by Robin Hobb
Beside Soldier’s Boy, Likari put his hands over the top of his head. He crouched down, squinting his eyes. “Too much sun, too much sun!” he wailed.
In the same moment, Soldier’s Boy became aware of an itching, burning sensation on his shoulders and the top of his head. Stooping, he seized Likari’s hand. Before the boy could even stand, he was dragged back what seemed like two steps. When next my eyes focused, we were standing in the shelter of an evergreen forest. Peering through the trees, I could see the Trading Place. A long gentle slope of open land led down to it. All around us were the remains of temporary shelters and old campfires. I knew without even thinking about it that this was the area where the Specks customarily camped when they came to trade. It was deserted. The ashes in the fire pits had been rained on. “There you are!” Olikea’s voice came from behind him. Soldier’s Boy turned around. Behind him was a temporary shelter of woven screens. Olikea emerged from the doorway, looking annoyed with him. Despite her grim expression, I felt his mouth go slack at the sight of her. Never had I seen her arrayed as she was now.
She had dressed herself against the chill wind. I had seen her naked a thousand times; why did covering her body suddenly make her so alluring? Why did it suddenly awaken my own awareness that I was all but naked? She wore what would have been a simple dress on a Gernian woman. It was blue and came down to her ankles. She had paired it with a red apron with white ruffles and embroidered cherries on it. The long sleeves of her dress were full, and the lace cuffs drooped around her hands. On her head, she wore a yellow bonnet elaborately decorated with lace, ribbons, and feathers. Her long hair spilled from under it and poured down her back and around her shoulders. A red silk scarf was loosely wrapped around her throat. As I stared at her, she took little black fingerless mitts from an embroidered green silk bag and drew them onto her hands. “I have been waiting here for you since last night.”
On a Gernian woman, the mixed bits of wardrobe would have been laughable. On this wild Speck woman, they seemed an elaborate costume worthy of a barbarian queen. Necklace upon necklace of glass and ceramic beads circled her neck. Her left arm was heavy with bracelets of beads and bangles of silver and copper from her wrist to her elbow. Her face was painted with cosmetics in an elaborate parody of a Gernian woman.
“Why are you dressed like that?” Soldier’s Boy managed to ask.
“I came to trade. If I do not show what I have to trade, other women will not want it.” She gestured at herself. “These things from the Gernians, we are the only folk who have them to trade. If I wear them as if I intend to keep them for myself, others will offer a better price to persuade me to part with them. Besides, I like how they cover me from the sun.” She lifted a pink frilled parasol and carefully popped it open. Likari yelped with surprise and delight.
“You are beautiful,” Soldier’s Boy said, and I was surprised at how heartfelt his words were.
“Yes,” she agreed. “And I am glad to see that you have managed to refill your skin a bit. You are not as magnificent as you were, but at least you will not shame me.”
“Have you been down to the Trading Place already?” he asked her, ignoring her chide.
“Luckily for you, I have.” She gestured at her shelter. “Likari, there are garments for both of you in there. Bring them out.”
The boy gave a squeak of anticipation and scuttled into the shelter. In a moment, he emerged. An immense fold of striped cloth filled his arms. He brought it to me and then shook out a long tunic of rabbit skin. He tugged it on over his head and gave a sigh of relief. I chided myself for not realizing how chilled he had been. “Do I have shoes?” he asked anxiously.
“You will not really need them until the snow falls.” She dismissed his concern. “Well?” She turned her attention to me. “Get dressed so we can go to trade. Only beggars come to the trading fair ungarbed as if it were summer. A Great One should be wearing furs and necklaces. But at least you shall not look as if you are completely unrespected.”
