by Chris Turner
Risgan’s first potential customer arrived soon enough, a gentleman with a bushy beard and a waxy face. A collector, or antique enthusiast, he suspected. The man eyed him with curiosity then the glinting emerald beads of the mummy’s necklace. “Pretty things, but what are they?”
Risgan lifted palms. “The jewels are multi-faceted. Rare. Designed more to excite than inspire. As for utility?” He shrugged. “It’s enough of an ornamental piece at least to impress a demanding mistress or two.”
“Perhaps,” grumbled the collector. “I’ll offer you three mezks for the trinket, as a souvenir of my tour about the market, or at least take it off your hands for free.”
Risgan blew out his cheeks in annoyance. “I don’t risk my life for petty change, sir. You wouldn’t believe the voracious beast I recently eluded to attain these gems.”
“Likely not. I see only lacklustre pearls tied on a mouldering cord which could be touted by any of these flea-bitten hawkers shambling about this court.”
“You can see what you want to see,” Risgan commented idly, “but there is no deal.” He reached out a hand to put his items in his pouch, then accidentally loosed the odd lustrous nephrite onto the table. The man’s eyes rounded, as an owl’s, as if he had never seen such a thing before. Several bystanders stopped and stared at the gem too as it blazed in the daylight. They all put hands to mouth and whispered in curious amazement. A large crowd had gathered before long—attracted by the allure of the bauble’s radiant flip side.
Risgan, surprised at the sudden interest, gave a fluting caw. He decided to keep the gem displayed. Perhaps it would fetch more buyers and command more than a few mezks. Risgan’s wan smile grew to a triumphant leer—indeed, in spite of Munix’s hidebound prophecy of doom. Even Vosta, his rival, a few kiosks down the way, had emerged from his booth to see what all the hubbub was about. The man was a fellow trader who wore the square cap of a Karka and the turquoise arm jewels of a wealthy merchant. His glinting eyes narrowed as he stood back scrutinizing Risgan’s wares, clearly with an attitude of envy.
Ever since three years ago when Risgan had won first prize in the annual ‘Fair of Oddities’ Vosta had had it in for him. The event had been hosted by Pontific Pantius. Risgan’s ancient ceremonial isk chain set in blue jewels had defeated Vosta’s ancient torturer’s toe clasps. Perhaps Risgan had underestimated Vosta’s jealousy when he saw him creeping over to confer with his associate and magician, Mistis, a questionable spell-caster wrapped in a dark cloak and tight cowl. He had been inspecting Risgan’s commerce at a distance, albeit with grudging interest.
“Ah, Risgan,” bleated Vosta offhandedly, “I see you have had some luck with your relic-hunting. Bully for you! ’Tis time you earned some coins. I doubt you’ll get as much for these tired-looking specimens as you think. Be wary, lads!” he cried to the crowd, disarming them, spreading his arms in jocular fashion. “The man is a sharper! I daresay, never trust a vendor with dust on his boots and dirt on his hands!”
Risgan acknowledged the remark with polite forbearance. “Thank you, Vosta. Your charmed vote of confidence warms my heart. Yet I see you are misinformed. Better watch your own kiosk. I see it is being rifled by an old woman with two young urchins.”
Vosta whirled about, raising a hand at the plunderers. A truculent curse rang in his throat as he strode off with Mistis behind him.
Risgan was appeased. He knew from the gleam of avarice in Vosta’s eye that something was about, something the trader knew about the curio which Risgan did not.
It was an accurate guess, and Risgan, pushing the dark intuition from his mind, managed to sell his beads and papyrus to two interested buyers. He gained himself twenty five mezks and smiled to himself. Several more prospects began fighting over who would be the first to purchase the mysterious oval piece of nephrite, and Risgan pretended rapt interest in an ornamental yak hoof at a neighbouring table while he took great pleasure in letting them fight out their differences. Bids went higher.
An old wanderer had arrived to examine Risgan’s gold ring and try a trade. His eyes were white and rheumy and he wore the threadbare garb of a minstrel. The man faced Risgan and made no bones about his desire for Risgan’s curio…it reminded him of an ornament he had given to his first sweetheart years ago. But he had no intention of buying the antique, only offering a few knickknacks in return for trade.
