"Still busy as ever, Erythan. Is Nairn here?" He grinned and indicated the boy, who was visibly not asking questions. She smiled back. "If he becomes a nuisance, send him back to me."
"No trouble, that boy. He's not learning guild secrets." The smith turned to open a chest by one wall. "I believe that I finally have what you want." He beckoned her over to I the window, where it was brighter. The smithy was, for all I intents, a permanent building and so was both safer than wood or canvas—but also thereby darker.
Erythan unwrapped a pair of slim metal darts, perhaps two spans long, each with thin vanes that curved slightly in a smooth spiral.
"There you are," he said. "Much point heavier this time." She picked one of them up and tested the weight. "If I didn't know any better, I'd say those weren't for throwing but for dropping from a height. Castle height?"
"Hmmm." She looked up and placed the dart carefully back into his hand. "No, not castles. Would it be unreasonable to ask ten score? As well as the knives."
"Ten? Are you starting a war?" he asked, surprised.
She shook her head quite seriously to his question. "No, finishing one. Erythan, I am expecting more trouble from a certain person quite soon. I ... I need to ask a favor of you, just for an evening, but I hate to fo—"
"Nonsense!" He tapped her firmly on one shoulder, staggering her slightly. "You are a friend and need not excuse yourself. Out with this great favor you want me to do!"
"I had hoped that you and your lady wife could take the children this one evening, perhaps the night."
"This isn't a great deal," Erythan said. "Why make a fuss? Of course we can take the children, but ..." He thought a moment, then his bushy eyebrows drew together in an ominous frown.
"Now what is this? You have not had problems protecting those two despite the troubles they've given you since you kin-bonded them. Why should they not be with you, unless you expect worse than vandalism?"
She shrugged. "A feeling I have. That's all. And I find puppet shows and duels with silvered wood swords tiresome."
"Ah." He wasn't deceived. "Of course we can take them." He reached out as if to forestall her leaving, wanting to speak of the possible trouble further, but the stare she gave him cut him off. "As long as Sayonda doesn't take my two out on the roof again!" he continued. If Trave didn't wish to speak of it, then he could not, for friendship's sake.
She laughed and promised to speak to the girl.
With a start Trave woke from a light doze. She still found it strange to be tired enough to sleep at night. The leaves around her rustled softly, scattering sharp-edged patterns of moonlight across the ground. Below her was the faint sound of someone creeping up to her booth area.
The light wickerwork stood out against the night, and the strangely silent Maesim coiled in the moonlight, their presence felt more by the shadows they cast than any other means. Trave held her breath as the noise was repeated nearly under her and she heard, barely above a whisper:
"Here, cut that one down."
That was enough for her. She swung down to a lower branch, snagged the rope she had specially coiled there, beginning the shriek that was the battle cry of her people.
There were two of them. They froze for a second at the eerie whistle echoing off the booths and buildings around them and turned to run. One made it away, and the pound of retreating feet faded rapidly while the other one went down. Light though she was, all her weight came down on his shoulders. He twisted to throw her off, and she clamped one of her feet on his throat. At the unexpected strength of her grip, he froze, struggling to breathe.
"That's good, despoiler. Lie still," she said. A rock was digging into one of her elbows, and she could feel the grit driven into her fur. Her back felt bruised. The rope had been dropped in her plunge and lay just beyond her reach. She untangled one hand from the robes that had gotten twisted around the both of them in the short tussle and reached for it.
At her motion, he lunged to free himself, clawing at the foot clamped around his neck. She rolled, the robe pinning her to the ground, and the man's full weight descended on her other foot.
There was a sickening crack, and Trave bit through the inside of her cheeks to keep from crying out. Hot saltiness flooded her mouth, and tears squeezed from the corners of her eyes. She levered herself up and consciously undamped her unbroken foot. The holding reflex had cut in as the pain seared through her, and she had almost strangled the man unconscious. Somehow, she managed to struggle to a kneeling position and tie him.
