The Ancient Enemy (11 page)

He decided to take no action other than telling his father, just in case Pern tried again with more success, and to be sure that the other families engaged in altercations with Pern could be warned. Ware understood, and agreed with Thru's conclusions.

"Pern hates you, young Thru. You outshine him, and he can't stand that. You will have nothing but trouble from him, that's plain as day. What if his thugs follow you to Dronned?"

"I will be hard to find I would think."

Ware laughed. "I don't think so, my son. Dronned's not that big a place, and when folk are determined they can find you. A little silver spread around always helps wag the tongues."

"But why would he bother when I will be so far away? It's thirty miles to Dronned. I'll be out of his hair and out of his mind. Besides, what's to be done? Should I waylay Pern and beat him senseless? That would only hasten his hate. Should I kill him? That would only make me outlaw. I would prefer to live with the Spirit."

Thru shrugged. "No. It is better I do nothing. Let him feel my contempt until I leave. He may even comfort himself by imagining that I have run away in fear of him. Let him assuage his pride with that thought and thereby end this whole thing."

Ware nodded agreement. His son spoke words of wisdom, but still he was not so sure that Pern Treevi's urge to revenge himself on Thru would end so quietly.

Two days later, Thru set out with a small donkey cart laden with his weaves and two packs stuffed with his possessions, everything from his clothing to his books.

In addition he had a number of samples of waterbush fiber from friends of the Gillos. These were to be shown to Merchant Yadrone in Dronned. Yadrone was a well-known figure in the Dristen Valley villages.

Altogether the little donkey had quite enough to carry as they moved away down the south road, quite a few of Thru's friends coming with him on the first few miles. Pern would not dare make a move against Thru on the trail with so many to witness. Afterward Thru waved them good-bye and went on to spend the night in the village of Sheen. The next day he went on down the coast road toward Dronned, amongst a constant traffic of carts and other travelers and stopped worrying about Pern Treevi's plots and machinations.

When Thru arrived in Dronned, the grey walls were draped in bright tapestries in preparation for the upcoming midsummer festival. Atop the towers flew all the city's banners, dominated by the arms of the royal family—four black crows on a green flag. Also clearly visible was the long white pennon that marked the presence of an Assenzi in the city, in this case the very wise Melidofulo.

Dronned sprawled beyond its wall on the northern side, and Thru strode through a suburb of well-built wood-and-stone houses. Within the walls, the buildings were tall and narrow, built of stone and roofed in slate. The streets were paved, well drained, and clean. Travelers always remarked on how clean-smelling Dronned was.

And yet, the street life in the city was frantic by comparison with Warkeen Village. Traders and tradesmen were in constant motion. Dronned was an important center for several crafts and guilds, with weavers, ironworkers, and potters the most heavily represented. Shops and stalls lined the most important streets and were visited by large numbers of customers. There were mors by the hundreds, all out to buy supplies for villages in the surrounding region. While shoppers shopped, others relaxed in the beer gardens in all the important squares, where there were to be found troupes of musicians, jugglers, and mimes.

In the great market by the river, the permanent shops and emporia were all open and filled with early arrivals. The festival brought in folk from far and wide, and they would also attend the market. Then the great space would blossom with dozens of stalls and stands set up by the fiber merchants. In the meantime the merchants got ready, laying in a provision of everything from ornamental tile to brightly colored house mats.

Thru stalked around the market once, peering in the windows at the goods within: fine silk from Mauste, rugs from the Farblow Hills, copper pans from Ajutan. He came across an office that listed lodgings available and realized quite quickly that rents in the Quarters, as the parts inside the walls were called, were too high for him. Rents in the northern suburb were lower, and so he turned back and tried along the leafy roads and lanes.

He passed the Laughing Fish Tavern and the old ball field where he'd played in that memorable championship game. But the memories of that day were mixed, and he shook his head and went on.

He was in luck, and soon found a nice room in a house on Garth Road. He had a view of the ball field and the distant royal park. The roofs of the palace were visible through the trees. Garth Road was lined with tenements, mostly three stories tall. In them lived many of the working folk of the city, most of them young and single.

