I glanced around the campsite one more time to make sure everything had been packed and nothing had been left behind. It would have been hard enough to leave this peaceful place and head out once again on the road. It was especially difficult since we were heading to the capitol and right into a very dangerous situation. The Princess, who I thought of all the time now as Kiaya, had appeared so calm at breakfast this morning and I had to admire that, as I had grown to admire so much about her during the time we had spent together. I had just one more job to do before we headed out. I needed to sweep up the wood shavings and leave them in the fire scar for the next to camp here. Kiaya was stacking firewood along with Shyla.
One of the first lessons I had learned from Da was a rover always leaves a campsite looking better than she found it. That thought was followed by a great wave of homesickness. Not so much for the cottage in Mumblesey but for Da and Nana. I wondered if we would ever be together again, or if I would ever be happy in just one spot. While this summer was certainly not typical of a rover’s life, the days of normalcy had been enough to give me a taste of what it was like, and I found I really liked it. I wondered what choices I might make if we survived the next few weeks. With that sobering thought, I quickened the pace of my raking. Once finished, I stowed the rake under the homewagon and went inside to make sure everything was latched, or stored properly so nothing would shift during the ride.
I still needed to check the cart, but before I did that it was time to pull up the Neebing room and secure it. Each night of our stay here, I had placed something in the Neebing room, and each morning there had been some small item in the room in exchange, or I had found some small task done in the cabin that I had neglected, which I suspected neither Kiaya nor I had done in our sleep. Nothing left by the Neebings was as strange as the key that had been left the first night in this place, which I still did not know what to do with, but then I did not know the purpose of the two rings I carried either, nor really all that much about the ring I wore on my hand, nor what it meant to be Neebing blessed.
Since I had run out of reasons to stall any longer, it was time to check the cart, climb aboard the homewagon, and head to the fair at the capitol. The backstairs to the homewagon were secured, the horses hitched up, the Neebing room drawn up, the Princess was already sitting on the inside steps, and Carz was on the driver’s bench. Bertram, Oscar and their families were all in their homewagons, ready to pull out. Tannar and Shueller were ready to pull in behind us. Whatever awaited us at the capitol awaited us, and nothing was going to change the fact that we were heading into the Regent’s stronghold with the Princess, the heir to the throne, riding with us. Worrying at this point would be a waste of effort.
The day’s ride to the capitol was an easy one, since we had camped in the royal forest, and all roads leading up from there were well maintained. Since we were coming from the south, we did not have to travel through the capitol proper and arrived at the south gate to the fairgrounds with plenty of daylight left to find our way to wherever we would be assigned. Stopping and being inspected at the fair gate would be our first big test, I was sure, of many to come. Many more folks at the capitol knew what the Princess looked like and scrutiny would most likely be much closer than it had been in Lambkin. Since there was no avoiding this first hurdle we needed to cross, I pulled Clover and Flick to a halt and held my breath as first Oscar’s and then Bertram’s homewagons were inspected. They were given a packet and waved on through the gate. Then it was our turn.
I slowly moved the homewagon forward and halted alongside the gatekeeper’s hut. Just then a small patrol of royal guards marched up from behind us, and my heart almost stopped. The royal guards at the gate snapped to attention, and I thought to myself that our luck must have surely run out, and we were about to be found out, when I heard a commanding voice tell the royal guards at the gate that they were relieved of duty. I was not sure this was going to be to our advantage since the crew leaving might have been less attentive, since it was the end of their shift, and the new crew might be fresher and more eager. I took a slow calming breath as the new officer in charge approached the front of our homewagon. Her head was down, looking at the notes the relieved officer had handed her, and when she looked up, it was all I could do not to let out a very large sigh of relief.
“Rover Nissa, how many in your party?” the Captain asked.
“Three,” I replied, and when she quirked an eyebrow, I hastily revised what I had said. “Sorry, Captain, two. The third is Carz, my hunting cat.”
“Actually, it is a good thing you mentioned your hunting cat, for he will need to be collared and tagged. He is not allowed to roam. Otherwise he will not be able to enter the fair with you and will have to be caged for the duration of the fair.”
“Tagged will be just fine,” I said, and tried not to shudder at the thought of what being caged for a week would be like for Carz. I would turn around this minute and take him back to the forest we just left if that were to be his fate here. “He always sticks pretty close and is not known to wander.”
“Good, then here are your fair badges. Wear them at all times. Here is the packet of instructions and the maps of the layout of the fair. Now your skills or trades for the record?”
I told her, and she dutifully wrote them down along with asking the Princess if she had knit any small sweaters, for the Captain might be shopping with her two small granddaughters, who were arriving the next day to attend the fair. The Princess asked their approximate sizes and assured the Captain she would have something for her to look at.
As another of the royal guards approached the Captain, she said over her shoulder, “Ah Sergeant, this is the rover who made that whimsy I showed you. You have been envious of my little rabowl. Talk to her and find out if she has a supply for this fair while I check out her homewagon and cart.”
I do not know if it was the Captain’s general duty to check out wagons and carts, but I was grateful that she had supplied the Sergeant with a distraction, and she was the one to check on us. I did not think she would betray the Princess at this point. When she returned, she told us there had been a great kafuffle concerning where the rovers were to camp and set up their booths. The guilds and others had confronted the Regent, and after a prolonged discussion, much of which she had heard was quite heated, the Regent had turned where we were to be placed over to the guilds. We were to just drive into the fairgrounds and at the first major crossroad, someone from the guilds would meet us and direct us as to where we were to camp and set up.
