Page 24 of The Sun He Buried

“And the sugar on top,” he adds.

This is a difficult moral test.

“Two.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

He leans down and kisses my cheek.

Right here.

In the market.

The ribbon seller becomes deeply interested in rearranging ribbon that was already arranged.

Baldr walks away before I decide whether to smile or throw the green bundle at his back. Smiling wins. It isn’t close.

I face the stall again. “How much now?”

“One copper.”

“He’s gone.”

“I saw what he did.”

“That should make the ribbon cost more.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m distracted.”

She considers this. “Three copper?”

“Perfect.”

I buy the green and the blue.

The seller wraps both in brown paper and ties them with a scrap I suspect I also paid for. I tuck the parcel into my basket, nearly lose the basket when the wind catches the paper, and trap the handle against my hip.

Three stalls down, Baldr stops beside an old fisherman mending a net.

The fisherman has one grey eye, one clouded eye, and no interest in bowing. He points a thick needle at Baldr and says something I can’t catch over the wind. Baldr bends to hear him. The man points toward the harbor.

Baldr’s head turns toward the north piers.

The north mooring chain. Roof braces for two storehouses. Tools for the lower shipyard.

He remembered every piece at dinner. I did too.

The fisherman talks with both hands now. Baldr listens until the needle stops moving. Then he takes a narrow writing stick from the edge of the stall, turns over a scrap of sailcloth, and writes three short lines.

The fisherman reads them.

He grunts once and goes back to his net.

Baldr leaves a coin beside the writing stick.

The fisherman throws it at him.