She scowled at him, unwilling to hear anything good about the man she called a sorceror, turned her shoulder to him and went into a brood over what he suspected was her vision of the perversity of man.
The cart bumped over the last humpbacked bridge and rumbled onto an avenue paved with granite flats, heading for the gaping arch of the gateway. He braced himself to withstand a major stench, if they couldn’t put springs on their rolling stock, clearly sewers were a lost cause, but as the carts rattled through the shadowy tunnel (the walls were at least ten meters thick at the base), there was little of the sour stink from open emunctories and offal rotting in the streets that he’d had to deal with when he was on a freetrader dropping in on neofeudal societies. The cart emerged into a narrow crooked street, paved with granite blocks set in tar, clean, even the legless beggar at the corner had a clean face and his gnarled knobby hands were scrubbed pale. The drivers of each of the carts tossed a coin in his bowl, got his blessings as they drove past.
A woman leaned from an upper window. “What Parika?”
The lead driver looked up. “Owlyn Vale,” she shouted.
The children in the carts jumped to their feet, stood cheering and whooping, swaying precariously as the iron-tired wheels jolted over the paving stones, until they were scolded back down by the chaperones. Followed by laughter, shouts of welcome, luck and remember this that and the other when they got settled in and were turned loose on the city, the carttrain wound on, rumbling past tall narrow houses, through increasingly crowded streets, past innumerable fountains where the houses were pushed back to leave a square free, moving gradually uphill into an area where houses were larger with scores of brilliant windowboxes and there were occasional small gardens and green spaces and the fountains were larger and more elaborate. Ahead, two hills on, a minareted white structure glittered like salt in sunlight.
Kori leaned closer to Daniel Akamarino, murmured, “We’ll be going slower when we start up the long slope ahead, you better get off then. If you want ships or work or something, keep going south, the Market is down that way and the waterfront.
“I hear you. Luck with the Lot, Kori.”
She gave him a nervous smile. “Um… She closed her hand over his wrist, her nails digging into the flesh; her voice came as a thread of sound. “Tre says we’ll be seeing you again.” She bit her lip, shook his hand when he started to speak. “Don’t say anything. It’s important. If it happens, I’ll explain then.”
“I wait on tiptoe.” He grinned at her and she pinched his wrist, then sat in silence until they started the long climb to the Yron.
He got to his feet, swung over the side of the cart, wide enough to miss the tall wheel. After a flourish and a caper and a swooping bow that drew giggles from the children and waves from the chaperones, he moved rapidly away along an alley whose curve hid the carts before he’d gone more than a few steps.
Though it was the middle of the afternoon, the Market was busy and noisy, the meat and vegetables were cleared off, their places filled with more durable goods. Daniel Akamarino drifted around it until he found the busiest lanes; he dropped into a squat beside the beggar seated at the corner of two of these. “Good pitch, this.”
The beggar blinked his single rheumy eye. “Aah.”
“Mind if I play my pipe a while? Your pitch, your coin.”
“You any good?”
“Don’t like it, stop me.”
“A will, don’t doubt, A will.”
Daniel fished out his recorder, shifted from the squat and sat cross-legged on the paving. He thought a moment, blew a tentative note or two, then began to improvise on one of the tunes the children had taught him. Several Matyssers stopped to listen and when he finished, snapped their fingers in approval and dropped coppers in the beggar’s bowl.
He shook out the recorder, slid it back into its pocket, watched as the beggar emptied his bowl into a pouch tucked deep inside the collection of rags he had wrapped about his meager body. “New in town.”
“A know it, an’t heard that way with a pipe ‘fore this. Wantin a pitch?”
“Buy it, fight for it, dice for it, what?”
A rusty chuckle. A pause while he blessed a Matysser who dropped a handful of coppers into the bowl. “Buy it, buy it, Hhn,” a jerk of a bony thumb at the Citadel looming like white doom over them, “He don’t like blood on the stones.”
“Mmm. Got a hole in my pocket.”
“There’s one or two might be willing to rent a pitch for half the take.”
“Too late for today. I’m thinking about belly and bed. Anyone round looking for a strong back and careful hands?”
“Hirin’s finished with by noon.”
Daniel sucked his teeth, wrinkled his nose. “Looks like my luck quit by noon.” He thought a minute. “Any pawnshops around? I’ve got a couple of things I could pop in a pinch.” He scratched at his stubble. “It’s pinching.’
“Grausha Kuronee in the Rakell Quarter. She an ugly old bitch,” he cackled, “don’t you tell her A said it. But she give you a fair deal.” He coughed and spat into a small noisome jar he pulled from his pocket; when he was finished, he recorked it and tucked it away. Daniel Akamarino had difficulty keeping his mouth from dropping open. Settsiwhatsisname had a strangle grip on this country for sure; he began to understand why the place was so clean. And why young Kori talked the way she did. “Tell you what,” the beggar said, “play another couple of tunes. A’ll split the coin and A’ll whistle you up a brat oo’ll run you over to Kuronee’s place.”
“Deal.” He took out the recorder, got himself settled and started on one of his liveliest airs.
Daniel Akamarino tossed the boy one of the handful of coppers he’d harvested, watched him run off, then turned to examine the shop. It was a dingy, narrow place, no window, its door set deep into the wall with an ancient sign creaking on a pole jutting out over the recess. The paint was worn off the weathered rectangle except for a few scales of sunfaded color, but the design was carved into the wood and could be traced with a little effort. A bag net with three fish. He patted a few of his pockets, frowned and wandered away.
A few streets on he came to a small greenspace swarming with children. He wandered between the games and appropriated a back corner beside a young willow. After slipping out of his vest, he sat and began exploring the zippered pockets. The vest was made from the skin of Heverdee Nightcrawlers, the more that leather was handled, the better it looked and the longer it lasted; on top of that, it was a matter of pride to those who wore such vests never to get them cleaned, so Daniel hadn’t had much incentive to dump his pockets except when he tried to find something he needed and had to fumble for it through other things that had no discernible reason for being in that pocket. He found a lot of lint and small odd objects that had no trade value but slowed his search. He sat turning them over in his fingers and smiling at the memories they evoked. It wasn’t an impressive collection, but he came up with two possibilities. A hexagonal medal, soft gold, a monster stamped into one side, a squiggle that might have been writing on the other. He frowned at it for several moments before he set it aside; he couldn’t remember where he’d picked it up and that bothered him. A ring with a starstone in it, heavy, silver, he’d worn it on his thumb a while when he was living on Abalone and thumbrings were a part of fitting in; since he didn’t really like things on his hands, he slipped it into a pocket the day he left and forgot about it until now. He put everything back but the lint and dug that into the soil under the willow roots, then leaned against the limber trunk and sat watching the children running and shouting, swinging on knotted ropes tied to a tall post-and-lintel frame, climbing over a confection of tilted poles, crossbars and nets, playing ring games and rope games and ball games, the sort of games that seemed somehow universal, he’d met them before cross species (adapted for varying numbers and sorts of limbs), cross cultures (varying degrees of competition and cooperation in the mix), ten thousand light-years apart. He smiled at them, thought about playing a little music for himself, but no, he was too comfortable as he was. The day was warm, the Owlyn Valers had fed him well at noon so he wasn’t hungry yet, he had a few coppers in his pocket and the possibility of getting more and he felt like relaxing and letting time blow past without counting the minutes.