I was concerned about Tannar and Shueller in the homewagon behind us, and so before the Captain took her leave, I leaned down and quietly asked her if she might check the next homewagon in also. She must have seen the look of great concern on my face, for she called to her sergeant just before he was about to talk to Tannar and suggested he take the merchant’s wagon that had pulled up behind while she finish checking in the rovers. I shot her a grateful look. She mentioned that she would try to stop by my booth the next day.
I pulled the homewagon forward and waited for Tannar. By this time I had lost sight of both Oscar’s and Bertram’s homewagons and was worried I would have trouble finding them in a fair this big, but I found them in a line at the first crossroads. I pulled my homewagon up behind theirs as a young man in a Glassmakers Guild cloak stepped around Bertram’s homewagon and started heading towards me. Suddenly the day seemed oh so much brighter.
“Evan,” I called, almost jumping down from my homewagon to sweep him up in a huge hug, but I refrained for that would have embarrassed both of us.
“Nissa, I’m glad you’re finally here. Are Carz and Kiaya with you?” he asked.
“I can see who really rates with this young man,” the Princess said to Evan, as he swung himself up and thumped down on the driver’s bench next to me.
“Really good to see you too, Kiaya,” said Evan, trying not to laugh as the Princess tried to hang on to her perch on the steps leading up to the front of the homewagon, for Carz had jumped off the driver’s seat, jumped down the steps inside the homewagon, then reversed direction, and surged back up the steps to place his head on Evan’s lap so his rump was where the Princess had been sitting. “Pull your homewagon around Oscar’s and Bertram’s and they will follow us.”
I did as instructed, and so we formed our own parade down the lanes of the fair. Evan filled us in on where we were going. The Regent, it seemed, had once again tried to create a distance between the rovers and the rest of the folk by moving rovers almost off the fairgrounds and into a very smelly camping and selling area. Apparently Evan had discovered this and reported it to Master Clarisse and to Master Rollag. When I heard that Master Rollag was in town, my heart sped up because he might know Da’s fate. I had to draw myself back from that idea to concentrate on what Evan was saying.
“Master Rollag called in the heads of all the guilds and told them what the Regent planned. To make a long story short, there was a confrontation by a delegation from here with the Regent himself. The group from here told the Regent that if the issue of where the rovers had been placed was not changed, the guilds would not participate in the fair. Word had leaked out prior to the meeting with the Regent as to what the guilds planned to do if the Regent did not change his mind, and the meeting was disrupted by another delegation representing many of the top merchant families and the representatives of a number of the major and minor nobles. Faced with this much opposition to his plan, the Regent had turned the placement of the fair participants over to the guilds.”
“So, where are we heading?” Nissa asked.
“To the south end of the fairgrounds. Seems in the discussions about where to put the rovers, a number of folks spoke up and suggested that this might be a great opportunity to try the arrangement of booths that worked so well in Glendalen. Surprisingly, enough of the majority agreed, so you, Bertram, Oscar, Beezle, and Shueller and Tannar, all have booths side by side. Gosh, I wonder how that happened?” Evan said, with a look of innocence about him that was belied by the twinkle of pure mischief in his eye. “You will camp within the circle formed by the booths, just like at Glendalen.”
The day was certainly looking up. All of a sudden it hit me what Evan had said. “Beezle is here too?” I inquired.
“Yes, along with the Jalcones. The Jalcones arrived yesterday, and Master Rollag invited them to stay at the guildhall, but they have chosen to camp with all of you. I think Master Rollag was hoping to get invited for some blueberry, or any type of berry, crumble from Mistress Jalcones. I know I am. I wanted Master Clarisse and I to stay with you all too, but we have to stay at the guildhall. I like Mistress Jalcones cooking best.”
All the while we had been talking, Evan had been directing me on which turn to take and which lane to go down until finally we were at our destination. I was not prepared for how big the fairgrounds were, nor how large the guildhalls and grounds were. It seemed like it would take days to cover all of the booths and exhibits of the capitol fair. It was not until later that night, after I had a chance to really look over the map the Captain had given us, that I realized that the size of the fair was misleading. The guildhalls were spread around three sides of the grounds, leaving the fourth side open to the sea. The center part of the fairgrounds held parks, judging pavilions, and the Well of Speaking. The south end of the fairgrounds, behind the guildhalls, was open fields that provided the main selling area for merchants and tradesfolk who were not connected to guildhalls. The guildhalls, of course, would have booths of their wares lining the lanes that led past their grounds.
While the setting up of our campsites distracted me for the most part, a part of me was still very anxious to see Master Rollag, so I could find out if Da was alright. Before I left to set up my booth, I hung a green banner off the back of my homewagon, remembering that Da had asked me to do so in his note to me, from what seemed a lifetime ago. I did not know if anyone would respond to it, but I noticed that Tannar was hanging a green banner off the back of Shueller’s homewagon too. I made a note to myself to ask Shueller as soon as possible about the significance of the green banner. After making sure the green banner was secure, I moved on to set up my booth. As I began to put the awning up on my cart, the Princess joined me, as did Shyla, and we made short work of setting up the booth to our liking.
We had passed the first hurdle by getting into the fair undetected, but we still had two more days before the Princess’ birth date to continue to escape detection, and who knew what the Regent had planned. Unlike the other fairs I had been at this summer where there had been a holiday mood, the mood here was closer to somber. As the field we were set up in started to fill up, I began to overhear passing conversations. The gossip I kept hearing over and over was that the Princess was gravely ill, and the Regent had postponed both her birth date celebration and her ascendancy to the throne.
I had just settled down to sharpen a chisel, when I heard the pounding of a hammer and looked up to see someone putting up a notice on the lane post nearby. Since I had been sitting for awhile, I got up to stretch and walked over to see what the notice said. It told anyone who took the time to read the notice that the Regent would be present to make an announcement during the first hour past noon on the third day of the fair at the Well of Speaking.