The Revenge of the Dwarves (9 page)

Arriving at the center of the marketplace, he jumped up onto the rim of the fountain.

“Now, come, honored spectators! Come and see for yourselves in my traveling collection of curiosities the most wonderful adventures ever witnessed in Girdlegard. It will be as if you had been there in person,” he enticed them. He ran round the low circular wall of the fountain, the buckles on his shoes clinking as he did so. “The battle with the orcs, the fight against the eoîl and the avatars, the cruelty of the unslayable siblings that governed Dsôn Balsur—you will see it all with your very own eyes. Heroes, villains, Death and Love. I, the renowned Rodario, whom once they called Rodario the Incredible and Lover of the Maga Andôkai, shall tell you of grand deeds. I have tales to tell of why Andôkai was also known as the Tempestuous One.” A few laughed at this innuendo. “And I fought side by side with Tungdil Goldhand in combat with the eoîl,” and here he swished his cane through the air in imitation, “until the mist-shape lay dead at our feet!” He stood up at his full height and stretched out his arms. “For I, myself, cherished spectators, have lived through these very events. Can there be another such who could recount in more detail, with more verisimilitude? Who could report to you with greater honesty than I?” Blue and gray flames shot from his fingertips, to the shock and surprise of the bystanders. “This was merely a foretaste,” he promised, looking at a young boy. “You will have to cover your eyes during the show, little man, to stop them jumping out of your skull,” he said in a conspiratorial undertone.

The boy went pale and crept closer to his mother, who
laughed and ran her fingers through his hair. Rodario fired off another batch of flames against a darkening sky which was indicating the approach of a spring storm. A few thunderclaps and some lightning would not harm the atmosphere in the great marquee one little bit. “Listen! The first twenty spectators to arrive will receive a free cup of wine, and also a glass jar with a breath of eoîl fog. Watch it and wonder! But never dare to remove the cork, else otherwise…” He left the threat hanging unspoken in the air, and restricted himself to displaying a mysterious warning expression.

His brown-eyed gaze swept over the throng, who were hanging on his every word. As always, he had been able to win over the crowd by a mixture of personal charm and free offers. In every place he visited he would look around for a familiar face; but as always in these last five cycles that face was still missing.

Finally he noticed a beautiful woman in the second row watching him. This cheered his mood considerably and combatted his disappointment.

She looked to be about twenty, tall and attractive. Everything was in the right place for a woman, though a little more substance in the décolleté would not have come amiss. She wore her long blond hair down; her face was narrow and full of expression; her green eyes were following him intently. He would have judged her to be of noble birth, had she not been so simply attired and had it not been for the laundry bundle in her arms.

Her visage showed a strange longing; it was less a matter of desire for himself as a man, more a question of sharp
interest in what he was doing. Rodario was well acquainted with this effect. He had stood at the doors of a theater four cycles earlier with the same expression on his face, with no other thought in his mind than the need to appear on stage. And he had achieved his dream.

He took it as a sign from the gods. Following his instincts, he jumped down from the fountain edge and landed directly in front of her. Then he made her a deep bow and, thanks to amazing dexterity and meticulous preparation, conjured up a black paper flower as if from nowhere.

“Bring this flower this evening and you shall see the show for free,” he told her with a smile, raising one eyebrow and treating her to his famous stare no female yet had been able to withstand. “Tell me your name, my Storm Valley beauty.”

After a moment’s hesitation she accepted the paper flower. Then a young man pushed his way through in front of her, tore the gift from her hand and trampled it underfoot. “Keep your flattery to yourself,” he threatened.

“Sir, it is not courteous to interrupt the entertainment in this way,” Rodario responded smoothly.

“It’s not entertainment, you clown! You were flirting with my wife,” the man retorted angrily, shoving his balled fist into Rodario’s face. “Try that again and it’ll be a black eye you get, and not a black paper flower.”

