Dawn of Wonder (The Wakening Book 1) (41 page)

“Now that … that is rancid!” Vayle choked, staggering away as
Aedan tipped the barrel. A thick ooze of semi-liquid potatoes crawled onto the
ground and lay bubbling in the sun, killing grass and poisoning the air.

“It’s perfect!” said Peashot, in unfeigned admiration
of the plan. “This is definitely going to be the best part of the day!”

Aedan grinned. He was looking forward to it too,
but carpentry was first on the list, and the less he had to do with it, the better
for all. He could build traps and slings and such, but had never got the knack
for what needed to be done now. His forts had always been better at falling
down than standing up, and he’d never really had enough of an interest to work out
why. Kian, however, was right at home with wood and tools. After making a quick
inventory of what was available, he began allotting tasks.

Aedan and Peashot cut the cloth into sections that
Kian measured off; Lorrimer joined the numerous scraps of rope to make useful
lengths; Hadley knocked the crates apart, preserving the nails; and Kian and
Vayle cut and spliced poles until they had enough for a large frame. When all
the materials were ready, they carried them to the back-row stand where Coren
and Enna were setting up pots and ingredients on their little table.

The boys drew a fair amount of attention with
their burdens, and even more when they began to hammer and hoist. Kian showed
himself to be something of a young master as he managed his team. All his quiet
reserve was forgotten; even Hadley jumped at the lash of his tongue.

The frame went up. It towered over the
neighbouring stalls. Ropes were used to secure it in place with stakes cut from
branches. Thinner twines were used to haul cloth over the frame and secure it
in place, and two poles that stood out front had cords threaded over their tops
so that a banner could be hoisted. After deciding what the banner should say,
Lorrimer ran off with the cloth to beg his uncle’s help.

Kian and Hadley arranged the planks that had been salvaged
from the crates. They nailed together a huge table that ran the length of the
stall, and two long flanking benches. Kian examined the tarnished wood with a
critical eye and announced that it needed a cloth covering, so Aedan and Peashot
were sent to scrounge for more. When they came back with the cloth, they
stretched and secured it, wrapping even the supports so that the result looked
impressively clean and neat.

Lorrimer returned an hour later with a banner
painted in dazzling blue. Using the cords, they hoisted the sign to the top of
the posts and stood back to admire the result.
Ennas Ecselent Stews
flapped grandly over the large tent.

Aedan frowned. It didn’t look quite right. He
remembered that Lorrimer had been illiterate, and wondered how much this uncle
knew about the letters he had painted. As he looked around he spotted a few
amused smiles, but nobody said anything so he let it go.

The building had taken until early afternoon, and
now a deep lull of contentment settled on them as they admired their work.

“Kian, I am impressed,” said Aedan. “This is a
fine stall. Makes all the others around look almost shoddy.”

Kian beamed.

Enna hugged them and Coren gripped their forearms
and gave them each a large hollowed barley loaf filled to the brim with stew.

The loaves had been freshly baked a few stalls
away and the aroma of the bread was compelling, but it was insipid against
Enna’s stew. The vapours drifting out of her large copper pot were nothing
short of entrancing. Mutton, sweet potato, onions, celery, mushrooms, rosemary,
thyme, pinches of this and that, and something secret in a bronze gourd that never
left her side had blended into a meal that defied description.

The boys had been quick to hand over their coins –
despite Coren’s protests – so they could begin filling their mouths. Even
Peashot was unable to speak until the last crumb was gone and he sat back to
lick his fingers with a look of complete satisfaction.

“That was the best meal I’ve ever had!” he said,
and for once Lorrimer was deprived of leftovers.

The rest agreed and showered the old lady with
compliments.

When everyone was done, Aedan suggested that Enna
make the second pot of stew. “I think it will sell,” he told her with an
enigmatic grin as he led the way to the next objective in the plan.

It took a while to round up the boys from the
apple war, but when they had found enough of them, they explained what had
happened, what they had done, and what they planned. The boys gritted their
teeth at the outrage, stared with fascination at the new banner which could be
seen from a good distance, and shrieked with laughter at the plan.

Aedan led them to the fetid potatoes and the new boys
were not disappointed with the force of the aroma. Aedan and Hadley agreed that
it would not be wise for them – the builders of Enna’s tent – to hang around
while this particular operation was in progress, so they drifted off to a tiered
grandstand from where they could watch.

