Page 57 of Homeless

Elizabeth shook her head and told him it was too light. No proper gold ring of that thickness could feel like tin, but if he meant to back his claim, let him prove it with his scales.

He seemed to relish that idea. He took up the ring, set it in one of his pans, which he then suspended from the chains of the scale. Then he dropped three adarme weights into the opposite pan and hung it as well. The scales balanced.

“Squint,” she whispered to Darcy.

“What?”

“Just do it. Squint, as if you cannot make it out.”

He obliged, then Elizabeth crossed her arms and demanded that he put the scale on the counter in front of her. When the money changer protested, she informed him that her husband had poor eyesight and would wish to see for himself that the scales balanced, or he would not agree to the bargain.

Aramburu acted greatly put upon, but he did move the scale, setting it gently down on the cloth of his counter and pointing out the way the chains swayed, then balanced… perfectly.

“Oh, yes, indeed,” Elizabeth replied in Spanish. “Yes, I see that it does balance. But hold here…” She turned the pans on the chains and dumped out the contents.

The money changer never gave her a chance to let the empty pans balance. He moved to stop her, but Elizabeth was faster. She snatched the empty pans and dashed to the door, where there were still several men loitering. “¡La balanza no es justa!” The scales are not fair!

Those were words to attract attention outside a money changer’s shop. Several men stirred, looks of suspicion, or perhaps confirmed suspicions, crossing their faces. Elizabeth kept repeating the accusation, holding the unbalanced pans up for all to see.

An outcry arose rather quickly, murmurings rising to consternation as she passed from one to another, demonstrating that one pan had a visibly thicker bottom than the other. One man reached to test them, but the money changer shoved her from behind.

She fell, the pans flying from her hands and her palms scuffing painfully in the rocky dirt of the street. Elizabeth gasped, trying to reach them again, but Señor Aramburu had already taken back his pans and gone inside the shop.

“Elizabeth, here.” Darcy reached for her hand, but when she held it up, and he turned it over, he saw the blood. He took out his handkerchief to wrap it, then helped her to her feet by tugging at her wrist. “That was rather rash. I think you may have just lost what fortune we had left.”

“What? No, I…”

The money changer’s door clanged from the inside… a bar had been dropped behind it. And their money was still on the counter.

“Oh, dear.” Elizabeth turned her other hand over, then numbly used the handkerchief from the right hand to dab the blood from the left. “Now what?”

But they needn’t have asked. Apparently, they were not the only people in town to suspect this man of cheating, for just then, someone threw a rock through the window. In the next instant, another man had crawled through, and a few seconds later, the bar was flung aside, and the door opened.

“Good Lord,” muttered Darcy. “You started a riot! Stand aside and let me salvage what I can.”

The next seconds passed in something of a haze. Elizabeth tried to keep out of the rush of bodies, holding the bloodied handkerchief to her mouth as if it might stop her from saying or doing something else foolish. Inside, she heard Darcy’s voice, shouting for order, demanding his silver and copper back, and even, twice, calling for the mob not to beat up the money changer.

She knew not how long he was in there. She knew only that the shouting had drawn attention, and attention brought more people every second. And her makeshift husband was in there, alone, trying not to lose everything they had… including his own life.

Some while later, long before the crowd had decided they were satisfied, he did not emerge so much as spill out past other bodies, his arm clutched over his chest and his hat gone. A trickle of blood showed at the corner of his mouth, but he appeared none the worse for wear. “Quickly!” he barked.

She ran to him, grabbing his free arm, and together, they hastened back to their rented room.

Darcy was still panting when he opened his coat on the bed. “I believe I was able to recover most of it.”

Elizabeth’s eyes skimmed over the coins. Half, perhaps, what she remembered seeing on the counter after he had counted, but then Darcy began dropping other items. A gold cross with gems encrusted on it. Silver shoe buckles. An entire roll of silver spoons.

And then, while she was still trying to calculate the value of the items, Darcy took her left hand and shoved a ring onto it. Her gaze shifted, and she spread her fingers.

“You got that, too, did you?” Her voice had gone strangely soft.

“I calculate that item alone may save me quite a bit of gold and perhaps my neck later, so yes, I made sure to get it. But we have made something of a spectacle of ourselves in this town. Everyone now knows we have gold, valuables, and not two wits to rub together between us. And even the most ignorant of them will be able to learn where we are staying.”

Elizabeth clenched her fist on the ring and made herself think. “We need to get out of town quickly.”

“That may be difficult,” he replied as he began to gather the coins back up. “The river is flooded. We will have to buy our way across.”

“Well, we have coins now. And even some items to trade, if it comes to it.”