“A Huddle-close Yarn” is an interlude — a kind of tide-me-over — between seasons of The Thief. Listen or read the story entirely out of context: it is spoiler free, and it doesn’t require having listened to the first season.
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A Huddle-close Yarn
Okay. I have one — a story. My turn.
This one is about one my wards, just like you, who sat just where you sit now some years ago. A mother, even an unconventional one like me, has no favorites - but this little girl, who was small, and cunning, and fast, and who I called Ferret, was — is — very dear to me.
The solstice had come or was soon to come and winter was making it hard for those of us who run free. The youngest of us, who couldn’t fend for themselves, whimpered through the night, hungry.
Often, I was awake to calm them. I gave what little we had, but sometimes the days are long and you know how deeply a sleep can take you. So, on the night when our story starts, I slept.
But Symphony ... - Ferret was awake. She calmed them and gave her the last of her bread. In these too-small, too-hungry faces, she saw an injustice.
The world isn't fair. Injustice is the way of things. You can’t stop the sea from swelling. All you can do is help others into the boat. But Ferret was too certain of the shadow she cast, and she let this injustice obsess her. Poison her.
That night she ran away.
The world is cruel, and to the wolves who prowl, a young Ferret lost in the wild looks sumptuous. I looked for her. We all did. But there are many little mouths to feed. So we mourned her loss, and continued our charitable work.
Then the first gift arrived: potatoes in a sack left in a dead drop, a secret place that only the older children knew about.
Then fresh fruit. Fresh. In winter. What luxury.
Then silver pennies in a pouch: one hundred of them.
Then — a thousand.
Even, once, a broach with a fine engraving of a flowering vine.
Now, on the far side of the city, a rich family of some noble flavor called the Beresfords was suffering greatly.
They owed a great debt, a blood debt, for their second son had done something grave. But his rich father bribed the law as rich fathers sometimes do.
Those debt collectors came by, and Master Beresford found in the hidden compartment behind a gold-leafed painting - that there was no silver there to pay them. He looked in all his secret places, shook down his staff, yelled and harangued - but there was nothing. Cobwebs. Crickets.
So the Birdhawks, the court haldæn, dragged the second son of the Beresfords away, screaming. Master Beresford wept and begged, fell to his knees, shivered.
Then turned his eyes to his eldest son who had been vocal against the crimes of his brother, which now appeared to Master Beresford like jealousy, greed. Spite enough to not only surrender his own kin but spoil the entire family. The treachery. The sin!
Master Beresford killed his eldest son. Then himself.
And what was left of the Beresfords drifted away.
Some time after, our little Ferret returned home. She stood straighter. She carried herself high. She was even more certain of the long shadow she cast — and she wasn’t wrong: the shadow she threw across the courtyard that night was deep.
So, when the welcome-homes were over and it was just us, I asked: "Were you the one leaving us all these rich gifts?"
"What gifts?" she answered.
"You weren’t leaving us money?" I asked.
"What money?" she answered.
Life returned to normal. There were no more gifts, but because of them we were warm when it was cold, and there weren’t any more hunger pangs.
Then, next Winter, a young girl, about the age of our Ferret, found us. "I have nowhere to go," she said, as many do.
She did not have the skills I seek, but she had a noble bearing. Not quite a swan, so I called her Goose.
Because she looked like she belonged in clean, well-tailored clothes, I asked her to help us take the things that would be suspicious of an urchin to sell at market. Tell them, “I want to buy mother a gift,” and make them believe it.
So I gave her this broach I had trouble parting with, which had an engraving of a flowering vine.
And Goose's eyes grew wide.
"How did you get this?!" She demanded.
I was careful not to answer for a long time. I summoned little Ferret.
Ferret came. Face kind. Her shadow, long.
“Goose would ask you a question,” I started.
"Do you know where this broach came from?," Goose asked.
"No. I have never seen it before.” Ferret said. “It is very pretty. Is that a flower?”
"Goose," I asked, "have you ever seen Ferret before? Does she seem familiar?"
Goose stared. I wonder what it is she saw. The two of them, to me, standing only feet from another in profile. But the fire was at Ferret’s back. "No, I … - I don't think so," Goose decided.
Huh. I must have lost myself, for little Ferret caught me staring. She held my gaze. She held it too long.
Goose wiped the tears from her face, resigned. We knew nothing about this broach, just that it came into our possession, as so many trinkets do. She said nothing. She sold the broach to a rich madam.
Do you understand the meaning of this story?
Do you?
It is getting late and it is time to turn in. Good night.
Furbelow
Written and produced by Michael Schofield
Performed by Emily Morse-Lee (BlueSky, YouTube)
Music by Tabletop Audio (see usage statements).
The Thief is produced by the fyrd: our thegns Nandi K, Amzylee, Trei Brundrett, Andy McLellan, Eudico, Rebekah Monson, Andy Priestner, Mike Atchley, Patrick Myers, and Cordelia Black.
You can join the fyrd and help me make this stuff through Substack or Patreon.
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