Soldier’s Boy had regained a good deal of his weight. He was still not the magnificent Great Man he had been, but his size was respectable. The height I had inherited from my father benefited him there. He was a head taller than most of the Specks I had encountered. The height coupled with his newly recovered weight made him appear bigger than he was. Yet his satisfaction was tempered with regret as he spread the blanket out on the earth inside the lodge and began to load Lisana’s treasure onto it. Weight alone would not win him the standing he needed. He’d have to make sacrifices. Likari watched him as he lifted each prize from its concealment under the moss and put it gently on the blanket. When he was finished, he carefully rolled the blanket in such a way that the jewelry and other treasures were securely trapped inside it. He picked it up and heaved himself to his feet with a sigh. “It’s time to go. Are you ready?”
“Where did you get all those beautiful things?”
“They used to belong to Lisana.”
The boy looked extremely uncertain. “It’s dangerous to touch things that once belonged to a Great One.”
“Unless you are the rightful heir to them. Lisana left these things to me. They are mine now, to do with as I wish. To use as I judge best to use them.”
The boy stared up at him silently. Soldier’s Boy said nothing more to him about it. I was once again struck by the differences in how I would have regarded a six-year-old boy and how Soldier’s Boy treated Likari. He did not make allowances for the boy’s youth or small size or lesser strength. He did not condescendingly explain his answers to the boy’s childish questions. He simply gave him tasks, and expected that the boy would do his best to meet the requirements. When he failed due to size or age or strength, he did not rebuke him, but merely accepted that the boy would have to grow into them. It was a very different concept of childhood. I wondered if I would have been happier to have been a Speck child.
I had little time to ponder the question. Soldier’s Boy took Likari’s hand. “Are you ready?” he asked the child, and without waiting for an answer, he set off.
I was beginning to become familiar with his magic. I comprehended more of the quick-walk than I had before. He drew on Lisana’s memories of the journey to the Trading Place. He thought of the passage there, and in his mind he ran quickly through every impression of the journey that she could recall, in order. A man can think of the journey to a place much more swiftly than his legs can carry him. We traveled at a speed somewhere between the two, not as fast as his mind nor as slow as his legs. Every time he blinked, I saw a different section of our journey before us.
And when he stopped after what seemed no more than a pleasant walk, we looked out on a wide vista of shale beach. Beyond it, huge waves crashed against the shore, and beyond them was a limitless expanse of water. It was hard for me to comprehend. The water stretched as far as the horizon, a deep blue touched with tips of white. Light bounced from the water up into my eyes. And the sound of the waves crashing on the beach! It filled my ears so that I felt I could hear nothing else. The smell was as engulfing. Its salty musk spoke more of life than even the forest scents had. I had heard tales of the ocean before, but they had not prepared me for this. I could have gazed on it for hours, trying to grasp the immensity of it. No matter how long I live, I do not think I will ever forget that moment. Many small boats were pulled up on the shore. Ships of a type I’d never seen before rode at anchor on the distant slow swell. Some flew banners, but I didn’t recognize any of them. Truly, I stood facing the shores of a different world. Was this what good King Troven dreamed of? Bringing his road here to join Gernia to these trading vessels?
Soldier’s Boy was undazzled by any of it. “I came too far!” he muttered to himself, and then turned round. Behind us, on a gentle rise beyond the shale beach, was a market town such as I had never seen. I’d expected that the Trading Place would be some sort of crossroads or temporary encampment of several tribes of people. Instead, I looked on a gathering of folk that was easily the equal of the Dark Evening carnival in Old Thares. All sorts of structures—some tentlike, some built of stone, and others hastily constructed of driftwood—formed a long line that paralleled the beachfront. People in all manner of dress and undress wandered the market contentedly. Smoke rose from cooking fires, and despite the sound of the surf at my back, I heard sheep bleating, musical instruments playing, and above it all, the clattering of a thousand tongues. I stared, as astonished by this sight as I had been by the ocean. If this was the ebb of the trading time, what had it been at its fullness?
Beside Soldier’s Boy, Likari put his hands over the top of his head. He crouched down, squinting his eyes. “Too much sun, too much sun!” he wailed.
In the same moment, Soldier’s Boy became aware of an itching, burning sensation on his shoulders and the top of his head. Stooping, he seized Likari’s hand. Before the boy could even stand, he was dragged back what seemed like two steps. When next my eyes focused, we were standing in the shelter of an evergreen forest. Peering through the trees, I could see the Trading Place. A long gentle slope of open land led down to it. All around us were the remains of temporary shelters and old campfires. I knew without even thinking about it that this was the area where the Specks customarily camped when they came to trade. It was deserted. The ashes in the fire pits had been rained on. “There you are!” Olikea’s voice came from behind him. Soldier’s Boy turned around. Behind him was a temporary shelter of woven screens. Olikea emerged from the doorway, looking annoyed with him. Despite her grim expression, I felt his mouth go slack at the sight of her. Never had I seen her arrayed as she was now.
