The Story Peddler

by Lindsay A. Franklin

  I fought to keep my voice even. “I sold one today.”

  “And flubbed another in front of the whole village. We’ll need to wait weeks before we return to Lewir, and you’re lucky there wasn’t a guardsman about.”

  I adjusted the pack on my shoulder and stroked the donkey’s nose, stalling for a minute. Was the extra piece of silver worth the fight with Riwor?

  Yes, I decided. It was. If I wanted to eat anyhow.

  “It won’t matter if we can’t go back to Lewir for a while. We’re headed across the river for two weeks anyway.”

  A scowl deepened the creases in her face. She seemed to be scouring her mind for some sort of argument. Finally, she grunted and flicked another piece of silver down to me. “Here, take it, selfish brat. If I don’t have my supper tonight, it’s your fault.”

  My gaze wandered to her bulging coin purse, tied to a belt I could barely see beneath her overhanging gut.

  Aye, sure, she’d be skipping a meal.

  I plastered on a grateful smile. “Thanks, Riwor. I’ll meet you here tomorrow morning, just after sunrise.”

  “And don’t be late.” She adjusted the reins in her hands, and the donkey picked up his feet and plodded down the king’s road. “If you can manage it,” she called back to me.

  I watched her continue on the road to Drefden, where she kept a small cottage. I tried my hardest not to despise her. I was lucky she’d agreed to take me under her wing as a peddler, even though I hadn’t technically come of age yet. I’d be in big trouble without her help.

  Leastways, that was what I kept telling myself. When she was out of sight, I spun around and faced the road to Pembrone. The road home—dusty, poky, ordinary, just like the town itself.

  My leather-clad feet tramped down the dirt path. I tried not to despise Pembrone too. At least we had the ocean. Along the southern border of the town, below the rocky cliffs, the Menfor Sea tossed and rolled. And it was downright pretty if a girl ever got to break away from her work long enough to go look at it.

  I passed Farmer Rhys’s plot on my left. Way out in the south field, his eldest daughter Celyn waved to me. “Ho, Tanwen!”

  I waved back but couldn’t risk shouting hello to her. Riwor would slap me into the next moon if I lost my voice before our two-week tour. Getting on Riwor’s bad side before our tour had even begun was definitely not my goal. In fact, I was hoping to be let off the leash a little this time. Maybe even venture into a village or two by myself.

  Dirt became cobblestone as I reached the main thoroughfare of Pembrone. I didn’t even glance up when I heard footsteps pounding the stones beside me. I didn’t need to. Already knew who it was.

  “Ho, Tannie.”

  I smiled. “Evening, Brac.” I shielded my eyes against the setting sun and looked up at him, a head taller than I and lanky as a scarecrow of late. “What are you up to?”

  “Waiting for you, of course.” He pinched my arm and handed me a small jug of water. “Same as always.”

  And he wasn’t kidding. Brac watched for me to come home every day Riwor and I ventured any farther than the central lane of Pembrone. He’d be leaning against the wall of one of the outlying buildings until Riwor’s donkey carried me near, though how his father could spare him from the farm while he waited for me, I didn’t know. And he always had cool water, knowing I was hot and tired from the dusty road.

  I pinched him back. “You forgot your hat today. Again. Your face is all burned.”

  He shrugged and brushed a straw-colored shock of hair from his eyes. “It don’t hurt.”

  I could hear Riwor correcting his words in my mind, but I didn’t say anything. He didn’t much like my “hoity-toity peddler talk,” as he called it.

  I nodded to the tavern up ahead. “I have to stop for food.”

  “I know.” He strode to the tavern door and held it open for me.

  The barmaid looked up from the counter she was scrubbing. She pushed her graying hair off her forehead. “Ho, Tanwen.” She narrowed her eyes at Brac. “Brac Bo-Bradwir, you owe me a copper for that mug of ale yesterday.”

  He frowned at her, then at me. “You know I don’t have it right now, Blodwyn. The blasted tax took every spare copper from my pockets.”

  Blodwyn’s gaze struck hard as flint. “Then you shouldn’t be taking ale from my pockets, young sir.”

  I plunked down on one of the three-legged stools. “Pockets are an odd place to store your ale, Blodwyn.”

