Now you have to understand that twenty pennies might be a good bit of money for some little ragamuffin troupe living hand-to-mouth. But for us it was simply insulting. He should have offered us forty to play for the evening, free use of the public hall, a good meal, and beds at the inn. The last we would graciously decline, as their beds were no doubt lousy and those in our wagons were not.
If my father was surprised or insulted, he did not show it. “Pack up!” He shouted over one shoulder.
Trip tucked his juggling stones into various pockets without so much as a flourish. There was a disappointed chorus from several dozen townsfolk as the puppets stopped midjape and were packed away. The mayor looked relieved, brought out his purse, and pulled out two silver pennies.
“I’ll be sure to tell the baron of your generosity,” my father said carefully as the mayor lay the pennies into his hand.
The mayor froze midmotion. “Baron?”
“Baron Greyfallow.” My father paused, looking for some spark of recognition on the mayor’s face. “Lord of the eastern marshes, Hudumbran-by-Thiren, and the Wydeconte Hills.” My father looked around at the horizon. “We are still in the Wydeconte Hills, aren’t we?”
“Well yes,” the mayor said. “But Squire Semelan…”
“Oh, we’re in Semelan’s fief!” my father exclaimed, looking around as if just now getting his bearings. “Thin gentleman, tidy little beard?” He brushed his chin with his fingers. The mayor nodded numbly. “Charming fellow, lovely singing voice. Met him when we were entertaining the baron last Midwinter.”
“Of course,” the mayor paused significantly. “Might I see your writ?”
I watched as the mayor read it. It took him a little while, as my father had not bothered to mention the majority of the baron’s titles such as the Viscount of Montrone and Lord of Trelliston. The upshot was this: it was true that the Squire Semelan controlled this little town and all the land around it, but Semelan owed fealty directly to Greyfallow. In more concrete terms, Greyfallow was captain of the ship; Semelan scrubbed the planking and saluted him.
The mayor refolded the parchment and handed it back to my father. “I see.”
That was all. I remember being stunned when the mayor didn’t apologize or offer my father more money.
My father paused as well, then continued, “The city is your jurisdiction, sir. But we’ll perform either way. It will either be here or just outside the city limits.”
“Ye can’t use the public house,” the mayor said firmly. “I won’t have it wrecked again.”
“We can play right here,” my father pointed to the market square. “It will be enough space, and it keeps everyone right here in town.”
The mayor hesitated, though I could hardly believe it. We sometimes chose to play on the green because the local buildings weren’t big enough. Two of our wagons were built to become stages for just that eventuality. But in my whole eleven years of memory I could barely count on both hands the times we’d been forced to play the green. We had never played outside the city limits.
But we were spared that. The mayor nodded at last and gestured my father closer. I slipped out the back of the wagon and moved close enough to catch the end of what he said, “—God-fearing folk around here. Nothing vulgar or heretical. We had a double handful of trouble with the last troupe that came through here, two fights, folks missing their laundry, and one of Branston’s daughters got herself in a family way.”
I was outraged. I waited for my father to show the mayor the sharp side of his tongue, to explain the difference between mere traveling performers and Edema Ruh. We didn’t steal. We would never let things get so out of control that a bunch of drunks ruined the hall where we were playing.
But my father did nothing of the sort, he just nodded and walked back toward our wagon. He gestured and Trip started juggling again. The puppets reemerged from their cases.
As he came around the wagon he saw me standing, half-hidden beside the horses. “I’m guessing you heard the whole thing from the look on your face,” he said with a wry grin. “Let it go, my boy. He gets full marks for honesty if not for grace. He just says out loud what other folk keep in the quiet of their hearts. Why do you think I have everyone stay in pairs when we go about our business in bigger towns?”
I knew it for the truth. Still, it was a hard pill for a young boy to swallow. “Twenty pennies,” I said scathingly. “As if he were offering us charity.”
