Mercedes Lackey - Take A Thief

Lyle closed the shutters for him once he was settled, blocking out most of the light from the room beyond. Within moments, he was as cozy and warm as he had ever been in his life, and nothing was going to keep him awake. In fact, the sounds of laughter and dice rattling from the other room couldn't even penetrate into his most pleasant of dreams.

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IF Skif thought he was going to get off easy by no longer attending lessons at the Temple, he got a rude awakening the next day.

He was used to getting up early, and he woke — or so he guessed — at or near his usual time. For a moment, he was confused by the total darkness, scent of clean laundry and the lack of stench, and most of all, by the fact that he was warm and comfortable. He had never awakened warm and comfortable before. Even in the middle of summer, he was generally stiff from sleeping on the dirt floor, and except in the very hottest days and nights, had usually had all the heat leeched from his body by the floor. Initially he thought he was still dreaming, and moaned a little at the thought that now he was going to have to awaken to Kalchan, cold, and misery.

Then he sat up, hit his forehead on the inside of the sleep cubby before he got more than halfway up, and remembered where he was. He lay back down — he hadn't hit his head that hard, since he hadn't tried to get up very fast.

I'm at Bazie's. Ol’ Kalchan's in trouble, deep, 'n so's m'nuncle. An' I don't never have t’f go back t' th' tavern!

He lay quietly on his back, stroking the woolen blanket with one hand, tracing the lines of each patch. It must have been patched and darned by Bazie; the seams were so neat and even. No one else was stirring, though, and for the first time he could remember, he lay back in his bed and just luxuriated in the freedom to lie abed as long as he cared to. Or as long as the others would let him — but it looked as if the rest were in no hurry to get about their business.

What was this new life going to be like? The other three boys seemed content and well-nourished, and he couldn't see how a legless man like Bazie could force them to stay if they didn't want to. There would be hard work, and a lot of it; he knew that much from yesterday, when he'd hauled water all afternoon. Danger, too. Despite the fact that the other boys had a cavalier attitude about being caught, there was a lot of danger involved in the life of even a petty thief, and the penalties were harsh. Plenty of people meted out their own punishments on those they nobbled, before the beaks were called, which generally meant a bad beating first, then being clapped in gaol, then any of a variety of punishments.

Official punishments were many and varied, none of them very appealing. Which's the point, I s'pose. A thief could be transported to work in someone's fields, could be sent to work as a general dogsbody for the Guard, could be left in gaol, could get lashes — it all depended on the judge. That was for the first time you got caught. After that, the punishments were harsher.

But he wouldn't think about that until after he'd been caught for the first time. If he was. If he was clever, fast, smart — he might never be. Why not? I bin keepin 'from gettin' caught 'till now, an' I'm just a young'un. Ye'd think I'd just get smarter as I get bigger.

There would be a lot of learning time, though, a great many menial chores as well, and he couldn't expect to share in the profits even his own hauls brought in for a while. That didn't matter; life here would be a paradise compared with what his life had been like at the tavern. In fact, he didn't much care if all he did was wash the stuff the others brought in for the next year! It wouldn't be any harder than working at the tavern, and he'd be full and warm all the time, with a bed like he'd never had before and clothing that wasn't more hole than fabric.

He lay in the darkness contemplating his future until he heard someone stirring, heard the shutters of another bed open, and the pad of feet on the floor. He turned on his side and saw a flicker of light through the cracks in the shutters of his cubby. He pushed them open cautiously, and looked out.

“Heyla, 'nother lark, eh?” Raf said genially. “Come gimme 'and, then.”

Skif hopped out and shut the cubby doors behind him. Raf was bent over the fire under the wash cauldron, coaxing a flame from the banked coals. “Take yon tallow dip, take a light from here, an' light them lamps,” he ordered, jerking his head at a tallow dip on the otherwise clean table behind him, barely visible in the dim and flickering light from the hand-sized fire. Skif picked it up, lit it at Raf's little fire, and went around the walls to relight the lamps he vaguely recalled hanging there. There were a lot of oil lamps — four! — and all of them were cobbler's lamps with globes of water-filled glass around the flame to magnify the light, the most expensive kind of oil lamp there was. Skif was impressed; he hadn't paid any attention before, other than to note absently that although this room didn't have any windows there was plenty of illumination. It was interesting; Bazie didn't spend money on luxuries, but in places where it counted — the good soap for the laundry, for instance, and the lighting, and decent fuel for the fireplace under the wash boiler, Bazie got the best.

When he was done, he blew out the tallow dip and put it with the others in a broken cup above the firebox. By this time the shutters of another cubby, one just above Skif's, had been pushed open by a foot, and Deek's tousled head poked out.

“Eh, Bazie?” he called, yawning. “Yon ge'op? Me'n Raf'r op. Young'un Skif, too.”

“Aye,” came a muffled reply, and the shutter to a third eased open. This one was larger — taller, rather — and Bazie was sitting up inside, peering out at them, the stumps of his legs hidden under his blanket. Satisfied that the fire was well started, Raf got up, and Deek swung himself out and down onto the floor. The two of them went to Bazie's cubby and linked hands. Bazie put an arm around each of their shoulders and swung himself onto the “chair” made by their hands.

They carried him to a door beside the one that led outside — one that Skif hadn't noticed before. Bazie let go of Raf's shoulder, which freed one of his hands, and opened it, and they carried him inside. There was evidently another room there that Skif had no notion existed.

The door swung open enough to see inside. The room was a privy! Skif gaped, then averted his eyes to give Bazie a little privacy — but it wasn't just any privy, it was a real water closet, the kind only the rich had, and there was a basin in there as well. The boys shut the door and left their leader in there with the door closed until a little later, when a knock on the door told he was finished. They carried him back to his usual spot beside the fire, directly under one of the lamps.

“And mornin' t'ye, young'un,” Bazie said genially.

“Mornin' Bazie,” Skif replied, wondering with all his might just how anyone had gotten a water closet built down here, and where Bazie had gotten the money to do so. And why —

“Skif, ye're low mun now — 'tis yer task t' fetch water fer privy an' all,” said Bazie, which answered at least the question of where the water for flushing came from. “An' t'will be yer task t' keep it full. Which — ,” he added pointedly, “ — it needs now.”

“Yessir,” Skif said obediently, and went for the buckets. Well, at least one thing hadn't changed — here he was, fetching water first thing in the morning!

It took about three trips to fill the tank above the privy and the pitcher at the basin, and another trip to fill the water butt that served for everything except the wash boiler. By that time all three boys were up and tidying the room at Bazie's direction. After a breakfast of hard-boiled eggs and tea, he ordered them all to strip down and wash off, using the soapy laundry water and old pieces of towel which were dropped back into the wash cauldron when they were done. Then, much to Skif's utter amazement, instead of putting their old clothing on, they all got new, clean clothing — smallclothes and all — from the same cupboard as his outfit from yesterday had come out of. Their old clothing went straight into the piles waiting to be washed.