The Tailor

The Tailor Part 3

The Tailor 3

The shop closed and in darkness, the little tailor had drawn the heavy curtain drawn across the space dividing her place of work from her home. Now there was privacy to be had.

The sun had long since gone; the only the light from the stove and a single candle. With care, the little tailor piled the last of her mother's best dishes back, safely into the cupboard.

She could not remember the last time they had been used. When her father was well, they had been brought out for feast days, it kept her mother with them. The china was cherished beyond price, its value in the memory it kept alive. But as the health of her father failed, they sat less at table together, gradually the scent of her mother faded.

When she was done, she sat opposite the Postman, took up her needle and worked patiently at her mending. Now she would wait for his reasons.

The tailor knew there were always reasons, sometimes they were good, solid, and she understood the path they took. But often they were like cheap thread, splitting and breaking when tested. Those based on personal dislike or passions, not logic or sense never held true.

But she trusted him, even when he had stopped bringing the letters, when no protector came forward, she trusted him, did what she had always done and looked after herself.

Now though she knew he had a son; a son meant a wife. He had a wife and yet he had kissed her? Was he then as faithless as the men spoken of by the gossips at the market, was he not a man deserving of trust?

The hope that had sustained her all at once looked like a poor frail thing.

The meal had been plain, but the Postman had produced dried salted beef from his pack, added to her basket of vegetables, it made passably filling fare. The boy ate heartily, but the postman had played with his food, then fallen asleep, slumped in her father's chair.

Quietly she and the child made up a bed in the warmest spot by the range. Dressed in one of her father's old shirts, safe, fed, and warm, the boy was sleeping as his head touched the pillow.

She tucked in her best quilt around him; glad she had made it so bright. The blue and green scraps gave her the fancy that, when he awoke, it would look to him like spring had come.

In the comfortable hum of her own contentment and the shifting of the embers in the grate, the tailor had thought how good it would be for this to be her life.

Then she wondered if that was all she would ever have, tender memories and childish fancies?

The postman roused from a sleep full of impractical dreams of a life in this snug, unspoiled home. The kitchen well scrubbed, with a bench and one high-backed chair, a good wood pile and a cupboard, but no more.

He could not deny the clean, warm comfort of the place. Looking up he saw the tin still sat high on the dresser where she could not reach it. He smiled at the thought of the graceless kiss he had stolen; it seemed a lifetime ago.

The scraping of a chair on the wooden floor, followed by a deep sigh, caused her to look up.

"I'm sorry...I did not mean to repay your generosity with uncouth manners." He rubbed at his eyes and frowned, sat straighter. "I will be gone in the morning; you and the boy will be safe then." Telling her the reality of his situation would not be easy, he could only rely on her goodness. She may be shocked by the facts of his life.

The little tailor knew better than to ask too many questions, but then a boy was indeed, not a letter to be passed on. "Will you come back for him in the spring?"

"I cannot say, the times are dangerous, here he is safe with a good woman like you." He looked away. "I have money for his keep..." then he smiled. "Copper, not silver."

She tutted. "I would not take was cannot be spared. The boy and I will manage well between us." She sat at the table opposite him. "I shall teach him to sew a neat seam, his eyes and fingers will be better than mine." But there was one question she knew she must ask. "Is his mother dead?"

The postman had forgotten her directness. "No, she is not." He said.

"Then he will be my cousin. My neighbours know I cannot be his aunt. His mother is an ailing widow, and so he lodges with me till she is recovered. That will have to satisfy the curious."

"Never-the-less I will give you what I can." Rummaging at his belt he produced a small leather purse. "You must register him with the city officers, he knows to speak only of his first name and his birth date, and no more. Better folk think him simple than know the truth." Coins clattered on the tabletop, sufficient to pay the rent for a year.

"There will be more in a month or so." He sighed. "We still have friends."

The little tailor noticed the grey was no longer a sprinkle in his dark hair, now it shared equal place with the dark brown.

"I cannot tell you all, times are more grave than before. So many are fugitives now." Speaking softly, he looked at his hands. Irritation was in his voice. "Many fled after the Edicts, they were lucky to escape with their lives; those taken were put to death. Now the Iron Guard are everywhere. The tyrants hold us now in a tighter fist than before." Sitting back, he rubbed his hand across his face. "My wife is not dead, nor is she sick."

She frowned; what other reason would see a child motherless? The plain words puzzled her. What would that cause a woman to abandon her child? "But you did not take him from his mother in punishment of faults?" She, who had known so little of familial love, found the deliberate removal of a child from its mother, horrific.

"Oh, no nothing so simple."

The anger she saw was troubling. "Did she betray you?"

"She is...no, she knew only my work took me from town to town. But the boy needs shelter and safe care, and I thought of you."

She knew there would be no more.

"The boy will be safe here."