The Riddle and the Rune

by Grace Chetwin

  “What”—Gom pointed—“is that?”

  “ Tis called a weathervane,” Hort said, obviously pleased that Gom had noticed it. “Got it a few years back from Carrick, master tinker, in exchange for a couple of cow hides. Not a good swap, but I wanted it so bad that I gave in too hasty, as I’ll readily admit. Maister Carrick’s no cheat, though he drives a right sharp bargain. See that arrow? Tells you which way the wind’s blowing. Though to tell you the truth, I can do that fine well without the help of yon tarrymediddle but it do look rather grand up there, don’t it?”

  “How does it tell you?”

  “See which way that there brass squiggle lies?” Hort pointed straight ahead, out past the neat white fence and up over the hill. “That’s called north, and that’s what that squiggle stands for, according to Carrick.”

  Gom looked skyward. “That’s in the same direction as those two stars.”

  “Aren’t you the quick one!” Hort clapped him on the back. “Oops, sorry lad,” he went on, as Gom grunted with pain. “I clean forgot your bruises. The tinker told me that when he’s on the road, miles away from anywhere and anybody, or any weathervane set up on top of a body’s barn roof, all he has to do is look for them two stars and he knows exactly where north is.”

  “And the other three directions?”

  “Turn your back directly on north, like so...” Hort turned Gom to face about, and pointed up over the cottage's thatched roof. “... and you’re facing what’s called south. That way..." He pointed past the dairy. "... lies east. You can’t miss it, for east is where the sun comes up. And where it goes down... ’’ He turned Gom full about again to where the sun had set behind the barn. “... is called west. All this Carrick told me when I bought the weathervane. It’s all I know and all I want to know. Now let’s get inside out of this wind.”

  Gom called after him. “Where’s the Bluff?” The high cliff face where Hort had found him.

  “The Bluff?” Turning, Hort pointed. “Thataway.” Gom stared in the direction of Hort’s arm. Over the dairy roof, the chicken coops, and the milking shed. Beyond them lay the Bluff. Beyond that, the plateau. And farther still, lost among the higher peaks, Windy Mountain. “East,” he murmured. “I came from East.”

  "Aye, lad." Hort eyed Gom up and down. “You must be of real tough stock living that high—though you don’t look it.”

  “He certainly don’t, poor lad,” Mudge called again. “Just you get him back in here, Fer Hort, afore he takes the fever again! And let’s shut out this awful wind!”

  Shut me out, indeed! Wind shrieked after them as Hort pushed the door to. When are you coming, Gom Gobblechuck?

  Too preoccupied to heed Wind’s angry cries, Gom followed Hort indoors. “North, South, East, and West,” he said aloud. “My mother must be in one of those directions. But which one, Hort, do you think?”

  “Eh, lad, that’s for you to find out at the fair. As for me, I’d rather be here than there any day.”

  You don’t have to take any direction at all,” Mudge said suddenly. “There’s more than enough room for you to stay on here, and we’re needing an extra hand this spring, aren’t we, Hort?”

  “I thank you for your great, good kindness,” Gom said firmly. “But I must move on as soon as I can.”

  “Oh,” Mudge said, and, jumping up, began to clear the table busily.

  Gom went to the window where the weathervane stood stark in the day’s last luminescence, its brass symbol softly gleaming. Above the weathervane shone the bright twin stars.

  A sign, he’d asked for. An omen. He’d gotten two, both pointing north. Was that the way he should go?

  A faint excitement riffled through him. When he spoke with the peddlers he’d know for sure.

  At the spring fair.

  Chapter Four

  SPRING FAIR day dawned bright and clear.

  Gom awoke well before first light to good strong smells of wax and grain and burlap and pickling spice. He slept now in a lean-to off the kitchen; a pantry, really, into which Hort had pushed his cot. A small stone cell lit by a tiny skylight through which Gom could see the stars. Along one wall were pickling crocks, sacks of meal and flour, bags of barley and wheat, while over all hung coils of rope, and bunched candles made of beeswax.

  He crept out in his nightshirt, crossed the kitchen to the front door, and peeked out just as the sun topped the dairy roof. He took a hearty breath, savoring the fresh, damp earthy smell of the new morning.

