Free Sorcery Rising by Jude Fisher Page B

flushed up her neck, across her cheeks and into the very tips of her earlobes. Her hand tightened on the mirror.
    ‘Well, I was going to ask if you’d like to come with me to see the nomad peoples arrive, with their spotted toadstools and magic potions for the gullible and all; but as I can see such flightiness does not appeal to you, I’ll bid you farewell, for now, Jenna, till the Gathering, and perhaps we’ll speak again after that, eh?’ He dipped his head and ducked smartly out of the tent.
    There were a few moments of silence, followed by a gale of amusement from outside the booth. Jenna recognised her father’s laughter, and that of her brother, Matt, and her cousins, Thord and Gar. Furious, she flung the mirror to the ground and stamped on it till its pretty surface was dulled and dented.
    ‘Ever ride a yeka, Joz?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘What about you, Knobber?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘’Ave you, Mam?’
    ‘Oh, go away, Dogo.’
    ‘I did, you know: I rode a yeka, when I was working for the Duke of Cera, commanding that troop that made the first crossing over the Skarn Pass. Did it stink? Man, it stunk.’
    ‘Oh, do shut up.’
    Undeterred, Dogo turned to the companion on his left, a huge, lowering mountain of a man dressed from head to foot in stained leather and mail.
    ‘Doc, did you ever ride on one of them things?’
    The big man regarded him solemnly. ‘Bugger off, Dogo.’
    ‘Right then, Doc. Sorry, Doc.’
    For some seconds, silence resumed. The five mercenaries leaned on the stockade they had been hired to guard – one task among many at this Allfair, and an easy one, though as a result it wasn’t paying too well – and watched the Footloose roll in to the fairgrounds with their great shaggy yeka and their rumbling carts, their wagons and litters and outriders in eccentric and colourful garments.
    ‘Ever had yer palm read, Joz?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘Did you, Knobber?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘Mam?’
    She gave him a hard stare.
    ‘What about you, Doc? ’Ave you ever bin to one of them nomad fortune tellers and ’ad yer palm done, ’ave yer?’
    ‘Let’s have a look at your hand, Dogo.’
    ‘Righto. What can you see?’
    ‘A bloody short lifeline if you don’t stop your yakking.’
    ‘Oh.’
    A long string of goats trotted past with red tassels in their ears, herded by a pair of piebald dogs and a lad doing handsprings. A six-wheeled cart rumbled behind upon which several sunburned women and two furiously moustachioed men all in tangerine silk headwear and row upon row of ivory beads and not a great deal else reclined amongst a pile of cushions and blew fragrant smoke from a huge spouted pot. A chorus of whistling and catcalling marked the wagon’s progress.
    ‘Ever had a Footloose woman, Doc?’
    ‘Dogbreath—’
    ‘Yes, Doc?’
    There was a thump and a yelp.
    Aran Aranson watched the great caravan come in and felt his heart lift as if he had just heard the opening notes to a favourite song.
    Seeing the Footloose always had this effect on him – it made him believe in the existence of infinite possibility. There was something otherworldly about the nomads and what they brought here with them – something magical, provocative; something chancy. It brought into sharp perspective the mundanity of trade and gossip and court politics; it lifted the Allfair to another plane of being. It might just be the waft of their cooking spices as they passed – complex and unfamiliar – or of their perfumes – elusive, subtle, teetering on the edge of recognition; or the incomprehensible babble of a foreign language; or just the knowledge that these were folk who had travelled the length and breadth of Elda and as a result had seen and known more than he would ever see or know. If he were to admit it to himself, Aran Aranson envied the nomad peoples. He envied their rootlessness, their lack of responsibilities, their undemanding sense of community. But most of all, he envied those ever-changing horizons, the