Seasons, page 21
“Well, there was an openin’, an’ what with gettin’ older, I figured I might need a bit more authority to keep the younger fellas in line.”
“Uh-huh. What does retired Sergeant Grather-Preston think of that?”
Daz chuckled. “Not much,” he admitted. “Had a few choice words for his youngest son.”
“I’ll bet he did. Somethin’ about nothin’ carryin’ more authority than a proper sergeant’s voice.”
“Word for word. You developed that voice yet, Hek?”
“Workin’ on it,” Hektor answered as Aiden snickered. “You come by yourself, Uncle Daz?”
“You mean besides the five Watchmen I brought from the Cheese Court nick to show you lazy louts how it’s done?”
“Yeah, besides them.”
“Emptied the house. Your ma hasn’t seen our youngest yet, an’ the rest haven’t seen their auntie nor their cousins in ages. Came up the river way with Deem first thing this mornin’. Already dropped most of ’em off at your place, but Hamil an’ Prest walked up with me.” He jerked his thumb behind him to indicate the two very large young men in Watch House uniforms standing by the duty sergeant’s desk. “Oh, an’ Shanda brought a pile of littles hopin’ they could earn some fair money cleanin’ out bird cages for Kasiath. Hey there, little Bird Speaker!” he shouted as Hektor and Aiden’s fourteen-year-old sister came pelting down the stairs to throw her arms around a girl only a few years older than herself. “Messenger Bird apprentice, eh? Yer Granther Thomar woulda been proud.”
Shanda returned Kassie’s hug before they were both engulfed by a crowd of children all talking at once. They slowly moved across the floor and up the stairs as one, the sound of their chatter slowly receding.
“So, you were saying, Sergeant?”
Hektor blinked. “Cap’n?”
“About outsiders? Are these men close enough to suit the street?”
His tone was mild, but Hektor thought he could see an unusual flash of humor in the older man’s expression.
“Yes, Captain.”
* * *
• • •
It didn’t take long to get Hamil, Prest and the other three Watchmen partnered up with Iron Street veterans; then Hektor and Aiden returned to the market grounds with their Uncle Daz in tow.
Since it was for the most part sponsored by merchants, on Midsummer’s Eve the Rose Fair predominantly involved selling in the daytime and revelry in the evening. Most of the flower, salt, and honey sellers were in position by noon, and, not to be outdone, herbalists Sue and Bill March had a stall next to Pansy’s, selling kellwood and sendlewood oil lotions and wheat smut tinctures. Several potters had tall, thin ceramic vases for sale to hold the winning roses, and the posymakers were doing a brisk business in the small maiden’s hope bundles popular with young lovers. Although no livestock was allowed on the Iron Market grounds, the Temple of Thanoth had special dispensation; it had a wide area fenced off with various domestic animals available for deserving families only, a table for selling whistles and small carved animals, a bin for food and cleaning donations, and a small iron box for monetary offerings.
The serious drinking and dancing wouldn’t begin until dark, but the scrumpy and summer-wine sellers were already in place in the very center of the grounds. As the three men ambled slowly through the growing crowds, they kept a careful eye out. Clay had already arrested three pickpockets, a smash-and-grab artist, and two Tyver boys for tossing stench beetles into Holly Poll’s ribbon cart.
“I mostly hauled the littles in to keep her from braining ’em,” he’d confided to Hektor.
And Jez Poll was on his way off the grounds, escorted by two of the larger Watchmen, for picking a fight with Hektor’s father-in-law, Edzel Smith. Of an age, the two men were equally matched sober, but as Jez was already reeling and Edzel never touched a drop, the retired blacksmith had sent his old schoolmate flying into a sweetmeat stall with one punch.
“We arrested Jez on account of his language around the littles,” Corporal Kiel Wright told them. “That and for the chaos he caused sendin’ all those treats scatterin’ in among ’em. He can come back this evenin’ if he can dry out a bit.”
Along the far west side, the food vendors were already busy, and the odors of frying onions, fish pies, and pescods reminded Hektor that he hadn’t eaten since early that morning. He shared half a dozen pickled eggs and a huge cheese toasty from Nanny Agga’s pie stall with Aiden and Daz, then led the way back toward the entrance.
