Merchant Crab

“So… Can I eat the pie or…?” Balthazar said, looking back and forth between it and Margo.

“How can they keep getting away with it?!” she said to the man putting on the apron, seemingly forgetting all about her client.

“Oh,” Marvin said in a very crossed manner. “You know exactly how! Those damnable, good-for-nothing guards, that’s how!”

“You guys seem very upset about something, so maybe I should just take that pie to go now?” the impatient crab said.

The robust baker stopped and frowned at Balthazar. “I’m sorry, but who’s that?!”

“Ah, this is a client, dear,” Margo explained. “Mr. Balthazar is new in town.” She turned to the traveling merchant. “Don’t mind my husband Marvin, he can be quite the airhead sometimes.”

The baker’s fluffy mustache shuffled from side to side. “My apologies, I didn’t mean to ignore you, but until this very moment I honestly thought you were some kind of new sculpture my wife had bought.”

Balthazar waved a dismissive claw. “Easy mistake to make. Now, about this pie here.”

“Ah, of course,” said Margo. “Like I was saying, 25 crowns for the slice. Lucky you that my husband didn’t come in with the bad news a couple of minutes earlier, or I would have asked for 30.”

Despite being no stranger to hiked up prices, even the crab was feeling like that was a bit much.

“What in blazes could justify that?!”

The shopkeeper clutched the many pearls of her necklace. “Didn’t you hear? Those cursed thieves did it again.”

Balthazar rolled his eyes. All he wanted was to eat pie.

“Alright, I’ll bite,” he said. “What thieves, and what did they do?”

The answer did not come from Margo, but instead from her husband, who stomped into the room again, crooked apron tied around his wide waist.

“The mango thieves!”

“They need to work on their branding. That name sucks,” said the crab.

“For weeks now, they’ve been robbing supplies of our precious mangoes all over town!” the exasperated man exclaimed. “Nobody can seem to do a thing to stop them, and it’s throwing business into disarray on the busiest time of the year!”

“Darling, please, calm yourself,” the concerned lady pleaded, placing a many-ringed hand on his shoulder. “Watch your blood pressure. Why don’t you go back to the kitchen and get started with the afternoon batch while I tend to our client here?”

After a brief nod, Marvin wiped his perspiring forehead and walked away to the back, grumbling. “How am I supposed to work without my mangoes? And the milk hasn’t even arrived yet!”

“As my husband was saying,” Margo explained, “some gang of miscreants has taken to stealing whole shipments of Marquessa’s mangoes for several weeks now. This has greatly disturbed many businesses, ours included.”

Balthazar nodded. “Right, and so you’re raising the prices, I get it. Still, paying 25 gold for a slice of pie seems a bit much, even for me.”

The boutique’s owner tapped a finger against her lips, thinking.

“You said that you were on your way to the guildhall, did you not?”

“Yes, I did. Why?”

The woman wiggled her jeweled fingers. “I find it an outrage that this situation still hasn’t been solved by the city authorities, and I think it’s high time I took action.”

The crab’s eyestalks stood up in attention. “Take action… how?”

“I shall write a strongly worded letter!” Margo said, wiggling a finger in the air.

“Oh yes, that ought to do it,” Balthazar said under his breath while rolling his eyes.

The shopkeeper reached into a drawer and produced a piece of paper, a flask of ink, and a quill.

“That’s great and all,” the increasingly desperate traveler said, “but… what about the pie?!”

“If you take this letter to the city hall yourself,” said Margo, while leaning over the page and hastily writing on it, “it will carry an extra weight to it, coming from a visitor to the city, who is clearly being exposed to such a stain on our beloved town. The shame alone will surely force our leader to action! Do this and I’ll give you a discount on the pie. Say… 5 crowns for it.”

Balthazar’s antennae perked up. “20 gold just for delivering a letter somewhere I was already heading to?”

“Is it too much?” said the lady. “Perhaps I should make it ten, instead?”

“No, no, that’s perfectly reasonable! Deal closed! Here’s the money!”

The crab hurriedly reached into his money bag and placed the payment on the counter.

“Now can I please just eat it already?”

Still writing, Margo lifted her gaze off the page and looked at the crustacean and the pastry.

“Usually I’d insist payment should only be delivered upon the conclusion of the job, but you seem trustworthy enough, and I’ve seen how you have been looking at that pie since you got here. Go on, dig in.”

As if he had been standing up all day and had finally been allowed the sweet release of sitting down, Balthazar descended on that slice of mango pie like a famished wild animal. Which he wasn’t, because he was obviously a crab of class, and not wild. Except, perhaps, for that one brief moment, where he was going wild on that piece of pastry.

The first bite alone was enough to take his mind straight back to the shores of his pond and to the many summer noons spent enjoying baked goods in Madeleine’s company. The key difference being that this was an entirely new flavor. The texture reminded him of a peach pie, but with an even sweeter taste. Its crust was also a clear tell that this had been made by different hands than his sorely missed baker girl. Despite never having considered it before, Balthazar had grown familiar enough with her touch to be able to tell the tiniest of differences.

Wherever you are, Madeleine… your dough is still superior.

Despite not being an entirely suitable replacement to his dear friend’s baking, the joy of tasting pie again after so long still filled the crab with great satisfaction, and a tear nearly shed from the corner of his eye after finishing. Mainly because he still wanted more.

“Simply delicious,” he said, still chewing the remnants of the slice. “Your husband is a great baker.”

Margo stood up straight again, putting down her quill as she folded the piece of paper.

“He certainly is, but this pie you just ate was actually prepared by me,” she said. “I always do the morning batch, while he does the afternoon one.”

“Oh,” the crab said in surprise.

“You may not expect it from looking at me, but I still know how to take off my rings and get my hands in the dough.”

Teaches me not to judge a book by its cover. Balthazar thought while wiping his mouth.

“Now that you ate, here is the letter for you to deliver. Just take it up to the receptionist and she will know how to get it into the right hands.”

The traveler took the piece of paper into his pincer. “Watch out, Rob. I’m coming to take your new job already.”

“Pardon?” said Margo.

“Don’t worry about it. Little inside joke for myself. I’ll get going to the guildhall now, before the whole day is gone and I somehow still haven’t gotten any closer to reaching it.”

Skittering to the front door, the crab opened it, making the bell ring once more.

“Thanks for the pie,” he said, looking back while holding the door open. “I’ll definitely be back for more before I leave town.”

“Please do,” the boutique’s owner responded. “It was lovely to meet you, Mr. Balthazar.”

Rejoining his two companions outside, Balthazar hurried them to follow him up the sidewalk.

“Come on, let’s get to that big building over there before I find something else to get sidetracked with.”

Holding his pincers next to his eyestalks, the crab skittered all the way from the bakery to the largest building in the whole square.

Standing in front of it, he looked up in awe at the size of the hall, with its huge domed roof, a flag blowing in the wind at its very peak.

Excited to see it from the inside, the crab hurriedly climbed to the front. Three different sets of heavy wooden doors made up the entrance, with several people coming in and out of them, some of them clearly adventurers from the look of their gear.

Balthazar had set foot inside the building for no longer than a handful of seconds, taking in the impressive and busy environment of the guildhall, when he felt a small hand tugging on him from the side.

He turned, looking for who was trying to get his attention, but to his surprise, the face he found was a lot closer to his eye level than what the crab was used to.

A child stood next to him, hands now behind her back.

After their eyes met, the young girl spoke.

“You got any money?”