Celine knelt in front of the brick-lined bread oven, her head and shoulders halfway inside the firepit. Her probing fingertips scraped against a cracked, unevenly heating floor tile. She took out her stone-wand, hoping she wouldn't have to dismantle the entire oven to make repairs. Nestled in a bucket of warm ashes, her salamander kept up an incessant grumble.
"Fire-go-out! World end!"
The string of bells on the front door of the bakery shop chimed gently, accompanied by the creaking hinge. Celine crawled backwards out of the oven and clambered to her feet. Basalt stood just inside the opened half-door, feet spread apart as if braced against a storm, an expression of disapproval twisting his thin lips.
As if I didn't have enough troubles! First, my moon cycles, then this accursed oven, and now him!
Celine tucked a stray curl back under her widow's coif and tried to pretend Basalt was really here to buy bread. There were a few long-loaves left, arranged on their wooden racks like giant's matchsticks, plus the raspberry tarte her friend Annelys had asked her to make for Herve's name-day and then not picked up. If Basalt would take the tarte and leave, he could have it.
"Cold-cold-cold!" Fireling insisted. "Waiting here for-ever!"
"Salamander in a snit again?" He leaned on the counter with what he clearly imagined an engaging leer.
"Did you want something?"
The leer deepened. "You know I do."
The curl of hair had unaccountably come loose again and Fireling's grumbling escalated to an outright whine.
"A long-loaf?" she asked. "Or this fine raspberry tarte?"
"Just say yes. You're already the envy of half the maidens on Merchant Street."
"FIRE-GO-OUT!" Fireling yelped.
"Either buy something," Celine snapped, "or get out!"
With a sigh he handed over the sols for a long-loaf. She wasn't quick enough to snatch her hand back and so he caught it and kissed it. When she retreated at last to the back room, her temper was as foul as the salamander's.
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