Bastion

by Mercedes Lackey

  The wagon left from one of the small gates in the wall around the Palace-Collegium complex, the one that usually admitted the supply wagons. In fact, this actually was a supply wagon, with high, slat sides; low on comfort but very capacious. The four of them squeezed themselves into spots along one side on the plain wooden wagon bed. No one had thought about how they’d rattle and jounce all the way down to the Fair, but, then, most of them were too excited to care. There was just enough room that Bear and Lena, and Mags and Amily, could put their heads together over their lists and the map and make some rough plans.

  “Lydia is even more organized than me,” Amily said, pointing out the merchants in the list that she had underlined and the rough area of the Fair each would be in. “Then again, she’s the Princess—she probably sent someone down to hunt things out for her. She wants a perfume from here, some tinctures from here, some specially good pens and ink from this man.”

  Mags started to ask why Lydia hadn’t just had that same footman pick the things up for her—then he realized why. First, a Royal Footman wouldn’t bargain. Second, a Royal Footman would be cheated, probably by being sold inferior goods for an inflated price. And third, a Royal Footman would not have the knowledge that Lydia’s friends did. Bear could make sure the perfume was pure and not adulterated and vouch for the quality of the tinctures, while Lena, as a Bardic Trainee, was something of an expert in pens and inks, and might just try out as many as a dozen of the former before she picked out the ones that Lydia would want.

  They had to be some sort of special pen, though, to be superior to the ones supplied to the Palace. He wondered just what on earth that was all about.

  As he glanced over the list of contests, he didn’t see much he was terribly interested in. For one thing, at least so far as he was concerned, he had to actually know at least some of the contestants to have any interest in the outcome. For another, things like “grain-sack hurling” and “pig catching” didn’t exactly sound . . . exciting.

  “I think the contests today are a wash,” Bear said, craning his neck around.

  “The good contests are all on the last three days, Lydia says,” put in Amily. “And we’ll all be back at lessons.”

  “Look, if I wanta see archery that’ll make m’ eyes bulge, I’ll just ask Weaponsmaster for a demonstration,” Mags pointed out. “Now, look here, there’s a whole tent full of jugglers and tumblers and rope dancers, and the like! What’s that about?”

  “You pay your penny, go in, and stay as long as you like,” Amily told him. “They have seats, and they change performers and acts. Kind of like if the performers at the wedding had come to us instead of us going ’round to them. This sort of thing only happens at the really big Fairs.”

  “I like that idea,” Mags declared. “What about the rest of you?”

  “I’m game,” Bear nodded. And the girls agreed.

  There was a music tent too, but no one suggested going to it. After all, when you lived at the Collegia, you had the music from Bardic all around you all the time. It would be very difficult to find any sort of music that was a novelty.

  The wagon dropped them all off at the edge of the Fair, very near the first of the booths marked on Amily’s map. This was where the commons started, at the edge of the city itself—mostly “waste” ground that people used to graze beasts they could keep in their tiny back yards, like goats or geese, or their donkeys if they had them. People were free to harvest the grass here to feed rabbits as well. Otherwise, anyone could use it for almost any reason as it was land held in common for anyone living in the city. Sometimes travelers or trading caravans camped here, and always the Fairs and Markets were held here. It looked as if a second city of tents had sprung up outside the first one.

  Merchants generally lived in these tents as well as sold their wares or displayed their skills in them. Some were scarcely large enough to have room for a collapsible counter and a bedroll. Some were enormous, big enough to contain a hundred or more people at a time. All were laid out in a gridwork pattern, like houses with small spaces behind them. This had been the custom for hundreds of years, and was the business of a man called the Master of the Fairs, whose entire job was to make sure that each Fair and Market was put together in a sensible fashion, with proper care taken for sanitation and cleanliness.

  Here, the tents were all small; a few were quite sumptuous, with canvas painted and even ornamented with touches of gold or silver. Some were small and plain. There was a faint hint of sweet and spice on the breeze, as if the very canvas of the tents had over the years soaked in the redolent aromas of the owners’ wares. Since this was the area designated for herbalists, perfumers, chymists, and the like, it was highly likely that this was exactly what had happened. A well-made tent could serve several generations of merchant, after all.

