by Guy Antibes
“Dantell! Flies to carrion is no expression to use before a lady.”
The woman moved her face quickly enough so Sam could see the shadow of a veil across her face. He would have to be careful not to let them know of his disability.
“They are men,” said the husband, Dantell and looked at Sam. “Man enough to know what I mean.”
Harrison smiled and nodded. “Of course.”
Sam had seen meat covered with flies before, so he bobbed his head, too.
“This is the first I have heard of a gold rush,” Harrison said.
“It’s true,” Dantell said. “Men swarmed to the Northwest, looking for streams and holes in the ground that will lead them to vast wealth should they just reach out their hands and pull the gold from the ground. Foolish men. There were even women caught up in the unseemly activity. Now that the rumor proved to false most have decided to stick around Shovel Vale and a few villages close by,” he said. “In fact, that’s why we are here. The prices for the goods we seek won’t be so high like they are in Kennel and Shovel Vale.”
“You are a merchant?” Harrison asked, his eyes excited. Sam could see his friend was play-acting.
“Ah, you’ve caught us!” the man said chuckling. “We are. Merchants buy and sell. We are here to do a bit of buying. Nothing wrong with that.”
“Not at all. I think there are a lot of merchants doing the same thing. I do hope there is enough to sell. My helper here is spending the day at the market. We’ve been busy as beavers on our trip so far, so Sam is getting a day off.”
Dantell looked at Sam. “Do you need a guide? I’ve been to the Oak Basin monthly market lots of times. I wouldn’t mind if you tagged along. Not at all. Do you mind, dear?”
The woman giggled more than laughed. “Of course not. It will make us look more like local people. We can bargain better that way.”
“I have a dog, but she will be on a leash.”
“That is even better!” the woman said. “Half-an-hour out front?”
“I’ll be there,” Sam said.
Their food arrived at the same time, and the conversation stopped.
Harrison took Sam up to his room. “No swords at the market,” he said, “but take your wand. Keep Emmy on the leash. I don’t suppose I have to tell you not to trust those two.”
“I can understand that. They want me to be their shill, but I’m a snoop, aren’t I? If I am with them, people will pay less attention to me, right?”
Harrison smiled. “Right. Sorry, you have to work on your day of play.”
“I can play as well,” Sam said.
“Good. Keep your eyes open. I have to go now. Don’t get into trouble.”
“I’ll try not to, but if trouble follows me, I’ll do my best to return before dinner.”
“Ah, dinner. Of course. In the dining room. Is that acceptable?” Harrison asked.
“It is,” Sam said. He left Harrison in the room while he hurried downstairs to wait for Dantell and his wife.
“There you are,” Dantell said to Sam. “Shall we, dear?” He held out his hand to his wife.
“Where is your dog?” she asked.
“Emmy! I forgot all about her.”
Harrison stood at the door with Emmy already leashed. “Forget something?”
“My head,” Sam said, shaking it.
“I thought you had a little dog,” the wife said. “Emmy is rather large.
“A Great Sanchian, if I know my dogs,” Dantell said. “She is very valuable.”
“And a very good and loyal friend,” Sam said. “I bought her in Mountain View.”
“I’m surprised you found a beast like that anywhere in Toraltia, other than Baskin itself.”
“Shall we be off, dear?” the wife said.
“Of course,” Dantell’s eyes lingered on Emmy. He put his hand out for Emmy to smell it, but Emmy growled, and Dantell withdrew. “Perhaps we can be friends later in the day,” he said.
“Sure,” Sam said as breezily as he could. The bright day that he had looked forward to just clouded over a little.
The market was in full-swing early in the morning, but then that had been the case in Cherryton, as well. He would have bet that Dantell and his wife would buy all they needed before midday, and then Sam could do what he wanted.
They strolled through the stalls. Sam did his part to act like a son as the pair worked the market merchants like two innocents. Dantell’s occupation often changed during the morning, depending on who they talked to and what they bought. The pair were experts at bringing down prices.
