Hobby (3 page)

"If you do not mean to buy, boy, you cannot touch."

"I ... I..." Hawk began, suddenly remembering his strange dream about the apple.

"How do you know he does not mean to buy?" asked a voice behind him. Hawk was afraid to turn around in case the apple man struck out again, this time landing a blow.

"This rag of cloth hung on bones?" The apple cart man laughed. "He's no mother's son, by the dirt on him. A devil's spawn rather. Where would he get any coins?"

"You think he's a beggar? With that horse and cow?"

This time Hawk dared to look at his rescuer. The man was dressed in an outlandish blue cloak and feathered hat, like a mountebank.

"And as for that horse and cow..." the applefaced man was saying, "where do you suppose he got them, the cheeky beggar."

"Right," the cloaked man said. "Cheeky indeed. And that's where he keeps his coin. In his cheek!" He laughed a sharp, yipping sound, which drew an appreciative chuckle from the crowd just starting to gather around them. Entertainment in any town being a rare commodity, even on market fair day, the folk of Gwethern were more than willing to egg on a fight.

"Open your mouth, boy, and give the man his coin."

Hawk was so surprised, his mouth dropped open on its own and a coin seemed to fall from his lips into the cloaked man's hand.

"Here," the man said, flipping the coin into the air. It turned twice over before the apple cart man grabbed it up, bit it, grunted, and shoved it into his purse.

The cloaked man picked out two yellow apples and placed one in each of Hawk's hands. As he did so, he whispered, "If you wish to repay me, boy, look for the green wagon, the castle on wheels."

Then he vanished into the crowd.

HAWK ATE THE TWO APPLES SLOWLY, SAVORING
them. When he found a little green worm in the second one, he set the worm down carefully on a stone. It inched away, looking nothing at all like a dragon.

"Apples, worms ... what does all this dreaming mean?" he asked himself aloud. Then he set out to look for the wagon.

It was not hard to find.

Parked under a chestnut tree, the wagon was as green as a fairy's gown. And it was indeed a castle on wheels, for the top of the wagon was vaulted over and an entire outline of a tower and keep was painted on the side. Hawk shivered. The dream, it seemed, was coming true.

Two docile, drab-colored mules were hitched to the wagon. They seemed oblivious to the sounds of the busy market day around them, contentedly nibbling on the few blades of brown grass that had managed to grow beneath the widespread tree.

Above the castle tower, on either side, were two painted figures. One was a tall, amber-eyed mage with a conical hat. The other was a dark-haired princess playing a harp.

Hawk walked quickly toward the wagon, pulling Goodie and Churn with him.

"So, boy, have you come to pay us back?" asked a soft voice. It was followed immediately by the trill of a mistle thrush.

At first he could not see who was speaking. Then something moved at one of the painted castle windows, a pale moon of a face. In a moment it had disappeared, and right after, a woman stepped through the castle door.

Hawk stared at her. She was possibly the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. She was not at all like Mag, who had been motherly and stout. Or Nell, who had been all angles and elbows. Nor like any of the women dressed like crows in his dreams. There was not a woman he had seen at the market fair to compare with her. Her long dark hair, unbound, fell to her waist. She wore a dress of scarlet wool, and jewels in her ears that made a pleasant jangling, like a hawk's jesses. A yellow purse hung from a braided belt and it, too, jangled whenever she moved. As he watched, she bound up her hair with a single, swift motion into a net of scarlet linen.

She smiled. "Ding-dang-dong, cat's got your tongue, then?"

When he didn't answer, she laughed. But it wasn't a nasty laugh, at his expense. It was a laugh at the entire world, a laugh that invited him in. Before he could laugh back, though, she had reached back behind her and pulled out a harp, exactly like the one painted on the wagon's side. Strumming the harp with her long nails, she began to sing:

"
A boy with shirt a somber blue
Will never ever come to rue,
A boy with
..."

"Are you singing about me?" asked Hawk, hoping she was.

"Do you think I am singing about you?" the woman asked, then pursed her lips and made the mistle thrush trill.

"If not now, you will someday," Hawk said. He did not know why he said it, but it seemed suddenly right, almost as if he had dreamed it.

"I believe you," said the woman, but she was busy tuning her harp at the same time. It was as if Hawk did not really exist for her except as an audience to be cozened. He was not sure he liked that.

Suddenly she stood. "You did not answer my question, boy."

