Sanctuary - Lynn Abbey [46]
Cauvin recalled a blind man south of the market who bought and sold secondhand clothing.
“She did, didn’t she? I’ll bet she got mad at you when you wouldn’t do what she wanted, and she wouldn’t let you make babies with her, would she? But if someone—not you—offered her one of those silver coins—”
Cauvin made a fist. The boy gaped, and after a moment of silence it was Cauvin who felt ashamed.
“Leorin didn’t get mad. It wasn’t like that. When she saw the coins, she wanted to leave Sanctuary tonight. And when I said that I couldn’t just up and leave, she froggin’ started to cry.”
“I’ll bet that’s not all she did.”
“Stop betting. You don’t have any money. You can’t ever afford to lose money you don’t have.”
Bec was unimpressed by Cauvin’s pearls of wisdom. “You’ve given your word to Poppa and Momma, too—you promised to be their son and to take care of me no matter what else. You can’t leave Sanctuary.”
Cauvin met Bec’s eyes and saw not just a nine-year-old boy, but Leorin and all the countless others—including the froggin’ Torch—whose wits were quicker and sharper than his. He swept the coins up and squeezed them so tight his fingers hurt. “I said I wasn’t going anywhere, not tonight, not tomorrow, not froggin’ ever!”
“’Cept out to the old red-walled ruins to see the old man … after you buy him his parchment and quills and blankets and brandy and anything else he might need.”
“Yeah,” Cauvin conceded in defeat.
“And me. You’ll take me with you.”
“Hell no.”
“Hell yes,” Bec insisted, his mood shifting like quicksilver. “What do you know about buying parchment, eh? Momma buys a full skin every season—for the yard accounts. I go with her, so I know what to look for. You don’t. You’ll get cheated. They’ll offer you the cheap stuff—goat hides with splits and cracks. That’s all right for doing accounts, but not for someone from the palace. And quills! You don’t know anything about quills. You’ve got to be careful. The best quills come from a white goose, but the scriveners, they’ll try to cheat you with bleached feathers. A buyer’s got to know what he’s looking for … you don’t, but I do.”
Bec was right: Cauvin didn’t know about quills, but he did remember that the Torch had given him similar instructions. “What froggin’ difference can it make what froggin’ color the froggin’ bird was?”
The boy gave him a withering stare. “It makes all the froggin’ difference.”
“Don’t curse.”
“The white-goose feathers are thicker and stronger. They squeeze up a lot more ink. You didn’t know that, did you, Cauvin? I know you didn’t. Take me with you tomorrow. I can help. Honest. I know where all the good stuff is. Momma takes me everywhere. I watch. I listen. I remember.” Bec tapped the side of his head.
“Name me a good ’changer, then, on this side of the Processional—someone we don’t usually go to. Someone who’ll give me a fair exchange on all these bright silver soldats, and won’t go running to Grabar the moment I walk out of his shop.”
The boy’s shoulders sagged, as Cauvin had anticipated, but not for long. “Swift the blacksmith, he couldn’t change all of them at once, and not the golden ones at all, but he could change a few soldats.” An’ he won’t tell Father, ’cause Father says he still owes for the wall behind his forge.”
It was a good suggestion, though Cauvin thought he would have remembered that Swift would sometimes melt small amounts of silver in his forge and take the purified metal to the palace for reminting. “Thanks, I’ll pay my friend a visit. I was only going to change one soldat tomorrow anyway.”
“Two,” Bec corrected. “You’ll need one for the parchment, quills, and ink. You gotta have ink, less you think he’s going to use his own blood. And for Batty Dol, too, for blankets. She’s got piles and piles of old cloth in her pantry—collects it from the Enders, fixes what she can, makes candle wicks and stuff from the rest. Some of it stinks a little, but we can air it out at the red-walled ruins. The other soldat’s for the brandy—can’t be pouring the Well’s rotgut down his throat, not if he’s an old man used to the palace.