[Lanen Kaelar 01] - Song in the Silence by Elizabeth Kerner Page B

Elimar—and many
things that claimed to be Elimar silk but weren’t (Bors showed me the
difference). There was jewelry from the East Mountains, heavy furs from the
trappers of the Trollingwood, beautiful boxes and bowls made from· the perfumed
woods that grew in the North Kingdom, warm woolens from northern Ilsa. For
supper Bors took me to a booth where they sold a spicy soup of fish and roots,
a specialty of Corli. It was delicious and I was ravenous. Bors laughed and
bought me another bowl. Then in the gathering dusk our eyes were caught by a
troop of jugglers passing by, tossing lighted torches in the air and catching
them, crying the start of a performance. We followed them to a platform draped
with cloth, where the jugglers disappeared and reemerged in costume. We found
space on the ground and I watched their play, fascinated. Players never came as
far as our village, and everything the bard had said about them was true. I
tossed a silver coin in the hat they sent round just before the end and clapped
delightedly for them when it was over. Then I looked around and realised
that-most of the Merchants were closing their booths.
    Bors saw the look on my face. “Was there
something you wanted to buy?” he asked. “They are none of them gone
home yet, if we pound hard enough on the shutters they’ll open-or we can come
back in the morning.”
    “No, it isn’t that I wanted anything—but it
was such fun to look!” We both laughed. “I can’t believe it,” I
said as we walked slowly back to the White Horse Inn. “So many beautiful
things all in one place.”
    “That’s, why I became a Merchant,” said
Bors. He was trying to keep his voice light, but beneath it I heard a genuine
passion. “I have always wanted to have beauty around me to keep such
things and make them mine so I could see them whenever I wished. Thought I
wonder at you, Lady Lanen. I tell you true, I have never met such a woman. To
look all day and buy nothing at all I know perfectly well that you can afford anything
you have looked at—I handed you enough of my silver this morning. Could it be
that in all the fair you found nothing to please you?”
    “I have no need of things, Bors,” I
replied softly. “I have spent my life surrounded by things and I leave
them behind with a good will. I am going to see the world. Having more things
means only a larger pack for my back. Since I sent my Shadow home,” I
added with a smile, “I must bear my own burdens.”
    He looked up at me, his expression unreadable,
that glorious voice uncertain for the first time. “Are you a wizard,
then?” he asked, his voice catching ever so slightly .
    I burst out laughing. “Shadow is the name of
my horse,” I sputtered when I could speak. He had been truly frightened!
Suddenly I cared nothing for the little deceptions he had practiced on me.
Perhaps it was simply the custom of Merchants. I had spent the day talking with
a man I had never known, who meant nothing to me and to whom I was only a
country lass to be enjoyed as a novelty. I had never done anything of the sort
before and I had had a wonderful time. The very distance between us was a
comfort.
    Do him justice, he laughed as heartily as I. The
moon was not yet high, and I could not see his face when he said cheerily,
“May you be the only woman in Kolmar who feels no need of my wares, lest
my fortune wither! For I seek my fortune as a Merchant, Lanen, though I am but
a young one as yet.”
    “Not so young anymore,” I said lightly.
    “Ah, sunlight is my enemy,” he said,
and I could tell he still smiled. “True, I am not so young as a man,
though my wealth is such that as a Merchant I am barely out of my infancy.
Though I think I have found a way to remedy that.”
    “To remedy age? Surely only lansip may do
that,” I said.
    “I meant only to remedy my status as a
Merchant—but you are right.” He was silent for a moment, then said,
“I am surprised you know of lansip.”
    “Even in the