Approaching Waterfoot, Clio paused on the hill overlooking the town walls. Looking at it with her own eyes, the town was the largest settlement of folk she has ever seen and quite daunting. For this life. Her dreams and memories told a different tale. The walls were unimpressive, sixteen, maybe eighteen feet, easy enough to climb with a ladder. The top of the walls was all stone, but parts of the rest were wood or packed dirt.
Irumar had told her that the Lord of Waterford had a second ring of walls deep within the town, and with her vision high above, Clio could see them. They held a far more modest castle in the heart of the city, on a small hill around which the river running through the middle of the town curved.
Unlike the town walls, the town itself was quite large and sprawling. Clio was unsure if this impression was a consequence of her so far sheltered life, or of not having seen many cities of her past life from above. It was one thing to look at a photograph taken from the air, and quite another to see a town laid out before her, with her own Blessed vision.
“Which will dim as soon as I get close to the walls.”
For having the Blessing for only a few days, Clio found herself oddly hesitant to lose it.
“Or perhaps, I’m just scared.” She had hoped to have a guide, but if the On High knew where Irumar was in his rounds, they had not deigned to share it with Clio.
Clio frowned. “I need a new prayer plaque.” Her last one had burned with her home. She was a poor Lady without one.
Clio was tempted to pause here longer, plan and plot what she would do inside the town, or spend a few bell-hours watching the town from beyond the walls… but she knew it would only cost her. That it would be taking council of her fears.
She’d overcome such hesitation in her girlhood. Strangled the child in her heart, when she saw how thin her family was, how little there was to eat during the long, cold winter, compared to her dreams of shops filled with produce. Now, again, she took that flutter in her heart and squashed it. It resisted, for a breath or two, so Clio imagined her fears as herbs being harvested. They rolled and flattened, mixed into a stew that was the rest of her, until they were spice and medicine, not poison.
Her sisters called it “getting stuck in her own head”. Her memories called it “acknowledging and dealing with emotions.” Whatever it may be, the mix of fear, loss and craving to have her friend by her side when she took her first steps into town? Clio gave it time, to feel it, to pass. This was no dream, to the good and bad. It all simmered into a brew that no longer pulled her down.
Clio spared a moment to run her hands through her hair, to ensure a favorable “first impression”, and walked down the hill, her mule and goods following her down. The town gates were yet closed, but the sun was stirring. The wait should not be overlong.
***
The gates opened with the first ray of the sun upon them. This told Clio that the actual farmers for the fields she’d been crossing lived in the hamlets scattered around the town her Waywatcher Sight had seen. Some menfolk did leave the gates as they opened, but they were far too few for any but the closest of fields. The Spring planting was upon the Land of Birds, and a part of Clio was telling her to rush home to tend to her herb garden.
Instead, she checked her pouches, one by one, making sure she still had all she had salvaged from the ruins of her home.
The line was not overly long, with two other merchants, each with a cart of their own before her. Clio had heard that some peddlers and merchants grouped to travel in caravans, but that was an expensive endeavor. According to her teacher, it was more reliable to avoid trouble, than trying to force the roads. That required paying guards, risking injury or death and so on.
It was the kind of work merchant Guilds did. Clio had no standing to even attempt such a thing, though she was somewhat tempted to join one of their caravans as a healer, hunter and guard. If they would have her. Competition among such Guilds was said to be cut-throat, and that was no mere saying.
Irumar had warned her to avoid the merchant Guilds and their members like the plague, lest she become embroiled in intrigue between Guilds and even nobles.
“It’s more trouble then it’s worth.” her teacher had warned her.
Clio felt he was overly cautious. Irumar was no hunter or warrior, unlike her. A quick and enduring run was his best way to stay out of trouble. Clio felt it best to avoid joining such a caravan as a competitor, but if she was traveling between towns without bulk goods, why not present herself as a simple guardswoman?
Such thoughts had distracted Clio through the questioning of the two men before her. “Next!” the guard called, and Clio stepped up, so they did not need to shout to hear each other.
“Name and purpose, lass?” the guard asked her, oozing disapproval.
“Lady Clio Kalvere.” she told him, her voice reflecting her cooling mood.
The guard’s brows rose. “You don’t sound like a foreigner…” he questioned.
“Widow.” she shared, keeping her voice cool, clipped. Whatever his feelings, the guard was doing his job. Which was letting her into town. Starting something with him was foolish. His power was petty, but more than one horror story told of how Irumar had made it to a town, only to be turned away at the gates. For suspicions and crimes, real and imagined.
