Juliet McKenna: The Gambler's Fortune

“See, this is three, five times what Degran Lackhand pays in the valley bottom,” Jeirran hissed to Keisyl, stabbing a finger at the numbers. He checked quickly through the heap of hides, shoving the top ones aside as they slid and hampered him. “The quality’s nowhere near as fine as ours.”

“What’s that you say? Not got a civilized tongue in your head?” The lanky trader planted hands on the hips of his buff jerkin with some irritation. “Are you looking to buy or not?”

“Where do you purchase your hides?” demanded Jeirran, brushing chalk dust from his fingers.

“None of your business.” The merchant scowled under black brows but a prosperous townsman claimed his attention with a wave of a jingling purse and a ludicrously low offer for a russet and white cowhide.

“It’s just as I’ve been telling you. One winter’s worth of trapping sold direct to a merchant here will net more coin than we’d get in three seasons waiting on Degran.” Jeirran crossed to a stall heaped with soft bundles of rolled furs. “Look! Your mother wouldn’t use this to line a hound’s winter boots, I’d scarce bother bringing it in from the hills. Down here, it’s fetching more than Degran pays for miniver!”

“That’s no great deal if we have to waste half a season tramping all the way down here and back again.” Keisyl shook his head. “We agreed to help you on the snare lines over winter as long as you helped us at the diggings in the summer. We should be clearing the workings by now, not haggling with lowlanders.”

Jeirran ignored him. “We’ll get a good price then use some of the coin for trinkets and fancies. Eirys is always nagging for treats from the traders. Enough gewgaws will shut your mother’s mouth as well.” He turned on Keisyl. “Otherwise she’ll be looking around for a husband for Theilyn, like as not, walking her around this coming Solstice.”

“Theilyn’s too young to marry for a good few years yet.” Keisyl shook his head but a shadow of concern darkened his blue eyes.

“But she’s not too young to be betrothed,” Jeirran insisted. “What if your mother finds some family with a gang of sons all eager to offer their labor to help the one who’s going to be getting the prize? Who’s to say she won’t let them start working the diggings instead of you and Teiriol?”

“We have the right to those workings until Theilyn’s wed, no day less,” objected Keisyl.

“Then you’d better make sure you’re bringing in enough to keep your mother sweet. And you need enough coin in hand to woo a girl with decent lands of her own once Theilyn’s eye does start looking out a spot to set her own hearthstone, you and Teiriol both. You won’t get that scratching pits where the lode surfaces. Stripping out easy tin and cutting trees to smelt it may have been good enough for your father but there are no more surface seams to be had, are there? You need to dig deep ore and you need fuel. It’ll be thrice three years before there’s any new growth to speak of in your coppices and you’re not touching the old growth, not while I’m husbanding them. Those woods are Eirys’ endowment; it’s my duty to provide for our children out of their bounty. You could show a little gratitude; I should be concentrating on Eirys’ business, not spending time and effort helping you two make something of Theilyn’s portion. You need to drive in a proper mine and that means shoring and charcoal furnaces and if you’re not going to strike a shares deal for what you need, you’ll have to pay coin on the settling stone. Where are you going to get that gold, unless I’m willing to come in with you, for Eirys’ sake?” Jeirran’s eyes burned.

“So find someone to buy the furs.” Keisyl clenched empty hands eloquently. “Do something besides just telling me things I already know!”

Jeirran dug in the satchel slung beneath his cape. Pulling out a handful of neatly trimmed squares of fur and leather, he caught at the moss-colored sleeve of the man across the trestle. “Here, what do you think of these?”

“I think I’m selling, not buying, friend.” The busy merchant swept a meaty hand across his board. “Get your moth-bitten rubbish off my goods.”

Jeirran stooped to recover his sample pieces, face scarlet with indignation. “Your loss, fool!” Pushing through the jostling masses, he headed for the next fur trader, a hatchet-laced man with a shock of gray hair swept back from shrewd hazel eyes.

“What can I do for you, friend?” The man spared Jeirran a quick glance as he rummaged in the pocket of his calico apron, brushing stray hairs from his jerkin sleeve with the other hand.

“Would you like to buy fine furs?” Jeirran proffered a silky white strip. “Better quality than anything you’ve got here.”

“Mountain fox is it?” The man took the fur and sniffed at it, turning it over to see how well it was cured. “What are you asking?” His eyes scanned the crowd.

“Ten Marks the pelt and we have a good supply with us.” Jeirran nodded triumphantly at Keisyl.

“Guild rate is five Marks the pelt and that only for top quality. There you go, mistress, that will trim a gown or a hood to perfection, fair festival to you.” The merchant abruptly turned his back to sell a fluffy red squirrel-skin to a sharp-eyed woman in blue whose maid was already laden with purchases. “Anyway, Mountain Man, I don’t do deals outside the audit hall! Do you think I’m some kind of idiot? Yes, sir, what are you looking for?”

Eager customers forced them away from the busy trader and his unmistakable dismissal. Keisyl looked puzzled but Jeirran set his jaw obstinately, smoothing the ruffled fur around his hand. “Come on, let’s try over there.”

“I’ve seen everything I want, unless there’s something else you’re interested in.” I turned to Usara, who smiled a little shamefacedly.

“There was a man back there claiming to have a cockatrice,” he began.

“Let’s see it,” I said obligingly. Let’s see if he could work out how that old trick’s done. A surge of bodies nudged me into the shadows between two rows of booths. I tried to retrace my steps but a bulky body stopped me edging back to the main walkway.

“Hello, pretty!” it leered. “Fair festival to you.”

“Fair festival,” I nodded a tight, polite smile and tried to side-step past.

“Here for the holiday, are you?” He stretched one grubby, nail-bitten hand toward me. “Hair like autumn leaves, eyes as green as grass, that makes you a Forest lass.”

A necessary step back took me deeper between the muffling canvas walls. “Just a traveler, passing through. Let me about my business, friend.” Folding hands together in a demure gesture, I loosened the cuff of my shirt, ready to reinforce my point with the little dagger I keep sheathed on my forearm.

“What do you say to a little celebration of our own?” The bumpkin licked fleshy lips, lust gleaming in his close-set eyes like the sweat on his unshaven face. “Show me what you girls know to give a man and I’ll buy you a bunch of ribbons as a fairing?”

“Thanks all the same but I’m here with friends.” I tried to look regretful. That came easier when a quick glance showed me that carousing apprentices watching one of their number being comprehensively sick had blocked my escape to the rear.

“Why—” Whatever temptation the lout thought he could offer was lost in gasps and applause and I saw my would-be swain outlined against flaring yellow fire. He turned; I ducked rapidly around his blind side and dodged between two stalls. Jumping over a blanket of trinkets with a hurried apology, I would have gone farther but the way was blocked by people agape at Usara juggling handfuls of flame, his lean face alight with unaccustomed mischief. The fires changed hue, yellow to orange to crimson and back again, soaring higher and higher. He wove the burning colors into dazzling patterns, setting the crowd blinking and cheering. I snatched up a cracked bowl discarded beneath a potter’s bench and pushed my way through.