Kensei Jon's Arc

Chapter 24 of 49

In the morning Kensei and Jeon-min carried their finished work to the market hall. Beef hung on hooks. Fruit spilled from crates. Vendors shouted. They laid three mended garments on a cloth by the wall and waited. Jeon-min had said it plain the night before: enough buyers that losing one does not empty the bowl. So far no one stopped. A cat wound between the crates. Its fur ran orange, white, black, and gold, patterned like fish scales along its back. It sat by their cloth and washed one paw. A man followed it. He wore a heavy coat and rings on both hands. He crouched and scratched the cat's ears like he owned it. "This is yours?" the man asked, pointing at the garments. "The mending is mine," Jeon-min said. "The pattern too." He turned a sleeve so the man could see the knot work at the cuff. The man lifted it to the light. He rubbed the stitches between two fingers. "I have not seen this knot," he said. "My family made it," Jeon-min said. "No one else has it." The man looked a long time. Then he set the garment down and began pulling coins from his coat. He bought all three. He pointed at Kensei's bag and asked what else they carried. Kensei showed him the scrap pieces, the practice cloth, a half-finished collar. The man bought those too. He named a coat he wanted mended and a set of robes for his house. "Bring them when they are done," he said. He counted coin into Kensei's hand. He counted more. He kept counting. Kensei's palm filled and he cupped his other hand under it. The pile grew past anything one client had ever paid. It was ten times what the bowl had held that morning. The man stood. The cat rose with him and followed him into the crowd. He did not look back. Kensei carried the coins home in both hands. Jeon-min carried the empty cloth. In the room Kensei poured the coins into the clay bowl. They rose to the rim. Some spilled onto the table. He had never seen the bowl full. "Rent for a year," Jeon-min said. He touched the coins with one finger, quick and sure, the way he always counted. "Thread. Cloth. More than we need." Kensei looked at the crib in the corner. The fear that had sat in his chest for weeks let go. They could feed the child now. They could buy without splitting every pile. Then Jeon-min stopped counting. He set his hand flat on the table. "One man," he said. "One man bought everything." He looked at Kensei. "We sold him all our work. Every piece. We have nothing left to show the next buyer." He looked at the full bowl, then at the empty cloth. "And he wants his coat and his robes soon. We have no cloth cut, no thread wound. We spent the morning selling. Now we must make."