I think my head had barely hit the pillow when I was awakened by a shout from Oscar telling me I needed to get up quickly and get my horses harnessed. I really wanted to roll over and pull the covers over my head, but the urgency in his voice had me out of bed and dressed before those thoughts were fully formed. As I stumbled down the backstairs of the homewagon still pulling on my boots, I asked, “What’s going on?”
“Beezle, bless his heart, had the forethought to send two of Farmer Miles’ sons out the lane and up the royal road in both directions. Had them find a spot where they could see the road but not be seen. One of them just came riding in, cut across country he did, and reported there is a small contingent of royal guards heading this way. Said he heard one of the commanders saying they needed to quiet down so that they could arrive here undetected. We need to move out now. Very easy to charge us with something here, but it will be a bit harder in town.”
“What about the items that we found in our homewagons? It’s dangerous to take them with us, but it’s too dangerous to leave them with Farmer Miles and his family,” I stated.
“Beezle sent his man with them on to Glendalen and to his Lordship. We need to be gone before the royal guards arrive. I guess he anticipated we had not heard the last of those who are trying to get us in trouble. Quickly now, we have little time,” Oscar cautioned. “Farmer Miles’ sons are going to show us the back route to Glendalen. It seems it’s something of a shortcut, but it’s not going to be a smooth ride.”
As I got Flick and Clover hitched up to the homewagon, I was surprised I could hear the sounds of cows mooing over the pounding of my heart. In the darkness I could see movement, and it took me a moment to figure out that the flashes of white I was seeing were the white markings on the herding dogs, and that the milk herd was being sent down the main farm lane. Had this been another clever idea of Beezle’s? The herd would certainly create a barrier and give us a little more time to move our group out.
As I climbed aboard my homewagon and looked around, I realized that neither the Jalcones’ nor Master Clarisse’s wagons were in line to follow us. I was startled when Beezle climbed aboard.
“Get them moving, Nissa. You have very little time.”
“What about Master Clarisse and Evan? What about the Jalcones?” I asked.
“They are going to stay behind and tell the royal guards that after the break-ins earlier in the evening, you rovers decided you had had enough of the larger towns and were heading off away from all the troubles. Just don’t know where you all were heading. They will meet you in Glendalen,” stated Beezle.
“Once the royal guards get to the farm, won’t they be able to easily follow our wagon ruts?” I inquired. “The rain has ended and the soft road will keep very clear imprints of our wheels.”
“Farmer Miles sent several of his daughters to fetch the second herd of cows and send them to the milking barns early. Once we pass the herd, they will walk down the lane we traveled and hopefully stir the lane up enough that it will at least confuse the royal guards. Meanwhile, several of the farm hands are driving wagons off the farm down other lanes to lay down fresh wagon tracks so the royal guards might think you rovers took those routes. I need to get down now and ride on ahead. I need to get in touch with my uncle.”
After Beezle had slipped off my homewagon and ridden off, I almost began to laugh. Here I was again on a cloudy night taking the back way down a rutty road trying to leave an area undetected. It would be so refreshing if I could just leave some place by the front lane. Oh, wait, I had done that just yesterday and had been detained. As I traveled, bumping along behind Bertram’s homewagon, I began to wonder how the thieves we had chased off had found us. I guess it would have been easy to tail our small caravan since there were so many folks on the royal road all heading to Glendalen from Tverdal. In the future, I might need to think about alternatives for leaving a fair. Would we be better off sticking to the royal roads hoping there would be no more road blocks, or would we be better off consulting Da’s map, taking back roads, and hoping that with less traffic on the less traveled lanes we could detect trouble behind us? Whichever way we traveled, I sincerely hoped that I could get at least one full night of sleep.
The ruse back at the farm must have worked for we could detect no one following us. Farmer Miles’ sons had traveled with us for about an hour and then left us with clear directions on how to get to Glendalen. They were needed back at the farm. Bertram’s son Tannar walked back, climbed aboard my homewagon shortly after they left, and offered to drive for awhile. Said his dad suggested I get some sleep. I gratefully accepted his offer and was asleep before my head hit the pillow. I had just thought to nap for a little while so I was surprised when I woke up to the smell of food being cooked. I felt refreshed, but also a bit guilty for sleeping so long.
