IT IS A LONG-SAID saying, and with good reason: “Workers are only as good as their tools.”
Prosatio Silban lifted down yet another old pot from the galleywagon’s ceiling-mounted rack, placed it among its fellows in an empty durian-crate, dropped his weary arms, and sighed.
I never thought I’d have to sell any of these implements in order to provide for myself, he thought. Fortunately, I can make do with what’s left.
It had been an unusually long economic drought. First his dray-beast had taken ill, then his galleywagon broke a leaf-spring, and the price of blue rice had almost doubled. Finally, it seemed that the only way to earn his keep was to turn used cookware into coin, thence into low-cost ingredients from which to fashion meals that would, he hoped, bring in more coin.
I have to start again somewhere, he thought with a grim grimace. And I hope Cadro Borsh gives me a decent-enough price. What else can I do?
His potential savior was one of a few who plied their circuitous trade throughout the Three Cities and Thousand Villages.
His potential savior was one of a few who plied their circuitous trade throughout the Three Cities and Thousand Villages of the Uulian Commonwell, buying cheaply here and selling dearly there. If still in good repair, the fruits of their journeys were repurposed; if not, and if applicable, they might be rendered down and remade into something elsewise useful.
And something useful is what I need, Prosatio Silban thought, reaching overhead for another vessel. But who is that banging on my door?
The cook frowned, dropped his arms, and cracked open the door’s top half. “Yes?” he almost barked.
A small boy glared up at him. “Matra wants to know when you’ll be open for business today,” he declared in a voice larger than his diminutive self.
Prosatio Silban slapped a civil smile on his face and slipped a tactful tone into his voice. “I should be open for lunch,” he said, turning back to his task. “You may tell your mother that today’s menu will be, as always, simple food and good.”
“Why?” cried the child.
“Why what?” the cook replied, taking hold of an old skillet.
“Why aren’t you open for break-fast? Matra is hungry now.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. I don’t have anything to cook yet.”
“But I’m hungry too! And I want to eat now!”
“I haven’t anything to feed you.”
“Now! Now! Now!” the boy shrieked, stamping both feet.
“Alright!” Prosatio Silban exclaimed, reaching down a cracked but well-mended stewpot and placing it in the crate. “Wait right there and I will fetch you some kobi-nuts.”
“I don’t like kobi-nuts!”
Then starve – and quickly! the cook-errant thought, “You and your Matra will have to break-fast somewhere else,” he said before laying another vessel in the crate. “I can’t feed you, and as you can see, I am otherwise busy.”
The boy made a rapid – and sniveling – retreat. Prosatio Silban, cast a hurried eye over his discarded collection of dented pots, chipped ironware, and rusty skillets. If this doesn’t work, I don’t know what else to do, he thought. In any case, that signature clattering tells me Cadro Borsh is near.
A two-wheeled zebra-drawn wagon approached, piled high with miscellaneous and no-longer-wanted items. A hand-lettered sign on the wagon’s side proclaimed CADRO’S CASTOFFS.
“The word, in this part of the city, is that you have something for me.”
“Ho there!” Cadro Borsh announced, reining his team and accosting Prosatio Silban in a rich baritone. “The word, in this part of the city, is that you have something for me.”
“Why yes,” the cook replied with a grin. “Yes, I have. Let me bring them out to you.” He opened wide both door-halves and emerged, carrying the laden crate. “Do what you will with the whole of it, so long as you do it for a good price.”
Cadro Borsh surveyed the crate’s bulky contents, nodded, and tossed the cook a sly wink. “I don’t suppose you’ll let me have all this for less than five in silver, will you?” he asked.
“If I had five in silver now, we’d not be conversing so amiably,” Prosatio Silban replied, and set the heavy crate on the ground. “Whoosh! You could melt them all down and sell the unrefined remains for six in silver. And that’d be a bargain.”
The discardier held the cook’s gaze for all of three heartbeats, and smirked. “Four,” he said.
The cook sighed his resignation. “Done.”
With great deliberation, Cadro Borsh counted out the agreed-upon sum, smiled, and added one more. “Only because I like you,” he said.
