"He's not coming back," Bellar said, gruff and simply. "He left for a weyr, and only the dragons know if he's bonded or died between."
Quian wailed at that. Bequet approached, still toweling off her short pale hair. "Father, you shouldn't say things like that to her," she said. It was his turn to be jolted in surprise, as he had not seen her come in.
"Bequet, you have faced the fact that he's gone. Balqy isn't coming back."
"I know that," Bequet said, "but you have to give her something to hope for. She's had enough grief today..." Bequet went to her mother and wrapped her slender arms around the dusky-skinned elder woman.
"Mother, he will come back. If there's a dragoner in town, I'll ask them about him. Surely they'd have an answer in a little bit." She said, softly. Bequet didn't believe it even halfway, but her voice said differently, and her addled mother believed her.
"I think you should buy something pretty for your hair," Quian said, pawing at her daughter's pale halo of stiff short hair. "And let it grow out."
"But if it's long, it gets tangled and carries far too much soot from the forge, mother. You know that. I can't have it getting in my face while I work. I like it short."
"But you would look so much more feminine if you..." Quian sighed, "you're right, my girl. It would get in your way. Balqy always kept his hair so long, like a girl. Do you think they laugh at him in his weyr?"
"Why, because he had hair prettier than mine? I doubt it mother!" Bequet laughed, and her mother followed suit. They chatted -- carefully avoiding anything more about the mine -- until it was quite dark. At last, Bequet helped her mother into bed, where her father already was snoring. His canes rested on his side near the small night stand, and Quian's single one on her side.
Three canes, two people. Bequet was sickened yet again at the coldness of Amarast's actions. Leaving this house would be the most painful thing Bequet could ever do. And yet in the morning she did, into town.
She was thankful that she didn't stink up her clothing, that she in fact could wash the smell of the forge off her skin, when she got to town. The place was coming awake -- she was up with the sun and it was a short trip along the mountain side. Most merchants had not yet quite opened their stores.
How odd, Bequet thought, that in the mere twenty years since the sky had cleared of the recurrant threat, people had gone back to building houses and businesses of wood and stone and thatch. In another two hundred or so years, they might think again. Bequet had been born right at the end of the threat's typical passage around the planet, so she was never in any danger.
Her mind went to the dragons, which patrolled the skies and burnt the spores out of the air when they fell. How dramatic, how bold. Their riders were surely the strongest and smartest -- and some were the handsomest -- of the world's population! While she waited for the wood carver and the cloth seller to open their shops, she waited and day dreamed yet again.
She would never know where her brother had gotten to. He ran away just before Amarast had stolen their mine, he was never one to really want to work with the family there. He was three years Bequet's elder, and he was as vain as he was pretty. And he was certainly not laughed at. When someone did suggest that he was a bit too dainty for his family's work, Bequet remembered seeing him lay out a man almost twice his size with but one well-placed kick. Yes, he kicked, not punched. Where he learned that, Bequet did not know. They'd lived in this area all their lives, so it had to have been from someone who either passed by, or lived or worked in the town.
Perhaps she could look them up. She wondered how she'd go about that. Chuckling, she thought to herself that maybe she could start a fight and see who kicked and who punched...
Her small pouch of earned money and unearned liftings was pressed against her side, with her dress wrapped around it for safety's sake. She checked that it was still there, and went into the first shop which opened. The cloth seller.
"Such a quick entry--" laughed the woman behind her counter, "and what can I show you today young miss? Something for a party?"
"Oh... Well, perhaps later. Right now I'm looking for something sturdy, something I can use as a handle-wrap."
The woman seemed gently surprised that a girl would be needing something other than a party dress, at least such a tall and pretty one. So she showed Bequet to a small container which held bolts and scraps of burlap, coarsely woven cottons, and other cloths,
Bequet examined each one, feeling it between her fingers and wrapping each tight around a borrowed spindle for comparison. When she'd found one piece she liked, she discovered it was just the size she wanted, something discarded by another was perfect for her work.
"Now," Bequet said, smiling, "is there something you could show me that I could tie my hair with?" She displayed the two narrow 'tails' she let grow in front of her ears, "something I could braid into them perhaps?" The woman was more than happy to show off a selection of narrow brightly colored ribbons and shiny satin strips. Though the satin was much too expensive for her, Bequet longingly touched it to her cheek and neck. "It would be so fine, if I could ever afford this..."
"Surely you could afford just a little of it," the shop keeper said, glancing at another basket. There, she opened it and showed off more scraps and discards, and there was just enough of the dark green-colored satin that Bequet could cut into strips and braid through her hair, perhaps enough to make a choker out of.
She paid with two stones that the woman eagerly took up. "These would buy you more, if you need it..." She said. "Not that I'm eager to try trading these away what with the Lords looking at everyone's purse for stolen goods..."
"Are they now?" Bequet snarled. "Really."
