Wolf's-head, Rogues of Bindar Book I (2 page)

People were
arriving from all quarters: by sailboat, along the inland road, in
wagons, carts, and on wegmor mounts. Folk, primarily from
Brimhaven, Tavilnook, Adzeton, Britobur and Hamhuzzle, were eager
to mingle. They were of mixed sorts, though some ventured from as
far as Owlen and the seaport of Brislin, realms of the famed Prince
Arnin. There was no small opulence or lack of breeding here!

The river
ferries buzzed. At this hour, three new caravans clacked their way
down the boarding ramps, saddled with a ragtag of bumpkins. Atop
their beat-up wheelbacks and rickety, clattering carts, banjo
players beat out jangly tunes. A larger three-masted sailship lay
anchored out in harbour, from which at a distance, an
elegantly-polished pennoned skiff pushed its way brightly to shore,
ferrying grandees from Owlen.

Baus took this
all in at a moment’s glance. Booth tenders continued to load goods
into drays which they hauled over to the fairgrounds with the help
of town work-dogs. Wares and accoutrements, horns, bugles,
cauldrons, cages, wooden baskets, easels, poles, banners and flags
moved as one. Odours of fried eel, oil-cake, pogo kelp and sausage
signalled the grand feast planned for the afternoon which Baus
hoped to attend, estimating that he would dine well and that there
would be a record turnout today. The streets were clogged with
carping animals, beasts and carts and it was hardly noon. Through
the seaborne cloud, patches of blue sky presaged fair weather. The
day’s festivities were now rich in motion, filled with golden
sunbeams, flagpoles and steel-tipped masts that were a-glow.

Baus paused to
critique the fairgrounds and turned a watchful eye toward a sprawl
of new tents. Balloons and flagpoles rippled freely in the salty
breeze. Thirty five aisles in total stretched over Glane’s Glade,
like pathways through enchanted gardens. Excited people clustered
about with their pets: tinkers, salespersons, hawkers, gamesters
and performers. Fine displays of fire presented themselves, animal
roars, booms, cacophonies of riotous voices, shouts and
calls—presumably all intentioned to impress the new visitor, calls
which touted the excellence of certain entertainment and exhibits.
Baus ducked as a firecracker ripped through the sky, heralding the
launch of a circus act while hot smoke rose above the tents ten
aisles down.

Baus cocked
his head: there was more than a usual gaggle of stiltwalkers,
fire-blowers and sword-swallowers. This year there were acrobats,
clowns, jugglers and tricksters of all sorts. Of late Heagram Fair
had become more of a carnival than a local exposition.

A sidewise
glance confirmed that visitors were arriving at a central lane.
Baus nodded to a group of retired fishermen, including the old sea
geezer with a greasy pipe hanging out of his tobacco-stained mouth,
Vesler. He passed a clot of children who smacked down candy floss,
then to a huddle of women dressed in blue caps and white gowns.
They were tittering over a mass of embroidery, discussing the
latest fashions, while in separate soap and flower booths. Baus
recognized three maids with whom he had made recent intimate
connections. To avoid any awkward confrontations, Baus made a wise
detour, ducking into an oddment booth where he acquired a moustache
of black straw, felt hat, and wide-brimmed glasses. Expertly he
angled them over his eyes from experience. The last time he had
bumped into Tersa, he recalled the foremost of the trio had reacted
very unkindly to his association with Salys and the significantly
more buxom Roxa. Ah . . . what to do with these petty
grievances?

Moving along
in discreet fashion, Baus skipped several booths, amazed and
appalled at the abundance of bric-a-brac and tawdry confections:
bells fastened to wire, dancing puppets in water jugs, glow figures
on pogo sticks, garish glue-paper costumes, an endless variety of
house ornaments. Kiosks were packed with knickknacks, gewgaws of
all sorts! Nothing triggered any profound interest for Baus.

Half way along
the third aisle, he stumbled upon a booth of ancient relics:
primarily shells and glass and pewter. Something of more
substance!

Here he found
the booth manned by a pair of merchants, from the west, he
judged—denizens of Ikule or Hilgimi. The foremost vendor was
completely bald and sported an out-moded waxed moustache. He
snapped to attention. “Yes, your pleasure, Seigneur?” His partner,
an individual of great corpulence and arm, darker of complexion and
attentive of eye, remained placidly composed.

