by Allan Joyal
“Oleiana,” the girl said very softly. She was holding onto Heather’s skirts.
“A pretty name,” Jeff said.
I nodded as well before turning to look at the merchant with the cages. “Once more into the breach dear friends,” I said
Heather giggled as I walked up to the merchant. He did not wait for me to speak. As soon as I was about fifteen feet away he waved. “Come! A man like you is at the right place. I have the finest brood hens for sale. Guaranteed to lay daily for years, and good in soups and stews once their laying days are over.”
“Do you have any roosters?” I asked. “We are planning on travelling far from Saraloncto and want to hatch some eggs to replace chickens as they reach the end of their laying days.”
“I only have two roosters,” the man said carefully. “And I can’t give you a great price.”
I sighed. “You don’t have to fear competition, but I understand. I definitely want the rooster. Now what about the chickens? You say they are good egg layers?”
“You won’t get eggs every day, but the hens I have usually lay for three years,” the merchant said. “Good sized eggs too, not the little ones some of the others here will try to foist on you.”
“Do you have an example of the egg size?” I asked as Heather poked me.
The merchant turned to retrieve something. I turned my head to look at Heather. “What?” I asked.
“Oleiana whispered to me that this merchant is lying about the hens,” Heather whispered. “Most only lay for just over a year.”
I nodded as the merchant turned back. He was holding an egg in his hands. It was the size of any large one I could have purchased back on Earth. “This is the usual size,” he said. “And this one was laid earlier today. I checked the cages this morning and collected the eggs before I came to the market.”
“Do you have any chicks?” I asked.
“Chicks?” the merchant asked.
“Recently hatched eggs? Baby chickens that are still covered in down and too small to lay eggs or eat?” I pointed out.
The merchant rubbed his chin. “I do have a few…” he said slowly.
I worked to pull the coin pouch out from under my vest. It had twisted and I had to unlace the vest to free it. Once I had it out, I carefully opened it and pulled out one of the smallest silver coins I had. The merchant’s eyes sparkled as I held up the coin.
“One rooster, five hens and ten babies for this coin,” I said firmly.
“One rooster, four hens and five babies,” the merchant countered.
“One rooster, five hens and seven babies.”
“One, five and five. That’s my final offer,” the merchant said.
“Add cages for a second coin.”
“Done,” the merchant said. “But I choose the birds.”
I fished a second coin out of my pouch and then handed both coins over to the merchant. He held both up to the light and then turned away. He started moving the cages. One was placed at my feet almost immediately, but then he began a careful unstacking of the cages.
Heather nudged me. “What about other livestock?” she asked.
“Another day,” I said. “We have seen the market and been seen. With the talk we had this morning with Banford; we have spread the news that we are interested in trade and demonstrated that we have money. Now we should head back to the docks so we can meet Banford and complete the trade for the two wagons.”
“I almost forgot about that,” Jeff said. “We should probably get going. It’s almost midday.”
“What about some food for Oleiana?” Heather asked.
“Kariy will have something cooking,” I said. “And once we get her to the camp, we can clean her up. Esme should probably check her as well. I’m sure she hasn’t been eating well.”
The merchant had finally stacked four cages in front of us. Three were fairly large and the merchant put his foot against the bottom one. “This one has the five babies, instead of a sixth hen. The rooster is by himself.”
I nodded and then looked over the cages. “Thank you,” I replied. Then I put a hand on the smaller cage. “Oleiana can you carry this one?”
The tiny girl nodded and then carefully picked up the cage with both hands. The box of the cage was bigger than her head, but she held it firmly in front of her chest. As soon as she had the one cage, I picked the first of the three larger cages.
Heather took the next, and Jeff put the roll of fabric on top of the final one and picked it up. He stumbled for a moment and then looked at me. “We should head to the docks.”
The merchant pointed to an alleyway next to the corral with the sheep. “That will take you right to the river,” he said helpfully.
“Thank you,” I said. Oleiana moved to lead us as I started walking towards the alley. Heather and Jeff followed me as we made our way past the corral and into the alley.
The alley was not crowded, but a steady trickle of people reduced our fear of an ambush. I kept close behind Oleiana who giggled at a pair of young boys when they stared at the orphan.
The alley twisted a bit, but after turning left and then right, we found ourselves at the riverbank. Oleiana looked back at me as she looked at the footpath that paralleled the river.
“Head left to the docks upriver,” I said.
The young girl giggled and then started carefully following the footpath upriver. The path was only about ten feet wide, and the ground was about five to seven feet above the water just to the right of the path. Oleiana seemed to shy away from the water and walked near the city walls.
The river below the path was brown. The stench wafting up from it soon had Heather and Jeff hugging the city walls as we tried to get some relief from the smell. Oleiana appeared largely unaffected, but I noticed that she was becoming increasingly nervous even though there were few others walking on the path.
The cage I had took both hands to carry so I could not put a hand out to comfort Oleiana. I was about to say something when she stopped just before stepping in front of an open alleyway heading back into the city. She leaned forward as if to look into the alley, but I could tell that from the angle she was standing she would be unable to see anything.