She had dressed herself against the chill wind. I had seen her naked a thousand times; why did covering her body suddenly make her so alluring? Why did it suddenly awaken my own awareness that I was all but naked? She wore what would have been a simple dress on a Gernian woman. It was blue and came down to her ankles. She had paired it with a red apron with white ruffles and embroidered cherries on it. The long sleeves of her dress were full, and the lace cuffs drooped around her hands. On her head, she wore a yellow bonnet elaborately decorated with lace, ribbons, and feathers. Her long hair spilled from under it and poured down her back and around her shoulders. A red silk scarf was loosely wrapped around her throat. As I stared at her, she took little black fingerless mitts from an embroidered green silk bag and drew them onto her hands. “I have been waiting here for you since last night.”
On a Gernian woman, the mixed bits of wardrobe would have been laughable. On this wild Speck woman, they seemed an elaborate costume worthy of a barbarian queen. Necklace upon necklace of glass and ceramic beads circled her neck. Her left arm was heavy with bracelets of beads and bangles of silver and copper from her wrist to her elbow. Her face was painted with cosmetics in an elaborate parody of a Gernian woman.
“Why are you dressed like that?” Soldier’s Boy managed to ask.
“I came to trade. If I do not show what I have to trade, other women will not want it.” She gestured at herself. “These things from the Gernians, we are the only folk who have them to trade. If I wear them as if I intend to keep them for myself, others will offer a better price to persuade me to part with them. Besides, I like how they cover me from the sun.” She lifted a pink frilled parasol and carefully popped it open. Likari yelped with surprise and delight.
“You are beautiful,” Soldier’s Boy said, and I was surprised at how heartfelt his words were.
“Yes,” she agreed. “And I am glad to see that you have managed to refill your skin a bit. You are not as magnificent as you were, but at least you will not shame me.”
“Have you been down to the Trading Place already?” he asked her, ignoring her chide.
“Luckily for you, I have.” She gestured at her shelter. “Likari, there are garments for both of you in there. Bring them out.”
The boy gave a squeak of anticipation and scuttled into the shelter. In a moment, he emerged. An immense fold of striped cloth filled his arms. He brought it to me and then shook out a long tunic of rabbit skin. He tugged it on over his head and gave a sigh of relief. I chided myself for not realizing how chilled he had been. “Do I have shoes?” he asked anxiously.
“You will not really need them until the snow falls.” She dismissed his concern. “Well?” She turned her attention to me. “Get dressed so we can go to trade. Only beggars come to the trading fair ungarbed as if it were summer. A Great One should be wearing furs and necklaces. But at least you shall not look as if you are completely unrespected.”
Soldier’s Boy shook out the garment. It was made of wool or something very like it, with alternating stripes of blue, brown, and red. There was little shape to it; when he held it up, it looked like a large rectangle of fabric, with a hole for my head and two more for my arms. “Put it on, put it on!” Olikea urged me, and then impatiently helped pull it over my head. It was large and came all the way to my feet. It left my arms bare. I had not realized how chill the day was until my flesh was shielded from it. “The stripes make you look very fat,” Olikea said with great approval. “And see, it is loose. Plenty of room for you to grow big again. When it is tight on your belly, you will look magnificent. But for now it makes you look like a man of substance.”
Likari had vanished into her shelter again. He emerged with two wide-brimmed hats woven from bark strips and a fat pot of something greasy and dark red. It wasn’t food. As Soldier’s Boy watched, the lad dipped two fingers into the pot, scooping up some of the stuff and then busily smeared it down one of his arms. It went on thick and brownish-red, like a good coat of paint. “This will keep the sun from scorching me,” he said with relief.
“Do not forget to coat the tops of your feet,” Olikea warned us.
Soldier’s Boy was expecting to put on his own paint, but Olikea motioned impatiently for him to sit down. She stripped off her gloves, pushed back her lacy cuffs, and then applied the paint to me with a practiced hand. She did not merely smear it on as Likari had. She worked carefully and skillfully, swiftly marking swirls and stars into the thickly applied pigment. When she was finished, the decorative markings went from my shoulders to my wrist. “There,” she said, obviously pleased with her work. “Now you are fit to be seen. I have spoken of you, as you bade me. I said I would bring you soon to trade, so folk will be watching for you to come. A pity that you have nothing of worth to trade. You shall be little better than a beggar at the Place.”
“But he is rich!” Likari exclaimed. “He has brought the wealth of three kin-clans rolled up in the blanket. Beads and jewels and ornaments such as I have never seen!”
“What! Let me see!” Astonishment and avarice warred in her eyes.
He had not planned to unveil his wealth until he was at the Trading Place. Soldier’s Boy had thought that a sudden show of it would stun my beholders. As he slowly unrolled the blanket to display row after row of dazzling treasure, Olikea nearly fainted with ecstasy. “Where did you get it?” she demanded to know.
“From my mentor. Lisana taught me in the other place. She made me her heir. This is her wealth, rightfully come to me.”
“Lisana’s hoard!” Olikea exclaimed. “I’d heard tales of it. Some said that she never had it, others that she found a way to take it into death with her. Most believe it was stolen from her lodge by an honorless one, and that the thief took it to her death with her when she drowned trying to cross a river to escape the bad luck such treasure brings.”
“I told you it was bad luck!” Likari shrilled excitedly.
