The area around the temple teemed with life even on the first night: ladies in long, stiff robes and intricate tabards; soft-voiced eastern men in dark clothes and darker skins; women in softer fabrics; money-lenders, scribes, and jaded collectors; converts of Thotharn with coarse robes and close-shaven heads; Sisters of the Moon, now-empty scabbards at their belts, their faces half-painted in ceremonial tracery, the other half without. Above them all, on the temple steps, those birds of ill omen—the priests—their smoky eyes held silence, and more than silence, captive. The temple that loomed overhead, square save for a round tower in the center, made the large crowd look minuscule in comparison. As he approached, the vague unease that always filled him at the thought of the priesthood increased. Nimrod never enjoyed this obligatory trip, and he hoped that the ceremonies would soon be over.
As he joined the offering line, he felt a large hand clasp his shoulder, and a voice boomed, "Welcome, Nim, I've not seen you in a fairing or two."
"Senshal! How goes it in the north?" He turned and clasped the large, hairy man to him, smacking him on the shoulders with the palms of his hands. Both men ignored the glares of those around them.
"Well enough, though I hear you do better."
"I can't complain," Nimrod said while eyeing the huge sypal ring on his friend's hand and the matching one on the armband that circled his left arm. His friend had been a fool to wear this sort of finery before he'd made his thank-offering. "Lord Gismael has commissioned a weaving from me this turning. I had intended to send it with someone from a village near my own, but at the last moment I decided to come instead."
Senshal pulled his large mustache. "You haven't heard, then? Lord Gismael died this last ten-day."
"Nay! But I had counted on that weaving. Full sorrows to his widow," he added hastily.
"Perhaps his family will hold to the bargain. His son's here, I understand, and a bad business it is, too. Celebrating and his father barely covered with stone." He lowered his voice as a man just in front of them turned to stare. The; stranger's clothing marked him as one of the followers of Thotharn, a minor religious sect of which there were rumors of strange practices. "At any rate, the pledge may still stand."
Nimrod's face brightened. “I’ll look for him tomorrow." The line moved closer to the priest's table. "I see you come late, as I do, so that we don't have to enter the temple and waste the day with their ceremonies. These priests do not please me. Their sifting of thoughts ... it leaves a trail."
Senshal laughed. "I like them not much, either, and their torches make me gag. Guard your thoughts. I've heard much the same from others."
Nimrod looked toward the table. Just behind the sleepy-looking scribe who received the offering, he could see a young priest, robed in black with gold trim. The priest's dark-rimmed eyes regarded him steadily. Nimrod could smell the torches even from the steps, and their perfume had a narcotic effect. He moved up to the table in his turn. Thotharn's follower brushed by him with a glance of distaste, and Nimrod marked him to memory. The fellow had pale, dishwater hair and a pasty complexion.
"What offerings do you bring, sera Beangh, this fairing?"
"Two weavings, priestly one, of a surpassing fine dye."
"Of your weavings we have plenty, man of the south."
"Not the likes of these." He heard Senshal snort. With an effort he kept a straight face. "Examine the dyes, look at the richness of the scene and the loft of the thread. This tapestry will cover half of one of your inner walls. And it is the scene of the arrival of the Three—"
"Yes, yes." The priest behind the scribe waved a languid hand. "We will require an additional two kars."
"Two kars! Why that is fully twenty-four ithlings!"
"Two kars." He smiled at Nimrod, and the tips of his teeth glinted as the smile widened. "Or perhaps you would prefer to enter the temple and consult."
"Two it is." Nimrod spilled the coins out onto the table and began to count them hurriedly. As he counted, the priest stared just over Nimrod's shoulder and asked, "What brings you to the fair, sera Beangh?"
"I come to sell, to sing, and to take a rest from my keep."
"And perhaps give them a rest as well." The priest's yes were shrewd. Nimrod heard Senshal suppress a laugh. 'See that you keep the peace, sera Beangh." He touched the tips of his fingers together and bowed quickly to Nimrod, who returned the favor before he moved back through the crowd to await Senshal. Two weavings and an additional two kars. Saddled with a hyn that loved the taste of Irna, a ot inexpensive drink. I’ll regain that money, he vowed. They'll not find me such an easy pocket.
