“Shanner, wake up. Shanner!” Zephy shook his shoulder, jostled him, but he continued to snore. She lit the candle and held it close to his face. “Shanner! It’s Market Day!”
“Mphh.”
“Come on! You know I can’t lift the barrels myself.” He would snore like a lump. She snatched the covers back and jerked his shoulder, pummeling him until he opened his eyes.
“Market Day,” She repeated.
“Last night. Could have done it last night Zephy . . .”
“You weren’t here.” She glowered until he sat up. The nearly full moons had gone, the only light was the sputtering glow from the candle. Even Waytheer could not be seen. The wind came in, and Shanner shivered. She pulled the shutters closed and latched them. “That’ll be warmer, it’ll be light soon.”
“It’ll never be light.” He reached for his pants and boots. “Cold!”
She snorted with disgust.
On the street they walked beneath the sound of banners snapping on the dark wind, Fire Scourge banners hung out last night from the windows and rooftops of Burgdeeth, flapping in the fitful gusts to mark the beginning of the five day celebration. And special banners, too, to mark this year of Waytheer. The star would not be so close again for ten years; the Luff’Eresi would not come again so strong or speak so clearly to man for ten years. Every prayer, every supplication put forth now would have more meaning.
They went in darkness to get Nida and her creaking wagon. Zephy could tell Nida from Dess only when Dess kicked her absently as she tried to pull the bridle on. Nida never would. She cursed Dess and let her loose, smarting and cross and cold; almost wishing she were back in bed and Market Day was past.
“Brewmaster’ll be livid,” Shanner said. “Couldn’t you have remembered last night?”
“I couldn’t find you. You were off with a girl, I suppose.” The whole town had been seething with wagons last night, waiting to get settled in the square. The Inn had been packed full. She had looked for Shanner everywhere when she should have been cleaning up in the late hours, washing mugs. “They emptied every barrel. You might have remembered; you might have known they would!”
He grumbled something unintelligible as they rounded the corner by the Brewmaster’s. A tiny light burned in the window. “He’s up,” Zephy breathed thankfully.
But the old man growled worse than Shanner and heaved the honeyrot casks onto the wagon so brutally that Zephy thought they would have it all spilled, the casks caved in, and the honeyrot flowing in the street.
The sky had begun to gray above the rooftops. At the sculler, Zephy held the door while Shanner hoisted the barrels through, seven barrels of honeyrot to set side by side for the noon meal. When she took Nida back to the fields, the sky was as yellow as mawzee mush, and the banners bright and blowing so Nida flicked her ears at them and snorted against Zephy’s cheek. In the shed, as Zephy hung up the harness, she paused to examine the rent in Nida’s packsaddle where the donkey had shied stupidly against a building. The straw was coming out. It should be mended. Zephy couldn’t get her mind properly on mending with Market Day at hand.
Thorn would be coming down the mountain this morning to trade hides and blankets at Market. Well, at least he always had. She glanced up at the mountain. Will he come to find me? Will he want to?
Will he even think of it?
Would she be bold enough to search him out? What, and stand staring like a sick calf? Wait for him to thank her for risking her stupid neck in the Set? Oh, Great Eresu, she thought. What’s the matter with me?
And, would Thorn stay for the Singing?
In Burgdeeth, public singing was sanctioned only at festival time, at Fire Scourge and Planting and Solstice. She glanced in the direction of the river where the road came down from Dunoon and felt her spirits lift. Thorn always stayed for the Singing. Later in the sculler, she reached down her gaylute from atop the cupboard, and stood carefully polishing it.
*
It was well before dawn when Thorn and Loke finished packing their hides and blankets across the backs of their four best bucks. The moons had already set. They worked by the light of the cookfire from the open door, for their mother had risen to lay a hot meal for them. The bucks were restless, wanting to be off but looking over their shoulders, too, toward their herds, nervy and light-footed and shifting about as they were saddled. The bucks stood as tall as Thorn when their heads were raised. Their spiralling horns were ridged intricately and sharp pointed as spears, rising as high as Thorn could reach; deadly if they pierced a man. Thorn glanced at Loke as the younger boy fastened a basket of cheese and mountain meat on top a pack, then looked up one last time at the mountain: they had patrolled it constantly since Urobb fell. Thorn spoke to the bucks at last, and they started down the dark slope.
Not until the morning sky began to grow light, so the boulders loomed clearly around them, did they feel easier. As the sky began to yellow, they sang a little, the old marching songs—songs of the Herebian tribes, songs forbidden in Cloffi. And well they might be, for the Herebian were father to the Kubal. But lusty songs and bold they were and the two sang them now with changed words, in rude defiance of Kubalese might
“What would they do to us?” Loke asked suddenly. “What would the Kubalese do if they conquered Cloffi?” The boy gazed at Thorn with trust The talk of attack must have upset Loke more than he had shown. Thorn studied his brother’s freckled face with a feeling of tenderness—and of fear. It was not for nothing that Tra. Hoppa had taught him Ere’s history; he knew what could happen to them. But there was something else, too, something on the side of Dunoon. ‘They could kill us all,” he said evenly. “Except for one thing.” He looked into Loke’s eyes and saw his own fears there. “We’re too valuable to destroy. The Kubalese could never herd our goats and make them produce, and they’re the only decent meat in Cloffi. Crude as the Kubalese are, I expect they are not foolish. They would likely keep Dunoon as slave, for food, for goat meat and milk and wool. They would keep us slave, Loke, slave to tend our own herds.”
“But we never would! I’d kill my herd first before I’d be slave to Kubal!”
Thorn said no more. The plans he had made with the Goatmaster were best kept just to the two of them. The more who knew, even his little brother, the more who could be forced to talk.
“Is that why . . .” Loke looked at him steadily. “Is that why Burgdeeth has tolerated us all these generations? Because of the meat and the wool?”
“What else? You know the Landmasters have always hated us. But even they know our herds would die under the bungling hands of Burgdeeth. Our mountain goats are not like the donkeys and the poor steeds of Cloffi, to be rough handled or to tolerate cruelty and indifference. You know as well as I they were never meant to be fenced or to live in the confines of the valley. And no Landmaster would permit his people to live on the mountain to herd them; there is too much of freedom there, to much of space, too much of sky to woo away Burgdeeth’s fettered manhood.”
‘Tolerated for our goat meat!” Loke said furiously.
“Well, we don’t have to stay on these pastures; though they are by far the richest. Maybe the Landmaster dreams that one day we’ll be brought to our knees and made as docile as the Cloffa. Anyhow, it all may come to nothing, this talk of attack.” He cuffed Loke across the shoulders. “It’s Market Day, boy! Good food and new sights, and a pocket full of silver.”
They stopped to water the bucks before leaving the river, the goats sloshing playfully, then took the narrow trail that crossed the lower whitebarley field and came into Burgdeeth by a side street. They could see the square ahead overflowing with bright wagons and banners, with horses and men milling about underneath the great bronze statue. Did the Landmaster ever really look at the grandeur and gentleness of the god towering there? What kind of twisted spirit could live with the pictures that were painted on the Landmaster’s walls?