bring ’em home. You’re all to be back before supper, so the others can go. Clear?” They all nodded.
In the main market square, they scattered into clumps of three or four. Arne and Coben stayed with Paks and Saben, poking into every stall and shop along one side of the square. One sold lace, its white tracery displayed against dark velvet. Another sold strips of silk, patterned with exquisite embroidery. Paks found a spicebread stall, and managed to stuff down a square of it despite the lunch she’d eaten. They found a shoemaker’s shop, displaying pointed-toed shoes in scarlet and green and yellow, and a bootmaker’s with riding boots, laced boots, and one pair made of three different leathers. Paks stared, and the man came to the door.
“You like those, fair warrior? ’Tis mulloch’s hide, and goatskin, and the skin of a great snake from across the sea, south of Aare—only a nas, for you.”
“No, thank you,” said Paks, stunned more by the price than the boots. He smiled and turned away.
Coben stopped to look at a jeweler’s display; the jeweler’s guards dropped their hands to the hilts of their weapons. Paks looked over his shoulder, eyes wide. A tray of rings, gold, silver, some with bright stones set to them. Most were finger rings, but some were clearly earrings. Another tray held bracelets, and a single necklace of blue stones and pearls set in silver.
“Look at that,” breathed Coben, pointing to one of the rings. “It’s like a braided rope.” Paks saw another that looked like tiny leaves linked together. She wondered what else was in the shop—far too expensive, whatever it was.
One shop displayed clothing; they could see the tailors inside, sitting cross-legged on their platform. Bolts of cloth were piled up behind them. Another shop was hung with musical instruments: two lap-harps, a lute, something twice the size of a lute with more strings, and many more that none of them recognized. In a litter of woodshavings the maker was working on a part, and smiled at them as they peeked in the door. He reached a hand to pluck one of the harps and show its tone. Paks was entranced. She had heard a harp only twice, when musicians came to the fair.
“Can—can you play, as well as make, them?”
His bushy eyebrows rose. “Of course, girl—how else would I know if I’d made them well? Listen—” He unfolded himself from the workbench, lifted the harp, and ran his hands along the strings. Paks had never heard that music before, but shivers ran up her spine.
“Do you know ’Torre’s Ride’?” asked Arne, nudging Paks forward.
“Certainly—three versions. Where are you from?”
“From the north—from Tsaia.”
“Hmm.” He paused to adjust a tuning peg. Then the thrilling sound rang out, one of the few songs Paks had learned before leaving home. She found herself humming along; Arne was murmuring the words, as was Coben. The instrument maker finished a verse with a flourish. “There you are. But are any of you players?”
Paks could have listened all afternoon. She shook her head, and Arne said “No, sir,” and he went back to his bench, shaping a little piece of wood with a small chisel. Paks wondered which instrument it was for, and where it would fit, but was too shy to ask. They left that shop and moved on.
She found the surprise for Saben several shops down. Here were trays of religious symbols, carved of the appropriate stone or metal. Most she did not know. The crescent and cudgel of Gird were familiar, and the Holy Circle, and the wheatsheaf of the Lady of Peace. The sword of Tir was there, both plain and cleverly set with a tiny jewel in the pommel. But whose was the leaping fish, or the tree, or the arch of tiny stars? She looked at tiny golden apples, at green leaves, at anvils, hammers, spears, fox or wolf heads, little human figures clothed in flowers (swirling hair made the loop for hanging). Here was the antlered figure of Guthlac, and the double-faced head of Simyits, a harp for Garin, the patron of harpers, and shears for Dort, the patron of sheepshearers and all in the wool trade. Then she saw the little red stone horse, and remembered Saben’s words that day in the stronghold. She looked up and found the shopkeeper watching her. She glanced around; Saben was in the next shop, pricing combs for his sisters.
“How much?” she asked. And, “Will it break easily?”
He shook his head. “Not these symbols, lady. And they have all been blessed, by the cleric for each one. They’ll bring luck and blessings to those who wear them.” Paks doubted this, but didn’t argue.
“How much?” she asked again.
“The little horse? The symbol of Senneth, the horse-lord, and Arvoni the patron of horsemen?” Paks nodded. “Five nitis.” She was startled and her face must have shown it. He said smoothly, “But for you, lady—you will need luck—for you, I will say four nitis, and two serfs.” Paks had never bargained herself, though she had heard her mother and father.
“I cannot spare so much,” she said, and looked away, shifting her feet. She sighed. She wanted that horse for Saben, but four nitis—that was four meals like lunch. And she wanted other things, too.
“Three nitis, two nis,” he said. “I can’t do more than that—” Abruptly Paks decided to buy it. She fumbled in her pouch for the silver.
When she came out, with the horse safely stowed in her pouch, Saben was still looking at combs; Arne and Coben were rummaging through a pile of copper pots on the pavement. She ducked into the shop with Saben.
“I can’t decide,” he said, turning to her. “Suli likes flowers, so that’s easy—this one—” The comb had a wreath of flowers along the spine. “But for Rahel and Maia, do you think the birds, or the fish, or the fern?” Paks thought the fern was the prettiest, and liked the leaping fish better than an angry-looking bird. He paid for the combs and they walked out. They saw fruit stalls beyond the piles of pots. Early berries, early peaches—they squandered coppers on the fruit, and walked on with sticky fingers. Coben cocked an eye at the sky.
“We’d better be going,” he reminded them. They turned back across the square. Paks went to the spicebread stall again, and bought a stack it took both hands to carry. They munched spicebread most of the way back to camp.
As they were going to their posts for duty, Paks gave Saben the little horse. “I remembered you lost your bit of hoof,” she said. “I couldn’t find a hoof, but maybe the whole horse will do.”
He flushed. “It’s—it will do well, Paks. Thank you. Was it from the shop next to the comb place?”
“Yes.”
“I looked at it, but didn’t buy it—you shouldn’t have spent so much—”
“Well—” This time Paks blushed. “I didn’t—I mean I—umm—”
Saben laughed. “You, too? I bargained myself, but I couldn’t get him to go lower than three nitis.”
“Three!” Paks gasped and began to laugh helplessly.
“What? What did you get it for?” She shook her head, laughing even harder. A veteran walking by stared at her. Finally she stopped, sides aching. Saben was still watching her, puzzled.
“You should have—” she began, and started laughing again. “Oh, I can’t! It hurts—you should have got it yourself—you’re the better bargainer—”
“You mean you paid more than that?”
“Not much,” she said, still laughing. “As—as a fighter I may be good, but at market—”
“Well, the man tried to tell me it was bad luck to bargain over a holy symbol, so maybe it will be better luck this way.” Saben grinned. “Tell you what, Paks—the next time you want something, I’ll bargain for you.”
“Thanks,” she said.
“And by the way,” he went on, taking a comb from his pouch. “This one’s really for you—the ferny one.”
Chapter Twelve
Two months later, as Paks leaned against the wall of the courtyard in a border fort south of Kodaly, she felt well content with her position.
“I agree,” said Saben, who was mending a tear in his cloak while she sharpened her weapons, “that it’s easier than farming. I’ve no desire to go back to mucking out barns. But don’t forget your first battle just because it’s gone so well since.”
“I know. That could have ended it—like Effa. But that’s the chance we take, as fighters. I wish we could see other good companies too. See how they do things, how they fight. We never can see anything but what’s in front of us. It’s hard to keep the idea of what we’re doing—I mean as a whole—in all that confusion.”