As they passed the bookmaker’s stall, the man waved them over.
“Is it true the watch is concedin’ the tug-a-war?” he asked, eager for some first-hand information.
Aiden’s eyes narrowed. “No, it ain’t true, Lee. Who told you that?”
The bookmaker shrugged. “It’s all over the fair. I’ve had to set the bettin’ at four to one what with Pat an’ Jamie off the team an’ all. I know yer the Captain, Aiden, an’ the Danns have always been big, strong lads,” he added with an attempt at an ingratiating smile, “but really, it hardly seems worth it without them two, don’t you think?”
“Pat an’ Jamie are not off the team,” Hektor retorted.
“Thought your Cap’n put ’em on shift. He take ’em off again?”
Hektor made to reply, then just turned away, shaking his head.
“Nothin’s settled yet, Lee; not by half,” Aiden growled as he turned to follow.
“So, they’re still on shift then?” Lee persisted.
Neither Dann bothered to turn around.
“You need to talk to the Cap’n,” Aiden said as they headed back to the Watch House, their Uncle Daz wisely keeping his thoughts to himself.
“I know.”
“Soon.”
“I will.”
“When?”
“When we get back to the nick.”
* * *
• • •
But when they arrived, Paddy informed them that the Captain had gone to take an early dinner with Captain Rilade of the Breakneedle Street Watch House, and before the Captain returned, Hektor got called out to handle a botched shoplifting-turned-street brawl in Spud Lane. By the time he got back, with the four Watchmen he’d had to call, the shoplifter, his accomplice, and the three grocers who’d objected to their behavior, the Captain had left for the night.
“Why’d you bring them in?” Hektor’s old partner, Kiel Wright, asked, jerking his thumb at the indignant grocers.
Coach of the tug-of-war team Corporal Hydd Thacker turned on him with a furious snarl. “Because you don’t bring a punch-up into the street!” he shouted. “That’s why we’re missin’ Pat an’ Jamie in the first place! Get ’em all downstairs!”
As cowed as the grocers were now, Kiel obeyed.
By the time Hektor and Aiden got off shift, the wall chart still held the names of Lance Constable Barrons and Constable Farane at the Awl and Tongs on Midsummer’s Dusk.
“You have to talk to him,” Aiden said as they took the tenement steps up the Dann flats, two at a time.
“I will.”
“When?”
“First thing tomorrow, all right?”
“We’re not on shift tomorrow,” Aiden reminded him.
“I’ll go in anyway.”
“An’ if the Cap’n won’t change his mind? What are you gonna do then?”
“I’ll think of something.”
“It better be a good somethin’.”
Hektor closed his mouth on what would have been a profane answer as their Aunt Alana and Aiden’s wife, Suli, met them at the door to her and Aiden’s flat. Suli thrust a large pot of stew into her husband’s arms, and their seven-month-old twin sons, Thomar and Preston, into Daz’s.
“Everyone’s at your ma’s for dinner,” she told them. “Hektor, can you help Jakon and Raik with the chairs, please? Bring all of ’em. How many are you here?”
“Just us. Hydd Thacker took the other Cheese Court men home with him,” Aiden told her.
“Well, at least that’s three less. If the littles sit on the floor an’ Granther Preston’s in Granther Thomar’ old armchair, we should have enough seatin’. If not, Rosie’s folks have offered to lend us theirs.”
“Comin’ through!” The two middle Dann brothers pushed past them, carrying two chairs each, then headed up the stairs at a run.
“When you’re done with that, the plates need bringin’ up,” she called after them.
Daz laughed. “Just like old times,” he noted, “happy chaos.”
“It is that,” Alana agreed. “Entertainin’ any thoughts about movin’ back, husband?”
He smiled over the heads of his two nephews. “Maybe.”
“Good.”
Half an hour later, fifteen adults, seven youths, including Paddy’s sweetheart, Rosie, and Kassie’s best friend Laryn, six children, and eight babies all sat down to dinner together.
