City of Jade

33

BURGLARS

EARLY SUMMER 6E9

Ah, then, so that’s how we ended up in this unseemly business of burglary , thought Pipper as he and Binkton stealthily slipped down the alleyway.

“Where are these chickens you spoke of?” hissed Binkton, interrupting Pipper’s thoughts.

“Just ahead,” said Pipper. “I noticed them when I was watching Rackburn’s manor. I saw that now and then they escape their yard, so chickens being on the loose shouldn’t seem unusual.”

Binkton snorted. “Don’t you think that chickens on the loose in the night might be a bit strange?”

“You have a point, Bink, but even so, we aren’t very far from the edge of the city, and who’s to say a fox didn’t somehow get in the henhouse and roust them out?”

“Ha! So we are foxes, now?”

“More like ferrets, I would think,” said Pipper.

A few more paces down the lane and, “Ah, here we are,” whispered Pipper, and he stopped at a wooden alley gate on the left. “We have to keep the chickens quiet, else the owner is like to fly a few arrows our way.”

“Shall we wrap them in our cloaks?” asked Binkton, unclasping his. “-The chickens, I mean, not the arrows.”

“Good idea,” murmured Pipper, and he slipped out of his own cloak and lifted the latch on the back entry.

Moments later they were again in the alley, two hens each bundled in their wraps.

As they stealthily started down the way, Pipper fell into reflection again, recalling the past two years. .