"Where do you want them? Do you have a basket handy to put them in?"
Fea hid a smile. Well, at least this one was not the fool she might have been.
"Four!? That's barely a pound, as small as they are. If it was a plain loaf I might consider six, but a loaf like this? They tell me the Queen herself prefers my loaf above all other market breads, and you would ask me to take just four tiny apples in recompense?"
Just then, a chicken flailed its way through the air, causing a ruckus on its own. It was swiftly followed by a bony boy yelling for pardon with his arms in the air in front of him, trying to bat the fat bird back into captivity. The storm of feathers and dust covered a well dressed silver-haired man who stood paralyzed in disbelief.
Through it all, Fea grabbed a sheet and threw it over her wares to protect them from the filth.
With the chicken and the boy gone so swiftly, it would have felt like a dream except the man came over to Fea's booth. She pointedly ignored a feather in his hair and said, "I'll be right with you, sir. There is haggling afoot."
With that she waited for the newcomer's retort.
|