“Not if it is truly his. Oh, this, this piece is beyond value. You must not trade this; you will never get the likes of it again. And this, no, this is not for trade. I will wear this, and all will envy that I am your feeder. And these, oh, such ivory! These you must wear yourself.”
Soldier’s Boy felt a sudden pang of something. Jealousy from Lisana’s shade? Anger that Olikea would flaunt what Lisana could no longer wear? He held my face slack against it, pondering, and did not resist as Olikea lifted his hand, and slid heavy bangles of gold, ivory, silver, and inscribed horn over my wrist. The weight felt peculiar to me: no Gernian man would have adorned himself this way.
She was not finished. She exclaimed in dismay that so many of the necklaces had come unstrung. “We shall not even show these things. People will try to trade for them a bead, two beads at a time, giving up nothing but trinkets in return. No, these we will save for another time, when they will fetch what they are truly worth. This winter, I will restring them for you.”
When she came to the fertility figurine, she gave a gasp. She touched the ivory baby with one fingertip, as if expecting it to stir to sudden life. After a long moment, she took a deep shuddering breath. “This is the stuff of legend. With this, I think, we will make you a Great One to stand among the greatest of Great Ones.” Her voice shook and her face had paled around her markings. She took the scarf she had been wearing around her neck and carefully wrapped the baby in it as if it were a bunting and set it aside. She looked up at Soldier’s Boy, gave him a smile like the sun rising, and then went back to her sorting.
She crouched over the blanket of treasures like a greedy magpie thinking of snatching up shiny things. I felt Soldier’s Boy’s resentment of her mercenary attitude even as he gritted his teeth and accepted her expertise. Keeping these things would not bring Lisana back, nor would it save her tree. If parting with the treasure was what he must do to gain power among the People, then that was what he would do.
So he held his tongue as she decked him with ornamentation. She adorned herself and even the boy. She had woven bags with her that she had used to transport her trading goods to the fair. Now she sorted his wealth into them, some to keep, others to repair, some to trade easily and some to reserve for those capable of being provoked to bid against each other. The ivory child went gently into the most ornamented bag, and she surrounded it with the most valuable of the treasures. She hummed and chuckled as she did so, obviously well satisfied that her Great One was already profiting her.
She had him sit while she combed and dressed his hair with a sweet-smelling oil. She changed the order of the bracelets on his arm so that they would contrast better with one another. She gave the boy a few of the flawed or cracked beads so that he might do some of his own trading. Finally she pronounced herself satisfied and they set off for the Trading Place.
The shady hat and the paint worked well enough. The light was still a bit unpleasant but not overwhelming. The wide-brimmed hat sheltered his face and eyes. Likari wanted to run ahead and she did not forbid it, nor tell him when or where he must find them again. Again, I marveled at the difference in how the People treated their children. She assumed he’d have the sense to come back after he’d traded his beads away, and left the work of finding us to him. As Soldier’s Boy’s glance took in the size of the fair and the milling folk that populated it, I had doubts about her wisdom. Her next words shocked me.
“A pity that we have missed the peak of the trading. There were twice the tents and booths here two weeks ago, I have heard. Most of the Sea Folk and the Coastal Ones have already departed. They wished to be home before the storms of autumn grow strong.”
“Twice as many people?”
“Of course. As summer ends, the winds bring the traders from the south. For a short time, their ships can anchor and their small boats come ashore. But soon the storms of winter will scour these beaches. Before that happens, both ships and traders will be gone from here. The Trading Place will be deserted until next autumn.” She paused and looked at him severely. “Because you have delayed us we will have only a few days to do our trading. The most unique goods are probably long gone. But some say these are the best days to trade. People are more desperate to make a bargain. Or so I have heard. We shall see.”
Throughout the morning and into the afternoon, Olikea proved her value a dozen times over. She was a shrewd trader, moving easily from aggressive to reluctant as needed to strike the best bargain. At first, Soldier’s Boy tried to ask questions or even make offers, but a sharp sign from Olikea warned him to keep silent. I soon realized that his silence was not a mark of his subservience to her; rather it announced that he was too important to be involved in these trivial details of trade. Briefly, he chafed over letting her make the bargains, but soon came to see it was to his advantage to give way to her. She made ridiculous offers, argued persuasively, appeared uninterested in counteroffers, and then, with a smile, would be securing their latest bargain.
She was sage in how much of his wealth she showed, and to whom. I noted that she used up the lesser pieces first, acquiring for Soldier’s Boy a warm wolf fur cape and boots soled with walrus hide and woolen felted socks to go inside them. These he donned immediately and quickly enjoyed the benefits of being warm. She bargained on, acquiring tall fur hats for both of them, woolen mittens, and for him, a second long wool tunic, black with white spirals embroidered into it.
Once I was properly and grandly attired, she became more selective, both in what she chose to buy and what she would offer for it and even with whom she would trade. She struck a haughty air, and we strolled at a pace designed as much to display me as to give her the opportunity to make a leisurely examination of the vendors’ wares. It made Soldier’s Boy smile at the same time that he realized that Olikea was more valuable to him than he had given her credit for. She understood the finer points of establishing their status here.