  “My, we’re feeling better today.” Mudge stood behind him, beaming, a big blue washbowl in her hands. “But don’t get too ambitious. You’ve a long day ahead. Sit by the fire whilst I heat some water for your wash. After breakfast, you can help Hort hitch up the pony cart.”

  A couple of hours later, they were moving up the hill toward the village. Gom sat happily on the cart seat, squashed between Hort and Mudge, bouncing and swaying as the iron-rimmed wheels bumped over the narrow, stony track. To be sure, Gom felt an occasional bump, and a certain tenderness in his yellowing bruises, but he wasn’t going to let matters like that spoil the day.

  He glanced from side to side at his companions resplendent in their feast-day clothes, aware of how plain he looked beside them. Hort’s suit was deep blue, with a red checkered shirt and a bright blue neckerchief. Mudge’s yellow dress was trimmed in green frills, and her wide straw hat was topped with tiny purple flowers. She wore a shawl against the morning chill, and carried a basket filled with sweet pastries. For Mistress Gumby, she said, in extra thanks for tending Gom.

  As they crested the rise, Hort drew rein. “See, lad? Green Vale. What do you make of it?”

  Gom leaned forward eagerly.

  The track wound down before them toward a mass of whitewashed cottages haphazard as a child’s scattered building blocks.

  “ ’Course,” Hort said. “Coming from a town, you’ll find Green Vale small, it being only a village.”

  “Oh, no,” Gom said. “It’s much bigger than Clack.” And much more inviting, he thought, gazing around at the green rolling hills and remembering the tall peaks that towered over Clack, shutting it in.

  In the midst of the thatched roofs was an open space crowded with bright pennants flapping in the breeze: the fair. Faint sounds wafted up toward them: the murmur of a jostling crowd, the shouts of peddlers, scattered applause, a snatch of song.

  Hort moved the pony along.

  “ ’Tis started early today,” he said. “The juggler’s already juggling, by the sound of it. And the balladeer’s a-singing his songs.” He sniffed appreciatively. “And, my, can I smell hot peas already?”

  “For shame, Hort,” Mudge said. “You’ve only just had your breakfast.”

  “Hot peas?”

  “A specialty of the village,” Mudge told Gom. “You take a kettle of yellow peas and boil them up for two days until stuff’s so thick you can stand a spoon up in it. Makes a fine hearty pottage to warm the belly, and tastes grand with a dash of malt vinegar.”

  “Ah, the lad won’t want that,” Hort said. “He’ll more likely pick a caramel stick, or sugar floss, or a roll of brandysnap.”

  They reached the first of the houses.

  Gom looked from side to side at neat front gardens, where crocus and grape hyacinth were already blooming. Sprays of golden forsythia arched over white picket fences, and buds of dogwood swelled to palest green. Gom felt a pang of homesickness. Another two, three weeks, and Hilsa’s garden would look the same.

  They turned into the crowded main street.

  “ ’Morning, Hort, Mudge. How’s the invalid?” folk called on every hand.

  Invalid? Gom stirred uneasily. The whole village knew about him, it seemed. He felt all at once exposed and conspicuous. Hadn’t Mandrik told him to go about quietly? He shrank himself up as small as he could between Hort and Mudge, avoiding the eyes of the curious villagers as Hort steered the cart into a cobbled inn yard and summoned a stableboy.

  With a smile and a wave,
Mudge took herself off to Mistress Gumby’s while Hort led Gom out into the throng. * Gom stayed close by Hort, trying not to feel uneasy. He might have guessed from his experiences with the townsfolk back home that he had no hope of visiting the village unnoticed. For a start, he was a stranger. But there was more to it than that. He was an odd-looking stranger. Uncut now since last fall, his unruly brown hair bushed out around a thin face pale from a long winter and fever. His quick dark eyes were sharper than the regular child’s and altogether too sharp to encourage well-meaning adults. Some folk thought him ugly, he knew. One of his brothers, Horvin, had even scorned him publicly. But Stig had only reminded Gom of how he resembled Harga, and that those who mocked him weren’t worth a pinch of salt.

  Hort took him on leisurely tour, in and out among the crowd, stopping at this stall to buy Gom a caramel stick and at that for Hort’s pea pottage. The fumes from hot malt vinegar were very strong, and stung Gom’s eyes. One taste of the pottage and he declined Hort’s offer of a second, preferring, as Hort had predicted, the sweetness of the caramel.

