Orson Card - Hart's Hope

"Cart and twenty coppers," said another.

Glasin snorted and turned his back.

"Cart and donkey," said the man who had called it a weaky ship.

Glasin turned around with a frown. "That and four silvers gives you raft and tent."

"Silvers! And what do I want with a tent?"

Glasin shrugged.

Another man nodded. The third turned away, shaking his head. The first man, who had the eye of a hawk, staring open always even when the other was closed, he raised his hands. "God sends thieves downriver disguised in grocers' shirts," he said. "Two silvers, a donkey and cart, but by God you keep the tent."

Glasin glanced at the other bidder, but he was through. The sale was set then.

Or almost set. Hawkeye looked at Orem. "Boy for sale?" he asked.

For sale? Orem was appalled—how could anyone take him for a slave? He had no rings in his

face, had he? He had no branding! But there was the man asking, and the grocer not saying no, but standing, thinking.

"I'm a freeman," Orem said hotly, but Hawkeye made no sign of having heard, just kept watching Glasin. The grocer at last shook his head. "I'm a God's man, and this boy is free." The buyer said nothing more, just tossed two gleaming coins to Glasin, who caught them deftly so they didn't slip down between the logs to get lost in the river. The buyer waved, and four men came up, one leading a sad-looking donkey and cart while the others quickly unloaded the raft and put all that would fit into the cart, piling the rest on the dock. When all was done, the portman nodded, drove a red nail into the post, and walked away.

"They takes it to Boat Island," said the grocer. "They trims it into boards and builds sea ships with it. From Boat Island on out to the sea, the big ships comes and goes. Half my profits is from the raft—the donkey alone would bring me twice that lumber in the north, and the cart is worth all my cargo when I'm buying at the country markets. Now, boy, what is our business?"

Orem didn't understand.

"If you stays and watches my things, if you doesn't let anything get taken whatever they offers you, I give you five coppers when I get back."

"Where are you going?"

"To the market, to get a stall. If I go now, while all the other morning grocers is loading their carts, I get a better place, see. But can I trust you?"

Orem only looked at him angrily. Asking a man if he could be trusted was like asking an unwed girl if she was virgin. The question mattered, but the asking of it was gross insult.

"All right then," said the grocer. "I'll be back. You talks to no man."

Orem nodded, and immediately the grocer was off, trotting heavily among the crowd.

Around him Orem watched the other grocers as they quarreled and traded and disparaged each other's goods. Here and there were portmen standing guard as Orem stood; he suspected that they were being paid a good deal more than a few coppers. It didn't matter. He had learned the abstract values of coins at the House of God, but never in his life had he been forced to learn just how much living could be done on how much money. And even if he had learned, at Inwit all values were changed. Six coppers would keep a good-sized family for a month at Banningside. It was different here.

There were other differences. Orem was not so naive he didn't know what was happening when a golden-trousered man gave a small heavy bag to a man standing guard. The guard turned his back as two wagons were drawn to the absent grocer's pile and the goods were loaded on. Orem listened for the cry of thief to arise, waited to see the crowd giving alarm; but there was no sound. Neither did Orem make a sound, for he was afraid to raise the cry of thief in a place where a crime could be committed in the open. He guessed that the bribe was only half the transaction. There was a hint of violence in the rough-looking men who did the loading; he wondered if the man who resisted might end up swimming for his life.

"I have a bag of coppers here," the man said softly, "which I'll pay to a boy with a wandering eye who stands and watches the river. Twenty coppers have I, my boy."

Orem did not know what to say. It was a fine offer indeed, and gave him some notion of how ungenerous Glasin had been in his payment. It occurred to him that Glasin trusted him rather much—or else was convinced that Orem was a fool who had no notion of money.

The man drew conclusions from Orem's silence. "I'll go to fifty coppers, then. Fifty coppers, but I tell you, boy, the fishes of the river can be hungry, and we try to keep them fed on stubborn flesh."

There it was—the bribe and the threat, and he only a boy of fifteen. The rough-looking loaders, there they were waiting at the empty wagons. What chance would Orem have if they threw him into the river? They'd have the grocer's goods whether he wanted them to or not; so why not have the coppers in the bargain?

But there was no poem in a hundred coppers, none at all, and no name or place in that, either.

"What, are you deaf? Well, do you know what this means?" And there was a dagger in the man's hands. For a moment Orem was tempted to try a trick the sergeant had taught him long ago; but no, it was too long ago, when he was little, and Orem did not know if he had the strength or quickness to do it against such a man as this. Who could say what a man with trousers might do? But there was an idea in the man's words about deafness.

"Oh you are generous sir!" Orem bellowed. "Oh you are kind and wise!" He hadn't the lungs of old Yizzer at the gate of the House of God, but his voice was strong enough from his years of canting at the prayers. "Oh your face is a kind one sir, and God knows your inmost hidden name. God and I know your inmost names and we shall name them!" And with that Orem reached out his hand and drew his palm lightly across the dagger's point. It drew his blood and hurt with a sharp sting, but Orem knew from the magics observed on his father's farm what such a thing would mean. He held up his hand and let the blood trickle down his arm into his sleeve. "I will name your names!"

It was enough, oh, yes, see the man run, hear the hissing of his trousers as his legs brush against each other. Orem did not know, however, whether he had done right; it was a terrible thing to pretend to have magic. A terrible thing to spill blood without purpose, to pay a price without petition; but it was all that he had thought of at the moment, and there, the man was leaving, he was glaring back at Orem sure enough, but he and his rough servants were fleeing. It was enlightening to Orem. Yes, he said to himself again and again, Yes, this is a deep and high place, but they are still afraid of magics here, in Queen Beauty's own city they cannot tell a deaf wizard from a desperate wandering boy.

More than the would-be thief had been frightened, too; the other grocers eyed him suspiciously. Only the nearest portman seemed to understand—he winked and drew a circle on his trousers. But was the circle to congratulate him or to fend his pretended power? Orem guessed the first; and also realized that the portmen must charge high fees indeed, for no thief bothered to approach the ones of them that stood on guard. A hundred coppers wouldn't tempt them, and with hundreds of the green-bloused men around, Orem guessed that even the most desperate men wouldn't dare to drop one in the river, punctured or not. Life in Inwit was more openly criminal, but there were protections, and a good one was the protection of being in a company of loyal men. Orem wondered vaguely how he would look in the portmen's green.

By now Orem had come to understand how much the grocer was gaining by his services. Glasin had not had to pay a portman, nor had he had to give pick of stall in the Great Market to some other grocer for watching his goods on the wharf. And it occurred to Orem that Glasin had considered claiming that he was a slave and selling him. Glasin might have been the Corthy Price, but he was too shrewd by half. What if he only left behind on the dock the things he didn't need to sell? What if Orem waited all day for him to come back, and he never came?