“You’ll like me even more when you sell my castoffs to any appreciative customers,” Prosatio Silban countered. He jingled his gains in one hand, slid them into his coin-purse, and lifted the crate onto the discardier’s wagon. “As always, it has been a pleasure to have and be your custom.”
* * *
It wasn’t until the next morning that the cook-errant realized matters had gone amiss.
He had just returned from purchasing with the prior day’s proceeds a modest yet essential set of ingredients (eggs of various kinds, a small pork belly, assorted hash-makings, two loaves of dense seedbread, loose yava leaves), set up his painted menu-board and taken his first break-fast order of the day. Whistling to himself, he one-handedly broke two eggs into a ceramic bowl, scrambled them, and reached up into the once-lush tangle of cookware dangling over his fatberry-oil stove.
My good beaten-copper skillet! he thought, sorting through the diminished rack Where could it be? I need it for these eggs. Isn’t it … it’s … no. Oh, no. NO!
He lowered his questing hands and scowled. “That damned child!” he grumbled. “Cadro Borsh must have gotten it while I was distracted. Well. I’ll simply have to get it back.”
* * *
“What do you mean you ‘don’t have it anymore?’” Prosatio Silban demanded. “You only bought it yestermorn!”
The discardier shrugged. “What can I say? It was the best of the lot, and it sold first thing. And for a nice price, I might add.”
“Where did you sell it? And to whom?”
“I can tell you exactly: Borela Mithoi, over to the Whistler’s Daughter.”
“That den of thieves? I’ll never get it back!”
“Well, she was happy to have it. But seeing as it was a mistake, I’ll go over there with you to explain matters. Right now in fact. She’s a recalcitrant old thing, but if two of us try, who knows?”
* * *
The squalid tavern served the sort of crowd one might expect for such a location.
Whistler’s Daughter was a ramshackle wooden structure neighboring epicurean Pormaris’ main docks, across the great lake-city’s funeral pyres from its legendary South Market. The squalid tavern served the sort of crowd one might expect for such a location: stevedores, barge-sailors, ferrymen, desperate porters, and mourners too consumed by grief to consume anything but strong drink – and plenty of it. Keeping its customers happy (and, where necessary, civil) was the unending chore of one Borela Mithoi: a one-eyed, ancient but burly woman who turned half a skeptical gaze on Prosatio Silban and Cadro Borsh as she chewed a wad of waking-leaf.
“I don’t know what ye’re talking about,” she said, and spat into the single rusty cuspidor. “What are ye looking for, again?”
The cook-errant made to reply, but was interrupted by Borela Mithoi’s sudden fury. “Ajat!” she roared. “Get away from that whoreson ale-barrel before I bite off yer hand!”
A shamefaced scowhand jerked away from the tap for which he had been surreptitiously reaching, and the disheveled taverness returned her attention to the two seekers. “Go it again,” she said.
“It appears thus,” Prosatio Silban said with care. “I was distracted from loading up a lot of secondhand cooking equipment, and added to that lot my favorite copper skillet …”
Borela Mithoi raised her hand and smiled. “No need to explain,” she said. “We all have soft spots for our best equipment. F’rinstance, I have a small – Oi! You there! Drop that tankard or else you’ll be swallowing it sideways! – Now. What was I saying?”
“You were about to give back to Master Prosatio here his copper skillet,” Cadro Borsh said.
“And I would, too,” agreed Borela Mithoi. “That is, if I still had it.”
“You mean you don’t?” Prosatio Silban said, his stomach tightening.
“I had to barter Olim Pali the coppersmith for a still-boiler. I wanted your skillet, you see, but I needed the boiler. And times being what they are …”
“Yes,” the cook-errant said, suppressing a weary groan. “They certainly are.”
Borela Mithoi laid a hand on his arm. “Don’t dismay! You’ll find Olim Pali in the South Market’s smithy quarter. He’ll not have parted with it.
* * *
“It pained me to part with it,” said Olim Pali with an apologetic sneer. “But times being what they are and all … You know.”
“All too well,” Prosatio Silban said with a sigh, and shook his head. “I don’t suppose you could tell me to whom you sold it?”
“Thuvi the Scaler – but I did tell her I wouldn’t tell anyone,” the coppersmith said. “Especially given what she paid me. I mean, seeing as it’s only hers by mistake, what’s the harm in asking?”
