Free Penric's Demon by Lois McMaster Bujold

garment merchant on Elm Street, and turn them into money for the Order.”
    A modest task, but it would allow Pen to walk about the town. And, if he performed it well, Tigney might find other work for him. Being the errand boy of this house couldn’t be worse than being the errand boy of Jurald Court. He’d never felt a calling before to serve the gods, but who knew? “Certainly! I’d be glad to.”
    While Tigney gave him more precise directions to Elm Street, Pen went to tie up the bundle. His hand hesitated.
    “I think you do not want to sell this one, sir.” It was an elaborate, embroidered skirt. Pen shook it out, puzzled. It seemed just a skirt, if heavy. Why had he said that?
    Tigney’s brows rose. “I thought I’d checked them all. Ah—was that you, who spoke just now?”
    “Not sure, sir.” Pen ran the long hem through his fingers, which found an unsewn slot. Poking within, he drew out a folded length of thin cloth. He shook it free to find it covered all over with fine writing, in none of the languages he recognized. No, it is a cipher . What?
    Tigney held out his hand in demand; Pen delivered both skirt and cipher. “Ah!” said Tigney. “Cloth, not parchment. No wonder I felt nothing. Clever Ruchia!” He glanced up rather sharply at Pen. “Are there any more like this?”
    “I . . . don’t know.”
    Pen didn’t feel there were, but Tigney ended up prodding through every hem and fold in the stack to be sure. He then sat up and read the message on the cloth, without referring to any cipher-book. Leaning back with a relieved sigh, he muttered, “Nothing too difficult, then. Thank His Whiteness. I think.”
    Pen swallowed. “Sir—was Learned Ruchia a spy ?” That frail old woman?
    Tigney waved a hand in vigorous negation.   “Certainly not! A trusted agent of the Temple, yes, able to sail smoothly through some very troubled waters, I will give her that.”
    Pen took in this evasion. He was pretty sure it came out to a yes . Which made Tigney . . . her spymaster? Neither personage fit his mental image of either role. He smiled hesitantly and said nothing.
    As Pen bundled up the cloth once more and made for the door, Tigney added kindly, “You can keep half of whatever you can sell them for.”
    “Thank you, sir!” Pen waved and left quickly, before Tigney could change his mind about either the errand or its reward, after the capricious manner of seniors.
    Safely out of earshot on the steep street, Desdemona snappishly remarked, “Half! Tigney is a cheeseparing drudge. You should have had it all.”
    So, she hadn’t been asleep. “I thought it very generous. He didn’t need to offer me any. Also”—he grinned—“he forgot to tell me when I had to be back.”
    “Humph,” said Desdemona, sounding amused. “Well, we do like a truant.”
    Pen took the long way to Elm Street, down to the river and along it past the old stone bridge to a market, still busy even though it was early afternoon. He stood a while and listened to a pair of musicians, one with a fiddle and the other with a skin drum, set up to amuse the crowd with silly or mournful songs, a hat at their feet upturned invitingly. Pen reflected that unlike all the other vendors here, they could not call back their merchandise if the bargain was bad, and fished a few precious coppers out of his thin purse for the hat before continuing down the quayside.
    At a low point of the embankment wall, he set the clothing bundle down and leaned over, trying to see up the river to the lake. He might need a higher vantage. “Desdemona . . . is music a good gift of the spirit?”
    “Oh, aye. We like a good song.”
    “What about knowledge? Reading?”
    “That’s good, too.”
    “Were you reading along with me, these past days? Over my shoulder, as it were?”
    “Sometimes.”
    “Should I do that more?”
    “To please me, do you mean?” She sounded disconcerted.
    “Well . . . yes, I guess so.”
    A long silence, then: