Free Fires of Aggar by Chris Anne Wolfe

stomach’s emptiness. As usual, she was hungry; it was even worse given her separation from Brit. However, food was never scarce at Market. The only true difficulty here was deciding what one wanted to eat.
    A pair of slender fellows wandered past her, bumping into her and apologizing politely before dreamily returning their attentions to each other. Sparrow grinned. They were certainly love-sick enough for one another, but it was the pastie they were sharing that caught her attention. A wonderful, flaky little pastry pouch — one tucked full of meat and gravy with spuds and vegetable bits — was just what she was looking for.
    The larger awnings of the kitchen tents and tables were on the north side of the Square, and Sparrow headed there. Although she could have gotten brazed and skewered stuffs, sweets or an endless variety of other goodies in any aisle, the kitchen tents would be the only place authorized for use of the heavier ceramic ovens. And it took ovens and fire pits for pasties and stews. She wasn’t disappointed. The scents wafting back over the shoulders of those waiting promised varieties of fowl, meat and fish as well as hot pastries and breads.
    Sparrow took her place in line, absently studying the Palace walls that lay just across the lane. As impressive as the Guild’s painted clock was, the Dracoons of Gronday had done their best to surpass the clock with their Palace. Instead of bright paints and merry pipes, the facade of the Palace walls were sculpted in rich panels of almond stone. Epics of the Ramains’ royal houses, figures of the Council and Keep, market days, weddings, almost every joyous occasion of the Ramains’ folklore was to be seen. She tipped her head back, squinting against the bright blueness of the spring sky, and wished she were that bird Brit had named her for. In the upper balconies was a panel barely visible from here. Her view was worse for her short height and the shadows of those nudging around her. But none-the-less she knew the carving well. It showed the Treaty Table at the Council’s Keep and the signing of the agreements between Queen, Council, and Amazons which had created the Valley Bay settlement. Someone asked her to move ahead, and reluctantly she left off her scrutiny; the panel was best seen at night anyway, when the upper torches were lit and the Market Square had been cleared of stalls.
    Finally, with a pair of pasties in hand and a small gourd of warmed cider at her hip, Sparrow returned to her original task. Brit would be arriving late in the afternoon and she’d rightly be annoyed if Sparrow had left this particular errand undone. Her shadowmate seldom got along with herbalists — most healers didn’t; the idea of profiting from someone’s illness was too gruesome for their ethics. But in this northern area, no one else was likely to have a dried supply of the Southern Continent’s medicinal flora — at least no one likely to sell a share of it.
    A youngster darted by. Sparrow’s eye caught the bright orange kerchief tied to the upper arm that designated the child as a City Runner, an orphan contracted for messenger service. Sparrow sighed sadly for a moment over memories of her own childhood. This decided her on another detour, and she refrained from starting in on the second pastie. There was another who would probably need it more.
    She wove her way to the west corner of the Square. Near the public fountain she found what she sought, the Corner Crier.
    An older woman, joints swollen by the betrayals of poor health and poverty, sat upon a bare wooden bench. Her posture was upright and stiff with pride, despite the overly-mended dress and breeches she wore. There was a stack of blank parchments, an ink well, and several quills laid out carefully on the bench alongside of her. At her feet a small model of the city was set. A coin box for donations sat next to that.
    She was not a beggar, though she was undoubtedly penniless. Her family had probably