  Well, both Bear and Lydia wanted things here. This was as good a place as any to start.

  Bear went with Amily to find Lydia’s tinctures and Bear’s herbs, leaving Lena with Mags to seek out the perfumer.

  The tents had been placed in no particular order. Some quite plain ones selling dried herbs were right next to tents beautifully painted with flowers or geometric designs that sold expensive scents. The herbalists’ wares were mostly packed away in sealed jars or airtight boxes, although they advertised by having bunches of fragrant things like rosemary and lavender hanging from their front “doors.” The most expensive perfumers only needed their exquisite, tiny glass bottles, each one cut, and sparkling, like a gem.

  The lesser lights of this profession sold their fragrances in bottles of stone or tiny pots; they didn’t confine their fragrances to perfume, though, but also dispensed oils, creams, soaps, and pomades. There were even a few chandlers, which surprised Mags, until he saw that their candles were of scented wax that was molded or carved and colored like works of art. He couldn’t imagine how anyone could bear to burn something like that, though he supposed that was the point. If you were wealthy enough to want to be ostentatious, this was the epitome of “burning money.”

  The perfumer they sought was one of the middling ones. His glass bottles were all plain dark amber in color and all the same shape. He dispensed not only perfume but other scented products as well. He was a tall, thin man, very pale, with hair so pale a color it was almost white.

  His clothing was very different from anything that Mags had seen before. He wore a red linen shirt with huge sleeves ending in tight embroidered cuffs and a high neck, also embroidered, with an embroidered placket, not centered on his chest, but off to one side. He wore a broad leather belt and very full black trews tucked into high boots.

  He smiled at them as they entered his tent. “Ah, young Herald and his friend, yes? How may I being to serve you?”

  “Lydia of the House of Soren asked us to—” Mags began, as Lydia’s note had coached him to say. The man clapped his hands together once, with an even broader smile.

  “Lydia, of flaming hair, yes? She is being my customer since she is so high—” he measured a height barely up to the bottom of his rib cage with one hand. “I am already to be having package made up, knowing she will either come or send.” He bent down behind his counter and came back up again with a basket that was almost as much a work of art as those expensive candles were. It had been made, as near as Mags could tell, of fine coils of pine needles sewn together. They still held a faint scent of pine.

  And if Lydia was an old customer of this merchant, there was very little chance he would try to cheat her by passing off an inferior product. Mags relaxed.

  “You are being have list, yes?” the man continued, unpacking the basket. “You will to be telling me if I am to be leaving anything out, yes?”

  Mags fumbled out his list. “She says here, the scent is Forest.” He’d always wondered how it was that sometimes Lydia would smell . . . well, like a forest. It seemed he had found the answer.

  “Yes, yes. I am to be the only Scentmaster to be making this scent,” the man said p
roudly. “I am to being Efan Sevanol, Scentmaster. Which, you are to being know already, as you saw sign. Now, of Forest scent. Four bars soap. Two jars cream for hands. Two pots cream perfume. One bottle essential oil. One bottle perfume. Is right, yes?” He beamed at them. Mags just had to smile back, the man’s good humor was that infectious.

  “’Xactly right, Scentmaster,” he said, and was rewarded with a rich chuckle.

  “Good, good. I am to being hear she is to being married yes?” the Scentmaster continued, as he packed the basket up again, carefully cushioning the glass bottles of oil and perfume in tiny, form-fitting pine-needle sheaths of their own before repacking them. “As wedding present, I am to being add this, yes?” He held up a third bottle. “Is to being scent I am to be thinking she will like and will please husband. Is to being Ambar. Men are to being—” He waggled his eyebrows at them, and Lena giggled and blushed. “Yes, yes, young lady understands!” He crooked a finger at Lena, who came closer, and he opened a bottle fastened to the counter with wax so it wouldn’t tip over and spill. The cork had something like a glass needle with a blunt point sticking in it. “Please to be giving me wrist, yes?”