"These priests grow too fat," he muttered as Senshal joined him. "Why, by the forks of the road and the fast wind in my face—" He broke off as a fair-ward strolled by. tenshal pulled his mustache and said nothing. "Senshal, will you need a helper in your stall? I must recoup my losses, what with Lord Gismael's death and these robber priests—" He broke off again and doffed his hat at a passing fair-ward.
"Meals and five ithlings a day."
"Done." They clasped hands.
"It may be that we can pull these priests' whiskers for them. Eyes open, wits about us." Senshal's brown eyes eld a hint of glee.
"The last time you said that, they threw us out of the air."
"And have we not learned from that?" Senshal's voice was complacent.
Nimrod winked. "I'll help you set up in the morning."
"I begin not so long after sun's rise."
"I do recall."
Senshal left him then, in front of the largest sty each, a rue cook's tent indeed with its soft leather flaps gleaming in the moonlight. Its crescent light guided Nimrod back to his own gear. He pulled a few more bundles from the ceks and stretched out on his bedding. Placing his hands beneath his head, he glanced at the hyn, which had settled on his largest bundle and was regarding him with unwinking eyes. It never sleeps, he pondered drowsily. Arid with that he fell asleep himself.
He awoke in the morning only to discover the hyn was gone and the ceks were unburdened. The remainder of his wares were neatly stacked like a wall to his left. Most of the tents showed no sign of life, no morning fires. Nimrod wondered where the hyn had gone. It would be difficult to detect the creature if it changed shape. Ah, well ... the imp had come at its whim and would stay or go at its whim. It seemed all his plans were going awry.
Nimrod patted the nearest cek absentmindedly on the rump. Finally he decided to take a stroll around the section before brewing the lrna and joining Senshal.
Steam rose curling from the pool in a great billow until it was difficult to see even the thick-packed grass squares, droplets hanging from them as dew on a spider's web. Nimrod leaned back and felt the heat of the stones beneath him sting his back, and then his skin grew accustomed to it. Men around him grunted, and one hummed an idle tune under his breath. From the distance came the roar of the festival crowd, now grown as large as any Nimrod had seen, in one mere day.
This was the feast, then, with the steam in your nostrils, the stones at your back, and soon a good measure of liquor in your mug. The day could have been better: he could have sold his weaving to Lord Gismael's son; nonetheless, a while in Senshal's cooktent with food and drink to spare was not so bad after all. He lifted a dipperful of water and trickled it over his calves. It was a matter of joining in the fair, of feeling that your hand fit the filled mug, your glance those that passed, and a certain tight cord of emotion that wove even as those who came eased. And with the ease came a feeling of mischief running within him until he scarcely needed wish to unleash it. On a night such as this, when the cool brisk air wrapped the shoulders like a brother's cloak, one would scarcely need one's clothes. He stole silently from the inner room of the heatra to the dressing closet and dressed quietly. He stuffed the clothes lying in five careful piles into his shoulder sack. A mere jest and a bit of skin between fair-brothers. Grinning at the thought, he closed the tightly sealed door even more firmly with his foot and moved to ope
n the door flap that broached the outside. As he did so, a woman with dark curling hair and liquid, mocking eyes swept through with a tray of mugs. He lifted one from the tray as he tossed her the change. She caught it deftly in one hand, still balancing the tray with the other, and gave him a curtsy. He lifted his hand to her shoulder. She brushed by him and made for the sealed door. Nimrod left without haste and with a slight swagger. He chuckled as he thought of those still in the heatra and the journey they would make in their skins.
A slight figure slipped from the crowd to walk beside him, and he looked down at it in surprise. Flaming red hair, a dusting of speckles across the nose, a young stripling looked up at him. And who are you? he wondered silently, until looking at the fellow's eyes, he detected for a moment the slant-orange glance of the hyn.
