Peter & Max by Bill Willingham & Steve Leialoha

Peter & Max by Bill Willingham & Steve Leialoha

Author:Bill Willingham & Steve Leialoha [Willingham, Bill & Leialoha, Steve]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction
ISBN: 9781401231996
Publisher: Vertigo
Published: 2009-01-02T00:00:00+00:00


OVER THE NEXT FEW DAYS, Peter struck time and again, swooping down on a badly guarded stewpot, two and sometimes three times a day. It was easy. He never got caught, because he was always careful to scout the area thoroughly before he struck. If there were goblin patrols anywhere within two city blocks, he’d wait. If one of the public house’s legitimate customers looked too fit or, in some other way, able to give pursuit, he’d move on and select a different location. There were perhaps four hundred cauldrons of Belly Vengeance brewing on any given day, and Peter was determined to sample each and every one of them in time.

Now that he ate several times each day, his health was coming back. And as his strength returned, he grew bolder. With the winter rapidly approaching, there was more than food on his mind. One afternoon he stole a warm, woolen shirt off a clothesline. The next day he returned to take an even warmer cloak from the next yard over. What a luxury it was to sleep warm at night, for the first time in months, and on a full stomach to boot.

Eventually his taste for variety resurfaced with his restored health. He began to recognize just how grotesque the flavor of Belly Vengeance could be. That’s when Peter began stealing fruits and whole vegetables from the open stands on Market Day. He enjoyed whole apples and pears, and once even an actual orange, which had to have been shipped in, at great cost, across the seas and down the Weser, from some distant shore. And he also cursed himself for not thinking of this sooner, for, with the first winter snowfall, Market Day would be discontinued until the following spring. It wouldn’t be long at all before the remaining fruit and vegetable supply was stored away in deep cellars and stout, wooden lockers, where he couldn’t get at them.

For the first time he began to think of some way to steal a larger supply of food all at once, more than what he needed for just a single day’s repast. Surviving the winter would largely depend on whatever he did now, to store enough supplies to last him through the cold months to come. There were two problems to overcome: how to steal a large provision all at once, and where in the city to hide his food cache, where it would be safe, both from city authorities and others like him.

He considered his dilemma as he surreptitiously stalked an onion-seller, who’d lost half of one leg in some previous misadventure. Stealing a few of his onions would be easy enough, but his stand was deep inside the market grounds that some of the other vendors might try to intercept him in his getaway. There was one idea he’d been holding in reserve for some time, because it was likely to work only once.

Pausing at still a dozen paces distant from his intended target, Peter suddenly pointed due south, towards the Cathedral Wall, and shouted in panic.



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