Risgan peered at the offers the man presented. The minstrel held a twisted finger bone, polished and lacquered, possibly of a basilhoon. “’Tisn’t much,” he remarked, “but ’tis called a ‘wish bone’. Notice the pleasing configuration of shape and line on its haft. ’Twas given to me as a boy by my grandmother, and before her, by her grandmother.”
“Very interesting,” said Risgan. “So, why trade it to me then?”
The man hesitated with a frown. “Truthfully, I haven’t found much use for it. The talisman only grants wishes to those who are in desperate need for some wish to come true—naturally, persons on peril of death—or, he added slyly—“for the young who are pure of heart and have not been tainted by the world.”
Risgan grunted. He found the account fascinating but of no benefit to his enterprise. “A novelty, minstrel, at best. Perhaps I could pass this curio on for something better. I notice it has a small, unspectacular inlay of quartz.”
“It does at that, and a good one.” The man became excited and took the ring and handed Risgan the wish bone. “Take it. All the power to you, fair fellow!” It was a foolhardy trade, and Risgan knew it even before he handed over the ring. So did all watching. Rumours of ‘mad trader’ and ‘naive extravagance’ came to his ears, but he only smiled, for he never was one for being ungracious to a genuine customer. Never had he much luck with rings anyways. They all seemed to bestow bad luck upon him. Happy he was to trade it for the wish bone and it wasn’t the first time he had let such an item go...
Nursing contentment, Risgan was satisfied with the day’s work. It had been a lucrative afternoon and he thought to pack up his wares early and hit the taverns. Almost fifty mezks to his name clinked in his purse. The bids on the nephrite relic had died, becoming ridiculously high, and the pretence of any interest in a reasonable price had gone the wayside.
A tall bony man with a comic hawk nose tried an angle of teasing banter on Risgan. “You are a maudlin one, Relic-trader. I saw you back there and would have given you a hundred mezks for that precious ring of yours. Yet you gave it to that beggar.”
“Then why didn’t you put in a bid?” Risgan asked.
The man gave a grunt. “The moment was not ripe. I was not settled in my mind—”
Risgan shook his head and went back to his packing. But another passer-by, a Sizene trader, fuller of beard and wiser of eye, stepped in with a fistful of coins. He argued the merits of the nephrite. Pushing himself between Risgan and the dithering man, he voiced a plangent boast of its pleasing presence on his mantle-piece. “I shall give you thirty mezks for the gem, sir. I must have it.” His eyes feasted on the dazzling nephrite and he stooped hungrily to stare at it, as others had before him.
The hawk-nosed man hustled in to object. “Nothing doing. It’s my property from the outset. According to the law of fair trade, first seen is first to take. So ’tis rightfully mine—and for only twenty five mezks!”
“A bold misconception!” cried the Sizene trader. You’re a student of delusion. It was you who handled it first, but ’twas I who bid first.”
“By no means!” cried hawk-nose. “You misheard the bid.”
“Sir, your mouth is full of suet. Please step aside, before nastiness must play itself out—” The man reached for the small poniard strapped at his waist.
Risgan held up a conciliatory hand. “Sirs, let us have peace. I shall resolve the quandaries. The item is not for sale. By corollary, none shall have it.” He chuckled to the chorus of astounded murmurs.
But the stranger’s face became dark, even desperate. His fists knotted. The fact that he persisted in
his desire for the chunk of nephrite made Risgan frown and told him many things, specifically that the item had value.
The man’s hawk eyes narrowed with a dangerous violence. “Now, pass me the bauble or you’ll be the worse for it!”
Angry cries grew to the thud of blows—Risgan dealing the worst of them. Risgan’s balled fist cracked against the trader’s skull. The stranger had mulishly stuck to his idea of walking off with the nephrite and his persistence had brought him woe.
“I’ve told you that the item is not for sale,” Risgan growled with displeasure. The patron lay sprawled on the flags and Risgan looked at the result of his handiwork and uttered a rueful croak. What had he done? ’Twas almost as if he were not himself... He grabbed his wares and pushed himself away from the sprawled trader.