“No?” Rodario bent forward swiftly, pretending to pull something out of the young man’s ear. To the delight of the watching crowd he extracted a second paper flower. “You see? You already had one.” He handed the flower to the young woman. “Here, madam, with your husband’s compliments.
He is a lucky man to have such flowers growing in his head. It must be the futility, I mean the
fertility
, of his earwax that does it, methinks.”

Furiously the man snatched at the flower before his wife could grasp the stem. He hurled it into the dirt. “Enough!” he shouted. “You will pay for this!”

Rodario even pretended to extract something out of the man’s open mouth. He waved a coin in the air. “But why? You are so rich already. There is gold in your gullet.”

Now the crowd was laughing heartily at the performance: they shouted and whistled. The young man was the focus of their ridicule. For his honor’s sake he had to put a stop to this mockery.

“I’ll stick the money in your powdered arse,” he yelled, attacking.

Rodario avoided the wild blow and poked his walking cane neatly between the young man’s legs, bringing him down against the wall of the fountain. His own momentum swept the man into the water. Children roared with laughter and applauded, and all the grown-ups were joining in the fun by now.

Spluttering, the victim stood up and shook himself. Rodario helpfully held out his cane.

“Out you come now and let us forget our little quarrel,” he offered. “I’ll stand you a drink; what do you say?”

The humiliated husband wiped the water out of his eyes. He did not look any happier. Uttering a loud cry he launched himself at the showman, who again proved the niftier on his feet.

The man landed in the dust, which immediately caked
his wet clothing. He clenched his fists, his fingers scrabbling in the dirt. “Wait, I’ll kill you, you jumped-up…”

Rodario bent down and fiddled behind the man’s ear, producing another flower. “See, the water has made the seeds sprout.” The crowd rocked with laughter and Rodario tossed the third flower to the pretty young wife. “Now that’s enough, my good man.” He stood up straight. “I don’t want you getting hurt just because you lost your temper.”

Enraged, the man got to his feet, wiped his filthy face and stomped off; his wet shoes squelched and leaked as he walked away. As he went past he grabbed his wife by the wrist and pulled her away.

The unhappy glance she gave Rodario was the loudest silent cry for help he had ever witnessed. The gap in the crowd closed up again after them, and the showman lost sight of the couple.

“There, you see what happens if you cross a hero,” he triumphed, grinning. He bowed. “Come to the show this evening and let me enchant you all. Until then, fare you well.” Like the noblest of courtiers, he whirled his hat around and indicated with a motion of the shoulder that the performance, for now, was over.

The audience applauded again and returned to their market-day tasks.

Rodario grinned at his herald. “Well cried, cryer. Do a couple more rounds through the back streets and make lots of noise. Let’s make sure the whole world knows who’s in Storm Valley tonight.”

His man returned the grin: “After a session like that word will get around faster than a fart in the wind.”

“Not a happy choice of simile, but accurate enough in the circumstances,” said Rodario as he went over to a market stall selling wine. He got himself a beaker, tasted it and nodded. “Exquisite little drop. Worthy of an emperor. Send me a barrel of this to the road that leads south out of here. That’s where we’ve put up our tents,” he told the wine merchant, handing him a heap of Bruron’s coins. “Will that cover it?”

“Of course, sir,” The man bent over the money to count it. With these show folk you could never quite be sure. He even took the trouble to scratch at the surface of one of the coins with a knife to check whether perhaps it was merely lead coated with silver. Satisfied, he shoveled the money into his pocket.

Rodario grinned, leaning back against the makeshift bar—a plank balanced on two wine barrels. “Don’t you trust me?”

“No,” replied the vintner in a friendly enough manner. “You wanted to try the wine before you ordered the barrel, didn’t you?” He filled Rodario’s beaker again. “There, that cup and the next for free as a bonus.”