Two boys went to the back of the intruding tent
that now stood in Enna’s original spot. They hoisted the flap and made enough
noise to draw the furious attentions of the manager and all three cooks, while
four boys leaned in the front and dumped little smelly handfuls into the pots.

“They did that perfectly,” said Peashot with a
hint of disappointment, no doubt, at being excluded.

The results were not immediate, but they were
impressive. Cooks started arguing and pointing as they wrinkled their noses.
The manager raised his voice over theirs and restored order as a customer
arrived and seated himself at the table. He only took one bite.

He didn’t swallow.

The manager should have given the man his money
back because the shouting that ensued carried well over the showground and
warned off a number of would-be patrons. The front row position now worked
against the stall and many of the hungry drifted away from the yells of
“rotten” and “poison” and several other deeply felt expressions, to the bright
blue sign.

Over the course of the afternoon, parents were
begged to take boys to the stall that had food “better than golden honey cakes”,
as Peashot had put it; labourers came to inspect the work of the young marshal
apprentices who had used their tools and paint, and here they encountered trails
of persuasive vapours and found themselves instantly hungry; and curious
strollers altered course to see who Enna was and found a busy table and satisfied
expressions. So for the remainder of the day there was a queue outside the
stall. Coren had to make more than one trip to buy additional ingredients with
the money that was flowing in.

The boys, after promising to return later, decided
to explore the rest of the fairgrounds. As they moved off, Aedan stopped and
pointed.

“Who’s that?” he asked.

Down the line of tents, partly hidden by a stack
of barrels, stood a tall man wearing a low grey hat that concealed his face.

Nobody could identify him before he slipped behind
a tent.

“I’m sure I saw him before,” Aedan said. “Almost
looked like he was watching us.”

The others weren’t deeply interested. There were
much more compelling things on their minds.

But the man’s behaviour worried Aedan. What
possible reason would anyone have for watching them from the shadows? The
absence of an obvious answer bothered him more than a suspicion even of
robbery. Could the stranger be a Fenn spy? But that was hardly possible
considering the large number of patrolling soldiers.

He turned it over in his mind for a while and
decided, in spite of the plentiful distractions calling for his attention, to
remain alert.

Their earlier wanderings had covered just a portion of the
grounds. They now took themselves on an exploration of the lanes, arenas, tents
and stands on the far side. From spices to farming tools, brass and clay
trinkets to porcelain statuettes, magical charms to weapons – where festival
security officials presided in number – it seemed that anything that money
could buy was on display.

There was far more than the city’s usual variety,
for travelling merchants were even more plentiful than the local ones. They
brought with them strange articles that wealthy landowners and nobles found
irresistible – partly because they were foreign, but mostly because they were
expensive and therefore essential trophies, however useless they might
otherwise be.

Aedan overheard a richly dressed woman being told
that the speckled stone in her hand was worth three silver chims. That was
enough to buy a good wheelbarrow. For a stone? He wondered if the merchant
would fill a bag with chunks of dolerite along the road and sell the grey rocks
for the same price again in the region where he’d found the speckled ones. The
merchant’s wares had no hold on the boys and they moved along.

There was a gloomy booth across the lane attended
by a man in midnight-amethyst robes adorned with the strangest symbols. Here
were all manner of magical garments, charms, weapons, and potions in little
glass vials of every colour imaginable. There were potions to make people
smarter, stronger, younger, healthier, more attractive, shorter or taller.
Peashot and Lorrimer remained long at the shelf, staring at the last two
bottles.

“Does the magic work?” Lorrimer asked the wizard-storekeeper.

Before he could reply, Hadley barged in. “Of
course it works. But all the potions do the same magic – they make money
disappear. Come on, you woolheads.” He gave them a shove, ignoring the wrath
building on the wizard’s brow, and they progressed through to a livelier part
of the grounds.

The next stall almost coaxed everyone’s dinner
money from them. Here, all things honey were on delectable display. It wasn’t
just the cakes. A whole range of delights winked at them from the table – honey
brittle in the shapes of horseshoes, keys and spoons; honey frosted over plums
and apples; honey-and-oatmeal biscuits; and blends of honey with cream and
crushed nuts served in little wafer bowls.

The smoke of grilled sausages drifted from another
quarter and reminded the boys that they would still need to buy supper. They
wrenched themselves away, casting longing looks behind them, and pushed on.

All except Lorrimer.