They bought everything in cash and demanded receipts, asking for their purchases to be delivered to the inn before midday. To Sam’s view, even Emmy was used to distracting the merchants. It was all fair game. He had accompanied his father and mother to Cherryton’s markets before, and they had haggled nearly as much as Dantell and his wife did, but Sam recognized art when he saw it, and his morning companions were artists. He expected the goods that they bought would be sold in Shovel Vale for twice the price before the week was out.
Dantell finally stood fanning himself in the late morning heat. “I thank you, Sam. Here is a silver fox for your trouble. We have purchased a wagonload and will be on our way as soon as the last delivery is made.”
“Thank you. It has been an education, and I mean that in a good way.”
The wife pinched Sam’s cheek. “I’m sure you do. Look us up when you get to Shovel Vale.”
Sam smiled. “I’ll be sure to. I’m going to get some treats now. Have a safe trip back to your store.”
The merchant waved to Sam as the pair walked back towards the inn. He strolled among the crowds, finding food stalls that they had passed earlier. The joys of the market always had included the treats, and since lunch wasn’t included with their room, Sam was ready to make up for the deficiency.
He started with a jam-filled roll and bought four sausages, two for him and two for Emmy, who looked like she had swallowed them whole. Emmy might not have liked the merchant, but she seemed to like everyone else who stopped Sam to ask what kind of huge dog he owned. Wide-eyed children petted and poked at Emmy, who seemed to take all the abuse in stride.
His interest in market food began to flag as his stomach filled. He wandered around for a bit and looked at a particularly nice knife. His father had taught him about weapons on their market forays. This one had good steel. It wasn’t flashy, but he liked it.
“How much?” he asked the vendor.
“Your age?”
“Fourteen, but I’ll be fifteen by the end of summer,” Sam said, tying up Emmy at the corner of the next stall.
“Apprenticed yet?” the seller asked.
“Not yet. I’ll be heading to Baskin after summer’s over, though.”
“A town boy? What are you doing in Oak Basin?”
“On a tour with a friend.”
“An adult?”
Sam nodded. “He is a healer.”
“I’ll sell you the knife, but if anyone catches you with it, say your friend bought it for you.”
Sam figured out that it might be against Oak Basin laws to sell the knife to a minor. “I’ll do that. How much?”
“Fifteen foxes.”
Sam winced. That was about all he had in his purse, but then he had bought all the food he wanted for less than a fox, and the price was in line with what he would expect in Cherryton. “I’ll pay you ten.”
So began a brief, but intense session of haggling and Sam ended up with an eleven-fox knife, along with a leather sheath. The seller wanted to give him a pollen-made one, but that wouldn’t have worked out very well. Sam handed over the money.
“Your dog has disappeared. Did you know that?”
“What?” Sam looked around and saw Emmy’s tail vanish behind a stall. “I’ll take my knife, and thank you.”
He ran towards where he last spotted Emmy, but the dog had disappeared. Sam ran towards the inn and spotted a wagon trundling down the
road. He could see part of Emmy’s body on top of the wagon.
The merchant must have used pollen tarps to cover the dog. The market roads were packed with people and wagons, so Dantell couldn’t move very fast. Sam was nearly out of breath when he caught up and pulled himself up onto the wagon. Dantell’s wife turned around. Her eyes grew when she recognized Sam.
“The boy!”
Dantell stopped the wagon. “What are you here for?”
“You stole my dog,” Sam said.
The merchant laughed. “That’s ridiculous.”
“Emmy is right here in your wagon.”
“Even more ridiculous.”
“I can see her. She is right there,” Sam said putting his hand on Emmy’s flank. She had to have been drugged. “If you have injured my dog, I will make you pay,” he said.
Sam pulled out his new knife and slit the pollen tarp, and then carefully cut the pollen shroud that he couldn’t see that they had wrapped Emmy with. Sam could see his dog the entire time, but when he exposed Emmy, Dantell’s face became angry.
