The Talisman

the men room to trade. Her back was to Jack, but she had the baby hoisted in her arms – Jason, one of the little Henrys , Jack thought – and Jason saw him. The baby waved one chubby hand at Jack and Jack turned away quickly, putting as much crowd as he could between himself and the Henrys.
    Everywhere was the smell of roasting meat, it seemed. He saw vendors slowly turning joints of beef over charcoal fires both small and ambitious; he saw ’prentices laying thick slices of what looked like pork on slabs of homemade bread and taking them to the buyers. They looked like runners at an auction. Most of the buyers were farmers like Henry, and it appeared that they also called for food the way people entered a bid at an auction – they simply raised one of their hands imperiously, the fingers splayed out. Jack watched several of these transactions closely, and in every case the medium of exchange was the jointed sticks . . . but how many knuckles would be enough? he wondered. Not that it mattered. He had to eat, whether the transaction marked him as a stranger or not.
    He passed a mime-show, barely giving it a glance although the large audience that had gathered – women and children, most of them – roared with appreciative laughter and applauded. He moved toward a stall with canvas sides where a big man with tattoos on his slabbed biceps stood on one side of a trench of smouldering charcoal in the earth. An iron spit about seven feet long ran over the charcoal. A sweating, dirty boy stood at each end. Five large roasts were impaled along the length of the pit, and the boys were turning them in unison.
    ‘Fine meats!’ the big man was droning. ‘Fine meats! Fiiine meats! Buy my fine meats! Fine meats here! Fine meats right here!’ In an aside to the boy closest to him: ‘Put your back into it, God pound you.’ Then back to his droning, huckstering cry.
    A farmer passing with his adolescent daughter raised his hand, and then pointed at the joint of meat second from the left. The boys stopped turning the spit long enough for their boss to hack a slab from the roast and put it on a chunk of bread. One of them ran with it to the farmer, who produced one of the jointed sticks. Watching closely, Jack saw him break off two knuckles of wood and hand them to the boy. As the boy ran back to the stall the customer pocketed his money-stick with the absent but careful gesture of any man repocketing his change, took a gigantic bite of his open-faced sandwich, and handed the rest to his daughter, whose first chomp was almost as enthusiastic as her father’s.
    Jack’s stomach boinged and goinged. He had seen what he had to see . . . he hoped.
    ‘Fine meats! Fine meats! Fine—’ The big man broke off and looked down at Jack, his beetling brows drawing together over eyes that were small but not entirely stupid. ‘I hear the song your stomach is singing, friend. If you have money, I’ll take your trade and bless you to God in my prayers tonight. If you haven’t, then get your stupid sheep’s face out of here and go to the devil.’
    Both boys laughed, although they were obviously tired – they laughed as if they had no control over the sounds they were making.
    But the maddening smell of the slowly cooking meat would not let him leave. He held out the shorter of his jointed sticks and pointed to the roast which was second from the left. He didn’t speak. It seemed safer not to. The vendor grunted, produced his crude knife from his wide belt again, and cut a slice – it was a smaller slice than the one he had cut the farmer, Jack observed, but his stomach had no business with such matters; it was rumbling crazily in anticipation.
    The vendor slapped the meat on bread and brought it over himself instead of handing it to either of the boys. He took Jack’s money-stick. Instead of two knuckles, he broke off three.
    His mother’s voice, sourly amused, spoke up in his mind: Congratulations, Jack-O . . . you’ve just been screwed .
    The vendor was looking at him, grinning around a mouthful of wretched, blackish teeth, daring him to say anything, to protest in any way. You just ought to be grateful I only took three knuckles instead of all fourteen of them. I could have, you know. You might as well have a sign hung around your neck, boy: I AM A STRANGER, AND ON MY OWN . So tell me, Sheep’s-Face: do you want to make an issue of it?
    What he wanted didn’t matter – he obviously couldn’t make an issue of it. But he