Mara Vell came into the yard carrying half a roof tile.
Ysabet looked at the tile, then at the landlord’s face.
“If that came off the baths, I didn’t touch it.”
“It came out of your creature’s dinner.”
Pip crouched beneath the laundry shelf with its jaw against the curved red edge of another piece. Pale crumbs fell between its forefeet. Above it, a strip of old oilcloth hung down from the shelter roof.
Ysabet put her bucket on the ground.
She had been to the pump. There ought to have been a limit to what could happen during one visit to the pump.
“Where was it?”
“Eating the roof.”
“Where on the roof?”
Mara pointed to the low eaves where the laundry shelter leaned against the bathhouse wall. Three tiles had always sat badly there, laid across a patched sheet of oilcloth to keep rain from finding the join. Now one lay sideways, one was missing, and the third had slid down until its corner rested against the gutter.
The clay sack beneath Pip’s shelf still held food.
Ysabet lifted it. Enough remained for the morning and part of the afternoon. Pip’s offered breakfast lay in its usual patch, damp on the side where a water drop had struck it.
“It has food,” she said.
“Clearly. The man buying my tiles may be reassured by that.”
Mara laid the rescued tile fragment on the bench.
“It took that one behind the crate when I came in. I thought it was something dead.”
“It doesn’t appear to like meat.”
“Then the west chimney may be in danger.”
Ysabet followed the route with her eyes. Crate, hurdle crosspiece, the shelf support beside the post. A dusty mark crossed the wood at a height she had thought inaccessible. Above it, a strip of sacking had been pulled from beneath the oilcloth. The missing tile had sat less than a handspan beyond.
The mouse’s nose emerged from Pip’s pouch. It sniffed, retreated, and appeared again.
“Oh, you took a passenger.”
“Does that cost extra?” Mara asked.
Ysabet fetched the broad board she used when Tallow needed his bedding changed. She laid it beneath the loose tile, well away from the enclosure, then went for the short ladder kept in the passage.
Mara did not move.
“I need this yard clear on the seventh day.”
“Clear of what?”
“The old bath fittings. The copper piping behind the tubs. The two washing troughs with split bottoms. A woman who dyes sailcloth wants to look at the place.”
Ysabet stopped with her good hand on a rung.
“The yard too?”
“She’s looking at the baths. If she’s interested, we’ll discuss what she needs. I would prefer she saw a working drain rather than a tortoise standing in it.”
Kettle stood in the drain with her head stretched toward a weed.
“I’ll move the fittings.”
“Before she comes. You told me that about the second trough in spring.”
It was true. In spring a carriage lizard had been recovering beside it, and then Ysabet had become accustomed to walking around it. Yesterday she had moved Sedge’s box under its raised end, farther from the new enclosure. She would need another dry sleeping place before anyone shifted it.
Mara took the ladder from her and set it against the post.
“First your roof.”
“Your roof.”
“My roof that your breakfast is eating.”
Ysabet climbed two rungs. The old oilcloth had split beside a rusted fixing, leaving a narrow opening above Pip’s food patch. Rain would run straight through it. The wood beneath was sound enough, although she tested it with her left thumb before trusting her weight to the next rung.
She could reach the shifted tile. She could not lift it safely while standing there with only her damaged hand on the ladder.
“Mara, would you—”
“I’ve got it.”
The ladder steadied beneath her.
Ysabet eased the tile back from the gutter. A corner broke away in her hand.
Below, Pip stopped chewing.
“No,” Ysabet said.
Its eye followed the corner as she put it in her pocket.
“I was speaking generally.”
She passed the main piece down. Mara received it with both hands and carried it out of reach.
Once the loose weight was gone, Ysabet could see how the other tile had been removed. Its broken edge had caught in a fold of the oilcloth. A small pull would have loosened both together. Pip had not needed to lift the whole thing. It had only needed to keep pulling.
She came down and examined the creature from outside the hurdle. All six legs bore weight when it stood. No blood marked the eye fold or the skin around its mouth. She could not see beneath its body without lifting it, which she was reluctant to do merely to make herself feel more thorough. It walked to the water dish without a stumble.
The mouse shifted inside the pouch.
