"Come on, old girl," Tas said softly, pulling his hand back before she could get the sugar. "You've a job to do, and then this nice treat will be yours."
"You'll have to shout—she's pretty near deaf," Gaesil yelled from his position behind the wagon.
"When I say 'Now,' push!" Tas screamed to Gaesil.
"Bella's deaf, not me," Gaesil reminded the kender.
Holding the bridle firmly, Tas kept the cube in his open palm about four inches from Bella's nose, out of range of her greedy lips. He counted to three. "Now!" he cried, giving the bridle a tug. Blinking her milky eyes in surprise, Bella stumbled forward slightly, mud sucking at her hooves. Behind her, the wagon gave a jolt, rocked up to the edge of the rut, then rolled and settled back stubbornly into the muck.
"We almost had it!" Tas cried excitedly. "Push harder next time, and longer."
Gaesil looked morosely at his mud-spattered tunic. Dirty, wet specks were hardening on his face. Cold mud oozed over the tops of his boots. He'd be lucky if he didn't slide under the wheels of the wagon the next time. "OK," he responded.
They repeated the process, Tas tugging harder, Gaesil pushing longer. Creaking and groaning, the wagon rolled up and out of the rut with a violent lurch, sending Tasslehoff flying, right after Bella managed to wrap her lips around the proffered piece of sugar.
Tasslehoff found Gaesil on his chest in the mud where the wagon had been. "Oh, dear, how did that happen?" Tasslehoff asked, helping Gaesil to his feet. "You should be more careful. You're quite a mess."
In response, Gaesil opened the back door of his wagon and extracted a clean tunic and breeches. Setting them on the back step, he shrugged off the frigid, muddy ones, shivering. Transferring valuables between pockets, he quickly slipped on the freshly laundered clothing. "That's better, but I'm going to need a bath before anyone will hire me in Solace."
"Solace?" Tasslehoff exclaimed. "Why, I left there just this morning! You really must go to the Spring Festival— I'm sure you'd make a lot of money there."
"That's where I was headed," Gaesil said. "I was hoping to draw a lot of business, but I'm afraid I've missed most of the festival. It's undoubtedly too late for me to find a booth."
"Say, one of my best friends has a booth there!" Tas boasted. "Well, perhaps he's not my best friend, but I don't think he hates me anymore. We met when I was safeguarding some merchandise for him, but there was a little misunderstanding about that. He might share some of his space with you, for a small fee."
Tasslehoff pulled off the bracelet and bounced it in his palm. "Actually, this bracelet is his, and he needs it back rather badly. Darned if I know how it got into my pouch again this morning, but here it is. Since you're going that way, you could take it back for me. My friend seemed awfully distraught when he lost it the last time. He made it for a customer who's coming to pick it up real soon, so I'm sure he'd be very grateful to you for bringing it back. He might even share his booth with you for nothing!"
Though grateful for the kender's help, Gaesil listened to Tas's tale with suspicion. "I don't know . . ." he hedged. He was not keen on protecting or transporting someone else's valuables, especially after they'd passed through a kender's hands. As Tas himself had pointed out, people tend to misunderstand the intentions of kender. Besides, Gaesil made it his policy not to get involved with anything that did not concern him.
"But why not?" Tasslehoff asked. "You need booth space. My friend needs his bracelet back. And I need to go that way, away from Solace. This solution couldn't be better." Tasslehoff was puzzled by the tinker's hesitation, but then added, "Your wife would never need to know about any of this if it didn't cost any money, would she?"
He had unwittingly stumbled on the one thing that could persuade Gaesil. Just to be sure, he drew from the pocket of his pants one small, four-sided die and tossed it on the back step of the wagon. Obviously satisfied with the answer, he replaced the die, looked up, and said, "I'll do it!"
"Great! His name is Flint Fireforge," Tas said, pulling his writing equipment and a scrap of parchment from his scroll case. He sketched a map of the festival grounds, marking Flint's booth with an "X." "You should have no trouble finding him, but if you do, try the Inn of the Last Home. He seems to be a regular customer there, and I'm sure you could get a bath as well."
Tas took one last look at the bracelet. He would miss its alluring beauty and unusual features. But with no regrets, he extended it to the tinker. Gaesil slipped it into the pocket of his breeches and without further ado, hopped onto the driver's seat of his wagon.
"Farewell," the tinker called. "You saved my life. I guess I never thanked you for that."
Tas waved and replied, "It was my pleasure. Good luck. Say hello to Flint for me."
The tinker gave the reins a snap, and Bella lumbered forward. The wagon lurched northward toward Solace, detouring around the corpses lying in the road and leaving Tas to continue his travels.
Chapter 5
Something Borrowed
Gaesil Bishop was a man with little zest for life.
He had long ago surrendered his life to fate. Gaesil's fatalism could be traced to his upbringing in the province of Throt, on the eastern border of Solamnia in the north. Throtians as a whole were a superstitious, vagabond lot, their culture ripe with wives-tales and sayings. As a result, there wasn't an incident
