by John Booth
A sign proclaimed a building as a trader’s inn. The sign boasted an enclosed stable for their animals. The inn looked to be as good a place as any to spend the night. Daniel’s donkeys and Jalia’s horse would be safe in their guarded stable, which was a major consideration.
Jalia dismounted and went into the inn to negotiate the price for the night, leaving her horses reins in Daniels’ hand. She was so much better at bartering than Daniel that he didn’t even consider going in to help her.
Fifteen minutes later, Jalia and a couple of workers from the inn came out onto the street and assisted the pair with stabling the animals and carrying their bags to a room. Traders always kept their goods close to them, especially in places like Outtown.
Daniel was exhausted from the activities of the night before and he dropped onto a cot with a sigh. Jalia, on the other hand, was wide awake and eager to see more of Outtown.
Daniel had put the bar across the door and was already snoring. Jalia sidled over to the window as silently as the floorboards would allow and climbed out.
Daniel heard Jalia getting onto the sill and opened an eye to see her drop from it. He went to look out of the window and saw there was a fifteen feet drop to the ground. Jalia was nowhere in sight.
Daniel shook his head and went back to bed. He wondered how long it would be before Jalia came back and whether they would have to flee the place when she arrived.
Jalia walked with a definite skip to her step through the dark streets, not at all bothered for her safety. The first tavern she came to was selling sex to furtive men with rotten teeth and that didn’t correspond with her idea of fun so she moved on. When she heard gasps of delight and raucous laughter, she followed the sounds to a large building.
Inside, scantily dressed girls served alcohol to a boisterous crowd of men. Most of the men were on one side of the large room where they packed so tight she had difficulty figuring out what they were up to.
As Jalia struggled through the crowd, she noticed some of the girls in the corner were serving themselves to the customers. Jalia wondered what they were doing to their dresses to make their breasts appear so full and decided to enquire about it later.
She managed to push and shove her way to the front of the crowd and discovered that the reason for the crush was a knife-throwing contest. It was nearing its conclusion as the finalists threw their knives at a target set up some fifteen feet from where they stood.
Jalia asked the nearest man and discovered that the crowd had each put ten bits into a pot to take part in the contest. Ten bits was a good day’s wages, so a lot rested on the outcome. Jalia estimated the pot held the equivalent of four gold coins and slipped the same amount out of her money belt and into her hand.
A chant rose of “Len Sawl! Len Sawl!” as the bigger of the men easily defeated the other, throwing his knife into the small red circle painted on the target. The man next to Jalia insisted Len Sawl was the greatest knife thrower in Delbon’s history.
“I challenge Len Sawl,” Jalia shouted above the chanting and the voices died as the crowd realized it was a woman making the challenge.
The winner of the contest looked Jalia over and smirked.
“Look lads, a girl seeking to screw the victor. I’ve got to warn you, girl, I can’t do it for more than ten minutes before I spend. But I can manage it twice in an hour if that’s good enough for you.”
The crowd rumbled with good natured laughter. Jalia frowned. She had encountered this kind of thing many times before and was skilled in dealing with it.
“Your manhood doesn’t really interest me and I’m not in the mood for a good laugh. However, I will challenge you to a knife throwing contest. Your winning pot against my hard cash.”
Len looked her over again. He took in how steady her hands were and the way her eyes moved. He summed her up as potentially a better thrower than the men whose money he had just taken.
“I only throw for money, little girl. Why don’t you come back when you’ve managed to grow some tits?” The crowd roared with laughter and Jalia felt her face going red. ‘What was it that made men like large breasts so much?’
Jalia threw the four gold coins onto the table. There was a drawing in of breath. Murder cost much less than the money she had dropped on the table. A man near to the table picked up the coins and bit into them one by one, examining the result by holding the coins to a lantern. No other metal was as soft as gold or as bright. He nodded at Len to let him know that Jalia’s gold was real.
Len licked his lips, which for some reason had gone dry. There was tension in the room. If he did not take up the challenge he would be laughed at and he was not certain he could win. He reached a decision.
“Very well, girl with the baby tits. We’ve been playing the best of five. Will that do?” Len hitched his belt up a little higher in anticipation of the contest to come. He wore the same kind of baggy trousers that Daniel favored, but unlike Daniel he had a significant paunch he tried to cover up.
Jalia smiled sweetly.
“Three throws will be enough, if you are man enough for it, that is.”
She walked across to the throwing line. A crude line in the dirt floor marked its boundary and Jalia made sure her feet were on the right side of it as a little wizened man ran forward and pinned a new target to the wall.
“Since you’re so eager, you can have the first throw,” Len said, knowing full well that this gave him the advantage.
“Turn and turn about.” Jalia replied, meaning they would take turns on who had first throw. Len nodded reluctantly, recognizing that Jalia wasn’t a fool.
Jalia took a knife from her boot. With only a cursory glance at the target, she threw. It stuck half in the red mark and half in the white. The crowd clapped in appreciation. It was a good throw.
