If today’s fair was like every other I had seen, most people would crowd themselves around the tables and stalls where farm wives sold food to their neighbors at one price and to strangers at a higher one. Some stalls displayed leather goods, clay pots, clothes, or knives. The people running those stalls were often travelers and cheated everybody. All the fairgoers appeared poor but tidy. They had probably worn their best clothes. A number of cutpurses would be slipping through the crowd, and somebody caught alone in a quiet place might get beaten and robbed. The smells of woodsmoke, cold mud, and charred, dubious meat floated everywhere.
Just about everybody looked to be enjoying it.
Bea walked along beside Whistler, her arm in his. At first light, I had told her to turn around and ride off home, but she had begged to go with us to the fair. She intended to buy small, practical things for her neighbors to ease their pain a little. I told her she was a poor woman and that was horseshit, but Whistler insisted it wasn’t safe for her to go home yet. Just because the sun was up, that didn’t mean those cats had melted into the ground. Halla didn’t seem to care, and I was getting bored with Bea’s stubbornness, even if I sympathized a bit. I waved her on to follow us and told her to duck when sharp things started flying through the air.
I smacked Halla on the shoulder. “Where’s the oracle? You’re the one as tall as a damn ship’s mast.” Although people seemed happy, I didn’t like how the fair felt. It was ridiculous of me, and I couldn’t point to anything wrong. The lack of evident threat convinced me that something bad was about to happen.
Whistler was eyeing a table full of something that had been killed, stewed, and piled onto slabs of bark. He grunted, “We don’t need to wear out our feet getting to this oracle right away, do we?”
Halla ignored him. “I think she must be in that wooden building.”
“If you think it, it’s just sure to be true then, isn’t it?” I stepped aside to let a short, fat man march between us.
Halla pushed through the crowd, and she didn’t have to push hard. She stood out. I glanced back to find that Whistler and Bea were gone. If they never returned, that was fine with me. Within a minute, we smacked into a ring of people watching something.
Halla glanced over and said, “Juggler.” She frowned like she’d bitten into something rotten. She had never appreciated entertainment of any sort, and she started shoving her way around the circle. Between the weaving shoulders and heads, I saw a thin man wearing a red mask, juggling four knives.
“Hey!” the man shouted. He tossed a knife toward Halla, not hard enough to knock over a chicken. Halla caught it as the juggler tossed another knife. Soon she held all four knives.
“Throw them back!” the man shouted.
Halla gathered all the knives into her left hand and pushed on through the crowd.
“Wait! Throw them back!”
“Thank you for the knives,” Halla called over her shoulder. She muttered to me, “Maybe he will go do something useful now.”
Whistler appeared beside me. Bea stood beyond him examining cloth at a stall run by a pretty, auburn-haired peasant woman. He whispered, “I bought this love potion.” He held up a tiny clay jar. “Do you think it’s real?”
“Ask Halla to drink it. If you live, it’s real.”
“Shit. I’m getting my money back.” He slithered away through the crowd, muttering.
A big open area, eighty paces across, stood in front of the shabby wooden building. The builders had roofed the crude cabin with warped poles, which would never keep the rain out and would hardly block the sunshine. On one side of the clearing, a throng of men watched two wrestlers and waited their turn. On the other side, a young, sandy-haired man stood in front of a large, pale-green tent and offered to show people his horrible, flesh-shredding, disemboweling lions for the price of two copper bits. The man wore a nice blue jacket, which stood out in the plain-dressed crowd.
I heard Halla say, “Show us to the oracle.”
A woman’s tight voice said with a slight accent, “No. I deny you entry. You’re impolite, and the oracle despises impolite people. Go on now, go away. Shoo.”
I turned to see what was happening. Halla glanced at me with raised eyebrows. A starkly beautiful young woman, not much older than a girl, guarded the door. She had black hair, strong features, and wheat-colored skin.
Before I could speak, Whistler stomped up beside me. “She won’t give me back my money. Will it bother you if I kill her?”
“Yes, it will. How many dead men have you robbed? And now this old grandmother cheats you out of a few bits that you’ll never miss. You’re a wealthy man! Don’t you feel shame?”
Whistler stared at the ground. “I guess I do, a little.” He turned away, and I heard him mutter, “She’s not that old.”
I turned back to the door guardian. “May I please visit the oracle, young woman? I promise to be polite and pleasant. I have a present for her to show my respect.”
Halla cocked her head. “You have a present?”
“I do if you give me those knives.” I turned back to the young lady and smiled my most woman-stealing smile.
She frowned but nodded. “Tell me your name, and I will lead you to the oracle.”
“My name is Gundersak the candlemaker. May I ask your name?”
“No.” She held aside the heavy cloth hanging over the door and waved me in. “Go to the right.”
I turned right. I hadn’t expected the interior to be so dim, but it was a cloudy day.
“Go straight,” she said from behind me.
Within six steps, I entered a small room, just big enough for a nice table and
