The Thief's Tale

(In case anyone is wondering, the names Peter and Willa both symbolizes something.)

A bakery sits five streets down

In the murk of London town,

Where the baker serves the oven,

And teaches dear Peter, age eleven.

Oft in the window one may see

The baker's wife, with a carving soon to be

A figure of wood that will please

The harshest of the critics' eyes.

Near her mother's enterprise

Is Willa, out of sight and hard at work

Carving an angel; she never shirks.

A family of hands worn and rough

But there they live content enough,

Taking pride in what they do,

And receiving all with gratitude,

Shunning those who turn so bitter.

Then cruel winds blow one winter.

The wife's fingers turn cold and brittle;

Not a chip could she hope to whittle.

'Twas not long her words were saved,

Kept forever beyond the grave.

Soon the father falls to woe

For his heart has sunken low.

No bitter wind can touch his skin,

Feverish it burns, as hell 'tis akin.

He kicks all night in wild fever,

Crying out to his dear lover.

Kneeling at his bedside, his son pleads,

Tears tracked down his cherub cheeks,

"Father, is there naught I can do to make you well?"

"Hark!" Willa says, Fetch the tonic the apothecary sells."

She shoves in his arms a bag of bread,

Two carvings, and a hat for his bare head.

"Make haste, lest we are too late!"

So Peter runs out in a panicked state,

Hugging the healer's pay to his bony chest

And hurries to the apothecary, lest

A thief spies him as easy prey

And steals his father's chance away.

"Prithee, prithee!" Peter bursts through the door.

"Trade me a tonic for goods from our store!

Trade me a tonic for what ails dear Father!

He has fevers, and sweats, and mutters

For Mother, who is gone. Prithee!"

The healer peers down at him. "What is this I see?"

Stale loaves and toys for children's play?

Why, this is not my proper pay!"

"What is, then, for Father's cure?"

"Two pounds, or forty shillings,

Or four hundred eighty pence."

Peter gasps. "Sir, that is too high an expense!

Mother is gone and Father might die;

There's no one to work but Sister and I!

If you can but give the tonic on loan,

When Father is well we will atone

For the time and money you kindly give,

But prithee, the tonic I need for Father to live!"

"Fie! Pay me back you say,

But do people ever, pray,

Fulfill what they doth promise?

No! Your words seem harmless

To one ignorant, but not to a businessman.

My remedies are known across the land,

And shan't be disgraced with a tonic free!

Without good pay, don't come to my apothecary!

And out the door Peter is turned,

But freezes on the step. If he returned,

Having failed Willa's entreat,

He couldn't bear the weight of his defeat.

Two pounds! Two words shalt rob Father's life.

No child should be acquainted with such strife!

Peter crumbles on the step. He starts to cry.

Then he hears a shout, and looks through bleary eyes:

Lord Tyre donned in rich robes with smoothest hands.

He barks out an order to a seller at a stand.

His voice is harsh, and even from afar,

His mask is thin, laying plain his inner scar.

No generosity will Peter find there;

Lords like him hoard what could be spared.

And yet his purse strings are out

In easy reach, and his mouth does spout

Words of threat while his eyes see none.

Two pounds: to a rich man it's nary a ton.

Peter wipes his tear-streaked face

And sets down his bag a pace.

A humble child in humble apparel,

He's overlooked the same as a barrel.

On swift feet he weaves through the crowd.

As the noble blathers, his voice so loud,

A small hand slithers to his purse—

And pauses. This is not the moral he rehearsed,

Taught by Mother and Father, since he was born.

Would Willa's angel's lips pause on its horn

When he arrives at the pearly gate?

Would Mother look at him with hate?

Gone is the moment, gone to swift:

A hand seizes Peter's wrist and lifts

Him up, eye-to-eye with the noble.

"See what hides in this rubble?"

Thieves, like rats!" he vociferates.

Peter writhes to avoid the Fates,

But like a worm on a hook, there's no escape.

"Prithee, milord, I made a mistake!"

"Indeed. Now charged with the responsibility,

I must tame the child, so wicked and free,

Who commits sins expected from a whelp so wild.

This stands a lesson to all mothers: 'Spare the rod, spoil the child!'"

Down comes the whip, done comes the fire,

All the noble cruelty of Lord Tyre.

Only Nature can divulge how Peter's screams

Lures Willa instinctively, like a salmon bound upstream,

To the market square. All the crowd had gone and went

Except for her brother, bloodied and bent.

"Peter, Peter," she weeps, entreating just a stir.

"Willa?" he murmurs. "Willa, I hurt…"

"Peter, darling, who has dealt such heinous of blows?"

"T'was Lord Tyre…and the rod he throws."

At that Peter's eyes did flutter close—Willa shrieks,

But bending down, finds the boy does still breathe.

Ever so gently, she takes him in her arms

And carries him as far from harm

As she is able, in their bakery,

Once filled with happiness, now only misery.

She lays the broken boy next to Father

And tends to their wounds as a doctor

Would. Her tears are dry, but her heart doth bleed

With the surge of agony of one bereaved.

Once all treatments are done, she prays.

She grabs her cloak, angel, and blade, then sneaks away.

Willa wraps the cloak around her head,

And the garb of night helps her charge ahead

Without interference or questioning

Of her purpose or her scheming.

Soon she arrives at Lord Tyre's house.

With quick steps she slips in like a mouse

Through a door when the guard turned around.

Late are the hours, no servants to be found.

The guards have slackened on their duty

In pretense that granted is immunity

From the name of their master alone,

Never guessing his sins shall be atoned.

Willa slips past one guard and all.

Soon she finds a door standing tall

And opens it. In the dim comes Lord Tyre's snore.

Willa steps inside and heads to the dresser drawer.

Inside is the purse that cost her darling's infirmity.

She snatches it and crosses the room stealthily

To the noble's bed. His sleep is fitful, and a groan

Rumbles from his dreadful mouth of a man alone

With the nightmares of terrors his hands committed,

Yet here he rests, all his crimes acquitted.

All the anger and grief bubbles up and seethes

In Willa's soul. Her blade she unsheathes…

l*l*l*l

The knob rattles and stirs Peter from his sleep.

"Willa? Is that you?" He peers at the moonbeam

Slipping in through the open door.

"It is I, and I have Father's cure."

Willa steps inside; in her hand is a vial

From the apothecary. "That man so vile

Finally got his pay, and Father his life."

With that ends the baker's strife

As Willa tips into his mouth the remedy.

Peter gapes, thinking himself in a fantasy.

"How ever did you earn the pounds?"

"Last night a patron came by and found

My wooden angel quite eye-catching.

T'was a pity to see it go, but satisfying

To sell it for the tonic's measure."

"Oh, not your angel! She was your treasure!"

Peter gapes, aghast, to which Willa can only laugh.

"I would give a thousand angels, to keep you pure by half.

A baker's son you are, and a baker you will be,

Learning the trade, honest and carefree.

This is what I hope for you,

If that is all the I work ever do."

l*l*l*l

Lord Tyre wakes that morning

To see a knife hanging,

Like Damocles' sword, by a single thread

Tied around a wooden angel's head.

At the foot of the bed. Carved are the words

In the canopy: AMEND YOUR CRIMES

LEST THE ANGEL IS RE-SUMMONED IN DUE TIME.