* * *
• • •
The next morning, heading for the fair in a crowd of family, Hektor shot his brothers a look that banned talk of the tug-of-war. He’d said he would handle it, and he would handle it, although he was still completely unsure of how. Adult conversation was impossible anyway as Aiden’s four-year-old son, Egan, holding court high above them on his father’s shoulders, kept up a constant, high speed explanation of the fair for the benefit of those cousins who had never attended before.
“Cost a pennybit to get in, but babies are free. All the sweets are a pennybit too an’ so’s the cider.”
“The soft cider, little jaybird,” Aiden interjected.
“Uh-huh. Ma says we gotta keep together an’ that we gotta do what Kassie an’ Shanda say. Ma say’s that if we’re all real good we can stay at the fair for supper. I’m gonna do the littles long race an’ the short race. Gus an’ Jacy an’ Emma can do those too, but Ben an’ Bryan are too young. They can do the littlest stone toss an’ the beanbag throw.”
“Me too!” Squirming around in her cousin Shanda’s arms, two-year-old Leila gave her older brother an egregious scowl.
“Maybe. You might be too little still.”
“Me too!” Leila began to cry, and Aiden tapped his son sternly on the knee.
“But she might be, Da!” he protested. “It’s not my fault!”
“We’ll find a game for you to do, cousin,” Shanda assured her. “Maybe we can team up together for something.”
Comforted, Leila settled down, and Egan continued to sort out which family members were to enter which competition and who was going to come away with what prizes.
“Da is cap’n of the tug-a-war, so we’re gonna win that a course, and take all the roses there an’ make a HUGE bunch on Gramma’s table!” He threw his arms wide, almost flying backward off his father’s shoulders. Hektor caught him at the last second, and the boy gave him a beatific smile in response. “Thanks, Uncle Hek. The Danns an’ the Brownes are gonna take all the prizes, right?” he added as he righted himself.
“Hope so.”
Aiden shot him a look but said nothing.
As they passed The Awl and Tongs tavern, Hektor turned to see the publican, Helena Rell, and her four children lifting the shutters off for the day’s trade. With the clear weather holding, they had several tables outside already under an awning, and he paused, an idea beginning to grow in his mind. “I’ll meet you later,” he said, striding across the street. “Don’t let anyone talk about any kind of conceding until I get there.”
* * *
• • •
By the time he reached the fairground it was midafternoon, and the place was crowded with people from Iron Street and beyond. Egan ran up to him, bubbling over with news about the family’s triumphs. Jakon and Raik had placed second in the junior relay race, but Paddy’s gameball team, the Watchmen, had destroyed their rivals, the Chandler’s Row Wolves, by a score of five to nil. Aiden remained the unbeaten senior wrestling champion for the fourth year in a row, and Kassie had taken the junior ring toss and junior horseshoe throw both, winning two roses and a twisted wire bracelet. He himself had come in third in the littles long race, behind Tawny and Hassa Tyver, and second in the short race to Ebony Poll.
“There’s still the stone toss an’ the three-legged race; I’m gonna do that with Jacy, an’ then there’s team tag! After that, we’re all gonna watch the tug-a-war an’ eat sweets!”
Still chattering, he led his uncle to where most of the family, babies in their arms and at their feet, were taking their ease beneath a small tent within sight of the children’s games.
As he came up, he was surrounded by the rest of the littles, all shouting at once to make themselves heard.
“How come you didn’t race today, Cousin Hek? Da said you was the fastest ever when you was a little!”
“You gonna buy us all sweets at the tug-a-war, Cousin Hek? Egan said you might!”
“I lost a tooth bitin’ a treacle pie; wanna see it?”
“I’m gonna be in the stone toss, I’ve been practicin’ all week!”
“How come there isn’t a littles’ tug-a-war; we’d win it for sure!”
“Ben barfed behind the sweetmeat tent ’cause he ate way too many at once an’ then spun ’round and around and around!”
