Chapter 12: The River Fair

The Master of the Finders was the first person I saw at the River Fair.

She sat on a cushioned chair on the steps of the ironmongers' guild hall, above the whole quay, with two finders standing behind her.

She was small and old and very straight, in a black gown with the iron collar of the Finders at her throat.

A black velvet cap covered her silver hair.

She was writing in a little book on her knee, and there was ink on the fingers of her right hand.

"Mechthild Sturm," the ironmonger whispered beside me. "Don't look at her."

Everybody else at the fair was looking at her.

Hessa's quay ran a quarter mile along the river, packed with stalls, carts, barges and people.

The ironmongers' guild held the best stretch, right under its own hall, with forty stalls of pots, nails, plowshares and swords.

Our stall was a borrowed cart at the far end, between a pig seller and a man selling cures for baldness.

Gerd stood at the back of it with his arms folded, and the miner's son, who had driven it down, sat on the tailboard.

Anke was four days away, in my hall in Velde.

The law didn't let her leave my house, and Kranz's finders were still at my gate to make sure of it.

When I had ridden out, she had stood in the doorway and said, "The second week of November. You swore."

I had a little more than a week.

At the ninth bell, the master of the ironmongers' guild came down the hall steps with a crier.

He was a broad man with a gold chain and a beard oiled into two points.

"By order of the guild, and under the Finders' Charter," the crier shouted, "the town of Velde is under the ban."

The crowd near us turned to stare at our cart.

"No licensed merchant may buy from Velde or sell to it. Any who does loses his license."

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