Free Four and Twenty Blackbirds by Mercedes Lackey Page B

appraising eye and sent him to stand in a particular queue, one of six altogether. The warehouse was only dimly illuminated by light coming in at some upper-story windows and by skylights in the roof. Enough of the people here felt compelled to chatter at the tops of their lungs that a confusing din echoed and reechoed through the warehouse, adding to the confusion, as Tal inched forward in his queue.
    Never having been here before, he was a little bewildered about why the fellow had directed him into this line, until he arrived at the head of the queue and found himself confronting four piles of neatly folded shirts, each pile being shirts of the same size but a different color. His choices were brown, gray, blue, and white, apparently, and the man at the door was evidently practiced in sorting people's sizes out by eye.
    Tal took two each of the brown and the gray, on the grounds that they would show dirt and wear less than the white, and fade less than the blue, and moved to one side quickly, for the man behind him seemed very impatient.
    He shook out one of the gray shirts and held it against himself, then examined it carefully. Aside from the fact that the stitching was mathematically even—which was entirely possible even when sewn by a human rather than a machine, if the shirt was of high quality—he saw nothing wrong with it. It was just a trifle large, perhaps, but no few of his secondhand purchases were also oversized. There was no real "style" to it, and the pattern it had been made to was a very simple one, but a city constable hardly needed "style." Surprised and pleased, he took his prizes to the front of the warehouse where he paid about the same as he would have for four secondhand garments, even though there was no haggling permitted. The clerk wrapped his purchases into a packet with brown paper and string, and gave them back to him. Given that these should last longer than secondhand shirts which already had a great deal of wear on them, he had gotten quite a bargain, and left the warehouse with a feeling of minor euphoria.
    In fact, he had enough left over for a decent lunch, so he decided to treat himself. He seldom got to see the wharfs in daylight; by night, they were dirty, dangerous places to walk, but by day it was no worse than any other mercantile area. There were several warehouses here where individuals were buying things directly; this was something new to the city, and he wondered how the merchants were going to take it.
    It probably isn't going to bother them too much, he decided. Nobody with any significant money is going to come down here and stand in lines when they can go to a fine, warm shop and be waited on, even fawned over. There might be some loss of secondhand trade, but that would even itself out eventually. Those who bought secondhand garments would rightly point out that the market value of such goods had decreased and be able to buy them at a lower value than heretofore, and the very poor, who could not afford even cheap goods like these, would then be able to afford the second-hand goods. The merchandise leaving those warehouses wasn't what he would call luxury goods, either. Most of those who were buying these new items were those who would bargain fiercely, leaving a secondhand merchant with less of a profit anyway.
    Taking advantage of the crowds, other vendors had set up shop along the street. There were no entertainers, probably because there was no room for them. Performing on the docks would be dangerous, with wagonloads of heavy goods going in both directions, and the wharfs on one side. Not only that, but the wheels of those wagons, rumbling on the wooden planks of the wharf, made it too noisy for anyone to hear an entertainer. But there were other peddlers and vendors, anyone who could set himself up in a small space. A flash of color caught Tal's eye, and he wormed his way through the press of people to a ribbon-seller. Midwinter Festival was coming up, and he liked