With languid
ease, Baus examined the wares with a scholar’s eye. The centre
piece loomed twice the size of a man’s skull. A large shell
inscribed with a hanged man’s corpse comprised the outer bulk,
around which several primitive figures engaged in curious
ritual.

“Aha,
Seigneur, I see you are eyeing the Dulfiog special. You have good
taste. A remarkable piece of antiquity this is, even for eyes as
old as mine! Migor, my colleague—and my brother—has no idea from
where it came.”

Baus
acknowledged the information with academic interest. “The article
is intriguing—yet undoubtedly of origin traced as faraway as
Zanderland.” He scratched his brow, barely noticing the approach of
Migor with large hands spread wide: “Perhaps one may argue a
different claim. Uyu and I are in a muddle over which primitive
caste the relic may have been born to. The Koyo? The Negir? The
cannibalistic Recendu? All are equally plausible. The world is a
tribal mishmash of cultures, societies and traditions, you
know?”

Baus tapped a
finger of uncertainty to the object. “My conviction would be that
of the Negir.”

“A high-minded
guess,” growled Uyu with a flourish. “Recall! The bygone era with
which we are dealing is obscure, even to polymaths. The roots of
the rare item are real. In the mystic witness texts of the god
Yarma, the period involved is barbaric, as that of the Zelthoxian
age, its peer.” He leaned forward to better assess the customer’s
perspicacity and confided, “I must say that this piece is selling
for an affordably low price of sixty-nine cils.”

Baus gave a
strident croak. “A piece like this may go for as high as
thirty-four cils in a market of monarchs! If I harboured enough
funds to spare the trinket, I would offer you five cils, nothing
more.”

Uyu uttered a
squeaking cry. “A trinket? Are you so parsimonious that you would
spare not a few tawdry coins for an authentic relic? You would be
driven out with scourges in my land for disrespecting my offer. The
item is worth a king’s ransom!”

“Then why
don’t you buy it?”

Uyu ignored
the remark. “Regard the obscurity of the ritual. The primitives
embark in an abomination of curious complexity.” He skipped about,
tapping the inscription with animated energy.

“The ritual is
not in question,” declared Baus. “Just the price. Five cils—my
final offer.”

Uyu looked up,
his tone stretched to a dismal murmur. “You are not grasping the
inestimable worth of the Dulfiog! It is a treasure beyond price!
Now why are you so stubborn?—we are offering you a gift at a paltry
cost. You are a valued, principled customer!”

“I accept that
compliment, unconditionally; however—” Baus eased back on his
heels, inching closer to the nearby wall. His eyes were suddenly
riveted to a barbaric chain suspending a curious monstrosity at eye
level. The artifact was reminiscent of a bird-cage, topped with an
irregular fowl of petrified beobar and gave off an air of eldritch
antiquity. The black beast was some kind of harniforous, possibly a
psudoferous, Baus figured, equipped with drooping beak, serrated
claws, bovine eyes and a hint of foul flair. The cage itself was
bizarrely outfitted with several realistic-looking, terracotta
figures in which the representations showed human qualities. They
were accompanied by grazing animals, bunched in groups and clusters
and gathered around a wicket fashioned of birds’ nests.

Baus screwed
up his face into a perplexed grimace. To decipher the actions or
angles of engagement of the figures in relation to the animals,
including goats and ruminants, was not easy.

“The guardian
fowl,” Uyu intoned, “is none other than Tuskou, the golden god, who
watches benignly over the gentle, but mischievous ‘Zmoo’ and their
ruminants.”

“Ordinarily, a
very straightforward deduction,” remarked Baus.

Uyu spoke
through strained lips: “The chronicles of Zmoo are detailed in
Rovsmip’s
Encyclopediax
, as I’m sure you’re acquainted
with.”

“Naturally.
Though in no way in any expert fashion.”

“You admit to
humbleness . . . ha! Well, then you must know that ‘Tuskou’ tutors
his subjects on the vagaries of fate when the primitives commit
indifferent acts?”

“So much is
only assumed.”

Uyu seemed to
find the response affected and curled his lip.

Somewhat
repulsed by the flavour of Uyu’s pedagogy, Baus scrutinized the
vendor with mounting dislike. Uyu hopped closer. A markedly flushed
animation entered his cheeks. The vendor urged Baus to touch the
artifact.