  From Gom’s right came the twang of strings as the balladeer tuned up. By common consent, Gom and Hort pushed through the crowd to where the man sat under a tree.

  Gom studied him with great interest.

  His hair was gold, his cap and hose were bright orange, his tunic and breeches were motley green and purple. On cap, and cuff, and collar, he wore tiny silver bells that jingled at his slightest movement, and from a braided lanyard about his neck hung a finely crafted mandolin. The fingers, playing up and down the strings, were white and soft, and very long.

  So this, Gom thought, was a balladeer. How different from Stig, in his rough shirt and worn breeches, swinging the axe in his great brown hands, his rich voice ringing out through the high thin air.

  The man struck up a chord, his white teeth gleaming.

  Winter’s dead, and spring is here,

  The sun grows warm ab-o-o-o-o-ove;

  And ev’ry head now fills with cheer,

  And ev’ry heart with lo-o-o-o-ove.

  The man paused. A coin landed at his feet, and near the front, a knot of young girls tittered. The balladeer smiled up at them and winked. Then, his eye upon them, he struck into a second verse:

  Now ev’ry mother’s lusty boy

  Would seek himself a girl;

  Of rosy cheek, and glances coy,

  And shining, tossing, curl.

  The girls giggled, lads hooted from the back of the crowd, and more pennies arced to the singer’s feet.

  Gom turned abruptly away.

  “You don’t like it?” Hort asked.

  His throat too tight to let him speak, Gom could only shake his head.

  “Well, now.” Hort looked around. “Mudge’ll be along soon.” He reached out to Gom’s shoulder, let fall his arm. “I know,” he said brightly, “let’s find the juggler.”

  Juggler? Gom pushed his way behind Hort, looking from side to side at the stalls piled with wares of every kind: laces, linens, clay pots, and dishes and cups and mugs and wallets and purses and pouches and fancy belts; cheap trinkets, shells, ribbons; and curtains and carpets and rugs, and—

  Gom stopped before a stall piled with little wooden carvings of wild animals: squirrels, rabbits, foxes, frogs; and birds of every kind. The very sort of things that Stig had loved to make of a winter's evening. He picked one up, turned it over in his hand. A wild goose, neck outstretched, wings spread, just about to take flight, by the looks of it.

  “What’s that? You like it?” Hort asked, his hand to his pouch.

  Gom set it down hastily. The carving was crude, the finish, shoddy. He didn’t want Hort to waste precious money on such an ill-turned thing. “Oh, no, thank you,” he said. “I was just looking.”

  Hort picked up the goose. “Nice, isn’t it?” he said. “Why, I’ll buy it anyway, as a memento of this day. Make a nice ornament for the mantelshelf. And cheap: only half a silver piece.”

  Hort opened his pouch.

  Half a silver piece sounded like a lot of money to Gom.

  “Don’t!” he cried. “I’ll make you one, if you like.” The moment he said it, he regretted it. How was he going to carve Hort a goose, when he wasn’t going to be around for long enough?

  Hort smiled delightedly. “Well!” he cried. “I do believe you could!”

  Just beyond the stall full of carvings, the crowd was so thick that Gom and Hort had to fight their way through.

  “Ha!” Hort cried. “The juggler!”

  Gom stood on tiptoe, craning his neck, but could see nothing.

  “Here,” Hort said. “Follow me.” He pushed a way through for them until they stood by the corner of a gaudy red tent.

  Before it, on a low wooden platform, a man was just in the act of tossing a handful of wooden skittles into the air. He was fairly tall, though not as tall as Hort, but he was broader and more muscular. His face, fleshy and red, was topped with slick black hair shiny as paint. Shirtless, he wore tight green breeches and a wide silver bracelet that flashed with the movement of his bare arm.

  Gom watched the skittles fly into the air and waited for them to come crashing down again, but instead, to his amazement, the man kept them going around and around without dropping one.

  The people began to clap delightedly. Still the man kept them going until there came the chink of a coin, and another, and another, into a cap by the juggler’s feet.

  When the coins stopped at last, the juggler stopped the skittles, catching them one after the other in his left hand without dropping one, until he held them all up like a bunch of wooden flowers.

