The Warded Man

Cricket Run had no Jongleurs of their own, and many remembered Arrick from his time as the duke’s herald, a decade gone.
    There was a small inn for housing cattle drivers and produce farmers heading to and from Woodsend and Shepherd’s Dale, and they were welcomed there and given free room and board. The whole town showed up to watch them perform, drinking enough ale to more than repay the innkeep. In fact, everything went flawlessly, until it came time to pass the hat.
    “An ear of corn!” Arrick shouted, shaking it in Rojer’s face. “Whar we sposa to do wi’that?”
    “We could always eat it,” Rojer offered. His master glared at him and continued to pace.
    Rojer had liked Cricket Run. The people there were simple and good-hearted, and knew how to enjoy life. In Angiers, crowds pressed close to hear his fiddle, nodding and clapping, but he had never seen folk so quick to dance as the Runners. Before his fiddle was halfway from its case, they were backing up, making room. Before long, they were reeling and spinning and laughing uproariously, embracing his music fully and flowing wherever it took them.
    They cried without shame at Arrick’s sad ballads, and laughed hysterically at their bawdy jokes and mummery. They were, in Rojer’s estimation, everything one could ask in an audience.
    When the act was over, chants of “Sweetsong and Halfgrip!” were deafening. They were inundated with offers of lodging, and the wine and food overflowed. Rojer was swept behind a haystack by a pair of raven-eyed Runner girls, sharing kisses until his head spun.
    Arrick was less pleased.
    “How could I have forgotten what it was like?” he lamented.
    He was referring, of course, to the collection hat. There was no coin in the hamlets, or little enough. What there was went for necessities, seed and tools and wardposts. A pair of wooden klats settled to the bottom of the hat, but that wasn’t evenenough to pay for the wine Arrick had drunk on the journey from Angiers. For the most part, the Runners paid in grain, with the occasional bag of salt or spice thrown in.
    “Barter!” Arrick spat the word like a curse. “No vintner in Angiersh will take payment in bagsh of barley!”
    The Runners had paid in more than just grain. They gave gifts of salted meat and fresh bread, a horn of clotted cream and a basket of fruit. Warm quilts. Fresh patches for their boots. Whatever good or service they could spare was offered with gratitude. Rojer hadn’t eaten so well since the duke’s palace, and for the life of him he could not understand his master’s distress. What was coin for, if not to buy the very things that the Runners gave in abundance?
    “Leasht they had wine,” Arrick grumbled. Rojer eyed the skin nervously as his master took a pull, knowing it would only amplify Arrick’s distress, but he said nothing. No amount of wine could distress Arrick so much as the suggestion that he should not drink so much wine.
    “I liked it there,” Rojer dared. “I wish we could have stayed longer.”
    “What d’you know?” Arrick snapped. “You’re jussa stupid boy.” He groaned as if in pain. “Woodsend’ll be no better,” he lamented, looking down the road, “and Sheepshagger’s Dale’ll be worsht of all! What wash I thinking, keeping this stupid circle?”
    He kicked at the precious plates of the portable circle, knocking the wards askew, but he did not seem to notice or care, stumbling drunkenly about the fire.
    Rojer gasped. Sunset was mere moments away, but he said nothing, darting over to the spot and frantically correcting the damage, glancing fearfully at the horizon.
    He finished not a moment too soon. The corelings rose as he was still smoothing the rope. He fell back as the first coreling leapt at him, crying out as the wards flared to life.
    “Damn you!” Arrick screamed at a demon as it charged him. The drunken Jongleur stuck his chin out in defiance and cackled as the coreling smashed against the wardnet.
    “Master, please,” Rojer begged, taking Arrick’s arm and pulling him toward the center of the ring.
    “Oh, Halfgrip knowsh besht, now?” he sneered, yanking his arm away and almost falling down in the process. “Poor drunk Shweetsong dun’t know t’keep away from coreling clawsh?”
    “It’s not like that,” Rojer protested.
    “Then wha’s it like?” Arrick demanded. “Y’think tha’ ’cos the crowds cheer yur name that y’d be anything without me?”
    “No,” Rojer