Bob The Innkeeper

"Oh, good, you"re still open. I was hoping you would be!" she said tenderly, sending him a soft smile as she looked around.

"Good evening, Primrose. How are the kids doing?" he asked, smiling back to her. Trudy moved back over to the stairs, and sat down.

"Oh, hungry as ever," she chuckled gently.

"Have you seen my new soup kitchen? It"s only a copper coin for a bowl of soup, unless you have something to contribute to the pot," explained Robert.

"Oh, that sounds wonderful, the only problem is, with seventeen mouths, that"s a lot of copper coins. I appreciate the offer, but I think I"m stuck with making my own daily soup for them."

"Well, if you could contribute something…" he tried, then gave up. It would end up costing her too much to be able to try that. "I have a lot of things for sale, over there, if you"re interested."

"Oh! That"s wonderful! How much are these here?" she asked, touching some of the squash he had picked out of the trash. They were bruised and battered, but still in one piece.

"Two for a copper," he said, thinking he might be able to make something out of them, since he had paid four copper for all of the items on the shelf.

"Could I get this onion thrown in for the two copper, as well?" she asked, picking up the tiny yellow onion. It was pretty sorry, looking to have maybe been stepped on.

"Of course," he said, watching as she slowly placed them all into her bag with old, wrinkled hands after she handed him the two copper coins. "Primrose," he called, before she headed back out into the dark.

"Yes?" she paused turning to look at him.

"Do any of those kids of yours, know how to do anything? Have they learned a trade yet? Surely, with seventeen, some of them are old enough to do something."

She thought carefully before shaking her head. "I wish I could say they did, but dear, I take in the smallest of orphans. The ones that sometimes still need their momma"s milk when I get them. By the time they get old enough to do something, like you say, they"ve left my pitiful hut for some of the gangs. Not many make it that far, especially with winter coming on, and that sickness we just had."

"Oh," said Robert, deflating. Those kids would be far too young for anything he had in mind.

"Why, dear? Did you have something in mind?"

"I was thinking of hiring some hard workers for menial tasks, but I don"t have anything for kids that young."

"I saw that you took in the four Warsaw kids. They are the talk of the whole town; about how lucky they are to have gotten such good jobs."

She hefted her bag for a moment as she thought a moment. "How about I send some of the older street kids, who still stop by occasionally, your way? The ones I think would be good workers, and less likely to steal and skip out on work?"

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"That would be great! Thanks, Primrose," he said, smiling as she left.

"What did you have in mind for them?" asked Trudy, watching him as he went to drink the broth in his bowl.

"If I can train them to look through the trash from the merchants, I wouldn"t need to do it myself."

"Aren"t you afraid of getting the trash people mad at you?" she asked.

"I"m not taking all of their trash, only some of it, so no. As long as I pay the merchant for what is taken, no one can get mad at me, because the law states that I can purchase from other merchants."

"It seems to me that there are a lot of laws protecting merchant transactions in the city," she remarked.

"There are, because this city was founded by merchants who wanted to make this town a trade hub for the kingdom."

"Wow, I never knew that."

"When my father came to this town, he was as poor as Primrose. But he learned the merchant laws and fought his way to the top. There isn"t a merchant that has done as much as my dad in the whole city."

The four Warsaw kids were lounging on the floor, in front of the fire, dozing after eating their supper. It wouldn"t be long before he closed up shop, but he was waiting until Liam came in. He would close up the soup kitchen when there was no one left in line for some.

"You have a soft heart," said Trudy with a small smile.

"What does that mean?" asked Robert, looking at her suspiciously.

"Whenever you see someone in a hard situation, you try to help, no matter the danger to yourself."

"Oh, no! I don"t like danger. I may try to help people, but you won"t see me out there, putting my life at risk. I"m just fine right here, behind my counter, selling wares to people."

"Really? You aren"t even the smallest bit interested in anything else?" she asked, that small smile still playing along her lips and in the crinkles of her eyes.

Liam came in, before Robert could do much more than grunt at her, which caused her to chuckle.

"I closed and locked the doors to the shed, moved the soup pot off the fire, covered it and banked the fire for morning. We may want to think about doing something else, though. The weather"s fixing to turn bad, and all those people will be standing around in the cold eating, or waiting for their food."

Robert sighed. He had been thinking about what the servant had said about not wanting to rub shoulders with the adventurers and poor people. He also wanted to expand the shop, to be able to carry more things. Locking the door, he moved back with the others to the fire and sat down.

"It gets cold by the door," said Trudy as she sat down and snuggled next to Liam. He looked very tired, and Robert wondered what he was doing that was so tiring.

"I think I"m going to have to talk to the builder"s guild tomorrow. I want to expand the store and maybe move the fire to a stove in the middle."

"I know that we just rearranged the store not too long ago, but I had to stop three people today, who were trying to steal stuff from us. Maybe we need to move everything back behind the counter out of reach?" said Trudy, pulling a blanket over her and Liam, who had started snoring softly.

"I like for people to be able to look through the things they may want to buy, but I agree we can"t be letting everyone steal things."

As Trudy fell silent, Robert looked up, hearing a board squeak above him. With a sigh, he stood up and made his way up the stairs. The girl was sitting on the side of the bed he used to sleep on, watching him approach in the dim light.

"Thank you for letting me hide here for a bit. I"m honestly not sure what I"m going to do," she said, sounding so miserable Robert was reminded of Trudy"s words of him being soft hearted.

"Why are you in so much trouble?" he asked, sitting on the floor at the top of the stairs so that she couldn"t leave, except by going past him.

"My master found out that I no longer had my ring on my finger. When he requested to see it, I ran. I was too afraid to try and explain to him what had happened. I know that I owe you still, but my pay has been cut and I"ve only been able to save 5 copper. Lord Richmond now requires his servants pay him for room and board, instead of it being included for his servants."

Robert scrunched his brow. That was illegal. The city law was very precise in what was required, so that there was a clear different in indentured servants and paid servants. The lines had become so blurry a decade ago, that the rules were laid out very plainly. If the lord was breaking those laws, he could get in a lot of trouble.

The problem wasn"t that he was breaking laws, it was that Lord Clark Richmond had his fingers in just about everything around the city.

"You can"t go back without that ring, or you will be hung as a thief. He"s already got a bounty on your head," said Robert, remembering what Trudy had said.

"They"ll hang me?" she squeaked in terror, her eyes going wide.

"Let me see what I can do, since I was the one you traded the ring to. I might be able to do something. There"s a few laws I might be able to use, but it would require you to work for me."

She nodded quickly. "Oh! Please! If there"s anything you can do to help, I don"t mind working for you! I don"t want to hang!"