They stepped gingerly between the sleeping men and women, at the same time doing their best not to get caught on the thorns of the briar tangle. The leaves and stem of the plant were a strange mottle of emerald and grey, and the spines were not the small hooked jabs, like on a natural plant. Rather, each was long, curved and had an edge, more like a small knife made of polished vine-wood.
In order to move the brazen head, Caewen had tied the pieces together using some rope cut from inside the tent, then strained, pushed and hauled, until it was tied into place on top of Dapple’s back. She had to lash it in place while balancing the weight carefully. The need for Dapplegrim to stand perfectly still clearly drove him to distraction. He must have asked, “Are you done yet?” twenty times as she worked. Then, of course, they had to conceal the object somehow. A little desperately, Caewen gave up any semblance of subtlety, and simply threw a blanket over it. When she was done, she stepped back to admire her work. The muscles in her neck, shoulders and back all ached. Dapplegrim, meanwhile, had just snuffled, and said, “I feel like a donkey.”
“Oh hush,” was all Caewen could manage.
It probably did look strange though. The young woman and her large, black-and-grey ‘horse’ hauling an object around. Luckily, it seemed that near enough everyone in the moot had already filtered down to the area surrounding the Tent of Gifts. Because Fafmuir and the other Lords of the Brightness Realms had their tents pitched on a prominent ridge, Caewen was able to get good a view of the masses of gathered people. There were tables, pallets and benches all arrayed in disorganised rings around the gifting tent. Nearer the entrance of the tent, the crowd was thickest. Apparently, that was also where the high tables for the dignitaries and bigwigs had been set out. Even at a distance Caewen could see the elaborate costumes. Though she squinted and searched, she couldn’t find Fafmuir.
“Dapple,” she asked. “Is he there? Can you see Fafmuir?”
He looked for a few moments, scanning the crowd, but shook his head. “He’s not at the Broadtable. There’s an empty seat. Maybe he’s still making his way down?”
“Or maybe the goddess’s curse has finally got the upper hand, and he’s toppled over dead in a ditch.” She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter anyway. What matters is the gold plate and the box it’s in. We need both.”
“Where to then? Hurm.”
“Samarkarantha’s tent? It’s far enough from the Tent of Gifts to not draw attention, but close enough to walk in a few minutes. We can leave the oracle there… then go straight to the gifting ceremony. If we’re lucky, the plate won’t have been taken.”
“Hur. Even if it has, we might be able to strike a trade. A brazen head is worth a thousand little gold trinkets. Any sorcerer would be as half-baked as a hedgehog to say no.”
“Let’s hope so,” replied Caewen.
They walked in silence then for a time.
The inside of Caewen’s mouth hurt. Actually, when she thought about it, every inch of her hurt. Where she wasn’t bruised, she was cut or scraped, and where she wasn’t scraped, she was just plain aching from tiredness. The sleepers in the patch of charmed briar-rose seemed to have a pretty good thing going right now. A barely held in yawn. And another. And really, she thought, if a huge angry dragon did descend on the moot, then all those sleeping people would never be the wiser. Presumably, they would be crisped to ash before they even had a chance to feel anything.
“How long will the sleeping briar last?” she wondered aloud, not really expecting Dapplegrim to be able to answer.
He seemed to take the question quite seriously though. “Oh, at least until the next sunrise, but maybe seven weeks, or a year and a day, or nine years, or twelve lifetimes. It’s all about numinous moments and auspicious numbers with the Faer. Maybe it has something to do with the way their arts work? I don’t know.”
“So, if we do fetch the little gold saucer, and avert fiery doom, we’ll probably have to drag the sleeping magicians out of the bed of thorns, one-by-one.”
He nodded. “Hurm. Probably.”
She let her eyelids drop a little. “It never does stop, does it?”
“Life has a habit of keeping on throwing things at you as long as you are living, yes. Hur. That would be my experience anyway.”
They circumvented the noises of drinking, singing and eating, then wove a path among mostly darkened tents. As they were nearing Samarkarantha’s tent, Caewen noticed a dark shape slinking around in the shadows ahead of them. “What’s that?”
