He melted from her side before she could protest, threading his way through the crowd as the Merum priest mounted the steps to take his place behind his rostrum. “The first commandment is this,” he intoned in a clear tenor. “You shall not delve the deep places of the earth, for in the day you do, you shall surely die.”
“The fool,” Toria whispered. “He couldn’t have devised a greater temptation to lure men to the forest if he had tried.”
The crowd milled, clearly uncomfortable, many choosing that moment to look anywhere but at the speaker. Undeterred, he raised his voice. “And what does this mean to ‘delve the deep places of the earth’? What snare is Aer warning of?”
Across the street, Fess approached the cobbler, pulling the boot from his left foot as he neared. Two men on either side of the cobbler, pretending to be disinterested onlookers moved toward Fess to intercept him, but he stumbled, twisting as he fell, and slipped through their grasp. She moved closer to hear, but she needn’t have bothered. Fess pitched his voice to carry.
“Just the man I’m looking for,” Fess said as he tottered on one foot. “See this?” He waved the boot under the cobbler’s nose, as if the man might somehow fail to notice. Fess’s other hand gripped the top of the cobbler’s shoulder for balance. “Cursed thing is going to pinch my toes to porridge if I don’t get the leather stretched.”
“Get off me, you stupid drunk,” the cobbler snarled. He moved to push Fess away but failed to get a firm hold on him.
“Nonsense,” Fess said. He pivoted as one of the cobbler’s men attempted to grab him by the arm, “inadvertently” hitting the man in the chin with his elbow.
“Sorry, my mistake.” Fess blinked at the man, then returned his attention to his original target. “Look at your tools, man. You’re a cobbler. Surely you can fix my boot.”
“Get this fool off me,” the cobbler said with a furtive glance toward the Merum cleric. The crowd nearest him had ceased to listen to the office, choosing instead to observe the spectacle of an obviously drunken Fess trying to cajole the cobbler into fixing his boot.
“How can we honor Aer if we do not keep the first commandment?” The priest’s voice rose to a shriek in a vain attempt to compete with the crowd’s laughter.
The cobbler’s other guard came charging in, opting to tackle Fess.
“Heavens!” Fess roared at the man. “I just want my boot fixed!”
He shifted toward the cobbler, and the guard changed direction to follow. Too late, he realized his error. His momentum, too great to be checked, took him crashing into Fess and the cobbler. All three men went down in a pile of flailing limbs, shouted curses, and Fess’s cries.
“Where’s my boot? My boot!” Fess thrust his left hand toward the heavens in appeal.
The cleric, unable to compete with the spectacle being played out on the street and gutter before him, ceased his imprecations.
The guards began to rain blows on Fess, who curled into a protective ball, his arms covering his face. Twice he managed to catch the guards with an elbow to the chin as he spun away from their fists. The sound of breaking teeth carried to Toria. Fess reached from his protective posture to retrieve his discarded boot and began to rain blows on the guards with the substantial heel.
The guards, wobbly from their exertions and unexpected blows, chose to withdraw, dragging the cobbler with them. Fess waved his boot at their backs. “You lousy excuse for a cobbler! You still haven’t fixed my boot!”
He turned away and with studied indifference, pulled his boot back on. He straightened in surprise, wiggling his foot. “Well, there’s a surprise, right enough.” Turning, he cupped his hands to his mouth. “My thanks, cobbler. Well done.”
The crier for the Absold mounted her podium for the afternoon exhortation, but most of the crowd dispersed. Fess made a show of straightening his clothes and then sketched an unsteady path to return to Toria’s side. The smell of spirits arrived a moment before he did.
“You smell like a distillery,” Toria said when they were out of earshot of others once more. “How did you manage it?”
For an instant, genuine mirth might have danced behind his eyes before his grief quenched it. “It’s an idea the Mark and I picked up from the healers in Bunard. You wouldn’t see any of them on the streets without a bag of essential medicines and implements. In the same way we carry oddments we can use at need for a bluff.” He appeared to consider for a moment before continuing. “Though Mark seldom used his. A con should be planned well enough not to require gimmickry.”
She put her gloved hand on his arm. “Regardless of the inspiration, that was masterfully done, Fess.”
He continued to scan the street but reached up to grasp her hand in his. Something passed between them, and she took a moment to check the street before ducking into an alley. There in her hand lay a lump of blue-tinged gold.
Toria shook her head. “How? I watched you the whole time.”
By way of answer, he jerked and pointed at the entrance to the alley, but when Toria checked, only an empty expanse of street greeted her. “Ah, when you fell and put your other hand in the air.”
His voice dropped. “We learned long ago in the urchins that men and women, no matter their station or breeding, are attuned to threats above all else. Everyone in the crowd followed the motion of my free hand, looking for danger. That’s all any man is, Lady Deel, a collection of fears and hatreds. Nothing more.” He turned to lead her back out onto the main thoroughfare.
She walked beside him in silence. Whatever crisis of faith or belief he suffered, his reticence
