Chapter 4
Melodie loved the market square.
It was surrounded on three sides by buildings, and the fourth side was open, a promenade along the river bank. Midway along the promenade was the bridge which joined the Grimwalt side to the Kassian side. It was wide enough to accommodate generous traffic in either direction, and there was a similar market square on the Kassian side, a mirror image to the one she stood in now.
Both sides were always busy, and there was a constant stream of bridge traffic, a consistent hum of voices and the clatter of hooves and cart wheels over cobbles. The traders liked to tease each other over which market was better, but the rivalry was friendly.
It hadn’t always been this way.
Illoa used to be smaller.
Melodie had come through it as a child, although she barely remembered the village as it had been. When she and her father had returned when she was sixteen, he had commented often on how much it had grown since Kassia became Kassia and Cervantes, and formed a strong alliance with Grimwalt.
It was an interesting place to live—a border town that was a conduit for most of the trade between Kassia and Cervantes and Grimwalt, as well as Sk?ddar to the north.
It was easier for the Sk?ddar merchants to cut through Grimwalt than to go around through Jatan, and everyone benefited from the arrangement.
She certainly loved the ebb and flow of merchant caravans and lone traders that came through. They often set up stalls for a few days on either the Kassian or Grimwalt side of the bridge, bringing interesting items with them.
And sometimes they brought things she had spent her life pretending not to see.
The merchant carts usually set up around the square early in the day, and as it was late afternoon now, they were winding down. Some were closing up, some were content to sit and watch the sun set over the Malin River and wait for customers to wander by.
Hunger from a day spent bent over her work led Melodie straight to a food stall, where she threw caution—and the thought of supper—to the wind, and bought a funnel cake. She ate it slowly as she wandered past the stalls, enjoying the crispy crunch of the dough and the cool, cinnamon whipped cream in the center.
There were usually many months between her special finds, and she had last found something magically interesting only three weeks before, so she didn’t expect much, but she liked to browse anyway, pausing at the overcrowded tables to look at the wares.
Her gaze passed with interest over carved wooden bowls, mosaic lamps and hand-dyed swatches of fabric, but nothing stood out to her.
When she turned down a new row of carts, though, she stopped dead, causing the person behind her to bump into her and swear softly. The jostling caused her to drop her cake, but she didn’t even look down to where it fell.
She mumbled an apology without looking around, and the man swung past her, sending her an irritated look, but she could not take her eyes from the glow.
Good or bad, she wondered as she slowly walked toward it. Sometimes it wasn’t possible to tell, and she’d worked out over the years that most often the ones she couldn’t read well were will-based spells, capable of being molded by the user.
She had seen plenty of magical items in her life. They winked and glimmered at her. Called to her.
Sometimes with a gentle gleam, occasionally with a more obvious glow. This one was as bright as she had ever seen.
The spell light came off the object in a wafting mist; golden and wispy. It swirled and eddied in the air, like the condensation off a massive block of ice set out on a sunny day.
She found it difficult to know where to direct her gaze when she reached the scruffy caravan halfway down the row, only tangentially taking note of its peeling paint and the chips gouged out of the intricate wooden carvings framing the window.
A table was set in front of the caravan’s window and there was an awning, stretching from the edge of the roof, over the table, and held up by two poles which had been set inside two large pots filled with soil.
“Greetings.” A small man with deep bags under his eyes and bushy gray eyebrows turned to her. He was busy packing some of his wares into a box on the ground. His gaze flicked from her to other passers-by, and she wondered why he seemed so nervous.
“May I have a quick look before you pack up?” Melodie tried to keep her voice even and her attention on the stallholder, instead of on the item on the table which was throwing off so much light.
“Most certainly.” He straightened up and stepped back behind the table, waving a hand in invitation, and yet, she had a feeling he was anxious at her attention.
She squinted a bit as she leaned in.
The aura was coming from a slim, rectangular wooden box.
She wasn’t surprised by the type of object. She had seen it all over the years. Boxes, scarves, mugs. She loved finding things she could work into her jewelry, like gems and beads, but those were rare.
“You’re interested in the paints?” he asked.
“The paints?” She glanced at him, then back at the box. “What type of paints?”
“I’m not an artist,” he said. “But I think you add water to them to use them. This isn’t a new set and they are dried up to look at them now, but that is how they’re supposed to be.” He flipped the lid, and she saw the inside had eight small sections on the top and another eight on the bottom, with an open section running between them.
Each section contained a dried up cake of color and it looked as if someone had mixed some of the colors together in the middle, and hadn’t washed it clean.
The glow didn’t diminish when he opened the box, but it wasn’t brighter, either.
“I make jewelry. This might be useful to me when I draw my designs.” She said it as if to herself, thoughtfully. “What is the price?”
He gave her an amount and she stood, finger tapping her lips, considering it.
It was steep for a small wooden box of used watercolors. Absolutely a bargain for a spell-worked item of such strength.
She wondered if he knew what he had. She was so used to being the only one who could see spell work, she rarely considered it.
But the price tag . . .
