Edvard, Mina, and Yuila finally reach Pantia and try to move through the village without drawing unwanted attention.
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They reached Pantia late the next morning. It was a busy town, with wide reaching fields that crowded the trade road on either side of its entrances. The day Edvard and the girls visited, however, the sunny streets were less traveled than usual, and the merchants were eager to trade.
He was surprised there had been no other tradesmen on the road to town. He expected some company, even if only gypsies, but they were alone on the well-used trail. He had also thought they wouldn't reach the road until later afternoon, having been detoured, but was glad to be wrong about the matter.
Mina looked to each side of the street at the stone and brick shops and houses, feeling she had wandered into some mix of medieval and biblical setting. She and Yuila both kept their hoods pulled on, which was sure to raise suspicion in the streets, but Edvard insisted. She agreed. She liked the way the sandalwood comb made her hair smell. She and Edvard now walked Neito through the clay streets with Yuila close on the pinto and the mule tagging behind.
Most of the buildings were small shops and family trade stores, with a few owner homes snugged between. A few were single story, but the majority was two levels, some with small balconies to the street, all of wood.
A boy a little younger than Yuila ran over to them and held up a string of beads. "Two," he said, waving two fingers. "Only two!"
"No," Edvard said. "Where is your cobbler?"
The boy shook his head, looking Mina over with a frown. "No cobbler. Two."
"Shoes," Edvard said, stopping and pointing to Mina's feet. "I want shoes first."
The boy nodded and hurried on before them.
"They speak a different language here?" Mina asked lowly.
He nodded. "A different dialect of Braran, borrowed from the many traders that pass through."
The boy suddenly broke into a run as a younger girl appeared from a doorway, screamed at him, and proceeded to chase him down a narrow alley.
"Looks like those were not his beads to sell," Edvard said with a sigh. He looked further down the street to where a sign hung from two chains over a shop's doorway. "I think that's the cobbler."
It took less than half an hour to find shoes for Mina. Yuila waited nearby, patient and silent, for once, barely raising her head enough to look at the assortment of shoes, slippers, sandals, and boots that hung from the pegged walls. The proprietor was an older man, his face red and hair graying as he dropped to one knee before Mina as she sat on the stool in the small shop. As he began to look up at her, Edvard intervened.
"Allow me," he said suddenly. As the man slowly got to his feet, Edvard pointed to a pair of boots and another of slipper-like shoes that hung on the wall.
Mina reached down to her ankles to untie the braids as Edvard bent over her foot. "I'll take them off."
"I don't want anyone getting too close of a look at you or Yuila," he said in a hushed tone, working off her first makeshift shoe.
"I understand." She tried to untie the second yarn laces, but they had become hopelessly knotted.
He resorted to cutting the yarn with his knife. "Keep Yuila from taking off her hood while we're in town."
"I will."
"These to fit," the old man said, handing them a pair of shoes.
They reminded Mina of moccasins as Edvard laced the doeskin slippers on her feet. The inside was lined with felt and they came just to her ankles.
She sighed, smiling. "They're so soft."
He grinned as she peeked from under her hood. They settled on the moccasins and a pair of boots that were lined with wool for Mina and a pair of short bootlets for Yuila. He tried to get Mina to consider a pair of sandals, but she had had enough of cold feet, despite how attractive the sandals were.
Edvard took them through town, visiting a shop next that sold skirts and dresses. He let Mina go in first with Yuila, and was willing to wait outside, until Yuila came out to get him when Mina couldn't figure out the money exchange. He made the transaction, and Mina came away with two blouses and a skirt, and Yuila with another longer dress. There were also undergarments for each, but these he made them choose without him.
They stopped briefly at another store selling cloaks and capes, mostly of wool, and Edvard picked out an indigo-dyed cape for Mina that was less bulky than the one she had been wearing. She was going to protest, but he explained that they were heading for colder weather, and the cape she used now would not be adequate. Nor did it fit her well enough to wear walking through town without constantly hoisting it off the ground. This she had already learned.
They packed their new clothing purchases on Makka and set off to finish the town. Mina had noticed a small following now trailed them. Edvard was aware of the attention, too, and wondered if it was because of Yuila being a Crone, or just the mystery of strangers.
Or if it was Mina.
He had tried not to let anyone get too close a look at either of the girls, but even obscurity was enough to pique some people's curiosity. He stopped at the last food stall to trade a pound of the sesame seeds from Eza, which brought a stir from the small crowd of townspeople. They swarmed the stall owner to barter for the coveted seeds, and Edvard whisked Mina and Yuila with the animals away down the street with his own trade.
"Why can't we stay here tonight?" Yuila wanted to know as they neared the outskirts of town ten minutes later.
