Free As Good as Gold by Heidi Wessman Kneale

Theft. That is what Daywen Athalia had come to. She closed her eyes to still the twitterings in her stomach. It had to be theft, or it would be a life of bitter loneliness.
    Her sister Llannyn suffered that fate. She, who had once been bonny and full of laughter, drawing the attention of many, had descended into the darkness of her soul. She lurked about the crannies of the house, muttering to herself, snapping at Cook, snarling at any man. She spoke of unseelie tricks, of betrayals, always in generalities, never in specifics. She would be a spinster for the rest of her life.
    It had frightened Daywen. It was not so much her sister she cared about, for she and Llannyn never did get along as children, but herself. The thought of spending the rest of her life in angry solitude frightened her more than any old gypsy woman with her curses and her dispensaries of fate.
    That morning Goody Hubbard, who had leaned over the fence for a good chinwag with Cook, shared a tale of a man come to town. “MacEuros has gold aplenty, aye,” she gossiped. “They say it’s fey, but the few coins he tossed about yesty eve looked like God’s honest gold tae me.”
    A rich man in Beltane. With gold.
    Daywen saw an English half-crown once, one of the new milled ones, although from a distance. Would she know another gold coin if she saw it?
    Only one way to find out--seek out the rich man. Neglecting her chores, Daywen set off that morning to find him before the juiciness of gossip dried in Cook’s ears.
    And find him she did, or rather his horse. Such a fine horse saddled in front of the inn could only belong to a rich stranger. Daywen let out a sigh of relief. She had arrived just in time. As she lurked in the shadows of the buildings across the street, her common bodice and brown skirt camouflage enough, she set her mind to coming up with a plan.
    What to do? Follow him out of town and waylay him like a highwayman? Follow him, wait for him to make camp and rob him then? Attempt to seduce him by womanly charms and... um...?
    How did one steal gold?
    Daywen was startled by the jingling of saddlebags as the hostler threw them across the back of a horse.
    That sounded like coinage! Oh, surely it couldn’t be that easy.
    Daywen picked her way across the muddy street. While the hostler’s back was turned, she snatched the saddlebags off the horse and ran.
    “Hey!” a voice called behind her. Daywen did not spare a moment to look behind her. “Stop!” the voice called. “Thief!”
    Was it the hostler who pursued her, or the stranger? If it was the stranger, she would have an advantage. She knew these streets. He did not.
    She fled past white-plastered houses and older stonework buildings. She dodged down this alley and up that street, past horses, carts, people and puddles. Her arms ached, for the saddlebags were most heavy. They clinked noisily as she ran, no doubt acting as a bell to anyone who would recognize the sound.
    Ducking in a doorway, she waited until the pursuit passed her, then doubled back.
    When she could run no more, Daywen found a quiet spot next to a barrel behind a tavern. A dog came sniffing at her feet but she shooed it away. Her fingers fumbled at the buckle holding the bag closed, and she cursed as they slipped and she skinned a knuckle against the metal.
    But her curses soon turned to a hiss of triumph as she freed the leather strap.
    Inside she found several washed leather pouches, their necks knotted with leather laces. She lifted a bag and it clinked. Her heart beat faster as she worked the knots loose.
    “Oh,” she breathed as her gaze fell upon twenty gold pieces. The whole world seemed to pass away, the sound of horses and wagons fading away, even the sound of a barking dog became distant as the glory of the gold sung to her.
    “Pretty, pretty,” she found herself murmuring. Then shaking the daydreams away, she knotted the bag back up and lifted a few others out. Feeling the contents through the leather, she