Just as we finished packing up our cooking gear, a rider approached us from the south. It was Beezle. He dismounted and asked all of us to gather around.
“Lord Hadrack sends his greetings and urges you to travel on to Glendalen. It is not much further, and you should reach the town gates before all light is gone. He and his Lady made very good time and arrived in Glendalen in time to attend their meeting with other large landholders who will be hosting fairs to the south. Besides other pressing issues, Lord and Lady Hadrack presented their plan for the Glendalen fair and its layout. Unlike the Tverdal fair where merchants of like wares are placed side by side for the most part, rovers placed in a separate area, food venders clumped together, entertainment in its own area, and so on, they had been thinking for some time about rearranging how the fair is laid out. This year, they intend to assign spots at the fair and mix merchants, crafters, food vendors, rovers, entertainers, and others up. The exceptions will be livestock and some of the agriculture booths. Otherwise you might find a glassmaker next to a weaver, next to a bookmaker, next to a cherry tart stand. They think it will have fairgoers looking at more booths and spending more time at the fair. If successful, other fairs to the south may try the same thing. A side effect of this arrangement is more folks will be aware of how everyone is being treated, and if someone is targeting rovers, it will have to be a much more public display.”
“Sounds like a good plan,” stated Oscar, “but I’m a wee bit concerned about my family’s safety and the security of my wares. What is Lord Hadrack planning on doing about preventing someone secreting illegal goods in our homewagons once again?”
“Good question,” said Beezle. “Lord Hadrack, when he heard about your problems, was very angry. When I left, he was calling another meeting with his advisors and with the Lords and Ladies he had met with before. In addition, he has sent out runners to invite more landholders plus head guild masters to a meeting later this week, but that did not answer your question. In the new set up for the fair, the design calls for long oblongs of booths with an area in the center of each section for participants to set up their tents or put their homewagons. Horses will be pastured with the Glendalen stable with ample guards to watch out for them.”
Bertram had been listening quietly, as was his way, before he contributed to the conversation. “It seems like a fair plan Lord Hadrack has come up with, and I understand his idea of mixing us. I am concerned about being placed at the fair too far from Oscar, Nissa, Master Clarisse, and the Jalcones for that matter.”
“Lord Hadrack thought that might be a concern. Aware that you have traveled as a group along with Master Clarisse and the Jalcones, you have been assigned booths within the same section. While your booths are not side by side on the outside, you end up practically in each others’ laps inside the oval,” answered Beezle.
I was struck, not for the first time, with how fortunate we had been to have made the acquaintance of Lord Hadrack and his family. Sometimes fate takes a hand at moments when all looks particularly grim and turns misfortune into fortune. A feeling rather like when a rainbow appears after a particularly heavy storm. With the need to make haste, we all climbed aboard our wagons and headed towards Glendalen.
When my family traveled the life of the rovers, we did not always attend any or all of the summer fairs. It had been some time since I had been to Glendalen, and I had forgotten it is a walled town. The original keep sits on a high knoll and had been built when Sommerhjem was not as peaceful as it has been in our time. Like Tverdal, a town had spread out at the base of the keep walls, but it was also walled. As the town had once again expanded, a third wall had been built, and it was within this third wall that the fair was held. This time when we arrived at the fair gates, no pompous self-important individuals met us. Beezle called out a greeting to the gatekeeper, who handed him a packet and waved us through.
“Just follow me, and we’ll get you settled,” he said, as he handed each of us a map of the layout of the fair. “You folks are in this section. Since the fair started a day ago, we assigned you the booth spaces at the bottom of the oval, and you can see your camp assignments marked here. Once Master Clarisse and Evan arrive with the Jalcones, since they are the last assigned to this oval, the gates will be closed and locked behind them. That way, the only way in and out of the camping area will be by going in between or through the booths. Not a foolproof plan, but one that might keep the riffraff out.”