Gate guards had little power, but some of them used all they had and loved lording it over folk who had no recourse. Like independent travelers and peddlers.
While Clio was thinking, the guard chewed on that, his eyes unfocused, lips moving as he mumbled to himself. They cleared. “Searching for a new husband?” he asked, relaxing now that she fit in his view of the world.
A part of Clio wanted to tell him she was recently widowed, and watch as the same sense of propriety that made him judge her lone travel twisted him into knots over the insult he’d just lain upon her.
But it was not wholly, his fault.
“I should have taken a shawl or a ribbon. Mother would have spared one.”
Clio was without mourning cloth.
“Our farm burned town, Goodman. With me is all I have.”
His eyes widened, cheeks flushing, the guard quickly bowed at the waist. “Apologies, fair Lady.”
“Tis not your fault. I am rather troubled and forgot myself.” Slipping into the more formal speech in reply to his switch did not come easy to Clio. Few at home respected her enough to treat her so. She lacked practice in proper manners. The hunters did not count, being a fairly informal and independent bunch.
“Much obliged.” the guard rose, returning to a relaxed posture. “If I may be so bold, Mistress, on your third left, a cousin of mine versed in matters of cloth has a shop. Third left, fourth door on the right, simple as that.”
“I see.” Clio replied without commitment. There was a dance here, of honor, propriety and favors… one she was ill suited to. “And what of the tax?”
Perhaps it was foolish to remind him, but it struck Clio as shortsighted to simply assume his advice was approval to pass. And more so, to do so without payment.
The guard gazed upon the large covered, and very full bags upon her mule. “A peddler’s price, with one steed, at this here Grass Gate is six silvers. Four if you’ve a plate.” the Guard told her.
That was, that was steep. Irumar did not pay as much as that to enter, Clio was sure of that.
“And without a steed?”
“Two and one.” Which was more what Clio expected. She was in something of a bind. She’d spent most of her coin acquiring goods to sell. She could afford the entry fee, but if she did, could she then afford all the costs she might yet need to pay to have a place in the market?
Of that, Clio was unsure. And she was not about to take a loan or go into debt, if she could help it.
Now a plate, that she meant to get her hands on, and soon. But only towns issued those and she’d never been.
“You would not happen to know the price of stalls today, Goodman?”
Flattering the guard filled Clio with discomfort, but that is how her memories told her she should deal with those with power over her, when she needed something of them. And they were not her father. It had worked with Nat. For the most part.
He gave her a frank look. “Perhaps.”
Trust a townsfolk to make everything about advantage and coin. No doubt, such news would carry a commiserate price. Whatever sympathy he might feel did not extend to his coinpurse.
It was a cold and cruel truth: if she needed something and others knew of it, there would be a price to it. Few things in life were free. The same was true of her, “For do I not wish to be a peddler?”
It did not have to be a bad thing, trade. Someone had to travel and carry goods from farm to fair to town. And between towns.
No, what angered Clio was the guard wishing to charge her for news she’d hear the moment she was allowed entry anyway. It seemed… the word was foreign, strange, but a familiar sort of corruption, a rot. Like the shrew. Cursing Clio out and making her life miserable with one hand, while gladly taking the results of her labors for her own hearth and home.
“I would not have minded that so much, if she’d been an even and fair hand.” She was not.
Seeing it here, now?
Clio turned away in disgust. “I’ll try my luck with the mud gate.” At least there, she knew she was dealing with crooks.
*
The mud gate was downstream of the town. It was right next to the closed exit of the river itself. “I wonder what its name is.” Irumar had never told her. For him, it was ever “the river in Waterfoot”. Walking around the walls to reach the mud gate had taken a full bell, one Clio heard. Waterfoot had both keep and church, meaning it had two bell towers to sound alarms and keep time. That they rang apart told Clio that relations between Lord and Church were yet strained.
“The Matumorius favored by the Lord was replaced against his wishes.” her friend and teacher had warned her, last Fall. With the head of the town Church replaced by someone foreign to Waterfoot, was it any wonder even the bells were in disagreement?
Clio shook her head. Such matters were high above her station and beyond her concerns, so long as peace reigned in the streets.
If not for her experience crafting tinctures, the smell near the Mud gate would have made Clio sick. It was certainly unpleasant. Once upon a time, the Guild of Tanners had been forced downstream and then clear out of town. Many towns supposedly did so, expelling those Guilds whose work was particularly odorous or unpleasant. There was some sense to that, in keeping clear drinking water for the townsfolk.
