There was an attic over the laundry, a loft area that was barely tall enough to allow him to walk hunched over, where old tubs and some of the laundry stores were kept. It got more than enough heat from the laundry below to be comfortably cozy and more than enough steam to keep down the dust. Here, Skif curled up inside an overturned wooden tub for extra concealment and dug into his purloined food.

He could, of course, have eaten three times what he’d stolen—but it was twice what he’d get at the tavern, and not only entirely edible, but tasty to boot.

With his stomach relatively full, he curled up in the tub for a nap. Here, and not in his cubby at the Hollybush, was where he could sleep in comfort and security. And he did.

2

2

No matter how comfortable he was, Skif slept like a cat, with one eye open and one ear cocked, in case trouble stole upon him, thinking to catch him unaware. So even though he didn’t know what woke him, when he woke, he came alert all at once, and instead of jumping to his feet, he stayed frozen in place, listening.

Wood creaked slightly, somewhere in the loft. Was it a footstep? The sound came again, a trifle nearer, then fabric brushed against something harder. There was someone up here with him.

Now, it wouldn’t be one of the laundry servants on proper business; they came up the stair, clumping and talking loudly. It might be a servant or a page come up here to nap or escape work—if it was, although Skif would have a slight advantage in that the other wouldn’t want to be caught, he had a profound disadvantage in that he didn’t belong here himself, and the other could legitimately claim to have heard something overhead and gone to investigate. If that was the case, he’d be stuck under this tub until the other person left.

It might also be something and someone entirely different—a thief, who wouldn’t want to be found any more than Skif did, who might flee, or might fight, depending on the circumstances, if Skif came out of hiding.

He didn’t know enough yet; better to wait. It was highly unlikely that the other would choose Skif’s particular tub to hide himself or anything else underneath. It was out of the way and smallish, and Skif had chosen it for precisely those reasons. Instead, he peered under the edge of it, as the surreptitious sounds moved closer, thanking his luck that it wasn’t dusty up here. Now would be a bad time to sneeze.