Nobody wasted much money on street-lamps around these neighborhoods. What little there was came from windows and a few open doors, and from the torches people carried with them.
They didn't have a torch, but Skif didn't really want one. Certainly having a torch or a lantern made it easier to see your way, but it also made it very clear how many people were in your group and whether or not you had anything that looked worth stealing. Plus you couldn't see past the circle of light cast by the torch, which made it easier for you to be ambushed.
The street was anything but deserted, despite the darkness. People came and went from cookshops and taverns, groups of young toughs strolled about looking for whatever they could get into, streetwalkers sauntered wherever there was a bit of illumination, with their keepers (if they had one) lurking just out of sight of potential customers. There were ordinary working men and women, too, coming home late from their jobs. For a bit it would only be a little more dangerous to be out on the street than it was during the day.
Skif had figured that this “Jarmin” would be somewhere nearby, but apparently he was wrong. They must have gone a good ten blocks before Lyle made a turn into a dead-end street that was very nicely lit up indeed.
If the dim and sullen Hollybush had been at one extreme of the sorts of taverns frequented by the poor, this was at the other. The whole back of the cul-de-sac was taken up by a tavern blazing with tallow-dip lights; that had torches in holders right outside the door, and light spilling from parchment-covered windows. There was music, raucous laughter, the sounds of loud talk. A group of men were betting on a contest between two tomcats out in the street, and with them were three or four blowsy females of negotiable virtue, hanging on their arms and cheering on the two oblivious cats.
On either side of the tavern were shops, still open. Skif never got a chance to see what the one on the left sold, because they turned immediately into the one on the right.
This was their goal; an old-clothes shop that specialized in fancy goods of all sorts, but mostly for women. Skif had a shrewd idea where most of the females from the tavern spent their hard-earned coins.
Jarmin, a perfectly ordinary, clerkly sort of fellow, had an assistant to help him, and when he saw Lyle entering the front door, he left the customer he was attending to the assistant and ushered them both into the rear of the shop.
“Have you got sleeves?” Jarmin asked, as soon as he dropped the curtain separating front from back behind them. “I particularly need sleeves. And veils. But particularly sleeves. And I don't suppose you've got silk stockings — ,”
Lyle shrugged out of his pack, and Skif did the same. “Aye, Jarmin, all uv that. This's Skif; 'e's wi' us now. I'm be showin' 'im th' way uv things.”
“Yes, yes.” Jarmin dismissed Skif entirely, his attention focused on the packs. “You know, if you just have some good sleeves and stockings, I can sell a dozen pairs tonight, for some reason — ,”
“All or nowt, Jarmin. Ye know that. Ye takes all or nowt.” Lyle had gone from lazy boy to shrewd salesman in the time it had taken to reach this place, and Skif marveled at him as he bargained sharply with the fretful shopkeeper. At length they arrived at a price that was mutually satisfactory, and Skif tried to look as indifferent as Lyle did. It was hard, though; he'd never seen so much money before in all his life.
Aye, but that's from how much work? A week, mebbe? An' there's five uv us t'feed.
Lyle divided the cash between them. “Just i'case,” he said darkly, and showed Skif how to wrap it so that it didn't clink and tuck it inside his tunic where it wouldn't show. Only then did they ease out of the shop, where already Jarmin had frowsty girls crowding around the counter demanding shrilly to see the new goods.
If Lyle had set a brisk pace going out, he did better than that coming back. Only when they were safely in the building and heading up the stair did he finally slow down, with Skif panting behind.
“Sorry,” he said apologetically. “Hate goin' out. Got caught oncet, 'fore I worked fer Bazie.”
“No worries,” Skif assured him. “I don' like it much, neither.”
In fact, he didn't feel entirely comfortable until he was safely back in Bazie's room, where they pulled out their packets of coin and turned the lot over to a grinning Bazie.
“Good work,” he told them both. “Fagged out?”
“’Bout ready t' drop,” Skif admitted; now that they were back in the warmth and safety, the very long day, with all of its hard work and unexpected changes in his life suddenly caught up with him.
“Not me!” Lyle declared, and made a growling face. “Ready t' match ye at draughts, ol' man!”
Bazie chuckled. “Show th' young'un 'is cupbard, then, an' I’ll get us set.”
Lyle pulled on Skif's sleeve, and took him to the side of the room opposite the laundry cauldron, where he opened what Skif had taken to be shutters over a window. Shutters they were, but they opened up to a cubby long enough to lie down in, complete with a straw-stuffed pallet, blankets, and a straw-stuffed cushion. By Skif's
