Chapter 9 – A Shiny Conundrum
"Nnngghhhh."
The sacrifices we make for those we… care about. He wouldn't say the "l" word, he wasn't sure either of them were anywhere near that. But he definitely felt.. fond… of her.
Right now, it was a pain in the neck. And the back. In fact, he hurt pretty much all over from sleeping on the thin pad on a very hard floor. It had not been an easy night.
First he had stuffed himself as quickly as possible. He was starving! Myria had insisted on sitting with him, and had been by turns fascinated and horrified. If he hadn't been so hungry, some of her facial expressions would have put him off his dinner.
Then had come the part he dreaded, explaining things to his uncle Pars. That had gone strangely well. His uncle had listened to him stutter through a summary of the day's events with practically no expression. When Jonathon told him the quandary he was in, his uncle had actually laughed. Laughed!
"Jonny, I have loved you like my own son since your father died. But there are days I think you used all your brains on your recipes and left none for anything else." This was not at all what Jonathon had expected, and it showed in his expression.
"Jonny boy understand, nobody, and I mean nobody, will believe that a posh society lady like our Lady LeJean ever spent the night above a bakeshop. Now, if you had stayed there, tongues would have been wagging up and down King's Way for weeks." He chuckled to himself. "But as it stands, she can sleep in your room and none the wiser." Again with a twinkle in his eye. "Of course, I 'spect you will handle yourself as your dear father, bless his bones, would have expected. I'll get you some blankets, and you can sleep on the floor."
Jon was left standing with his mouth agape. His uncle threw a final remark over his shoulder. "Thank me now, you probably won't by morning."
Jon awoke feeling like he had been dragged behind a coach. The pallet was hard, for one thing. For another, Myria's hand kept wandering over to his arm in the night and sinking her fingernails into it! Around two in the morning she had come half awake in a terror, her mouth wide open trying to scream but unable to get any sound out. That had scared the night soil out of Jon. It had taken several terrified seconds to get her to breathe, and the better part of an hour before they worked through the sobs and got her calm enough to lie down again.
Now it was well and truly morning, and he was already behind on the baking. "Hrrggg.." He groaned as he rolled over, working some of the ache out of his neck, and looked at an empty bed. And panicked.
He had to have been quite a sight as he flung himself down the stairs into the bakery. Wild-eyed, stiff, and wearing the clothes he'd slept in, he staggered into… a busy bakery full of customers, with his uncle's family in full swing and Myria… looking fresh as a daisy damn her, sitting behind the counter chatting animatedly with his uncle Pars like they were old friends.
"Jonathon!" she laughed as she scurried around the counter toward him. The rest of the room had expressions ranging from shock at his state to amusement. Uncle Pars just rolled his eyes and motioned him to go back upstairs. Myria followed him.
Once upstairs, she smiled at him again, and then frowned. "Jonathon, you look… unwell. Did you not enjoy your extra sleep? I did not want to wake you, and Uncle Pars said you would be better for the extra rest."
"Extra…?" Argh. Jon took a deep breath and let it out. "Ah, yes. Thank you, that was very thoughtful of you." I am NOT sleeping on the floor again though. Then he managed to get past his own misery and consider her appearance as well.
Fresh as a daisy? Well not quite. She was obviously happy, and better rested than he was somehow. But her straight black hair was gone, replaced by a dark frizzy mass. And her alabaster skin still had the shadows of what looked to be poorly applied makeup on it. Her clothes were actually quite elegant, but it was clear she had slept in them. Hmm…
She continued to wait for him to finish his thought, putting on what he would have called a "game smile" that was hopeful but not quite sure which way things were going.
"Ok, here is what we are going to do. First off, you go back downstairs and enjoy yourself. I am going to have a word with my cousin Jessica. I think you deserve a bit of pampering." Her eyes lit up at that. "Now, do you have any money easily available?"
She looked thoughtful, and dug in the recesses of her dress, pulling out a small purse from which she extracted.
"Gahhh…!" He said, and she almost dropped the small gold bar in surprise. He grabbed her hands and the bar, shoving it back in the bag. "Have you been carrying that around everywhere?"
"Well, I used to have more, but I spent some on the hotel and the house. Is it not enough?" She was looking a bit panicked now.
"Not enough?" Deep breath in… slow exhale out. If he lost it, she would just go right with him and he suspected she was better at it than he was. "Myria" He put his hands on her shoulders. "It is not safe to carry actual gold around. Haven't you noticed what passes for money in this city? At best the higher denominations could be called "goldish". There's more gold in seawater for Sekh's sake." Her eyes widened as that sunk in. Then her innate abilities supplied the rest.