Brass bugles brayed and horns suddenly sounded from afar. Eyes turned to the arched entranceway. A thrum of cheers arose as the Pontific rode abreast his Aslan elephant into the market—a giant blue-grey tusked woolly cousin of the mammoth. Three whereunts—squat black-furred steeds with manes of russet wolf’s-fur—followed in tow, groomed and caparisoned to perfect precision in red and gold. Fashionable courtiers rode the mounts, behind which finer steeds were decked with banners and tabards. The Pontific’s consort Farella, a woman of stunning elegance, sat garbed in sparkling jewellery and stylish clothes. The lady rode her own smaller elephant while several nobles and grandees followed in the van on their own beasts, on foot or carriage, attended by serfs and retainers. Ludlum, the Pontific’s counsellor trailed grimly on foot with a long, double-headed staff clutched in his fist.
Trailing at his heels came the Pontific’s magician, Narvius, a tall enigmatic conjurer with face half hidden by a black warp of fabric. He wore the loose weave of orange silk of his kind around his thin frame.
To Risgan’s misfortune, the honourable Pontific had noticed the disturbance at his table, and he swung his elephant in a sharp angle and trooped over to investigate. Risgan was not yet far enough away to escape notice. The Pontific detected some sport to his dull day, a distraction from the regular pomp and ceremony.
“Here now! What is all this fol-de-rol? I will not stand for chicanery in my market, especially on an auspicious day.”
“Quite right, Your Excellency,” asserted Risgan with quick deference. “The action shall not occur again. I was just reminding these fine gentlemen that the ‘right to sale’ always belongs to the merchant.”
“And the item in question is what?” demanded the Pontific. He brushed back his oiled, sculpted hair and stood fixing a stern gaze down upon Risgan.
“A peccadillo! A bit of brummagem only,” the relic hunter protested. “It should never have even left my pouch!”
Pantius gave a short mutter. “What sort of brummagem is it that could escape the rascally eye of Thrusto here, if I recognize the trader at your side, for ’tis he you trounced, is it not?”
The Sizene trader bowed low. “’Tis Thrusto, indeed, Your Grace. On a whim I inquired of this piece from this ‘relic hunter’. I wished only a certain flawed and inelegant bauble, as it represented a complementary twin for the antique which my mistress recently lost from her double-banded armoire. Not two days ago she wailed in my ear, ‘Oh, Thrusto, please conjure up my missing ornament or I shall faint. You know how languid I become when I misplace an heirloom, ever since poor Ittis my pet cockerel, died. To this I answered—”
“To the point, Thrusto,” muttered Pantius with impatience.
“Yes, my lord. In my infinite forbearance, I ended up cajoled into replacing this missing heirloom. I left, sworn on a duty to discover a suitable replacement. For two days I have searched high and low for such a curio... Sentimental value, this piece, of course.” The Sizene drooped his shoulders and put on a long face which to all, even the Pontific’s stern eye, looked to be a helpless sort of surrender.
“An understandable dilemma, Thrusto,” assured the Pontific. “’Tisn’t it always the way?” Richer than rich, the lord of Zanzuria cared little for gems, and so he waved off the matter as if it were a case for the petty claims courts.
By this time, many of the nobles had halted their march and gathered at a safe distance and watched with small interest. A haughty lot these nobles, yawning extravagantly, dressed in their fine clothes and invested with important airs. Some were on foot, others dwelt in carriages, all attended by a retinue of retainers in costly dress. The would-be queen, or consort of the Pontific, the Lady Farella, had arrived at Risgan’s table with a face of whimsical allure. From the back of her baby elephant she descended with a regal flair and drifted over to Risgan to stand close to his stall. The relic hunter, awed and unnerved by her exceptional beauty, felt a lump grow in his throat. Golden eyes flicked from under kohl-dabbed lashes on a face of artistic temperament. The Lady was blessed with the slender figure of an Aquapalitian nymph clad in a white nearly diaphanous gown of pure silk. The fabric was gilded with lace, and she was accoutered with the most costly leather sandals and a light circlet of silver and gemstones that framed her lustrous chestnut hair with queenly grace. The Lord’s consort seemed more a creature snatched from a fabulous dream than a real flesh-and-blood woman.