“Fool. I’ll pay you fifty foxes for the animal. That’s more than you will get in Oak Basin.”
“I paid a Lion for her in Mountain View. I want my dog back and won’t sell her for any price.” He continued to cut away the pollen by feel and guessed when Emmy was exposed.
A constable rode up to the wagon. “You can’t block the road. Move on.”
“No, he can’t,” Sam said. “The man stole my valuable dog. See?”
Sam had sheathed his knife before he said a word.
“He’s my dog, constable. She has taken sick.”
“He drugged her.”
The constable looked very confused. A simple traffic problem had turned into something more.
“My companion is Harrison Dimple. He will straighten this out.”
“The healer?” the constable said, obviously recognizing the name.
“Among other things,” Sam said. “Chief Constable Bentwick can vouch for my dog and me, as well. I’d like my dog removed from this wagon first, so this man won’t take off as soon as you leave.”
The constable listened to Dantell harangue about Sam’s lying and his parentage until another constable arrived.
“This is my dog, and this man has stolen him. I came to Oak Basin with Harrison Dimple.”
“You are his helper? He told us to watch out for you,” the new constable said. He glared at Dantell. “You will both accompany us to the Council offices. I will drive.”
“Just let me go,” Dantell said. “Take the dog. I wanted to get on the road by now, Constable.”
“All the more reason to have a look at what’s in your wagon.”
Dantell looked at his wife. “See you later,” he said as he jumped off the wagon, leaving his wife with whatever the merchant had in the back.
The mounted constable caught up to Dantell and leaped on the man, sending them both to the ground.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
~
“E VEN I AM SURPRISED,” HARRISON SAID. “I thought they were shrewd merchants, but I didn’t put them down for thieves. Emmy was just one of the things the pair had loaded into their wagon that wasn’t theirs.” He looked down at Emmy. The poor dog had to be given an emetic to get the herbal mixture that had put her to sleep out of her stomach. “He gave Emmy enough of the stuff to kill her. What a fool. He probably had visions of selling her in Baskin.”
“Will Emmy survive?”
Harrison nodded. “She had that in her stomach for an hour or so. Sweet Havetta! If you hadn’t seen her tail, Dantell might have ended her life.”
“He didn’t succeed because I could plainly see Emmy underneath the pollen tarp he used.”
Harrison managed a smile. “See? Your malady has its positives.”
“This time,” Sam said.
Emmy looked up at Sam, who scratched behind her ears. She whimpered a bit, but thumped her tail into the floor for the first time since she revived. “Better,” Sam said.
“Knife,” Harrison said, holding out his hand.
Sam looked at the healer. “Are you angry with me?”
Harrison shook his head. “No, I want to see what kind of choice you made.”
Sam handed it over.
“How much?”
“Eleven foxes, and that included the sheath.”
“The sheath was made for a different knife, but it works for this one well enough.” Harrison stood and played with the knife, using moves Sam had never seen before. “Good balance, and the blade is excellent. If the hilt were weighted a bit more, this would be exceptional. Something you might expect a smithy’s son to choose. Well done.”
Sam looked at Harrison with new eyes. “Can you teach me what you just did?”
“The knife play? Not until you’ve done a bit more with your sword, but let’s get this fixed first. I know someone in Oak Basin who will work on this.”
They locked Emmy up in their room and departed the inn. The market was transitioning from selling goods in the morning to selling entertainment and food in the late afternoon and evening. Harrison led Sam to a more industrial part of town. The smells from this quarter were quite different from the market. He could recognize the stench from a slaughterhouse somewhere and a tanner. Each added their own flavor to the air. Then he picked up the scent of burnt metal. Harrison walked into the yard of the smithy.
“Dimple, you old hag!” the smith said as he plunged a glowing plug of metal into a bucket of water. The sound of steam hid the rest of the smith’s sentence. “Have you been holding out on me? Is this your son?”