“I daren’t!”
Baus hissed. Scratching his ear, he felt somewhat annoyed at the
foolish grin etched on the vendor’s face. The garlicy odour wafting
from his body gave Baus rise to leap closer to the ‘birdcage’.
Curiously, he overshot his mark; he held out a hand to stabilize
his precarious flight.

But no!
Fingers clutched a rung of the artifact. A lever switched. A clay
figure was released from the cage with astonishing speed. An
inexplicable waft of gas was followed by a negligible explosion.
One of the clay figures hopped forward with grand urgency. It butt
a hip into Baus’s finger, which had wormed its way through the
cage. By means unknown, Uyu had initiated some prank through means
of a controlling mechanism.

Scrambling
back, Baus loosed a grunt. The action jostled Uyu, who in turn
cannoned back into Migor. There came a windmilling, a sudden
vertigo. The glittering yuyuks and shellames on the far wall
crashed down in an ear-piercing clatter of chert, shell and
glass.

There was an
awkward pause. Uyu sprang back in horror. Migor remained
speechless. The big man launched himself to his feet, covered in
glass and debris, his eyes like a cobra’s.

Baus watched
the display with composed placidity. While Migor sifted and scraped
through the broken shards, a rapid jabber of language issued
between shopkeeper and brother. Baus construed the tones as modern
Hilgimic curses.

Migor’s
piercing yellow eyes fixed on Baus.

Baus uttered a
dignified conciliation, to which was given harsh laughs of
hostility.

“You, grand
bungler,” growled Migor, “are owing money. Smashed are my two
yuyuks in supplement to four expensive shellames at a cost of
twenty-five cils!”

Uyu squeaked:
“And do not neglect the chipped chertobyl which is valued at
thirty-five cils.”

Baus gave a
flippant disclaimer. “No matter. It was terribly unwise to post
artifacts so close to the booth’s entrance. Look at the grief that
has come.”

Uyu chewed
unpleasantly on his tongue. He reiterated that recompense was due
at one hundred and eighty-five cils.

Baus responded
with an outraged croak. “This is a scandalous sum! You lack of
bonhomie, particularly equanimity, smarts—particularly for an
individual who has proven polite and discerning up till now.”

Uyu laughed
fondly. “That is the tally that you owe me, rogue, payable upon
demand, which I deem is right now!”

Baus held up
an authoritative hand. “Technically, it was not I who fractured the
articles, but Migor, who catapulted backwards in an ignorant
fashion.”

Migor clamped
his jaw with amazement. “Hardly! It was rather your oafish
clumsiness which created the impetus for my imbalance, and hence,
my ultimate crash!”

Baus cautioned
Migor: “Lay blame to the mud-baked demon in the birdcage who
startled me. There you will find your culprit.”

Uyu’s lips
curled in a pained grimace. “Leave poor Bojor out of it. The
manikin is a joke, nothing more than an eye grabber for
tourists.”

“Quite an
expensive joke at that,” Baus muttered.

Migor ignored
the declaration: “Do not denigrate Bojor! He is part of a device
triggered to lighten the mood of prospective buyers when they
persist in wavering between browsing and buying!”

Baus raised a
scornful finger. “So, you would bully innocent bystanders into
purchasing exorbitant wares through tricks!” He glared at the
shopkeepers, arms crossed on his chest. “Shame on you, sirs! I am
at a loss for words—and remain wholly astounded at these crass
tactics. Please sort out your complaints with someone else, on your
own time.”

He turned to
leave but the clamour had attracted passers-by who were now amused
by the demonstrations and expected more obloquy to come. They
lingered at the entrance to compose jocular speculations. While the
shopkeepers engaged in further grumbling disputations, Baus began
to slowly backtrack out of the booth. The vendors remained
preoccupied with their arguments and Baus easily slipped past the
gawkers and initiated a rapid course down the nearest aisle.

The absence,
however, was noted.

A cry of
astonishment came lancing out of the booth, which made Baus move
far more quickly. Migor’s balled fists comprised adequate testament
that he should distance himself accordingly.

Knees pumping
high, Baus ox-bowled his way down an intersecting aisle. A slip on
the wet grass had him crashing into a group of wagoners, toppling
them and sending a sprawl of bodies to the ground. Crawling to
safety, he slipped onto his belly. He turned, fighting nausea,
clawed his way through a sea of prickly knees where a jumble of
tent parts and pegs rolled every which way.