Call of Wizardry, page 10
“We have to start somewhere,” Sienne pointed out. “And it’s unlikely any Rafellish neighborhood is going to be wealthy.”
“I am not afraid of living among the poor, Perrin,” Cressida said. “At the moment, I am of the poor myself. But I have skills I can turn to supporting our family, and I feel certain Averran will watch over us.”
“It’s not far from here, if I understood that woman’s directions,” Alaric said. “Let’s investigate. At worst, they’ll tell us of some other neighborhood of Rafellish, and we’ll do some more walking.”
They’d left the shops behind and were now passing through a neighborhood of wooden houses with stone foundations taller than Alaric. The wooden upper stories were all painted in what had been bright colors five years before, before time and weather had scoured them pale, but Sienne liked the effect better than if they were still vividly red and blue and yellow. Every house had glass windows that anywhere in Fioretti would have meant wealth, but glass was so common in Esthold even poor people had well-polished, gleaming casements.
Here, the narrow cobblestone streets were clear of dirt thanks to the many women wielding brooms and scrub brushes. They smiled and waved at the companions, friendly as their other countrymen were not, and Sienne smiled and waved back. Children playing a ball game in the well-scrubbed street stopped to stare at Kalanath, whose dark skin was such a contrast to their fairness. One ball escaped its minder and came rolling toward Noel, who stopped it with his foot, then looked as startled as if his foot had acted on its own.
“Kick it back,” Alaric said when the Ansorjan children didn’t approach.
Noel glanced at his father for approval, then delivered a surprisingly accurate kick that sent the ball flying straight back to the others. A tentative smile crossed his face. “I want to play,” he said.
“Some other time,” Perrin said. “Perhaps there will be children where we are going.”
But as they passed through the neighborhood, the houses grew smaller and dingier, their colors muted not by time but by disrepair. The streets narrowed and became hard-packed earth, rutted from the last big storm. No women swept the steps, and the only people visible were hard-eyed men loitering on corners, hunched into their collars as if it were a stormy day and not a pleasant morning. Sienne eyed the sagging roofs and the cracked windows and felt less sanguine about her plan.
Noel and Delphine drew closer to their mother. “Are we going to live here?” Delphine said, sounding as if she hoped the answer was “no.”
“This is just the part nearest the docks,” Cressida said, but she didn’t sound very certain either.
“Let’s ask,” Alaric said, and crossed the street to where three men stood around a lamp post from which hung a lantern missing half its glass. Sienne and the others drifted after him.
“Is this where the Rafellish live?” Alaric asked.
One of the men, whose scruffy brown hair looked in need of a wash, eyed Alaric and clearly came to the conclusion that harassing someone his size was a bad idea. “Ayep,” he said.
“We’re looking for lodging for a family,” Alaric went on. “Where should we go for something like that?”
His companions looked them all over. One of them smiled in an unpleasant way. “For these lovely ladies? I’m sure we can find…something.”
The third man elbowed him hard in the ribs. “Don’t be a jackass, Tymmon,” he said, straightening and slicking his hair back with one grimy hand. “Look, this ain’t no place for families, ‘cause there are way too many like Tymmon who think they’re a laugh riot. And these children here, they don’t deserve to be brung up around the likes of him.”
“But—” Cressida began.
“You are quite right,” Perrin said. “Thank you for your candor.”
“Plenty of inns where the keeps speak Fellic,” the first man said. “Expensive, but better’n what’s here.”
“We’ll try that,” Alaric said. “Thanks.”
They walked back the way they’d come in silence for a dozen yards before Perrin said, “I do not wish to thwart the will of Averran, but I think it unlikely I have enough money for an extended stay at an inn where they speak Fellic.”
“They were honest with us,” Cressida said. “Do you not think—”
“No,” Perrin and Alaric said at the same time. “There would be enough like that man Tymmon that you would not be safe,” Perrin went on. “Perhaps we should try Aldmerrow.”