Harrison grinned. “No. I brought a helper along this year. Are you still enjoying Oak Basin?”
“So far, no worries. It seems I picked up a son of my own last year. Pensie nearly died giving birth, but they both recovered just fine. I could have used you last fall.”
“Glad you didn’t need me. It’s better if you don’t,” Harrison said. He held out his hand for Sam’s knife. “I need this worked on a bit. The balance is a bit blade-heavy. I’ll take a look at your son in exchange.”
The smith took it. “Good choice for the blade,” he said. “A tweak. There are a couple things I could do. I’ll have it ready tomorrow. You remember where I live?”
Harrison nodded. “Dinner at six after noon. Bring your boy, and I’ll bring mine.” The healer looked at Sam.
Sam walked around the smithy, looking at the plain iron frames. He had noticed the plain ironwork in the town. “Your window grilles aren’t very decorative. The whole village looks the same.”
“Plain?” the smith said. “Can’t you see the decorations?”
Sam looked at Harrison. “Am I missing something?”
“You are!” the healer said. “All the grills that have looked plain are covered with pollen decorations. Oak Basin is a very colorful place, and you missed it.”
“What?” the smith said. “The boy can’t see pollen?”
“I can’t,” Sam said. “I haven’t since I was five years old. It doesn’t make me sub-human.”
“Of course not. I’ll bet it gives you some challenges though.” The smith looked at Sam’s wand case. “Is that another weapon?”
“My wand,” Sam said. He pulled out the poker. It had a gold tip.
“It looks custom-made,” the smith said.
“My father made it for me. He’s the fourth generation. My name is Sam Smith.”
“I am Hiron Smith, first of my family to be a Smith. The gold is to damage pollen?”
Sam nodded. “It has helped in the past. If I take the tip off, there is a sharp point.” He demonstrated by forcing the tip off.
“Nasty, but only for emergencies, eh?”
Sam nodded. “As you can see, it’s been through a few of those.”
Hiron looked at Harrison. “Trouble along with you?” The healer nodded as Hiron continued. “If you leave the poker and the tips with me, I can put threads on them, and you can screw
the gold off rather than forcing it. I can put a point on the tips, although gold is too soft to be sharp for long. It might work better with pollen, though.”
“Thank you,” Sam said. He pulled out the bag of tips and gave them to the smith after getting a nod from Harrison.
“We will see you tomorrow evening,” Harrison said.
They made their way out of the craft area and headed back towards the market.
“You trust him?” Sam said. “I left him with most of my wealth.”
Harrison smiled. “We used to be in the army together and have saved each others’ lives a few times. He is not like Lennard Lager, so don’t worry. How about something to eat? There is an interesting restaurant close by. I’m not in the mood for market or inn food.”
Harrison pointed to an establishment named the Golden Goddess.
“The windows are made of gold?” Sam asked as he stopped to look at the reflective glass.
“A very thin layer of gold. A glass craftsman who moved to Oak Basin two years ago developed a secret process to apply gold with an alchemical wash. Unique, eh?” Harrison said.
“It is,” Sam touched a pane, but it felt like any other glass window.
A male server showed them to a seat by the window.
“This must be an expensive place to eat.”
“It is. But the village loves such an establishment,” Harrison said. “Oak Basin’s claim to being a town is enhanced by having restaurants.”
The server presented them with a handwritten menu. Sam was struck by the choices after weeks of one, two, or at most three things to choose from at the inns they frequented. He made a selection and gazed outside. His jaw dropped.
“I can see veils!” Sam said. He shot to his feet knocking the chair over. “I can see!”
Harrison looked outside. “So can I,” he said calmly, and then it appeared he understood what Sam said. “Go outside and look again, then return.”
Sam righted his chair and apologized to the other people in the restaurant and did what Harrison suggested. No veils, but when he looked through the window, Sam could see pollen!
“Can I buy the window?” he asked Harrison.
“It would be awkward to carry around. What about a set of spectacles made out of the glass?”