And I still don’t know what it does, she reminded herself. Whether this is malicious magic or benign. Or if the magic will leave the good or the bad of it up to me.
It didn’t matter. She needed to have it. Needed to prevent someone who didn’t know what it was harming themselves or others by using it.
“You drive a hard bargain,” the old man said into the silence, the hint of worry she thought she’d detected in his eyes turning to quiet fear. He sent her a fake smile that showed a few gaps in his teeth. “How about a discount?”
She was surprised when he halved the amount. He must want to get rid of it, or he had been outrageously bold with the first offer.
His behavior made her wonder if he knew what he had, or whether he had come to own it through less than honest means and now wanted to get rid of it.
Whatever the reason, she couldn’t leave it for sale.
“Done,” she said, pulling her small coin purse from her shoulder bag and counting out the coins.
The stallholder took them in a way that reminded her of a magician’s sleight of hand, delicately removing them from her palm with long, surprisingly slim fingers, and then they were gone.
He would make a good thief.
She picked up the box, felt the tingle against her skin, and slid it into her bag. The sudden dimming of light was a relief.
“Where did the paints come from?” she asked.
“I’m from Cattha,” he said, although that didn’t answer her question. “On my way to Taunen.”
“Well, safe travels to you,” she said, and turned away.
“You’ll need to find some brushes,” the man called from behind her. “I don’t have any, but a few carts down, old Dame Carvaggo might have some.”
“Thank you.” She glanced back briefly, saw he had begun to pack up in earnest, and tried to remember if she had any brushes herself, but when she stopped at Dame Carvaggo, the lady was selling three for a single coin, so she bought them and turned toward the river and the bridge, drawn by the dance of afternoon light on the water.
She crossed the square and made her way to the promenade. There was no railing, just a straight drop down into the wide, slow waters of the Malin River, which meandered through the town—the border marker between Kassia and Cervantes and Grimwalt.
A goat bleated, and she turned to look.
It had bounded up from the lower bank at the side of the bridge, which, unlike where she stood, sloped down more gently to a narrow bar of sand rather than dropping straight into the water.
She stared. For a moment, she wondered if she had been so blinded by the box of paints earlier that she was mistaking the sunlight reflecting off the river for the brightness of the glow she could see around the goat’s neck.
She watched as the goat moved closer to the pillar at the start of the bridge. It was tied to the bridge by a long coil of rope, but underneath that was something spell worked that was looped around the goat’s neck—either a piece of string or twine.
If she thought the box of paints was bright with magic, the twine was a sun to the paintbox’s moon. As she stared at it, it became a golden cage around the animal, and then it was a golden collar again.
The goat pawed at a scattering of offerings to Malin, the river spirit who kept the land fertile. There were flowers, the traditional wooden cups with Malin’s face carved into them, and even a woven basket.
She had seen many things left in tribute over the years, but never a living creature.
As she stood there, staring, a woman walked over the bridge and placed an apple, another of the favored tributes to Malin, in front of the informal shrine.
“Don’t eat this, creature,” she said, pointing at the goat.
“If the goat is a tribute, then it doesn’t matter if it eats the apple,” Melodie said. “It’s all tribute to Malin.”
The woman turned to look at her, suspicious. “The goat is your tribute?”
Melodie wasn’t a Grimwaldian native, and had never left a tribute to Malin. She shook her head.
“Someone’s trying to have their goat fed for free,” the woman said, looking at the goat with dislike. She bent down, picked the apple back up and threw it into the water.
The goat turned and ran down the bank, and when Melodie leaned over, she saw it standing on the thin edge of sand, looking at the apple as it swirled in the eddies and then was whisked off by the current.
When she turned back, the woman was walking away.
The goat came back up from the river and nosed through the flowers and handmade gifts. Suddenly, it lifted its head and seemed to stare behind her.
She turned and saw it was the old man who’d sold her the paints. He had crossed the square and stood a little way back.
She brushed her hand over her bag. The chances of two things so saturated in powerful spell work being so close together at the same time defied coincidence.
“The goat is yours?” she asked as the old man eventually drew level with her.
He started, stared at her with surprise, then lifted both hands, waving them a little. The move seemed panicked. “No.”
“But you put the goat here.” She was only guessing.
He gave her such a shocked look, she knew she was right.
“You saw me?”
She said nothing, and he began to back away. “Take it. I only put it there because it’s such a difficult animal.”
“You’re abandoning it?” Melodie crouched down and studied the twine, narrowing her eyes to see past the glow. It was dark copper, almost invisible against the goat’s fur, and once again she saw the outline of a cage.
Within it was a man. Curled over. Trapped.
She nearly fell backward.
Just for a moment, she saw the shape of him; crouched, in agony.
Her gaze locked with the goat’s—the man’s—and as if he knew she had seen him, he walked toward her on four little goat legs.
She had only once before seen someone trapped in another shape by spell work. She had been seven, and just like now, it had been in a market square, although that time it had been even busier. It had been a bigger town and on market day, as well.
She had tried to explain what she was seeing to her father. That the bird in the cage at the back of a cart was a woman, not a canary. Tried to make him understand that she could see the woman in brief flashes, battering at the magic that held her.