"What question?"

"Have you come to pay what you owe?"

Puzzled, Hawk replied, "I did not answer because I did not know you were talking to me. I owe you nothing."

"Ah—but you owe it me," came a lower voice from inside the wagon, where it was dark. "And Viviane and I share all."

A man emerged from the wagon and, even though he was not wearing the cloak, Hawk knew him. He was the mountebank, but he was also the mage on the wagon's side: the slate grey hair was the same. And the amber eyes.

"I do not owe you either, sir," Hawk said.

"What of the apples, boy? And the coin that fell from your mouth?"

Hawk looked straightaway into the man's eyes. "The coin was a trick. And the apples were meant to come to me, sir. I dreamed them."

The woman laughed. "Clever boy. And why did you come here to the green castle, if not to pay?" All the while she spoke, she smoothed her dress with her long slim fingers.

"As the apples were meant to come into my hands, so I believe I am to come into yours," Hawk said.

The woman laughed again, throwing her head back. The earrings and the purse jingled and jangled, as if they were laughing, too. "Only you hope," she said, suddenly quite serious, "that the mage will not eat you up and put your little green worm on a rock for some passing scavenger."

Hawk's mouth dropped open. "How did you know about the worm? About the dream?"

"Bards know everything," she said. "Everything about magic."

"And
tell
everything as well," said the mage. He clapped her lightly on the shoulder and she went, laughing and jangling, back through the wagon door.

HAWK NODDED TO HIMSELF. "IT WAS THE WIN
dow," he whispered at last, though the answer did not entirely satisfy him.

"Of course it was the window," said the mage. "And if you wish to speak to yourself so no one else is the wiser, make it
sotto voce,
under the breath thus." And while his lips moved, no sound came out. "Still, a whisper is no guarantee of secrets," he laughed, "if there is one like my Viviane who can read lips."

"
Sotto voce,
" Hawk said aloud. And then repeated, this time soundlessly.

"The soldiers first brought the phrase from far Rome," the mage said. "But it rides the market roads, now. Much that is knowledge came from there. Little grows in our land but oak and thorn." "
Sotto voce,
" Hawk repeated, punctuating his memory.

"I like you, boy," said the mage. "But then, I collect oddities."

"Did you collect the bard, sir?"

Looking quickly over his shoulder at the door into the wagon, the mage said, "Her?"

"Yes, sir."

"I did."

"How is—
she
—an oddity?" asked Hawk. "I think she is"—he took a gulp—"wonderful."

The mage smiled, as if he shared a joke with himself. "That she is. Quite wonderful, my Viviane. And well she knows it. She has a range of four octaves and can mimic any bird or beast I name." He paused. "And a few I cannot."

Hawk nodded solemnly. So solemnly, in fact, the mage laughed out loud. "You are an oddity, too, boy. I thought so when first I saw you riding through Gwethern gates, all raggedy and underfed, yet like a prince on that plowhorse. Like a hero from one of the tales. ‘There's one to watch!' I told myself."

"
Sotto voce?
" Hawk asked.

"Indeed. It is never good to let others in on one's secrets. So I followed you, asking about you in case there was someone who knew. But you were a mystery to everyone I asked. And then, when the apple man had at you, I saw my opportunity. You protested at neither the stick nor the coin dropping from your lips. I could feel your anger, your surprise. That calm, poised center—quite something in a boy your age. You
are
an oddity. I sniffed it out with my nose from the first. And my nose..." He tapped it with his forefinger, which made him look both wise and ominous at once. "My nose never lies. Do you think yourself odd?"

Hawk closed his eyes for a moment, thinking. When he opened them again, he said, "I have dreams."

The mage held his breath, a kind of innate wisdom on his part, and waited.

"I dreamed of a mage today. There was an apple and a worm in the dream as well. And a castle green as early spring grass. Now that I have seen your wagon, I know which castle. And I know you are the mage. And the green worm I myself placed upon the stone." He did not mention that it had become a dragon, thinking suddenly that it might be best to keep some of his dreaming
sotto voce.

"Do you ... dream ... often?" the mage asked carefully, slowly coming down the steps of the wagon and sitting on the bottom step.

Hawk nodded.

"Tell me."

"You will think me a liar. Perhaps you will hit me," Hawk said.

