Dane burst out laughing. Sorin didn’t comment except to drop his saddle on top of the one Krea was already holding. “Set them in that corner,” he directed, peeking out between the shutter slats.
“Why don’t you open the window?” Krea asked. “The room could use some air.”
Sorin shook his head. “Not until we return.”
There was a soft rap on the door, and Dane ran to open it. The girl was back with a stack of blankets, several small towels, and two more girls hefting the large straw-filled mattresses intended for the cots.
Before they were finished arranging the bed, an older woman stood at the door, water filled basin in one hand, basin bowl in the other, snapping orders at the three workers. She barked instructions at the last girl through the door, and then turned to Sorin. “I’m ’fraid we won’t be serving supper for hours yet, milord, but ya can still get a nice bowl of stew in the hall yonder.”
Sorin thanked her, assured her that their lodging was most acceptable, and walked her to the door just as the girl was running back in with a rolled up straw mat.
“Ya shoulda had that in the first place,” the woman chided, handing the mat to Sorin. “Man don’t need to be bothering with no fool girls when he’s clearly tired.”
“My thanks,” Sorin said in a firm voice that overrode that of the fussing woman. “This will be fine.”
“O’ course it will,” the woman said with a nod. “Should ya be needing anything else, just let me know. We got the means to serve all tastes here at River’s Bend.”
“I’m sure we’ll be fine.” With that, Sorin backed the woman out the door with gentle nudges and pushed it closed behind her. He no more than turned around before Dane was laughing again.
“A steward,” Dane howled. “You was thinking to come to Ryth pretending to be a steward?”
“Leave off,” Sorin said, mimicking Dane’s street urchin drawl. The boy sobered considerably, but an impish smirk still played about his lips.
“What do we do with our things while we’re gone?” Krea asked, dropping onto the mattress with a sigh. “I really like beds that sit off the ground. I think they should all sit off the ground.”
“Beds is s’posed to lay on the ground. That way no pulks can hide under there.”
“Oh, Dane! There ain’t no pulks hiding under no beds.” Krea sat up and stared at the boy. “Ahhh! Listen to me. I’m starting to sound like you.”
Sorin’s open laugh turned them both around. “We’ll leave it all right there,” he told her finally, giving Dane a pat on the shoulder. “It’ll be safe from the pulks.”
Dane leaned toward Krea, keeping a careful distance from the bed in question, and whispered, “Told you there was pulks.”
“Pelt!” Krea hissed, pushing the boy out of her way. “Sorin, it’s not Dane’s imaginary friends I’m worried about. Are you going to put a spell on the room or something?”
Dane drew in a sharp breath and made the symbol of protection in the air, but the caller ignored him. “No,” Sorin said. “A spell here would be too draining. Our things will be fine. Let’s get to our business, though, and get back before nightfall.”
“I don’t understand. What’s the difference between doing a spell here and doing one in that cave?”
“My magic comes from the life forces of nature. There isn’t enough nature here to keep from tapping into my own Essence.” Sorin shook his head to forestall the question that he obviously saw in Krea’s face. “I can’t explain it to you right now. Later, maybe, but not now. Our things will be fine. An inn doesn’t keep a respectable reputation by letting thieves wander its halls.”
Krea cocked her head to the side and stared. “Tell me you can do better than that.”
Sorin waved her off. “You will just have to trust me on this. Do you have enough coin on you for the clothing you need?”
Krea wanted to ask her questions. She wanted to know about the sunball and the proth and all of it, but Sorin never wanted to answer them. Besides, Dane was already looking pale and Sorin’s expression was one of finality, so she just nodded. “I hope so. I thought we were going to see the mage first.”
“We had better see to your clothes. They may have to be made, so we need to give the shopkeepers as much time as possible. Besides, we’ll have to stop at the bathhouse as well. It isn’t proper to visit a mage looking like you’ve been dragged behind a cart.”