"Yes, miss. Sometimes they even storm in and demand to see our till! I've never heard of such outrages anywhere else."
Bequet narrowed her eyes, and quietly said, "well, perhaps it's time that someone told them so."
The woman took a brief gasping breath, and held her fingers to Bequet's lips. "Don't say such things, child. They'll ..."
"No, they won't," she replied, and left the store.
"I've a special request, sir," she asked, and the youngish looking artisan looked up from his whittling. "I need a smooth handle, for a knife. And a scabbard hull to match it."
"I could give you this one," he suggested, and pointed at one which dangled from a holder on the wall. Bequet shook her head, and said nothing about the poor quality of the blade itself.
"No sir, I've got the blade, it's just in need of a proper hilt and scabbard. I'll be wrapping it as well, so I won't need any fancy scroll work. Just something ... nice."
The man's eyebrow shot up, but he merely put aside his work and leaned over to the counter where Bequet stood. "Well, missy, I'll need to see this blade so I can fit it."
"I don't have it here," she blurted out, suddenly nervous. "But I do have this, it's the right dimension and length."
She unfolded the parchment outline of her knife's shape and showed it to the craftsman, who nodded slowly. "Aye, that would be some new kind of knife then. Sure isn't no kitchen blade."
"No, it is not a kitchen blade," Bequet said, coldly. "It will be a gift for someone," she said, lying with surprising ease -- now that she knew to be on guard from this man's prying. "I hope to have it for him by the end of the week. So if you could show me woods you work with, I might be able to pay you up front for it."
At that, the man changed his stand. "Well, then. You must think highly of him, miss. Let's look around shall we?"
That done, Bequet let him prattle about this type and that sort of wood. She only knew that she'd know the right wood when she touched it. He handed her a pale blonde colored wood, and her eyes lit up. "This is it. I would like you to use this."
"It's a bit soft," he suggested, "what about this one?" He held up a harder, much too dark piece, and Bequet smiled sweetly.
"Oh, I think this will do. I'll be wrapping it too, so it won't slip out of his hand." She put on a flutter of a smile across her lips, and the man blinked with a blush on his cheeks. "The scabbard won't matter, I'll have someone set it into metal." Oh how she toyed with this man... Her own hands would be making the shell for that scabbard.
"Then I should be working. I would say... three coin for this."
"Oh! Oh, three..." Bequet said, rather shocked that he would claim such a high price for soft, useless wood. "That seems a bit steep. You said yourself that it is soft. It can't be too hard to work with, then, could it?"
Though Bequet haggled in her opinion rarely, she still had an adequate time of it. There was never any doubt that she was haggling - both of them knew it. It was not her strongest skill. But still, she managed to get him down to two coins and a two day turnaround. Bequet carefully pulled out one coin from her purse.
"The second when I come back to retrieve the work," she suggested, and the man nodded. "Good. I look forward to seeing it!" She gave him a giggle which apparently put any sort of complaint for not being paid in full up front, out of his mind.
Bequet left her paper with him, but before she left, she said, "please keep the design behind the counter, sir? It's a very special project, and I don't want anyone else taking the idea. If he gets a unique gift it's one thing. But if he goes hunting and three of his friends have it too, it would hardly be special now would it?"
The man gave a nod, and a knowing smile. "Sure. Can't have that. I'm not a metal worker, I wouldn't know one design from another, but the work will be done for you come sun up two days from now."
With that promise, Bequet thanked him and went on into the town.
Her heart was racing. Was she really doing this? Was there really such need to lie to shop keepers about what she needed or wanted this for? She could just say it was hers, a hunting knife for a girl who lived in the wilderness?
But the tension in the man's shop was tangible. Just like it had erupted in the yardage store. The lordlings had to be stopped. And Bequet had the strength -- if perhaps not completely the means -- to do so.
All she had to do was think about her mother and father, and her will turned back to iron. Pure, hot iron.
She was expected back at the forge later in the afternoon, so she made the rest of her trip quick. She came from one shop with a sack of herbs and medicines for her father's knees and her mother's feet, and another with what she could afford of good slow-burning lamp oil.
It nearly cost her everything they had, and she knew that it at least was worth the price. The oil apparently came from animals living in the sea which had blubber -- she wondered what blubber was. Living in the mountains all her life, and having seen precious few other animals than the wild ones which hunted around their home and images of the dragons and flitters that lived elsewhere, she had no idea how to imagine the ocean, let alone any animals which lived in it.
On her way back to her home, she wondered vividly about those things, thinking if this creature had fat that burned, wouldn't it be amazing if it caught fire? Of course it couldn't - it was in the water! But what if...
She'd managed to lighten her mood by the time she arrived at her home. Bequet deposited her purchases in the main room, helped her mother light a temporary hearth fire with some sticks and a piece of fallen wood that she nearly tripped over on the way there. Bequet felt it would be a better day than she expected it to be.
