The Robin And The Kestrel

'If his name is Patsono, then he is one of the ones setting up the miracles,' Robin replied grimly.

Someone lit a sweet-scented candle, and the smell of roses filled the chapel. Krystal tossed her long, ash- blond hair over one shoulder, and pursed her lips with speculation. 'Do you think you might be able to_well_put a spike in Padrik's wheels?' she asked, hopefully. 'Things were better when the Houses and the Guild were legal.'

'Things?' Kestrel asked. He looked puzzled, although Robin had a notion what Krystal was talking about.

Krystal's reply confirmed her guesses. She sighed, and closed her gray eyes for a moment. 'Now _well, things can happen to a lady, and the only recourse we have is for Ardana to ban them from the House. She can't always do that, even, because if the client is important enough, he could threaten to turn us over to the Cathedral Constables.'

'The Guards of Public Morality?' Robin said, with heavy irony. 'Very nice. As if they weren't violating the laws themselves. I've seen plenty of them in here too.'

Krystal shook her head, and toyed with the silken folds of her robe. 'Of course you have. But that wouldn't stop them from arresting us if they were ordered to. They don't care; why should they? We aren't important to them. They can always find another House.'

'Wh-whereas you w-would w-wind up in g-gaol,' Kestrel said for her.

'Or the work-house, where they make 'honest women' out of people like me.' Krystal tossed her hair, but this time angrily.

That was new. 'What's a work-house?' Robin asked.

Sister Jasmine chimed in. 'It's a place where they're putting women convicted of something called 'immoral idleness.' Basically, it's if they don't have a husband or father supporting them, or work at a trade or a job. They do plain sewing and laundry for the Cathedral and the Abbey here.'

'And get paid what?' Robin wanted to know.

'Nothing!' Jasmine said bitterly. 'Their so-called wages' are confiscated to pay their fines and room and board.'

'I've heard other stories, too, about that so-called 'work-house.'' Krystal's eyes flashed with anger. 'It seems the Priests visit there. Very often. I've heard they have all of the advantages of a House, one reserved for the privileged few, but they don't have to pay for any of them. And not only that, but the laundry and sewing get done for nothing too!'

Th-that's s-slavery!' Kestrel said, after a moment of appalled silence.

Krystal shrugged, and her hair slipped coquettishly over one eye. 'That's the privilege of power,' she replied. 'And it's why so few of us have actually been caught in a raid. We don't want to end up in the workhouse, so we all have ways to escape. If we have to _' she faltered, then continued. '_ well, one way to make certain Padrik wouldn't want you is to make certain you aren't pretty anymore.'

She might have said more, but Ardana appeared with a client in tow, a rather ordinary and dumpy little man, dressed like a middle-class merchant, with merry eyes. There was nothing about him to fire the imagination, and Robin could not for a moment imagine why Krystal's face lit up with a truly welcoming smile when she saw him. But the lady rose immediately and hurried over, leaving Robin and Kestrel to pick up their instruments and resume playing.

But Robin had everything she needed; anything else Krystal could have told her was of secondary importance, and minimal value. Most of it Robin had already deduced.

It made perfect sense to find the Patsono Clan mired up to their necks in this sordid business. They specialized in being involved in sordid undertakings.

It had never been anything on this scale, though; mostly petty trickery and fraud.

Even among the Gypsies a Patsono was watched carefully, and valuables kept out of easy filching reach. All Gypsies tended to cheat ordinary housebound folk_who they called gajo, or in the Outsider tongues, 'rootfeet' from their habit of never leaving a place for as long as they lived. It was not considered cheating so much as a combination of good bargaining and education... if the rootfeet learned to be careful, to watch their purse strings or to examine what they bargained for, then they got a cheap lesson in the ways of real life. Sometimes that cheating extended to a bit of outright theft, if the mark appeared to deserve such attentions. Robin had picked a pocket or two in her time. She considered it justice, not thievery; those whose purses she lightened were either far too wealthy for their own good, or they had been particularly noxious, like the bullies in Westhaven.

But Gypsies, as a rule, never made fellow Gypsies or Free Bards the targets of such thievery and trickery. The Patsono Clan had fleeced or robbed both quite as often as they'd victimized rootfeet.

The only question in Robin's mind was_why? Why were they doing this? What were they getting out of it?