Song for a Scarlet Runner by Julie Hunt

Author:Julie Hunt
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: book, JUV000000
ISBN: 9781743431627
Publisher: Allen & Unwin
Published: 2013-03-07T22:00:00+00:00

THE NIGHT MARKETS

The markets were vast. There were thousands of people in the Great Hall, and rows upon rows of tables laden with goods. There were bolts of bright cloth, trays of precious stones, small mountains of seeds and beans and spices. A blacksmith was hammering iron. Potters were pedalling their turning-wheels, shaping lumps of clay. Men with big muscles and bare chests covered in tattoos were cooking food in huge vats. Everywhere people were shouting, calling out the names of their wares.

‘Wayfinders! Don’t leave home without one!’

‘Best pottery from the Western Plains.’

‘Goats from the distant Mountains of Mirth.’

‘Gifts, charms and wise fortunes!’

It seemed everything that could be sold was for sale in the night markets of Hub, as well as some things that couldn’t be.

‘Sayings!’ called a woman who sat on the ground with nothing before her except a bright woven mat. ‘A saying for the marsh auntie!’ She looked Eadie in the eye. ‘Many an honest heart beats beneath a ragged coat!’ she cried.

‘My coat’s not ragged,’ laughed Eadie. ‘It’s just stuffed full of herbs.’

And her heart’s not honest, I thought, but I didn’t know why.

We passed a stack of little square cages made of twigs and wire. ‘Glowbirds,’ a man called. ‘Glowbirds to light your way!’

He noticed me staring and said, ‘They look like simple sparrows, but they’re not. In the dark they glow like torches.’

As we pushed our way through the crowds, groups of children pressed forward, staring at Eadie, curious but also fearful. Someone reached out to touch her coat. When we came to a clearing in the centre of the markets, a boy gave Eadie a fruit box and she stood on it.

She spent a moment lighting her pipe, and while the crowd gathered to hear her speak she looked over the heads of the people and blew three perfect smoke rings into the air. The first ring was small and hovered above her head. The second ring circled the first, and the third looped itself around both of them. The audience applauded as the smoke rings faded.

‘Circles within circles,’ Eadie cried. ‘Stories within stories. Hub is the centre of the world and the place where the worlds meet. It is the most powerful place to tell a story.’

She pulled me up and held me high above her head. I looked down on a sea of faces. Some of them weren’t even human. There was a man near the front surrounded by goats, and they all stared up at me as well. I wished I could disappear.

‘People of Hub and Beyond,’ she said. ‘I present to you my apprentice, the swamp waif Peat. She will be telling tomorrow, in the Undercavern.’

A cheer rose from the crowd.

Eadie put me down and we went on making our way through the stalls. The crowd surged after us, and now many hands were reaching out to touch my head and to stroke Eadie’s coat.

Up ahead I saw a flash of red. The sleek! I thought. But it was a girl selling skins.

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