Rainfall marked his pointed stare at Wistala. “Poor manners, so glad was I to see your face and get the news. This drakka is Wistala, the rarest gem I’ve ever met on four feet. She’s brought me back into the world, from hair-tip to foot-pad, and saved much more than my lands.”
Wistala preferred that Rainfall’s effusive manners remain directed at courtesy, as she felt little liking for praise that to her mind she hadn’t earned. “If you’re old friends with Rainfall, you must know that he does go on sometimes,” Wistala said.
Ragwrist danced in an elegant sort of balancing bow that put Wistala in mind of a goose drinking. “Such Elvish!”
“She’s gifted with tongues. Her Parl is intelligible, though the palatals sound a bit loud.
“I was hoping you’d set up about the new inn near the bridge,” Rainfall suggested. “The owner is our good friend, and if you’d send your criers about, he’d welcome the chance to serve visitors.”
Ragwrist sniffed the air about Wistala, looked as though he was going to say something, but turned back to Rainfall. “Of course. Assuming the troll stays west of the road, that is.”
“The troll is dead. Wistala’s doing.”
“This is news! Oh, we must have some wine and hear about this.”
“Shall we meet inside in a dwar-hour?”
“Let me say but a word to my lead gargant-dwarf, and then we shall drink. But quick! If we are to perform, I must attend as we encamp.”
“May I see the show?” Wistala asked.
“Nothing would please me better,” Ragwrist replied. “Provided you stay downwind, if I may abjectly beg your pardon. We have horses, and they are not used to a dragon’s airs.”
Wistala did watch from downwind, and enjoyed herself immensely.
They placed the three wagons in a line in the fields next to the inn, with tenting flanking wagons to somewhat conceal the behind.
The wagons themselves unfolded on one side so as to make a linked stage, with poles that Rainfall told her were as tall as ship-masts set at either end with a cable between. Balancing acts, exhibitions of swordfighting, and even a comical dwarf negotiated the line from one pole to the other with some skill in the case of the former, and a great many shrieks of fear and expostulations from the latter.
The dwarf wavered midway, trying to prove that he could do anything an elf could and now apparently regretting it, for he kissed his hand and then slapped his behind with a ribald oath in preparation. At the next step he fell to the joined screams of the crowd and disappeared for one eyeblink into the stage with a crash that struck Wistala as coming an instant too soon. But the dwarf bounced back up, high in the air, then came down on the stage with a loud thud.
“Dwarves always bounce back!” he roared to the crowd.
On the stages men threw axes in such a way that they cut plums from branches, which they then threw to the children; hominid females in clothing so scanty that Wistala wondered how they avoided lung infections danced or sang or jumped and turned and tumbled so high, it seemed they were made of air and sunshine.
In between the shows the dwarves brought a gargant out for the amazement of all, and one of the dwarf handlers let the gargants rear up and put an enormous foot on each shoulder as he knelt, then with shaking legs he came to his feet.
The underdressed hominids came out again, riding horses around the crowd as those at the back suddenly had the best view and others fought for position. They stood on their horses’ backs, or leaped between mounts, or dropped off the sides of the horses and vaulted from one side to the other, and finished by rearing their horses up and having them turn circles.
Wistala wondered if Rainfall’s mate had once performed such tricks from under a few wisps of thin cloth.
With the shows ended, Ragwrist came out and announced that any in the crowd could have their fortune read—“If you dare!”—in the blue tent by the famous Intanta, possessor of a shard of the seeing-star, which fell to earth in the days of the dragons and had been the object of no less than six wars.
Others could visit the green tent, where the finest crafts from around the Hypatian Empire and beyond even the Golden Road in Wa’ah could be found—“Happy is the wife possessed of even the smallest bauble bought or traded from our display!”—at bargains merchant-houses couldn’t afford to give thanks to the need to keep a roof overhead.
“So what do you think of the circus, Wistala?” Rainfall asked from Stog’s back as Stog’s ears followed the pounding hooves around the audience.
“Delightful! I’ve never seen happier people,” Wistala said. “They all perform as though driven by joy, rather than the coins flung at them.”
