lad. He's a good lad, Jib is.'
'That he is,' Rune replied faintly. This was a little too much to take in all at once. 'One of the best in the world.'
'Aye, well, I seen ye an' yer man an' yer fren' here at Faire, an' ye got all th' right friends,' the man told her, so serious in his frankness that she couldn't even think of him as being rude. 'Free Bards, eh? Free Bards an' gyppos, ye're the best folks on th' road. So, I'll tell Jib I caught up wi' ye, an' give his presents, an' I'll tell 'im ye're doin' right well. He'll be happy fer ye.'
He turned to go, and Rune stopped him for a moment with one hand on his leather sleeve. 'How is he, really?' she asked anxiously. 'Is he all right? Is he happy?'
The man smiled, slowly, like the sun coming out from behind a cloud. 'I reckon,' he chuckled. 'Oh, I reckon he'd say he's all right, though since he's set on weddin' m' girl an' I know her temper, I dunno how all right he'll stay! Still-they'll be settlin' down, I 'spect. Her mam had same temper, an' we never kilt each other enough so's ye'd notice. Like as not ye'll catch 'em both at Midsummer next year.'
And with that, he put his hat carefully back on his head, and walked back down the road in the darkness, leaving Rune staring after him with the mules' reins still in her hands.
'Well, that solves one big problem,' Gwyna said, breaking the silence. 'And I know where we can get a wagon cheap, if you're willing to stay over a day while we get it refitted. I know I've got a third share's worth of coin. How about you two?'
'Oh, we have it,' Talaysen replied, as Rune broke out of her stunned state, and came over to the fire for a couple pieces of wood for tethers and some rope for hobbles. 'And draft beasts are always the expensive part of fitting up a wagon, am I right?'
Gwyna nodded, then rose and came over to look at the new acquisitions. She patted them down expertly, running her hands over their legs, checking their feet, then opening their mouths to have as good a look as she could with only firelight to aid her.
'A little old for a horse-mule, but middle-aged for ones out of a pony,' she said, giving them both a final pat, and turning to help Rune stake them out to graze. 'Especially for this breed; just like Rune said, they're Vargians. They'll live thirty useful years and probably die in harness, and they can eat very nearly anything a goat can eat. Hard to tell without pushing them, but their wind seems sound; I know their legs are, and he hasn't been doctoring them to make them look good.' The same one that had blown into the old man's hair nuzzled her. 'They're gentle enough even for you to handle, Master Wren!' She laughed, as if at some private joke, and Talaysen flushed.
'Here, let me see what they're called.' She nudged the mule's head around so she could read the letters stamped on his halter in the flickering firelight. 'This lad is Socks, evidently. And'-she squinted at the second halter-'the other is Tam. Good, short names, easy to yell.' She left the mules, who applied themselves to grass with stolid single-mindedness. 'I like your choice of friends, Lady Lark,' she concluded. 'It's nice to have friends who know when you might need a mule!'
The mules were a gift that impinged perilously on 'too good to be true,' and Talaysen pummeled his brain ceaselessly to reassure himself that neither he nor Rune had worked any of their 'magic' to get them.
Finally, he slept, conscience appeased. They had not been anywhere near the animal-sellers. There had been no way that the old man could have heard them sing and been inadvertently magicked into giving them a pair of beasts. The mules were, therefore, exactly what they appeared to be: repayment of Rune's generosity to her old friend. When Rune had explained what she'd done, Gwyna had questioned her about the amount of money she'd sent the boy, and Gwyna had nodded knowingly.
'That's the right-size return on a gift like that,' she had pronounced, when Rune worried aloud that she had bankrupted the boy. 'Truly. He didn't send you horses, nor young mules; he didn't include any harness but the halters. If his year's been as good as the old man says, that's about right, and he'll still have profit.'
Rune had been even more concerned how the old man had found them, since there was no way-she had thought-for Jib to find out where she was. She'd been afraid the gift might have been some machination of the Guild in disguise. But Gwyna and Talaysen had both been able to put her mind at ease on that score.
