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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.
In between the shows the dwarves brought a gargant out for the amazement of all, and one of the dwarf handlers let the gargants rear up and put an enormous foot on each shoulder as he knelt, then with shaking legs he came to his feet.
The underdressed hominids came out again, riding horses around the crowd as those at the back suddenly had the best view and others fought for position. They stood on their horses’ backs, or leaped between mounts, or dropped off the sides of the horses and vaulted from one side to the other, and finished by rearing their horses up and having them turn circles.
Wistala wondered if Rainfall’s mate had once performed such tricks from under a few wisps of thin cloth.
With the shows ended, Ragwrist came out and announced that any in the crowd could have their fortune read—“If you dare!”—in the blue tent by the famous Intanta, possessor of a shard of the seeing-star, which fell to earth in the days of the dragons and had been the object of no less than six wars.
Others could visit the green tent, where the finest crafts from around the Hypatian Empire and beyond even the Golden Road in Wa’ah could be found—“Happy is the wife possessed of even the smallest bauble bought or traded from our display!”—at bargains merchant-houses couldn’t afford to give thanks to the need to keep a roof overhead.
“So what do you think of the circus, Wistala?” Rainfall asked from Stog’s back as Stog’s ears followed the pounding hooves around the audience.
“Delightful! I’ve never seen happier people,” Wistala said. “They all perform as though driven by joy, rather than the coins flung at them.”
Rainfall leaned down. “Some of the coins are thrown by the circus men themselves, to give others in the audience the example. They are more often paid in eggs and cheese. But I am pleased you enjoyed yourself. Ragwrist is one of my oldest and dearest friends—though a sharp rascal, as you will learn.”
Wistala wondered what the last portended. Rainfall sometimes preceded action with an assortment of exploratory statements to judge reaction, like a cook tasting broth as the ingredients went in.
Many of the performers continued their exhibitions, informally of course, in Jessup’s tavern that evening. Rainfall held a dinner in his long dining room for Ragwrist and a few of his “Old Guard”—the expression in Parl was one of Rainfall’s, but Ragwrist seemed to know who he meant.
They gathered around two mismatched tables covered by a single ill-fitting cloth, sitting on chairs that had been brought in from other rooms—Rainfall’s better dining furniture had been sold off in his years of want, and there were candelabras under the fitting for the missing chandelier.
Other than Ragwrist, who had cast off his colorful coat for a plain black long-shirt, were Intanta the fortune-teller—a toothless old woman who turned her food into mash, the dwarf Brok, the long-bearded lead gargant-driver, who stuck his facial hair in a special sleeve to keep the food off it, and a horse trainer named Dsossa, whose tight-bound white hair seemed brittle as ice, though otherwise she looked human.
Dsossa and Rainfall seemed to share some special understanding, for they clasped warmly on her entry and touched hands frequently throughout dinner.
Wistala, who had eaten earlier, sat at the far end of the table and crunched the others’ fishheads and tails—smoked fish from the fall’s salmon run up the Whitewater River had been served—as they finished their meals and started on their wines. As they reminisced, she learned that Brok, in his wild youth, had been judged by Rainfall after he was caught breaking into a bakery to steal food. Rainfall offered him one year of quarrying stone or two years indentured to Ragwrist.
