Bastion

very small, and it didn’t take them at all long to find the stall Lydia wanted. That was when Mags found out just why the pens were so special.
    The nibs were made of metal. They’d last ever so much longer than a goose quill. Lena bargained cheerfully with the merchant and got Lydia the three pens and the special ink at what Mags considered to be a good price. So much of what went on in the business of running a Kingdom seemed to be commerce; Mags had been getting a lot of exposure to commerce from the perspective of the little man behind the counter of a pawnshop and the movers and shakers among the various mercantile Guilds. It was not something he would ever have thought he would find interesting, and yet, it was.
    If only because a great deal of it was about greed, and greed was something he understood all too well.
    When they were all together again, Mags brought out the list of performers and merchants and the map. They all tucked themselves into a gap between two tent stalls, out of the way of the foot traffic, and consulted both, heads huddled together over the papers. “I was kind of partial to trying one of those tents where they got a bunch of different folks rotating in,” he said. “I ’spect that’d bring us up to about lunch time.”
    Bear nodded, Amily shrugged, and Lena looked interested. “Anything we go to see will be something we haven’t got up on the hill,” Amily pointed out, “So I’m ready to look at whatever you like. I can’t think of any particular performers from last year that I’m dying to catch again. They were all pretty good.”
    As they got to the area of the entertainers, however, despite the large tent with banners depicting the ten different acts going on inside, Mags found himself oddly distracted by something on the very end of the row.
    There was a much smaller tent, dyed blue, with white swirls painted on it that looked like representations of wind and cloud. There was no loud fellow outside bellowing out the virtues of the performers within. Instead, there was a quiet-looking . . . person . . . outside, dressed in androgynous robes and a head wrap, all in the same blue and white; a dark blue throat wrap that matched the head wrap, a white underrobe, and a lighter blue overrobe belted at the waist with a dark blue scarf from which an embroidered belt pouch hung. Mags really could not tell if this person was male or female, and the melodious voice gave him no clues. It could have been a low alto or a high tenor. He couldn’t see the hair, and the robes were baggy enough to have hidden either a flat chest or a pair of modest breasts.
    The person chanted, in a sort of singsong, while a ferret scampered up and down his (?) arms at his direction. “Come, come and see, see what love will earn, see what kindness brings, see how even the lowliest creatures reward a loving heart. You will never see such feats from any other beast show here, never see how eagerly the beasts will answer the call of love. Come in, come in, there are seats still left.”
    Nothing like as aggressive as the other barkers, but there were plenty of people responding to it—generally people with small children. It sounded like a very good choice for young children, actually—nothing to frighten them, and nothing their parents would feel uncomfortable trying to explain. Right now—well, after being a “captive beast” of a sort himself, Mags was in the mood to see something that sounded so gentle. “Let’s see this,” Mags urged, and the others seemed just as interested.
    “I generally hate animal shows, because the animals are treated so cruelly,” said Amily. “But this—sounds nice.”
    The person must have overheard her, because he turned to the four of them and smiled. “It is nice, young mistress. You will see; my beasts and I are the greatest of friends, and they will do for me at my request what no amount of punishment or harsh training could demand. A penny each, if you please.”
    Before Mags or the others could respond, Amily had paid for all four of them. The person guided them in, then fastened a rope across the tent entrance, and dropped the cloth door behind them.
    The found themselves in a curious little round tent, with two rows of bleacher-style seats around the circumference, and a ring delineated by a low wooden barrier, painted white, with a gap in it in the center. Thanks to the blue coloring of the canvas, the place was shrouded in a pleasant twilight,