Free Goblin Moon by Teresa Edgerton

it
never occur to you, lad, that this Master Ule of yours took such a
shine to you just because he knew you was my grandnevvy? Didn’t you
never think he might be curious to learn what Gottfried Jenk and I
been doing at the bookshop?”
    Jed was aghast. “Here now . . . you don’t think it
was Master Ule and the Glassmakers who put that coffin with the wax
dummy into the Lunn?”
    “Put the coffin . . .” Caleb did not immediately
remember the story Jenk had concocted for the benefit of Walther
and Matthias. “No, no, it ain’t nothing like that. I meant to say
that word might have got around, that Walther and Matthias might
not be keeping mum the way they promised. There might be folks who
got questions about the . . . wax figure . . . and what it all
means.”
    Jedidiah shook his head. “If Walther and Matthias
blabbed we’d know it. And anyways, I just remembered: Master Ule
didn’t have no idea who I was when he hired me. No, he never asked
my name until the day was half done. And even then, why should he
guess—or care—that I was your grandnevvy? There’s hundreds of men
named Braun in Thornburg.”
    Jedidiah did not mention that Master Ule had taken a
greater interest
after
Jed mentioned his
connection with Gottfried Jenk. He knew that Caleb was bound to
make more of it than was sane or reasonable. As for himself, Jed
had no doubts in the matter at all; after spending a day in Master
Ule’s bottle factory and speaking with his clerks, he was firmly
convinced that the dwarf was not capable of conceiving anything so
sinister as an ulterior motive.
    “Aye . . . well, maybe so.” Caleb began to rock
again, but more gently this time. “And after all, this Master Ule
of yours ain’t nothing but a bottlemaker. That’s a simple craft. I
don’t reckon he stands high in the counsels of the Guild.”
    He rocked a little more and thought a little longer.
“As long as the pay is good and he treats you well, I don’t see no
harm, if you want to go on working for him.”
    Which was just as well, Jed thought. He knew he was
on to a good thing working for Master Ule, and he was not about to
toss it all aside just to satisfy Uncle Caleb and his wild
suspicions.

 
    Chapter
7
    Wherein Gottfried Jenk accomplishes the
Miraculous.
     
    Not far from Venary Lane, where Dr. Mirabolo held
forth at the Temple of the Healing Arts, was a street lined with
seedy little thatched-roof shops: apothecaries, herbalists, and
chemists for the most part, though an occasional taxidermist,
lensmaker, or purveyor of scientific instruments lent a little
variety, while maintaining the philosophic “tone” of the
neighborhood.
    To that part of Thornburg came Gottfried Jenk, one
breezy afternoon, late in the season of Leaves. Plainly but
meticulously dressed, from his carefully powdered wig to the highly
polished brass buckles on his blunt-toed shoes, the bookseller
walked briskly, displaying a nervous energy quite remarkable in a
man of his years.
    He entered a shop meaner and dingier than any of the
rest. It resembled a taxidermy shop: the shelves displayed a
collection of pelts and bones, fins, feathers, antlers, tusks, and
horns, and other odd bits and pieces of brute creation in various
stages of preservation. And it had something of the
barber-surgeon’s establishment as well: yellowing teeth (human, and
dwarf, and gnome) collected in glass jars, hanks of braided hair
suspended from the beamed ceiling. But it smelled like nothing so
much as a slaughter-house.
    The proprietor, one Mr. Prodromus, was no more
prepossessing than his establishment. A big man with a mane of wild
dark hair, he wore a dingy red kerchief around his neck and a gold
ring in one ear.
    “Back so soon, Mr. Jenk?” he inquired, with an
insolent grin. “Hope you ain’t got no complaints against the goods
I sold you. Or was it more of the same you was wanting?”
    “I wish,” said Jenk curtly, “to purchase more of the
same.”
    The shopkeeper’s leer became