The Tailor Part 4

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Part 4

The ebb of the spring flood left behind a rich, thick layer of silt covering the river banks.

When she was a young thing, as they turned the sticky mud, deep into the thawed soil, her father had told her that this was the rivers gift to the city. No matter how hard the times, cabbages, beets and onions would always grow in the river nourished soil.

So once more she dug over their plot, the boy followed her, as once she had followed her father, loosening the dirt from its thick clods with a hoe. Soon they would plant, perhaps she would add some poles for beans this year.

This work was hard, so she wound rags about their hands, calluses made holding a needle difficult, their rent and bread was still earned by the tailoring trade. The boy was proficient with tacking and seams now, indeed he seemed to have a talent for it, which was truly fortunate, for it left only the finer work to her.

Most of the customers were officers of the Iron Guard, who were partial to a tailored fit in their uniforms, liked insignia and rank to be finely wrought. But such close work was even harder on her eyes now, no longer were lamp or candle sufficient, only spectacles and sunlight eased the task.

Not that puffed up captains could be trusted to be prompt in paying their bills, there were some she hid from, their ugly intent plain. At times she was forced to seek out the quartermaster and appeal to his kind heart. He was a good man, brisk and portly, with a reputation for fairness in his dealings, his intervention assured payment was forthcoming.

It was not a course she took lightly, for it obliged her to visit the barracks, a place any woman of virtuous reputation avoided if she could.

The cathedral bells tolled Nones as they finished the last row. Both child and woman stretched wordlessly, carried their tools back to the house, scraped the mud from their clogs, scrubbed dirt from their hands and went in to eat their pottage and bread.

While the light lasted, she might finish off the gold flashes on the collar of adjutant's tunic. There would be a silver piece in it for them if it was done to his liking.

The boy practiced his numbers, he was proving proficient there too, assuredly his father would be proud.

How she wished she could tell him he would see his father soon; it was two full years since the Postman had left his son with her, no word had come, no rumour reached them. The Guard might have him in one of their secret prisons, he may have fled to the mountains.

He might be...no, no she was sure he was safe in the mountains, she would hold no other thought.

Gossip told of rebels attacking the bishop's great feast, hushed snatches of news that may only have been wishful, that the Duke had been blown up, even now lay at deaths door.

If either were true, a price would be paid. The list of harsh ordinances grew daily, a curfew set so early that soon only soldiers would have the freedom to move about the city. Merchants, scorning the new decrees and taxes, no longer sent their goods on barges up the river.

She missed the low hulled craft with their big brown sails, she missed the calls and songs of the bargemen as they led their mules along the towing path. With the sparse market place and forsaken river, the city was now a sad place indeed.

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