* * *
“So you still have his skillet?” Cadro Borsh prompted.
“Who told you I had it?” Thuvi demanded.
Prosatio Silban dropped his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “I told him I wouldn’t tell,” he breathed. “But times being what they are …”
“They certainly are,” Thuvi replied sourly. “And it was as fine a piece as ever I’ve seen.”
“Yes,” the cook said. “That’s why I want it back.”
“I can see why. I thought it a shame to take apart, even though the pan was the perfect size for half a large set of dry-goods scales.”
“I can appreciate that,” Prosatio Silban said.
“So you still have his skillet?” Cadro Borsh prompted.
The scaler shook her head. “I needed some coin to acquire beams on a rush order, so I sold it to Ulla Meopto across the way. He wanted it for his own projects. But that was this morning. He might still have it. But be swift – he works fast.”
* * *
Ulla Meopto’s booth was hung with jewelry: ear-, finger-, toe-, and nose-rings; bracelets; torcs; pendants – as fine a variety of metalcraft as could be hung from and crammed into an manheight-wide wooden stall. The jeweler himself had his back to the questing pair. Prosatio Silban, fearing the worst, cleared his throat, and Ulla Meopto spun about with an accommodating expression on his wizened face.
“Yes?” he said “Rings, armlets, chains, anklets – everything you could desire by way of shiny adornments. High value for a low price too! What’s your pleasure, gentlemen?”
“You have a copper skillet about so big,” Cadro Borsh began, holding his hands apart. “And it belonged to –”
“Had,” the jeweler interrupted.
“Pardon me?” Prosatio Silban asked, his heart sinking.
“I had a copper skillet. No more, though.”
“What happened to it?” asked the discardier.
“Horolo Dyari turned a covetous eye upon it. He’s the clockmaker? Two lanes over? Offered me enough coin that I could not gainsay him. Mighty nice piece of copper, that. If you hurry …”
* * *
I suppose this is the end of my search, he thought, turning away. I’ll just have to manage without it.
And so things went until late that afternoon: picking up a trail and finding that it led somewhere else – and by turns both hopeful and disappointing. They came to a large and well-stocked stall, under a sign reading GENTLY USED COOKWARE.
“Yes, I had it. I even thought to keep it,” the proprietor answered to their query. “But it doesn’t matter anyway. Someone nicked it when I wasn’t looking!”
Prosatio Silban felt bitter tears coming on. I suppose this is the end of my search, he thought, turning away. I’ll just have to manage without it.
“Thank you anyway,” he told Cadro Borsh. “I hope things go better for you, and me, and soon.”
* * *
NOW what am I to do? Prosatio Silban thought as he trudged back to his galleywagon. I have come full circle and ended in nothing. How many hands have gripped it? and how will it feel again – should the All-Limiter so decree – in my own?
As he hove within eyeshot of home, a jagged sound accosted his ears, On his galleywagon’s steps squatted the annoying youngster who had accosted him earlier the previous day – his hand clutching the object of Prosatio Silban’s daylong quest! He and another urchin were banging on the utensil and engaged in animated conversation; they looked up as the cook-errant approached.
“Where did you get that skillet?” Prosatio Silban demanded as the other boy fled.
“I found it,” came the defiant reply. “Why?”
“What will you take in trade for it?”
Taken aback, the child considered for a moment. At last he smirked. “Depends.”
Now it was Prosatio Silban’s turn to stew. “I will give you and your Matra free breaks-fast for a week,” he said after a pause.
“A week?”
“Did I say a week? I meant two.”
The boy pressed his lips together.
“Three. And that’s my final offer.”
The youthful adversary cocked his head. “The rainy Season of Huddling is almost here. Even then?”
“Even then,” the cook said, and extended a hand. “Shake.”
They shook, and the lad walked away panless, but with high-stepping gait.
All’s well that ends well, thought Prosatio Silban, once again hefting his favorite skillet. Especially when it ends that way for me.
(If you’re new to these tales, here are the preface and introduction. And if you want more of them, in two easy-to-read packages, here are the first and second e-books. Enjoy!)