The street was anything but deserted, despite the darkness. People came and went from cookshops and taverns, groups of young toughs strolled about looking for whatever they could get into, streetwalkers sauntered wherever there was a bit of illumination, with their keepers (if they had one) lurking just out of sight of potential customers. There were ordinary working men and women, too, coming home late from their jobs. For a bit it would only be a little more dangerous to be out on the street than it was during the day.

Skif had figured that this “Jarmin” would be somewhere nearby, but apparently he was wrong. They must have gone a good ten blocks before Lyle made a turn into a dead-end street that was very nicely lit up indeed.

If the dim and sullen Hollybush had been at one extreme of the sorts of taverns frequented by the poor, this was at the other. The whole back of the cul-de-sac was taken up by a tavern blazing with tallow-dip lights; that had torches in holders right outside the door, and light spilling from parchment-covered windows. There was music, raucous laughter, the sounds of loud talk. A group of men were betting on a contest between two tomcats out in the street, and with them were three or four blowsy females of negotiable virtue, hanging on their arms and cheering on the two oblivious cats.

On either side of the tavern were shops, still open. Skif never got a chance to see what the one on the left sold, because they turned immediately into the one on the right.

This was their goal; an old-clothes shop that specialized in fancy goods of all sorts, but mostly for women. Skif had a shrewd idea where most of the females from the tavern spent their hard-earned coins.

Jarmin, a perfectly ordinary, clerkly sort of fellow, had an assistant to help him, and when he saw Lyle entering the front door, he left the customer he was attending to the assistant and ushered them both into the rear of the shop.

“Have you got sleeves?” Jarmin asked, as soon as he dropped the curtain separating front from back behind them. “I particularly need sleeves. And veils. But particularly sleeves. And I don’t suppose you’ve got silk stockings—”

Lyle shrugged out of his pack, and Skif did the same. “Aye, Jarmin, all uv that. This’s Skif; ’e’s wi’ us now. I’m be showin’ ’im th’ way uv things.”

“Yes, yes.” Jarmin dismissed Skif entirely, his attention focused on the packs. “You know, if you just have some good sleeves and stockings, I can sell a dozen pairs tonight, for some reason—”