Rainfall leaned down. “Some of the coins are thrown by the circus men themselves, to give others in the audience the example. They are more often paid in eggs and cheese. But I am pleased you enjoyed yourself. Ragwrist is one of my oldest and dearest friends—though a sharp rascal, as you will learn.”
Wistala wondered what the last portended. Rainfall sometimes preceded action with an assortment of exploratory statements to judge reaction, like a cook tasting broth as the ingredients went in.
Many of the performers continued their exhibitions, informally of course, in Jessup’s tavern that evening. Rainfall held a dinner in his long dining room for Ragwrist and a few of his “Old Guard”—the expression in Parl was one of Rainfall’s, but Ragwrist seemed to know who he meant.
They gathered around two mismatched tables covered by a single ill-fitting cloth, sitting on chairs that had been brought in from other rooms—Rainfall’s better dining furniture had been sold off in his years of want, and there were candelabras under the fitting for the missing chandelier.
Other than Ragwrist, who had cast off his colorful coat for a plain black long-shirt, were Intanta the fortune-teller—a toothless old woman who turned her food into mash, the dwarf Brok, the long-bearded lead gargant-driver, who stuck his facial hair in a special sleeve to keep the food off it, and a horse trainer named Dsossa, whose tight-bound white hair seemed brittle as ice, though otherwise she looked human.
Dsossa and Rainfall seemed to share some special understanding, for they clasped warmly on her entry and touched hands frequently throughout dinner.
Wistala, who had eaten earlier, sat at the far end of the table and crunched the others’ fishheads and tails—smoked fish from the fall’s salmon run up the Whitewater River had been served—as they finished their meals and started on their wines. As they reminisced, she learned that Brok, in his wild youth, had been judged by Rainfall after he was caught breaking into a bakery to steal food. Rainfall offered him one year of quarrying stone or two years indentured to Ragwrist.
Of Intanta she learned nothing, for the old woman kept silent save for a polite comment or two. But as the conversation echoed events she’d never seen and faces she’d never known, she began to doze.
She awoke to a rattle before her. Someone had rolled a coin down the table so that it dropped off the edge before her nose.
“Yes?” Wistala asked, as wide awake as she’d been deep asleep a moment before.
“A coin for a good story, green daughter of the skies and the earth’s deepest flame,” Ragwrist said. “I want to hear how you disposed of the troll!”
“I hardly did it alone,” Wistala said. “And I’ll tell without asking for payment. I might as well ask for money to look at me.”
Ragwrist laughed, and Wistala liked the easy sound of it. “Ho! Our ears are quite closed to that line of argument. Rainfall says coin aids your digestion or somesuch. There’ll be another if I’m well entertained.”
Wistala told it again, imitating the noises as she had with the courier dwarves. She found she took less pleasure from remembering the events and more from her audience’s reaction. She was rewarded with a coin from Ragwrist and another from Brok, and they soon joined the others within, leaving Wistala in a contented mood.
“I have a suggestion, Wistala,” Rainfall said. “Will you hear it?”
“I’ll hear anything from you,” Wistala said.
Rainfall looked around the table and got nods from everyone save Intanta, who dozed. “I’m of the opinion you should travel for a while with Ragwrist’s circus.”
She didn’t have to think about it. “I can neither ride nor clown. I can’t imagine what use I’d be.”
“Will you hear my reasons?” Rainfall said.
She tired of having her head raised above table edge—she became light-headed if she went nose-up too long—and approached the party and wound herself into a circle next to the table. “Of course.”
Rainfall brought two fingers together under his chin. “First: Hammar now has a grudge against you. Your life is all that stands between him and possession of Mossbell, its lands, and the bridge. He’s not above hiring even the Dragonblade. He fears no murder charge.”
Two more fingers came together. “Second: in happier days it was the custom, as part of a High Hypatian’s education, to tour the cities of the Empire, the Inland Ocean, and such lands on the borders as are of interest. I’ve begun your education with the few poor volumes left in my library, but I want you to become worldly in the best sense of the word, and love the greater Order as I do. You cannot travel in the normal manner—once I’d thought of taking you on a few brief journeys myself, but since—well, I won’t repeat the obvious.”