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Whatever the reason, since then, a modest maze of shacks, mud huts and lean-tos had sprung up between the tanneries, creating a small slum full of ne'er-do-wellers. Who then became worse than layabouts, they turned to crime.
There was reason why the Mud gate had neither guard nor tax. Here, those were paid differently.
Clio’s Sight had died as she got into bow range of the town walls. There one moment, dimming and dying the next. She did not need a view from far above, “I’d settle for one that could watch my back.” Clio murmured as she stepped into the crowded and narrow paths winding among the tiny homes.
That her Blessing responded to her request was a surprise. Her eyes emerged again, but this time, in a far more limited fashion. Instead of soaring far above her, letting her see everyone and everything, her second Sight lingered right above her and a bit behind. More importantly, she could turn and twist it freely, looking behind her while advancing on the gate.
It was a queer feeling. One Clio was unsure if she liked. Walking while being high above was easier than walking while also hovering over her own head. It was off-putting… but useful.
Laborers heading to work gave her wide berth, even as some of them sneered to see a lone woman here, for most who had to traveled in flocks or with escorts. The lean and mean men and women standing on corners, or in shaded opening and alleys were cleverer than that. Most of them took one look at her stride, her unstrung bow and axe in hand. Then they decided they wanted no trouble with her and hers.
This did not stop everyone, for surely it was the same everywhere: there were always fools with more courage than sense.
Clio had to bat away four beggars, three urchins, (two of which were pickpockets that tried for her mule), and lay out a drunk with a single strike. Not to reach the Mud gate, oh no, to get halfway there. The meandering roads of this place had led her away from the wall, and into a modest square. A small market was set there, Clio surprised to stumble upon it.
It only had four stalls, if such they were. It was more like four peddlers had gathered in the same place, hawking their wares from their carts. The carts were small, coming only up to her waist, the kind people pulled, not horses. Each had picked a corner of the square and put their goods and back to it.
Though the morn was early yet, each was already with a customer. A number of folk in grimy, threadbare or torn cloths, all of either foul or dubious disposition lingered in the square. When they were not beaten down, they despaired, looking about them in a hurry to get to work or with hunger.
It was a poor second impression to make of Waterfoot, the first being the guard. Clio passed through the square, axe in hand, its head somewhat bloody from the backhand she’d given the drunk.
The whole square stank like an outhouse and a pen. Clio wanted away from it. She was happy to spot a wider street that passed through the square leading right towards the gate. Her steps quickened. The main road was thick with men and women going about their morn, forcing Clio to walk behind her mule to keep wandering hands away. She would have mounted it, if the saddle wasn’t full of goods as well. Clio had secured them as best she could, when she’d decided to try the mud gate.
Many eyes followed her passing, none more so than those of ruffians armed with clubs from shaded corners. As she approached the mud gate, three such men appeared out of a side street before her. The passing crowd gave them a wide berth.
“Well, wh’ ya been, and wha’’ the rub, lassie?” the leader of the three spoke in an atrocious accent. Was he even speaking the same tongue?
She’d expected some trouble, coming this way, but this was… “What?”
The man’s eyes danced. He was dressed modestly, somewhat better than many passing by, in dark grey breeches and a red tunic, sturdy leather boots, and a leather jacket. His companions were less well off, with bulky padded cloth and clogs. It occurred to Clio that the padded cloth was both clothing and armor.
Trouble had found her, not that she expected otherwise.
“Nere ye be da’cing aboot we merry lanes. Tis mud, but this he’e be our mud lassie.” The man made an effort to be understood, but he was still somewhat speaking in tongues. Clio got the gist of it.
Still off-put by the entire thing, Clio did as she’d planned. For she had planned her first visit to a town many, many times. Both on her lonesome and with a friend. She reached into one of her bags and pulled out three rucks. Each larger than her fist.
“Good on ya.” the leader nodded, taking one for himself, splitting another with his men, and putting away a third to take to whichever slum Lord currently ruled among the downtrodden.
They let her pass, the three men laughing about between them, their rapid, accented speech difficult to follow. It did not help that their accents thickened the moment they were no longer addressing her. That one of the ruffians took liberties, laying hands upon her bottom nearly cost him his teeth. Clio missed the swing, the man quick on his feet. At least they took no issue with that, the men dancing away, his friends laughing it off, as if it was a mere fib.
