Chapter 15

"What's this Cauldron that people keep talking about?"

"It's bad luck to talk about it."

"OK," Daniel said, "so aside from that, what do we need to watch for?"

"You'll want to get hired on." The man sold a bag of potatoes. "Or the guards will be after you. Nobody will hire you, looking like foresters."

Daniel nudged Paul and pointed to the next cart.

"Maybe we should be trading in our furs."

"What do I want with forester furs," the man said when they asked him. "Who's going to buy them?"

"Foresters?" Paul said.

The man snorted but dug into the pile. "I might be able to let these go."

Paul wanted to look at the Page for advice, but it would mean digging through all his furs. Nobody else was carrying a Book, or a Page. He didn't want to stand out even more.

"We need clothes for both of us," Paul said, "Ones without holes in them."

It took a while, but when they were done Paul and Daniel were dressed in woolen clothes that were a couple of steps up from being rags. The clothes seller stroked the furs in a way that suggested strongly he got the better part of the deal.

"You stay and gloat," the vegetable man said. "Watch my wagon and I'll take these fellows over to the labour market. The clothes seller grunted but was selling onions to a passerby before they got out of earshot.

The labour market was a large square full of both men and women who wandered about looking at posters describing work that needed to be done. Sometimes one of them would stop and talk to a person beside the poster whose ribbon had a red stripe. Most of the time the person would shake their head at the hopeful job seeker.

Paul saw that there were a great many more people than there were posters.

"Good luck," the vegetable man said and left them there. Paul headed toward one of the posters.

"What does a footman do?" he wondered out loud.

"If you don't know, you can't do the job," said the woman who stood beside the poster. She made a shooing motion with her hands and Paul moved on. Most of the posters were the same, calling for work that he couldn't even define, never mind do.

He stopped in front of a poster. Grounds keeper.

"I used to be a farmer," Paul said.

"You know anything about gardens?" the man beside the poster asked.

"I grew vegetables for the village, kept a ewe sheep too."

"Know anything about roses?"

"No, I only grew vegetables."

"Good," the man said, "You might do. Do you know anything about peafowl?"

"My friend raised chickens."

"Then you had better go find him," the man said. "If the job is still open, when you get back, we'll talk."

Paul stood and looked around the crowed square. Where would Daniel be? He wasn't behind Paul. None of those jobs would be good for Daniel either, so he must have gone the other way. He jogged through the crowd until he saw Daniel. People jostled and muttered at him, but Paul didn't care. I'm already becoming one of them, he thought.

"Hurry," he said, "I may have found us some work." Daniel followed him back to where the man was shaking his head at a young woman. She looked to be at the point of tears. She walked away and vanished into the crowd.

"Ah," the man said, "we will proceed to the Master's estate and I will determine if you are able to do the work we need." They followed him out of the square and through the streets. The streets became progressively less crowded, but the people who were there wore red ribbons or at least had a red stripe on their grey. No one paid the slightest attention to them. They arrived at a gate in a wall that was at least eight feet tall. The man opened the gate and let them through. He closed the gate behind them.

They entered a garden that was the size of their village back home. It wasn't much to look at in the winter, but Paul was sure in the warm months that it was a riot of colour. The man led them along a path, then ducked through a gap in a hedge that paralleled the path. Paul nodded as soon as he saw the garden. This was his kind of garden. He wandered up and down the side of the garden murmuring approval as he went. His homesickness came back, but he pushed it away. He was on a quest.

"If you have a garden like this, you hardly need me," Paul said to the man who'd brought him here.

"If the boy can recognize that, I can use him." An older man came out of a shed. He was leaning on a stick. It was obvious he was in pain as he moved.

"He knows nothing of roses."

"So much the better."

"Come," the first man said to Daniel, "let us see if you are as fortunate as your friend."

"You can call me Gardener. You are Grounds Keeper, or you will be if you work out."

"My name is Paul."

"Yes, yes, I'm sure," Gardener said. "But the Master and his family aren't to be bothered with names. Get used to answering to Grounds Keeper or go back to the market."

"Then I will learn to like Grounds Keeper."

"Wise of you."

"Now show me my garden." Gardener waved his stick over the garden and Paul looked over the expanse.

"Well," he said, "it looks like you have winter carrots here and parsnips..."