This time the mage laughed out loud, with his head back, a low theatrical laugh, though Hawk—who knew nothing of the theater—did not know it as such. The mage stopped laughing and looked closely at the boy, narrowing his eyes. "I have never hit anyone in my life, boy. And telling lies is an essential part of magic. You lie with your hands, like this." So saying, he reached behind Hawk's ear and pulled out a bouquet of meadowsweet, wintergreen, and a single blue aster. "You see—my hands told the lie that flowers grow in the dirt behind your ear. And your eyes believed it. And I know you have no mother, for there is no mother who would allow such dirt to remain for long on a boys neck."

Hawk laughed at that until he almost cried. The mage looked away to give him time to recover, then looked back. Then he leaned forward and whispered. "But never let Viviane know we tell lies. She is as practiced in her anger as she is on her harp.
I
may never swat a liar, but she is the very devil when her temper is aroused."

"I will not," Hawk said solemnly.

"Then tell me about your dreams."

He told them, then, one after another—the fire bird, the whistling priest, the bloodied man dead by the howling dog. The mage listened quietly, leaning forward every once in a while during the telling, as if by moving closer to the boy, he moved closer to an understanding of the dreams. And when Hawk was finished speaking, the mage reached over and clasped his hand tightly. Hawk felt something in his palm and looked down. It was a small copper coin.

"Buy yourself a meat pie, boy," the mage said. "And then come along with us. There is plenty of room in the green castle and I think you, your horse, and cow will make a fine addition to our traveling show."

"Thank you, sir," Hawk said.

"Not
sir,
for pity's sake. My name is Ambrosius, because of my amber eyes. Did you notice them? Ambrosius the Wandering Mage. It says so on the other side of the wagon, but I doubt you can read."

"I can, sir. Ambrosius." Hawk smiled shyly at this revelation.

"Ah," the man said, and squinted one eye as if reassessing the boy. "And what is your name? I cannot keep calling you boy."

Hawk hesitated, looking down.

"Come, come, I will not hit you. And you may keep the coin whatever you say. Names do not matter all that much now, do they?"

But the boy knew names
did
matter. Especially around power such as the mage's. He drew in a deep breath. "My name is Hawk," he said.

"Hawk is it?" Ambrosius smiled very carefully. "Well, perhaps someday you will grow into that name. And perhaps it is your real name. But caution dictates a change of nomenclature. For the road. You are a bit thin and undersized for a hawk. Even a young hawk."

A strange, sharp cackling sound came from the interior of the wagon, a high
ki-ki-ki-ki.

Ambrosius looked back for a moment. "Viviane says you
are
a hawk, but a small one. A hobby, perhaps."

"Hobby," the boy whispered, knowing a hobby was still larger than a merlin. His hand clutched the coin so tightly it left a mark on his palm. "Hobby."

"Good. Then it is settled," Ambrosius said, standing. "Fly off to your meat pie, Hobby, then fly quickly back to me. We travel from here on to Carmarthen fair, a rather larger town for our playing. Viviane will sing like a lark. I will do my magic. And you—well, we will figure out something quite worthy, I can promise you. There are fortunes to be made on the road, young Hobby, if you can sing in four voices and pluck flowers out of the air."

THE ROAD WAS GENTLE AND WINDING, THROUGH
still-green valleys and alongside clear, quick streams full of trout. The trees were green with touches of gold, but on the far ridges the forests were already bare. Days were growing shorter and overhead the greylags, in great vees, flew south amid a tremendous noise.

As the wagon bounced along, Viviane sang songs about Robin o' the Wood in a high, sweet voice, and about the Battle of the Trees in a voice that was low and thrilling. In a middle voice, rather like Hobby's own, she sang a lusty song about a bold warrior and a peasant maid that turned his cheeks pink and hot.

Ambrosius shortened the journey with his spirited tellings of wonder tales and histories, though which was which was sometimes hard to tell. There was the story of a wolf who suckled a pair of human twins, a great leader named Julius murdered by his friends, and another leader who had played on his lute while his city burned. This last was rather too close to Hobby's own history and he had to look away for a moment. When he looked back, it was to watch Ambrosius make coins walk across his knuckles. Then, almost as an afterthought, the mage reached into Hobby's shirt and drew out a turtledove. It surprised the bird even more than the boy, and the dove flew off onto a low branch of an ash tree and plucked at its feathers furiously until the wagon, trailing the horse and cow, had passed by.