No joke to Clio, she rushed to the slumped mounds of the Mud gate, her boots squelching with each step as she got close. The gate itself was a mire, one she had to follow others through, this not being a familiar mire. There was no true wall here, just a long, clear field of sucking mud, and a thin palisade. The gates in it were wide and open, with a squat tower beside them. Upon the tower, two guards watched the passing crowds with strung bows and harsh looks. They looked upon those passing as hunters did prey.
Clio was glad to pass on by and get out of their sight, though her mule struggled somewhat through the mud. Reaching steadier ground beyond the mud gate, Clio was overwhelmed by the crowds around her. Squat one and two story homes crowded together, wall to wall, forming up streets of the town. There were no front or back yards, just more houses. Large gutters ran on either side of the street, already pungent with the smell of shit and piss.
Irumar had told her most streets in towns were cobbled, but this one was merely covered in gravel, with cobbles along the gutters. It was hardly a wide road, but wide enough for two carts to pass by with effort, and firm enough. Clio’s feet all but flew on such an easy surface after she cleared the mud. She advanced deeper into Waterfoot. Her eyes looking all around her, the noise of a lively town ringing in her ears.
*
While trying to remember the whole town from above was beyond her, Clio had retained an overall picture of the main streets. The central roads spread from the castle walls like a star, three of them each going to a gate on this side of the river, and two more to large squares within the town. The castle and keep overlooked the only bridge across the waters, though Clio had also spotted two ferries, both well away, up and downstream from the keep.
Her path took her to the inner walls, then along them, as she had no wish to deal with another set of ornery guards. Twice more, she had to catch wandering hands, but after far too long marching along the cobbled streets, she finally made it to the main square and to the market of Waterfoot. A large, empty field lay just beyond the main gate of the castle, and upon it, the marketplace.
It was large enough to get lost in. Filled with lanes and lanes of peddlers, merchants, both local and foreign, all shouting out their offers and prices. Shops surrounded the market from all sides, though Clio had no doubt the prices in them were higher.
“First things first. Prices for my goods.”
Clio walked around, walking townsfolk haggling and making their purchases fill the lanes. The place was doing brisk business, but alas, there were no fixed prices displayed upon goods, as there might have been in her past life. Instead, every sale was a matter of agreement, and in just the first bell of walking the market, she heard three very different prices for most common goods.
One was the starting price the merchants gave. This was the price taken up by liveried servants, coated armsmen, and a few well-dressed bands of well-off Mistresses and maidens walking about in flocks. They preened and sung, and sung well. But they “couldn’t possibly” do something as low as haggle. Couldn’t be bothered.
They had far more important things to do.
Clio understood that she didn’t understand. In this life, she’d had no experience with those of true higher station, the highest she’d seen being Preacher and taxman. Few men of stature had reason to venture to distant and lonely Little Brook. She’d caught a glimpse of their Baron, once, but that hardly counted.
The flocks were a riot of colors. Bright, loud, the Birds of the Land of Birds were everything Clio was not. She was unassuming, in her brown and green leathers and forester outfit. It was their songs and their gossips that clued Clio in.
The term was not familiar here, but the flocks, the Birds? They were advertisement, and the different flocks competed. In both song and composition.
“Oh come to the place of Gay Threads,
where every weave joy spreads,
where your purchases will never shred!”
“We have shawls, and gloves, and shoes too!
Dresses and coats, without much ado.
Where ever you spot them, we’ve surely got them!
The family Gay, will take all your troubles away!
For a pittance, some silver, we’ll get you outfitted,
you’ll never find service so quick witted!”
“A dance, a show, a prance? Oh no.”
“Whatever your needs, we’ll meet them with deeds,
if you shop at the Gay family shows!”
The song was vibrant, with many of the other Mistresses and maidens singing accompaniment or playing instruments. It was a riot, one Clio would be more appreciative of, if it did not make her own efforts in overhearing the haggling going on difficult.
Those were the rich folk prices, and Clio had hammered in the prices for such for her goods. These were the customers she hoped to attract, but then, did not every seller?
The second group were those who haggled like old friends. Clio marked them as regulars, townsmen and women who shopped here every week, if not day, who knew every stall, every deal, every price and rumor. For rumor was what they traded in, in truth. A juicy one would yield discounts, while stale stories left sellers unmoved, telling the poor sods their stories were familiar… only after they told them.
