Shadow

Poldarn hadn't thought of that, mostly because it wasn't a very convincing explanation. The place felt empty.

'We'd better ask somebody instead of guessing,' Copis said. 'Quick, ask that woman over there.'

Poldarn pulled a face. 'You ask her,' he said.

'Oh for… Excuse me.' The woman stopped and looked round. 'Excuse me,' Copis went on, 'but where is everybody?'

The woman looked at her. 'Where's who?' she said.

'Everybody. The people who live here.'

The woman shook her head and walked away. 'Just my luck,' Copis said, not lowering her voice. 'I have to ask the village idiot.'

'Maybe they aren't used to strangers,' Poldarn suggested, without any real enthusiasm.

'Maybe they're just ignorant,' Copis replied sharply. 'Anyway, we're here; we might as well set up the stall, just in case. They've got a temple, perhaps they're all in there, singing hymns.'

Poldarn listened for a moment. 'Pretty quiet singing if they are,' he said.

The stall was little more than the side of the cart, which was hinged and swung down; two posts for the awning went in the canopy-rod holes, with two more rods leaning forward at forty-five degrees to support the front. All that was needed after that was a trestle table and trays for sample buttons. The rest of the stock was in jars and barrels in the back of the cart. They took their time setting up, to give the word a chance to spread. When they couldn't spin it out any longer, they sat on the bed of the cart and surveyed the empty streets.

'If we're quick,' Copis said, a short while later, 'we could be in Forial by early evening.'

'Where's Forial?'

'Next village down the road from here. I don't know anything about it except the name, but it's got to be better than this.'

Poldarn shook his head. 'I can't be bothered,' he said. 'Besides, you never know, it could pick up. I've always fancied running a stall must be a lot like decoying rooks-you know, where you find where they're feeding, hunker down out of sight and put out a few dead birds stuck up on sticks to draw the others in. Then when they pitch you pick them off with a sling.'

Copis clicked her tongue. 'So far,' she said, 'I don't get the similarity. Or are you saying we should kill and impale the next person we see? The idea does appeal to me, I'll grant you, but not on commercial grounds.'

Poldarn grinned. 'The point is,' he said, 'you can sit there in your ditch or under your tree for the best part of the day and never see anything; and then, just when you've finally decided to give it away and go home, suddenly the sky'll turn black with rooks, and next thing you know you've run out of slingstones. Patience is the key to this lark, you wait and see.'

Copis turned thoughtful for a while, as Poldarn fiddled with the trays of buttons. Eventually she looked up and said, 'Where do you get the dead ones from?'

'Sorry?'

'The dead ones you put out in sticks, for decoys,' she said. 'Where do you get them from?'

'They're the ones you killed the previous day,' Poldarn explained.

'All right,' Copis conceded. 'But in that case, how do you start off? I mean, if you need a dozen dead rooks before you can start killing rooks, how do you kill a dozen rooks in the first place?'

'No idea,' Poldarn said. 'I suppose I must know the answer, since I seem to be pretty well clued up about the subject, but I can't remember offhand.'

'Fine,' Copis said. 'In that case, let's change the subject. The thought of dead rooks really isn't one I want to hold in my mind for very long.'

Noon came and passed, during which time two old women walked past the stall, apparently without noticing that it was there. Copis made a point of standing up and staring at them as they passed, explaining that she wanted to see if they were wearing any buttons. 'They were, too,' she added. 'Which makes it odder still. Unless there's a special tree in these parts that grows buttons instead of nuts.'

Not long after that a young woman with a baby in her arms walked by the stall, stopped and leaned over to look at one of the trays. Poldarn and Copis snapped to attention like a couple of farm dogs hearing a bowl scraping on the cobbles.

'Can we help at all?' Copis cooed.

'I was just looking,' the woman replied, taking a step backwards as though she'd been caught out doing something wicked. 'Very nice,' she added.

Copis smiled at her. 'Anything in particular you liked the look of?' she asked.

The woman hesitated and glanced down at the baby, which was fast asleep. 'Well,' she said, hesitating. 'Those ones there, the quite big ones with the rim on them.'

'Gorgeous, aren't they?' Copis replied, exaggerating rather. 'Made in Sansory, Potto house. You won't find better this side of the bay.'

It was clear that the woman was tempted, and that she was fighting the temptation. 'Those other ones,' she said tentatively, 'the little ones on the bottom row. Are they cheaper or dearer than the big ones?'

'All the same price,' Poldarn said quickly before Copis frightened her off. In his mind he had a picture of a black bird putting its wings back and circling in a glide towards him. 'Two quarters a dozen.'

'I don't know,' the woman replied. 'Shouldn't the smaller ones be cheaper?'

Poldarn shook his head. 'If anything they should be more expensive,' he said. 'Harder to make, you see. Fiddly.'

'Oh.' The woman rubbed her cheekbones thoughtfully with thumb and forefinger. 'If I take two dozen, would it be cheaper?'

'No,' Copis said. 'Sorry.'

'Oh. Have you got any others, or is this everything?'

That took Poldarn rather by surprise, since he couldn't begin to imagine what need there could possibly be for the two hundred and forty different styles of buttons mounted on the display board. 'Sorry,' he said, 'but that's the lot. What sort of thing were you looking for?'

The woman shrugged. 'I won't know what it is till I see it,' she replied. 'Thanks very much.'

Poldarn was too bewildered to persevere, and let it go with a smile and a dip of the head. Copis waited till the woman was about fifty yards away then stuck her tongue out in her general direction. 'Time-waster,' she explained.

'She never had any intention of buying any buttons,' Poldarn said.

'Of course not. Just passing the time. Lots of people do it, I have absolutely no idea why.' She sighed. 'This is completely pointless. Let's fold up and get out of here.'

Poldarn glanced up at the sky. 'You know,' he said, 'we've left it a bit late if we want to reach that other place by dark.'

'I'd rather sleep in the cart than stay here.'

Poldarn could see her point. But packing up would mean having to get up and exert himself, and he was feeling lazy. 'No,' he said, 'let's stick to the original plan. Stay here the rest of the day and push on to Forial tomorrow.'

'Suit yourself,' Copis said. 'But you can mind the stall on your own. I'm going to take a nap in the cart.'

Poldarn couldn't see any objections to that, so he nodded. Copis climbed up behind him, laid a blanket in the corner of the cart bed, and went to sleep. She had a knack of being able to sleep at will that he found both remarkable and enviable.

Some time later a little girl, perhaps nine years old, wandered up and stood staring at the buttons as if they were six-headed goats. Apart from the time-waster's baby, she was the first child he'd seen in town. There was something about the way she was standing and gawping that told him she was neither willing nor able to buy buttons, but Poldarn could see no reason why she should be a complete dead loss.

'Hey,' he said.

The girl looked at him and said nothing.

'Come here,' he said. 'I want to ask you a question.'

The little girl scowled at him. 'My mummy says not to talk to strange men.'

'You should always listen to your mother. But I'm not strange.'

The little girl assessed him. It didn't seem to take her very long. 'Yes you are,' she said. 'You're old and ugly and you look like a crow.'