Krea glanced back at the two saddles still laden with their packs, and most importantly, the rest of her money well hidden in her bedroll. Sorin’s hand on her shoulder made her look around. “We could leave Dane here to keep watch, if you want,” he said.
Krea’s glare only made the man laugh again.
“I ain’t staying here,” Dane said. “No way!”
“No, young morni, you’re coming with us.” Sorin collected his cloak, pulled open the door, and waved toward the empty hallway. “It’ll be safe. Come.”
Krea squeezed her small money purse, the one she had taken from the merc, and followed Sorin out.
“What’s a morni?” Dane asked Krea as he slipped up next to her.
After giving the door a hard pull, she shrugged. “I have no idea. Why are you asking me? He’s the one who said it.”
Dane ran to catch up. Using Krea’s tunic to pull himself up closer to her ear, he whispered, “Because he’s a caller and he got him a magic hand. He scares me.”
Not quite as annoyed as she pretended to be, Krea yanked the boy’s hand free and started down the stairs in front of him, but before she had taken more than three steps, she turned and looked the little boy in the eyes. “Sometimes he scares me, too,” she confessed, then headed down to the hall.
Chapter 10 – Merchant
The clothier wasn’t far from the stable. Unlike the cobbler’s shop, the clothier’s cottage was reasonably large and offered its patrons room to sit and admire the various fabrics cleverly displayed throughout the shop. Krea reached for a piece of fabric, then hesitated. She’d never been in a shop that carried such quality. Not in Trasdaak, at least. But to be fair, she hadn’t been in the front door of many shops at all.
A man not much older than Krea, with the symbol of the royal guard embroidered onto his sleeve, smiled amiably at Sorin, but his entire demeanor changed the instant he turned his attention to Krea. With eyes narrowed, he started toward her. His reaction wasn’t new to her, but this time she was a legitimate customer, and she wasn’t about to be treated otherwise.
“I have money,” Krea said, taking a step backward and patting the small purse hanging from her belt.
“I see that,” the man said, now nearly upon her. “And the boy no doubt intends to relieve you of it.”
“The boy is with me,” Sorin said in a tone that was neither loud nor angry, but he let it hang with a final authority that the guard would not debate.
The guard paused, which made Krea smile just a tiny bit. He now had a problem. Without a doubt, he knew that he was confronting a noble, and he also knew just as surely that the boy the noble was defending was a thief. He probably suspected her as well. The guard had to be wondering if Sorin was about to run a hit on the shop, but he could never suggest such a thing without risking an offense that could ultimately cost him his life, depending on Sorin’s rank, something he couldn’t guess given Sorin’s travel attire. She wouldn’t have felt sorry for him, except that he was still a guard.
In the end, the young guard opted for silence. He simply nodded and walked slowly back to his spot by the door, but he kept a steely eye on Dane the entire time.
“May I help you, milord?” asked a middle-aged man, crossing the room from the back. A tangle of curly orange hair covered the man’s head and hung nearly to his shoulders. He wasn’t a tall man, but he was as wide as an ox. His head seemed to sprout right from his shoulders, and his beard lay across his chest like the ruffles of a fine orange surcoat.
He wore a practical brown tunic consistent with his station over dark-green
breeches, but like the walls, the merchant’s clothing spoke of extreme wealth far beyond that of a typical clothier. The sleeves of his tunic had horizontal slashes all the way to the shoulder, allowing the light tan linen chemise that he wore beneath to show through, and his breeches boasted a rich, embroidered band just below the knee that Krea would have expected to see on a noble, not a merchant. And why did he have a guard?
Sorin greeted the man and then nodded toward Krea. “She is in need of your services.”
The merchant smiled through his beard and turned to Krea. “And how may I serve you?”
Krea shoved her nervousness aside and imagined Onin standing before her. “I have need of clothing,” she said, glancing around the shop with a schooled blank expression. “And a new cloak, like his.” She thumbed her finger at Sorin, who was admiring different fabrics, his brow furled. “Well, not exactly like his, but…”
The orange beard lifted as the polite smile became genuine. But he didn’t comment.