"So and so, you grow better at it; but, my friend, if you seek to go for lrna in the taverns with me, you'd best change your form to one somewhat older."
The hyn's face took on an older cast with swiftness, and he grew a span or so even as Nimrod watched. "Do you talk as well?"
The brown eyes the hyn had assumed were as inscrutable as its own.
"Ah, well, I'll say you're my own cousin from Varya, who's not spoken since birth. I wonder what you've been playing at today."
They proceeded to the lrna booth. Nimrod brushed past the throng with practiced ease and one broad shoulder; the hyn kept pace with him, a little of its hovering grace even in this form.
It was not until they neared the booth and Nimrod heard a rippling swell of laughter behind him that he remembered his joke. The heatra was at the edge of the fair that bordered the outer wall. The men had no way to slip from it quietly to their lodgings. Those he had left without clothes had to walk through at least a small part of the way he had just come and past the booth. The laughter he heard behind them was likely from that passage.
He paused, the hyn standing just behind his left shoulder, and watched. The crowd parted in front of him, and he saw three men who wore little more than bath towels push aside those who laughed. Nimrod chuckled and slapped his knees. A hand grabbed his right shoulder, and a quiet voice said, "Be you silent, Nimrod Beangh, and give me back my clothes. I have a mind to keep them."
Nimrod turned with a grin and a flare of the eyebrow to face a tall man in clothes that strained at the seams. The fellow's level eyes stared into Nimrod's, green-flecked with gold and a faint, black circle around the edge like the eyes of a feline. Nimrod held the man's gaze in faint inquiry, and then the echo of his grin lit the stranger's face.
“With pleasure to a man who likes a good jest." The weaver rummaged through the bag and then tossed it to the stranger.
The other's grin widened. "And how could not a jest please the jester?"
"What do you mean?"
"I am called Wyr, which means 'jest' in my land's tongue."
"How did you find me?"
"The woman who entered as you left has somewhat of the sight and a liking for me as well." He flipped a wave to Nimrod and turned away, then shouted back over his shoulder, "If you seek good entertainment later, come by the circle. Look for Wyr the juggler."
Nimrod turned back to find the hyn regarding him with inquisitive eyes. For the first time it showed some sort of expression, though what it was he couldn't tell. The crowd surged, and the two of them made their way to the booth.
It was only with slight surprise that he found a quiet table in the corner served by the selfsame woman who had spoken of his tricks to the juggler. She tossed her hair braid back over her shoulder, her eyes mocking, as she poured the lrna. Nimrod waggled his hand at the hyn to no avail, for it quickly drank the contents of the mug and handed it to her for more.
"Faith, cousin, I'll soon be without an ithling if you drink so much."
Her eyes widened as she looked at the hyn, and her eyebrows lifted. "You should not have brought him here."
"Cousin Hynlin? Why, he's harmless enough, though he drinks too much. He can't talk, you know, silent from birth." Nimrod spoke to gain time. The hyn smiled charmingly and drained yet another mug.
"You know well what I mean, Nimrod Beangh. What a combination you and that will make! I tremble for those who do not know the pair of you. Though perhaps it will not be so bad if you can do more than feeble jests this fairing." Her murmur was soft and barely reached him.
"Mellowed I am, perhaps, or distracted." He swept his arm around her waist and whispered in her ear, "What do you know of these creatures?"
"Little enough, save that they don't often partner with men. The sight does not look into them, but keep it away from the priests. They would have barred it from their walls had they known. You didn't know they posted a ban on these?" The hyn grabbed her pitcher and refilled its mug. "There are few seen anymore, so they have relaxed their guard this past fairing or two, or I should think you'd not have gotten in. They can keep them beyond the walls, but once inside . . ." She shrugged. "You're fortunate I have little love for the priests."
"You are wise in your choice of friends. ..."
She snorted.
"The hyn seems harmless enough."
"The grim and proper sealhs seemed harmless enough until they breached the holds of the north and so brought down a whole way of life." She tossed her head. "The priests can't ward the hyn's magic. Did you not hear me; they cannot see into a hyn."
