So far as Judge Gahbros, the executor of Lokos’ sizable estate, or anyone else knew, the late master had no living relative, so inquiries for the closest relatives of his two dead wives were sent far and wide. In the meanwhile, Koominon kept the house as orderly as ever he had for Lokos and Neeka managed the shop with all that that entailed and continued the training of the apprentice’s. At length, two months after Lokos’ demise, Judge Gahbros came calling just after the dinner hour one evening.
Once he was seated and had sipped at the wine, he said, mock-chidingly, “Koominon, I told you to come to me for any funds needed to maintain poor Lokos’ establishments, yet you have not come in two moons’ time.”
Koominon smiled. “There has been no need to do so, Lord Gahbros. Our little Mistress Neeka has done so well at the shop that not only have the profits been sufficient to pay all the household expenses and salaries, but to pay as well the full expenses of the shop and to put by a few thrahkmehee beside.”
Neeka blushed furiously and both the men laughed. The judge reached across and patted her small hand. “Child, do not be embarrassed at honest and well-earned praise. All the Wpness and professional community is full of your praises these days. You are proving a true credit to Master Lokos’ memory. If the man who is journeying here from Linstahkpolis has a grain of sense, he’ll keep you on as his manager and trainer until you’ve put by enough to buy his shop or to set up your own.”
Koominon asked, “Then you’ve located an heir, my lord?”
The jurist nodded. “The only son of Yris’ elder sister. A merchant, he is, one Pawl Froh, now resident in Linstahkpolis.”
Koominon sighed. “A Kindred barbarian?”
“Yes,” agreed Gahbros. “Half, anyway. His sire was a mercenary badly wounded in the Great Rebellion, who settled down with his loot in the Confederation, rather than returning to the Middle Kingdoms. He had three sons by Yris’ sister, the other two went a-warring and are now dead. This man is in his late twenties and is, I understand, a middling successful dealer in hides, horns and tallow, raw wool, horsehair, bristles and suchlike.”
Koominon shook his head slowly. “Hides? Bristles? What could such a man know of the craft of an apothecary?”
“Precisely,” smiled the Judge. “He’ll be needing a good manager to run the business… and who better than Neeka, eh?”
But Koominon was clearly unconvinced. He looked deeply disturbed.
Three weeks later, Pawl Froh appeared, and when Judge Gahbros brought the heir to the establishment that had been Master Lokos’, he looked as grim and worried as Koominon. It was easy to see why this third son of the retired Freefighter had not gone a-warring with his two elder brothers—no army or condotta would accept a hunchbacked cripple.
When the judge introduced Froh to Neeka, she tried hard to conceal her immediate dislike of the sharp-faced, shaggy-haired little man, with his scummy-toothed leer and his way of looking at her that made her skin crawl.
Froh’s normal speaking voice was a whining rasp, and he never ceased to rub together his grubby, ink-blotched hands. He seemed a little awed by the tall, dignified jurist and so waited until he had finished glorifying Neeka’s management of what was the most prosperous small shop in all Esmithpol-isport.
With a wave at the apprentices, he whined, “What fer do you need four shop boys? I only got the two, and my place’s a whole lot bigger nor thisun.”
Before Neeka could frame an answer, the judge said, “They are not shop boys, Master Froh, they are apprentice apothecaries. Master Lokos turned out at least half the best apothecaries in the Principalities of the Three Karaleenosee, and Mistress Neeka is finishing these boys for him.”
Froh loudly sniffed his dripping nose, then wiped the back of one hand across it. “They be mighty damn well fed for mere apprentices; heh, ol’ Lokos, he musta been gittin’ inta his secon’ chilliood. But I’ll see to the stoppin’ of thet, and damn fast, too.”
The judge frowned. “Master Froh, you should know that this duchy has laws dictating the decent and humane treatment of apprentices and resident journeymen, such as Mistress Neeka, here. I have the honor to be the senior jurist for Esmithpolisport and I see to it that abuses of the apprentice laws are handled most harshly.”