Dapplegrim squinted. “It’s one of the Nibelung.” He rolled his eyes. “Oh, he’s looking for the ivory box still. While the magicians are feasting, the Nibelung are sneaking.”
“We should warn him.”
“About?”
“The dragon, foolhead.”
A tense snort. “There’s not a lot of time.”
“It won’t take long. Hey! You there!”
He stopped and looked at her. A small, wheezing and snarling voice spat out of the darkness. “I’m within my rights to look. We are looking for our rightful stolen treasure. It’s within our rights.”
“Oh,” said Caewen, realising that the Nibelung must have been peeking in tents. “No. That doesn’t matter. Look, I know where you ivory box is. It is a concealing box, isn’t it? It’s for hiding the contents from scryers and seers.”
A long, suspicious hum whispered back at her. “It might be. It might be that. Why do you ask?” Then, without warning, he whistled, loudly. A half-dozen more of the long-limbed, hunched, shaggy-haired creatures appeared from tents and shadows. Their protrudent wet, boiled-egg eyes gleamed in the light of early evening. More than one had a wicked curved knife suddenly out and clutched in knobbly fingers. “Well?” said the first one.
“I don’t have a lot of time, but I’ll try and explain.” Caewen took a breath, and related as much of the scheme as she thought she had guessed right.
“Here now,” snarled another of the creatures. “You expect us to believe a tale like that? Old Fafmuir, who never hurt a robin’s egg wants to murder the whole moot. Pull the other one.”
“No, no… wait a moment,” said the first Nibelung. “Think about it. All the Awvish folk upped and left with no warning. And the Sithean are gone too. They are enlightened of wits, and clever in far-seeing, them lot are. Maybe they did see that there is trouble coming?”
“Winged, fiery, big-toothed trouble,” added Dapplegrim.
“Maybe, maybe,” answered the other.
One of the other Nibelung sniffed the air. His big round nostrils quivered. “You smell that?”
The other’s all started snorting and snuffling too. “True. True. It does smells like dragon. It’s faint, but it’s carrying on the wind.”
Another Nibelung said, “It’s blowing in on the nor’easter. Blooming turnip. She’s telling the truth, she is. There is a dragon coming.” More sniffing. “And a big one too.”
They all started to shuffle away, hurrying off down the line of tents, and whistling loudly as they went. Other whistles came back from the darkness, near and far.
The final Nibelung to leave was the first one they’d met. “Thank you, missus sorceress. Me and my folk will scurry. No dragon for us, but–“
“But what?” said Caewen.
“Nothing is given for nothing here. You require payment, or else you’ll have a debt over the whole of the Nibelung folk. And that cannot stand. No, no. So what?” He snapped his finger and thumb, making a dull hollow-bone click. “Aha! If you do get the box of concealments and subversions, you may keep it for your own. It is our payment to you.” He grinned, apparently quite self-satisfied that he had come up with a payment that they didn’t currently possess anyway.
“Wonderful,” said Caewen flatly. “How can I ever thank you?”
He didn’t seem to pick up the sarcasm, but waved a hand as he turned to scamper away. “Think nothing of it.” He waved a knobbly fingered hand as he vanished into darkness.
“You know,” said Dapplegrim. “A proper concealing box would actually be very useful. We could put all manner of things into it, and no one would be the wiser. Proper wizard’s trickery, that is. Hurm.”
“I know. I just can’t quite feel grateful for a gift that they don’t have to give.”
He rolled his shoulders in a shrug. “They are Nibelungs. What did you expect? Better than being promised a field of gold.”
They started off walking again. “What’s wrong with a field of gold?”
“When Nibelung’s promise it, you’ll discover it’s actually a field of dandelions. Or they might offer you a black silk robe studded with diamonds.”
“Wait… let me guess this one. The night sky?”
“That’s right. And they’ll say, well, now that you own it, you’ll have to pull it down yourself.”
“That’s actually sort of funny.”
“Hurm. Sure. Unless you’re the person who traded your whole life, your farm, horse, cows and house, all of it, for a sheet of black silk studded with diamonds. Though, their tricks usually only work on the greedy. So maybe there is humour in it.”