Pip turned beneath the shelf, pressed its jaw against the remaining tile fragment, and resumed eating.
“Does it look sorry?” Mara asked.
“It looks busy.”
“Useful distinction.”
There was no spare oilcloth among Ysabet’s things. Mara had a piece in the locked storeroom, but it was intended to cover the piping when the baths were cleared. After a short discussion in which neither woman pretended this was a fortunate use for it, they cut a strip from one edge. Ysabet would buy enough replacement cloth when she next went to market.
Mara had the storeroom key on a cord under her blouse. While she fetched the cloth, Ysabet put the fallen scraps in a basin and tipped Pip’s breakfast onto a clean board.
It left the tile long enough to inspect the new arrangement. One forefoot moved the clay. Its mouth touched a red scrap.
Then it returned to the tile.
“You’re expensive to consult,” Ysabet told it.
She was still kneeling when Pip climbed onto the crate.
It did not spring. Its larger rear legs pushed while the narrow front pair caught the upper slat. Its body dragged awkwardly over the corner. The middle feet found the crate’s side and steadied it. The pouch hung clear of the wood.
Ysabet reached for the crate, stopped, and moved the board beneath the gap instead. Pip was already transferring its front feet to the hurdle crosspiece. Pulling the crate away would leave it hanging.
“Mara.”
The landlord returned with the cloth folded over one arm.
“Oh, no you don’t.”
“Don’t shout. Can you hold the hurdle?”
Mara caught the far end. Pip froze at the movement. Its eye rolled toward the hand gripping the wood.
Ysabet stood beside the shelf support and put a clay fragment on the broad lower ledge. She withdrew her hand.
Pip remained stretched between crate and hurdle.
“Take your time,” Mara said through her teeth. “I’ve nothing to do but own a bathhouse.”
One narrow foot let go. It found the ledge, then the other followed. Pip drew its rear half across, paused over the offered clay, and took it into its mouth.
Ysabet kept the board below until it had descended along the shelf support and stepped onto the earth.
Mara exhaled.
“You’d better dismantle that staircase.”
“I will.”
“The creature’s staircase. Leave mine.”
They moved the crate away from the hurdle, keeping its opening toward the same dark corner. The shelf itself was too high to reach from the ground. Ysabet laid a smooth length of spare guttering around the support where the little toes had found purchase, tied it securely, and checked for sharp edges. Pip watched from the food patch. When she withdrew, it approached the guttering and pressed a foot against it.
The foot slid down.
Pip went around the other side.
Ysabet added a second length.
Mara began to laugh. She tried to turn it into a cough and failed.
“I’m glad one of us is enjoying this.”
“I’ve been asking someone to mend that patch since last autumn. Apparently I asked the wrong tenant.”
The repair took the rest of the morning. Ysabet held the new cloth flat with a board while Mara fixed it at the upper edge. They replaced the sound tiles, moved the cracked ones to the basin, and weighted the lower seam so the wind could not lift it. By the time they finished, Ysabet’s right middle finger ached from bracing herself, and Kettle had eaten the drain weed down to its root.
The landlord put her hammer on the bench and stood beside it.
“I don’t want it on the bathhouse roof.”
“Neither do I.”
“I mean it, Ysabet. Tiles come down into the street. Somebody gets hurt. It won’t help to tell them your animal was hungry.”
“I know.”
Mara studied her for another moment, then put the half tile into the basin with the others.
“The buyer won’t take crumbs. You can have these broken ones. Leave the rest and the glazed gutter caps alone.”
Ysabet thanked her.
After she had gone, Pip approached the basin. Ysabet moved it to the food patch and broke one large piece beneath a folded sack, using the hammer Mara had forgotten. She put the dust aside. Pip took a manageable fragment and turned it twice before chewing.
It had spent part of a morning reaching perfectly edible food in the most troublesome possible place.
Ysabet looked at the untouched damp clay.
Perhaps the roof tasted different. Perhaps it liked carrying things. Perhaps the climb had been the point. Her notes had room for all three guesses and no reason to choose one yet.
She wrote them down, then put the pencil away and went to examine the split troughs.
Under the nearer one, Sedge opened an eye.
“Not today,” Ysabet told her. “But we’re going to need a plan.”