The Avengers of Carrig Read Free

men would go to startle him awake.
    Therefore, his belly churning beneath his cassock like a pot of soup stirred with a spoon, Sir Bavis dealt with the matters before him with such grace as he could muster.
    There was the problem of sixteen peasants who had fled their farms when an unseasonable eruption scattered a landslide of pumice and ash across the fields. They brought the sulfurous stench of the Smoking Hills into the very audience hall; it hung about their unwashed bodies and their tattered clothes. These were shiftless, dull-witted folk whose only conceivable virtue might be termed persistence by someone too charitable to employ the correct name: obstinacy. Two or three such cases arose every year; some families in the district had been driven from their holdings by lava ten times in as many generations, and still drifted back to the foothills as though fatally addicted to the vapors the breeze blew down on them.
    Sir Bavis sighed, and resisted the impulse to tell them togo jump in a volcano. This was a season when omens counted, and to help the unfortunate was a source of spiritual benefit. Brusquely he ordered lodgings to be found, medicaments for the sick, work for the able-bodied. At the mention of the last he saw their faces fall, and was so disgusted that he barely noticed their departure.
    It was a relief, after that, to find Trader Heron facing him—a man who, for all that he engaged in vulgar commerce, was intelligent and cleanly and an altogether welcome visitor. To the dismay of the court officials who were trying to hurry the proceedings, Sir Bavis accorded Heron twenty minutes of his time, some in conversation, some in an exchange of gifts. Heron had valuable spices, and much fine cloth, and some iron swords that he wanted to barter as stud-fee for the service of some of his graats, which he then planned to leave in Carrig until they foaled in midwinter next Graats being southerly beasts, it was a risky plan, but as Heron explained, he wanted to breed from the tough northern strain so that his early-spring caravans would come through the hills more easily.
    Sir Bavis chuckled and gave permission. It was good to have some joke to lighten his depressed mood, and the idea of Heron trying to get caravans through even earlier than the spring new moon was amusing; it led to visions of the portly man sunk up to his waist in a snowbank and wondering how he could turn the experience to profitable use.
    Finally, as custom required, all the travelers from the south who had arrived under Heron’s aegis came to cast themselves on the city, thereby acquiring temporary rights of citizenship. The notators listed the names of those concerned as well as they could, and issued porcelain certificates to each, whitish plaques as big as a man’s palm.
    Among the applicants, Sir Bavis noted two who were apart from the ordinary run of artisans, entertainers, traders, and footloose adventurers. Instead of standing respectfully by while Heron discussed his business, they had taken seats beside him, and from the fact that he made no objection it was clear that he regarded them as persons of some status. He did not offer to introduce them, but that was proper; until they received their certificates of citizenship they did not officially exist. Sir Bavis listened as they gave their names to the notators, and made a mental note—for what reason, he did not know—that the dark one was Belfeor and the fair, lean one was Pargetty.
    As they withdrew, he had a curious feeling that Belfeor was looking not merely at, but into him, searching out secrets Sir Bavis would far rather have kept. Of course, the idea was nonsensical. But it was disquieting.
    The great doors of the audience hall closed; there were no more cases to deal with today. At once servants began to drag in benches for the assembly this evening, ranging than in groups for the various clans, and to change the stubs of last night’s torches in the brass wall-sconces.