Free Penric's Demon by Lois McMaster Bujold Page B

you’re doing?” he murmured.
    “Oh, yes. You could, too. Wait . . . now try.”
    Pen squinted, and the shadows seemed to retreat. The view wasn’t really an improvement. But somehow, from these unpromising heaps, he pulled some quite fine discards, if torn or discolored in spots. Granted the elegant blue brocade doublet with the three-inch gash in the front, set around with brown stains, was a bit disturbing.
    “We can set these to rights,” Desdemona promised.
    “Isn’t that what you call uphill magic?”
    “Only a very little. Can you sew?”
    “Not especially well, no.”
    A brief silence. “We believe you will find that you now can.”
    Pen set back several items that seemed too gaudy, to Desdemona’s disappointment, but at last they agreed on a small pile of what she assured him were men’s garments, the likes of which Pen had never seen at Jurald Court, nor Greenwell either. The silk-weavers here seemed to set a high standard for local castoffs, certainly. Back to the counter for another negotiation, and in a few more minutes, Pen left the shop not only with the additions to his wardrobe, but with a goodly supply of coins. Even when he turned over Tigney’s half, there would be some money left over.
    Someday , he promised himself, I shall have new clothes, from a real tailor . Though how he was to get to that someday, he had no notion.
    Heading back downhill, they passed a bathhouse. Pen stopped and eyed it. “Pleasures of the body, eh?” Clean and warm surely qualified. Not to mention shaved and trimmed .
    “Superb idea!” said Desdemona. “But not that one. There’s a better one farther up near the palace.”
    “It looks tidy enough . . .”
    “Trust me.”
    The voice he’d come to recognize as Mira of Adria said something, which he tried but failed to not-understand. If you would but put him under my direction, I could show him how to make a fortune in a place like this seemed to be the gist of it.
    Pen chose not to pursue the remark.

    *     *     *

    The bathhouse near the palace-and-temple precincts was intimidatingly large, compared to the one in Greenwell run out the back of a woman’s home, but not too crowded at this time of day. Pen visited its barber for a serious shave and a trim of the ragged ends of his hair, then the men’s side for a thorough lathering with scented soap of head and body, a sluicing rinse with a bucket of warm water, and a soak in the huge wooden tub with the copper bottom, big enough for half-a-dozen men, kept heated with a small fire underneath. He oozed down in the water and lingered with his eyes half closed until the skin of his fingers began to grow wrinkly, he began to worry that Tigney might be ready to send out a search party, and he became aware that Desdemona, who seemed to be purring as much as himself, was eyeing a couple of the better-looking of his fellow bathers in a way that Pen found unsettling. Time to decamp.
    Dressed, hair combed out and drying, and back on the street, he glanced at the looming bulk of the temple at the top of the hill. It was the most imposing structure in town, and the chronicle of Martensbridge that he’d read yesterday had made much of it. A temple had always crowned this high site, but the prior one, being built of wood in the style of the Weald, had burned down in one of the periodic fires. In a joint building effort of Temple and town that had taken several decades, it had been replaced by this one of stone, after the Darthacan manner. This represented not a change in lordship or worship, but a change in wealth, Pen gathered. Curious, he turned his steps not downhill, but up.
    He walked all the way around it, marveling at its size and stately proportions, then peeked through the tall pillared portico. No ceremonies seemed to be in progress, and other lone worshipers were trickling in and out, so Pen ventured within. As the space opened up before him, he realized that the old wooden Greenwell temple was a