"Oh… oh dear. This is, I could buy your shop with this!"
That one actually hurt, and he recoiled. He could even feel the response bubbling up. Luckily, he looked at her face before he answered. There was not an ounce of guile or gloating there, just the eureka of learning something surprising.
"Ah. Yes you probably could. But, it is not considered polite to point that out."
She looked contrite and her voice lowered to a whisper. "I am sorry Jonathon, I did not mean to be impolite."
"It's ok. I know."
"No, it is not ok. It is… a problem I have. I do not know the right things to say and when I should not say what I am thinking. I will probably do it many more times." She looked thoughtful again. Jon found her honesty actually more touching than had she tried to explain it away, or make light of it, or even if she had just apologized and promised never to do it again.
He took her hands and looked at her carefully. "You don't really know how to lie, do you?"
She laughed, mostly at herself. "Oh, I can do that. I lie to myself all the time. It is almost automatic. And I lied to…" Her voice petered out and she looked down, adding quietly. "Can we talk about that later? It is complicated, and it hurts."
Yes of course." He gave her hands a squeeze. "Back to the matter at hand. You are going to not carry this around. I am going to give you some actual money and figure out how to turn this into Ankh Morpork dollars."
He brought her back over to his small bedroom and sat her down on the bed. "So stay right here for a minute. Don't go anywhere, and I'll be right back."
"Jessica!" he yelled down the stairs.
A few seconds later, his young cousin Jessica popped up the stairs. Good, maybe she would have the energy to keep up with Myria. He was already running on fumes, and it wasn't even lunch!
Jessica was a moderately pretty girl, though it was obvious from her build and hands that she was no stranger to work. She was solidly built, not a waif or consumptive looking but also not overly padded either. At sixteen, she was as curvaceous as she was going to be. Her brown hair was braided and tied up so it didn't get into the bread.
Helping in the bakery since she was very young had given her a pretty good appreciation of both honest labor and the scarcity of money. They were by no means poor, the bakery was in a well-to-do area and the clientele had money to spend. But they were not rich. She had never acted silly or vain about her appearance or clothes, but he was aware that she knew what the local styles were. Better than he ever could.
He could trust her not to go completely off the rails, a reliable lass like her.
"Yes Jonny? Is Myria ok?"
He blinked. How much did she know about all this? "Er, yes she's fine. How much did your pa tell you about Myria?"
She smiled wide "A bit cousin, a bit. And I chatted with her this morning. She is a strange one, but I always thought that was part of being rich." She giggled a little. "And pa told me to watch out for her so no one took advantage of her." She lowered her voice conspiratorially; "He said she's a smidge simple when it comes to people."
"Ah." No point in getting in a huff over his young cousin's take on things. "I'm betting those were not his exact words, but close enough. Yes I'd appreciate any help looking after her that – "
"So are you going to ask her to marry you?" She interrupted him, smiling wickedly. His mouth dropped open and she threw in a theatrical sigh. "It would be just like a fairy tale. The poor honest tradesman and the foreign princess!"
He gaped like a fish for a few seconds more, then managed "Jessie wha – that isn't – " before she interrupted again.
"Oh I'm playing of course, you silly. But don't pretend I didn't see you mooning after her every time she came by the bakery. And running off every evening. And baking things all special for her." She rolled her eyes. "Pa said you were the only one in the family that didn't know what you were about."
It hadn't been like that at all! At least… He sighed.
"Ok fine, everyone is smarter than me. Especially you. Which is why I need your help. Myria needs a day of pampering, and I need someone. Someone female. To go with her." Jessica smiled even wider.
"Ooo… a girls day out! This is going to be so awesome!"
"Right, right, just don't go completely crazy. I was thinking a hair thing, and one of those makeup places, and some clothes. You know, something a bit more colorful but not too..." She was rolling her eyes at him again. "What?"
"Seriously Jonny, do you think you need to spell it all out for me? I am a girl you know. Like you even have half an idea what to even call it, much less how it's done. A hair thing? It's a sa-lon. Say it with me. Saalloooonnnn. Trust me!"
Suddenly he wasn't so sure about this. But he really had no choice. He had to get Myria out from underfoot for a while, and he needed some time to get his own bearings and then he needed to talk to someone about what 'enough information.' really meant.
"Now, who's got the money?"
His uncle Pars found him in the small sitting area on the second floor a few minutes after Myria and Jessica had left, giggling and chatting like schoolgirls despite the fact that Myria was probably a half decade older. Or was she? He realized that he had no idea how old she was in fact.
And he had raided the shop's savings. Cleaned them out in fact. Jessica's eyes had widened at that, but she had kept her mouth shut as he handed it over to her keeping.