Soldier’s Boy shook out the garment. It was made of wool or something very like it, with alternating stripes of blue, brown, and red. There was little shape to it; when he held it up, it looked like a large rectangle of fabric, with a hole for my head and two more for my arms. “Put it on, put it on!” Olikea urged me, and then impatiently helped pull it over my head. It was large and came all the way to my feet. It left my arms bare. I had not realized how chill the day was until my flesh was shielded from it. “The stripes make you look very fat,” Olikea said with great approval. “And see, it is loose. Plenty of room for you to grow big again. When it is tight on your belly, you will look magnificent. But for now it makes you look like a man of substance.”
Likari had vanished into her shelter again. He emerged with two wide-brimmed hats woven from bark strips and a fat pot of something greasy and dark red. It wasn’t food. As Soldier’s Boy watched, the lad dipped two fingers into the pot, scooping up some of the stuff and then busily smeared it down one of his arms. It went on thick and brownish-red, like a good coat of paint. “This will keep the sun from scorching me,” he said with relief.
“Do not forget to coat the tops of your feet,” Olikea warned us.
Soldier’s Boy was expecting to put on his own paint, but Olikea motioned impatiently for him to sit down. She stripped off her gloves, pushed back her lacy cuffs, and then applied the paint to me with a practiced hand. She did not merely smear it on as Likari had. She worked carefully and skillfully, swiftly marking swirls and stars into the thickly applied pigment. When she was finished, the decorative markings went from my shoulders to my wrist. “There,” she said, obviously pleased with her work. “Now you are fit to be seen. I have spoken of you, as you bade me. I said I would bring you soon to trade, so folk will be watching for you to come. A pity that you have nothing of worth to trade. You shall be little better than a beggar at the Place.”
“But he is rich!” Likari exclaimed. “He has brought the wealth of three kin-clans rolled up in the blanket. Beads and jewels and ornaments such as I have never seen!”
“What! Let me see!” Astonishment and avarice warred in her eyes.
He had not planned to unveil his wealth until he was at the Trading Place. Soldier’s Boy had thought that a sudden show of it would stun my beholders. As he slowly unrolled the blanket to display row after row of dazzling treasure, Olikea nearly fainted with ecstasy. “Where did you get it?” she demanded to know.
“From my mentor. Lisana taught me in the other place. She made me her heir. This is her wealth, rightfully come to me.”
“Lisana’s hoard!” Olikea exclaimed. “I’d heard tales of it. Some said that she never had it, others that she found a way to take it into death with her. Most believe it was stolen from her lodge by an honorless one, and that the thief took it to her death with her when she drowned trying to cross a river to escape the bad luck such treasure brings.”
“I told you it was bad luck!” Likari shrilled excitedly.
“Not if it is truly his. Oh, this, this piece is beyond value. You must not trade this; you will never get the likes of it again. And this, no, this is not for trade. I will wear this, and all will envy that I am your feeder. And these, oh, such ivory! These you must wear yourself.”
Soldier’s Boy felt a sudden pang of something. Jealousy from Lisana’s shade? Anger that Olikea would flaunt what Lisana could no longer wear? He held my face slack against it, pondering, and did not resist as Olikea lifted his hand, and slid heavy bangles of gold, ivory, silver, and inscribed horn over my wrist. The weight felt peculiar to me: no Gernian man would have adorned himself this way.
She was not finished. She exclaimed in dismay that so many of the necklaces had come unstrung. “We shall not even show these things. People will try to trade for them a bead, two beads at a time, giving up nothing but trinkets in return. No, these we will save for another time, when they will fetch what they are truly worth. This winter, I will restring them for you.”
When she came to the fertility figurine, she gave a gasp. She touched the ivory baby with one fingertip, as if expecting it to stir to sudden life. After a long moment, she took a deep shuddering breath. “This is the stuff of legend. With this, I think, we will make you a Great One to stand among the greatest of Great Ones.” Her voice shook and her face had paled around her markings. She took the scarf she had been wearing around her neck and carefully wrapped the baby in it as if it were a bunting and set it aside. She looked up at Soldier’s Boy, gave him a smile like the sun rising, and then went back to her sorting.