  Lena obliged; he gently ran the point of the needle over her wrist; it left a glistening trail of perfume behind.

  “Now to be rubbing wrists together,” the man—suggested, rather than ordered. Lena did, and Mags felt his eyes widen as the rich, dark, subtle scent reached his nose. It reminded him of . . . incense maybe. And honey. And woodsmoke. And . . . well, he understood exactly what the Scentmaster was hinting at, now.

  “Oh—my!” Lena exclaimed, her nostrils flaring. “Oh, this is . . . very . . . intoxicating. . . .” She blushed again.

  “Yes, yes,” the man chuckled. “For married ladies, yes? They will be to having exciting time if wearing, yes?”

  Lena laughed, still blushing. “It’s a good thing I’m married, then!” As the Scentmaster tilted his head inquiringly, she added quickly, “Not to Mags, he’s just a friend. To a Healer.”

  “And he is off hunting herbs and things not so interesting as scent.” The man laughed again. “So, it is my dismal duty, as I am to be having many expenses, to be asking for payment, please?”

  Lydia had named a price and given Lena the purse. Although Mags had expected Lena to bargain at least a little, after the addition of that very generous gift, Lena simply handed over the purse without a quibble. The Scentmaster opened the purse casually, counted it out without seeming to do so—Mags had learned that trick from Nikolas—and bowed, pushing the basket toward her. She took it, and hesitated.

  “Something is wrong?” the Scentmaster asked quickly.

  “I probably can’t afford it,” she said, a little sadly, “But . . . how much is the Ambar?”

  “I am devastated to say it is a silver piece for a bottle,” the Scentmaster replied, losing his smile. “The resin is difficult to find, the perfume is hard to make.”

  Mags could see Lena struggling with herself. And a silver piece was a great deal of money for someone like her or Mags, after all, for something as frivolous as a scent.

  “But . . . if the lady does not mind a fainter scent,” the Scentmaster continued, “I am to be having this—”

  He held out another bottle.

  “What is it?” Lena asked.

  “I am to be diluting perfume with distilled spirits, am to be using much less of scent. Is to be four coppers for bottle.” He smiled as Lena’s eyes lit up. They exchanged coppers and bottle, the bottle once again being cradled in a little woven pine-needle sheath. “To being very careful. Distilled spirits are to being escape into air, easy. To being sure bottle is well sealed with wax when closed. But . . .” he chuckled. “I am telling grandmama how to pluck chicken, am thinking. You are wife of Healer, you will to being know these things. Thank you, my young friends! Tell others of Efan Scentmaster! I have many fine things for all tastes!”

  Mags counted up his pennies in his mind, and asked, without hesitation, “You wouldn’t have ’nother of those, would you?” Amily wasn’t one for ribbons and the like . . . but he rather thought this would please her. It wasn’t quite her usual style; she favored scents like lavender and rosemary, but this wasn’t the sort of too-sweet, flowery perfume of the kind she didn’t care for.

  And—of course the Scentmaster had another.

  Beaming, Lena thanked him again and tucked her precious purchase into the bottom of a separate belt pouch she was wearing besides the one holding her money, one she had probably put on specifically to stow small purchases. Mags put his in his pocket—after all, he didn’t expect to have it long. She and Mags moved on to catch up with Amily and Bear.

  They spotted the pair of them in the final stages of bargaining in an herbalist’s stall; from the look of things, both of them had found what they were looking for. Mags caught their eyes, then he and Lena waited patiently off to the side until the bargaining was concluded to the satisfaction of all parties.

  Bear’s nostrils flared as Lena’s scent reached him. “What’s that you’re wearing?” he blurted, getting a little red. “It’s . . . it’s very. . . .”

  “Yes, it is, isn’t it?” Lena laughed, and hugged his arm. “I’m glad you like it.”

  “I like it too,” Amily said, wistfully. “Very much.”