That was the hardest part of growing up Edema Ruh. We are strangers everywhere. Many folk view us as vagabonds and beggars, while others deem us little more than thieves, heretics, and whores. It’s hard to be wrongfully accused, but it’s worse when the people looking down on you are clods who have never read a book or traveled more than twenty miles from the place they were born.
My father laughed and roughed my hair. “Just pity him, my boy. Tomorrow we’ll be on our way, but he’ll have to keep his own disagreeable company until the day he dies.”
“He’s an ignorant blatherskate,” I said bitterly.
He lay a firm hand on my shoulder, letting me know I’d said enough. “This is what comes of getting too close to Atur, I suppose. Tomorrow we’ll head south: greener pastures, kinder folk, prettier women.” He cupped an ear toward the wagon and nudged me with his elbow.
“I can hear everything you say,” my mother called sweetly from inside. My father grinned and winked at me.
“So what play are we going to do?” I asked my father. “Nothing vulgar, mind you. They’re God-fearing folk in these parts.”
He looked at me. “What would you pick?”
I gave it a long moment’s thought. “I’d play something from the Bright-field Cycle. The Forging of the Path or somesuch.”
My father made a face. “Not a very good play.”
I shrugged. “They won’t know the difference. Besides, it’s chock full of Tehlu, so no one will complain about it being vulgar.” I looked up at the sky. “I just hope it doesn’t rain on us halfway through.”
My father looked up at the clouds. “It will. Still, there are worse things than playing in the rain.”
“Like playing in the rain and getting shimmed on the deal?” I asked.
The mayor hurried up to us, moving at a fast walk. There was a thin sheen of sweat on his forehead and he was puffing a little bit, as if he’d been running. “I talked it over with a few members of the council and we decided that it would be quite all right for you to use the public house if you would care to.”
My father’s body language was perfect. It was perfectly clear he was offended but far too polite to say anything. “I certainly wouldn’t want to put you out….”
“No, no. No bother at all. I insist, in fact.”
“Very well, if you insist.”
The mayor smiled and hurried away.
“Well that’s a little better,” my father sighed. “No need to tighten our belts yet.”
“Halfpenny a head. That’s right. Anyone without a head gets in free. Thank you, sir.”
Trip was working the door, making sure everyone paid to see the play. “Halfpenny a head. Though by the rosy glow in your lady’s cheeks I should be charging you for a head and a half. Not that it’s any of my business, mind you.”
Trip had the quickest tongue of anyone in the troupe, which made him the best man for the job of making sure no one tried to fast-talk or bully their way inside. Wearing his green and grey jester’s motley, Trip could say just about anything and get away with it.
“Hello, mum, no charge for the little one, but if he starts to squawk you’d best give him the tit quick or take him outside.” Trip carried on his unending patter. “That’s right, halfpenny. Yes, sir, empty head still pays full price.”
Though it was always fun to watch Trip work, most of my attention was on a wagon that had rolled into the other end of town about a quarter hour ago. The mayor had argued with the old man driving it, then stormed off. Now I saw the mayor heading back to
the wagon accompanied by a tall fellow carrying a long cudgel, the constable unless I missed my guess.
My curiosity got the best of me and I made my way toward the wagon, doing my best to stay out of sight. The mayor and the old man were arguing again by the time I got close enough to hear. The constable stood nearby, looking irritated and anxious.
“…told you. I don’t have a license. I don’t need a license. Does a peddler need a license? Does a tinker need a license?”
“You’re not a tinker,” the mayor said. “Don’t try to pass yourself off as one.”
“I’m not trying to pass myself off as anything,” the old man snapped. “I’m a tinker and a peddler, and I’m more than both. I’m an arcanist, you great dithering heap of idiot.”
“My point exactly,” the mayor said doggedly. “We’re God-fearing people in these parts. We don’t want any meddling with dark things better left alone. We don’t want the trouble your kind can bring.”
“My kind?” the old man said. “What do you know about my kind? There probably hasn’t been an arcanist through these parts in fifty years.”