She crouched over the blanket of treasures like a greedy magpie thinking of snatching up shiny things. I felt Soldier’s Boy’s resentment of her mercenary attitude even as he gritted his teeth and accepted her expertise. Keeping these things would not bring Lisana back, nor would it save her tree. If parting with the treasure was what he must do to gain power among the People, then that was what he would do.
So he held his tongue as she decked him with ornamentation. She adorned herself and even the boy. She had woven bags with her that she had used to transport her trading goods to the fair. Now she sorted his wealth into them, some to keep, others to repair, some to trade easily and some to reserve for those capable of being provoked to bid against each other. The ivory child went gently into the most ornamented bag, and she surrounded it with the most valuable of the treasures. She hummed and chuckled as she did so, obviously well satisfied that her Great One was already profiting her.
She had him sit while she combed and dressed his hair with a sweet-smelling oil. She changed the order of the bracelets on his arm so that they would contrast better with one another. She gave the boy a few of the flawed or cracked beads so that he might do some of his own trading. Finally she pronounced herself satisfied and they set off for the Trading Place.
The shady hat and the paint worked well enough. The light was still a bit unpleasant but not overwhelming. The wide-brimmed hat sheltered his face and eyes. Likari wanted to run ahead and she did not forbid it, nor tell him when or where he must find them again. Again, I marveled at the difference in how the People treated their children. She assumed he’d have the sense to come back after he’d traded his beads away, and left the work of finding us to him. As Soldier’s Boy’s glance took in the size of the fair and the milling folk that populated it, I had doubts about her wisdom. Her next words shocked me.
“A pity that we have missed the peak of the trading. There were twice the tents and booths here two weeks ago, I have heard. Most of the Sea Folk and the Coastal Ones have already departed. They wished to be home before the storms of autumn grow strong.”
“Twice as many people?”
“Of course. As summer ends, the winds bring the traders from the south. For a short time, their ships can anchor and their small boats come ashore. But soon the storms of winter will scour these beaches. Before that happens, both ships and traders will be gone from here. The Trading Place will be deserted until next autumn.” She paused and looked at him severely. “Because you have delayed us we will have only a few days to do our trading. The most unique goods are probably long gone. But some say these are the best days to trade. People are more desperate to make a bargain. Or so I have heard. We shall see.”
Throughout the morning and into the afternoon, Olikea proved her value a dozen times over. She was a shrewd trader, moving easily from aggressive to reluctant as needed to strike the best bargain. At first, Soldier’s Boy tried to ask questions or even make offers, but a sharp sign from Olikea warned him to keep silent. I soon realized that his silence was not a mark of his subservience to her; rather it announced that he was too important to be involved in these trivial details of trade. Briefly, he chafed over letting her make the bargains, but soon came to see it was to his advantage to give way to her. She made ridiculous offers, argued persuasively, appeared uninterested in counteroffers, and then, with a smile, would be securing their latest bargain.
She was sage in how much of his wealth she showed, and to whom. I noted that she used up the lesser pieces first, acquiring for Soldier’s Boy a warm wolf fur cape and boots soled with walrus hide and woolen felted socks to go inside them. These he donned immediately and quickly enjoyed the benefits of being warm. She bargained on, acquiring tall fur hats for both of them, woolen mittens, and for him, a second long wool tunic, black with white spirals embroidered into it.
Once I was properly and grandly attired, she became more selective, both in what she chose to buy and what she would offer for it and even with whom she would trade. She struck a haughty air, and we strolled at a pace designed as much to display me as to give her the opportunity to make a leisurely examination of the vendors’ wares. It made Soldier’s Boy smile at the same time that he realized that Olikea was more valuable to him than he had given her credit for. She understood the finer points of establishing their status here.
Soldier’s Boy was focused on the trading but the market held my attention. I’d never seen such a place. Obviously this location had been occupied and used as a market for decades, perhaps hundreds of years. Yet there was a strange air of temporariness to it, as if it might vanish in the wink of an eye. Cobbled-together booths full of wares often butted up against small stone cottages where the traders slept and cooked their meals. A number of these cottages stood empty now, but the litter of recent habitation still surrounded them. They were mute witness to Olikea’s assertion that the market town had been larger only a week ago.
