The Ring Оf Fire. The Wolf Bell

EIGHT

“Shanner, wake up. Shanner!” Zephy shook his shoulder, jostled him, but he continued to snore. She lit the candle and held it close to his face. “Shanner! It’s Market Day!”

“Mphh.”

“Come on! You know I can’t lift the barrels myself.” He would snore like a lump. She snatched the covers back and jerked his shoulder, pummeling him until he opened his eyes.

“Market Day,” She repeated.

“Last night. Could have done it last night Zephy . . .”

“You weren’t here.” She glowered until he sat up. The nearly full moons had gone, the only light was the sputtering glow from the candle. Even Waytheer could not be seen. The wind came in, and Shanner shivered. She pulled the shutters closed and latched them. “That’ll be warmer, it’ll be light soon.”

“It’ll never be light.” He reached for his pants and boots. “Cold!”

She snorted with disgust.

On the street they walked beneath the sound of banners snapping on the dark wind, Fire Scourge banners hung out last night from the windows and rooftops of Burgdeeth, flapping in the fitful gusts to mark the beginning of the five day celebration. And special banners, too, to mark this year of Waytheer. The star would not be so close again for ten years; the Luff’Eresi would not come again so strong or speak so clearly to man for ten years. Every prayer, every supplication put forth now would have more meaning.

They went in darkness to get Nida and her creaking wagon. Zephy could tell Nida from Dess only when Dess kicked her absently as she tried to pull the bridle on. Nida never would. She cursed Dess and let her loose, smarting and cross and cold; almost wishing she were back in bed and Market Day was past.

“Brewmaster’ll be livid,” Shanner said. “Couldn’t you have remembered last night?”

“I couldn’t find you. You were off with a girl, I suppose.” The whole town had been seething with wagons last night, waiting to get settled in the square. The Inn had been packed full. She had looked for Shanner everywhere when she should have been cleaning up in the late hours, washing mugs. “They emptied every barrel. You might have remembered; you might have known they would!”

He grumbled something unintelligible as they rounded the corner by the Brewmaster’s. A tiny light burned in the window. “He’s up,” Zephy breathed thankfully.

But the old man growled worse than Shanner and heaved the honeyrot casks onto the wagon so brutally that Zephy thought they would have it all spilled, the casks caved in, and the honeyrot flowing in the street.

The sky had begun to gray above the rooftops. At the sculler, Zephy held the door while Shanner hoisted the barrels through, seven barrels of honeyrot to set side by side for the noon meal. When she took Nida back to the fields, the sky was as yellow as mawzee mush, and the banners bright and blowing so Nida flicked her ears at them and snorted against Zephy’s cheek. In the shed, as Zephy hung up the harness, she paused to examine the rent in Nida’s packsaddle where the donkey had shied stupidly against a building. The straw was coming out. It should be mended. Zephy couldn’t get her mind properly on mending with Market Day at hand.

Thorn would be coming down the mountain this morning to trade hides and blankets at Market. Well, at least he always had. She glanced up at the mountain. Will he come to find me? Will he want to?

Will he even think of it?

Would she be bold enough to search him out? What, and stand staring like a sick calf? Wait for him to thank her for risking her stupid neck in the Set? Oh, Great Eresu, she thought. What’s the matter with me?

And, would Thorn stay for the Singing?

In Burgdeeth, public singing was sanctioned only at festival time, at Fire Scourge and Planting and Solstice. She glanced in the direction of the river where the road came down from Dunoon and felt her spirits lift. Thorn always stayed for the Singing. Later in the sculler, she reached down her gaylute from atop the cupboard, and stood carefully polishing it.

*

It was well before dawn when Thorn and Loke finished packing their hides and blankets across the backs of their four best bucks. The moons had already set. They worked by the light of the cookfire from the open door, for their mother had risen to lay a hot meal for them. The bucks were restless, wanting to be off but looking over their shoulders, too, toward their herds, nervy and light-footed and shifting about as they were saddled. The bucks stood as tall as Thorn when their heads were raised. Their spiralling horns were ridged intricately and sharp pointed as spears, rising as high as Thorn could reach; deadly if they pierced a man. Thorn glanced at Loke as the younger boy fastened a basket of cheese and mountain meat on top a pack, then looked up one last time at the mountain: they had patrolled it constantly since Urobb fell. Thorn spoke to the bucks at last, and they started down the dark slope.

