Renegade's Magic
Page 94

Gernian trade items. It was all from Gernia.
We passed a stall where a Speck was selling Gernian tools and implements of iron. Knives, hammers, pliers, scissors, and needles had attracted an eager crowd of buyers. The presence of the metal became a hot itchy rash spreading over my skin. Soldier’s Boy forced himself to go on. I knew what Soldier’s Boy was looking for now. Guns. And powder. It was forbidden to sell them to the Specks, but like the tobacco trade, there were many traders who sidestepped the prohibition for the high profits.
The next booth held edged tools, mostly axes. There was a large crosscut saw on display at the back of the booth, and a sturdy wooden barrel held a long measure of heavy iron chain. And along the side of the booth, there was a long rack of swords. There were all manner of them, most of them spotted with rust. Few were anything a gentleman would care to own. At the sight of them a sudden wave of vertigo made him stagger a step sideways. Around me, the other buyers were stopping to stare at us. Several turned their heads aside and hurried away from this part of the market, as if shamed to have been seen here by a Great One. The iron pressed on my magic like hands around my throat. Soldier’s Boy gasped for breath.
Olikea noticed my discomfort. “I warned you. You should not be here.” She took my arm again, turned me around, and hurried me along. Soldier’s Boy felt grateful for her guidance. His thoughts were so addled I wasn’t sure he could have left on his own. “They should not sell such things where a Great One might pass,” she huffed. My consternation at seeing so many Gernian goods became anger and then felt like betrayal. If the Specks hated us so, and resented what we were doing to their forests, how could they so cheerfully profit from our contact? Soldier’s Boy’s contradictory thought pushed back at me. “Why do we hate you? Look at what you do to us. You will kill our ancient trees, poison our young men, and kill our magic. Do you wonder that you must leave?”
When we had left the ironmongers behind, Soldier’s Boy could breathe again, although he felt a bit shaky. Olikea had me sit down on a low wall. She hurried away and soon came back with a large mug full of a cool, sweet fruit juice. As he drank it, I looked around at the market with new eyes. There was ample evidence that this pattern of trade with Gernians was not new. I saw scraps of Gernian cloth woven into the headdress of a tall, pale man. A woman’s apron, much mended, had become a cloak for a small Speck child who darted through the teeming throng of traders. From what I knew of history, we had traded for years with the Specks long before King Troven had established a military outpost at Gettys. Had they previously refused our iron? I didn’t know.
When she was certain I had recovered, Olikea took me from stall to stall, acquiring necessities as she traded away Lisana’s treasures. I ceased to pay attention. It was too painful for me to watch Lisana’s possessions treated as mere commodities. Let Soldier’s Boy deal with those feelings. Instead, I let my mind become caught up in the pageantry of the place. It put the Dark Evening carnival in Old Thares to shame. There were musicians and jugglers at one intersection, and hot food booths were sprinkled throughout the marketplace. I counted three races of men that I had never encountered before. One booth was run by tall, well-muscled folk, both the women and men, with freckled skin and hair that ranged from orange to straw yellow. Olikea had no success at their booth. She greatly desired the glittering crystal beads and figurines they offered, but they had no interest in her goods. Only tobacco would they have. All of them smoked pipes and their booth breathed the fumes of the aromatic herb out into the fresh sea air.
Olikea stalked away from there, affronted, and Soldier’s Boy followed like a docile ox. We did not stop at the next two stalls. “They are the Shell Folk. They have nothing we need. Only those from across the salt water want their strings of purple shells. We have no use for them.”
At the ivory stall, we stopped, but not for ivory. Olikea traded for two small kegs of lamp oil, and arranged that we would claim them later.
Three stalls away, six tiny men traded exclusively in items woven of grass. They had mats and hassocks, shoes, cloaks, and hammocks, all woven from the same peculiar blue-green reeds. Olikea had no interest in their goods and strolled past where, I confess, I would have lingered to stare. Every one of the little men was heavily bearded and yet was no taller than Likari. I wondered where they had come from but knew I would never get to ask that question, for Soldier’s Boy did not share my curiosity.
Olikea stopped at the next stall. A smith there displayed his works of tin and copper, brass and bronze. He had spearheads and hammers, arrowheads and blades of all sorts and lengths. While Olikea studied the knives, Soldier’s Boy picked up a strange arrow. Behind its sharp tip it widened to a sort of basket-cage before fastening to the shaft. The smith left his assistant helping Olikea and came to Soldier’s Boy. He spoke Speck badly. “For fire. You wrap the gara so, in a rag.” The smith picked up a smelly, resinous block. It dripped, barely a solid. “Then you put it in the basket. Set fire to it before you shoot it. Whatever it hits will burst into flames!” He threw his callused hands wide, simulating the explosion of flammable stuff. The smith seemed quite enamored of his invention, and shook his head in disappointment when Soldier’s Boy turned aside without making an offer.