Sorcery Rising (16 page)

‘You see the tits on that, Joz?’

‘Mmm.’

‘Did you see, Knobber? The big blonde one walking with the scrawny-looking lad over there by the pastries stall?’

‘Aye. Very nice.’

‘I wouldn’t mind hiding me sausage in her box.’

‘You’ve got a filthy mouth on you, Dogo.’

‘Filthy hands, too, given half a chance—’

‘You’ll keep them to yourself when you’re around me, that or lose them.’

‘Yes, Mam.’ A pause. Then: ‘Still, I bet you’ve some tales to tell, eh, Mam, from your days as a pro?’

‘They’re not stories for
little
boys, Dogo.’

‘Come round to my bivvy tonight and you’ll find me not so little.’

A smack.

‘Ow! What d’you do that for?’

‘Little boys shouldn’t tell lies.’

‘Who’s been talking, then?’

Six

A Gift

F
ent Aranson and Tor Leeson strode quickly away from the sardonyx stall, leaving Halli shouting something inaudible, but in all likelihood obscene, after them.

‘Well done, Tor. I couldn’t have stood Halli for a minute longer. All he can talk about is Jenna this and Jenna that; and the longship he’s got his eye on. He’s been lecturing me all afternoon on the benefits of a settled life: taking a wife, earning enough money to buy a farm, putting a little aside every day, not spending all my money – all my money, I ask you – on drink and women!’

‘I thought he had his heart set on voyaging to the Far West.’

‘Only to win the price of the land and the stock: not for fun – not like me.’

‘He’s a prig, your big brother,’ Tor opined briskly. ‘Wouldn’t know a good time if it bit him. Jenna Finnsen indeed. All flesh and fabric, that one. I’d rather have one I could get my teeth into, a girl with a bit of substance, a bit of imagination and a bit of muscle, ready to wrap herself round you for an hour or two, then just as happy to go her own way.’ He grinned wolfishly, then shook his head. ‘Women: they’re nothing but trouble to men like you and me.’

Fent regarded him askance. ‘Failed to win my sister’s favour, did you?’

‘She’s a minx: tooth and claw. But I do love a bit of spirit in ’em.’

‘True enough.’ Fent chuckled. ‘Nomad quarter?’

‘Nomad quarter.’

‘Women or wine?’

‘Both!’

‘Let’s go and get horribly, uproariously drunk.’

‘Let’s go get horribly, uproariously drunk, and find ourselves a couple of Footloose whores to tup senseless!’

Saro Vingo slipped away from the family pavilion as soon as he could. He’d had about as much as he could take of his brother going on and on about his prospective bride. ‘Once I’ve got that one locked away, she won’t be able to stand up for a month,’ Tanto kept saying. ‘Did you see that mouth? She can’t wait, and no mistake.’ It made him ashamed to be a Vingo; to be Istrian even. Or perhaps this was what it was to be a man.

He walked through the fairground with his head down, avoiding the eye of all those he passed. Was this how all men talked about their wives? Surely his father had never spoken of their mother so? Illustria, so tall and serene, her mouth painted in restrained plums and violets, who talked so softly that everyone present in the room fell silent to hear her speak; had Fabel once called her a whore and boasted to others of what he’d liked to do to her?

Saro felt himself flush, implicated by his gender in even the potential for her debasement, and knew he was little better himself. The pictures he’d had in his head ever since seeing that barbarian girl on the Rock . . .

His money-pouch chinked as he strode along, prompting a thought: he would buy his mother a gift, something foreign, unusual, something no one else would think to bring home. With new purpose in his step, he headed for the nomad quarter.

The sun had just begun its long slow dip towards the sea before he reached the first stalls, bathing everything in an indeterminate, chancy light. It was strange, and a little thrilling, to be wandering around the fairground – especially this part of the fairground – on his own. Little tremors of anticipation ran up and down his spine. Who knew what sort of adventure he might encounter, what bizarre folk he might meet?

He threaded his way between innumerable stalls offering trinkets and fabulously-patterned fabrics, exotic-smelling foods and flasks of drink. Around one stall specialising in variously flavoured araques a large group of young men had gathered rowdily, drinking the samples and shouting down the distressed stallholder, a wizened old man without a tooth in his head. Saro walked quickly by.

He bought a spiced pastry and stopped for a while at a puppet theatre. On a gaudily-painted stage in a striped fabric booth which hid the puppeteers, three grotesque mannequins clacked up and down on sticks. They had long, thin fingers and pointed noses; spidery limbs and gilded clothes. He had no idea who the figures represented; and when the fourth character made an entrance: a smaller figure in a white robe whom the audience cheered as if he was the hero, he was still none the wiser. The small white-clad puppet led the three larger ones on a journey towards a board of painted mountains and into a dark hole in the backcloth. Then it clapped its wooden hands together and a great puff of green smoke engulfed the stage, much to the delight of the onlookers. When the smoke cleared, the three larger figures had vanished, leaving only the white one, with a tiny wooden cat at its feet, and everyone started to applaud. Saro found himself doing the same, since it seemed only polite.

A small dark-haired girl with a silver ring through her nose and another through her right eyebrow came scooting out from behind the screen and bowed, then with a flourish produced a large leather bag, which she held out before her. Folk started to throw coins into the bag, then to drift away. Saro was one of the last to leave. When the girl came to him, she placed her palms together and bowed to him.

‘
Rajeesh, mina Istrianni
,’ she said.

