Bastion (6 page)

“Yes, yes,” the man chuckled. “For married ladies, yes? They will be to having exciting time if wearing, yes?”

Lena laughed, still blushing. “It’s a good thing I’m married, then!” As the Scentmaster tilted his head inquiringly, she added quickly, “Not to Mags, he’s just a friend. To a Healer.”

“And he is off hunting herbs and things not so interesting as scent.” The man laughed again. “So, it is my dismal duty, as I am to be having many expenses, to be asking for payment, please?”

Lydia had named a price and given Lena the purse. Although Mags had expected Lena to bargain at least a little, after the addition of that very generous gift, Lena simply handed over the purse without a quibble. The Scentmaster opened the purse casually, counted it out without seeming to do so—Mags had learned that trick from Nikolas—and bowed, pushing the basket toward her. She took it, and hesitated.

“Something is wrong?” the Scentmaster asked quickly.

“I probably can’t afford it,” she said, a little sadly, “But . . . how much is the
Ambar?”

“I am devastated to say it is a silver piece for a bottle,” the Scentmaster replied, losing his smile. “The resin is difficult to find, the perfume is hard to make.”

Mags could see Lena struggling with herself. And a silver piece was a great deal of money for someone like her or Mags, after all, for something as frivolous as a scent.

“But . . . if the lady does not mind a fainter scent,” the Scentmaster continued, “I am to be having this—”

He held out another bottle.

“What is it?” Lena asked.

“I am to be diluting perfume with distilled spirits, am to be using much less of scent. Is to be four coppers for bottle.” He smiled as Lena’s eyes lit up. They exchanged coppers and bottle, the bottle once again being cradled in a little woven pine-needle sheath. “To being very careful. Distilled spirits are to being escape into air, easy. To being sure bottle is well sealed with wax when closed. But . . .” he chuckled. “I am telling grandmama how to pluck chicken, am thinking. You are wife of Healer, you will to being know these things. Thank you, my young friends! Tell others of Efan Scentmaster! I have many fine things for all tastes!”

Mags counted up his pennies in his mind, and asked, without hesitation, “You wouldn’t have ’nother of those, would you?” Amily wasn’t one for ribbons and the like . . . but he rather thought this would please her. It wasn’t quite her usual style; she favored scents like lavender and rosemary, but this wasn’t the sort of too-sweet, flowery perfume of the kind she
didn’t
care for.

And—of course the Scentmaster had another.

Beaming, Lena thanked him again and tucked her precious purchase into the bottom of a separate belt pouch she was wearing besides the one holding her money, one she had probably put on specifically to stow small purchases. Mags put his in his pocket—after all, he didn’t expect to have it long. She and Mags moved on to catch up with Amily and Bear.

They spotted the pair of them in the final stages of bargaining in an herbalist’s stall; from the look of things, both of them had found what they were looking for. Mags caught their eyes, then he and Lena waited patiently off to the side until the bargaining was concluded to the satisfaction of all parties.

Bear’s nostrils flared as Lena’s scent reached him. “What’s that you’re wearing?” he blurted, getting a little red. “It’s . . . it’s very. . . .”

“Yes, it is, isn’t it?” Lena laughed, and hugged his arm. “I’m glad you like it.”

“I like it too,” Amily said, wistfully. “Very much.”

“Then you’ll be glad I got you some,” Mags said promptly, grinning as he fished out the little bottle, and watched her expression brighten.

Then they moved on just a little farther. The area for pens, inks, pencils, paints, and fine papers was very small, and it didn’t take them at all long to find the stall Lydia wanted. That was when Mags found out just why the pens were so special.

The nibs were made of metal. They’d last ever so much longer than a goose quill. Lena bargained cheerfully with the merchant and got Lydia the three pens and the special ink at what Mags considered to be a good price. So much of what went on in the business of running a Kingdom seemed to be commerce; Mags had been getting a lot of exposure to commerce from the perspective of the little man behind the counter of a pawnshop and the movers and shakers among the various mercantile Guilds. It was not something he would ever have thought he would find interesting, and yet, it was.