Len came to the line and shooed Jalia away in the manner a farmer might use on an annoying chicken. Jalia back away slowly her face impassive. Len took careful aim and threw, his knife landed fully in the red. He was winning and the crowd roared with delight.
It was Len’s turn to throw next and again he took careful aim, but this time his knife sliced into the red and white.
A man standing near the target shouted out the results to the crowd before returning Jalia and Len’s knives to them. Jalia again stood behind the line. This time her knife landed in the red and the contest was even.
Len was getting annoyed. Jalia might win and he had debts he needed to repay. As soon as a new target was set up he pushed past Jalia who was waiting to throw.
“Let’s end this now.”
Len threw his knife into the middle of the red. He turned to Jalia and said, “Your best could never be more central than that, the prize is mine.” The crowd cheered in approval
Jalia was getting fed up with this boys-club she’d found, though truth to tell it was normal for her to encounter this sort of thing. She scowled at the little man who set up the target.
“Remove his knife. My knife will enter the same hole, leaving only one cut in the paper.”
The room went silent. Such a throw was impossible.
Jalia felt the tension rise up a notch. The hubbub became a silence so deep that a man was glared at for daring to cough.
Jalia threw her knife without even appearing to aim. It flew into the red. Everybody waited in silence as the scorer carefully pulled out her knife and held the target up for everybody to see, putting his finger through the single cut in it.
The crowd stomped their feet and applauded as Len fumed. He realized that Jalia had been playing games with him and her first throw was simply to put him off his guard.
Jalia went over to the table to claim her prize when Len’s angry voice brought her to a halt.
“Any fool can throw a knife at a target. But are you brave enough to let me throw my knife at you?”
Jalia turned to face him. Was he aiming to kill her?
“To what purpose?”
Despite the fact she had already won
she was intrigued by this unexpected challenge.
“To prove to these men you aren’t a coward. With the single condition that should I humiliate you, I will take the pot.”
“I already have the pot.”
Looking at the faces of the crowd she could see Len had scored an important point with them. They wanted more entertainment and she would be denying it them if she refused. They would remember her as the girl with no guts. Such a thing was completely unacceptable.
“Very well, I’ll stand as your target.”
Jalia moved to stand with her back to the wall. She didn’t doubt that Len would miss her. The crowd would lynch him if he hit her. Jalia didn’t understand what Len was up to but she was not the sort of person who would allow anyone to label her a coward.
“Remember,” Len said as he took aim, “If I humiliate you, the pot is mine. Could you raise your arms a little, girl?”
Jalia raised her arms to stand in a T position and waited. Len threw the knife and she felt the shudder in the wall, as his blade stuck close to her right hip. Then she felt her skirt fall to the floor as Len’s knife severed the cord holding it up.
The crowd roared with laughter. Jalia was left standing naked from the waist down. She blushed crimson as she pulled up her skirt and knotted the cord back together again.
While she was busy, Len bowed to the crowd taking their applause. There was no doubt he had humiliated her. Len reached for the pot of money and Jalia’s knife shuddered into the table less than an inch from his hand. The noise in the tavern again dropped to silence. Jalia spoke in a deceptively calm voice.
“Turnabout is fair play. Have you the guts to stand as my target?”
Len’s blood turned cold and his face blanched as he realized how angry Jalia was. However, he knew she couldn’t kill him, and she was better at throwing a knife than he would ever be.
Len bowed to Jalia and then to the crowd. “If you wish me to, little girl, I would only be too delighted. But the pot remains mine.” Len went to stand against the wall.
The crowd was ecstatic. They knew this contest had become the stuff of legends. People would be talking about it for years. They didn’t see how the girl could top Len, but they were more than happy to let her try.
Jalia retrieved her knife from the table, tossing it into the air casually before catching it. The crowd thought she was grandstanding, but in reality she was checking that her knife’s balance hadn’t been altered by the previous throws.
Len stood and waited. Jalia made as if to throw and then stopped. “Would you mind opening your legs a little?” she asked mildly.
Len gulped, feeling anything but calm and he spread his legs until his feet were wide apart. Len’s hands clenched into fists as Jalia turned from him and towards the crowd. His body tensed in trepidation.
Jalia bowed to the crowd and then spun and threw so fast that everyone gasped. Len felt the shudder of the knife against the wood of the wall and then the sharp edge of the blade as his testicles dropped a fraction of an inch as he relaxed. The horror of how close he had come to losing his manhood caused him to relieve himself.
The crowd laughed as Len’s white trousers turned a darker color and urine ran down his leg and onto the floor to form a steaming pool.
The crowd cheered delightedly as Jalia bowed low to them, imitating Len’s bows perfectly.
“Luckily his balls are smaller than I expected, as my knife flew a little high,” she said to whoops of delight.
Len was pinned to the wall by his trousers. Jalia came over to retrieve her knife. When she put her hand onto her knife’s hilt, Len tried to stab her.
Len discovered Jalia carried more than one knife as she caught his in the guard of the knife in her left hand and pushed it back and up until it pressed against his throat.
