Eyes Like Sky And Coal And Moonlight Read Online Free PDF Page A

treated Family well but was unwilling to extend that courtesy outside the circle. I’d married in, and he was forced to acknowledge me, but Sparky had been a full outsider, and Steel had made his life a misery, maintaining our cranky and antiquidated machines: the fortune teller, the tent-lifter, and Steel’s pride and joy, the spinning cups, packed now on the largest wagon and pulled by Laxmi and three oxen.
    The position of circus smith had been vacant of Family for a while now, ever since Big Joy fell in love with a fire-eater and left us for the Whistling Piskie—a small, one-ring outfit that worked the coast.
    So we’d lost Sparky because Steel had scrimped and shorted his wages, not to mention refusing to pay prentice fees when he wanted to take one on. More importantly, we’d lost his little traveling cart, full of tools and scrap and spare linchpins.
    “ So what am I going to do?” I snapped. Bupus had sat down on the road and was eying the passing caravans, more out of curiosity than hunger or desire to menace. “I’ll gnaw your bones,” he said almost conversationally, but it frightened no one in earshot. He sighed and settled his head between his paws, a green snot dribble bubbling from one kitten-sized nostril.
    The Unicorn Girl pulled up her caravan. She’d been trying to repaint it the night before and bleary green and lavender paint splotched its side.
    “ What’s going on?’ she said loudly. “Driving badly again, Tara?”
    The Unicorn Girl was one of those souls with no volume control. Sitting next to her in tavern or while driving was painful. She’d bray the same stories over and over again, and was tactless and unkind. I tried to avoid her when I could.
    But, oh, she pulled them in. That long, narrow, angelic face, the pearly horn emerging from her forehead, and two lush lips, peach-ripe, set like emerging sins beneath the springs of her innocent doe-like eyes.
    Even now, she looked like an angel, but I knew she was just looking for gossip, something she might be able to use to buy favor or twist like a knife when necessary.
    Steel looked back and forth. “Broken wagon, Lily,” he said. “You can move along.”
    She dimpled, pursing her lips at him but took up her reins. The two white mares pulling her wagon were daughters of the one he rode, twins with a bad case of the wobbles but which should be good for years more, if you ignored the faint, constant trembling of their front legs. Most people didn’t notice it.
    “ She needs to learn to mind her tongue,” I said.
    “ Rik needs to come in with us,” Steel said, ignoring my comment. “He’s the smartest, he knows how to bargain. These little towns have their own customs and laws and it’s too easy to set a foot awry and land ourselves in trouble.”
    Much as I hated to admit, Steel was right. Rik is the smartest of the lot, and he knows trade law like the back of his hand.
    “ I’ll find someone to leave with you, and Rik will ride back with the pin, soon as he can,” Steel said.
    “ All right,” I said. Then, as he started to wheel Beulah around. “Someone I won’t mind, Steel. Got me?”
    “ Got it,” he said, and rode away.
    “ I don’t like leaving you,” Rik said guiltily. It was a year old story, and its once upon a time had begun on our honeymoon night, with him riding out to help with the funeral of his grandfather, who had been driven into a fatal apoplectic fit by news of Rik’s marriage to someone who’d never known circus life.
    “ Can’t be helped,” I said crisply. He sighed.
    “ Tara…”
    “ Can’t be helped.” I flapped an arm at him. “Go on, get along, faster you are to town, faster you’re back to me.”
    He got out of his wagon long enough to kiss me and ruffle my hair.
    “ Not long,” he said. “I won’t be long.”

    “ We’ll leave Preddi with you,” Steel said, a quarter hour after I’d watched Rik’s caravan recede into the distance. It had taken a while for the rest of