At last she pulled away from him and hiked up the edge of her robe. "This is what you get for trying to do it all yourself!" she muttered to herself in disgust. A whimper kept trying to crawl out of her throat. "Trying to be a warrior rather than, sssssaah!" She hissed through her teeth as she pulled the broken half of her foot straight and sat, panting, for a long moment. "A diplomat." She looked down at the two toes, one pointing straight forward, the other back, each tipped with a talon. The one would never be quite straight again. The disturbance would bring other merchants, hire-swords, and the fair-ward, but she should have several moments to catch the other.
Hastily she tore the hem of the offending robe and bound the foot tightly, glancing at the man she had tied. She would have a few moments to catch the other vandal, having seen enough of the man to find him again. She gritted her teeth against the pain throbbing through her foot and leg and launched herself after the vandal, the illusions of the Maesim fading behind her. The real Maesim-na one would have heard, but the visual image was enough to protect her valuables, drawing the vandals, even if she couldn't afford to buy the illusion of sound.
Dorven, the fair-ward, wheeled about and peered into the darkness behind him. Had that been the scuff of a footstep? He turned again and froze in the act of reaching for his staff. Between his outstretched hand and the bronze-bound oak stood Trave. He cleared his throat.
"Trave. Ah, what can I help you with so late? I mean, the ah ..."
She spoke quietly, but the sound of her voice was enough to silence him. "Why, Dorven? You of all the people in this place would have no quarrel with me!" She took up the heavy staff, leaning on it casually. Pain was shrilling through her body, ringing through the bones of her head. The eyes she fixed on Dorven's face were a darkness that he felt he was about to fall into, green lost in black.
He turned away from those eyes, his fists clenching. "Why did you have to come here?" he said. "Here I could have made a place for myself.''
"Your sister offered you a place of honor. Even after what you did with her holding."
"Yes! But not of war lord! Not even of adviser! Steward was all I could beg for!" He swung around to confront Trave. "And her allegiance with your people, when she took the holding back with their help. Your grandmother's help. Do you think I could bear to live under her rule or that of your inhuman matriarchs? The priest was right!" He took a step toward her. "I should have taken what was mine rather than steward for a woman!" His hands reached for her.
"And what do you here?" Trave asked quietly. "Steward for all the fair and the Temple of the Three Lordly Ones.
That priest, of the hated one, who died at our farewell fire, by our hands, led you about by your manhood. When you seized EastHold." She watched his hands, clawlike, tremble before her face and guessed at something she believed. "And how much did Twill pay you?"
For a long moment his hands stilled. She could see the hard calluses, yellowed on his palms, before her eyes. Those hands could snap her neck in an instant. A moment only, then they began to tremble again and moved to cover his face, a harsh sob tearing free.
"I don't know. I don't know who to believe. He was right. You are right. My honor is sold, and what EastHold believed is true. I am a coward and forsworn." He was down on the dusty road, hidden in the shadow of the tents and booths. "I am forsworn. Trave, believe me, I did not touch thy things when all was destroyed. Twill approached me only today through the priests of—"
"Name me n
o names!" She cut him off, hearing him slip into the softer tongue of the EastHold he grew up in. She had meant to give him to the fair-court for the justice he deserved, but . . . he was her wind-sister's brother, led by evil though not truly evil himself.
"I swear to thee, Trave!!—"
"Here!" She swept the staff, the symbol of authority, into the hand he reached to her as, in the distance, a man began to scream. "Be the first at my booth. The vandal will be babbling by the time you arrive. Hide the rope, and no one will give credence to his accusations of you. For your sister's sake and my grandmother, who was her first-friend among the Iystria." He looked up, incredulous. "Go!" she cried, and saw the pale flash of his hair as he ran, this time to redeem his honor.
The world was graying out around Trave, then she could no longer see. As she sagged to the ground she heard another scream and smiled. The wind from the slaughter grounds made a rope that even the most insensitive felt. The wind roared darkness through her head.
• • •
It was fair's end, and Trave clung to the tips of the tree where her booth had stood, the night wind ruffling her fur. The twigs clenched in newly healed feet swayed, first one way, then the other.