He tried bravely, but after a dozen steps, came to
a stop with a broken whimpering sound. Then he turned and rushed back to the
honey store where he flung down his remaining coins and scooped up a pile of
sweet and gluey things that he carried away in hands, pockets and mouth.

“How can you be that hungry?” Peashot asked. “We
just ate.”

Lorrimer tried to reply, but nobody could
understand the sticky sounds. After two attempts he gave up and resigned
himself to a quiet ecstasy of chewing.

Besides merchants, the festival’s incoming tide
had brought a flood of minstrels, actors, raconteurs, magicians and acrobats. The
boys found them now as they entered a broad grassy walkway between large tents.
On either side were stages where various actors performed. Some were roving troupes
with large wagons that served as home, change rooms, and stage. A few cloth
screens had been put up to keep bystanders from seeing the performances from
the lane, and three copper huddies was the standard entry charge. Aedan noticed
that there were officials keeping watch on all the players and raconteurs.

It was one thing for people to whisper to each
other of signs in the sky, of dark times, of the approach of fearful things
from the eastern mountains – and Aedan regularly heard snatches of such talk
from passing groups – but it had become known recently that anyone who spoke
those ideas from a platform was quickly and forcefully silenced. Soldiers
waited nearby, and they would be ready with gags and chains.

“Politics,” Vayle said, when Aedan remarked on it.
“Remember how careful the prince was about getting only one explanation of the
storm to the heralds? I think that storm and the rumours of terrible things stirring
in DinEilan concern him more than he’ll admit. And we know he’s petrified of
what fear can do if it spreads in the people. He likes to keep a very tight lid
on ideas he doesn’t want.”

“And I wish you’d keep a lid on your talk about
that meeting,” Aedan replied.

“What are you being saying about a meeting?” Kian
asked.

“Nothing!” the other five replied in unison.

Strains of various kinds of singing and music grew
in the air as they entered Song Lane. Their group began to stretch out. Peashot
was growing bored and restless. He pushed ahead to the beckoning arena, while Aedan
hung back, walking slower and slower as the strands of melody and story-songs
began to catch in his chest and tug in ways that were sweetness and ache at the
same time. It was when he reached a large green tent that he could go no further.
He stopped before the sign that read,
The Lilt and Lore of Silrin
.

“Aedan, hurry up!” Peashot yelled back. “This is
the most boring part of the fair. The games are up ahead.”

Aedan looked up with unfocussed eyes, as if he had
just been pulled from an afternoon nap. “I think I’m going to go in here for a
bit.”

“But it’s going to cost you your supper money,”
Peashot said, returning to talk a bit of sense into his deluded friend.

“I know. I still want to.”

“But this stuff is as boring as law class, and anyway,
why do you care about Silrin – it’s some wild part of northern Thirna where the
people are a bunch of – Oi!”

Hadley grinned at Peashot, ready to cuff him
again. “That’s where Aedan’s from, cabbage-head.”

Peashot’s eyes cooled. “Oh, yes. Something misty?”

“Mistyvales,” Aedan said. “Look, why don’t you all
carry on. I’ll find you in the stands later.”

They agreed and hurried away together like a raft
freed from a dragging anchor, while Aedan parted with three of his remaining
four coins and went into the tent.

He found a seat on one of benches just as a thickset,
middle-aged man climbed onto the stage alongside a woman, presumably his wife,
who beamed red and round as a summer cherry. Three sons and a daughter sat on
the platform holding various instruments. Among the flutes, fiddles, drums and shakers,
Aedan spotted an eilo – four fretted strings over a lyre-like body. He hadn’t
seen one of those since leaving his home. About a dozen listeners had seated
themselves, and began to quieten down as the man coughed for silence.

Without any introduction, he nodded to his wife
who began to pick on the eilo. The tones were haunting with a depth that struck
Aedan before he had a chance to steel himself. To some listeners, the sound may
have been only pleasing or alluring; to Aedan, it was as if the secrets of his
beloved home had been slipped into the notes and coaxed into the air.

The children took up their parts with a
sensitivity that was no less astonishing. A few in the audience released little
gasps of appreciation at the simple yet delicately woven lines of melody and
harmony. But the audience fell into a complete hush when the father began to speak
in his untamed accent. Aedan smiled as he recognised the northern rillom – a
story with a frail strand of wispy poetic rhythm and occasionally rhyme that
emerged and broke and re-formed as it pleased. He closed his eyes and listened.

