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“Entertainments, diversions, and wonders,” Rainfall said.
An elf on a snow-white horse in a colorful striped coat turned into the gates of Mossbell. “Come, if you please, Mistress Wistala, I think you’ll like Ragwrist and he’ll like you. At least I hope so.”
Wistala couldn’t imagine why it would matter if a traveling elf liked her or not, but she pulled her sii down her griff and smoothed her fringe. Mistress Wistala must look her part for greeting guests on her lands.
Rainfall had been calling Wistala by that title whenever in the presence of any of the estate’s people, to impress upon them the change in ownership, though Wistala left all decisions in the care of her—what was the position again? Oh yes, steward.
Ragwrist dismounted. He did have a colorful twist of twine about his wrist, but it was the coat that really caught her imagination. It was red and yellow and green and brown and several other colors, pleasantly arranged in panels and pleats, making him look like an aggregation of colorful bird feathers. His riding boots were of the deepest black and matched his hair, which reminded her of tree roots.
“Our homeleaf is graced,” Rainfall called in Elvish.
“This traveler is comforted,” Ragwrist answered. His voice had a heartiness to it and came from deep within his frame, and though he spoke normally his words carried from the road wall to the stable.
The elves embraced.
“Is that char-oil I smell in your hair?” Rainfall said. “Honorable frost is nothing to make one shamed.”
“I’m not here the time it takes a drop to fall from a low cloud, and already I’m undone and reproached,” Ragwrist said, though he kept glancing at Wistala.
“Neither,” Rainfall said. “How were the barbarian lands?”
Rainfall straightened his coat’s lapels and collars. “Tiresome. In some villages they hid their children from us, and without their glad cries, a circus is a joyless place. We’ve come away with only enough to sustain us, and the wagons need new axles. There are improvements around here I see, and new faces.”
Rainfall marked his pointed stare at Wistala. “Poor manners, so glad was I to see your face and get the news. This drakka is Wistala, the rarest gem I’ve ever met on four feet. She’s brought me back into the world, from hair-tip to foot-pad, and saved much more than my lands.”
Wistala preferred that Rainfall’s effusive manners remain directed at courtesy, as she felt little liking for praise that to her mind she hadn’t earned. “If you’re old friends with Rainfall, you must know that he does go on sometimes,” Wistala said.
Ragwrist danced in an elegant sort of balancing bow that put Wistala in mind of a goose drinking. “Such Elvish!”
“She’s gifted with tongues. Her Parl is intelligible, though the palatals sound a bit loud.
“I was hoping you’d set up about the new inn near the bridge,” Rainfall suggested. “The owner is our good friend, and if you’d send your criers about, he’d welcome the chance to serve visitors.”
Ragwrist sniffed the air about Wistala, looked as though he was going to say something, but turned back to Rainfall. “Of course. Assuming the troll stays west of the road, that is.”
“The troll is dead. Wistala’s doing.”
“This is news! Oh, we must have some wine and hear about this.”
“Shall we meet inside in a dwar-hour?”
“Let me say but a word to my lead gargant-dwarf, and then we shall drink. But quick! If we are to perform, I must attend as we encamp.”
“May I see the show?” Wistala asked.
“Nothing would please me better,” Ragwrist replied. “Provided you stay downwind, if I may abjectly beg your pardon. We have horses, and they are not used to a dragon’s airs.”
Wistala did watch from downwind, and enjoyed herself immensely.
They placed the three wagons in a line in the fields next to the inn, with tenting flanking wagons to somewhat conceal the behind.
The wagons themselves unfolded on one side so as to make a linked stage, with poles that Rainfall told her were as tall as ship-masts set at either end with a cable between. Balancing acts, exhibitions of swordfighting, and even a comical dwarf negotiated the line from one pole to the other with some skill in the case of the former, and a great many shrieks of fear and expostulations from the latter.
The dwarf wavered midway, trying to prove that he could do anything an elf could and now apparently regretting it, for he kissed his hand and then slapped his behind with a ribald oath in preparation. At the next step he fell to the joined screams of the crowd and disappeared for one eyeblink into the stage with a crash that struck Wistala as coming an instant too soon. But the dwarf bounced back up, high in the air, then came down on the stage with a loud thud.
“Dwarves always bounce back!” he roared to the crowd.
On the stages men threw axes in such a way that they cut plums from branches, which they then threw to the children; hominid females in clothing so scanty that Wistala wondered how they avoided lung infections danced or sang or jumped and turned and tumbled so high, it seemed they were made of air and sunshine.