Not until the morning sky began to grow light, so the boulders loomed clearly around them, did they feel easier. As the sky began to yellow, they sang a little, the old marching songs—songs of the Herebian tribes, songs forbidden in Cloffi. And well they might be, for the Herebian were father to the Kubal. But lusty songs and bold they were and the two sang them now with changed words, in rude defiance of Kubalese might

“What would they do to us?” Loke asked suddenly. “What would the Kubalese do if they conquered Cloffi?” The boy gazed at Thorn with trust The talk of attack must have upset Loke more than he had shown. Thorn studied his brother’s freckled face with a feeling of tenderness—and of fear. It was not for nothing that Tra. Hoppa had taught him Ere’s history; he knew what could happen to them. But there was something else, too, something on the side of Dunoon. ‘They could kill us all,” he said evenly. “Except for one thing.” He looked into Loke’s eyes and saw his own fears there. “We’re too valuable to destroy. The Kubalese could never herd our goats and make them produce, and they’re the only decent meat in Cloffi. Crude as the Kubalese are, I expect they are not foolish. They would likely keep Dunoon as slave, for food, for goat meat and milk and wool. They would keep us slave, Loke, slave to tend our own herds.”

“But we never would! I’d kill my herd first before I’d be slave to Kubal!”

Thorn said no more. The plans he had made with the Goatmaster were best kept just to the two of them. The more who knew, even his little brother, the more who could be forced to talk.

“Is that why . . .” Loke looked at him steadily. “Is that why Burgdeeth has tolerated us all these generations? Because of the meat and the wool?”

“What else? You know the Landmasters have always hated us. But even they know our herds would die under the bungling hands of Burgdeeth. Our mountain goats are not like the donkeys and the poor steeds of Cloffi, to be rough handled or to tolerate cruelty and indifference. You know as well as I they were never meant to be fenced or to live in the confines of the valley. And no Landmaster would permit his people to live on the mountain to herd them; there is too much of freedom there, to much of space, too much of sky to woo away Burgdeeth’s fettered manhood.”

‘Tolerated for our goat meat!” Loke said furiously.

“Well, we don’t have to stay on these pastures; though they are by far the richest. Maybe the Landmaster dreams that one day we’ll be brought to our knees and made as docile as the Cloffa. Anyhow, it all may come to nothing, this talk of attack.” He cuffed Loke across the shoulders. “It’s Market Day, boy! Good food and new sights, and a pocket full of silver.”

They stopped to water the bucks before leaving the river, the goats sloshing playfully, then took the narrow trail that crossed the lower whitebarley field and came into Burgdeeth by a side street. They could see the square ahead overflowing with bright wagons and banners, with horses and men milling about underneath the great bronze statue. Did the Landmaster ever really look at the grandeur and gentleness of the god towering there? What kind of twisted spirit could live with the pictures that were painted on the Landmaster’s walls?

Thorn took the black goat’s halter and led him forward to where Loke had found a spot to his liking just beside the hedge. The younger boy had already begun to spread out his wares on an old blanket, brown hides and rust, cream and black, and the blankets woven in the same tones, their patterns of song and myth catching a slash of light from between the feet of the statue. Thorn grinned at Loke; the boy could hardly wait to begin trading. Thorn left him to it, as his brother preferred, and began to walk among the wagons, wondering at the richness of the wares. He moved alternately in sun and in shadow, where canvas roofs had been spread to shelter the displays of silks and linens and copper pots, of enamelled brassware and carved chairs and fancy harness and bright-dyed leather goods, and of sweets—soursugar and saffron drops, bars of honeywax from Doonas, and even dates and onyrood pods from Moramia, dipped in crystalized sugar. Thorn’s mouth watered at the sight of them; he slipped two coins from his belt and bought soursugar and onyrood and took them to share with Loke, coming away again to prowl at more length among the crowds—a rare holiday, this, and the sun warm on his back. He felt an unaccustomed satisfaction with the color and the noise and the crowds, he who was usually happiest alone.

