Mairelon the Magician by Patricia C. Wrede

She'd have to go in past Jamie's, then, and time things so he was busy with a customer. Small as she was, Kim would never be able to squeeze through. The wagon was close enough to Red Sal's to have scraped the paint off the side of the stall, had there been any paint to scrape. Toffs were trouble, no two ways, and a toff knowing enough to find Kim in the back streets of London…įirmly Kim brought her mind back to the business at hand. She wondered, not for the first time, whether she'd been wise to take this job. Jamie was more irritable but not so noticing. Even if 'lightening' wasn't exactly what Kim planned to do.

Sal was a good sort, but she wouldn't take kindly to having Kim lighten a wagon next to her. The wagoneer had bagged one of the best spots in the market, right between Jamie the Tailor and Red Sal's fish stand. The doors carried a rough painting of a man in a black top hat, with a string of incomprehensible but decorative letters just below him. Two large doors made up the end of the wagon that faced the street, and they were fastened with a rusty padlock. It was a wagon painted in sun-bleached yellow and gold, its tall red wheels half hidden by the stalls on either side.

Kim let the flow of traffic carry her closer to the market's most recent addition, eyeing it with a mingling of curiosity and professional appraisal. Still others walked through the crowd with baskets of turnips, apples, parsnips, onions, or cress, crying their wares in unmusical voices. The more fortunate among the sellers had permanent stalls others displayed their shoes or brooms or baskets on bare strips of pavement. Carts stood hub-to-hub along the sides of the street, leaving only narrow aisles for the customers. Though it was small by comparison to Covent Garden or Leaden-hall, it was very busy. She enjoyed the noise and bustle common to all the London markets, but Hungerford was her favorite. Kim walked slowly through the crowd, slipping in and out of the traffic almost without thinking.

Mairelon the Magician by Patricia C. Wrede