The house had seven rented rooms, one of which happened to be empty when he called. The owner was a plump mor named Kussha, who lived in the building across the road. She was a cheerful sort, who pressed sweet cakes on him while they discussed his possible tenancy in her house. She was well used to young mots like Thru, come to the city to try their hands at the craft of one thing or another. She took a liking to him at once and showed him the room that she had free.

Thru liked the feel of the house, which was built on timbers of oak and foundations of stone. His small room at the back of the top floor didn't have much floor space, but he had a bed, a chair, and a small table on which to rest a lamp.

He paid Kussha some of his precious hoard of silver for the room then she showed him her lock-up, a storeroom in the cellar with a very stout door and a heavy iron lock. There he left his mats and his bow and the quiver with its dozen steel points.

In the room he hung his cloak on the hook on the back of the door. He put his few books under the bed, except for the Book of the Spirit, from which he read a few short pieces, seeking some kind of blessing for the room and his time in it. Then he meditated while sitting quietly on the cot, trying to let the great Spirit fill him with its wisdom. While in that quiet state he listened to the sounds of the empty house. A breeze rattled the shutters. Outside there came the clop of a donkey's hooves in the street. Later he put up the Spirit sign that Ual had given him on his tenth birthday, a small disc of polished wood with the words of the benediction carved into its rim. It hung on the wall from a hook, near the table with the jug and washbasin.

He washed and took a look at himself in the metal mirror on the wall. Level grey eyes looked back at him, and he noted the straight nose, the thin scars on the left side of his face, the eyebrows that weren't quite as bushy as everyone else's. He was the same Thru Gillo who had planted waterbush in the spring and hit seventy-seven runs in the game against Meever's. Only now he was living in the big city. Now he was just one of a thousand young mots seeking his place in the world outside the village and the agricultural life. Everything from here on would be up to him. He didn't have his father and mother to fall back on, nor his sister or brother to talk to if his spirits fell. He would have to make do with the company he found in this exciting place.

Kussha always served up a hot dinner at dusk. Her clientele dined in the manner of the Land, as the gourmets put it. She found that this was a great inducement to get her mostly male clientele back from the taverns and thereafter early to bed. This meant they rarely got drunk, and they usually paid their rent on time. Her cooking had long since made rooms in her house sought after. Thru had been lucky to find a space there.

At the evening meal that night, which was as good as anything he might have had in the finest restaurants, he met the other lodgers. The oldest tenant was Rogon, a plain-faced carpenter with a strong Dronned accent in his speech. Gulf and Ollo were both potters. Bluit was a day servant in a merchant's house in the South Quarter, and young Noop Minchant, from Yebesh out in the eastern hills, worked in a metal foundry in the River Quarter.

Noop and old Bluit remembered Thru. They'd been in the crowd at the championship match three summers before.

"I saw you play against the Laughing Fish," said Noop. "And you won the game. It was much against expectations around here."

"A fine stroke you have, young Thru Gillo," said old Bluit.

Kussha was most impressed when she heard that she had a young athlete in her house. She'd known in her heart that he was a good one. Sometimes she'd been disappointed in the past with young mots from the countryside trying to make a living in the town. Once in a while they skipped without paying the rent. But Thru she sensed was not that kind.

Over a plate of shrimp dumplings in oil sauce with beer and fresh-baked bread, Thru was drawn into the conversation.

"How you like Kussha's cooking?" said Noop when he thought Kussha had left the house.

"Truth be told, I've never had dumplings like these, so light and yet so tasty."

"Wait 'til you taste her beanpod pie," said Ollo. "That is perfection."

"If you like beanpod pie," grumbled Gulf.

"What do you think the market will be like this year?" asked Thru, after a while, voicing the burning question in his own mind.

"Oh, it will be good," said Ollo. "All the portents are there. Large numbers of visitors are booked in."

Gulf shook his head. He and Ollo rarely agreed.