It was the Gypsies, of course. Rune had sent her gift with them; they, in turn, knew all the news of the Free Bards and would have known as soon as Rune had joined them. When Jib wanted to find her, he would likely have turned to the Gypsies who had brought him the money in the first place. Sooner or later he would have found someone who'd been at Midsummer, and who would have known the general direction of the Free Bards' travels, and by extension, what Faires Rune and Talaysen were planning on going to. Then it was just a matter for the old man of planning his selling trip to try intercepting them at one or more of those Faires.
With everyone's fears eased, all three of them slept soundly. In fact, it was the rattle of the mules' halters the next morning that awoke them, as the beasts tried in vain to reach grass outside the circles they'd eaten bare.
Rune took them down to the well to water them, while Talaysen and Gwyna set off in search of a wagon.
Many Gypsies settled in Kardown, for it was on the edge of the treeless, rolling plains of the Arden Downs. The soil was thin and rocky; too hard to farm, but it made excellent pasturage, and most of the folk hereabouts depended on the sheep that were grazed out there. Most households had a little flock, and the most prosperous had herds of several hundred. There was always work for someone good with animals, and when Gypsies chose to settle, they often became hired shepherds. Such a life enabled them to assuage their urge to wander in the summer, but gave them a snug little home to retire to when the winter winds roared and the sheep were brought back into the fold.
Because of that, there were often Gypsy wagons for sale here. Gwyna, obviously a Gypsy and fluent in their secret language, was able to make contact with one of the resident families as soon as they reached the marketplace.
From there it was a matter of tracking down who had wagons for sale, who had wagons they were keeping but might be induced to part with, and where they were.
They had looked at three, so far. The first two were much too small; fit only for two, or one and a fair amount of trade goods. The third was a little too old and rickety; Gwyna clucked her tongue over it and told its owner that he'd waited a bit long to sell it; he'd have to spend a lot of time fixing it up now, before it was road-worthy again. The owner agreed, and said with a sigh that he'd not been truly certain he wanted to settle until this summer. . . .
They traded road stories for a bit, then moved on to the fourth and last.
'This lad will take a bit of persuading, I think,' Gwyna said as they approached the cottage. 'He came off the road because his wife wanted to settle a bit, though he didn't. That means the wife will be on our side; if she can get him to part with the wagon, it means she'll not have to fret about him taking the bit in his teeth, packing them all up, and rolling out without so much as a 'do you think we should,' or a word of warning.'
Thus armed, Talaysen set about charming the lady of the house while Gwyna tackled the man. He was very young to have come off the road; a half-dozen children playing in the yard told Talaysen why the wife had wanted to settle. Two children in a wagon weren't bad, but a mob like this would strain the seams of even the largest wagons he'd seen.
He couldn't hear what Gwyna was telling the man, a very handsome Gypsy with long, immaculately kept black locks and a drooping mustache of which he seemed very proud. He didn't make much of an effort to overhear, either. She was giving the young man some advice from a woman's point of view, he thought. The Gypsies believed in the right of a woman to make her own decisions, and she was probably telling him that if he decided to pack up and take to the road again, he might well find himself doing so alone.
Whatever it was she told him, it had the desired effect. He agreed-reluctantly, but agreed-to show them the wagon and sell it if it was what they wanted.
He kept it in a shed in the rear of his cottage, and unlike the wagon that had been kept out in the garden, it was easy to see that the owner of this rig had been serious about his desire to return to the road one day. The bright red and yellow paint was fresh and shiny; every bit of bright-work, from the twin lamps at the front to the single lamp over the window at the rear, was polished until it gleamed like gold. The leather of the seat had been kept oiled, and the wheels were in perfect repair, not a spoke missing.
Right away, Talaysen knew that it was the kind of wagon they needed; this was a two-beast rig, and provided the pony-mules could pull it, they would have the strength of both at their service. With a one-beast rig,
