Free The Darker Carnival (The Markhat Files) by Frank Tuttle Page B

smile.
    My driver was an Avalante day man, a cheerful enough chap I’d known for months and even shared the odd beer with, now and then.
    “Benny,” I said. “Think I could ask a favor?”
    He grinned. “Figured you would. What do you need?”
    “Nothing that’ll get you in hot water with the House. So if staying out all day will do that, say so. I can do this another way.”
    He shrugged. “Mr. Prestley sent word. Whatever you need, as long as you need it.”
    Evis, I thought, I owe you a beer. I just hope you’re well enough to drink it soon.
    “Good,” I said. “Here’s what I need you to do.”
    My rented wagon needed four new wheels. My temporary donkey wore an eye patch and exhibited flatulence of a frequency and potency sufficient to keep us both free of horse-flies and probably fleas too.
    The clothes I’d bought from the wagon’s owner were rugged country work-clothes consisting of ragged burlap britches, a greasy rope for a belt, and a wool shirt caked with grime and filth. I estimated they’d been last laundered sometime around Yule, and even then the process had been approached with a shameful lack of determination.
    Worst of all, though, were the boots. The only things that stank worse than my boots were being emitted in noisome blasts from beneath the donkey’s tail.
    I was, in short, perfectly attired for an afternoon of shoveling mastodon shit.
    My one-eyed donkey plodded along, fifth in a line of pitiful farm wagons headed down the wide path to the carnival grounds. Four more conveyances rattled along behind me and not a single suspicious glance had been directed my way.
    I felt like whistling a cheerful tune. I didn’t, because we hardy frontier farmers are a taciturn lot, but I felt like it all the same.
    The other wagons were filled with everything from baskets of fresh-baked bread to sides of salted pork or barrels of potent back-country beer.
    My valiant steed and I presided over a wagon devoid of produce. All I carried was a shovel, a pair of big loose buckets, and a weather-beaten tarp.
    Getting across the Brown and finding a farmer’s wagon and talking him out of his prize donkey and best clothes had taken most of the afternoon. The beams of sunlight that shone through the trees were slanting by the moment, and I had to resist the urge to pull out of the line of wagons and hurry on ahead.
    I’d been right about one thing, back in Rannit. Thorkel and his band might be any sort of sorcerers, but unless they knew the secret of turning moss into meat they’d need to buy provisions from the locals.
    That was my way in. So far, it was working. The surly trio of clowns that greeted each cabbage wagon hadn’t even listened to my carefully-prepared offer of ten coppers per bushel of mastodon manure. They’d just grunted and waved me into line with the rest of the sturdy country folk.
    They didn’t search the wagons, didn’t find the grenades or my revolvers hidden beneath a loose plank in my wagon’s bed. Didn’t find my Army knife, stuck in my boot. Or Buttercup’s favorite whispering skull, which I’d silenced by packing it in dirt at the bottom of a bucket.
    The ride couldn’t have been more than two miles, but it felt like hours.
    Tent-tops peeked through the timbers. We rolled on, and just as the carnival came into view the line of wagons was shouted to a stop, and clowns began to fan out on either side of the path, speaking to the drivers.
    I forced myself to relax. I adopted an attitude of surly impatience and waited my turn while my donkey strained to reach a savory clump of leaves.
    “Ain’t nothing in your wagon,” observed a wary-eyed clown, crossing his arms over his barrel chest. “Don’t waste my time.”
    I spat. I’d seen the other drivers do it, and while I saw neither the need nor felt any particular urge to do so, I decided local customs must be observed.
    “Like I told them others,” I said. “Ain’t here to sell. Here to buy.”
    The clown’s eyes