"I expect a more modest market this year. Last year's was too big. People will not come in the same numbers again."

"But the rites for the festival will be held in the royal park this year. That will be sure to bring folk in from the countryside."

"But that doesn't mean they'll be buying in Dronned market."

"Enough of them will be; there'll be money to be made."

"Good coin of the realm to rub together," said Rogon.

"Have you ever been to the summer rites in Dronned?" said Ollo.

Thru shook his head. "No."

"Then you have much to see. The rites are performed with a special intensity here in Dronned. With all the costumes and the dancing, it's far more of an event than it is anywhere else in the Land."

"Bah," grumbled Gulf. "It's all too much fuss and feathers. I like the village ceremony, with none of your acting and mumming, and a lot less singing those slow hymns."

"When was Gulf last seen going to any ceremonies?" said Noop with cheeky insouciance.

"Bah, it's all nonsense. I have weaving to do."

"Well, I'm looking forward to it," said Thru.

After a dessert of peach pie dressed with waterbush cream, Thru was completely converted to the cuisine of Kussha's house. Some of the others went up to their rooms, but Thru was too excited by being in Dronned to sleep just yet, despite a long day's traveling.

He sat out on the porch with Noop and old Bluit and shared a pitcher of ale. The moon was almost full, and it was a warm night. Bluit wanted to know if Thru planned to try out for the Laughing Fish, the top Dronned team.

"I don't know. I might be too busy." And in his heart Thru still played on the Warkeen Village team. He wasn't sure yet that he wanted to play for any other.

"The top teams will always help a player like you," Bluit suggested.

"It's different to play for money, don't you think?"

"Oh, of course, but if it's just a little help, what does it matter?"

"I'm here to sell my weaves. If I find the time to play, then I'll consider it. There are plenty of good teams in this city, I know that."

"Well, the Laughing Fish are already in the hunt for the championship of the city," Bluit said fervently, betraying his own active support.

Thru nodded politely, storing the information, but he remained determined on a career with the mats. The game worked on a plane above that of strictly material life. There was something about it that he didn't wish to trade for the gross gloss of gold.

In the next few days he explored Dronned with every waking moment. He felt the energy in the place awaken something in himself. Just having so many folk around one, with constant activity in the streets, was amazing.

His first order of business was to call on the Merchant Yadrone, for whom he carried some letters and the samples of fiber entrusted to his care by family friends. Yadrone's house was a tall, four-story building of stone in the North Quarter overlooking the New Bridge. Thru was welcomed in with enthusiasm by the housekeeper and ushered into a well-appointed parlor to wait. On the walls were various weave works, including an old version of "Chooks and Beetles" by the renowned Mesho.

Thru noted Mesho's meticulous use of scale, the sharp definition that he achieved with his mix of fibers. The chooks were so lifelike, so cleverly caught in their dance across the field, that it took one's breath away.

Thru wondered how his own work would stack up against it.

Yadrone appeared quite shortly and behind his portly figure came the housekeeper with a tray bearing hot chocolate sweetened with sugar. While they sipped this delicious luxury from the tropics, Yadrone examined the fiber samples and barked notes to a scribe. Yadrone asked questions about Warkeen and inquired after Ware.

"I heard about that business with Pern Treevi and your family's seapond. Terrible foolishness."

Yadrone fingered the fibers and made mental calculations. Then he barked more notes to the scribe.

"Geluba's farm, I think you said, for this one." He held up a swatch of grey-green fiber.

"Yes, indeed."

"Good. Now listen to me, young Thru Gillo. You have to be careful in that weave market. There are plenty of skinners and blupers, and they'll cut your purse from under you if you let them. They're as bad as the cloth merchants."

"Thank you, sir, but my father gave me similar warnings. I promise that I will take them seriously."

"Good, see that you do. By the Spirit you need your wits about you in the market these days. Why just the other day..."

Thru listened, storing information as the merchant told stories of the market in recent years and contrasted it with earlier times. It was all fascinating to Thru, who knew he had a lot to learn.