close attention to it. “Nivir touch stuff as makes ye gassy, an' nothin' that'll be on yer breath. Whut if ye has t’ hide? Summun smells onions where no onions shud be, or wuss — ,” He blew a flatulent razz with his lips, and the other boys laughed. “Oh, laugh if ye like, but I heerd boys been caught that way! Aye, an' growed men as shoulda knowed better!”

Skif laughed, too, but he also nodded eagerly. Bazie was no fool; no matter that what his gang purloined was small beer compared with jewels and gold — it was obviously supplying them with a fair living, and at the moment, Skif wouldn't ask for more.

“Nah, good gillyflar tea, tha's the stuff afore a job,” Bazie continued with satisfaction. “Makes ye keen, sharp. Tha's what ye need.” He waited while Skif finished his bread and butter and drank a mug of the faintly acidic, but not unpleasant, tea. He knew gillyflower tea from the Temple, where it occasionally appeared with the morning bread, and it did seem to wake him up when he felt a little foggy or sleepy.

“Nah, t'day Deek, I don' want wipes,” Bazie continued. “I got sum'thin' I been ast for, special. Mun wants napkins. Ye ken napkins?”

Deek shook his head, but Skif, who had, after all, been serving in Lord Orthallen's hall as an ersatz page, nodded. “Bits uv linen — 'bout so big — ,” He measured out a square with his hands. “Thicker nor wipes, kinda towels, but fine, like. Them highborns use 'em t' meals, wipes their han's an' face on 'em so's they ain't all grease an' looks sweetly.”

“Ha!” Bazie slapped his knee with his hand. “Good boy! Deek, where ye think ye kin find this stuff?”

Deek pondered the question for a moment, then suggested a few names that Skif didn't recognize. “We h'aint touched any on 'em for a while.”

“Make a go,” Bazie ordered. “I needs twa dozen, so don' get 'em all in one place, eh?”

“Right. Ye ready?” Deek asked, looking down at Skif, who jumped to his feet. “We're off.”

“Not like that 'e ain't!” Lyle protested. “Glory, Deek, 'e cain't pass i' them rags!”

Bazie concurred with a decided nod. “Gi'e 'im summat on ourn. 'Ere, Lyle — i' the cubberd — ”

Lyle went to the indicated alcove and rummaged around for a moment. “ 'Ere, these're too small fer any on' us — ,”

The boy threw a set of trews and a knitted tunic at Skif who caught them. They were nearly identical to Deek's; the same neat and barely-visible patches, the same dark gray-brown color. Happy to be rid of his rags, Skif stripped off everything but his smallclothes and donned the new clothing.

Now Bazie and Lyle nodded their satisfaction together. “We'll boil up yer ol' thin's an' mend 'em a bit — ye kin 'ave 'em back when ye git back,” Bazie said. “We don' wan' yer nuncle t' wonder where ye got new close.”

“Yessir,” Skif said, bobbing his head. “Thenkee, sir!”

Bazie laughed. “Jest get me napkins, imp.”

Now properly clothed so that his ragged state wouldn't attract attention, Skif was permitted to follow Deek out into the streets.

They walked along as Skif had already learned to, as if, no matter how fine the neighborhood, they belonged there, that they were two boys who had been sent on an errand that needed to be discharged expeditiously, but not urgently.

Deek, however, knew every illicit way into the laundries and wash houses of the fine houses on these streets, and he led Skif over walls, up trees, and across rooftops. Together they waited for moments when the laundresses and washerwomen were otherwise occupied, and dropped down into the rooms where soiled linens were sorted for washing.

It was Skif who picked out the napkins from among the rest — no more than two or three lightly soiled squares of linen at each place. He chose nothing that was so badly grease-stained that it was unlikely it could be cleaned, nor did he pick out items that were new.

Once retrieved, Deek did something very clever with them. He folded them flat, and stuffed them inside the legs of his trews and Skif's, so that there was no way to tell that the bits of fabric were there at all without forcing them to undress. When they had the full two dozen, with no close calls and only one minor alarm, Deek called a halt, and they strolled back to Bazie's.

Skif was tired, but very pleased with himself. He'd kept up with Deek, and he'd been the ones to pick out the loot Bazie wanted. Nothing new, nothing over-fine, nothing that would be missed unless and until a housekeeper made a full inventory. Not likely, that; not in the places that Deek had selected.

They made their way up, over, and down again, and back to Bazie's den. This time when Deek knocked, it was Bazie himself that opened the door for them, and Skif watched with covert amazement as he stumped back to his seat like some sort of bizarre four-legged creature, supporting himself on two wooden pegs strapped where his legs had been, and two crutches, one for each arm.

“Aaa — ” Bazie said, in a note of pain, as he lowered himself down to his seat and quickly took off the wooden legs. “When ye brings back th' glimmers, young'un, I'll be getting’ proper-fittin' stumps, fust thing.” He gestured in disgust at the crude wooden legs. “Them's no better nor a couple slats. How's it that a mun kin be sa good wi' needle an sa bad wi' whittlin’?”

He put the crutches aside, and looked at them expectantly.

“Here ye be, Bazie!” said Deek, taking the lead, and pulling napkins out of his trews the way a conjure mage at a fair pulled kerchiefs out of his hand. Skif did the same, until all two dozen were piled in front of their mentor.

“Hah! Good work!” Bazie told them. “Nah, young'un — ye look an ye tell me — wha's the big problem we got wi' these fer sellin' uv 'em?”

That was something Skif had worried about. Every single napkin they'd taken had been decorated with distinctive embroidered initials or pictures on the corners. “Them whatcha-calls in th' corners,” Skif said promptly. “Dunno what they be, but they's all different.”