“We like it that way. Just turn around and go back the way you came.”
“Like hell if I’m spending a night in the rain because of your thick head,” the old man said hotly. “I don’t need your permission to rent a room or do business in the street. Now get away from me or I’ll show you firsthand what sort of trouble my kind can be.”
Fear flashed across the mayor’s face before it was overwhelmed by outrage. He gestured over one shoulder at the constable. “Then you’ll spend the night in jail for vagrancy and threatening behavior. We’ll let you on your way in the morning if you’ve learned to keep a civil tongue in your head.” The constable advanced on the wagon, his cudgel held cautiously at his side.
The old man stood his ground and raised one hand. A deep, red light welled up from the front corners of his wagon. “That’s far enough,” he said ominously. “Things could get ugly otherwise.”
After a moment’s surprise, I realized the strange light came from a pair of sympathy lamps the old man had mounted on his wagon. I had seen one before, in Lord Greyfallow’s library. They were brighter than gaslight, steadier than candles or lamps, and lasted nearly forever. They were also terribly expensive. I was willing to bet that no one in this little town had ever heard of them, let alone seen one.
The constable stopped in his tracks when the light began to swell. But when nothing else seemed to happen, he set his jaw and kept walking toward the wagon.
The old man’s expression grew anxious. “Now hold on a moment,” he said as the red light from the wagon started to fade. “We don’t want…”
“Shut your clepper, you old shit-fire,” the constable said. He snatched at the arcanist’s arm as if he were sticking his hand into an oven. Then, when nothing happened, he smiled and grew more confident. “Don’t think I won’t knock you a good one to keep you from working any more of your devilry.”
“Well done, Tom,” the mayor said, radiating relief. “Bring him along and we’ll send someone back for the wagon.”
The constable grinned and twisted the old man’s arm. The arcanist bent at the waist and gasped a short, painful breath.
From where I hid, I saw the arcanist’s face change from anxious, to pained, to angry all in a second. I saw his mouth move.
A furious gust of wind came out of nowhere, as if a storm had suddenly burst with no warning. The wind struck the old man’s wagon and it tipped onto two wheels before slamming back down onto four. The constable staggered and fell as if he had been struck by the hand of God. Even where I hid nearly thirty feet away the wind was so strong that I was forced to take a step forward, as if I’d been pushed roughly from behind.
“Begone!” the old man shouted angrily. “Trouble me no longer! I will set fire to your blood and fill you with a fear like ice and iron!” There was something familiar about his words, but I couldn’t put my finger on it.
Both the mayor and the constable turned tail and ran, their eyes white and wild as startled horses’.
The wind faded as quickly as it had come. The whole sudden burst couldn’t have lasted more than five seconds. As most of the townsfolk were gathered around the public house, I doubted anyone had seen it except for me, the mayor, the constable, and the old man’s donkeys who stood placidly in their harness, utterly unperturbed.
“Leave this place clean of your foul presence,” the arcanist muttered to himself as he watched them go. “By the power of my name I command it to be so.”
I finally realized why his words seemed so familiar. He was quoting lines from the exorcism scene in Daeonica. Not many folk knew that play.
The old man turned back to his wagon and began to extemporize. “I’ll turn you into butter on a summer day. I’ll turn you into a poet with the soul of a priest. I’ll fill you with lemon custard and push you out a window.” He spat. “Bastards.”
His irritation seemed to leave him and he heaved a great, weary sigh. “Well that couldn’t have gone much worse,” the old man muttered as he rubbed at the shoulder of the arm the constable had twisted. “Do you think they’ll come back with a mob behind them?”
For a second I thought the old man was talking to me. Then I realized the truth. He was talking to his donkeys.
“I don’t think so either,” he said to them. “But I’ve been wrong before. Let’s stay near the edge of town and have a look at the last of the oats, shall we?”
