THE Comes AND HIS COMPANIONS had slept late, despite the noise about the busy inn, and had just finished breaking their fast when I rushed in upon them. “Ave, Galwyn, well come,” Artos said, expansively gesturing me to their table. It bore little but crumbs, and so many empty platters that I suspected his Companions had made up for the three days of meals they’d missed. Lord Artos caught my glance and his grin was mischievous. “I haven’t understood a word that’s been said to us. This Ercus, our host, garbles Latin as if he’s chewing tough beef. Signs suffice in ordering a meal, but I’d rather know the price I must pay for decent mounts and to hire a reliable caravan leader.”
“It’s my honor, Lord Artos, my honor,” I managed to reply, curbing an impulse to puff my experience in such matters. I would prove it with deeds, not words.
ONCE AWAY FROM THE PORT, Burtigala spread out, sprawling beyond the town boundaries originally set up by the Roman governors of the province. The bustling market area was built on the Roman design, despite the cramped tiny stalls that cluttered the space near the slave pens and along the animal fields. There were many people about, and I noticed the Companions staring at the occasional Nubian, black and splendid in richly colored robes; the slim, swart men whose rolling gait marked them as traders from the Levant; the big Goths swaggering an arrogant path through the crowds of small-statured folk. All, in their turn, marked my Lord Artos and his tall, muscular Companions and slowed their pace so that they did not overrun us. All around were the jabbering and liquid sounds of many languages, fragments of which I could identify as we passed the speakers.
“Is it always like this, Galwyn?” Bericus asked out of the side of his mouth.
“It is, sir; only sometimes much more so.”
“More so?” Bwlch asked.
“This is not a market day, sir. Or a feast day.”
“God has been good?” Bwlch muttered under his breath.
As soon as we reached the animal market, Baldus Afritus pushed his way forward to meet us, his sizable paunch clearing his path. He wore his oily smile and smoothed his soiled robes over his belly. I murmured a caveat emptor to Lord Artos. “Do not overtrust this one, Conies.”
“Baldus Afritus at your service, noble lord,” the man said unctuously in his heavily accented Latin, giving a Legion salute that Lord Artos ignored. Baldus now repeated his introduction in an even more garbled Gallic.
“Mounts,” Lord Artos answered in Latin, moving to the rails, where he cast his eyes over the rugged ponies displayed. “Seven to ride, of at least fourteen hands of height, and four pack animals.”
The smile on Baldus’s face increased as he saw a fat profit for the day. “I have many fine strong ponies that would carry you from here to Rome with no trouble.”
I snickered. Most of Baldus’s “fine strong ponies” had no flesh on their bones, even this late into a fine summer. Their hooves were untrimmed, their backs scabby with rain rash, and their withers white with old sores from badly fitting pack saddles. And the majority were so small that Lord Artos’s tall men would have to ride with their knees up under their chins.
“And what do you think of Baldus’s offerings?” Lord Artos asked me, his eyes slightly narrowed as he gazed at me. Baldus watched me, too.
So, as if we were discussing the weather and not the beasts, I gave the lord my assessment, speaking in our own dear language, of which Baldus knew little.
“Not one that would last the trip?” Artos went on.
“Two only, lord, the bay with the star and snip, and the brown horse with the white sock on the off-hind.”
Lord Artos gave a nod and walked on-despite Bal-dus’s protestations-to the next pen, which, in truth, contained animals in little better shape. I could almost feel Baldus’s stare piercing my shoulder blades.
In that lot, a second sturdy brown looked up to bearing the weight of one of the Companions as it dozed, hip-shot in the sun.