Soldier’s Boy was focused on the trading but the market held my attention. I’d never seen such a place. Obviously this location had been occupied and used as a market for decades, perhaps hundreds of years. Yet there was a strange air of temporariness to it, as if it might vanish in the wink of an eye. Cobbled-together booths full of wares often butted up against small stone cottages where the traders slept and cooked their meals. A number of these cottages stood empty now, but the litter of recent habitation still surrounded them. They were mute witness to Olikea’s assertion that the market town had been larger only a week ago.
And larger still decades ago. The remnants of other cottages, entire streets of them, remained as walls of rubble open to the sky. I suspected that there had once been a permanent settlement here rather than this annual trade rendezvous. What had become of it? That was a question that only I pondered.
Olikea and Soldier’s Boy were too caught up in their trading. Olikea revealed that she wore not one but three Gernian dresses, one over the other. She stripped them off as she traded them away. Her trading partners seemed avid for all her Gernian goods and there was much evidence that other Specks before her had also trafficked well in such items. I felt consternation at seeing such an abundance of Gernian hats, ribbons, boots, paper, and parasols. From trinkets and tokens to fine jewelry and leather goods, I saw it all.
Above all, the great quantity of Gernian tobacco—stacked bales of it—astonished me. Despite the restrictions on trading it with the Specks, the exchange was obviously flourishing. Toiling men were transporting the bales down to the small boats, which were then carrying it out to the anchored vessels. Pale men with red or golden beards and shaven heads stood guard over the merchandise, and turned deaf ears to other traders trying to buy a share of it. It was also for sale in smaller quantities in market stalls run by Specks. There were pipes on the premises for those who could not wait to consume their purchases. I was astonished at the effect the mild weed seemed to have on the Specks who were buying and smoking it. Outside the stall, half a dozen near-naked beggars pleaded for a single draw from a pipe or even the charred bits of cinder from the pipes’ bowls. They seemed heedless of how the sun burned and blistered their bare flesh. They had traded all they possessed for tobacco and now begged for it. It was pathetic and horrifying. Olikea gave them a furious glance and then swept past the tobacco stalls, forcing Soldier’s Boy to hasten his stride to keep up with her.
“They barter goods to buy poison. They are fools,” she pronounced when Soldier’s Boy asked her why she hurried on so rapidly. “They shame their kin-clans and they shame the People. It is fine to trade in such stuff; the sea traders are very anxious to buy it from us. But why we sell poison to our own folk, I do not know.” Then, as if he had expressed an interest in it, she added, “And all know it is toxic for Great Ones. Do not even think of trying it!”
We came to a sector of the market that was surrounded by a zone of empty stalls. The demarcation was very clear. The five or six market stalls ahead of us were set apart. Olikea suddenly took my hand. “We do not go that way, Great One. Come. Let us go down this row next.”
“But why? Why are those stalls so isolated?” All manner of possible reasons flashed through my mind. Disease. Foreigners. Unclean or blasphemous items.
Olikea spoke softly. “They are worse than the tobacco mongers. They trade in iron. They do not care what it does to the magic. They say that iron will come inevitably; that it will rule us, for our magic has not succeeded in sending iron back to where it came from. Our Great Ones do not like it. They forbade it. But these traders are young or are from other places, and do not respect our ways. Once they had discovered that a Great One might forbid it, but that the magic could not expel them…well. Few here respect them. But in truth, many are hungry for the tools that do not break and stay sharp. There are many who own them, without speaking about them. Our Great Ones mostly ignore it.”
I thought of the little flint and steel that I knew she carried for fire-starting, and a small knife of hers that I’d once glimpsed. Soldier’s Boy said nothing of those but did tell her, “I wish to go there. I want to see what they have.”
“This is not wise, Nevare. It may sicken you or weaken your magic, just when you are recovering it.”
“I will go there and see what they have. I think it is important for me to know this.”
“As you will,” she growled. She let go of my arm. Soldier’s Boy had gone half a dozen steps before she grudgingly fell in behind me. He glanced back at her. A number of other folks at the market had turned their heads and were watching me. Several spoke to their neighbors and other heads turned. One stall owner suddenly covered his wares with a blanket. Another closed the shutters on his enclosed stall. Stubbornly Soldier’s Boy walked on.
He felt the iron before I saw it. It was like the buzzing of a nearby hive of bees. He felt the same sense of danger, and as the buzzing grew stronger, Soldier’s Boy had to resist the urge to brush at my skin. He stayed to the center of the street and looked at the stalls. The merchandise confirmed Soldier’s Boy’s suspicions.
Gernian trade items. It was all from Gernia.
We passed a stall where a Speck was selling Gernian tools and implements of iron. Knives, hammers, pliers, scissors, and needles had attracted an eager crowd of buyers. The presence of the metal became a hot itchy rash spreading over my skin. Soldier’s Boy forced himself to go on. I knew what Soldier’s Boy was looking for now. Guns. And powder. It was forbidden to sell them to the Specks, but like the tobacco trade, there were many traders who sidestepped the prohibition for the high profits.