  “Then you’ll be glad I got you some,” Mags said promptly, grinning as he fished out the little bottle, and watched her expression brighten.

  Then they moved on just a little farther. The area for pens, inks, pencils, paints, and fine papers was very small, and it didn’t take them at all long to find the stall Lydia wanted. That was when Mags found out just why the pens were so special.

  The nibs were made of metal. They’d last ever so much longer than a goose quill. Lena bargained cheerfully with the merchant and got Lydia the three pens and the special ink at what Mags considered to be a good price. So much of what went on in the business of running a Kingdom seemed to be commerce; Mags had been getting a lot of exposure to commerce from the perspective of the little man behind the counter of a pawnshop and the movers and shakers among the various mercantile Guilds. It was not something he would ever have thought he would find interesting, and yet, it was.

  If only because a great deal of it was about greed, and greed was something he understood all too well.

  When they were all together again, Mags brought out the list of performers and merchants and the map. They all tucked themselves into a gap between two tent stalls, out of the way of the foot traffic, and consulted both, heads huddled together over the papers. “I was kind of partial to trying one of those tents where they got a bunch of different folks rotating in,” he said. “I ’spect that’d bring us up to about lunch time.”

  Bear nodded, Amily shrugged, and Lena looked interested. “Anything we go to see will be something we haven’t got up on the hill,” Amily pointed out, “So I’m ready to look at whatever you like. I can’t think of any particular performers from last year that I’m dying to catch again. They were all pretty good.”

  As they got to the area of the entertainers, however, despite the large tent with banners depicting the ten different acts going on inside, Mags found himself oddly distracted by something on the very end of the row.

  There was a much smaller tent, dyed blue, with white swirls painted on it that looked like representations of wind and cloud. There was no loud fellow outside bellowing out the virtues of the performers within. Instead, there was a quiet-looking . . . person . . . outside, dressed in androgynous robes and a head wrap, all in the same blue and white; a dark blue throat wrap that matched the head wrap, a white underrobe, and a lighter blue overrobe belted at the waist with a dark blue scarf from which an embroidered belt pouch hung. Mags really could not tell if this person was male or female, and the melodious voice gave him no clues. It could have been a low alto or a high tenor. He couldn’t see the hair, and the robes were baggy enough to have hidden either a flat chest or a pair of modest bre
asts.

  The person chanted, in a sort of singsong, while a ferret scampered up and down his (?) arms at his direction. “Come, come and see, see what love will earn, see what kindness brings, see how even the lowliest creatures reward a loving heart. You will never see such feats from any other beast show here, never see how eagerly the beasts will answer the call of love. Come in, come in, there are seats still left.”

  Nothing like as aggressive as the other barkers, but there were plenty of people responding to it—generally people with small children. It sounded like a very good choice for young children, actually—nothing to frighten them, and nothing their parents would feel uncomfortable trying to explain. Right now—well, after being a “captive beast” of a sort himself, Mags was in the mood to see something that sounded so gentle. “Let’s see this,” Mags urged, and the others seemed just as interested.

  “I generally hate animal shows, because the animals are treated so cruelly,” said Amily. “But this—sounds nice.”

  The person must have overheard her, because he turned to the four of them and smiled. “It is nice, young mistress. You will see; my beasts and I are the greatest of friends, and they will do for me at my request what no amount of punishment or harsh training could demand. A penny each, if you please.”

  Before Mags or the others could respond, Amily had paid for all four of them. The person guided them in, then fastened a rope across the tent entrance, and dropped the cloth door behind them.

  The found themselves in a curious little round tent, with two rows of bleacher-style seats around the circumference, and a ring delineated by a low wooden barrier, painted white, with a gap in it in the center. Thanks to the blue coloring of the canvas, the place was shrouded in a pleasant twilight, with the empty center of the ring illuminated by the sun coming down through a hole in the top of the tent. The seats were, indeed, full, and the four of them took the last ones available.

  The person in charge went to a stand on which there was a curious instrument, rather like a harp, but lying down. He took a pair of thin rods in his hands and began to tap them on the strings.