Comforting them for their failures with friendly pats on the back. And offers to purchase some ale to drown their sorrows. That was a thing that surprised Clio, and one Irumar had never mentioned. It was how she could tell local merchants from those visiting: the locals had a barrel of beer behind their stalls. One they would reach in with a large mug to offer those who failed their haggling. One mug for them, and one for their buyers, with nearby stalls sharing a barrel.
This comforting ritual was accompanied by a few coins changing hands, but that was of lesser concern to Clio.
“No wonder the townsfolk are oft sick, if they all drink from the same mug.”
Clio shivered. The memories of how filth led to disease were some of the few she listened to religiously. There was reason why fewer of her family perished to cough and pox, and only some of it were her medicines. Most of it was prevention.
This whole place was not as filthy as distant memories said medieval towns in her last world had been, but it was just as backwards. Deciding in advance not to partake of any ale put Clio in somewhat of a bind, as it was clearly a custom well liked and followed. It would be a mark against her. To her surprise, being a woman wasn’t. Being a woman in leathers had earned her looks, but plenty of the stalls were manned by Birds in pretty dresses.
“I’ll need to get me one of those before I open my own stall.”
Some of the menfolk might still frown upon the axe on her side, but she was not putting that away.
The second price then, was for those familiar and those who haggled. It was less one price, and more a range of them, depending on the produce and how well the haggling went.
The last price was for the poor and desperate. For those who haggled as if their lives were at stake. Perhaps they were. They got the worst produce, leftovers from past days, or pieces that were bruised or otherwise marred.
And still, what they got was not much cheaper. Clio had heard better prices just passing the mud gate. But that was there, and this was here.
Clio went looking for a clothing shop, away from the market and its inflated prices. “Something to fit in, and a ribbon for mourning.”
The one thing she had asked for was stall prices, and they varied. The edges and the middle of the market were too rich for her, but she could rent a small stall among the lanes for herself and have some coin left over. Clio was glad of it.
Irumar always told her what the prices were, when passing. It was how she’d guessed how much to leave for herself, but prices changed as moons passed. This time, they had changed in her favor.
***
Finding a clothing shop tucked into one of the side street was a matter of walking along and asking gossips to gossip. They liked nothing more. Clio had talked more in the past two bells than she had in most days. She was uncertain how suited she was to all this talk, but she pushed on.
She had endured long hunts in rain and snow, some talk would not be the end of her. She’d found a nice shop tucked away in a side street, and bought in trade a change of clothes and a large black ribbon for her hair. The seamstress had helped her put her hair up and pin it, fashioning her new mourning ribbon in a large bow that hung just above her head. A small polished copper mirror let Clio look upon herself.
She did look like a Bird, all prettied up. In somewhat softer blues and greens, for mourning, but a Bird still. The dress was large, puffy and flowing. Not the kind she’d want to run in, but one she could. It would burst the buttons over the slit in her side, but Clio was not going to put on anything that might get her killed if she needed to use her axe.
Redressed, she set out back for the market but never made it there.
“That’s the mule.” someone said, pointing at her steed, and suddenly two guards were coming at her. Weapons sheathed, so Clio kept her own hand away from her axe and did her best to push down the flurry of worries that beset her at their approach.
The guards eyes fell on her arms and the one in front asked briskly: “You got a plate for that axe?”
Clio blushed. “No, sir. It is my first time in town.” Seeing his brows lower, she was quick to add:
“I meant to peddle my goods before acquiring one.”
His eyes roamed her form, pausing on both her boots and the ribbon in her hair. Her boots did not meet his approval, the dress did. Clio was glad she’d changed before the guard caught up with her.
“You do that. Be sure to have a plate before next morn. I catch you without one again, you’ll be fined.”
“Of course.” Clio agreed, bowing a little in respect. This was not a guard out on a lark, but one enforcing the will of the Law.
“You do not argue with the Law Clio. They really hate that.” Irumar had taught her. There was wiggle room, in every law and arrangement, but not when the Guards were set out to find you. Those suffered no compromise and were chosen for just that. Clio was sure to commit to memory the heraldry upon their chests, it being different than the other guards who were without it.
A crowing, yellow rooster on a blue field adorned their breasts. They also wore chainmail, which was further proof they were the kind who meant business and not to be given lip. Armsmen and castle guards, not town guards.
“That is all.” the guard dismissed her, and Clio was quick to walk away. She did not run, “running makes you look guilty” some faint recollection told her, but her walk was brisk.
Once she turned a corner and could no longer feel their eyes on her back, Clio breathed a sigh of relief.