But there was a disquiet in him, too. He kept remembering the small figure standing in the darkness beside his prison bars. He watched for her in the crowd and thought of the line of her chin and the way her brown hair fell over her shoulders.

He remembered last year’s Singing, the way she had played her gaylute, and had sung “Jajun Jajun” and “Smallsinger Tell Me.” He remembered her dancing wildly while Shanner played for her.

She had changed a lot, he thought. She had been a child then.

He thought of her dark eyes, and wanted to ask her—ask her what? He looked up and searched the crowd as if he would see her suddenly then stepped aside as two Kubalese on great heavy horses came around from behind a wagon. How could they show their faces, with Urobb so lately slaughtered? Why did the Landmaster allow them in Burgdeeth? He stared after them coldly.

There was a Sangurian ballad troop in one wagon, and Thorn stood for a while listening to the man and his three women singing softly the stories of Bede Thostle and the Goosetree of Madoc, and of the Demon of Sangur Neck. Then when he turned away to wander once more, he came around a little tent with brass wares from Pelli, and he stopped suddenly, to stare.

The man was turned away from Thorn, but the set of his shoulders was familiar as he adjusted the harness of a fine butternut mare. His white hair caught the light. His tall thin frame seemed taut and hard as a sapling. The wagon the mare pulled was brighter than any on the square, painted with birds and flowers in every color you could name. And across its side, in letters lined with gold, were the words, JUGGLER AND MASTER OF TRICKS. As Thorn stood staring, the man turned; one quick motion, and he was looking into Thorn’s eyes; and Thorn knew at once he must not speak or recognize him in any way.

“Fancy my wagon, do you, boy?” the old man said lightly in a manner of speech that was certainly not his own and loud enough for people to hear. “Fancy a trick or two? Silver, boy!” The old man’s voice was loud and beguiling. “Silver will get you a trick . . .” But Thorn grumbled something rude and turned away as if he were not interested. He could feel Anchorstar’s satisfaction, feel his warm and silent greeting so his own pulse raced as he turned indifferently to examine a display of tin. The old man took the team’s heads and backed the wagon into an alley. Thorn turned in time to see the two horses’ noses bobbing as they guided their burden out of the way. He knew Anchorstar would speak to him later, speak privately.

It was not a snake’s breath later that he rounded the square and heard Loke’s voice raised in anger, heard one of the bucks bellow a challenge. Alarmed, he leaped across a wagon tongue and some barrels to come around the statue’s hedge.

A group of children had gathered around the bucks as children usually did, to admire them and to push their hands into the thick wool coats and grin at their warmth and silkiness, to pull a head down and feel the spiraling horns; the bucks could be bad-tempered with an adult, but were patient enough with children.

But it was not the children, laughing with delight, that had caused Loke’s shout and the angry bellow. The cream buck stood apart with his head lowered and his ears back, ready to charge. His quarry was the dark Kubalese, Kearb-Mattus. The man cowered, now, against a wagon. Had he been teasing the animal? The cream buck, the worst tempered of the lot, did not take to strangers. Thorn took his halter and settled him. Loke’s face was red with anger. “He was feeling in the pack, he said it was a game.”

Thorn gave Loke a restraining look and turned to face the Kubalese. “What were you doing?”

Kearb-Mattus smiled, his body relaxing now. “It was a game, friend. A game for the children—a game of hide-and-search. Come, let us have a game, it’s innocent enough. What say you, goatman?” A curious crowd had gathered. Thorn studied the Kubalese closely; then he caught a glimpse of Anchorstar moving in through the crowd, and the sudden command of Anchorstar’s thoughts was plain. Thorn swallowed his temper and stepped back.

“Play your game then, Kubal. One game.”

The Kubalese looked mildly surprised. Loke went pale with fury.

