The Tailor

The Tailor, Part 2

Part 2

Ice hung like pretty blades from the eaves of every building. Snow banked high against walls and windows. Mud, frozen in treacherously jagged ruts covered the city streets. The customary weekday bustle of the market was absent, winter's hostile grip and the ever present and brutally vigilant Iron Guard kept the wary townsfolk indoors, out of harm's way, they hoped.

The little tailor's basket contained only meagre fare; winter produce from the outlying farms had dwindled, every week less and less was to be had. She would make the best of what she bought, little as it was. Oh, but how she longed for a simple pot of coffee, perhaps some dried apples to make sweet cakes? She smiled to herself and remembered her father's rebuke when as a child she had voiced such wants.

'If wishes were horses,my girl, gypsies would ride.'

She did not think often of her parents, they were now long gone and there was no help to her situation. She was an orphan and that was it, no family to care for her. After the loss of her mother there had been little cheer in her life. After her father's death, only the 'Postman' as she thought of him, gave her days the prospect of interest, a quiet, secret feeling of hope. No friends to bring liveliness into her days. But she was a grown woman now; melancholic considerations would not keep her feet dry or her belly full.

Numb toes wriggled in sodden stockings. Titus the cobbler would want paying for the new soles her old winter boots needed and her hoard of copper was dwindling, she must make it last at least till spring. Perhaps she should grease the thick layer of paper that lay under her feet?

Hunching against the cold wind, she turned the corner into the quiet alley that led to her workshop. It was growing dark and the nightly curfew was upon them.

She stood before her door, laid her basket on the heap of snow from the cleared path, with relief, stretched her spine and flexed sore shoulders.

As she turned the key in the well-built old lock, a shadow fell across the snow. The hand that then rested heavily on her shoulder put the fear of God into her soul; she spun about in alarm to face what threat there may be, readying herself to shout for help, or even explain her presence out of doors past curfew.

"Shhhh...Please, make no sound," a low voice hissed.

It was no armoured Iron Guard that stood behind her, a robber then? "I have no money sir, nothing of value..." Moving back she lost her footing on the frozen mud, but was caught up and held securely by the only arms that had ever held her thus.

"Keep your coppers little one, do you not know me?" The hushed voice sounded disappointed.

"Postman?"

"Huh? Aye, I suppose I am." There was but small amusement in his tone. "Let us inside, out of these icy gusts." He steadied her and pulled the muffler from about his face.

She could not help but smile, he had a beard now, but it was her Postman, alive and well. Swiftly hefting the basket to her hip she pushed open the door, glad that she had left the fire made up in stove. A few minutes and the kettle would be boiling, the tea was well used, but it would be warming. She thought how nice it would have been if she had made sweet cakes.

"I have only bread and butter to offer." A thought struck her. "Though I think there might be a scrap of sweet ginger preserve in the..." She turned, the Postman stood before her, one hand clasping his hat to his chest, the other on the head of a of a child so bundled in scarves and shawls that it was impossible to say if it were boy or girl.

"Oh, I..." She looked curiously at the child. Huge grey eyes looked back.

"My son." He nodded, a note of apology in his voice. "There is a favour I would ask of you. I know 'tis a presumption. It may be you cannot help," he stumbled on. "A child, after all is not a letter."

"I do not understand, you wish to leave the child here?"

He followed her in, drawing the child gently behind him. "I know of nowhere else he would be safe, nowhere else he would be cared for...properly." He closed the door and, stamping the snow off his high riding boots, indicated to the child he should do likewise.

She smiled as the small bundle stamped with vigour, his wide eyes looking solemnly up to his father for approval. Answering with a tender smile, the father began to deftly unwrap the son. He was not a man unused to handling such things then? The more she watched the more questions that crowded her mind. They were all too personal for her to ask, certainly not fitting to be asked before the child at least. Instead, she busied herself at the stove. That she was sure of, hot tea and bread and butter, maybe she should toast the bread? With the scrape of sweet ginger preserve for the boy.