"Maybe the next town," Edvard said. "These are too interested. If there were more traders, we wouldn't be so obvious."
Mina glanced behind her as the town faded smaller in the afternoon. "Did they see Yuila?"
"Maybe it wasn't me. Maybe it was you," the Crone chirped in defense.
"I don't think so, but they're going to be wondering why you're both wearing hoods on a warm day." He stopped their progress as they came to a bend in the road by a field of sunflowers. "We can pack up better here." He unbundled the new clothes from the mule and gave them to Mina. "You two can change in the field."
She and Yuila wove into the tall sunflowers. It seemed to her like some kind of bizarre fairytale maze, with the heavy black-faced flower heads bobbing over them. They fought their way through the large green leaves and sorted through the new clothes together.
Yuila shed off her smock and shimmied into the cotton slip Mina had helped her pick out. The unbleached off-white was quickly covered by a pale coral petticoat and an overdress of madder red. Mina at first thought that the girl would stand-out in the forest like a flashing light until Yuila pulled on the shawl from Eza.
Mina had changed hastily into her own slip, but not quick enough. She hurriedly cinched the sea foam petticoat, which was actually more like a second half-slip with a draw string, as Yuila's eyes lingered on her.
"You're all," the girl paused, shrugging, "fancy, Sapo."
At first startled, Mina tried not to laugh. "When you get older, you'll get fancy, too, Yuila."
The younger girl's eyes rested on several areas of the older girl. "I don't think I'll be like that."
“You’ll be very similar.” Mina sighed, pulling on the green overdress that the store clerk had pointed out to be dyed with weld and woad from her own fields. She supposed the clerk was boasting, but Mina knew nothing of dyestuffs, so she had murmured her flattery, keeping her face as hidden as she could at the time.
"The bruise is almost gone."
Her hand stilled as she tied the blue-purple sash at her waist. "Yes," she said lowly. "It is."
Yuila turned as Mina motioned to her and took out her braids to comb her hair. "How did you get it?"
She used the sandalwood comb to part the Crone's hair, watching it ripple from being braided in the shaded sunlight of the flower heads. She had seen Yuila notice the bruise when they were bathing at the river, but never had she commented on it. "I don't remember."
The younger girl pulled her fingers through her hair. "I don't want to braid it now."
"Okay." Mina combed her own hair quickly and they made their way back to Edvard.
By the time they reached him, he had repacked the animals and changed into another set of clothes, too. The leather pants were the same color of dark brown, but a little different, Mina decided, and the woad blue shirt was gone, exchanged for one of deep burgundy.
"Very nice," he said when Mina stepped from the sunflowers. "Very nice, indeed."
She felt a blush rise over her cheeks as he said it, and was about to comment on his own attire when Yuila broke through the tall flowers.
"You, too, Yuila," he added when he saw the look crossing her face.
"Thank you for the clothes, Edvard," Mina said as he held the blue cloak for her. She pulled the front closed and tied it loosely. "And the shoes."
"I'm sorry it took so long." His eyes traveled for a moment over the fit of the Saxon green dress. "Did you get everything you needed?"
She nodded and was about to speak, but Yuila did so first.
"So did I. Can we go? I'm hungry."
Edvard divided up the twisted bread and hard-cased sausage they had gotten at the last stop in Pantia, then climbed onto the bay gelding and helped Mina up. Yuila was already on the Pinto, pushing her loose hair out of her face. They moved down the trade road toward the western horizon slowly, the mule lagging.
They had been on the road for an hour when he noticed Mina was still studying her shoes. He watched her hold her foot out to the side of the gelding, turning her ankle. After a while he wondered if they were a bad fit.
"Too tight?" he asked as her arm shifted at his side while she bent to the shoe.
"No, they're fine. They're so soft." She flicked off a bug that landed on one toe. "Thank you." Her voice dropped and she sat closer to his opposite shoulder, away from Yuila and her humming. "I can't repay you for them. Or for anything else. I don't have any money."
The troubled, timid tone of her voice disturbed him. "I don't want to be repaid, Mina. You needed shoes and clothes, so I got them."
"But, I don't, I can't repay you," she hesitated, sighing, "even when I get home again, I can't—"
"Forget it, Mina." He didn't like the way she was worrying so far ahead already. She couldn't even remember where she lived, but she was concerned about reimbursing him. "Just keep Yuila out of the beehives for me."
"Okay."
He could hear the smile in her voice.
"I'll do my best."
PG13, saga; teen, fantasy, fantasy world travel, teen romance, clean romance, realm, magical realism, shadow world, school/new school, high school, fiction, serial. #ReadFree with free signup. ♫♪
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Thanks to P.G. Waters for the use of her story!