If only because a great deal of it was about greed, and greed was something he understood all too well.

When they were all together again, Mags brought out the list of performers and merchants and the map. They all tucked themselves into a gap between two tent stalls, out of the way of the foot traffic, and consulted both, heads huddled together over the papers. “I was kind of partial to trying one of those tents where they got a bunch of different folks rotating in,” he said. “I ’spect that’d bring us up to about lunch time.”

Bear nodded, Amily shrugged, and Lena looked interested. “Anything we go to see will be something we haven’t got up on the hill,” Amily pointed out, “So I’m ready to look at whatever you like. I can’t think of any particular performers from last year that I’m dying to catch again. They were all pretty good.”

As they got to the area of the entertainers, however, despite the large tent with banners depicting the ten different acts going on inside, Mags found himself oddly distracted by something on the very end of the row.

There was a much smaller tent, dyed blue, with white swirls painted on it that looked like representations of wind and cloud. There was no loud fellow outside bellowing out the virtues of the performers within. Instead, there was a quiet-looking . . . person . . . outside, dressed in androgynous robes and a head wrap, all in the same blue and white; a dark blue throat wrap that matched the head wrap, a white underrobe, and a lighter blue overrobe belted at the waist with a dark blue scarf from which an embroidered belt pouch hung. Mags really could not tell if this person was male or female, and the melodious voice gave him no clues. It could have been a low alto or a high tenor. He couldn’t see the hair, and the robes were baggy enough to have hidden either a flat chest or a pair of modest breasts.

The person chanted, in a sort of singsong, while a ferret scampered up and down his (?) arms at his direction. “Come, come and see, see what love will earn, see what kindness brings, see how even the lowliest creatures reward a loving heart. You will never see such feats from any other beast show here, never see how eagerly the beasts will answer the call of love. Come in, come in, there are seats still left.”

Nothing like as aggressive as the other barkers, but there were plenty of people responding to it—generally people with small children. It sounded like a very good choice for young children, actually—nothing to frighten them, and nothing their parents would feel uncomfortable trying to explain. Right now—well, after being a “captive beast” of a sort himself, Mags was in the mood to see something that sounded so gentle. “Let’s see this,” Mags urged, and the others seemed just as interested.

“I generally hate animal shows, because the animals are treated so cruelly,” said Amily. “But this—sounds nice.”

The person must have overheard her, because he turned to the four of them and smiled. “It is nice, young mistress. You will see; my beasts and I are the greatest of friends, and they will do for me at my request what no amount of punishment or harsh training could demand. A penny each, if you please.”

Before Mags or the others could respond, Amily had paid for all four of them. The person guided them in, then fastened a rope across the tent entrance, and dropped the cloth door behind them.

The found themselves in a curious little round tent, with two rows of bleacher-style seats around the circumference, and a ring delineated by a low wooden barrier, painted white, with a gap in it in the center. Thanks to the blue coloring of the canvas, the place was shrouded in a pleasant twilight, with the empty center of the ring illuminated by the sun coming down through a hole in the top of the tent. The seats were, indeed, full, and the four of them took the last ones available.

The person in charge went to a stand on which there was a curious instrument, rather like a harp, but lying down. He took a pair of thin rods in his hands and began to tap them on the strings.

“Oh!” said Lena in surprise, her eyes going round with delight. Mags could understand why. He’d heard a lot of instruments up at Bardic Collegium, but never one like this.

Nor had he ever seen an animal act like this. It began with a pack of little mongrel dogs, who did everything he had ever seen a trick dog perform and more besides, without ever seeming to get any direction from the player, except, perhaps, musical cues. They jumped over each other, danced on their hind paws, then balanced on their forepaws, they performed tumbling tricks, jumping and rolling as human tumblers did. The smallest jumped onto the backs of the largest and rode them like horses. They dragged hoops onto stands, leaped through them, and dragged the hoops off again. They ran and jumped off ramps. It was amazing to behold.

