The Dragon Revenant - Katharine Kerr [28]
“One of these days I suppose I should learn letters. It seems like such a wretched bore, puzzling them out.”
“Not once you learn, and truly, you should. Let me just see if I can pick up our Rhodry’s trail now that we’re back on land.”
In a corner of the room stood a rectangular charcoal brazier, made of cast iron, on a solid-looking bronze stand, with a layer of kindling and charcoal all ready for a fire. Salamander lit the fuel with a wave of his hand, then stared steadily into the pale and tiny flames. Jill felt a cold trembling of fear. For all they knew, Rhodry had never been sold at all, but still suffered at the hands of the Hawks of the Brotherhood. When the gerthddyn groaned dramatically, she leapt to her feet, thinking he’d seen Rhodry dead or maimed.
“He’s been sold, sure enough, to some kind of caravan leader,” Salamander said. “It certainly looks like he’s being well-treated.”
“Oh ye gods, you chattering elf!” She felt tears misting her eyes and took refuge in anger. “Then why did you have to make such mournful noises?”
“Because they’re traveling on a road through the grasslands, heading toward the undistinguished, unremarkable, and boringly bland mountains that cover half this island and a good chunk of the next, too. I have absolutely no idea where they may be.”
Jill muttered several foul things under her breath.
“Fortunately,” Salamander went on, “We can draw upon resources other than dweomer. We can check the aforementioned government records, and we can ask questions of the private traders, too. An expensive barbarian like our Rhodry will have been remembered.”
“Good. Let’s get on our way.”
“We might as well, O Gilyan of the hot blood. Besides, we have to go to the market to buy supplies and to get a permit. Tonight we put on our first show.”
In spite of the constant anxiety that underlay her mind like the sound of the waves in a harbor, Jill found Myleton splendid with its longhouses and painted garden walls scattered through the forest of flowering trees. When they came to the market, she was doubly impressed. The vast plaza was a sea of brightly colored sunshades, rippling in the wind over the hundreds of booths spread out around the public fountains. Here and there was a small stage where performers struggled to get the crowd’s attention. Salamander told her that at noon the market would shut down while everyone slept the hot afternoon away, then reopen at twilight. They wandered around, eating cakes sticky with a white, sweet powder while they looked over heaps of silverwork and brass-ware, oil lamps, silks, perfumes, jewelry, strangely shaped knives, and decorative leatherwork. Salamander pawed through all the gaudiest merchandise and made his purchases; they ended up burdened with two brass braziers, packets of charcoal and resin incenses, yards and yards of red cloth, a long drape of cloth-of-gold, a tunic stiff with floral embroidery for her, and a brocaded robe of many colors for the mighty wizard to wear on stage. While he shopped he kept chattering away, but Jill noticed just how much information he managed to extract as he did so, from the best place to buy horses to the current political temper of the city and, most important of all, the names of several private slave traders along with the news that at the last public auction, at least, no barbarians had been offered for sale.
The first trader they visited informed them sadly that he’d seen no barbarians in over a year, but he did direct them to a man named Brindemo, who spoke the barbarian tongue well and was thus the private trader of choice for someone who had a barbarian for sale. After a quick stop at their inn to unburden themselves of their