Book 2: The Shamer’s Signet

DINA The Child Peddler Among heather-grown slopes nested three low stone houses. A narrow cart track, not much more than a path, swerved to pass quite near, but there was little reason to halt here, unless one was very fond of heather, open sky, yew trees, and grazing sheep. Nevertheless, a peddler's cart stood on the patch of packed dirt between the houses, and in the stonewalled fields the sheep had company—two mules and four horses rested, heads low and tails swishing, dozing in the early evening sun. And now we were making our way down the hill, my mother and I, and Callan Kensie. Most of the sheep stood stock-still, watching us suspiciously, and I could almost feel their puzzlement. Probably they had never seen so many strangers at Harral's Place before. The sun hung huge and orange just above the ridge. The day had been warm and almost summery, and the air was still pleasant. Next to the peddler's wagon, three men were playing cards, using a beer barrel for a table. A pile of round flatbreads, three mugs of beer, and a fat, darkly gleaming sausage competed for space on the barrel top. It looked like something one might see outside any village inn on a breezy spring evening, until one noticed the leg iron that kept the peddler's ankle chained to his own wagon wheel. The peddler carved himself a fat slice of sausage and slid the rest of it across the barrel top toward the two men who were supposed to be guarding him. "Here," he said. "Eat. A good game of cards can make a hole in a man's belly." "Never mind the belly," grumbled one of the guards. "Losing four copper marks and a perfectly good knife makes a sizable hole in a man's pocket!" But his complaint was good-natured, and he accepted the sausage. At that moment, one of the mules brayed earsplittingly, and the guards looked up and caught sight of us. They leaped to their feet, and one of them hastily swept the cards off the barrel, as if we had caught them doing something disgraceful. But I knew how they felt. It was hard to act harsh and commanding toward a man once you started drinking his beer. And it was difficult to believe that there was any truth to the accusations that had been made against the cheerful little peddler. We knew him. He had come by our village often enough, and everyone enjoyed his visits. He was never without a joke or a good story, and he had a chuckling laugh and so many crow's feet that one could hardly see his eyes when he smiled. His eyebrows looked like two fat black slugs, except that they moved more quickly—one of them would shoot up questioningly at every other word. No, I thought, he was hardly guilty of anything more serious than cheating a bit on his measures. The boys must have run away, just like he said they had. "Medama," said one guard, bowing in my mother's direction. He eyed me dubiously—just how polite did one have to be to an eleven-year-old girl? He settled for another bow, slightly less deep. "Medamina." After all, I was the Shamer's daughter. The third person in our party, Callan Kensie, received not a bow, but a measured nod, of the kind men give each other when there is respect between them, but not necessarily friendship. "Kensie. I thought you were guarding caravans down in the Lowlands." Callan returned the man's nod, in exactly the same manner. "Well met, Laclan. But no. I have other duties now." "So. The Kensie clan takes good care of their Shamer, I see." The guard's eyes rested for a moment on Callan's shoulders, very wide and knotted with the muscles a man gets from wielding a sword every day. Like most people, he avoided looking too hard at my mother. If one did not already know, the Shamer's signet resting on her breast, in clear view, provided ample warning: a heavy round pewter circle, enameled in white and black to look like an eye. I had one almost exactly like it, but with blue instead of black, because I was still only my mother's apprentice. Anyone who saw the signet would look away—or pay the price. The peddler had also risen. "Well met," he said, grinning. "And none too soon. The company has been pleasant, but I had hoped to reach Baur Laclan before dark."