They ran off, and three birds with long tails flew down out of the roof of the tent, where they had perched unseen, and flew in acrobatic formations along with the music. They retreated into perches up in the roof, and the dogs returned, arranging themselves around the circular area and then holding perfectly still. A moment later, a quartet of ferrets bounced in and began a race around and around the ring, jumping over and scooting under the patient dogs. That ended with them each jumping onto a dog’s back and balancing there, first on their hind legs, then on their forelegs, and then the entire pack of dogs, ferret riders and all, trotted out of the ring again.

Last came a sextet of the smallest horses Mags had ever seen, much smaller than the mine ponies. Without any direction, they began the same sort of pacing “dance” that the Companions had done for the wedding of the Prince and Princess. Bells on their bridles and harnesses chimed in time with their dancing. They wove in and out around each other, making patterns, breaking them, and making new patterns. And just when that was barely starting to lose its novelty, they began executing the fighting-moves that Companions and warhorses were trained in: rearing on their hind legs and pawing the air in front of them, leaping into the air and kicking out, rearing up and hopping forward. Then they went back into their dance, this time joined by the birds.

Then they were joined by the dogs and, finally, by the ferrets, with the horses forming an outer circle, the dogs dancing in a circle rotating counter to theirs inside that, and the ferrets one going the same direction as the horses inside that, and the birds swooping and diving over their heads. Then, as the player created a final series of chords, they all stopped, pivoted outward to face their audience, and bowed.

As one, the entire small audience leaped to their feet with applause.

The animals filed out, with only the birds going back to their perches. The—trainer? keeper?—opened the door of the tent and stood there, bowing slightly, and waving his audience out. Mags felt dazzled with enchantment and admiration.

“Please!” Lena said, as they reached the door. “What sort of instrument is that? I’ve never heard anything like it! And you play it like a Master!”

“Mistress,” the person corrected her gently, with a smile, thus at least solving one question for Mags. “It is called a hammered dulcimer, young Bard, and I thank you for your high praise. My people seldom venture out of our home, but I was overtaken by wanderlust once I attained . . . my proficiency. Originally I had only my horses and my birds, but the others came to join me over time. Now I cannot imagine life without them all.”

“Animal Mindspeech?” Mags ventured. The smile broadened. He noticed that the Beastmistress had curiously pale eyes, like a wintery overcast sky.

“Even so. It is our hope that we can show people what love and good will can accomplish and make them lose their taste for beast shows that are created with fear and punishment.” The Show Mistress bowed slightly.

“I hope it works,” Mags replied sincerely. It had certainly worked on him. Having watched this, he couldn’t imagine taking pleasure in any other sort of beast show. And the dancing bears he had seen, so cruelly shackled and goaded, made him shudder with revulsion.

Once outside the tent, they realized they had been in there longer than they had thought; Bear’s stomach actually growled, and they all laughed as Bear blushed.

“Well, that says what we’ll be doing next,” Amily declared.

3

T
he quartet caught a wagon back up the Hill that left well after sunset, but also well before the Fair closed for the night. It had been a wonderful day; they had eaten odd and tasty things, seen a trained-horse exhibition put on by genuine Shin’a’in horse traders, enjoyed one of the multiact shows with acrobats, rope dancers, and people who had climbed and disported themselves on poles held up by handlers, and one who had done amazing things on silk scarves hung from the top of the tent. They were pleasantly tired, but before too long, Mags knew, they would start to feel unpleasantly
weary and begin to be quarrelsome. There would be a huge rush for the last wagons, and almost certainly some people were going to wind up walking back. He put that to the others, and they all agreed that they might as well make their way back to the Collegia.

It was a good decision; the wagon was almost empty, and they were tired enough by the time they reached the pickup point that their purchases were beginning to feel very heavy.

Someone had finally taken pity on the Trainees and put a layer of fresh hay in the bottom of this wagon, so the ride back up was much more comfortable than the ride down.

Mags had been able to lose himself in all the activities of the day, but now that it was all over, he found his mind going over and over the conundrum of his origin—and the worries over what it meant. Now that he knew part of it . . . it was almost more frustrating—and worrying—than when he had known nothing.