“Will you be needing the clothes for court?” the man asked.
Krea had to give him credit for shrewdness. Without being overly presumptuous, he had just tried to find out who she was, where they were going, and what relation she was to the noble.
“Travel clothes,” Sorin said from behind her. “She’ll be riding in them. And we need to be on our way as soon as possible. We were hoping you may have something workable on hand.”
The man looked Krea over and nodded. “Aye. Well, come with me. I may have something that will do. Please, sir, make yourself comfortable. Perchance you would care to choose some fabric for a garment that you could pick up on a return trip?”
Krea smiled at the man’s industriousness. Whatever courtesies he was extending Krea, he knew full well that Sorin was the one with the money. Sorin was smiling too as he shook his head. “Perhaps on the next trip.”
“Good enough, good enough.” The man waved Krea toward the back room.
At the merchant’s direction, Krea headed toward a small doorway set against the back wall, with Dane in tow, his small fist still firmly clenching the back of her tunic. Both the guard and the bearded man started to object, but to Krea’s relief Sorin managed to speak first. “Dane, stay here with me.”
The boy turned around and practically ran to Sorin’s side. Gone was the brave young terror Sorin had nearly had to harness by the tavern. The Dane who sought protection now was every bit an unsure seven-year-old child. Something about this end of town took the fight right out of him. Krea glanced at the guard again and then followed the merchant through the door.
If the front of the shop had been impressive, the back was awe-inspiring. Rolls of fine silks and colored butter soft leathers lined the walls and tables. A woman and a man worked furiously in a corner, adding bone bead accents to a gown the likes of which Krea had never seen. Another woman bent over a tall table, scratching measurements down on a sheet of parchment. None of them looked up as the merchant led Krea around a small wall of shelves to an area relatively clear of material. Just to be sure, Krea shoved her hands deep into her pockets and took extra care where she stepped. The last thing she needed to do was waste her coin on paying for the damage caused by her own clumsiness.
“Here we are,” the merchant said. He glanced toward her hands but didn’t comment. He didn’t have to. They both knew just how uncomfortable Krea was. “It would seem luck has followed you,” he said, pulling a small stack of clothes off the shelf. “I think we may have something to your taste that is already made and will only require simple tailoring.”
With that, he unfolded a wonderful deep-green tunic with a long slit down the front that laced up with a leather thong dyed the same color. The sleeves capped over in long, wide ribbons that ended at the elbow and would allow the chemise to peek through. The front was plain and probably more suited for a boy than a girl since it lacked the adornment that most women preferred, but it was well made and would suit her needs perfectly.
“Where’d you get that?” Krea asked, peering around at the neat piles all around her.
The merchant frowned. “I made it.”
Krea rolled her eyes. “Well, of course you made it, but why? Why is it here?”
“Ah. A young man came through on his way from Sra. His father ordered clothing, but was delayed several months in Trasdaak. When he finally made it back, he claimed I had made the clothing too small. He was a young lad in his growing years, but…” The merchant trailed off with a shrug. “So, now here they are for you. They’re unused, as you can see, and of the highest quality.”
There was no arguing about their quality. “Do you have more than just the one tunic?”
The merchant draped the tunic over a nearby bench and moved a stack of linen. “I do.” The merchant pulled down an entire pile of completed clothing. Each piece he stretched out for her to see until he had three chemises and two full-length breeches, each one beautifully designed and completely practical. Not too ornate or bold, but of superb quality and dyed in rich deep browns, blues, and reds.
After the last deep red tunic was laid out before her, Krea finally looked back to the merchant, ready to start the battle. “How much?”
“You need to try them first. Be certain they’ll meet your needs,” said the merchant, pointing toward a tiny curtained area that served as a dressing room.
“They’ll meet my needs, but probably not my coin,” Krea returned. She knew what he was trying to do. It would be harder to walk away from them once she had seen them on her.