"Yiertha!" A man at the other corner roared for drink, and she slipped from Nimrod's grasp.
"So they like not what they cannot ward, eh, cousin? That may prove useful." He clapped the hyn on the shoulder and rose, tossing coins on the table. "Let us go see Wyr juggle. I have it in my mind to sing this night until the morning's frost tickles our ears."
The hyn downed another mug and rose somewhat unsteadily, brown eyes blinking and in the center a flicker of orange. They walked to the door. When they were in the dark and well away from the booth, Nimrod turned again to speak. But the hyn was off in a luminescent, clumsy waver high above the crowd. Nimrod stood watching it. "Ah, well, I think that even a drunken hyn would be some little trouble to capture."
The fire burned almost smokeless with the bright glow of the coals. Three dancers in gaudy costumes whirled around the flames to the staccato beat of a leather-covered instrument, while at the next fire other voices lifted in atonal harmony. Fires stretched still farther down the entertainment row.
Nimrod danced the light and stately rhythms of the Veha Mur, the great music, with half-closed eyes and outstretched arms, catching and twirling each woman as she passed, enjoying the feel of the rich fabric sliding through his hands and the mixture of scents that wafted as they passed. Feet scuffed toward fires, and occasional spurts of flame shot up from kicked debris. The awakening was rough when pairs of hands seized him from behind and broke the chain of dancers.
"You can't mistake those eyebrows!" shouted a small, dark man.
"I saw him with a large bundle on his back," said another with a large patch over one eye. "I think it had our clothes in it." They shoved Nimrod ahead of them. "We'll haul you before the fair-wards and let them deal with you!"
"Softly, softly." Nimrod turned to face twenty men or more, all gesticulating excitedly. "And how could I be stealing the clothes of all of you when I've been here dancing and singing the night through?"
His eyes shot a puzzled glance toward Wyr, who stood back in the shadows. Wyr's quiet voice cut through the crowd. "I'd be slow to accuse this man if I were you. The priests do not deal Tightly with those who raise voice without proof. Beangh has been here half the night, trailing from one circle to another. If your clothes were stolen during that time, he isn't your man." The hands dropped with reluctance from his arms. The large man left off only when the others pulled him away.
Wyr winked at Nimrod. "And I can attest he has been here during that time. Is it not so?" He turned to the crowd of dancers.
"We saw him here," several murmured, and the musicians began lightly playing the Veha Mur. Nimrod back
ed away, but a hand drew him into the circle once more. Turning, he saw Yiertha, the goblet wench, eyes sparkling in merriment. As she drew him away, he heard one of the men muttering about a strange little creature that wouldn't stay still.
"It was all we found when we searched," he said.
Under cover of the argument, she whispered to him,
"Did I not tell you? If you are not careful, Nimrod, your stay at this fair could be difficult indeed."
He smiled at her and curled a hand around her waist. "You're very perceptive, Yiertha; but it seems that the hyn has elaborated upon my 'feeble jest.' I have you and Wyr to thank that the crowd hasn't yet turned ugly. It takes but little to stir them up, it seems, this fairing."
Nimrod turned and watched the men, their voices quieter now and their movements less emphatic. He judged it best to remain within the circle, so he moved with the dancers and then slipped, at Wyr's signal, from the circle at the other side of the fire. He left to go in search of the hyn.
It was with some relief that he found it resting on his extra robe. All he could see was the rise and fall of the hyn's breathing and the gleam of its eyes, although its breath was punctuated with an occasional half hitch, almost a hiccup.
"You'll be rationed if you don't learn more discretion. What if they had searched my bag?" The hyn's color flickered feebly. "And what of the clothes you stole? What need have you for clothes?" The color flared a bit brighter.
Nimrod lay down. He reached over softly and smoothed a coverlet into place. Surely the hyn could not be stealing into his heart? He put both hands underneath his head and stared at the clouds drifting overhead. He had found no woman who could stay his feet, surely he would not saddle himself with a little bump of a creature? Nah.
Norton, Andre - Anthology Page 19