  She glared at me and then rounded on Brac. “And does it stop at ale, Bo-Bradwir? If I go upstairs and ask my girls, will they tell me you owe something else to my account?”

  Brac’s ears reddened. “I don’t go in for that, Blodwyn. You know I don’t.”

  I stared at the bar top and silently hoped that was true. It’d make him about the only lad in town who didn’t.

  Brac slid onto the stool next to me. “I’ll have the copper for you by week’s end.”

  Blodwyn nodded once. “Fine.” Then she turned to me and smiled, as if that whole conversation hadn’t just happened in my hearing. “What can I get you, love?”

  “Supper for two, please. What do you have?”

  She turned to a giant pot dangling over the fire and used her rag to lift off the lid. “Grazer stew with watta root.”

  The smell tickled my nose and made my stomach growl. My lunch of hard rolls and sweaty cheese was a distant memory. “How much?”

  “Four coppers buys enough for two.” She scowled at Brac. “Lucky you have Tanwen to look out for you, lad, but it should be the other way around, if you ask me.” Then her gaze settled back on me. “Just be careful who you’re binding yourself to, Tanwen. That’s all I’ll say.”

  The awkwardness stuck in my throat. If she only knew the battles we’d had about this . . .

  Brac’s scowl could have started a thunderstorm. “I wonder what it’d be like to have tavern-keepers who minded their own onions.”

  Blodwyn flipped her towel over her shoulder and seemed to be biting hard on a smile. “I wonder what it’d be like to have farmers’ boys who paid for their ale.”

  I cleared my throat loudly before Brac could fire off another sharp remark. “Here you are, Blodwyn.” I pushed one of my silver bits across the counter.

  She handed back some coppers and two hollowed-out rounds of dry bread filled with grazer stew. “Mind, it’s hot.”

  Brac eyed my change as I slipped it into my pouch. “Tannie, could I borrow—”

  “Not a chance.” I took one of the bowls and nodded to the other.

  Brac took it and reached behind the counter to swipe one of Blodwyn’s spoons. “I’ll bring it back later.”

  She sighed. “Aye, you better.”

  He pushed the front door open for me with his backside. “You could’ve spared me one copper, don’t you think?”

  I lifted my chin and glided past him. “I don’t spend my life peddling stories to pay for your ale, Brac Bo-Bradwir.”

  “Hey, now, that ain’t what I—”

  “Never you mind, Brac. I’m not worried. We’re not bound, whatever Blodwyn and the rest of Pembrone thinks.”

  He coughed on a mouthful of stew, then grimaced. “Aye, about that . . .”

  I stopped and sighed. Why had I brought that up? Think first, then speak, Tanwen. When would I learn?

  Too late now.

  But I faked a cheerful smile. “About what?”

  He rolled his eyes. “About what Blodwyn said. Binding ourselves together and all.” He shoveled another spoonful of stew into his mouth and seemed to be waiting for me to say something.

  But I wasn’t taking that bait.

  He scanned the surrounding farmland, doing a terrible job pretending it was interesting. “Just wondered if you’d given half a thought to what we talked about before.”

  His words made my feet feel like they were hewn of stone. Truly, we hadn’t done a lot of talking before. There’d been his confession of undying love, tears, some shout
ing, and more tears. Seemed to Brac no earthly reason why we shouldn’t be married by now.

  It was getting harder and harder for me to find those earthly reasons.

  I forced my voice to sound light. “I don’t know when you got the hogswoggled idea in your sunbaked brain that I’d make a good wife for any lad, Brac. I’m too young.”

  “Too young? Near eighteen, last I checked.”

  “Half a year till that happens.”

  He pretended not to hear. “And I a year older than you.” He tucked Blodwyn’s spoon into his trouser pocket and took to devouring his bread bowl. “Be straight with me, Tannie. Age has got nothing to do with it, does it? You don’t love me, do you?”

  A searing-hot brand pressed into my heart. “Don’t say that. That’s not what I’m driving at.”

  I did love Brac, in a manner of speaking. Deeper and stronger than a brother. He was my truest friend.

  But marriage . . .