“Oh, your worship, please don’t misunderstand this humble businessman,” whined Froh, bobbing up and down in little, short hows and wringing his dirty hands. “We have such laws on the books in Linstahkpolis, too, and ain’t no man but would say Pawl Froh heeds to the very letter of ’em.”
Neeka felt a cold chill of apprehension. Master Lokos had never fretted that craft masters of other trades laughed at him, he had treated his apprentices like his own sons and daughters, rather than doing for them only that which the law commanded.
While one of the boys raced back to the residence to fetch Koominon into the shop and while the heir nosed about the storerooms and workrooms, the judge drew Neeka aside and spoke in low tones. “Child, this creature is not what any of us expected. He is crude, vulgar, avaricious, a miser and, I doubt me not, more than a little dishonest; in the three hours we have been together, I have not heard him say a single good thing about anyone, living or dead.
“He seems to have the distorted opinion that ‘apprentice’ is but a synonym for ‘slave.’ Such is not the case, of course. As apprentices, you and the boys have all the rights and protections of any other subcitizen of the Confederation. He, Froh, is a subcitizen, himself; he showed me a copy of a letter proclaiming him a citizen of the Baronetcy of Awstburk, whence came his late father. He chortled and crowed that such subterfuge prevented the Thoheeks of Linstahk levying taxes on anything besides his profits.
“He is not a good man, Neeka. I’m telling you now, and I’ll be telling Koominon later, should he offer abuse to anyone in this shop or the house, I am to be immediately notified. He may feel himself secure in this windfall, but he is not. Mistress Yris had other sisters and they, too, had children and I shall remain in charge of poor Lokos’s estate until…”
He broke off, perforce, as Pawl Froh limped back into the main room of the shop, bringing back with him his perpetual sniffle and a reek of unwashed flesh that overpowered even the clean scents of the herbs and spices.
The riding mules were the first to be sold, then the two little asses Master Lokos had used to bear the panniers of herbs and roots from his fields beyond the city and from his frequent expeditions in search of those plants which could not be cultivated and needs must be gathered from streams and forests.
“Master Froh,” she asked, “without an ass, how can I and the apprentices bring back the herbs we need from the woodlands and our fields?”
He looked up from the tally sheets, whining annoyedly, “Their backs look strong enough to bear a few pounds of roots a few miles.”
“But when we harvest the fields next year—” Neeka began, only to be rudely cut off.
“Don’t chew worry none ’bout thet, sweetiepie, ain’t no more fiel’s. I done sold ’em. Got me a dang good figger for ’em, too.”
When he had sold the feed and hay and had discharged the groom for whom there was no longer any use, Froh had the quarters of the apprentices transferred to the draughty stable loft, but all the beds and other furniture was ordered left behind. Then he commenced letting the beds by the week to sailors and wagoners, who often caroused far into the night, robbing the servants on the floor below and adjoining neighbors, alike, of sleep. But Froh seemed not to care, so long as silver and gold coins continued to amass in the iron chest he kept chained to his bedroom wall.
Then, unexpectedly, Judge Gahbros was called to Danyuhlzpolis to sit on a special, three-judge panel convened by Ahrkeethoheeks Hari Danyuhlz III of Danyuhlz to hear an important case. Twenty-four hours after the jurist’s departure, Froh sold the indenture contracts of the two newest apprentices to a Middle Kingdoms merchant bound back to Harzburk.
Again, Neeka confronted her new master. This time, she was coldly furious, frantic for the safety of the little boys she had come to love like younger brothers. “Surely you must know, Master Froh, that the moment that merchant’s wagon crosses from the Principate of Kuhmbuhluhn into the Kingdom of Harzburk, those children will cease being contracted apprentices and become true slaves for the rest of their lives! How? How in God’s name could you do such a thing? It… its inhuman!”