I paused behind the girl. “You expect an ambush?” I whispered.
Oleiana nodded. I turned back to look at Jeff and Heather. Both of them had also halted. I pointed at Jeff and then stuck my left leg out as if I was trying to trip someone. Jeff looked at me in confusion.
I saw Heather smile. She nodded at my cage and then used her left hand to point at the ground.
Carefully, I set the cage down and then moved so I was walking at the edge of the drop to the water. I pretended to be just strolling, but I had my attention on the opening and was ready for something to happen. My vigilance was rewarded when a young man came charging out like a linebacker on a blitz.
As soon as the boy emerged, I stepped back, but left my right foot on the ground, and leaned away. This put my leg in position to trip the man. He tried to stop, but Jeff hopped forward and kicked him in behind his right knee. The boy fell forward and then flipped over my leg and fell towards the water. There was a tremendous splash. The wound in my leg pained me for a moment, but I ignored the pain as I straightened back up.
I looked down the alley. There were two young boys about the same age as Oleiana cowering in the shadows. They ducked away from me as I stared at them.
“Let’s go,” I said as I ran over to the cage I had set down. Oleiana jumped past the opening as the man in the water started screaming for help.
Heather followed the young girl. I was standing back up after picking up the cage when Jeff looked at me. “Should we try to rescue the man?” he asked.
“We don’t have time, and I can’t be sure he wouldn’t try to attack us once he was out of the water,” I said.
Jeff nodded. “I hate this place,” he said.
“That’s why we aren’t going to stay,” I pointed out. “If you grew up like we did, i
t’s easy to think that humanity was always civilized, but seeing this is a reminder that for a very long time, human life tended to be brutal and short.”
“Will it be better for us?” Jeff asked.
“One of the keys will be our ability to feed everyone. If we can reduce the amount of labor involved, there is a good chance we’ll be able to make life easier. That was a huge part of why life got easier for us,” I said.
“But how can we do that?” Jeff asked.
“Natalie was studying botany and had taken some classes on the history of agriculture,” I said. “We’ll probably have to experiment a bit, but she has knowledge that should help us. The bigger problem will be building the tools. No one who had joined us has a lot of knowledge of metalsmithing.”
“I can’t help there,” Jeff admitted. “I worked in an office. My job was analysis of buying and selling trends. The goal was to predict how prices would react.”
“We’ll need people who can track things,” I said. “But don’t expect to get out of the physical labor.”
Jeff laughed. “I’m going to be in the best shape of my life.”
“We all will,” I said.
Ahead of us Oleiana stopped. She turned to look back at us. There was an expression of confusion and fear on her face. Heather was just behind her and knelt to see what was going on. Oleiana pointed towards the docks. We could see Humbart standing at the head of the docks. He was talking to two leather clad men.
Heather smiled. “He’s waiting for us,” she told the young girl. “We are trading a raft for two wagons.”
Oleiana refused to move forward. She looked back at me with fear in her eyes. I stepped around Heather, nodded to Oleiana, took the lead, and started walking on the wooden ramp that led to the docks. Humbart saw me and waved.
“I see you have come back,” he said. “What did you think of the market?”
“It was crowded,” I admitted. “There was a lot I might have liked to look at, but with the crowds, I spent more time watching for someone trying to cut my purse. Caught one before I had a chance to talk to any merchants.”
“Your raft isn’t here,” Humbart observed.
I set the cage I was carrying down. I turned to look across the river. Here the river was wide, but when I waved I could see someone waving back.
I turned back to look at Humbart. “My companions will bring the raft over,” I said.
He was gazing across the river at the rafts. “You really are camped over there,” he said absently. “Do you know how fiercely the elves have fought against us sending anyone.”
“I wouldn’t know, but I can understand a bit. You have said you need the lumber. They have to fear that you are going to cut down their forests.”
“We do need lumber!” Humbart complained. “The annual floods tend to damage a lot of the buildings. We have to replace large sections of the city every year. Someone needs to provide the lumber.”
“Why don’t you farm the trees?” I asked.
“What?” the man asked.
“Set aside some land and then plant trees every year. Choose a type that you know grows quickly. After ten or twenty years you’ll be able to cut down the first trees you planted. Replace each tree you cut down and you should always have lumber available,” I said.
“What?” the man spat.
I shrugged. “Where I come from that is what many of the lumber dealers do. They replace each tree they cut down and work very hard to husband the forests so that the forests remain healthy. It does require an investment, but over time, they have found that it’s much more sustainable.”
Humbart looked surprised. He rubbed his chin as we watched four of my friends board the smaller of our two rafts and begin to pole it into the river.
I could see that Verval and Gerit were handling the poles. Aine was on board the raft holding a loaded crossbow. The last person was Victoria. The grim look on her face immediately had me reach for my dagger.
There was a clunk as Heather set her cage down on top of the one I had been carrying. She reached up and removed the hairnet. As her blond hair dropped down her back I heard a gasp from Humbart.