Twill had paid for many things—for arranging vandalism, as well as being banned from the fair, and guildless. Sayonda had left early this morning with the caravan going north and east, traveling as humans must. The girl would eventually become a wind-weaver, even being a human, for she had the talent. Trave smiled at the thought of having an apprentice, even if it did tie them both to the Ancients' village, rather than traveling with the Youngers. And Nairn. The boy had been ecstatic at the thought of being apprenticed to Erythan. They would see them next year at the fair, for Trave had succeeded and could return home with her success and responsibility for the children she had kin-bonded. Weaving new paths to grow in the wind of years to follow.
She pulled the voluminous robes over her head as she swung, so far above the ground, and laughed, releasing the fine weaving into a wind that curled around her, feeling free for the first time in many ten-days. Trave Iystrian spread her hands wide, letting the wind fill the membranes stretching from wrist to ankle, and soared into the night sky, reaching for a wind from home.
THE BOOK-HEALER
Sandra Miesel
Where was Master Romrad? The old book-healer's booth had been my favorite stop at the fair ever since I was a spindly acolyte barely able to read the manuscripts Romrad repaired and sold. With sometimes strange things about them even that older magic which only the most adept can understand—which delivered all we know. My eagerness didn't age even when priestly robes—and the beginnings of a priestly paunch—slowed my steps a bit.
I rued my present bulk as I tried to move against the stream of fairgoers. Even up here by our temple gate, the first-day crowds were thick enough to clot. Then shouts erupted on my left. A trader named Hansper started screaming for the fair-wards as a thief snatched one of his baubles. Gawkers began to surge toward the captured criminal, and I slipped through the crowd to my goal in the opposite direction.
Master Romrad was too engrossed in his work to heed the commotion, much less me. He was bent over his desk cleaning a choral song sheet with a lump of fresh bread.
Glancing at the manuscript, I reeled off a glib attribution: "Third Nocturne, Feast of the Apotheosis, lacewing borders and foliar initials suggest a school of Maros origin."
"Father Tomazio," he greeted me without raising his eyes, "if you take another look, you'll see it's just a provincial imitation of the classic Maros style—a good imitation, mind you." Then he beamed up at me. His crinkled smile was as warm as ever, but he winced as I clasped his hand. Rubbing his gnarled fingers, he said: "Putting on flesh, aren't you, lad? Heading the library must agree with you."
"Since when is gauntness accounted a virtue?" I sucked in my plump cheeks. "A temple functionary is expected to be a man of substance." My voice softened. "Are the twinges in your hands getting worse, Master Romrad?"
He nodded. "I drink extract of mourningtree as other men drink wine. So now I have ringing in my ears as well as stiffness in my joints. As the saying goes, I expected to feel my age, but not so soon."
"Surely our temple heal-alls can find you a better remedy. I'll ask one to examine you."
"At this season? When the great ones of the land will be clamoring for their services? Lords bless your kindness for the thought. Now"—he motioned me closer—"come around behind the counter and sit with me. Mind you don't step on Brindle. He's been downright surly since we arrived." A shadow passed over Romrad's face.
I accepted the invitation, cautiously avoiding the cushion where Romrad's pet tree-cat lay sullenly curled. Although more scarred and less spry than he used to be, Brindle was still a formidable fighter. He roused himself stiffly, yawned, and sniffed my robe. Only after passing that inspection did I dare presume to stroke Brindle's brown-and-gold-striped fur. He gave thunderous purrs and nuzzled my knee.
Meanwhile, Romrad had pulled another gobbet of bread from the broken loaf beside him. He wadded the soft material into a ball, breathed on it, and whispered a word of his craft, then resumed rubbing the soiled parchment clean.