He made a clumsy copy of the bow and repeated the odd greeting, which for some reason made her laugh. Then he asked her, slowly and carefully in the Old Tongue, what it was he had just seen.

‘Rahay and the Wizards!’ she said in surprise. ‘Don’t you know anything?’

He grimaced. ‘Apparently not. I arrived late to the performance and missed all but the last scene.’

‘Come with me while I get the stall ready for tonight’s performance and I’ll tell you the story, if you’d like.’

‘I would love it.’

She disappeared into the booth and began to sweep the dust from the explosion off the stage with her hands, then with a grin turned the palms up towards him. They were bright green. ‘You want to smell some magic?’

Saro laughed. ‘Magic? That’s just green dust!’

‘Maybe now it is: but in the play . . .’ She held her hand out to him and he took it briefly in his own. Her fingers were tiny, like a child’s. The dust smelled acrid and pungent and entirely unfamiliar to him: the smell of another country, another world.

In a singsong voice, she began her tale:

She dusted her green-stained hands down her tunic. ‘The Old Tongue doesn’t rhyme where the original did I’m told, but that’s the version I was taught. And, to be properly traditional, I ought to have accompanied it with a cither, but mine’s so out of tune at the moment, I think you’d thank me for the lack!’

Saro dug in his pouch and withdrew a silver coin. ‘I thank you anyway,’ he said, holding it out to her. ‘I loved your tale.’

She waved it away. ‘Don’t insult me with your money: this was not a paying performance – I chose to tell you the story. Regard it as my gift to you, at your first Allfair.’

‘How can you tell?’

He smiled at her and was delighted to see her smile back, her dark eyes crinkling in that smooth tanned face. Her very naked, female face. He felt a wave of shame rise up in him for seeing it so, and bobbed his head to hide his blush. When he raised it again, she was watching him intently.

‘You stare at me as if you’ve never seen a woman’s face before.’

Saro felt stupid. ‘Sorry, no,’ he stammered. ‘It’s just that where I come from women do not show their faces. They wear a veil that leaves just their mouth free to eat, and speak and—’

‘You are Istrian.’

He nodded, though it had not been a question.

‘Your people have odd ways with women.’ She laughed, picking up the puppets and untangling the rods and strings where they had fallen at the end of the play. ‘To hide them away so jealously. The men must be very afraid.’ She handed one of the untangled puppets to Saro, who took it cautiously. He turned it over. It was beautifully made, he saw now: carved by a master’s hand, each feature, each digit delineated with exquisite care. He moved one of the rods and saw how a limb jerked; saw that with a skilful puppeteer’s art, the fingers could be made to move individually, so that the hand might beckon or make a fist.

He thought about what she had said, turning the puppet over and over. At last, he said: ‘It is said that the power of Falla shines out of a woman’s eyes. Perhaps we are afraid of that power.’

The girl laughed. ‘So you should be! Now, give me that wizard before you rub all his gold off.’ She replaced all four mannequins into a cleverly-made wooden box with compartments to keep the rods and strings separate. ‘So, what are you doing here with the Wanderers on your first Fair, young sir?’

‘I came to look for a gift for my mother.’

‘Good boy,’ she regarded him approvingly. ‘Women like gifts. Did you have something in mind?’

Saro shook his head. ‘Some jewellery, maybe,’ he added lamely.

She clapped her hands. ‘I’ll take you to my grandfather, then. He specialises in moodstones – set into necklaces and bracelets, rings and brooches; or, even better, I think, on their own, just to hold in your hand. Your mother will be enchanted.’

‘But why are they called moodstones?’

‘They change colour to match your mood.’

Saro laughed. ‘How can a stone do that?’

The girl shrugged. ‘Ask my grandfather: he’s the expert.’

‘In stones?’

‘No, silly: in moods.’

The old nomad’s stall was situated just behind the one selling araque that Saro had passed earlier, but the crowd had grown since then: both in size and in volubility. Young Istrian men with their clean-shaven chins and elaborate tunics rubbed shoulders with northerners in leather and braids, and while they appeared incongruous in one another’s company, it seemed that the universality of a shared drink had bound them in great good cheer: one lad – who might have been Ordono Qaran from Talsea, had an arm around a young Eyran with white-blond hair and beard, and they were singing an old drinking song, each in their own language, but with more or less the same tune. Saro recognised others he had met – friends of his brother’s a few years older than himself; sparring partners and hunting companions – Diaz Sestran, in a ridiculous silver and orange doublet, and Leonic Bakran; and, oh Falla, there was Tanto himself, stumbling, red-faced and bleary-eyed, upending the last drops from a violet-coloured flask into his gullet.

Saro sighed and walked faster.

‘Do you know them?’ the girl asked curiously, staring at their antics. One of the Istrians had picked up an Eyran and was carrying him around on his shoulders. The Eyran, all long red hair and wolfish grin, brandished a wicked-looking knife.

‘My brother, for one,’ Saro said through gritted teeth.

‘And you have no wish to join him?’

‘None at all. I came here to avoid him.’

The girl laughed. ‘He’s enjoying himself far too much to notice you. Come on.’

Her grandfather’s stall was festooned with chains and glittering objects, all set with milky-looking stones polished to a high gloss. The old man himself wore them on his hands, in his ears, on bands around his arm. There was even a single large moodstone in the middle of his forehead, suspended from a thin silver circlet and looking for all the world like a huge third eye. And while those on the stall were a pale, cloudy white, those worn by the old man swam with shades of soft sky-blue.