“Are you part elf?” he asked.
Heather giggled. “No.”
“Your hair is like an elf’s. I have never seen a human with hair that is so close to white unless they were an ancient,” Humbart said.
Heather giggled more. “Sorry, I’m human. My ancestors came from a land with a lot of snow and ice. I don’t know why, but they are famous for pale skin and light colored hair.”
“Swedish bikini team,” Jeff coughed as he added his cage to our stack. He looked out at the raft. “What’s up with Victoria?” he asked.
“We’ll find out in a moment,” I said. “I can’t think it would be anything major. Verval and Gerit are with her, and they are the only men who might cause a problem.”
“Lenoir?” Heather asked.
“I think the bigger danger would be if she saw a slaver. From what she’s said and hinted, she was very close to Gorm,” I said.
The raft was about halfway across the river. Victoria’s grim expression diminished slightly. I could see her looking at something near Heather’s legs. I glanced down to see Oleiana hiding behind my lover and peeking around her skirts.
Humbart turned to look at me. “You have a different group today,” he pointed out.
I nodded. “I think they wanted to provide some additional protection. We’ve had some problems.”
“Ron!” Victoria shouted. “Mary’s been hurt!”
The raft was now within twenty feet of the dock. Verval and Gerit were struggling to keep it even with the dock as they moved it the last few feet.
“What happened?” I asked.
“Some men were in a canoe on the river. They saw Mary and fired arrows at her,” Victoria replied.
“What happened to the men?” I asked as a corner of the raft nudged the dock. Gerit heaved against the pole to get the raft to spin in place and snug up against the dock.
“Lenoir got one with her sling,” Aine said. “The survivors ducked down and rowed downstream before Lydia or I could get our crossbows ready.”
“How bad is it?” I asked.
“Clean hit through her thigh,” Victoria said. “Esme said that your wound was probably worse. She also wondered why you haven’t said anything about pain.”
I groaned. My thigh had been sore, but the importance of what we were doing meant I needed to pretend it had not hurt. “Thanks for reminding me.”
Victoria shook her head and looked at the crowd gathered on the docks. “What’s happening?”
I used my left hand to indicate Humbart. “This young merchant has agreed to a trade. His merchant group is giving us two small wagons and the eight mules we’ll need to pull them. The plan is that we’ll load the wagons on the raft along with Humbart and his two helpers. They will ride across the river with us, and then they will take this raft when they leave. We’ll still have the larger raft for moving back and forth.”
“We have two wagons?” Verval asked. “Will they fit on the raft?”
One of Humbart’s men shrugged. “It might be better to take them one at a time. But if we need two trips we can do it. Shall we bring the first one down?”
I nodded. “Do that.”
The two men moved to the edge of the dock and began leading a four-mule team that was pulling a wagon. They had to ask for Jeff and me to help get the wagon turned to roll down the dock, and then again to lift the wagon onto the raft.
“Next time, how about we beach the raft just up river?” one of the men said. “We can just roll it on rather than try to roll down the dock.”
“We can try to bring it to shore, but its too heavy to beach,” Verval said. “Ron, once we land, get Mary and Al. Keeping the raft against the dock is exhausting.”
“I’ll help as well,” Jeff said. “Ron you should rest the leg. I’m amazed we all forgot you had been hit yesterday.”
Victoria noticed the girl’s frantic dash and looked at me. “Who was that?” she asked.
“An orphan girl named Oleiana,” I said. “She came up to me in the market, and I convinced her to come to the camp. Esme should check her out, and then we need to get her cleaned up. If she’s telling the truth, her parents perished in the spring floods two years ago, and she’s been on her own ever since.”
“And she’s still alive?” Victoria asked.
“She’s nothing but skin and bones,” I said. “Supermodels have more fat than she does. And her hair is filthy.”
“We can do something about that,” Victoria said with a nod. “If we can get her to trust us.”
“She trusts Heather,” I said. “Or at least she appeared to during our walk here. She even warned us about an ambush.”
Victoria nodded. “I’ll work with Heather then. Nice trick getting her to remove the hair net. That shocked the merchant and probably will get more rumors started.”
“All her idea,” I said. “She’s growing up quickly.”
Victoria smiled. “She has someone she wants to impress.”
It was my turn to nod as everyone boarded the raft. With nine people and the wagon it was a bit crowded, but Gerit and Verval were able to use their poles to push us away from the dock and into the current. I stood watching us drift away from the city and the shore.
“Can I come up to the camp?” Humbart said from my right shoulder, surprising me. “If I see what you have, I might be able to spread the word on what you are looking for.”
“That should not be a problem,” I said. “The raft needs to make one more round trip to collect the second wagon.”
Humbart smiled. The raft had reached the middle of the river and spun slightly. Gerit and Verval made corrections, and I found that the corner I was standing at was soon pointed upstream as we fought our way across the current. I looked to my right to see that Amalya, Corwar and Hencktor were waiting on the shore. Lydia and Lenoir stood on the bluff above the shore, holding their weapons.
