Cameron To Candy

It was one of those bright winter days that fool you. Sun in a pale sky, light skipping off wet cobbles like coins, a bite in the air that slid under skirts and stung your nose. Some ambitious plants and animals were anticipating spring, pushing through the melting snow or scurrying about looking for an early meal. And Candy? She had small plans, bread and thread with Vivian, caramel buns if the good tray hadn’t vanished, and home by midafternoon for tea and maybe a Gilded Gaggle rerun under two blankets.

They came out of the bathhouse still warm, hair damp, Vivian’s towel turban pinned like a crown. Candy wore her pin sash where any clerk could see the clasp rune. Market Street was loud, carts clattering, hawkers singing pears and ribbons, a fiddler sawing away in his corner. Candy watched her footing, babying the toe she had bumped last week.

Vivian elbowed her lightly. “So, no judgment, but just saying, you won’t come change in the group room with me and Alyssa, but you’ll let Mona and Marilyn feel you up without a problem. Should I be jealous?”

Candy snorted. “That’s top stuff. Bottom stuff’s a bit more private.”

Vivian shrugged, grin crooked. “Yeah, I guess so.” Candy couldn’t risk changing in front of the girls. They didn’t know about her. Perhaps it was that thought preoccupying her that prevented Candy from hearing the oncoming danger.

Hoofbeats cracked the air, fast and close. It should have been clear, “Coming through, on your left.” But no call came.

“Right, now!” a guard’s voice barked.

A hand hit Candy’s shoulder and shoved, firmly. She flew into a stack of burlap as a chestnut gelding carved the space where she had been. The rider didn’t slow, or seem to register them at all. People gasped. Someone even swore.

“HALT, by order of the Guard!” another voice rang out. The man did not halt.

Then half a dozen citizens jumped at once. A butcher with a cleaver still in hand caught the bridle, two apprentices grabbed the reins, the pretzel vendor lunged for the stirrup, and tore the rider sideways. The horse snorted, fighting, but the line of men held fast. They dragged the rider to the cobbles in a tangle of arms and curses, pinning him until the uniformed officers arrived.

A moment later, guards descended like a practiced net, calm and exact. Pike blocked the lane, irons clinked shut on wrists. One closed the rear, calm as a door swinging shut. The citizens stepped back, reciting in clipped bursts what they’d seen, then melted into the crowd again as if it were no more than setting down a heavy sack.

The one who’d shoved Candy planted himself at the horse’s shoulder, voice level. “You didn’t call it! Riders must shout 'coming through'. You almost hit a maiden!”

“I, I was in a hurry,” the rider stammered, chin up as if that counted.

“Not an excuse.” The officer stated, glaring the man into silence.

Only then did Candy notice her palms stinging. The burlap had scraped one. Her bad toe throbbed. Vivian crouched beside her, towel turban falling off. “You okay?”

“Mostly,” Candy said, voice higher than she liked. She cleared it. “Mostly.”

An older matron appeared like the market had conjured her, pearl pins neat, weathered hands quick. “Let me see,” she said, taking Candy’s scraped palm without fuss. A swipe of something sharp and clean made Candy hiss, then a dab of mint salve cooled it. “Wiggle your toes.”

Candy did. “Still attached,” she said.

The matron looked her over, checked the ankle, and pressed gently along the shin. “Does this hurt?” She asked. Candy shook her head. The matron stood, then said, “Have tea when you get home. Preferably stabilitea or immunitea if you have it. It’ll speed your recovery. And if it swells, elevate the foot,” she said, then turned to the guard who had taken charge. “She will be alright, sir.”

The guard nodded. “Got it, she will be alright,” he repeated for his notes. “Scraped palm, stubbed toe, no sprain.”

“Yes, sir,” the matron said. “And I recommend she not be jarred for several days. If you would be so kind, please excuse her from her weekly maintenance and any physical corrections.”

Candy balked. That’s a thing?!

“Very well,” the guard said. He pulled a small notebook and a printed slip from his breast pocket. He wrote quickly, neat block letters. “Temporary excusal, current week, no physical corrections,” he said as he wrote. He tore the slip free, stamped it with a small seal, and tucked it into a flat leather packet with coins. “By statute, inconvenience compensation for near harm,” he said, handing it to Candy. “Five copper. We will also send a letter to your household. In case your maintenance rotation occurs before it arrives, show this paper to your husband. It excuses you for the week.”