“It was a black and disturbed night high upon the inland
hills where the summer days are patient but the winter snows lie deep. A pup
too young to know its way now slipped the watchful eye and lost itself chasing
shadows upon the moor. Without lamp or coat, his young mistress dashed out in
frantic search, but in her haste she missed the way and became lost herself.

“A girl alone in those frozen woods, long she cannot
last, and soon she saw her folly plain and knew her fate was come. But then a
great rugged shape grew from the darkness and she found herself before the gaze
of a wild forest bear. Trembling she stood and wept in her arms, waiting for
the teeth and claws to gouge and tear, while the beast looked down, hesitating
now. At last it moved, but not to devour. It drew her near, curled upon the
ground and warmed the child against the wind and the storm-filled night.

“When morning came they walked to the town, and the
people came to see. But as she drew near, leaning on the bear, they began to
shout, “Witch! Wood-spirit! Ghost of our daughter!” With clubs and arrows they
chased girl and bear from their home, and from hers.

“One day, when a full three years had passed, a
townsman found a bear cub in the forest deep. Home he bore the starved young
whelp unable to run it was so weak. And the townsfolk gathered around to marvel
at the soft fur and tender eyes. Then they all fell quiet as a young woman stood
among them with tattered garments and soiled hair. As they stepped away she
pointed at the cub, and with trembling voice she cried, ‘Now do you not see?
The compassion you feel for your enemy’s child once moved her heart for me. The
only witching I ever knew, was that which this cub has done to you.’”

While listening, Aedan had felt as though he were
among his spellbound friends in the Mistyvales town hall where they had first
heard the story from a travelling raconteur. Their faces appeared again –
Thomas horrified, Dara indignant, and the soft hazel eyes beside him had looked
… sad.

The musically blanketed tale now rose into a song so
moving that Aedan had to drop his head and hide the feelings coursing through
him. There was no one here that knew him, so he allowed himself to feel and
remember much of what he had locked away.

As the songs continued to flow, old adventures
played out in his thoughts, and for a little while he lived again in the Mistyvales
and spoke with old friends now lost. It caused him to wonder about his father –
and hope.

When the music was over and crowd had applauded
and begun to move, Aedan lingered until the room was quiet. The bench moved as
someone sat beside him. He took his head out from his hands and saw the cherry-cheeked
lady smiling by his side.

“You are northern, aren’t you?” she asked.

“Yes Ma’am. The Mistyvales,” Aedan said, though
his accent said it for him. “Thank you for giving me a breath of the north
again.”

She smiled. “We are Bregan and Velrie. Wherever
you find us, you will also find welcome at the door of our wagon.”

Aedan was worried he would be drawn into a long
discussion, but she only planted a kiss on his head and left him to his
thoughts as the family slipped out the back to rest before the next
performance. When Aedan emerged from the tent, he felt refreshed. Though old
aches and losses had been uncovered, they had reminded him why he carried a
staff strapped to his back.

He took a quiet stroll to gather himself before
searching for his friends. On his way, he stopped to watch groups of men
competing to catch and pen pigs – one of which bit a man’s foot and caused a terrible
commotion. There were children playing foxes and hounds – a more interesting
game of catch where two foxes could take on a hound. A robed priest stood before
a large silver idol of Urmullas, the deity of fortune, and announced that the
storm was a portent of coming prosperity – he covered this with a reluctance that
was explained when Aedan glimpsed soldiers idling nearby. But the priest became
far more animated when he explained how
personal
prosperity could be
assured only by making an offering to this deity whose offering box stood at
his elbow.

A riddler was challenging a small group, “I have a
dozen arms to each of yours, a hundred spears for each arm and a …”

“Thorn tree,” Aedan called, then ducked and ran when
he saw the look on the riddler’s face. He’d heard that one from a riddler in
the north.

Peashot spotted him from a long way off, and the
group reassembled.

There was nothing happening on the arena while it
was being cleared of acrobatics equipment in preparation for the feat of arms –
the central event of the afternoon. They decided to take a walk down a noisy lane,
and soon they were weaving their way between throngs of idlers. A small boy ran
past and bumped into Hadley. Without a word, Peashot flew off in pursuit. When
the others caught up, Peashot had the smaller boy on the ground and was prying
something from his hand.

“Here you go,” he said to Hadley, tossing him his
purse. “Hold onto it better next time.” Peashot stood and the little thief slipped
away between the people like a skink.

“How did you know?” Hadley asked.

“Just knew,” said Peashot.