The next few hours did not give any of us much time to think. We all helped each other set up our booths and get our horses to their pasture area. Just when we thought we were done, Master Clarisse, Evan, and the Jalcones arrived, so we all pitched in to get them squared away. I do not know if it was the luck of the draw or by design, but Master Clarisse’s booth was next to mine, for which I was extremely thankful. All of us were too exhausted to do more than head for bed when all had been set up. We promised one another we would gather together at breakfast to hear what had happened at the farm after we left.
I did remember to check the Neebing door before I went to bed, since I really had had no time to do anything other than crank it up before we left Farmer Miles’ farm. Much to my surprise I found an acorn with an oak leaf beautifully carved on one side in the Neebing room. Who would imagine that Neebings lived on farms? I carefully tucked it away in my hidden pouch and thought about what I could do with an acorn and oak leaf motif on several of my goblets. I placed a small gift in the Neebing room and went to bed with plans and designs in my head.
The next morning all of us gathered for a communal breakfast and Master Clarisse, Evan, and the Jalcones told us what had happened after we had left the farm so abruptly.
“All those cows going down the lane certainly held the royal guards up. By the time they got to the farm they were a little worse for wear, and quite a few had stepped into the generous number of cow pies left behind by the herd,” said Master Clarisse.
“You should have seen Master Clarisse,” suggested Trader Jalcones. “Before the commander could even say a thing, she was saying how glad she was that he was here, and how appalled she was that someone had salted the homewagons with illegal goods. Before he could get a word in edgewise, she asked what he was going to do about it. She was so frustrated that the good rovers she had been traveling with had become so discouraged that they had left that night to go as far away from the larger fairs as possible. What was going to happen to the economy if everyone became afraid to move from town to town in fear of roadblocks and false arrests? It could be disastrous. I tell you, it was a better performance that you get from some of the actresses in the shows put on by the royal players. This woman should think of changing careers. I think a great stage presence was lost when she went into the Glassmakers Guild.”
“Thank you for those flattering words, Trader Jalcones,” chuckled Master Clarisse, as she took an exaggerated bow. “Fortunately, the commander could only huff and puff at that point and humbly accept the kind offer of a dry barn for him and his men to sleep in until morning.”
“Considering the amount of cow pies and mud those royal guards walked through, huffing and puffing carried a hazard of its own. Phew. I was glad I was not sleeping in the barn,” stated Evan.
The conversation at breakfast turned to other topics after that, and soon we were all headed to our booths to get ready for the fair gates to open. The fair at Glendalen was a large one, and the atmosphere was very different. I do not know if that had to do with Glendalen itself or the different arrangement devised by Lord and Lady Hadrack for the fair. As I glanced around, once I got to my booth, I began to see the logic behind mixing up types of booths and wares. This way the fairgoers saw many more booths of a greater variety, which in turn would bring more buyers by more of our booths.
When I got to my booth, I opened the packet Beezle had handed me the night before. Inside, in addition to a general map of the fairgrounds, were some sheets of paper describing the rules and instructions for the fair, which were pretty common sense but helpful. To my surprise, there were also two fair badges and a note from Beezle stating one was for Carz. I would have to ask him, if and when I saw him, if this was standard practice or part of the ongoing joke concerning the “security and jack-of-all-work” member of my team. The horn blew announcing the opening of the fair almost before I was set up. I was surprised by the number of folks who went by my booth, many stopping to look and several buying from my stock. At noon Beezle stopped by during one of the very few lulls since the opening horn had sounded.
“Do you have any plans for after the fair closes this night?” he asked.
“No,” I said.
“See if Master Clarisse and Evan will come with you and meet me at the pasture where your horses are grazing. If anyone asks where you are going, say you are going to check on the horses, and then on to dinner and out on the town with me. Always best to stick as close to the truth as possible. Oh, and bring Carz.”
“Why Carz?” I asked.
“’Cause I hate rats,” he replied.
Just as I was about to ask more, a couple stepped up to my booth and began asking questions about a pair of goblets. When I looked up, Beezle was gone.