He had taken some convincing, and when at last he understood, and they went back to find her, the cart was gone.
She had cried for a long time after that, and eventually her father had packed up and moved them away.
One of the many times he had done that.
She had felt the guilt of forcing them to move yet again, along with the agony of wondering if the woman had ever gotten free. The worry about it had never left her.
She would not let this end the same way.
The goat reached her and butted her knees with its head.
She crouched and curved a hand over its neck and turned to look up at the old man.
Something in her gaze must have alarmed him, because he took a quick step back.
“Whose goat is it, if not yours?” she asked.
He looked over at the line of stalls, then back to her and the goat. “Look, I found the goat a few days ago. I tried to look after it, but it’s been nothing but trouble. I’m off to Taunen tomorrow morning, and I thought someone might take it if I left it by the bridge.” The old man hunched his shoulders. “It’ll have enough to eat from the tributes. Or children might feed it.” He glanced down at the river. “There’s plenty of water for it to drink.”
“Found it, where?” she asked.
He paused, mouth working, and then he shook his head. “I can’t remember.” He glanced back at his stall again. “I’ve got to go.”
“I thought you were only leaving for Taunen tomorrow morning,” Melodie said.
He looked at her sharply, sucked in a breath. “I’m leaving tonight to get a little way out of town on the road to Taunen, so I can make an early start.” He suddenly fumbled in his pocket, taking out the coins she’d paid him for the paints, and holding them out to her. “To feed the goat,” he said.
She extended her hand and he dropped the coins onto her palm.
“You stole the paints, didn’t you? And the goat.” Whoever he had taken both things from was someone dangerous. He had two of the most powerful spell-worked items she’d ever seen. And he would be looking for them.
No wonder the trader was nervy.
He had to know he was being hunted.
The old man shook his head as he retreated. “No. I’m no thief.”
Except everything in his demeanor told her he was.
He turned and hurried away, shuffling across the cobbles to his caravan.
While she had been talking to the woman about the goat, he’d put the table away and folded back the awning, and the caravan looked strangely naked and out of place among the other carts and stalls.
He moved to the pen of livestock to one side of the square, handed over a coin, and then led out a small donkey she assumed was his means of pulling the caravan.
The goat butted her knees again.
“I know, I know. We have to wait until he’s gone. I don’t want him to see me take you.” She rose to her feet, her fingertips on the top of the goat’s head.
Within minutes, the donkey was harnessed and the old man steered his caravan out of the square.
As soon as he turned down the main road out of town, she crouched again and began to work on the knot around the goat’s neck, keeping her fingers away from the twine.
Sometimes when she touched something, she deactivated it. Not often, but enough to make her wary.
She didn’t want a man with a rope around his neck to suddenly appear in the square.
No one was watching her that she could see. The sun was almost set, and where they were, crouched beside the bridge, was in a pool of shadow. But best to be cautious.
The rope was rough and hard to loosen, but she worked with her hands every day and her fingers were strong. After what felt like a lifetime, but was more likely ten minutes, she finally had it off.
The goat had stayed still while she worked, but the moment it was loose, it ran a few steps away from her.
She rose to her feet, arched her back, which was still stiff from a day spent bent over her workbench, and then looked over at the animal.
“I can get it off, but let’s do it where no one is watching.”
The goat studied her with golden eyes. Then it gave a little jump, as if in impatience.
“Let’s go, then.” She kept to the edge of the square, to where the shadows were longest.
Keeping hidden, keeping a low profile. Everything her father ever taught her.
He had died sticking to that philosophy.
She wouldn’t abandon it now.
She headed home, taking the smaller streets, thinking through her options. The goat trotted docilely along by her side.
Vinest wasn’t safe. Her ring had told her that.
She had seen the protection spell on it when she’d found it at the market months ago, but she hadn’t known whether it was a general protection, or something more specific.
After what happened this afternoon, she now knew it was very specific.
Vinest was angry enough with her to do her physical harm.
The thought of how her ring had heated, the knowing she’d had in that moment that he wished to strike her for her lack of acquiescence, made her turn one street away from home and head for the smithy.
Jackson would be done for the night and down at the inn, drinking and eating his dinner.
She reached the double doors, bent, and felt between the stones that edged a small flower bed, pulling out the spare key.
She wondered if Jackson even remembered it was there.
She unlocked the door, opened it just enough for her and the goat to squeeze through, and stepped into the dark, warm forge. The smell of hot iron and smoke lingered in the air, and the furnace threw out a red glow.
She didn’t bother to light a lamp, she used the firelight to walk to the bench of tools, found a sharp pair of pliers, and sat down on one of the sawn-off logs Jackson used as chairs in a place where tiny sparks flew around and burned whatever they touched.
“Come here, I’ll cut it off.”
The goat approached warily, as if suddenly worried about her intentions.
She said nothing, sitting patiently, and with a sudden sigh, it pushed up against her, laying its head on her lap.
She took the pliers, slid them between the fur and the twine, and cut.