“When I heard where my husband had gone, and why, I could not just sit and wait to hear if he was dead or not, could I? I went after him.”
“You’re a braver woman than I.” Calo frowned and her back straightened. “So the Raen is back. How did he regard the market?”
“He showed no disapproval. All he did was order that we record the coming and going of all—”
“Rielle?”
She started and turned to see that Jikari and Hari were a few steps away and the queue had progressed while she had been distracted. Closing the gap, Rielle looked at the queen and her host again, now well past the drink-seller and moving steadily away. She leaned closer to Hari.
“Did you…?
She nodded, her expression sober. “She did not say how long ago he was here.”
“Not yesterday,” Rielle said. “It did not feel so.”
“No,” Hari agreed. “This place”–she looked around the market–“is here only because people can travel between worlds. It is strange that he did not order it closed down.” She said something else that Rielle could not interpret. “We will tell Lejikh. Once we have drinks. We should buy enough for everyone.”
They did not have long to wait. Each laden with two jugs, they headed back to the wagons. Rielle was uneasy now, knowing she was in a place the Raen had recently visited. Seeing the woman’s memory of him killing the man only convinced her that he wasn’t the Angel, despite the physical similarities.
As they neared the Travellers’ stall, Rielle saw a line of people standing outside it. Not until she had passed the strangers could she see that tables had been set up along the street and the people were examining the objects laid out on them. Some were in the midst of bartering. Looking closer, Rielle saw goods the Travellers had bought and sold since she’d joined them, and many others she’d not seen before.
Jikari noted her interest. “Markets are good places to sell what is left over. And what we have made.”
She pointed to the furthest table. Neat and colourful piles of trousers and tunics in the Traveller style had been set out, arranged by size. A customer was holding up a small tunic to the chest of a girl child.
Other items lay beside the clothing. Rielle moved behind the tables to get a closer look. Soft leather bags stitched with coloured thread, baskets woven of fine reeds of two colours combined in geometric patterns, and delicately carved wooden boxes of many shapes and sizes caught her eye.
“This is fine work,” Rielle said in Fyrian, to herself. The meaning must have been clear from her tone, however, as the Traveller serving customers near her smiled. She gestured to five intricately stitched vests hanging on a pole behind her.
“Ankari,” she said.
Rielle examined them, shaking her head in disbelief at the fine stitches. “How does she find time?”
“We…” Hari said a combination of unfamiliar words to Jikari, then turned back to Rielle. “We have travelled faster with you.”
Rielle frowned. So her presence had forced the Travellers to hurry along their usual path. If they’d intended to get some distance from the last world that they knew the Raen had visited, their hopes had just been dashed.
What would Lejikh and Ankari make of the news? The sooner they learned of it the better. She stepped away from the tables, and Jikari followed her into the gap between the two circles of wagons. Four strangers were sitting with Lejikh, Ankari and Baluka, but from their appearance and garb it was clear they were also Travellers. Baluka introduced Rielle to the visitors, while Jikari left to get cups and Hari joined those serving at the tables. Rielle could not make out most of the conversation with the other Travellers, but she understood enough to discern when one of the visiting women said something about the lom that would be happening soon.
Rielle had noticed in recent days that the Travellers had begun making frustrated exclamations around the lom. The beasts seemed resistant to commands, and when not hauling the wagons their right front legs were tied to their rear leg to keep them immobile. Yet they appeared to be happy, showing affection towards one another with nudges and rubbing cheeks. Baluka had said the Travellers’ cycles were timed to match the lom’s fertile ones, and nearing the time to breed would explain the animal’s behaviour. If she was right, they must be close to the world where the Travellers held their Gathering once a cycle.
She would not see it, however. Lejikh would be asking the traders here for recommendations on where she could find a new home, and perhaps a teacher.
The visitors rose and left. Baluka hurried after his father before Rielle had a chance to speak of the Raen’s visit. She looked at Ankari and considered how to communicate what she’d learned with the limited vocabulary she had picked up so far.