Crude but usable, the tinker concluded. Unhitching Bella from her harness, he gathered up his tools and carted them into the stall in three or four trips. On his last he fetched his sign, "Honing, Soldering, Repairs on Anything," then stood on a chair to hang the sign from the front curtain.
He was bending over to move the chair when he felt something drop from his pocket. In the hay at his feet was the copper bracelet. Gaesil stooped to retrieve it, thinking to place it in the box under the seat of his wagon, but the wagon was unguarded behind the stall. A safer place still, he reasoned, was his own wrist. He slid the cool piece of orange metal over his hand and settled it on his bony joint.
Before long, fairgoers were aware of his presence. A number bemoaned that they were without their broken and mendable items, but many promised to return with their dull knives, leaking pots, and a host of other minor travesties, locals fetching from their homes and other merchants from their wagons. Soon, Gaesil had as much work as he could manage. The thick needle and coarse thread fairly flew in his hands as he cobbled old, worn leather to new. Blades big and small gleamed in the sunlight after quick, expert passes over Gaesil's whetstone. He mended three leaking wooden buckets, added straw to one spartan broom, and sold out of nearly half of his forty-bottle supply of pine oil soap in just three hours.
He was oiling his whetstone for the next wave of knife sharpenings when the greasy jar slipped from his hands, splashing globules of smelly, dark tallow up into his face and over his hands. Snatching up a clean rag, he mopped up the mess as best he could without water and soap. Seeing several drops on the bracelet, he wiped them off on his trousers and pushed the bracelet up under the gathered cuff of his tunic.
It was late afternoon, several hours before the festival would shut down for the night. Gaesil sat on a chair and propped his chin up on his palm, watching the crowds drift by the stall. Out of the corner of his eye he became aware of the hooded figure of a young woman standing across the main thoroughfare to the right, watching him. Realizing she'd been spotted, the woman cut through the flow of traffic and approached the stall.
Large eyes the color of the sea regarded Gaesil from beneath a generous silk scarf, wrapped so intricately about her head that only her pale, almost milk-colored, unlined face was exposed. The merest wisp of silver-white hair escaped at her right temple. Drawn with a string at the neck, her finely woven cloak flowed from shoulders to ankles in a soft indigo cloud.
"Excuse me for staring," she began, her low voice as soothing as waves lapping at the shore, "but isn't this Flint Fireforge's stall?"
Gaesil stopped his own scrutiny. "Yes, it was—I mean, is, but Flint was, um, called out of town unexpectedly."
The woman looked very concerned. "Out of town? For how long?"
Gaesil looked embarrassed. "Well, I don't know. He could be back today, or perhaps not for some time . . ." In truth, the tinker had no idea how soon, if ever, the dwarf would catch up to the kender.
"Not for some time?" The woman's eyes darkened angrily. "But he was supposed to meet me here." She looked near to panicking.
"Are you a friend of his? Maybe I can help you," Gaesil offered kindly, feeling pity for her obvious distress.
The unusual-looking woman turned aside and brushed dust from her pale face with a gloved hand. "No, I'm not. And I don't think you can help . . . No one can, except Master Fireforge. I'll come back later." Before Gaesil could respond, the woman turned and disappeared into the throng of people before the stall.
Gaesil stood, shaking his head sadly. Something about the exotic-looking woman touched his heart.
Something also touched his wrist. For no apparent reason, Gaesil felt the bracelet growing warm on his wrist. He also felt dizzy, for no apparent reason. Then his stomach felt upset, and then he felt positively ill. But the feeling passed within moments.
Much to his astonishment, Gaesil realized that he was looking at his wagon, even though it was behind him, on the far side of a curtain, and his eyes were closed! He had no idea what was happening, but he noticed that a piece of merchandise was missing from his wagon—an oxen yoke that he kept lashed beneath the box was gone.
When Gaesil opened his eyes, the wagon had vanished. Once again he was seated in a borrowed booth at Solace's festival.
Of course, Gaesil immediately began wondering what had caused his strange manifestation. He was just curious enough to thrust his head through the curtain and check the wagon. Sure enough, there was the yoke, right where it was kept. So what had the vision meant? Was someone going to steal it from the wagon?
This oxen yoke was a particular sore spot to Gaesil. Hepsiba had bought it from a neighbor who was critically short on cash during hard times a year ago last fall. She'd