“Now, let’s not be a sore loser.”
The crowd stood silent as they watched this final play between the contestants. Jalia calmly retrieved the knife in the wall.
“After all, you did win the pot fair and square.”
She released Len and stepped away, hands raised in the air and knife blades in her fingers so there could be no appearance of threatening him further.
Len dropped his knife and the crowd cheered. As he walked to retrieve his winnings, the men closest to it spat into the pot. The crowd milled around Jalia clapping her on the back.
Much later Jalia reappeared at her bedroom window and settled into her cot. Quieter than she could hear, Daniel sighed in relief and finally let sleep take him.
Return to Delbon
A cock crowed in the yard and its boisterous screech woke Daniel, bleary eyed from his sleep. He looked over to Jalia’s cot and saw it was empty. The bar on the door was in the open position so he presumed she was having her breakfast.
How she did it he would never know. She seemed to thrive on limited sleep and adventure while Daniel ended up tired out from nothing more than the chores of the day. It was unlikely today would prove quiet. His return to Delbon was long overdue and Yousef had never been patient, even when they were children.
Jalia had foregone breakfast and was in the stable saddling her horse, impatient to be off and into Delbon. She wore a veil she’d brought back from her evening in the tavern, though she couldn’t quite remember where she’d picked it up. Sometime after her eighth or ninth drink, she thought. She intended to wear it to disguise her from the City Guard.
To help with the disguise she’d changed into clothes a little more ladylike than usual. She harbored a suspicion that killing some of their number was not the sort of thing the Guard would forgive or forget.
The prospect of going into Delbon was making her uncharacteristically nervous and she planned to stay by Daniel’s side while he visited his brother, partly because he still didn’t seem to care what she did one way or the other. When he got down on his hands and knees and begged her to stay, well that was when she would leave. It was all a matter of pride.
She still felt guilty over nearly killing him. Nor could she get over his sudden ageing. Daniel stood six inches taller than her, when before the giants they had been the same height. He also looked older than her despite being a year younger. In Jalia’s view none of this was fair. The Fairie magic took away the round-faced compliant trader-boy she knew and had left her with an unfamiliar and uncompromising strong willed man.
If only she could persuade him to punish her she could use the pain to wipe away her guilt. Daniel was proving completely unreasonable about that as well. Jalia stamped her foot in a mixture of nervousness and annoyance. She would be glad when this day was over.
Daniel made his way down to the kitchen and bought breakfast. There were only a couple of other traders in the room and he didn’t recognize them. He was feeling nervous too, he’d made more money on this trip than he and Yousef had in their entire lives. He was far from sure his brother would appreciate it. Yousef’s accident had not improved his temper.
It was Yousef who sold the farm their parents owned and used the money to take up trading, and it was Yousef who wanted that life. Daniel would have been happy to have stayed on the farm and build something he could be proud of, but now it appeared he would always be a trader.
Magic was almost never seen in Jalon and he and Jalia had already encountered more of it than most people would encounter in a lifetime. Daniel had actually seen the Fairie twice, not counting his encounter with the sand fairies. When stories mentioned old gods it was always understood these were Fairie with human worshippers.
He was sure that a Fairie with the head of a bull had been a major god from legend, like the one he met in the woods. Clea’s name was the same as that of the Empress who started the war with the Magician Kings and he wondered if she was related to her. It seemed unlikely, though no one knew how long the Fairie lived.
With the help of a couple of the servants from the inn, Daniel moved his trade goods down to the stables. He had left Delbon with three donkeys, now he had seven and
their increased numbers were only a small part of the wealth he had acquired.
He found Jalia waiting for him in the yard. Her horse had picked up on her nervousness and pranced impatiently. Daniel nodded, but did not smile. He would miss her when she was gone. Though she was trouble through and through and he was a little surprised she hadn’t left him already. After all, they had reached their destination.
Jalia let Daniel and the donkeys lead the way. She knew the size of his train would attract the Guards like flies to a honey pot as they tried to get the largest bribe they could to let him into the city. A woman on a horse was not as attractive as she might be a noble woman, and to try and extract money from a noble woman would be to risk censure.
As she expected, Daniel’s train attracted the guards’ attention and she was able to ride past the men as they pawed their way through his packs. No trader ever got into a city for free and Daniel was accustomed to the process. By the time he negotiated an acceptable sum with the Guards, Jalia had vanished into the city.
Daniel assumed she must have decided to leave, so he was a little surprised when he saw her riding behind him a few streets later.
Yousef was a thin man with a straggly black beard. Children taunted him because his gait frightened them. If he ever managed to catch them they would have found good reason for their fears. His pain had embittered him to the world.
Almost as soon as Daniel left Delbon Yousef found himself short of money. He was not a good gambler, but thought he was and this led to inevitable increases in his debts. He owed a great deal of money and the solution he found to keep his creditors from his door pricked at his conscience every day.
That morning he sat in a coffee shop and worried. He was sitting on a bright silk cushion he carried everywhere with him. To sit down without it caused him excruciating pain.