The Skin Map by Stephen R. Lawhead Page A

start looking for a place to have my bakery.”
    “Now?”
    “Why not? It is a good day.”
    “Very well,” she agreed. “Where do we start?”
    “We begin here.”
    After leaving the mules and wagon with a nearby livery service, Englebert and Wilhelmina made a thorough circuit of the square. They went shop by shop around the large open plaza that formed Prague’s busy commercial centre, and talked to many of the shopkeepers. Yes, the Old Square was the best in the city, the best in the entire region, even. And, yes, it was very expensive doing business in such a prime location. No, they did not know of any empty shops or premises on the square. “The landlord charges any price he wants for rent,” complained the butcher who worked out of a shop hardly bigger than a wagon bed. “Yet even at such high prices, these places do not stay empty long.”
    The sentiment and explanation was echoed with only slight variation by everyone they approached. In the end, they were forced to conclude that even if there was a vacancy, Englebert would not be able to afford it with the limited funds he had brought from Rosenheim for the venture. “Everything is very expensive. I am beginning to think I have made a mistake in coming here,” he confessed. The thought cast a pall over his cheerful demeanour.
    “How can you say that?” Mina chided. “It’s a big city, and we’ve only looked one place.”
    “We’ve looked in the best place.” He sighed. “Everyone says this.”
    “Maybe,” she allowed. “But there are bound to be others just as good. We just have to expand the search.”
    Englebert allowed himself to be prodded into action once more, and they began scouring the interlocking network of side streets. These, they quickly discovered, were uniformly dark and narrow, and a far cry from the salubrious square. The shops and businesses were of a poorer, scrappier, even vaguely disreputable quality—as were the people frequenting these down-market establishments. The premises tended to be shoddy, the facades in need of cleaning and repair; there was rubbish everywhere; a few overly dressed ladies loitered about and, out of the corner of her eye now and then, Mina glimpsed rats.
    The off-streets were depressed, to be sure, and ultimately depressing to Englebert, whose hopes dwindled with each dingy urban corridor they explored. His sighs became heavier and more frequent. Yet, these grubby backstreets did offer the one thing the more respectable and prosperous square lacked: cheap space, and plenty of it. Indeed, every third or fourth shop seemed to be either empty or going out of business; and those that weren’t gave every impression of clinging precariously to their existence.
    “I have seen enough,” said the now disheartened baker. “Let us go back.”
    Mina felt sorry for her dejected companion and concern over her own prospects, which were now enmeshed with his. She gave him a pat on the shoulder, and they started for the open air and sunlight of the square. Working their way back through the tangle of interwoven byways, they turned onto a street they had not searched. Halfway along, they saw that the way was blocked by a horse and wagon drawn up outside of one of the buildings. There was a man in the wagon stacking furniture and boxes into a very tipsy pyramid. Now and again, a woman appeared in the doorway with another box that she handed up to the man to be added to the unstable mound.
    “I think they’re moving out,” surmised Mina.
    “Who can blame them?” commiserated Englebert.
    Drawing near the wagon, they paused. “Good day to you, sir. God bless you!” called Englebert, who seemed incapable of passing anyone without offering a greeting.
    The man looked up from his labours and grunted a reply. The woman appeared in the doorway with a rolled-up rug. On a whim, Mina felt moved to address her. “Good day,” she said. “Are you moving out?”
    “ Achso, Deutsch! ” The woman gave her a dark,