“We’re running out of time,” Alaric said. “We can’t afford to transport all over Ansorja looking for a safe place.”
They’d reached the street full of sweeping women once more. A gaggle of children, all shouting and running after the ball, split to rush around them as if they were a rock in a stream. Sienne saw Noel’s gaze follow them, somewhat longingly. “I have an idea,” she said, and crossed the street to where a stout middle-aged woman plied her broom. “Excuse me,” she said in Sorjic. “Do you speak Fellic? Or have a friend who does?”
“Jula’s husband is Rafellish. She speaks it some,” the woman said. She put two fingers to her lips and whistled two earsplitting notes, high-low. Every woman within fifty feet of her stopped sweeping and looked up. “Jula! The strangers want a word,” the woman called out.
Three houses down, a flaxen-haired young woman, likely no older than Sienne, propped her broom against the wall and approached. She was slim enough to be called skinny, and her blue eyes looked enormous in her thin face. She brushed imaginary dirt off her immaculate apron as she neared, and said, “Yes?”
“Do you speak Fellic?” Sienne asked.
“I do,” Jula said. “Not of the best, I think, but it is my husband is Rafellish. You have need?”
Sienne took Cressida by the arm and pulled her forward. “My friends and I are scrappers, and we’re about to head out on a job. But this is my friend Perrin’s wife, and she and her children need a safe place to stay while we’re gone. They can’t afford an inn, but I was thinking, maybe someone here has a room they’re willing to rent?”
Jula cast a quick look up the street toward the Rafellish enclave. Her thin face took on an expression of distaste. “They cannot stay in there,” she said. “They are not all of the good, there.”
“Yes. Can you help? They have money to pay for room and board, if it’s not too dear.”
Jula eyed Sienne. “Why do they not in Rafellin stay? Do they bring trouble?”
Jula was smart. “No,” Sienne said. “There was trouble, yes, but they left it behind in Rafellin. It won’t follow them here.”
“My children and I would be so grateful,” Cressida said.
Now Jula turned her keen eye on Delphine and Noel, and her expression softened. “Thordis has a room now that her daughter is married,” she said. “We will ask her.”
“Thank you,” Sienne said fervently.
“I am willing to help with chores, whatever is necessary to ease the burden,” Cressida said.
“Thordis will not say no to that,” Jula said with a grin that transformed her thin face. “It is that her daughter did much, and she misses the company. And a hand to wash dishes.” She pointed a ways down the street, back toward the center of town. “She is here, if you will come.”
Cressida immediately followed Jula, who strode off as if the matter were already settled. Sienne and the others trailed off after her. “That was inspired,” Perrin said.
“People are generally the same wherever you go,” Sienne said. “These are women with families. They understand what it means to care for others. I think Cressida will find the language barrier not so difficult to overcome.”
“Where did Noel go?” Dianthe exclaimed.
Perrin swore and turned rapidly to scan the street behind him. He took a couple of steps, but halted before he got very far. “I think Noel is another for whom the language barrier matters little,” he said with a smile.
Noel had joined the ball game and, laughing, kicked the ball to one of the shouting children. “Has he ever played foot-the-ball before?” Alaric asked, watching the children with amusement.
“It is not a Rafellish game, is it? I do not think he has even seen it played.”
“He’s a natural.” Alaric looked as if he itched to join the game himself. Sienne took his hand fondly and squeezed it.
Perrin glanced over his shoulder at where Jula and Cressida were speaking to a very short woman with two blond braids coiled over her ears like Ansorjan pastries. “Let him play,” he said. “I think he is as safe as we can make him.”
Sienne watched Perrin and Cressida as they stood close together near the door of Thordis’s house, speaking quietly. “Now I almost wish they hadn’t reconciled,” she said. “It must be so hard to have to separate after that.”
“Harder if they were still at odds,” Dianthe said. “And he’ll probably still have that communication blessing. I’m more worried about what happens when this is all over.”
“You mean…he might leave us?” Sienne shivered despite the warmth of the air and the bright sunlight. “He wouldn’t. Would he?”