"Don't spend it all in one place." he had mumbled.
So Pars, a big, no-nonsense kind of man, had come up to find him. He had seen Myria and Jessica leave the shop, and based on what he heard, they would be out most of the day. He figured Jon might need some advice.
"Hey Jonny boy, how are you-" Jonny was sitting on the bare wooden floor, his back against the wall. A few feet in front of him, sitting in the middle of the room, was a velvety-looking bag with something vaguely brick-like in it. Jonny was staring at it like it might attack him if he moved. Pars caught a bit of the fever, stopped, and asked carefully. "Jonny, why are you sitting on the floor… and staring at… whatever that is?"
Jonny didn't move his eyes. "I took all our savings."
"You took all our savings…" It wasn't a question. "Ok boy, and you put them in that bag?" Was he losing it?
"No uncle. I gave it all to Jessie."
Pars coughed, but barely looked rattled. That's how rattled he was. He said in that calm voice you save for someone perched on the ledge of a tall building. "I see. You gave almost five hundred A-M dollars to a sixteen year old girl and sent her out on the town. Yes. Yes I… And of course, this makes sense because?"
"Myria needed to visit the… salon. And she didn't have any actual money. And I trusted Jessie with it."
Now his uncle looked a little concerned, which was his equivalent of hysteria.
"Boy, and don't take this the wrong way, but are you telling me Myria has no actual money? And you just gave her our savings? Son, I know you thought she was rich, but is it possible…" Jonny was starting to giggle a bit. He always knew he was in trouble when his uncle called him 'son'. But at this point it really looked like he and Myria were swapping places on the cuckoo tree.
"Look in the ba" – cough – "look in the bag."
His uncle looked even more worried. "What is it? Is it some kind of charm or spell?"
"No, just… I can't even say the words. Just look ok uncle? Then you can… Just look."
Pars eased forward, and carefully lifted the edge of the small bag. Jonny held his breath. One, two, three. And Pars gently let the bag close, straightened up, and stepped back. He cleared his throat.
"I see. Yes. No money. Not a cent on her I suspect."
"No sir. No money at all."
"Just that."
"Yes sir."
"And so she gave it to yo – "
Jonny laughed, a little forced. "I told her to give it to me."
"Right. Right. And then you gave her…"
"Five hundred A-M."
They both looked at the bag for a few seconds, like it might explode or creatures from the dungeon dimensions might come out of it and eat their livers.
"Jonny boy, that can not stay here. Do you have any idea how much money that is? People would burn the shop down with us in it to get to it."
"I know! I know! And she was carrying it around with her! All over the city! Without guards or anything! Gods I'm surprised she survived. I had to take it away from her!"
"Ok ok boy, settle down." Deep breath. "Yes, you did the right thing. Only thing you could do I suppose. The only problem now is, what in blazes do we do with it?"
"I was hoping you would know that uncle. I mean—"
"Jonny, I have in my decades, never had the pleasure to handle, smell, see or even imagine that much gold in one place. I have not the first clue what to do with it. What I do know." and he fixed Jonny with a stern eye "is that absolutely no one but you and me can know about it. I'm not going to go down to the local money changers, or …or whoever, and … blast I don't even know what I would say."
He shook his head. "I suppose we can shave off a bit, maybe spread it around… No, not in Ankh-Morpork. That would just spread the news faster. We wouldn't last the week."
He looked at Jonny again. "Ok that's it. You look like something that got the yeast left out of it. And my brain isn't working right now. Here's what we are going to do. We are going to lock this up in the safe and pretend it's not there. It's just five hundred A-M dollars in there. And then we are going to have a nice day and sleep on it and then tomorrow we will figure out who to talk to about... whatever that was which I have just forgotten about completely. Understood?"
Jonny grabbed the lifeline and held on to that. "Thank you uncle."
"Don't mention it. Now, grab that bag of… whatever the blazes it is, and get it out of my sight. And then you are having some breakfast and a nap on your actual bed. I've got my hands full seeing as how we're down two workers this morning." Pars headed back down the steps, muttering a bit.
Jonny thought his bed had never felt so good.
Jonny didn't nap an hour. He woke up an hour before lunch, feeling closer to human. He deliberately went through his normal morning routine, washing up and shaving, and took care to pick out some nicer clothes. After all, he had to go see a lady about a lady.
He came down and took lunch with his uncle. Neither one discussed the earlier… business. He checked his own purse and determined he had plenty for round-trip cab fare. Normally he would have walked, but he didn't want to push things today. It was over ten blocks each way, and he could use the extra rest time.
