Wychling

Chapter 19

Tal was skulking near the Butcher's Market, looking for easy pickings. It was not an simple task looking for enough meat to feed Suma, let alone when she had no money to speak of, and nobody she could turn to for help.

She lost herself in the crowd, revelling in the anonymity. Detaching herself from her movement, going with the flow of people, so that she could think the problem over. You were free in a crowd; unknown, and unimportant in the best possible way. Nobody could tell you how to act, what to say, or try to control you. Like people always tried to do when you were a girl on the verge of womanhood. She was free, with ample time for her task despite the insistent mental nudging that came from Suma. She was starting to think that that Git knew exactly what he was doing.

It was then that Tal saw an opportunity. She spied a butcher with live chickens behind his stall, and a small gap behind the cages. If she could make her way back there, the solid floors of the top cages should block his view of her, and leave the bottom cages vulnerable.

The merchant was busy haggling with a tall woman in an aggressive manner; for her part, the woman simply looked down her nose at him calmly, as he extravagantly exclaimed to everyone in the vicinity that she was robbing him.

Tal slipped behind the cages and lowered herself down, trying to find a weakness in the cage of a particularly fat looking specimen as she sensed Suma's approval. The bars were old and weak, and several gave way, allowing her room to sneak a hand in and grip its neck fiercely before it could squawk. She had never done this before, but she grinned at the thrill of it, the risk.

She wrung its neck, feeling a crack then the creature drooping in her clenched fist. Slowly, carefully she withdrew the limp form without disturbing the bars, congratulating herself on her dexterity and rising from her crouch, before peering furtively through the bars on the second level.

The merchant was alternately gripping his hair in a dramatic fashion and waving his arms around to emphasise his verbal torrent. The tall woman was beginning to look decidedly put out by the display. She wore a floral headscarf of fine print with words sewn around the edge in silver thread, complimenting the blue and pink of the scarf.

She wasn't exactly classically beautiful, her nose being just too large and her brows just too thick and wild, but there was something very attractive in the way she held herself. As if the world was beneath her and she could just about tolerate it. In the perfect, silky black hair that framed her face as it tumbled in loose curls from the headscarf, and in her dark brown eyes. There was some unquantifiable fierceness there, as she gave the overly expressive merchant a look that, she was well aware, might kill a lesser being than he.

As Tal saw the scene unfold, she decided it was like watching a mongoose dance as fast as it could around a particularly venomous snake, that was merely waiting for its moment to strike. She had seen such shows in the rougher parts of town with her street friends. There was always a lot of gambling going on in those fights. Tal knew where her money would lie this day, as the woman's eyes tracked the merchant's increasingly desperate movements with deadly, reptilian precision.

Tal's breath stopped as those careful eyes flicked her way. Her heartbeat like a horse's hooves drumming at full gallop, but she held herself perfectly still, frozen in counterpoint to the increasingly panicked dance of the merchant. The woman's face betrayed a very small dose of amusement, and quite possibly admiration, as she quickly assessed the scene. The merchant began to turn towards Tal but just before she burst from cover, the woman spoke.

"I thought it was a specimen worth my time but what do you know, it's just a skinny runt like the rest." Her lip curled at the end, but her eyes never left the merchant's, who launched into renewed protestations as if she had thrown him a lifeline. Some people really feared silence.

Tal slipped from behind the cages and back into the crowd, tying the chicken by its neck to her belt. She covered it with her cloak but otherwise ignored it. Just another girl bringing dinner home for her family. She began towards the Old Docks, enjoying the sun on her face and allowed herself a smile. Today was a good day.