“Admirable—no doubt you sliced their price with that pointed little tongue of yours. There must be celebration, and now”—he tossed his purse three yards in the air and caught it on the descent, to the disappointment of a couple of eagerly watching urchins—“now we have the means to conduct ourselves properly at the Gray Mastiff tomorrow night. I hear that their wine is a symphony, and that for tuppence they will sell you a cream pudding the size of a bath. Many fine ladies and gentlemen put their powdered noses through the door, and it will do you no harm to be seen there—but first we must prepare to be worth their gaze. Your poor shoes must be resoled, and I fear that we will need a muzzle and leash for our leather-footed comrade—lest he commandeer another barge as he did the Mettlesome Maid.”

Somehow Mosca was left with the feeling that they had come into money, rather than just losing less than expected. Somehow it was almost impossible to remember that not very long before, Clent had been arguing bitterly against cobbling Mosca’s shoes or retrieving Saracen. Clent simply swept such memories away, with the impatience of someone shoving crockery aside so that he can spread a treasure map across a table. The facts fell to the floor with a fractured tinkle and were forgotten.

The leatherworker refused to cut the price of the muzzle and lead, even when Clent explained that Saracen had once saved Mosca’s life by dragging her out of a burning church and he now had to be muzzled to prevent him turning a violent beak upon himself for having failed to rescue the rest of her family. However, the leatherworker said it was a touching tale and that it did him good to laugh now and then. He gave them each a sip of gin, which made Mosca’s nose numb and lit a candle behind her breastbone. They bought a muzzle meant for a young foxhound. When Saracen shook his head, it rattled a bit but did not fall off.

The cobbler enjoyed the tale as well, particularly with the addition of two storms and a gypsy conspiracy. Despite Clent’s insistence that Mosca had worn her soles thin on a pilgrimage to a hilltop shrine to Goodman Claspkin to pray for her dead family, the cobbler would not cut his price either. However, after he had stitched on Mosca’s new soles he gave them half an oyster pie to break between them. They cupped it in their hands and munched it on the way back to the marriage house, the juices running down their chins.

Only as they reached their rooms did Clent’s manner sober a little. “My mind seems alive with ideas this evening, and I must spear them with my quill. I am sure I can rely upon you not to interrupt me.”