Juliet McKenna: The Gambler's Fortune

“Fair festival to you.” As I proffered the bowl, the appreciative audience began reaching for purses and belt-pouches with gratifying haste. Some took the opportunity to discard coin halves and quarters cut for change but more found the performance worth whole pennies, even if mostly copper.

“Forest Folk are you?” One mild-faced tradesman in sober gray slipped a doubtless unintended silver penny into my open hand, unable to take his eyes off the spectacle.

“He’s my brother, good sir.” I ran a hand over my own head and gestured to Usara’s sandy if sparse hair. His being able to pass for Forest blood at a pinch was one of the reasons the wizard was here. I slurred my voice into the softer mumble of the eastern cities where I’d wintered, exotic enough to local ears to mark me as a foreigner. “We have come to delight you with our mysteries.”

“How does he do it?” A matronly woman breathed, one hand resting on the lace at her ample cleavage, her eyes as wide as the child’s clutching her ocher skirts.

I swept a low bow. “The ancient magics of the wildwood, my lady, brought to illuminate your festival!” It was nothing of the kind but no one here would ever know that.

I saw the plumes of a Watchman’s helmet bobbing toward us and tossed a copper cutpiece through the middle of Usara’s increasingly complex pattern. “Stop,” I mouthed.

He tossed knots of flame high with a flourish before snuffing them with a clap of his hands. A final incandescent flare left his audience blinking and rubbing their eyes. I had been looking the other way so grabbed Usara’s sleeve and moved him away toward the waterside before anyone could gather their wits and wonder which way we went.

“You looked like you were enjoying yourself.” I emptied the crock and rapidly tallied our earnings, sparing an eye for anyone taking too close an interest.

“You know, I was rather,” he said with satisfaction. “What are you doing with my coin?”

I looked up, eyes wide with patent surprise. “Half-shares, of course.”

“I’ll allow you a tenth-share,” suggested Usara. “That’s fair, since I was the one doing all the work.”

“And if I hadn’t had my wits in hand, you’d have nothing to show for it and be paying a Watchman out of your own purse besides.” I managed a show of injured indignation.

Usara made a convincing pretense of considering this. “A fifth-share, then, since I’m feeling generous.”

I stuck my tongue out at him as I poured pennies and cut-pieces into his cupped palm. Some was silver minted here or in Vanam, more were crudely struck copper faces with the boasts of minor lordlings together with a fine mixture of local trade tokens. “I thought all your dealings were with princes, councils and scholars. You’ve got the measure of my world well enough for someone used to staying on the sunshine side of the laws.” I slid the few enough Tormalin-minted pennies into my own purse. I had more need than a mage of sound coin that passes pretty much anywhere. The mongrel currency of Ensaimin can be regrettably worthless five leagues beyond the town where it was struck. Usara could find that out for himself.

“Thank you, my lady,” Usara swept me an elegant bow. “Let’s just say I’m a fast learner.”

I had to laugh. “Well I’m glad to see you’ve got more between your ears than arcane learning and library dust. I think the locals were suitably impressed.”

“Fire’s not really my element, but it’s close enough to the earth to give me a fair talent with it. I have a sound enough skill with water as well, but don’t ever bet your purse on my abilities with air. That’s been a scourge to me ever since I was first apprenticed.” Usara offered me his arm and we made our way along the riverbank, picking a careful path past the barges and wherries unloading their bales and barrels, merchants and lightermen all intent on the serious business of commerce. “I know it’s not exactly the done thing, but I think wizards should be allowed to have a little harmless fun now and again, don’t you?”

I feigned surprise. “That would be frowned on in Hadrumal, would it?” It was no news to me that mages had no idea of fun.

“Where exactly are we?” Usara frowned and looked around.

I pointed at the Conclave Tower, tallest of the turrets watchful over the parapets of the wall. “This way.” The open postern of a small sally-gate let us back into the city and we walked past shops shuttered for the festival. The owners were doubtless selling their usual goods for a price and a half in some booth down at the fair.

“You can see the Conclave Tower from pretty much anywhere in the city,” I explained to the wizard. “If you get lost, head for it and then take the road to the Great Gate. You can’t mistake it; it’s the only one with strips of flags in the cobbles to ease carriage wheels. Either that or find a shrine. I expect a priest would take pity on you and set you on the right road.”

Usara nodded. “Selerima’s a lot bigger than Hadrumal.”

I laughed out loud. “Usara, most two-mule towns are bigger than Hadrumal! It wouldn’t warrant its own mill or market on the mainland.”

“Trydek, the first Archmage, founded our island city for the contemplation of the elements and serious study of the complex arts of wizardry.” Usara attempted a stern frown.

“Did he?” I clapped a dramatic hand to my breast. “So, what would happen if you tried a trick like that back home? The Archmage would ceremonially snap your staff over your head?” I paused to get my bearings but decided against a short cut. It wasn’t as if the Watch were actively seeking me, not like the last time I’d been here, and I was still getting the measure of obstructions around the back alleys. It was a good few years since I’d been in Selerima and these things change more than most people realize.

Usara was chuckling to himself. “Planir? No, he’d see the joke well enough, but he’d let me know it isn’t quite what he expects. We do get the occasional new apprentice showing off though. Given how potentially hazardous untrained magic can be, it is something we discourage,” he added in more serious tones.

All magic is downright dangerous as far as I’m concerned, but I kept that opinion under my tongue. “If you want to play that game again, you should add a smell of hot oil, perhaps let the cuffs of your shirt scorch a little.”

“Why?” queried Usara. “It’s a very minor magic after all.”

These wizards might learn all about magecraft on their hidden island but they can be precious little use around ordinary folk. “Remember how seldom these folk see a real mage. Don’t take offense but a lot of us commoners find wizardry rather worrying. If people want to believe it’s magic, they can, but you want to give the meddlesome enough to suggest it’s just a trick. Then we won’t find ourselves up in front of the festival assize answering a lot of awkward questions.”

“Up in front of the what?” asked Usara.

I stifled a sigh of irritation. “The festival assize. The guilds run it for the duration of the fair rather than tie up the regular courts and advocates. It deals with merchants who evade selling tolls or cheat customers, people caught stealing or getting too drunk and starting a fight, anything really. Anyone profiting by the fair falls under its jurisdiction for the duration of the holiday. By rights, we should be paying a cut of what we just took for your little show, so if a Watchman comes asking the next time, we just hand over the coin and let it go.”

“And he gives it to the assize?” Usara sounded rightly doubtful.

“What do you think?” I grinned at him. “Don’t worry, it only happens if a Watchman manages to catch you.” Which, in a nutshell, is why I was playing the squirrel game in grubby taverns rather than more profitable diversions like runes or Raven. Both take too long to bring in the coin and you can’t just walk away from your play pieces and buy them afresh from the next hawker’s tray. I wasn’t risking coming across some Watchman with a memory going back more than the last couple of years. There was a little matter of a robbery suffered by the richest liveryman in the city where the apparent culprits had broken out of the lock-up and fled. Not that there was any need to bother Usara with that.