Knickknack
“What is a Son of Rovish?” Jane asked her father as she climbed out of the
traveling bag he had packed her in. Her father took a few belongings out of the
other bag and arranged them on the bed. He grimaced, looking between the bed
and his bag. He lifted the bag, turning it upside down over the bed. Nothing fell
out.
Jane wiped her hair from her eyes and tried to rub the sweat from her face with her
damp tunic sleeve. She stretched her thin body and looked up at the big man as he
shook his hands to the heavens in frustration. Then her father looked down at her
and said in his deliberately calm voice, “Where is the case? It had the scrolls that I
will trade.”
Jane reached into the bag that she had spent the last hour in, and handed the thin
wooden case to her father. He eyed her suspiciously. “Why was it there?”
Jane shrugged, “You put it there before I got in. Don’ think I wanted it all poking
against me.”
Stefan Geist took a deep breath, shook his head, and corrected her speech. “It
made me uncomfortable. I did not wish it there.”
Jane repeated the phrase, knowing that she was probably giving him “that look”
again.
Stefan nodded. “Better. Keep in mind that eight year olds should show respect.”
She put her hands on her hips. “I’m nine.”
Stefan scoffed. “I’m sure that makes all the difference. I correct your speech
because you must be able to associate with important people if you are to be of any
use in the world.”
Jane muttered, “That’s the way we talk. We’re useful.”
Stefan plopped down on the cot. “We? You mean that your mother’s family
speaks that way? First of all, your mother does not speak that way. Second, if
you continue to follow the example of Asil and Yanom you will be a vagabond, like
them. They are of no use to anyone. I have let you spend entirely too much time
with them.”
She had heard it before. “What is a Son of Rovish? You said you’d tell me.” She
wanted to hear what he would say, even if it was a lie.
“Rovish was created by Silas. Rovish had the gift of making things. When he
fathers a child with a human woman, a son or daughter of Rovish is born. They
have Rovish’s gift. I am searching for a scroll that this Son of Rovish made. I
think he still has one and I wish to trade him some very valuable things for it.”
“What does the scroll say?” She lay back on the cot beside where he sat and dried
her sweaty face and hair on the sheets.
Stefan contorted. “Ach! Do not! Revolting.”
She sat up. “What does it say?”
He sighed heavily. “It is not a scroll that says anything interesting, you disgusting
little rat, it is a scroll that does things.”
She leaned back against the wall, bonking her head softly. “What does it do?”
He just sat there looking out the open shutters at the darkening red sky for a time.
Finally he said, “Maybe I will tell you after I have the scroll.”
The knock at the door startled Stefan. He muttered, “So soon.”
Jane whispered, “Is that him?”
Stefan stood up, his eyes locked on the door. He whispered intensely, “The Son of
Rovish? Of course not. It must be Lord Chappell. But I did not tell Lord Chappell
where I was staying. I was supposed to contact him before we meet tomorrow.”
He looked around the room. “Quick! Back into the bag.”
Jane almost obeyed him without thinking. She decided she would rather use the
bed, so she put the bag on the far corner of the bed before climbing in, while
Stefan urged. “Hurry, hurry.”
Jane tried to quiet her breathing so that she could hear every word that they said.
She heard the door open, then after just a murmur or two, it closed.
“The maid,” said Stefan.
Jane climbed out. Stefan held a pitcher and rag.
He laid the things on the washbasin. “I am so tired.”
First he sat on the cot. Then he lay on it. Then he slept.
He was good at falling asleep when he needed and waking up when he needed.
Jane quietly closed the shutters so that the light would not disturb him. She
washed up, then combed her hair with her fingers. At Stefan’s direction, her
mother had cut Jane’s hair short because Jane was a boy on this trip--a boy that
had never heard of Stefan Geist.
If only.
She examined the latch, and then remembered to grab her pouch from the bag she
had traveled in and put it on her belt. She removed a thin, pliant copper bar,
unlatched and opened the door quietly, and shut it on the bar, bending it slightly.
She worked with the bar until it slid up and down between the doorframe and the
door--there was plenty of room for the bar on this door. She opened the door
again, looked out into the hall, then stepped out. She closed the door, then slid the
bent copper back through the space and twisted it until she had relatched the door.
She noticed that the key lock on the door only worked from the outside. She
thought about what Asil had taught her. The innkeeper wanted guests to be safe,
but not to lock themselves in so that he could not get at them.
Jane was not going to doze in the room when she had a chance to see Morrow--a
real city! Her mother had not wanted Jane to visit Morrow without her. Jane
certainly did not enjoy being alone with Stefan, but when she had overheard her
mother saying, “Stefan, he is a Son of Rovish! A little girl cannot help you with
him,” Jane was dying to go.
She looked down the hallway. Something good was cooking down in the kitchen.
She had to return before Stefan woke or there would be trouble. But she first had
to get out of the inn without attracting attention.
She was a boy for this visit, so she concentrated on the way that her brother and
the other boys at their people’s camp acted. If she were a boy, she would run
screaming down the stairs and out through the door, but she might be stopped for
misbehavior. She must be a well behaved boy. She thought that surely there were
well behaved boys somewhere, though she had never seen any. What was the
difference between a well behaved boy and a normal girl? She thought of Daniel
bringing the baby rabbit he had found back into camp. She pasted a grin on her
face and strutted down the stairs, past the innkeeper’s wife.
When Jane reentered the inn, her ears were still buzzing with the shouting, singing,
and cajoling of Morrow’s market. She had spent some of her coppers on a
honeyed fruit cake, so the smell of the stew that the young woman with a face like
tree bark was ladling did not draw her as it had before. A young man plucked a
lute in a far corner. She wondered if he was just a traveler or if playing music was
actually a job that people were paid to do in the city. He was probably the
innkeeper’s son. She felt a twinge when she saw Stefan at a table. He was awake,
so she would be in trouble for leaving the room.
Stefan was sitting with an older man--a compact barrel of a man--eating stew and
bread. Was that a Son of Rovish? She had expected a powerful young man with a
voice like Althran, her mother’s uncle, who led their people. She had to hear what
they were saying.
End of excerpt of short story
Knickknack, (c) John Arkwright, 2007
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