The two women smiled and patted Rielle’s arms to show they’d understood, and didn’t mind enduring the tanners’ behaviour so their guest could satisfy her curiosity. The pair included Rielle in both daily chores and exploration of the places the family visited. She was now glad Lord Felomar had decided she could not stay in his world for fear of attracting the Raen’s anger, because it meant she’d made two new friends. Though it also meant she would be extra sad to leave the Travellers.
The Travellers’ wagons were visible further down the wide street, arranged in a tight double circle fencing in the lom at the centre. The women led her in another direction, guiding her down a narrower gap between two stalls. In front of one, a pair of acrobats performed before a circular tent to attract customers inside to see the main acts; from another came smoke and the sound of hammer strikes on metal. The latter looked like it had been there for some time.
“Do people live here?” she asked.
Jikari nodded. “If they can pay the rent. But they are not permitted to build houses.”
They stopped before a double-sized stall in which several kinds of animals had been penned. An auction was taking place beside three long-necked beasts with curved spikes under their chins. The animals were hobbled, and had poles strapped to their neck to keep them straight and no doubt prevent any thrust of the spikes. Are they predatory? she wondered. Or is that for defence? One moved up to a pole on which bushels of some kind of dried plant had been tied, and began to graze.
“What are they?” Rielle asked.
“Ruke,” Jikari replied. “They are good guard animals to put with more vulnerable ones.” She began to point at each pen, naming and explaining the uses for each type of domestic beast within. “I don’t know what they are,” she admitted, pointing to several stumpy-legged, long-snouted animals with scaly, bright red hides. “Father might. At a guess I’d say they were bred for their skins. Would you like me to ask the sellers?”
Rielle shook her head. “They are all busy with the auction.”
“Hmm,” Hari agreed. “And I’m thirsty. Let’s get something to drink.”
It took them a while to find a stall selling liquids meant for refreshment. A long queue had formed which kept shifting as the stallholders on either side objected to it blocking customers. Standing in line, Rielle reflected that this was the first time in a long while that she had stood still. Twenty-two days had passed since she’d been rescued by the Travellers–or rather, twenty-two sleeps. Measuring time was near impossible when she was moving through worlds with shorter and longer days and sometimes no discernible night at all to divide them, and they had often arrived and left at different times of day. This world was the tenth she had visited and the first one in which the Travellers didn’t have a buyer or seller expecting them.
She looked down the street. It extended further than her eye could see, the details disappearing into dusty air. The view was the same in the other direction, the only difference being the wares on offer in the stalls. Over the top of some low tents to her right she could see the pale stone palace rising above the centre of the market. Tiny distant figures moved up and down the steep stairs leading to the building.
The view must be amazing from there, she mused. Perhaps we could investigate later.
Shouting cut through the noise of the market, drawing Rielle and her companions’ attention to a platform being carried on the shoulders of several muscular men. A woman walking in front of it was bellowing that all should step aside. Looking at the bearers, Rielle’s stomach sank. Were they slaves? She searched their minds and learned they were paid well and competed for the position. The first pair regarded the queue blocking the street imperiously, thinking that the rabble were slow and stupid, mere traders far lower in status than honoured bearers. They should be scrambling to get out of the way. Another was only thinking about his family, to whom he was sending most of his income, hoping they were investing it as he’d instructed.
Two women sat upon cushions piled upon the platform. They were so deep in conversation they hadn’t noticed the queue that slowed their progress. As the waiting drink-stall customers began to move to the side, shuffling back with the wary reluctance of those who have waited a long time and did not want to lose their place, Rielle looked into one of the women’s minds.
Her name was Calo, and she was a minor queen from a nearby world come to visit her friend, Astia, the wife of the market’s owner, who was the closest thing to a queen that this world had.
“… yes, there was a magical battle,” Astia was saying, “and dear Elmed hurried out to demand they stop. But when he got there the battle was over and the victor–you will not believe this–the victor was the Raen.”
Rielle stiffened, cold rushing through her at the title. Calo was simultaneously impressed and apprehensive.
“What happened?” she asked. Shifting to the mind of Astia, Rielle saw the woman’s memory play out in her thoughts.
“The poor fellow–the loser–clutched at his chest and died. Heart crushed from within, they say. I saw it with my own eyes.”
“But, Astia, how did you come to be there?”