He clambered up into the back of the wagon and came down with a wide bucket and a nearly empty burlap sack. He upended the sack into the bucket and seemed disheartened by the results. He took out a handful for himself before nudging the bucket toward the donkeys with his foot. “Don’t give me that look,” he said to them. “It’s short rations all around. Besides, you can graze.” He petted one donkey while he ate his handful of rough oats, stopping occasionally to spit out a husk.
It struck me as very sad, this old man all alone on the road with no one to talk to but his donkeys. It’s hard for us Edema Ruh, but at least we had each other. This man had no one.
“We’ve wandered too far from civilization, boys. The folk that need me don’t trust me, and the ones that trust me can’t afford me.” The old man peered into his purse. “We’ve got a penny and a half, so our options are limited. Do we want to be wet tonight or hungry tomorrow? We’re not going to do any business, so it will probably be one or the other.”
I slunk around the edge of the building until I could see what was written on the side of the old man’s wagon. It read:
ABENTHY: ARCANIST EXTRAORDINARY.
Scribe. Dowser. Chemist. Dentist.
Rare Goods. All Alements Tended.
Lost Items Found. Anything Mended.
No Horoscopes. No Love Potions. No Malefaction.
Abenthy noticed me as soon as I stepped out from behind the building where I’d been hiding. “Hello there. Can I help you?”
“You’ve misspelled ‘ailments’,” I pointed out.
He looked surprised. “It’s a joke, actually,” he explained. “I brew a bit.”
“Oh. Ale,” I said, nodding. “I get it.” I brought my hand out of my pocket. “Can you sell me anything for a penny?”
He seemed stuck between amusement and curiosity. “What are you looking for?”
“I’d like some lacillium.” We had performed Farien the Fair a dozen times in the last month, and it had filled my young mind with intrigue and assassination.
“Are you expecting someone to poison you?” he said, somewhat taken aback.
“Not really. But it seems to me that if you wait around until you know you need an antidote, it’s probably too late to pick one up.”
“I suppose I could sell you a penny’s worth,” he said. “That would be about a dose for a person your size. But it’s dangerous stuff in its own right. It only cures certain poisons. You can hurt yourself if you take it at the wrong time.”
“Oh,” I said. “I didn’t know that.” In the play it was touted as an infallible cure-all.
Abenthy tapped his lips thoughtfully. “Can you answer me a question in the meantime?” I nodded. “Whose troupe is that?”
“In a way it’s mine,” I said. “But in another way, it’s my father’s because he runs the show and points which way the wagons go. But it’s Baron Greyfallow’s too, because he’s our patron. We’re Lord Greyfallow’s Men.”
The old man gave me an amused look. “I’ve heard of you. Good troupe. Good reputation.”
I nodded, not seeing any point in false modesty.
“Do you think your father might be interested in taking on any help?” he asked. “I don’t claim to be much of an actor, but I’m handy to have around. I could make you face paint and rouge that aren’t all full of lead and mercury and arsenic. I can do lights, too, quick, clean, and bright. Different colors if you want them.”
I didn’t have to think too hard about it; candles were expensive and vulnerable to drafts, torches were dirty and dangerous. And everyone in the troupe learned the dangers of cosmetics at an early age. It was hard to become an old, seasoned trouper when you painted poison on yourself every third day and ended up raving mad by the time you were twenty-five.
“I may be overstepping myself a little,” I said as I held out my hand for him to shake. “But let me be the first to welcome you to the troupe.”
If this is to be a full and honest account of my life and deeds, I feel I should mention that my reasons for inviting Ben into our troupe were not entirely altruistic. It’s true that quality cosmetics and clean lights were a welcome addition to our troupe. It’s also true that I’d felt sorry for the old man alone on the road.
But underneath it all I was moved by my curiosity. I had seen Abenthy do something I could not explain, something strange and wonderful. Not his trick with the sympathy lamps—I recognized that for what it was: showmanship, a bluff to impress ignorant townsfolk.