  The idea froze in my mind—homemaking, raising babies, tending the farm. That’s what Brac was asking. And story peddling wasn’t part of that picture. How could I give up my dream before I’d even begun?

  “Brac, I know seventeen isn’t too young for most people, but it’s different for me. You know it is. I just started peddling with Riwor. I need more time.”

  He polished off the last of his bread. “But if we marry, you won’t need to sell stories and travel around anymore. I’ll take care of you, and we’ll live with my folks. Or we’ll live at your place. Just the two of us.” He brushed a strand of hair off my face.

  I pulled away from his touch. I didn’t really like to. Brac felt like family when no one else did. Brac was safety and affection and comfort. But surely I didn’t need to encourage him. “Brac, I don’t know how else to say it so you understand, but I want to sell stories and travel around.”

  “And work your way up to Urian.” His face darkened.

  Urian. The capital city. It unnerved me how he put such a fine point on things I’d never quite come out and said.

  But he was right. If I could work my way to Urian, get someone from the king’s court to notice me, then maybe . . .

  “Tannie, did you hear me?”

  I stopped walking. “What?”

  Brac sighed and stopped beside me. A few villagers milled about, but no one seemed to pay us much mind. “I said we could build a good life here. I know it’s only Pembrone, but this is where our family is. Haven’t Mam and Dad taken care of you all these years?”

  My temper ignited. “Oh, and marrying their son is the price I have to pay, is it? Your parents take me in as an orphan for a while and now I have to give myself to their boy?”

  Brac put a hand over my mouth. “Sakes, Tannie, calm down. I didn’t mean it like that. Just meant they’d help us get started. You’re getting loud. People will start staring.” Suddenly, he grinned in that impish way he had. “If you think I ain’t handsome enough to marry, just say so.”

  I shoved him as best I could with a bowl of hot soup in my hands. “You’re not handsome enough.”

  A blatant lie on a fine spring evening. I tried not to notice his twinkling brown eyes, the straw-colored hair falling over his forehead, or the sharp cut of his jaw. If I did, I couldn’t say he was unhandsome with a straight face.

  But caring for him, thinking he was a handsome lad, wasn’t the same as being in love with him. Was it? I stared at my food. Sometimes my feelings seemed more mixed up than a bowl of grazer stew.

  Brac nudged me. “Well, it ain’t the first time you said I was ugly.”

  “Now who’s making up stories? I never said anything like it.”

  “Aye, you did! When I was fourteen and I tried to kiss you while you were milking the grazers for Mam.” He laughed. “You told me I was the ugliest brute you ever had the misfortune of seeing. Ain’t that right, Tannie?”

  It did ring a bell. And I’d quite meant it at the time. “Oh, come off it. See me to my cottage like a gentleman, will you?”

  We stepped off the cobblestones and onto a packed-earth lane to the right. It led to both our homesteads.

  “Speaking of grazer milk, Mam saved some for you. Come to our barn and we’ll get it.”

  I glanced up at Brac. The tips of his ears reddened—just like I suspected they might.

  “Brac Bo-Bradwir, don’t you lie to me.”

  “Don’t know what you mean, Tannie.” But he stared off in the other direction and wouldn’t meet my gaze.

  “The grazers haven’t been producing well lately, and we both know it. Farmer Bradwir and your mam are good to me. They would share if they had extra, but I know they don’t. That milk’s your share, isn’t it?”

  “Well, I . . . It ain’t quite the way you framed it, I don’t reckon . . .”

  I stopped walking and waited until he would look me full in the face.

  He sighed. “Aye, Tannie. It was meant to be mine. But no need to go on about it. A lass needs milk, too, even if she’s all of seventeen. Mam says so. Besides, you share with me.” He nodded to my bowl of stew. “Family always shares.”

  A dagger of guilt pricked me. Brac looked out for me and always had. Always would. We looked out for each other. I probably should take him seriously as a suitor. My head must be emptier than the discarded shell of a huskbeetle.

  The offer of a secure life on a good farm was everything most country lasses longed for. A kind husband who truly cared for them was more than many lasses got. Maybe I hadn’t a right to wish for more than my life in Pembrone. Maybe my hopes of Urian were as selfish and wrong-headed as Brac made them out to be.

