Kensei Jon's Arc

Chapter 23 of 49

The coins from the wedding hanbok sat in a clay bowl on the table. Kensei counted them twice. It was more than they had held at once since coming to the fifth city. But their steady client was gone. This coin would not come again unless they earned it. Kensei looked at the empty corner where the baby would sleep. "We should buy for the child now," he said. "While we have it." Jeon-min set down his needle. "Some of it," he said. "Not all. We keep coin for cloth and thread. We keep coin for rent." He split the pile with one finger, quick and sure. "This much for the baby. This much stays." They walked to the market hall together. Beef hung on hooks. Crates of fruit spilled onto the ground. Vendors shouted over each other. Kensei stopped at the soft cloth stall where he had bought the blanket. He picked up a small tunic, then a second. Jeon-min held each one to the light and checked the seams the way he checked everything. "This one is sewn badly," Jeon-min said. He set it down. "The stitches will open in a week. Buy the other." He named the fair price before the vendor could speak. The vendor frowned, then nodded. Kensei paid. At a woodworker's stall Kensei found a crib. It was plain pine, small, with a rail on each side. He ran his hand along the wood. No splinters. He thought of the midwife showing him how to lay an infant down. "This one," he said. Jeon-min tested the rail with both hands. It held. Kensei counted the coins into the woodworker's palm. They carried the crib home between them, one end each. Kensei set it in the corner. He laid the new tunics inside, folded, beside the blanket from before. The corner was no longer empty. It looked like a place a child would live. Jeon-min stood over the clay bowl. He counted what was left. He counted it again. "We spent well," he said. "But look." He tipped the bowl so Kensei could see. Only a thin layer of coins covered the bottom. "This is one month of rent. No thread money. No cloth money for the next order." Kensei looked at the crib, then at the bowl. The child had a bed now. Clothes that would not fall apart. But they had turned coin into things they could not sell back. "We have no new buyer," he said. "No," Jeon-min said. He set the bowl down. "The baby is ready. We are not." He picked up his needle again. "Tomorrow we find work. Not one buyer this time. Enough buyers that losing one does not empty the bowl." He looked at the crib in the corner. "We have less time than coin now."