Free Take a Thief by Mercedes Lackey

special buckets, with lids that kept the water from slopping, but it still made for a lot of climbing.
    No wonder Bazie was ready t' bring me in! Skif thought ruefully, as he poured his bucketful into what seemed to have become a wash cauldron without a bottom. His arms ached, and so did his back— this business of becoming a thief was more work than it looked!
    "How often d'ye empty this'un?" he asked Bazie, who was mending a stocking as dexterously as he had unpicked the design on the napkins.
    "Once't week," Bazie replied. "We saves all th' whites fer then. Wouldna done it early, forbye th' napkin order's on haste, an' ye're here t' hep."
    Skif sighed, and hefted the empty bucket to make another journey. This was like working at the Hollybush—
    He had no doubt that he would be the chief cauldron filler until Bazie took on another boy, so he had this to look forward to, once a week, for the foreseeable future.
    On the other hand, Bazie appeared to feed his boys well and treat them fairly. Skif had plenty of time to think about the situation, to contrast how Raf, Deek, and Lyle all acted around Bazie and how well-fed (if a bit shabby) they looked. So Bazie wasn't running a gang that was wearing silks and velvets and had servants to do their work. So he and the rest of the boys had to do a hauling now and then. They were eating, they were warm, and Bazie was a good master. What was a little hard work, set against that?

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    Take a Thief

    So he hauled and dumped, hauled and dumped, while his arms, back, and legs complained on every inward journey. When the cauldron was at last filled, Bazie let him rest for just long enough to drink another mug of tea.
    When the tea was gone, Bazie put him to building up the fire beneath the cauldron, then adding soap and a pungent liquid that he said would whiten the worst stains. When the water was actually boiling, at Bazie's direction he added the napkins, then other articles that should have been white.
    There wasn't a lot; pure white was a very difficult state to attain, so the boys didn't steal anything that should be white.
    "Dunno how them Heralds does it," Bazie said, half in wonder and half in frustration. "Them Whites, 'sall they wears, an' how they nivir gets stains, I dunno."
    "Magic," Deek opined cheekily, and Bazie laughed.
    "Gimme stick," Deek told Skif. "Take a breather." Deek took over then, stirring while Skif lay back on a pile of straw-stuffed sacks that served as cushions, letting his aches settle.
    Lyle arrived, tapping his code on the door, and Deek let him in. Raf was right behind him. Both boys began emptying their pockets and the fronts of their tunics as soon as they came in. Skif sat up to watch as Bazie supervised.
    What came out of their clothing wasn't kerchiefs and other bits of silk this time, but metal spoons, knives, packets of pins and needles, fancy pottery disks with holes in the middle—
    "Ah," Bazie said with satisfaction. "Wool Market good, then?"
    "Aye," the boy named Raf said. "Crowd." This was the one that Skif hadn't seen much of yesterday, and if someone had asked him to point Raf out in a crowd he still wouldn't be able to. Raf was extraordinarily ordinary. There was nothing distinctive in his height (middling), his weight (average), his face (neither round nor square), his eyes and hair (brown), or his features (bland and perfectly ordinary). Even when he 50

    Take a Thief

    smiled at Skif, it was just an ordinary, polite smile, and did nothing; it seemed neither warm, nor false, and it certainly didn't light up his features.
    Bazie watched him as he examined the other boy and mentally dismissed him— and Bazie grinned.
    "So, young'un, wot ye think'o Raf?" he asked.
    "Don' think much one way or 'tother," Skif said truthfully.
    Bazie laughed, and so did Raf. "Na, ye don' see't, does ye?" Bazie said.
    "Wall, he wouldn' see it now, would'e?" Raf put in. "If'n 'e did, that'd be bad!"
    The others seemed to think this was a great joke, but it