  Amid fresh applause, the man bowed again, then, reaching into his tent, he set down the skittles and brought out a long black robe splashed with brilliant suns and moons and stars.

  “Oh my!” exclaimed Hort, against an excited murmur from the crowd.

  Gom went very still. He well knew those signs from Harga’s little blanket. Wizard’s signs, he was sure. Was this man a wizard?

  The man raised his fists, and opening them, displayed two large, white eggs. The crowd fell silent. Closing his fists again, the man turned a full slow circle. Then, stretching his arms to the sky, he spread his palms.

  There was an “ooooh!” as two snow-white pigeons rose up and fluttered away over the heads of the crowd.

  The man bowed low with a smile that reminded Gom of Skeller.

  Gom tugged uneasily at Hort’s sleeve. “Is he a wizard?”

  Hort looked down, his eyes alight with pleasure. “A what? Why, no, lad,” he said. “You’ll not find one of those at a public fair. The man’s a conjuror, as well as juggler, which is lucky indeed, for we rarely see such!”

  The man bowed again, then straightening up, he put his hand to his ear and pulled out a silver chain with a locket dangling from it.

  “Hey!” A woman on the front row clutched her bare neck. “That’s mine!”

  Amid loud laughter, the man handed back the chain with a solemn nod. Coins chinked into the cap at his feet until they began to spill over onto the platform.

  Gom’s hand went to his chest, feeling the rune secure under the cloth of his tunic.

  The man caught Gom’s movement, glanced toward him. For a moment, their gaze held, then, smiling, the conjuror turned back to the crowd.

  Gom froze. That man knew him. But how could he, when they’d never met?

  “Well, I never!” Mudge edged up, panting, behind them. “How clever! What did you think, Gom?”

  As Gom watched, the man bent down and picked up the bulging cap. It was velvet, black, with a jaunty red feather waving in the wind.

  Gom shuddered, remembering another hat, another feather, belonging to Dismas Skeller, peddler, swindler of simple folk. And would-be murderer.

  “A trick, it was a trick,” he muttered.

  “Of course it was,” Hort laughed. “That’s the difference between real magic and conjuring. And the fun is trying to guess how it’s done
!”

  Fun! Why, Gom hadn’t felt so afraid since the time of Skeller.

  “Gom, are you getting tired?” Mudge peered down into his face.

  “No!” Gom said, a trifle loudly, turning heads. “I’m— hungry, I think.”

  “Oh, you poor boy,” Mudge cried. “Hort, let’s go and find something to put in his belly.” She put her arm around Gom’s shoulder, gave him a quick hug. “I’m that glad you’re working up your appetite, lad.”

  They found a booth laden with hot pies and baked potatoes, and soon Gom was doing some juggling of his own. They stood, watching and listening, Hort and Mudge exchanging nods and smiles with passing folk.

  “Hey up!” Hort cried suddenly, setting down his empty plate. “There’s Carrick!” He pointed through a gap in the crowd to a green-and-white striped awning under which, surrounded by pans and kettles of all shapes and sizes, a man sat on a stool, tapping away at a round, black pot.

  Hort led the way toward the master tinker.

  The man jumped up when he saw them, his face creasing into a deep smile, his tight black curls bouncing about his dark tanned face. His blue eyes were kind, yet sharp enough to put Gom on his mettle. He stood a good head shorter than Hort, yet he had a stocky strength about him, and the patient air of one who lived life on the open road. His clothes, if threadbare, were plain and neat, and his boots, laced to his knee, were of serviceable brown leather, well oiled.

  Gom liked him at once.

  Before Hort could introduce Gom, Carrick nodded solemnly. “So this is the invalid. Pleased to meet you, young man. I hear you’ve had a bad time.”

  “Well!” Mudge put her hands on her hips in mock indignation.

  Carrick laughed. “Before he met you, Mistress Mudge, not after, I'm sure. I hope he’s left some of your good onion broth for a hungry traveler.”

  Mudge blushed with pleasure. “There’ll always be a bowl for you, Carrick, even if I had to feed a whole town.”

  “Then you shall prove your word tomorrow, ma’am,” Carrick said. “That is, if you have work for me, I hope.”

  Mudge nodded vigorously. “Indeed. My best preserving pan, and the pot I boil the linen in, and my good iron skillet, all want patching. And I need a new stock pot.”