Voices Read Online Free PDF Page B

because I didn't dare let it go. The crowd
drew back with some pushing and shoving, which scared the horse again. It jerked against my grip on the bridle, and the market basket on my arm fell open and the fish and cheese and greens all flew out, which scared the horse worse, and I could not hold it—but the woman was there. She put her hand on the horse's neck and said something to it. It shook it's head, with a kind of grumble in it's chest, and stood still.
    She put out her hand and I gave her the reins. "Well done," she said to me, "well done!" Then she said something else to the horse, close to it's ear, softly, and blew a little of her breath into it's nostrils. It sighed and drooped it's head. I was frantically trying to pick up our food for the next two days before it was trampled on or stolen. Seeing me scrabbling on the pavement, the woman gave the horse a hard pat and bent down to help me. We tumbled the big fish and the greens into the basket, and somebody in the crowd tossed me the cheese.
    "Thank you, good people of Ansul!" the woman said in a clear voice and a foreign accent. "He deserves a reward, this boy!" And to the officer, who was now standing up shakily on the other side of his horse, she said, "This boy caught your mare, Captain. It was my lion frightened her. I ask your pardon for that."
    "The lion, yes," the Ald said, still dazed. He stared at her, and stared at me, and after a while dug into his belt pouch and held out something to me—a penny.
    I was fastening the clasp on my basket. I ignored him and his penny.
    "Oh, so generous, so generous," people in the crowd murmured, and somebody crooned, "A fountain of riches!" The officer glared around at them all. He finally refocused on the woman who stood in front of him holding his horse's reins.
    "Get your hands off her!" he said. "You—woman—it was you had that animal—a lion—"
    The woman tossed the reins at him, slapped the mare lightly, and slipped into the crowd. This time the people closed round her. In a moment I saw the roof of the wagon moving off.
    I saw the wisdom of invisibility and ducked away into the old-clothes market while the officer was still trying to remount his mare.
    The old-clothes vendor called High Hat had been watching the show, standing on her stool. She clambered down. "Used to horses, are you?" she said to me.
    "No," I said. "Was that a lion?"
    "Whatever it is, it goes with that storyteller. And
his wife. So they say. Stay to hear him. He's the prime lord of storytellers, they say."
    "I have to get my fish home."
    "Ah. Fish don't wait." She fixed her fierce, mean little eyes on me. "Here," she said, and flipped me something, which I caught by reflex. It was a penny. She had already turned away.
    I thanked her. I left the penny in the hollow under Lero, where people leave god-gifts and poorer people find them. I still didn't care if the guards saw me, because I knew they wouldn't. I was just starting up West Street away from the market, past the high red arcades of the Customs, when I heard a clip-clop and the clatter of wheels. There along Customs Street came the two horses and the caravan wagon. The lion woman was perched on the driver's seat.
    "Lift?" she said, while the horses stopped.
    I hesitated. I almost thanked her and said no. It was different, and nothing different ever happened, so I didn't know how to do it. And I was not easy with strangers. I was not easy with people. But the day was blessed, and to turn away blessing is to do ill. I thanked her and climbed up onto the seat beside her.
    It seemed very high.
    "Where to?"
    I pointed up West Street.
    She seemed to do nothing, not shaking the reins or clucking her tongue as I had seen drivers do, but the horses set right off. The taller horse was a fine red-brown color, almost as red as the cover of
Rostan,
and the smaller one was bright brown with black legs and mane and tail and a bit of a white star on her forehead. They were bigger than the Ald horses,