The next booth held edged tools, mostly axes. There was a large crosscut saw on display at the back of the booth, and a sturdy wooden barrel held a long measure of heavy iron chain. And along the side of the booth, there was a long rack of swords. There were all manner of them, most of them spotted with rust. Few were anything a gentleman would care to own. At the sight of them a sudden wave of vertigo made him stagger a step sideways. Around me, the other buyers were stopping to stare at us. Several turned their heads aside and hurried away from this part of the market, as if shamed to have been seen here by a Great One. The iron pressed on my magic like hands around my throat. Soldier’s Boy gasped for breath.
Olikea noticed my discomfort. “I warned you. You should not be here.” She took my arm again, turned me around, and hurried me along. Soldier’s Boy felt grateful for her guidance. His thoughts were so addled I wasn’t sure he could have left on his own. “They should not sell such things where a Great One might pass,” she huffed. My consternation at seeing so many Gernian goods became anger and then felt like betrayal. If the Specks hated us so, and resented what we were doing to their forests, how could they so cheerfully profit from our contact? Soldier’s Boy’s contradictory thought pushed back at me. “Why do we hate you? Look at what you do to us. You will kill our ancient trees, poison our young men, and kill our magic. Do you wonder that you must leave?”
When we had left the ironmongers behind, Soldier’s Boy could breathe again, although he felt a bit shaky. Olikea had me sit down on a low wall. She hurried away and soon came back with a large mug full of a cool, sweet fruit juice. As he drank it, I looked around at the market with new eyes. There was ample evidence that this pattern of trade with Gernians was not new. I saw scraps of Gernian cloth woven into the headdress of a tall, pale man. A woman’s apron, much mended, had become a cloak for a small Speck child who darted through the teeming throng of traders. From what I knew of history, we had traded for years with the Specks long before King Troven had established a military outpost at Gettys. Had they previously refused our iron? I didn’t know.
When she was certain I had recovered, Olikea took me from stall to stall, acquiring necessities as she traded away Lisana’s treasures. I ceased to pay attention. It was too painful for me to watch Lisana’s possessions treated as mere commodities. Let Soldier’s Boy deal with those feelings. Instead, I let my mind become caught up in the pageantry of the place. It put the Dark Evening carnival in Old Thares to shame. There were musicians and jugglers at one intersection, and hot food booths were sprinkled throughout the marketplace. I counted three races of men that I had never encountered before. One booth was run by tall, well-muscled folk, both the women and men, with freckled skin and hair that ranged from orange to straw yellow. Olikea had no success at their booth. She greatly desired the glittering crystal beads and figurines they offered, but they had no interest in her goods. Only tobacco would they have. All of them smoked pipes and their booth breathed the fumes of the aromatic herb out into the fresh sea air.
Olikea stalked away from there, affronted, and Soldier’s Boy followed like a docile ox. We did not stop at the next two stalls. “They are the Shell Folk. They have nothing we need. Only those from across the salt water want their strings of purple shells. We have no use for them.”
At the ivory stall, we stopped, but not for ivory. Olikea traded for two small kegs of lamp oil, and arranged that we would claim them later.
Three stalls away, six tiny men traded exclusively in items woven of grass. They had mats and hassocks, shoes, cloaks, and hammocks, all woven from the same peculiar blue-green reeds. Olikea had no interest in their goods and strolled past where, I confess, I would have lingered to stare. Every one of the little men was heavily bearded and yet was no taller than Likari. I wondered where they had come from but knew I would never get to ask that question, for Soldier’s Boy did not share my curiosity.
Olikea stopped at the next stall. A smith there displayed his works of tin and copper, brass and bronze. He had spearheads and hammers, arrowheads and blades of all sorts and lengths. While Olikea studied the knives, Soldier’s Boy picked up a strange arrow. Behind its sharp tip it widened to a sort of basket-cage before fastening to the shaft. The smith left his assistant helping Olikea and came to Soldier’s Boy. He spoke Speck badly. “For fire. You wrap the gara so, in a rag.” The smith picked up a smelly, resinous block. It dripped, barely a solid. “Then you put it in the basket. Set fire to it before you shoot it. Whatever it hits will burst into flames!” He threw his callused hands wide, simulating the explosion of flammable stuff. The smith seemed quite enamored of his invention, and shook his head in disappointment when Soldier’s Boy turned aside without making an offer.
Olikea traded away an ivory bracelet for a large brass knife in a sheath ornamented with mother-of-pearl and amber. The handle of the knife was made of a dark hardwood. I questioned the value of such a knife as tool or weapon, for I doubted that it would hold an edge. That did not seem to be Olikea’s concern. It came with a very long belt of white leather. This she fastened carefully about Soldier’s Boy’s middle so that the strap rode atop his belly and emphasized the swell of it. The knife, nearly as long as my forearm, hung grandly at his hip. Olikea grinned her satisfaction and then hurried us away from the smith’s tent.
Women laughed and chattered, men with bangles in their ears and braids down their backs stalked past us, and small children in all manner of garb raced from stall to stall. The atmosphere reminded me of a carnival.
A bronze-skinned woman in a long red tunic accosted us. She carried a tray of small glasses filled with exotic liquors in bright colors. I smelled anise, mint, and juniper, but more penetrating by far was the scent of strong alcohol. Olikea waved her grandly aside. I wondered if the woman’s skin coloring was natural or a cosmetic. I looked at the backs of my now-dappled hands and wondered why that should matter. I myself was now buried deeply within dapples and fat and overshadowed by my other self. How could I ever again expect to tell anything about another person by looking at her body?
