Lara took the still-warm loaf and put it in a small market basket. Then she hurried to the hovel next to theirs where Mistress Mildred, a widow, lived with her son, Wilmot. “Susanna has sent you a nice warm loaf,” she called out as she entered the room. “She wonders if you can watch Mikhail again today. We are going to the mercer’s to purchase cloth for Da’s application garments.”
“So it’s true then,” the old woman said, coming forward and taking the loaf from the basket. “He’s going to enter the tourney. Well, I’ll be sorry to see you all go. He has been a good neighbor, and his mother before him. Where did he get the coin for such an expensive undertaking?”
“Are you so certain Da will win a place in the Crusader Knights?” Lara replied, avoiding the query neatly.
“Of course he’ll win!” Mistress Mildred said. “He’s the finest swordsman in the land, child. Did your grandmother not always say it? And everyone else?”
“Then you’ll watch Mikhail?” Lara gently pressed her.
“I’ll be over in just a few moments,” Mistress Mildred responded, and Lara was swiftly gone out the door.
Warning Susanna of the old lady’s curiosity, she and her stepmother were quickly on their way as soon as Mistress Mildred stepped into the hovel.
“We’ll not be too long,” Susanna promised.
“Take your time,” Mistress Mildred called after them. “Remember you must choose the right fabrics and colors for your man if he is to make a good impression.”
They left the Quarter and traveled through the City to the Merchants Quarter where the mercers were to be found. Why they should be recognized Lara never understood, but they obviously were as soon as they stepped over the threshold of the first shop. The mercer oozed with goodwill. His apprentices tumbled over one another to unroll bolts of fabric for Susanna. They snuck looks at Lara from beneath their lashes. The bargain struck between John Swiftsword and Gaius Prospero was publicly known now, for the Master of the Merchants was already seeking to drum up interest among the owners of the Pleasure Houses.
They looked at what the first mercer had to offer, and then moved on to two more shops, but Lara was not satisfied with the quality of fabrics being shown. Her grandmother had once been in the service of a magnate’s wife as a seamstress. She had passed her knowledge of fabrics on to her only grandchild. And when they were in the Quarter’s market square she had also instructed Lara in the fine art of bargaining. Susanna, a country girl, was not good at haggling for she had never had any experience in it as her father’s daughter, and Lara still did most of the marketing for the household.
Walking on, they almost missed a small shop squeezed between two larger and more ostentatious ones. Susanna was not inclined to enter, for it looked a poor place with its dirty window, and a door that hung, but barely, from a single hinge. However, Lara gently insisted that until they found the perfect fabrics no establishment, even one so unfortunate looking, could be overlooked.
“You are probably right,” she told her stepmother, “but we must look anyway.”
The inside of the shop looked little better than the outside. It was dim and dusty, but when the ancient mercer hobbled forward Lara’s instincts told her they had come to the right place. “We are looking for silver brocade,” she said.
“I have precisely what you seek,” the mercer replied politely. His voice was strong for one whose limbs were so frail. Reaching up, he brought a bolt of fabric off a shelf and unfurled it on the counter before their eyes. The silk brocade was cloth of silver, and its raised design was of sky-blue velvet. The quality was excellent, the finest they had seen this morning.
“It’s perfect!” Lara breathed, turning to her stepmother. “Isn’t it perfect?” She fingered the beautiful material.
“I have never seen anything so fine,” Susanna agreed softly.
The old mercer smiled slyly, showing his worn and yellowed teeth. “It would make an applicant for the tourney more than presentable, my ladies. And I have a fine, matching blue silk that would sew up nicely into a pair of more than elegant trunk hose.”
“And velvet for a cap?” Lara said quietly.
The mercer nodded. “And I know where you can obtain an excellent selection of plumes.” The twinkle in his eyes was not quite human. His gaze met Lara’s for a long moment while Susanna was murmuring over the cloth. Then he looked at her chain and its star, and nodded. “Ilona’s star,” he whispered.
“You knew my mother?” Lara murmured softly.
“Once, long ago,” was the reply. “Like you, I am half faerie, though few live today who would know my heritage.” Then he was all business once again. “Will you take the brocade, lady?” he asked Susanna.
She nodded. “And the silk and the velvet as well.”
“You have not asked the price,” he said.
Susanna blushed at her ignorance, and stammered. “I must have them,” she said weakly. She looked nervously to Lara.
“And the mercer will be more than fair, stepmother, will you not, sir?” Lara quickly put in.
“If I am fair then the wife of the new Crusader Knight will patronize my shop again,” the old man responded. “Your husband will need many fine garments, as will you and your little son.”
“You know I have a lad?” Susanna looked surprised.
“Everything that can be known about John Swiftsword is known in the City, lady. We have been waiting for this day.” He measured out the length of brocade she would need, and quickly cut it. Then he did the same for the pale blue silk, and the medium blue velvet. Wrapping the materials together in a piece of clean rough cloth he tied the packet shut with a bright piece of yarn, and handed it to her. “If the lady will wait I will write her a receipt,” the mercer told Susanna. “A second receipt, signed with your mark, will be sent to Avram the goldsmith. The amount will be deducted from the credit your husband has with Avram.”
Susanna was half in shock with the transaction. She had never bought anything in a shop like this in all her life. She looked helplessly to Lara.
“It is stuffy in here, stepmother,” the girl said. “Go outside and take the air. I will sign the mercer’s receipt, and learn where we may find feathers for Da’s cap.”
“Yes, I think I will go outside,” Susanna replied. “Thank you, stepdaughter.” Taking up her package, she departed the little shop.
Slowly the ancient mercer wrote out the two receipts. He pushed one forward, and handed the young girl the slender charcoal writing stick. It was almost entirely worn away, but Lara was still able to sign her name to the little parchment. Lara, daughter of John Swiftsword of the Quarter, she wrote in her best hand.
“Thank you, sir,” she said, taking up her receipt as she pushed his toward him.
“Love and light be always in your path, daughter of Ilona,” the mercer said, and he personally ushered her through the door of his shop. “You will find the feather merchant two lanes over. Choose a hawk’s feather for it will bring your father additional good fortune. Your stepmother will want a more showy plume, but be certain your will prevails in the matter. One feather. No more.”
“I understand,” Lara responded, and then the shop door closed behind her and she rejoined her stepmother, who waited in the street. “Come,” she said to Susanna. “He has told me where to find the feather merchant.”
As the old mercer had predicted her father’s young wife wanted the largest, whitest plume she saw. “Think how fine it will look with the blue velvet of your father’s cap, Lara,” she said