Her son, an equally handsome youth, no more than ten, dismounted his whereunt. Instantly he was beguiled by the sundry air of the market and particularly Risgan’s modest, but well-attended table. The wish bone interested him the most, the one which Risgan had forgetfully laid on the table and which the boy now snatched up and gave a curious twirl. “What’s this?” he asked.
Risgan called out a sharp warning: “’Tis a basilhoon bone believed to confer wishes. Also the advent of luck. Please do not fool with it.”
The admission brought chortles from the crowd, no less from the Pontific.
“Really?” cried the boy. A mischievous quaver rang in his voice. “I wish it to be mine. I wish for the most special thing! Something to enchant and delight me.”
It was obvious the boy believed in the wishbone’s magic and from his look, several saw that drama was to come. The boy snickered up from his tan face. Thick black curls brimmed like his father’s, “Won’t you buy it for me, Papa?”
“Now you want gifts?” The lord rolled his eyes. “Well, I suppose it’s not out of order,” he called down in a playful manner.
The smile curling Farella’s lips seemed to egg Pantius on. The woman was intrigued in Risgan’s wares, for they commanded a force of energy and a cause for commotion amongst this sea of pale faces and hawkers. Blinking in appraisal at Risgan who himself cut a striking figure amongst this motley crew of ill-matched men, she strode forward, her black lashes flashing. Risgan’s picaresque presence seemed the most noteworthy, and more sharply defined than anyone else’s, including her husband’s.
The Pontific did not perceive his consort’s interest right away and only felt amused by his son’s whim and he resolved to indulge him. “Very well, Eustan, we must guarantee the cogency of this item first, mustn’t we? Make a wish then! See if it comes true. If so, I will buy the relic for you for a hundred mezks!”
The boy was beside himself with excitement. Three glad shouts shot from the crowd and he twirled on the spot and the citizens were pleased by the Pontific’s sudden largesse, for they all liked a bout of entertainment. The day was far from over, and thus far a dull one—much too hot, with all these snooty courtiers, and their courtly airs.
The boy closed his eyes. “Well, I wish—for no more of this plodding about that we do every year.”
“’Tis a respectable wish, young man!” cried Risgan.
“That it is,” said the Pontific, with much less levity.
Seconds passed and nothing seemed to transpire in line with the boy’s wish and Risgan sensed an impatience arising from the Pontific.
“Well?” the lord prompted. “Where are the results of this wish?” His eyes bored into Risgan.
Risgan held up palms in confident assurance. “The magic, my lord—’tis fugitive. You kno
w, magic is magic; it takes a while for these miracles to take place.”
“Does it now?”
The moments seemed to tick by with heavy cadence and only the silence of the crowd deepened and the flutter of banderoles grew, for they sensed the turn of the Pontific’s temper. The creak of whereunts’ harnesses and the odd cough stood out like sore thumbs. The magic was ineffectual, a scam, and the people began to wander off, muttering at the self-professed claims of the relic hunter.
Risgan felt the first stirs of nervousness. But then came a whoosh of air as of no earthly rain or storm, as if a cloud had blown through the courtyard and left everyone empty of air.
People ducked, others scrambled. A dozen gaping souls howled as they witnessed the most bizarre thing—the foremost courtiers of the Pontific’s train became near naked.
Risgan did a double take. “Well, I’ll be a monkey’s—” His jaw dropped. Seeing the look of grimacing fury on the Pontific’s face, he immediately experienced a rush of apprehension. All the principal nobles were as bare as the day they were born, except for wearing festive pink hats on their heads and scarves wrapped around their necks.
“What foul trick is this, rogue!” thundered the Pontific.
“No trick, your Excellency,” stammered Risgan. “Look to your magician, not I.”
“Explain! Or it may cost you your life!” The Pontific wrenched his gaze about to peer at Narvius, but the magician had made himself scarce. He seemed to be as speechless as the gawkers. He huddled behind a baron’s mount. The naked courtiers gimped about in absolute dismay, trying without success to shield their privates. Attendants struggled to insulate them with cloth. The victims fought for the few that were available, ripping the clothes off some and shouting hard language at the others. A hysterical Farella laughed as she had never before. Her son cracked some giggles too. Risgan took opportunity to snatch the nephrite relic back from her hands, which she had carelessly seized as if it were her own. Risgan deigned to sneak away.