I was pondering this when I abruptly realized I had retreated into a literally “senseless” state. I was no longer hearing, seeing, or smelling the market. I had become an entity of pure thought, a being wrapped in a body but deprived of its apparatus. I was suddenly drowning, smothered by flesh. My awareness leapt and struggled like a stranded fish, and then abruptly meshed with Soldier’s Boy again. I felt air on my skin and I longed to take deep gasping breaths of the cool stuff. A thousand scents—smoke, spices, sweat, cooking fish—rode the air. I devoured the sensory information. I could see and I joyously beheld the moving crowd of brightly clad folk, the noon light glittering on the bright and glistening sea, and even the shell-strewn path we followed. I was like a prisoner granted a glimpse of the outside world again.
I suddenly perceived that was exactly what I was. I was trapped in a body that was no longer mine, and only by sharing Soldier’s Boy’s awareness could I sense anything.
I feared I was losing myself in him. I should tear myself away, I thought, but could not bear the sensation of solitary confinement in his body. With a sinking heart, I knew I was becoming resigned to my subordinate existence. I was losing the will to fight him.
I looked through his eyes in a daze of despair, looked out at his world as a passenger looks out of the window of a carriage. I could not control where I was carried nor what I saw. I became passive with hopelessness.
We passed the deserted husks of two stalls. At the third, Olikea stopped.
Waist-high stone walls defined the space. It was a generous area, the size of a cottage. Long poles of bleached white driftwood supported a brightly colored awning. The tasseled edges hung down, flapping in the ocean breeze. Soldier’s Boy had to stoop to enter. “Let me be the speaker here,” Olikea warned him in an undertone.
“I shall speak whenever I decide to,” he rejoined gruffly. He looked about at the displayed merchandise, his fascination tinged with horror that gave way to dim recognition. Here were the tools and pharmacopoeias of the shaman’s trade. Bundles of feathers, strings of teeth, and dried herbs on the stalk swung in the open breeze, suspended from the poles. Cleft crystals sparkled and chimes tinkled. Nameless bits of dried animal organs occupied a row of fat ocher pots. Tightly stoppered glass vials of oil jostled against polished stones in an array of colors and sizes.
A plank shelf held a succession of copper bowls brimming with trade items. The first held necklaces made from snake vertebrae. Olikea lifted one and the strand moved sinuously. She gave a small shudder and dropped it back in the bowl.
The next bowl held an assortment of shriveled mushroom caps. “For dream-walking,” she noted aloud, proud of her knowledge.
Tightly crinkled green-black dried leaves filled the next copper bowl. They looked like leather to me, like dried lizard skin. Olikea started to stir them with a finger, then paused uncertainly, her hand hovering over the bowl.
“Dried seaweed. To strengthen the blood of a Great One after the exertions of his magic.” The woman’s voice was as desiccated as her wares. She came tottering out of a curtained nook at the back of her stall.
She was a Speck, but so old that her dappling had faded to a faint watermark on her skin. Her hair was very white and so thin that I could see her pink scalp through the tendrils of it. Age had spotted her scalp and her dark eyes were filmy. Both her ears were pierced with many holes, and in them she wore small earrings of jade and pearl. With both hands she grasped the broad head of a white walking stick. It looked like it had been fashioned from one bone, but I could not think what animal would have bones of that size.
The old woman peered at Olikea, paying no attention to me. “You do not need to be here,” she announced. “Your sister has already purchased all that is necessary for the Great One of your kin-clan. Unless, perhaps, he has fallen ill?”
“I have not recently seen my sister or Jodoli,” Olikea replied stiffly. “I am not here on her behalf. You might notice, Moma, that I have a Great One of my own to tend now. Or has age so darkened your eyes that you cannot perceive even one of such glorious girth?”
Olikea stepped to one side as if she had been concealing me behind her. It was a laughable charade, like hiding a horse behind a cat. But Moma obediently lifted her hands as if suddenly astonished. Olikea caught the old woman’s cane before it toppled. Moma seized it back from her and stabbed the cane in the ground at my feet. “He is magnificent! But I do not know him! What kin-clan have you robbed? Who now weeps and gnashes their teeth that he has been lured away? Or have you taken a new loyalty to his kin-clan, Olikea?”
“I? Never. I know to whom I was born. Indeed, Moma, I have stolen him. I took him from the foolish Jhernians, who did not even know his worth.”
“No! Is such a thing possible?” The old woman teetered forward a few steps. With one veiny hand, she patted the swell of my belly as if I were a large and friendly dog. I thought she was astonished that a Gernian could become a Great One. But then she said, “They did not know his power, even when he carries it in such glory? How can this be?”
Olikea pursed her lips sagely. “I think they are blinded by all the iron they use. Even on a Great One, iron, iron, iron. Iron in knots on his chest, and on a great buckle he wore at his waist!”
“No!” Moma was scandalized. “I am shocked that he was not stunted by such treatment.”
Again Olikea pursed her lips in the Speck gesture of denial. “I fear he was, mother of many. Great as he is, still I must wonder what he could have been if he had not been mistreated and near starved of his proper foods.”