The merchant was persistent. “I can’t state a price without seeing how much tailoring will be needed, now can I?” He reached into the pile and not surprisingly came out with the most striking of the bunch, a deep-brown chemise and leather breeches nearly the same color with a vivid blue tunic to go over it. He handed the bundle to Krea and pushed her toward the curtain. “Pull these on, and we’ll see the work that’ll be involved.”
Krea slipped obediently behind the curtain and stared at the stack of clothing. He didn’t need to see them on her. Not to decide on a price, at least. As a skilled merchant, he could tell just by looking at her how much effort it would take to tailor the clothes to fit.
Just the same, she wanted to feel the fine material on her skin and see what she would look like in such sophisticated clothes, so she shrugged out of her filthy riding clothes and slipped the dark chemise over her head. It slid across her skin as if it were woven from feathers, so soft she hated for it to touch her dirty arms. The tunic was cut to hang loose, which suited her just fine, but the deep bark brown chemise peeked out in ideal places, creating a striking contrast.
Finally, she pulled on the leather breeches and only then discovered that they were lined with a soft, slippery material that would keep the leather from chafing on the long ride. The waist was much too large, but she could still get a good feel for how the whole ensemble looked and she was in love. Krea brushed her hands over the tunic one last time, tried to freeze her face into indifference, and pushed back the curtain.
The merchant went to work pulling and pushing at the material and occasionally shoving in thin pins to hold his place. She watched carefully as he pulled the chemise out through the slits on the arm and adjusted the lace on the tunic to let the darker brown show through. In the end, he gave it a nod and smiled. “I can have them ready for you on the morrow.”
Krea smiled, too. He was good. “I have need of only one change of clothing, as I have others with me, and you have yet to give me your price.”
“Surely you don’t mean to enter Shaylith in riding clothes when the whole city is holding court for the wedding?” the man said. “You’ll want to keep a clean set in your bag to change into on arriving, and you’ll need a set for your pack so’s you can keep one clean and not be riding in the grime of the road.”
That one hurt. Her own clothes had enough mud and sweat caked on them to practically stand up by themselves. She stroked the smooth material again, considered her
bag of money still hidden at the inn—hopefully hidden at the inn—and finally shrugged. “How much?”
“Fifteen and three,” the man returned without a moment’s hesitation.
Krea’s instinct was to start pulling the clothing off right then and there, but her experience with traders kicked in and she squinted up at the burly merchant. “Fifteen and three?” she repeated with a small laugh. “Merchant, you are obviously skilled, but for fifteen and three, it had better include the tailoring, a pair of boots, and the cloak I still need.”
Not even remotely perturbed, the merchant pushed forward. “Fair and true. These clothes are of the highest quality. You’ll not find better even in Shaylith, and if you take all three sets, I will have the cloak ready for you as well for only five shol more.”
“Five shol more?” Krea protested. “How much is that for all of it?” She had never really figured out how to do numbers the way Onin did. She always had to count.
“Twenty and three,” the merchant returned, reaching onto the shelf again. He pulled down two folded cloaks. The one that smelled of oiled leather and looked like maple, he placed back on the shelf. The other he laid in her hand. It was a simple gray wool, but it was better than the one she had, and it looked to be long enough to cover her legs in the rain. He flipped it open and turned it for her to examine. “You’ll not find a better price for equal quality and you won’t be having to wait.”
Krea reached out and stroked the cloak. It was well-combed wool, soft to the touch. Not even the best merchant cart in Trasdaak had cloth as fine. Even though Ryth was a much larger city, the merchant still seemed out of place. “How did a merchant of your talent come to be in Ryth?” she asked, still fingering the material.
He shrugged. “I came down from Sorl with everyone else when the torbadyn began massing there. Settled in Dorish for a time, but I prefer the company of the river. Besides, with rumors of a treaty between the torbadyn and the Walkilni, I didn’t want to be staring down that border.”
Hand and Talon (World of Kyrni Book 1) Page 16