And larger still decades ago. The remnants of other cottages, entire streets of them, remained as walls of rubble open to the sky. I suspected that there had once been a permanent settlement here rather than this annual trade rendezvous. What had become of it? That was a question that only I pondered.
Olikea and Soldier’s Boy were too caught up in their trading. Olikea revealed that she wore not one but three Gernian dresses, one over the other. She stripped them off as she traded them away. Her trading partners seemed avid for all her Gernian goods and there was much evidence that other Specks before her had also trafficked well in such items. I felt consternation at seeing such an abundance of Gernian hats, ribbons, boots, paper, and parasols. From trinkets and tokens to fine jewelry and leather goods, I saw it all.
Above all, the great quantity of Gernian tobacco—stacked bales of it—astonished me. Despite the restrictions on trading it with the Specks, the exchange was obviously flourishing. Toiling men were transporting the bales down to the small boats, which were then carrying it out to the anchored vessels. Pale men with red or golden beards and shaven heads stood guard over the merchandise, and turned deaf ears to other traders trying to buy a share of it. It was also for sale in smaller quantities in market stalls run by Specks. There were pipes on the premises for those who could not wait to consume their purchases. I was astonished at the effect the mild weed seemed to have on the Specks who were buying and smoking it. Outside the stall, half a dozen near-naked beggars pleaded for a single draw from a pipe or even the charred bits of cinder from the pipes’ bowls. They seemed heedless of how the sun burned and blistered their bare flesh. They had traded all they possessed for tobacco and now begged for it. It was pathetic and horrifying. Olikea gave them a furious glance and then swept past the tobacco stalls, forcing Soldier’s Boy to hasten his stride to keep up with her.
“They barter goods to buy poison. They are fools,” she pronounced when Soldier’s Boy asked her why she hurried on so rapidly. “They shame their kin-clans and they shame the People. It is fine to trade in such stuff; the sea traders are very anxious to buy it from us. But why we sell poison to our own folk, I do not know.” Then, as if he had expressed an interest in it, she added, “And all know it is toxic for Great Ones. Do not even think of trying it!”
We came to a sector of the market that was surrounded by a zone of empty stalls. The demarcation was very clear. The five or six market stalls ahead of us were set apart. Olikea suddenly took my hand. “We do not go that wa
y, Great One. Come. Let us go down this row next.”
“But why? Why are those stalls so isolated?” All manner of possible reasons flashed through my mind. Disease. Foreigners. Unclean or blasphemous items.
Olikea spoke softly. “They are worse than the tobacco mongers. They trade in iron. They do not care what it does to the magic. They say that iron will come inevitably; that it will rule us, for our magic has not succeeded in sending iron back to where it came from. Our Great Ones do not like it. They forbade it. But these traders are young or are from other places, and do not respect our ways. Once they had discovered that a Great One might forbid it, but that the magic could not expel them…well. Few here respect them. But in truth, many are hungry for the tools that do not break and stay sharp. There are many who own them, without speaking about them. Our Great Ones mostly ignore it.”
I thought of the little flint and steel that I knew she carried for fire-starting, and a small knife of hers that I’d once glimpsed. Soldier’s Boy said nothing of those but did tell her, “I wish to go there. I want to see what they have.”
“This is not wise, Nevare. It may sicken you or weaken your magic, just when you are recovering it.”
“I will go there and see what they have. I think it is important for me to know this.”
“As you will,” she growled. She let go of my arm. Soldier’s Boy had gone half a dozen steps before she grudgingly fell in behind me. He glanced back at her. A number of other folks at the market had turned their heads and were watching me. Several spoke to their neighbors and other heads turned. One stall owner suddenly covered his wares with a blanket. Another closed the shutters on his enclosed stall. Stubbornly Soldier’s Boy walked on.
