“Shameful!” a woman next to him added, then yelled it louder towards the front. “Shame on you!”
“Demroth take you!” another woman shouted.
“I ain’t even got one dol to my name, much less twelve,” a man nearby muttered.
“That’s true for most folks,” the woman near Athan said.
“I’ve never even seen a dol,” said another man. “I’ll give you twelve ginny!” he shouted to the front, and the crowd simmered from angered yelling to heckling chuckles.
“Come now,” Phineaus said, and he too tried to laugh it off. “My lamp is worth more than a few pewter ginnatae.”
“But not twelve dol,” Athan shouted over the laughter, and the crowd turned his way. “Have you gone blight mad, Phineaus? You might as well be asking for twelve crowns. People in Lee’s Mill are lucky to earn a sliver in a month, and you’re asking for dols?”
“The forester has the right of it!” a man agreed. “Last month, I didn’t even earn a sliver. It’s nellys and ginnys around here. You want dols, then you best take your crooked prices to Carn!”
“Yeah!” a woman heckled and tossed something at Phineaus’s head. “Off to The Red City with you!”
Phineaus dodged the apple core and frowned at Athan. “But friend, I’m just a humble merchant trying to feed his family.”
“You don’t have a family,” Athan said back.
“Well, I might have one someday?” Phineaus shrugged and the crowd laughed. Phineaus sighed, his large stomach deflating beneath a burgundy robe that may have once been lavish but now looked worn thin by years of travel and poor earnings. He rubbed his chin beneath its cover of curly beard. “All right, all right. Twelve slivers for an Everbright Lamp.” He dodged another round of heckling and an ear of corn. “Fine! Twelve nelltae.”
“Six nelly,” Athan shouted over the crowd. “Reasonable for a family to share, if it does stay lit.”
“Of that, I swear,” Phineaus guaranteed. “Each lamp is blessed by Elvan magic from beyond Lath’limneir’s Wall.”
A woman skeptically clucked her tongue. “As if them sharp-ears would let a pompous fool like you into the Greenwood.”
“No, not me,” Phineaus agreed, shedding his pride. “But, I do have a contact within the Dale. I bought these lamps from him three seasons ago, a deal too good to pass up, I thought. But, the realm of men prefers firelight, I’ve discovered, so they’ve been collecting dust in my wagon. Perhaps this is a boon of the gods, that I would not have sold the lamps until today. I only thought to help bring light into the unfortunate darkness that has come to the good people of Lee’s Mill!”
“Brodan’s balls,” Athan muttered and rolled his eyes. “I’ll give you ten nelly for two of them, if you stop being so dramatic.”
Phineaus’s lips pursed and he scratched his curly brown beard as the crowd chuckled. “All right, deal, but only because I like you, forester, and you gave me a good deal on those pelts.”
“Two?” Dnara asked, not exactly sure if Athan had the money to spend on lamps.
“One for us,” he said and began pushing his way to the front. “And one for Tobin and Penna,” he said before the mass of people swallowed him.
Dnara debated diving into the crowd after him but decided to step back from the throng of people instead. The more she looked at the crowd, the more it looked like a single, writhing mass. If anything, they looked less like people and more like that thing Penna had hacked up. Revolted by the thought, she made her way to the calm side of the courtyard and sat at the fountain’s edge to wait for Athan to emerge.
A few pewter ginny and one copper nelly glinted in the sunlight from the fountain’s tiled bottom. Even those desperately poor would not dare to steal offerings to Faedra, whose likeness captured in gilded marble sat atop the fountain, a graceful ivory hand tipping her life-giving chalice to fill the fountain. The rippling water warped the statue’s smiling reflection and hair full of carved flowers. Dnara leaned over the water to stare at her own distorted reflection and caught a glimpse of an approaching shadow spreading across the water as its owner drew nearer. She thought it Athan, so paid it no particular heed as it stopped next to her.
“Did Phineaus try to raise the price again?” she asked, hoping for an amusing answer.
“That unscrupulous braggart always tries to raise the price,” replied a man’s voice that was not Athan’s. “I heard his bellowing from down the street, ruining what had been a pleasantly quiet morning. I hope it has not ruined your morning as well, my lady?”
Tensing to withhold a startled flinch, Dnara cautiously moved her gaze from the fountain to the man standing next to her. Shiny black riding boots were met at the knee by finely tailored pants in a rich mahogany. The clean, new looking pants led up to a silk shirt as white and unsoiled as the day it had been made, its ruffled front pressed and its billowy sleeves unwrinkled. A heavy velvet half-cape dripped from the man’s shoulders, held there with medallions and chains of fine silver. Even the inside of the cape was lavish, a brocade of gold florets set against a deep maroon background. A nobleman, Dnara assumed; a strange sight to see in a small town like Lee’s Mill, contrasting with the life-worn crowd of people surrounding Phineaus.
As her gaze raised further, she met a pair of light blue eyes set within a young face, clean shaven and pale with a prominent, thin nose. One of his eyebrows raised high and he tilted his head in contemplation at her silent perusal. Sunlight danced over satiny, honey colored hair that had been pulled into a ponytail by a maroon silk ribbon behind his neck. After a thought,