Candy stared at the packet. She nodded once, wordless. “Th - Thank you,” she managed a second later. “Officer…?”

He tipped his cap. “Officer Ramsbottom.”

“Thank you, Officer Ramsbottom.”

“Not at all, miss,” he said with a cheerful smile. “That is what we are here for.”

The bridle man brought the rider two paces closer, irons snug, attitude gone. Officer Ramsbottom kept his tone calm. “Apologize to the lady you endangered.” He didn’t raise his voice or bark the order. He didn’t have to. It was given calmly but firmly, with all the confidence of a man who knew it would be done.

The rider swallowed, color high. “I apologize,” he said, eyes on Candy’s scraped hand. “I should have slowed… I, I should have called the phrase. I was in such a hurry I became careless.”

Candy lifted her chin. “You were,” she said, coldly. “Do better.”

He stared at the stones. The pike man gave a small tug at the elbow. That was the end of it. The squad moved him on, turning him down the lane, irons clinking, while a livery lad took the gelding by the lead rope and murmured nonsense to settle it.

“The rules are there for a reason.” Officer Ramsbottom said, “I promise you he will be dealt with accordingly.” And with that he took to a light jog, catching up to his fellow officers before they turned the corner, slipping out of sight.

Vivian stood and dusted burlap off Candy’s skirt, then off her own. “Well. That woke me up! Looks like tea’s on you girl!”

Candy slid the leather packet into the tiny pocket in her sash and took stock. Heart loud, hand stinging, toe angry, pride bruised, but everything else intact. The sun still gleamed. The market had already started moving again around the space where she might have been. For once, the rules had moved the right way, fast and clean and justly.

They found tea at a stall that did not overdue the leaves and took a bench near the square gate. Vivian retied a sandal and retold the shove with too much flourish because she could not help herself. Candy watched west-watch cloaks flash white along the edge of the square, pairs checking corners, pausing at cart wheels, moving people along with two fingers and no theatrics.

“What do you think?” Vivian asked.

“That it could have gone badly,” Candy said, turning the packet in her hands. “And it didn’t.”

“Because a guard did his work,” Vivian said. “And nobody made a lesson out of you”

“The rider?” the bun vendor asked a little later when they reached her stall. The mint salve gave the story away. “I saw them leading him off.”

“The rider,” Candy confirmed, holding out the paper. “He didn’t call it.”

“May the irons teach him manners,” the woman said, shaking her head. She slid an extra swipe of caramel topping onto the paper and pushed it across with a little smile.

On Temple Bell Lane the pearl-stripe matrons eyed their sashes and found nothing to scold. A junior registrar drifted by with a slate, pretended not to notice them, but likewise found nothing to write them up for and moved past with a slight nod.

At Candy’s door, the house crystal glowed amber. Marcus opened with a dish towel on his shoulder, his sleeves shoved up (even though Candy should have done the dishes), the kitchen warm behind him. He clocked the salve and the set of her mouth.

“What happened?” he asked.

“A man on horseback forgot the world was not made for him,” Candy said, stepping in. “A guard actually knew it was his job to fix that. Matron says tea and foot up. Also,” she lifted the packet, “five copper and a written excusal from maintenance and correction spankings for the week!” She smiled at that last bit.

“Huh?” Marcus asked, confused by the short summation.

Vivian, before even introducing herself, launched into the tale because she always did. Marcus listened, jaw tight at first, then easing as the parts came out in the right order; the shove, exam, recommendation, apology, irons, compensation, excusal. He took Candy’s hand and checked the scrape with careful fingers, said nothing pointed, just made tea and set a folded blanket for her foot like he had been planning to anyway.

Later that night, when the house settled and the light thinned in the window, Candy replayed it once more, sharper now that the adrenaline had burned off. The firm push, no lecture. The matron’s brisk hands. The guard repeating the injury like it mattered. The forced apology that actually felt like something. The five little coins. The stamped paper that said, for one week at least, no jarring on top of a bruise.

She was not about to forgive the kingdom its nonsense. Curtsy fines still stacked up, Mrs. Primm was still as invasive as ever. Slips still needed signing just for her to go to specific sections of the city, and the sashes still announced her status. But today the net had caught her instead of trapping her, and that was something.

“For once,” she said into her tea, “Paddlwick came through."