  “So will you take it?”

  I jumped at Brac’s question. “What?”

  “Stars’ sakes, Tannie. You and your daydreams. I asked if you’d take the grazer milk. It’s only fair. You bought me stew.”

  I smiled. “Aye, all right. Let me just set this down.” I put my stew on the low stone wall surrounding my cottage. “It’ll give this a chance to cool anyway. I don’t know how you swallowed yours down.”

  Brac shrugged. “Needed to finish it in time for supper.”

  I didn’t bother addressing his insatiable appetite. All the farmers’ boys had a tough time finding enough food to keep going around tax time. It’s why I didn’t mind sparing the two coppers for his stew. That was different than ale.

  We took off down the dirt path in the other direction toward the Bradwir stead. In the distance, waves crashed below the cliffs that butted up to the backside of my cottage. The lonely sound was my only company at night.

  We passed a field of shriveled grain on the left. I frowned. “Will your dad be able to pay the harvest tax this year? The crops look bad.”

  I braced for the fit of cussing that might follow my question.

  Brac’s eyes clouded. “Goddesses know. I can’t even keep all the blasted taxes straight, forget trying to pay them all. There’s the planting tax we paid early spring, the reaping tax we’ll be expected to pay early autumn, then the ‘Harvest of Gareth the Handsome’s Thirteenth Year Tax.’ Fried if I know the difference between a reaping tax and a harvest tax. Between them and the ‘taxes’ the rotten king’s guard demands and the offerings the temple demands, it’s a wonder anyone in Pembrone has a crumb to put in his mouth at supper.”

  He kicked a rock and sent it careening into his father’s fields. “And that ain’t even considering when the trees get salt burn and the marshes flood ocean onto our grain. The king doesn’t give a blaze about low yield. Taxes due, just the same.” He picked up another rock and threw it this time.

  “You shouldn’t get so angry.”

  He looked at me like I’d dropped out of the sky. “Don’t it make you angry?”

  “Of course it does. But you need to keep your head down, especially with the king’s guard about. If you’re looking to survive, it’s got to be done.”

  He stopped walking and rounded on me. “Keep my head down while they steal food out of my mouth and that of my kin
? Keep my head down while they march around here like they own the place, just because they got the king’s seal on their filthy armor?”

  I folded my arms across my chest and stared at him. Best to just let him get it all out.

  “It’s the blooming king’s guard that makes it so hard for a body to get anywhere around here. Them and the priests. Mam says we ought to make more offerings to the goddesses to help the harvest. Dad says we oughtn’t make so many. Blasted if I know what to do about it.”

  Then my breath caught. Behind Brac, a horse picked silently through the shriveled grain field. The mounted guardsman was well within earshot. My body stiffened, eyes widened, but Brac didn’t seem to notice.

  “And you know what else?”

  I shook my head a little, hoping he’d read the signs.

  Shut up, Brac Bo-Bradwir!

  But he kept right on rambling. “Those soldiers that like to squeeze us under their thumbs answer to the king, so I don’t suppose he’s any better than the lot of them. Probably have his blessing to go on kicking us whenever they feel like it.”

  The intruding horseman dismounted from his sleek beast with a clank of armor and a cold smirk. “Treason, if I ever heard it. Bo-Bradwir, isn’t it? The farmer’s son?”

  The color drained from Brac’s face as he turned to the sound of the guardsman’s voice. Brac looked like he might be trying to keep down that bowl of stew.

  “You’re Farmer Bradwir’s son, aren’t you?” the soldier repeated.

  “Aye.”

  The guardsman snorted. “‘Yes, sir,’ you fool. Address your superiors properly.”

  Brac’s lips squeezed together until they turned white against his over-sunned skin. The knight would have to draw his sword to get Brac to say anything of the sort.

  “Complaining about the tax, are we?” The soldier removed his helmet and smoothed his wheat-colored hair back into its tail. “I could have you hanged for that.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  The knight’s cold blue eyes flicked over to me, then back to Brac. “You ought to be thinking of ways to earn my forgiveness, both for your treasonous rumblings and your blatant sarcasm.”

  “You want me to polish that piece of metal that covers your backside, Your Majesty?”