“Play your game,” Thorn repeated, at Anchorstar’s silent command. The Kubalese held up his hand and a gold piece flashed bright between his fingers; the crowd caught its breath; the children stepped forward with a sigh of longing. Such a coin would buy sweets they could not count. Kearb-Mattus smiled, turned his back, and began to rummage among the packs and into the bucks’ thick coats. You couldn’t tell where he hid the coin. Or did he still have it? The bucks shifted their feet and twitched their ears nervously, but Thorn spoke to them and they quieted. The children watched the Kubalese without blinking. When he was finished, be made a signal and they scattered at once, searching frantically.

All but three. Three children held back, stood close together to stare up at the Kubalese. Kearb-Mattus pretended not to see them, but Thorn thought his interest was keen. One of them, the smallest boy, darted a quick glance at the black buck then looked away at once; the other two followed his gaze. Kearb-Mattus’s voice rose, “Sweets it will buy, sweets and wonders . . . The little boy—Toca, Thorn thought, Toca Dreeb—had a hot pink look about him as if he could hardly contain himself. Then suddenly for no apparent reason he turned and melted into the crowd. The other two followed him.

Kearb-Mattus scowled, stood for a moment uncertain, then clapped his hands. “Hunt’s over, children! Time’s up! No one found the gold piece.” He walked to the black buck and drew the coin from deep beneath its saddle. “Game’s over,” he roared, “No one was quick enough this time.” He turned to go, but Thorn stepped into his path.

The Kubalese raised his hand to push past, making Thorn’s temper flare. He grabbed the man’s wrist and twisted the coin from his fingers. He felt Anchorstar’s distress too late, ignored it in his fury.

“It’s not over, Kubal! You said the finder would keep the coin, and that implies a finder. They had too little time. Hide the coin again. Or shall I?”

The Kubalese’s look was black. He raised his fist—it was like a ham . . .

But before he could swing, his arm was grabbed from behind and twisted until he knelt. Anchorstar stood over him; he scowled down at the Kubalese, then nodded to Thorn to continue speaking.

“Hide it,” Thorn said.

“Why should I?” The Kubalese was furious.

“Because you promised them. And because if you don’t, this trickster and I will break both your arms for you.”

The Kubalese accepted the coin with a look of hatred and flicked it carelessly into the air so it lit among the bucks’ feet; at once the children were on it, surging and scrambling—a big boy screamed his success and disappeared, running.

Zephy couldn’t see all that happened, the crowd was too thick, people too tall in front of her. She pushed and stretched, saw Kearb-Mattus raise his fist, saw Thorn’s red thatch, saw the white-haired man move quickly through the crowd, heard the voices raised in anger. Beside her Meatha was pale as milk, staring; but Zephy paid her little attention, until Meatha shook her arm and breathed, “Anchorstar. It’s Anchorstar! It’s the man I saw—on the wagon . . .”

Zephy turned. She stared at Meatha, uncomprehending. Then she understood what Meatha was saying. But Meatha must be mistaken: This was not the way Meatha’s vision had been. Where was the bright wagon, the horses? Then Meatha’s urgency was forgotten as Thorn’s voice rose in anger. Zephy pushed through the crowd frantically, trying to see, trying to understand what was taking place.

When the crowd dispersed at last, wandering off, she was little the wiser about what had happened, except that Thorn and the tall white-haired man had stood facing the Kubalese together. She turned shy and uncomfortable then and pulled Meatha away. She didn’t want to talk to Thorn; she didn’t know what to say to him.

Meatha seemed glad enough to go. Had she been wrong, then, about the tall man? They made their way to the other side of the square and occupied themselves among the wonders of leather and tin and weavings; and neither spoke for a long time. The colors of the wagons were like fire; indigo and saffron and crimson spilled upon the day. There was a display of sugar spinning and a wagon of glinting pearls and sprika shells from the Bay of Pelli. And an old woman wizened as a dried fig laid out wonderful needlework with her brown, trembling hands. There were ginger pies filled with clotted cream, to eat in the shade of a Sangurian wagon, and all the time Zephy was silent and preoccupied. Wanting to be with Thorn but too shy and making herself miserable.

Then it was noon suddenly, the sun overhead. Mama would be furious, serving up the meal without her. She fled through the crowded streets guiltily, tripped over a clutter of bright brooms, and burst in through the sculler to meet her mother’s hot, angry frown.