“Tormented with iron and starved,” Moma lamented for me. “Then you have been his savior, Olikea?”
Olikea spread her hands and bowed her head modestly. “What else was I to do, Moma? If I had not gone to him, I fear he would have perished.”
“Such a waste that would have been! And at a time when the People have more need of our Great Ones than ever.”
So far Soldier’s Boy had remained silent. I sensed his approval of Olikea’s words.
Moma set one of her wrinkled hands atop the other and rubbed the back of it. “So, then, you who have never before had the care of a Great One have come to trade with me. There is much you will need for him, so much. I fear you may not have enough to barter. Yet I shall do the best I can to see you have at least some basic supplies for him. It is the least I can do after all he has suffered.”
“You are kindhearted, Moma, very kind indeed,” Olikea replied in a rather brittle voice. “But I think I have brought enough trade goods to provide well for my Great One. If your prices are fair, that is.”
The old woman’s eyes retreated into pits of wrinkles when she narrowed them. “The best goods, fairly priced, are still expensive, girl. Winter comes. It is easy to find the berries, the nuts and herbs, the gall of a squirrel when the world is green and growing. But in winter, those things are gone and feeders must turn to the wise provider who has harvested and stored such things. Who is that provider? Why, only Moma! Only she has what the Great Ones need to dream-walk, to hear music in the wind, to quick-walk tirelessly, to see with the hawk’s eye, to walk the hidden paths.”
“Varka has a stall of herbs also.” Even to my ears, Olikea’s interruption sounded impertinent and challenging. It seemed unwise. What was she thinking?
Moma took offense, as I had expected her to. “Oh, yes, he has a market stall. And he will sell to you, cheaper than I will, if what you want are moldy herbs and berries dried away to sour pits! Do you think to drive a hard bargain with me, little Olikea? Beware. All know that there are never enough quality supplies to see all of the People’s Great Ones through the winter. Those with foolish feeders must do without.
“I do not need to sell my goods right now. And if you will not meet my price, I shall not. I will keep them and I will wait. Before winter is gone, Kinrove’s feeders will seek me out, to buy all I have and at a good price, too. And they speak to me always with respect.”
“Oh, respectful tongues are fine,” Olikea conceded in a tone that said otherwise. “But only if those tongues speak of the very finest trade goods. I shall not disappoint you in what I offer, Moma, but do not think me a foolish little girl. I know what things are worth.”
With the back of her hand, Olikea pushed aside the bowl of seaweed. In its place she set out the dark blue leather pouch and made a ceremony of opening it while Moma pretended disinterest. Her failing eyesight betrayed her, for she craned her neck to see as she leaned closer to the plank shelf. She was tellingly silent as Olikea lifted the treasures from the bag and arranged them carefully on the plank. She did not hurry. Earrings went with their matching necklaces and bracelets. Figurines were carefully spaced. These were Lisana’s finest treasures. I had never seen them in strong, clear daylight. Despite their years, they shone, glittered, and gleamed. Earrings of carved ivory vied with those of hammered silver, figures of jade and amber flanked soapstone statues, bracelets of linked gold spiraled temptingly on the plank.
I wondered why she displayed it all. Surely we would not trade all of our best items for dried leaves and shriveled mushrooms. A rising tide of dismay tightened my throat; Soldier’s Boy shared my extreme reluctance to see Lisana’s treasure frittered away. Yet Moma stood with bated breath as Olikea opened the bag wider and peered within. Then Olikea dipped her whole hand into the bag. Gently, as if lifting a living creature, she raised the scarf-wrapped object. She held it in her palm and deftly opened the wrappings to reveal the ivory child cradled there.
Moma gasped in awe and one of her hands lifted. The reaching fingers reminded me of a hawk’s greedy talons. They were stretched toward the sleeping baby, the fertility charm that had failed Lisana but remained her greatest treasure. Horror rose in me.
“No!” I exclaimed, and in that same instant, the word emerged from Soldier’s Boy’s throat. For that moment, we were fused, a single united entity. I was shocked at how wonderful it felt. I was full of power and whole. This was what I could have been, had the Tree Woman never divided me. I felt a flash of anger at all the ways my life had gone wrong. This was what I should have been!
But the emotion and the thought were not solely mine. They stank of Soldier’s Boy and I tore myself free of him. I would not become a minor part of some Speck shaman, some forest mage. I was still Nevare, Nevare Burvelle, and I did not intend to surrender that. As if from a distance, I heard Olikea respond to me. She gave a silvery laugh. “Oh, no, of course not! This is not for trade. I know what your hopes are, Great One! We could not part with this, not until it has done its work for us.”
And before Moma’s reaching fingers could touch the figurine, Olikea had flipped the scarf back over it. As quickly as she had displayed it, she lowered it back into the open sack. Then she patted my arm as if I required calming and reassurance.
Moma held out an entreating hand. “Wait. Do not be hasty. For that one item, I will give you a winter’s worth of magical provisions. A generous winter’s worth.”
Olikea laughed again, but this time I heard not the tinkle of silver but the clang of steel. In disbelief she asked, “Is a Great One’s babe not worth more than a winter’s worth of herbs?”