“Scrapping can be dangerous work, you know that,” Alaric murmured. “Perrin might think he owes it to his family to do something where he’s not risking his life all the time.”
“I do not know what that is,” Kalanath said. “He is smart, but does not have skills that are outside what his father’s business does. And I do not think he can do those skills now.”
“Yes, and priests of Averran are travelers,” Sienne said, feeling more cheerful. “He wouldn’t do that to the children, give them an itinerant lifestyle. Staying with us is a much better choice.”
“Let’s not worry about it now,” Alaric said. “We have plenty of other things to worry over. Like finding the valley. I’ve never approached it from the north, and I’m not sure Leaf has either.”
“Didn’t she say she’d help?” Sienne asked.
“Yes, but Pekkanen don’t see directions the way humans do.” Alaric crouched to put himself closer to Leaf’s head. “Do you know how to reach the valley? How far is it?”
I do not know far. I took the southern route when I left. But I know when I am near the Pekkanen.
Alaric relayed this to the others. “That doesn’t sound promising,” Dianthe said. “We might wander a long time if we’re dependent on Leaf sensing her fellows.”
Sienne glanced at Perrin and Cressida, who were kissing as if nobody else in the world existed. Sienne reached for Alaric’s hand and leaned against his shoulder. They hadn’t told anyone their intention to marry because the morning had been so busy, and now Sienne felt awkward about bringing it up out of nowhere. That’s us in ten years, she thought, and happiness bubbled up inside her.
Perrin and Cressida separated, and Perrin hugged first Delphine, then Noel, who looked impatient to get back to his game. Then he took Cressida’s hand one final time and said something Sienne couldn’t hear that made Cressida laugh. With a smile, Perrin released her and strolled toward his friends. “I feel more sanguine than I did this morning,” he said. “Thordis is a talkative woman. I half expect my family to speak nothing but Sorjic when I return.”
“And Noel to be captain of the foot-the-ball team,” Dianthe said, laughing as the crowd of children rushed past them again.
“So, what next?” Perrin asked. “Shopping?”
“We were discussing how to find the valley,” Alaric said.
“Oh, that is nothing,” Perrin said. “I need a map and a quiet corner, that is all. Though my assessment of this blessing—” He held up the handful of blessings he still hadn’t stitched together—“suggests that it is not terribly accurate in the sense of directing us to a specific place. We may still have to search for the entrance to the valley.”
“That’s something Leaf can help with. We just have to get close enough.” Alaric scanned the street. “Let’s see if we can’t leave here before nightfall. I want to be on our way as soon as possible. Sienne, you go with Perrin to find a map, and the rest of us will buy supplies.”
“We don’t need horses, do we?” Sienne asked as they walked back toward the center of town.
“Not even a pack mule, if we can get away with it,” Alaric said. “I don’t want to worry about an animal when we might end up having to sneak through Barholt—that’s the village where the wizard’s tower is. So everyone’s going to have to carry a little extra weight.”
“I can manage a heavier load now with invisible fingers,” Sienne pointed out.
“True, but we shouldn’t depend on that. If you have to cast spells, you don’t want your attention divided.”
It was noon, and the streets of Esthold were busier than they’d been that morning. Sienne fell into her usual position behind Alaric and let him break the crowds. The air still smelled of food, but now the aroma of hot roasted meat joined the delicious yeasty smell of fresh bread. She liked Ansorjan cuisine even though it mostly consisted of bread stuffed with a variety of foods: fruits for a morning meal, meat or potatoes for the afternoon. It was perfect for eating as you walked, and she said so, prompting Alaric to veer off toward a store front where people stood crowded around, eating and talking loudly. They made room for him without doing more than glance upward at his tall, muscular frame.
Alaric returned to hand out hot, aromatic pastries that smelled of beef and fresh herbs. Sienne bit into hers and had to suck the juicy gravy off her fingers. Alaric nodded off down the street. “There are booksellers that way,” he said, “and they’ll have maps. Let’s meet back here in two hours.”
