![]() The ladies were well-guarded by a couple of stout footmen with cudgels. ![]() There was no point hankering after those particular jewels though. The jewels that just one of them was wearing round her neck would have bought her a dozen pair of boots with enough left over for a hearty feed at the alehouse to boot, even after Conard the fence had taken his cut, greedy, grasping old rascal that he was. If the men were dressed finely, the women were dressed even finer, she thought, as a couple of ladies minced past her on their way to their coach. Their soft, leather boots - how she envied them their boots. The jewels she would rather have than not, but it was their boots she lusted after with all her heart and soul. Their fingers were loaded down with glittering jewels, and, best of all, no doubt their boots had been made specially for their feet. No, the men dressed in fine buckskin breeches and fine white linen shirts and wore powdered, curled wigs on their heads. Here, people didn’t wrap their feet in rags for the want of a pair of boots, or wear filthy breeches and coarse woolen shirts that would fall to pieces if they were ever washed. She stuck out in this area of town as she never did in her own shabby quarter. She drew her cloak around her with a bravado she did not feel. That was as much morality as she could afford. She would rather steal from those would could well afford it than take bread from the mouths of those who were just as poor and hungry as she was. If they would not give it to her, she would steal it without compunction. Even less did they like to have a tiny portion of their wealth stolen from them, though what was a mite of luxury to them might well mean the difference between life and death to her.Īs far as she was concerned, wealthy folk could spare her a little out of their excess. Wealthy folk didn’t like to share what they had with those who needed it. The pickings were richer here, though the danger was greater as well. She was invading the areas where the wealthy merchants and the gentry lived. ![]() The streets were starting to get wider now and the cobbling less rough, though the cobblestones were not noticeably cleaner. She did not want to be caught unprepared by an early snow. Judging by the chill in the air, winter was well on its way. Starvation would kill her just as swiftly and surely as blackened, rotten feet would.īy whatever means possible, she had to have those boots and she wanted them tonight. If she didn’t have boots, she’d have no way to make a living during the dark days of winter. If she didn’t have boots, she’d be stuck inside all winter long. She wasn’t going to let that happen to her. Their toes festered in the cold, turning black and ill smelling, until the poison from the evil humors in their feet made them sick and they died. She’d seen it happen time and time again for those poor souls who lived on the street and were too clumsy or too foolish to steal themselves a pair of boots. She needed boots for the coming winter or her heels would crack until they festered, and her wicked, red chilblains would return with a vengeance at the first hint of snow on the streets, itching her to the point of madness. That was, indeed, the reason for her mission tonight. She had no boots – they had finally fallen apart the week before so badly that no mending was possible – and her feet were wrapped only in rags. Just one false step and she would find herself up to her ankles in slime and mud. It had rained early that evening, washing down the raised cobbles, but making them slippery and treacherous. Miriame stepped carefully on the raised middle of the road, avoiding the edges where the muck thrown from the overhanging second and third stories of the houses pooled into a reeking mass of filthy mud. ![]() Only the barest hint of moonlight glimmered through the thick clouds that lay heavily over the sky, reaching down with foggy tendrils to drift over the very rooftops of the houses that lined the way on each side of the roughly cobbled road. The air was fetid with the stench of the open sewers that ran through the narrow streets.
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