"All this gold and heliotrope does take the lordlings' eyes," he said with a chuckle. "They don't care if the calligraphy's shaky—they won't be chanting these verses. I re-bound a genuine Maros volume recently, The Maxims of Quaritch, as I recall. If its owner had only kept it properly wrapped in its book chemise, the damage—"
He broke off as two customers approached the booth. One was a foppish young nobleman, while the other had the suavely sober look of a lawyer. I stepped back discreetly while they bargained with Romrad to unroll a brittle leather scroll. This fragile document held evidence vital to an inheritance dispute. The case was so complicated, our temple's judicial seeress had been asked to intervene. Romrad promised to restore suppleness within three hours, in time for the afternoon session of the court.
After the lordling and his lawyer departed, I shook my head in dismay at their arrogance. "Truly, Romrad, you have the patience of the Sky Lords."
"Only the patience of a craftsman." He waved my compliment aside. "Save your praise for the goods I sell."
Since his stock was not the sort to attract idle interest, no one disturbed us for nearly an hour while he spread out his wares. There were chronicles and romances, almanacs and oracles, manuals of ritual and treatises on war, decorated in all the regional styles of the last several centuries. Some texts were complete, others had been reduced to a few gatherings or even single leaves. One tantalizing fragment of glossy paper was penned in that fluid script used beyond the southern seas. It made me yearn for loveliness beyond my grasp.
Romrad himself grew pensive. "For me," he said, "fine illuminations are like windows on enchanted realms where smooth roads wind past fields of flowers that cannot fade."
But my mind's eye saw a weary old man driving his wagon through a bandit-ridden wasteland. I murmured, "Would that misfortune spared men and manuscripts alike."
"Then how would I get my living? The trouble is, Tomazio, I spend so much time getting my living, I've little left over to read and savor the books I heal. And time, I fear, is running out."
Trying to banish melancholy by a return to business, I noted those manuscripts whose special beauty or rarity made them candidates for acquisition by the library.
“Sound choices, Tomazio." Romrad nodded his approval. “Advancement has taught you prudence."
"Not according to our new bursar. To hear her talk, I chase books as hotly as a minstrel chases skirts. It's all too true, I must confess." I sighed in mock contrition. "But if I were spending my own gold instead of the temple's, I'd buy your Primer of Perfection here just for its whimsical borders." I leafed through the fable book, chuckling. "Look at this page. Who couldn't laugh at the manticore with the toothache?"
“Master Hansper," snapped Romrad.
"The curio seller?" I po
inted to the other side of the courtyard. "The one who relies on expensive spells instead of a watchful tree-cat to guard his goods?" As if on signal, Brindle stood up on his hind legs to peer over the edge of the counter.
“The very man." Romrad looked about warily. "Here, Tomazio, stand on this stool. Can you see Hansper in his booth? It's the one draped in red."
I peered across the crowd as directed and stepped down. "There's a black-clad figure greeting customers."
"May they bargain keenly and long. Then even if he has some occult means of overhearing us at a distance, our talk should be safely private for a while."
I frowned. "This isn't like you, old friend. What's the matter?"
"I wish I could tell you. Listen and see if you think I'm cringing at shadows. ..." His voice trailed off.
I laid a hand on his shoulder and bent closer to hear him.
He continued, "You realize, Tomazio, that the invasion and other disorders of the past few years have shaken loose all manner of valuables. Even if they escaped pillage, many proud folk found that they couldn't eat heirlooms. Like others in the luxury trades, I've been picking up bargains at distress sales. That's why my stock is so good at present. Hansper has been doing the same, often in the same places. As our paths crossed repeatedly since the last fair, I began to notice a new and marked preference for arcane, bizarre, or even . . . unwholesome objects. Perhaps I'm making more of it than the case warrants, but I keep sensing a profound wrongness in what he buys or why he seems to want it."
"Have you seen this pattern in your own dealings with him?"
"Nothing really alarming, except the way he hovers about my booth and wagon, turning up when I least expect. I feel I'm being watched even when I don't see him."
"Anything else?"
Romrad's brows knitted. "As you know, we merchants trade among ourselves before the fair opens to the public. Yesterday evening Hansper bought a mutilated copy of An-Jan's Everlasting Questions from me because its margins were unusually thick with variant readings and unique glosses."
Norton, Andre - Anthology Page 14