All six cousins and at least eight friends of Egan’s began spinning about in a circle until them all fell laughing to the ground. Hektor admired their technique for a few moments, answered questions, and exclaimed over winnings until Kassie and Shanda scooped them up to prepare for their next events. Then he threw himself down next to Jemmee and Ismy, accepting his own sons, five-month-old Ronnie and Eddie, onto his lap. As Jakon and Raik presented their mother with their winning roses from the long jump, he looked over at the ceramic vase of flowers already sitting by her side.
“Shouldn’t there be more?” he asked.
Jemmee shifted her new niece from one arm to the other as she gave him an unimpressed look. “Well, you weren’t here to add to my hoard this year,” she scolded. “An’ Kassie gave most of hers to her Granny, as she should,” she added in case Elinor might think she was finding fault with that.
“What about Paddy’s?”
“Ah, yes, well,” she glanced over to where Paddy and Rosie had already found themselves a seat on the makeshift bleachers beside the tug-of-war pitch. “Who’m I to stand in the way of young love,” she said with a fond smile.
Hektor followed her gaze, counting the flowers clutched tightly in both toung fists. “Looks like they did about the same. That’s good.”
Uncle Daz glanced over their heads. “I see there’s no bonfire pit again this year.”
Hektor shook his head. “Not since the fire two years ago. Just didn’t seem right what with the deaths an’ all. We may never see another on Midsummer’s Dusk now.”
Daz nodded. “I miss your Da. He was a good friend.”
“When I was a young man, we didn’t have no Midsummer’s Dusk,” Preston noted. “Jus’ Midsummer’s Eve. All the games were packed into one day. The tug-a-war was at sundown right before the bone-burnin’—the bonfire, that is. The butchers made a killing all through the springtime, what with folk buying an’ drying bones to add to it. The whole street built it, not just the woodsmen like nowadays.” He scratched at his chin. “Somethin’ to do with raisin’ of healthy crops or the chasing off’a bad magic. Can’t remember. There was fire jumpin’ too. In yer great-granther’s day it were only maidens that did the jumpin’, but by my time, it was boys as well as girls. That was a sight. An’ I was pretty good at it too, could jump to the moon back then. When I was seventeen, I leaped straight over the top to impress yer granny.”
Aiden glanced over at Granny Elinor, whose attention had already wandered from a story she’d heard a hundred times.
“Was she impressed?” he asked.
Preston caught up her hand as she gave an amused snort. “Not a bit of it,” he declared with a laugh. “She’d jus’ jumped twice as high herself. But she was impressed by the great long scorchin’ I did to my left calf.”
“Impressed isn’t the word I used at the time, Preston Browne,” she scolded. “Nor the one I’d use now if it weren’t for the littles here. Silly old fool.”
He chuckled. “I was a silly young fool then, but you married me anyway, didn’t you?”
“I did.” She squeezed his hand, then waved at Jemmee to pass little Preston over to her, before shading her eyes with one hand. “Well, hello there, Linton Kray, don’t you look official?” she said as the Fair Master strode over, his blacksmith’s apron trimmed in yellow fringe.
“Thanks Ellie. My granddaughter sewed it on for me. Hey, Preston. Nice to see you both again.”
“Hey, yerself,” Preston acknowledged.
“These all your grandbabies?”
“Yup. Every last one, an’ that pile of puppies over there. This is our newest, little Abbie.”
Linton chucked the baby under the chin, smiling as she made a grab for his fingers. “She’s a pretty wee thing. Got eight myself and two on the way,” he said proudly.
“They’re a comfort as you get older. How’s your Jillian?”
“Good. She’s over at the stone toss gettin’ our Hollen ready for his first ever competition.”
“I saw him. He’s a fine-looking lad.”
“He is that. Takes after his ma.” Linton straightened. “Well, it’s nice to see you both again. The street hasn’t been the same without you.” He turned to Hektor. “You ready to concede that-tug-of-war match yet?”
Hektor smiled back at him. “Nope. Hey, Pat, hey, Jamie.”
He nodded as the two burly watchmen headed for the area where the tug-of-war teams were warming up.
“So, you got ’em off shift, huh?” Linton noted. “How’d you mange that?”
