“Who did that?” Velindre was keenly curious.
“How badly’s that poor man hurt?” countered Allin robustly. “Come on.”
She tried to force a path through the close-packed crowd but lacked both strength and height to make an impression.
“Clear the way!” Whether it was Temar’s unexpected accents or just obedience to noble command, he couldn’t tell, but at least the people moved. As he ushered Allin through to the wounded man, Temar saw another familiar figure being forced forward as the crowd retreated behind him.
“Casuel?”
“Curse the man for a fool!” The wizard’s dark eyes were wide, almost black against his shocked pallor. “I couldn’t let him die.”
Allin knelt, heedless of the dust and litter. “He’s broken both his legs.” Her hands hovered over a sort of wooden breastplate the man wore, with a deep central groove that Temar realised must have guided the rope. “We need a surgeon. I don’t want to take this off until a surgeon has checked his ribs.” The showman’s head lolled to one side, bruises already darkening beneath his tanned skin.
“Your control was a little lacking, Cas,” Velindre remarked, arms folded as she looked in, entirely composed.
“I did my best. It’s not my element,” said Casuel defensively. “You didn’t lift a finger so you can hardly criticise!” His anger rang loudly through the tense silence.
“That’s D’Olbriot’s mage.” Temar heard a frightened voice behind him start a low current of speculation.
“You get away from him! You get away from him!” A frantic girl was shoving murmuring onlookers aside. An older woman followed with a narrow-faced man dragging a wicker basket behind him. All three wore cheerful motley that mocked their dismay.
“Trebal!” the girl shrieked hysterically. She would have swept the unconscious man into her arms but Allin grabbed her shoulders, forcing her back.
“Move him now and you could kill him.” The girl stared at her in blank incomprehension. “We need a surgeon to splint his legs, to feel what other bones may be broken.”
“And who are you to say so?” the older woman demanded, twisting a gaily coloured kerchief in her work-knotted hands.
“We are mages of Hadrumal, my good lady,” said Casuel with a miserably inadequate attempt at authority. Repetition carried his words away like ripples through a pond.
“What have you done to him?” the girl screamed, trying to break free of Allin’s unexpectedly firm grip.
“Saved him from certain death!” Casuel replied indignantly.
“Didn’t do a very good job,” spat the older woman, kneeling and running gentle hands over the senseless body.
“You would rather he had died?” Temar asked angrily.
The woman looked up, face graven with the marks of a hard life. “This is all your fault, you and this wizard.”
“What?” Temar and Casuel spoke in the same breath.
“You’re D’Alsennin, aren’t you?” The man stepped forward. “You were raised from the dead by some old sorcery.”
A shudder of consternation ran through the crowd. Temar tried for a reassuring smile. “No one was dead, we merely slept beneath enchantments.”
“You used your magics against Trebal, I reckon.” The man stepped close, hatchet face cunning. “That’s what made him fall.”
“He’s only a hedge wizard, no threat to anyone.” The woman gestured at the motionless Trebal, speaking to the crowd. “But mages don’t like to see rivals, do they? Not mages from Hadrumal.”
“No, that’s not true—” Growing unease made the hairs on the back of Temar’s neck prickle.
“That charlatan’s no more mage than a stick of wood,” Casuel objected heatedly.
The man stared at Temar. “Your sorceries ruined his show, that fall could have him crippled or dead. Who’s going to keep his wife and family in bread?”
The girl looked up, face vacant in grief. The older woman silenced her with a hand on one shoulder, fleshless fingers digging in hard.
“Does the House of D’Alsennin make recompense?” The man raised his voice to carry clear to the Spring Gate and to the steps of the Vintner’s Exchange.
The crowd rustled with expectation as the older woman fell to her knees, wailing and holding her head in her hands. “How will we eat? We’ll be turned out, all of us, the children, the baby, we’ll be begging in the gutters.”
Temar wondered if anyone else noticed the pause before the girl joined the lamentations, albeit with slightly less expertise. “This is ridiculous!”
By some quirk of ill fate, he spoke just as the weeping women paused to draw breath, his words loud in the silence. Affront stirred the crowd to new whispers.
“I think we should leave.” Velindre sounded calm enough but Temar could see her concern. “Shall I clear a path?”
“No!” Temar didn’t doubt the blonde mage could do it but he already had enough to explain to Camarl. He looked back at the Vintner’s Exchange. “Aedral mar nidralae, Gelaia,” he murmured under his breath. “Gelaia, can you hear me?” He squinted over the heads of the crowd, seeing a sudden stir convulse the noble group. “No, forgive me, you cannot reply. Please can you summon a coach to get us out of here?” He bowed curtly to the belligerent man. “We will be on our way. You had best come with us, Master Casuel.”
“I can’t,” protested the mage in confusion. “You set me to watch Den Thasnet.”
“But the man’s injured,” objected Allin.
“And he’s their responsibility.” Velindre nodded at the wailing women.
“You don’t get out of it so easy, you cold-eyed bitch. Not when you’re the ones made him fall!” The man whirled round, hands outstretched, appealing to the crowd. “Are you going to let them get away with this?”
“Come on, Allin.” Temar forced her gently to her feet with a hand under her elbow. “If they will not take your help, you cannot force it on them.”
She shut her mouth in a mutinous line but drew close to Temar under the hostile gazes from all sides. Velindre continued surveying the mob with a regally icy gaze while Casuel knotted nervous hands together, looking all around. Temar wondered what he was looking for, but before he could ask the man in motley began ranting at them with fresh anger.
“Got nothing to say for yourself? Leave a man dying in the dirt and don’t even open your purse for his widow and orphans?”
Temar ignored the taunts, looking over to the Vintner’s Exchange, wondering how long it would take for Gelaia to summon a coach for them. She had better hurry, he thought nervously as he was jostled from behind. The restive crowd was drawing in, swayed by the charade being played out by the motley trio.
“Keep your eye on that man in brown, with grey hair, next to the woman in yellow.” Casuel moved to Temar’s side, face intent.
“Why?” Temar found the man after a few moments.
“He seems to have some hold over our young friend,” the mage hissed urgently. “They met earlier and that one was telling our friend what to do.”
Temar acknowledged Casuel with a nod and smiled reassurance he didn’t quite feel at Allin.
“What are you whispering?” demanded the sharp-faced man. “What are you planning?”
The older woman looked up from her repetitive lamentations, dry eyes suspicious. “You don’t leave here without paying us something.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” said Casuel coldly. “You owe me that wretch’s life!”
“Which will be lost,, if you don’t get a surgeon to him,” cried Allin.
“Shut your mouth, whore,” spat the thin-faced man.
“Shut your own before I break your teeth,” retorted Temar without thinking. Hooves clattered on the cobbles behind him and he sighed with relief. The crowd shifted, the mood growing uglier as the coachman’s hoarse shouts urged them out of the way, the brassy note of the horn sounding above rising abuse. When the horses appeared between milling figures, the animals were tossing their heads, eyes rimmed white with panic.