“Two winters,” Moma offered and then recklessly changed it to “Five winters.”
“Not for ten winters. Not for barter at any price,” Olikea replied coldly. Then she stood a moment, tapping her lips as if considering something. “I am young. I have many bearing years ahead of me, and as I have already borne a child, I know I need not fear I am barren. So, perhaps…To a very trustworthy woman, a woman of good standing, I might lend this charm. For only a season, of course, just long enough for her womb to catch a babe. Then I must have it back.”
I sensed an invisible bargain was being struck. Difficult as it was, both Soldier’s Boy and I held ourselves still. Moma’s breathing was loud, an echo of the endless rush of the waves against the shore.
“How came you to have it?” she suddenly demanded. “The Ivory Child passed out of all knowing more than two generations ago.”
“That does not matter,” Olikea informed her. “It has been kept well, in secret, and used wisely. Now it is my turn.”
“It is a very desirable thing,” Moma told her. “Some would kill to possess that. You should be careful, very careful, of showing it here in the Trading Place.”
“I think you give me wise counsel, Moma. I will be more cautious. I will not show it again.” Her sudden show of respect and deference to Moma’s wisdom surprised me. Olikea paused significantly and then added, “And if one comes to me, quietly, wishing to talk of borrowing it, then I will know that she knows only because you have judged her a worthy and trustworthy woman. For only to you have I shown this. She would be in both our debts, such a woman.”
Moma smiled. It came over her wrinkled face slowly but it was a wide smile. For such an old woman, her teeth were very good. “That she would,” she agreed, pleased and thoughtful. “That she would.”
Something seemed to have been settled between the two women, something I did not grasp. They were both very pleased with themselves, as if they had reached an important accord. After that exchange, they traded, but in an oddly congenial manner. I sensed that Moma gave us very good value and she insisted on choosing for Olikea the largest dried mushrooms and the preserved herbs with the best color. She carefully folded our purchases into little packets made from woven reeds. The packets filled a substantial net bag. Some of Lisana’s jewelry she took in exchange, but the most of it Olikea returned to the pouch. At the last, however, Olikea held out a pair of large silver hoop earrings rimmed with drops of amber.
“Always you have been so kind to me,” Olikea told her. “Ever since I was a little girl, you always had a kind word for me. Please accept these as a gift, as a sign of our friendship. I know it would please my Great One if you wore them as a sign of the warmth he feels toward you.”
Olikea held them out in her palm, not to Moma but to me. Subtly she jostled her hip against mine. Soldier’s Boy took her hint. He lifted the earrings from her hands. Holding them delicately, so they dangled appealingly, he offered them to Moma. “I would be very pleased to see you wearing these.”
She lifted one hand from her cane. Her fingers were like a careful bird’s beak as she plucked the proffered earrings from his fingers. She did not hesitate. “Help me, please,” she begged Olikea in a hushed voice, and the young woman obliged. The silver and amber earrings dwarfed all the ones the old woman already wore. They glittered in the sunlight. Moma gave her head a slight shake and the earrings swung against her neck. “All will notice these,” she said with quiet satisfaction.
“That they will, and by them know how kindly you have treated this Great One and how highly he regards you.”
Moma nodded her head low to me and then reminded Olikea, “But you have not told me his name.”
“He has two, and both lie oddly on my tongue. The first is Soldier’s Boy. The second is Nevare Burvelle.”
“I fear these are not lucky names,” Moma replied with concern.
“I am one who believes that a man makes his own luck. I do not fear my name,” Soldier’s Boy said aloud.
“Wisely spoken,” Olikea observed, but her quick glance entreated silence from him. “And now we must go,” she continued to Moma.
“Will you journey back to your kin-clan tonight? Or stay another night near the Trading Place?”
Olikea appeared thoughtful. “I think we shall spend another night here, if only to enjoy the foods of the market, and to look at the beach and the water when the evening light is kinder to us.” She paused and added significantly, “I think we will take our evening meal there, if anyone cares to seek us out.”
Moma gave a happy sigh. “I think that is wise. Good evening to you, then.”
And yes, as we departed, it was evening. We had passed the whole day in our trading and Soldier’s Boy was suddenly both very weary and ravenously hungry. My feet hurt and my leg muscles ached from walking on the sandy paths. I felt a pang of dismay at how much farther we must walk and how long I must wait either to eat or rest. Soldier’s Boy had a more direct solution.
“I am going to go sit on the rocks and soak my feet in the seawater pools,” he announced. “Find Likari. Have him bring me food there. Hot food, and wine of the forest to drink. Do not be long.”
I saw a ripple of surprise pass over Olikea’s face. It occurred to me that she did not comprehend completely that Soldier’s Boy was the one she must deal with now, and that the compliant Nevare Burvelle was beyond her reach. She licked her lips, thought for only an instant, and then replied. “Yes. That is good. We will attend you shortly.” She took a short breath and then added cautiously, “If anyone seeks to speak to you, you should tell them that they must wait until your feeder has fed you.”
“Of course,” he replied, as if he had never considered otherwise. And then they parted, with Olikea hurrying toward the food booths and vendors and Soldier’s Boy leaving the path to walk toward the beckoning sea.