For Love of Mother-Not - Alan Dean Foster [9]
Flinx learned rapidly. He was undemonstrative, highly adaptable, and so quiet she hardly knew when he was around. Soon he was amazing her with his knowledge of the layout and workings of the marketplace and even the greater city beyond. He worked constantly on expanding his store of information, badgering shopkeepers with persistent questions, refusing to take “I don’t know” for an answer.
Mother Mastiff put no restrictions on him. No one had ever told her it was improper to give an eight-year-old the run of a city as wild as Drallar. Never having raised a child before, she could always plead ignorance, and since he returned dutifully every night, unscathed and unharmed, she saw no reason to alter the practice despite the clucking disapproval of some of her neighbors.
“That’s no way to handle a boy of an age that tender,” they admonished her. “If you’re not careful, you’ll lose him. One night, he won’t come home from these solo forays.”
“A boy he is, tender he’s not,” she would reply. “Sharp he be, and not just for his age. I don’t worry about him. I haven’t the time, for one thing. No matter what happens to him, he’s better off than he was under government care.”
“He won’t be better off if he ends up lying dead in a gutter somewhere,” they warned her.
“He won’t,” she would reply confidently.
“You’ll be sorry,” they said. “You wait and see.”
“I’ve been waiting and seeing going on ninety years” was her standard reply, “and I haven’t been surprised yet. I don’t expect this boy to break that record.”
But she was wrong.
It was midafternoon. The morning mist had developed into a heavy rain. She was debating whether or not to send the boy out for some food or to wait. Half a dozen people were wandering through the shop, waiting for the downpour to let up—an unusually large number for any day.
After a while, Flinx wandered over and tugged shyly at her billowing skirt. “Mother Mastiff?”
“What is it boy? Don’t bother me now.” She turned back to the customer who was inspecting antique jewelry that graced a locked display case near the rear of the stall. It was rare that she sold a piece of the expensive stuff. When she did, the profit was considerable.
The boy persisted, and she snapped at him. “I told ye, Flinx, not now!”
“It’s very important, Mother.”
She let out a sigh of exasperation and looked apologetically at the outworlder. “Excuse me a moment, good sir. Children, ye know.”
The man smiled absently, thoroughly engrossed in a necklace that shone with odd pieces of metal and worn wood.
“What is it, Flinx?” she demanded, upset with him. “This better be important. You know how I don’t like to be disturbed when I’m in the middle of—”
He interrupted her by pointing to the far end of the shop. “See that man, over there?”
She looked up, past him. The man in question was bald and sported a well-trimmed beard and earrings. Instead of the light slickertic favored by the inhabitants of Moth, he wore a heavy offworld overcoat of black material. His features were slighter than his height warranted, and his mouth was almost delicate. Other than the earrings he showed no jewelry. His boots further marked him as an offworld visitor—they were relatively clean.
“I see him. What about him?”
“He’s been stealing jewelry from the end case.”
Mother Mastiff frowned. “Are you sure, boy?” Her tone was anxious. “He’s an offworlder, and by the looks of him, a reasonably substantial one at that. If we accuse him falsely—”
“I’m positive, mother.”
“You saw him steal?”
“No, I didn’t exactly see him.”
“Then what the devil”—she wondered in a low, accusatory voice—“are ye talking about?”
“Go look at the case,” he urged her.
She hesitated, then shrugged mentally. “No harm in that, I expect.” Now whatever had gotten into the boy? She strolled toward the case, affecting an air of unconcern. As she drew near, the outworlder turned and walked away, apparently