Sienne nodded, her mouth too full to speak. Munching companionably, she and Perrin headed off in the direction Alaric had indicated.
“Booksellers” turned out to be an understatement. Esthold was a modern city, true, younger than Fioretti and not as large, but it didn’t have a university and Sienne had had the notion this meant it wasn’t a place for scholars. The street they were on, though, appeared to be the center of Esthold’s publishing industry. Every other building was a publishing house, and the rest of them were booksellers or stationers. Carts in the middle of the street held used books, some of them so battered their spines were illegible.
And the patrons were so varied Sienne had the momentary illusion that she was back in Fioretti at the great marketplace, where beggars might rub elbows with nobles looking for a good price on artifacts from the before times. Voices speaking all the continental languages filled the air, making Sienne feel even more cheerful. It was hard to believe in failure on a day like this.
Asking around led her to a store whose wares overflowed its bounds. Carts filled with books in Sorjic and Fellic sat to either side of the doorway, untended. Sienne couldn’t help wondering why the owner wasn’t concerned about theft—and yet no one took anything, not even the people who stopped to browse.
The store itself was as crowded with books as the carts on the street suggested. Bookcases crammed full of fraying leather-bound books formed aisles barely wide enough for one person to pass at a time. The aisles were made even less passable by wooden crates overflowing with more books, wedged against the bookcases where anyone could trip over them. Sienne breathed in the scent of old leather and dusty paper and a hint of glue. It almost didn’t matter whether the books themselves were interesting; the smell alone made up for it.
A tall, fair-haired man with rosy cheeks greeted them when they entered. “How can I help you?” he said in Fellic.
“You speak Fellic,” Sienne said, surprised.
“I do business with Rafellin all the time. Imports, exports…mostly I resell Fellic novels.” His accent was strong, but intelligible. “Did you see the sale carts? I need to make room for new inventory.”
“Actually, we need a map of Ansorja,” Sienne said. “Of the area around Esthold, really.”
A genuine smile crossed the man’s face. “That’s my passion, maps. Come with me.”
The maps were stored beyond the aisles, in a space barely wide enough to be called a room. Deep shelves about two inches high lined two of the walls nearly to the ceiling, past where Sienne could reach. Scroll cases filled cubbies on the other two walls, most of them of hardened brown leather, a few made from skinny, hollowed-out tree trunks. None of the cases were sealed.
The shopkeeper began hauling out flat trays just deep enough to fit the narrow shelves. “One that shows the Pirinin Peaks, please,” Perrin said. The man nodded and spread parchments and papers on the square table occupying most of the room. Sienne examined the scroll cases. Each had a tag dangling from it, but she didn’t think the shop owner needed those reminders.
“This one,” Perrin said.
“I’ll make you a copy,” the shopkeeper said. “Just let me get my spellbook.”
When he was gone, Perrin said, “A spell to make a copy of a map?”
“It’s called draw,” Sienne said. “I don’t know it, but it’s a useful transform for people who work with maps or notices. It makes a perfect copy of a single page. Not cost-effective for making a book, but if you had a flyer to put up, or needed a map—”
The shopkeeper returned holding a book bound in dark blue flexible wood. It was slimmer than Sienne’s and bore no decorations, a working man’s spellbook. “One copy, yes?”
“Yes, and if you don’t mind, may I use this room to study it when you are finished?” Perrin said.
“I’m going to browse,” Sienne said. “Let me know when you’re ready to leave.”
She wandered the aisles for a while, trying not to get caught up in any of the titles. If they weren’t taking pack animals with them, she’d have to haul more of a load than she usually did, and adding books to that weight was a bad idea. But there were so many books…she wasn’t a scholar like Alcander, but she loved epic poetry about the before times, and some of Dianthe’s favorite romances appealed to her. She reached high to pull an interesting-looking book off the shelf and paged through it. Maybe just one…
