The Windsingers. Megan Lindholm

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       TWO

      The boy worked his way through the breathless market stalls, his bare feet raising puffs of hot dust. The cries of hawkers and the muted arguments of the bargainers only made the day hotter. How could folk trade on a day such as this? Yet they did, and he worked at his own small craft, the carrying of messages through the congested town. Too soon, he knew, the sudden storms of autumn would come. Then he would long for hot dry days like this as he slogged through rain and mud. He licked his dusty lips and wriggled through a knot of farmers.

      He was in the hiring end of the market now. Harvest workers stood about, shovels and scythes resting beside them, hoping some late harvester would come seeking them. But it had been a dry year, as the Windsingers had threatened. Most farmers had found it short work to harvest the paltry crops the earth had let forth. The boy sought no harvest workers.

      Beyond them were the teams for hire. Teamsters stood restively in this shadeless place, trying to keep the buzzing green flies from stinging their pawing, shuffling beasts. The boy skirted the tossing horns of a team of oxen, and made a quick jump away from a yellow-toothed nag that snapped at him. The teamster laughed, baring teeth as stained as his animal’s. It was not hard to spot the one he sought.

      Her tall painted wagon stuck up high above the buckboards and dog carts of the others, but the hind end of her wagon was flat and bare, awaiting a cargo to haul. Her team did not stand and sweat in harness, but were tethered in what small shade the wagon offered. The teamster herself dozed on the high seat. The boy lost all respect for her. A careless fool, to doze thus in the middle of a busy market day when every second person on the street was a thief. He stood in the center of the street and looked up at her. Her voluminous blue skirts made her look even smaller than she was. Her embroidered blouse was damped with sweat. The brown hair that fell to her shoulders curled away from her forehead in damp tendrils.

      His bare feet were soundless in the deep dust of the street. He reached up a hand to tug at her skirt hem. Her green eyes opened and fixed him with a stare when his hand still hovered by her skirt. ‘Cat eyes!’ hissed the boy, and jerked his hand away without making the intended tug.

      ‘You wanted something of me?’ Ki asked, ignoring his strange greeting.

      ‘Not I, teamster. I am but sent to say, “If you wish to work for fair wages and a good client, bring your wagon to the black stone building, at the end of the road that runs past the smithy shops and cask makers.” Have you any questions, teamster?’

      ‘Who lives in the black building, boy?’

      The boy squirmed. ‘I do not know.’

      ‘What am I to haul?’

      ‘I do not know that, either.’

      Ki looked down to the upturned tanned face, at the worn tunic dangerously short on the sprouting youth. ‘Why do you ask if I have any questions, if you have no answers?’

      The boy shrugged. ‘It is what we say, after we have given the message. In case you did not understand what was said.’

      ‘I see.’ Ki fished in the flat purse at her belt and came up with one of the copper shards she had received in change from her last dru. She had spent it this morning for grain for herself and her team. She doubted the copper was enough for the customary tip, but it was all she had. She flipped it through the air and the boy caught it adroitly. He started to slip it into his pouch, but hesitated unwillingly. ‘The one who sent me paid all in advance, even the receiver’s tip. She said she doubted you would have enough.’ He tossed the small bit of metal up to Ki, but she batted it back to him with a quick flip of her hand. ‘Keep it, boy. I, too, am afflicted with an honest nature, and know how seldom one is rewarded for it.’

      The boy gave her a flash of white teeth in a surprised grin. He darted off with a flash of white buttocks before the teamster could change her mind.

      Ki stretched, and wiped a layer of dust and sweat from her forehead. Clambering from the seat, she began to coax the great grey horses into their harness. She wished she knew more about her mysterious patron, including how she knew Ki was perilously low on coin. She could no longer be fussy about whom she worked for. She didn’t like to think that others might know that. It attracted hard bargains and semi-legal hauls.

      Sigmund stood stoically in his place but Sigurd leaned and shifted as she strove to arrange leather and fasten buckles. He had grown fractious from three boring days of standing in the hot market waiting for someone to hire them. Ki jerked the final strap flat. ‘By nightfall, I’ll have you too tired for such tricks,’ she warned the great grey animal. He snorted skeptically.

      She climbed up on the box and gave the reins a flip, easing the wagon forward. She edged it out into the center of the street, and then stood on the seat, shouting for the right of way. Hawkers and buyers gave way before her grudgingly. The wagon rumbled slowly through the market amid a chorus of curses at the dust it raised. Ki set her jaw and shook the reins slightly to encourage the team. Sweat began to stain their coats a darker grey.

      Finding the street of smithy shops was easy. The clang of hammers falling on red metal was a sound that carried far on a hot day. Ki pitied the apprentices working bellows to blow coals red to white. Stifling waves of heat rolled out from the sheds to assault her and her team as they plodded past. She was grateful when the smithies gave way to barrel makers. But she passed the last of the cask makers’ shops and no black building was in sight. Instead, her wagon creaked past tottering and empty wooden buildings, where not even beggars moved. This dead section of a busy town bothered her, until she passed the dried-up public well. In a climate of seasonal extremes, she, too, would wish to live by a ready source of water.

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