“Too kind, my good man,” laughed the showman and he looked around, secretly hoping he might catch sight of the pretty girl again. “If you saw my little contretemps just now, have you any idea who my opponent might be?” he enquired, and called a lad over who was peddling delicacies from a tray; he was offering freshly baked black bread with cream, ham and a layer of melted cheese. Rodario knew he must eat something or the wine would have a devastating effect. He didn’t want to turn up that evening the
worse for wear, let alone to fall off the stage drunk and incapable when he faced his audience. He’d seen that happen to others. He bought himself one of the savory snacks in exchange for a quarter. He contemplated his purchase and thought of his good friend who had so loved these flatbreads.

“Sure I know who it is.” The vintner topped up the jug from the barrel and thus prevented Rodario’s thoughts becoming too melancholy. “Nolik, son of Leslang, the richest man in Storm Valley. The two of them own a quarry that supplies the finest marble in Gauragar. King Bruron is a personal friend of theirs.”

“And yet the man has no breeding.” Rodario took a bite. “He gets his wife to work as a washerwoman?”

The wine seller took a quick look around before answering. “Nolik is a bad man. No idea how he won Tassia’s heart. Can’t have been honestly.”

“Who will ever understand women? Perhaps his inner virtues are as gold compared to his behavior?” Rodario rolled his eyes. “This savory flatbread is de-li-cious,” he praised, his mouth full, as he juggled the snack from one hand to the other, “but it’s still too hot!” He gulped some wine to quench the burning and sighed happily.

The other man laughed so loud that the folk around them turned their heads. “Nolik and inner values? No, definitely not.” Quietly he added, “Tassia’s family owed his father money. Need I say more?”

“No.” Rodario chewed his last morsel, picked up the jug and the beaker and moved on. “Don’t forget my wine!” He raised his two prizes in the air. “You’ll have these back
this evening if the barrel gets delivered,” he placated the man.

Rodario loved to wander through a busy throng of people; this was life. He had had enough of death, heroic deeds or not. He was a showman: a skilled mimic and an excellent lover—better than any other in Girdlegard. And for both areas of expertise he needed real people around him to appreciate his god-given gifts.

There was another reason he had been obliged to give up his theater in Porista: the face he had been seeking in the crowd. The face of Furgas.

The friend who had been his companion on those long theater tours was in despair over the death of his beloved Narmora and had completely disappeared since the victory over the eoîl and the conversation they had subsequently had with Tungdil.

That was five cycles ago now.

Since that time Rodario had been traveling through the Girdlegard kingdoms, doing the same thing in each town, village or hamlet he passed through: He asked about Furgas and showed people the likeness he had had made. Without success.

But he was not giving up. Not in Storm Valley, where his enquiries had been met with shaking heads when he showed the miniature portrait of his friend in the inns and in the marketplace and at the town gates.

Rodario was very worried about his lost companion. Then there was the problem of the various pieces of complicated apparatus Furgas had invented and which Rodario used in all his performances, strapped to his body: burlap
seed slings to shoot balls of fire, little leather bags where the black paper flowers waited, and all sorts of other containers for powders. These were such ingenious contraptions that they let him appear in the eyes of his audience like a magus—they formed the core of his whole act. He was afraid of the day that must come when one of these trusty utensils might give up and need repair. He had always managed to cope with small defects in his props, but patching up was not always going to work.

So Rodario returned to where his troupe had set up camp, that familiar feeling of disappointment with him again. He would get over it. Back on stage he could act away his worries and forget them. The crowd loved him and thought of him as the merry showman, always bright and ready with a quip, because they had no way of seeing behind the mask.

The performance ended in triumph and in one of the colossal thunderstorms that gave Storm Valley its name and which tested the strength of the marquee’s guy-ropes to the utmost. The fabric billowed in and out, giving the audience the impression they were sitting inside some extremely unsettled intestines. Hardly had the applause died away than the audience rushed back to town for home and shelter. The sales of eoîl-breath in the little flacons could have gone better.

Rodario retired to his personal caravan with its mystical designs painted on the walls. This was where he prepared for his act before each performance and where he counted the takings after it. The coins were stacked on the traveling actor’s make-up table. Little by little, we’re getting there, he thought. It’s a living.