We walked for about another ten minutes or so before Marfus called a halt where the quayside opened out into a broad paved area. Here the food carriers set down the cauldrons on the stones. They then started to serve the meal on some large wooden platters using an area of raised stonework as an impromptu table.

The platters had been carried in day sacks by some of the men and soon a number of other items appeared to supplement the meal. Bread, jars of pickles and some spicy smelling kind of chutney were produced, as if by magic, to take their place amongst the platters. Most of the men, however, milled about in small groups talking and sharing the flagons of ale and passing the wine sacks around.


I wondered whether such a gathering was legal in the City, mindful of the various laws of the northern territories. Having said that, there were upwards of thirty men here, many of them already well into their ale; all of them pretty well built; all of them armed in some way; not to mention the fact that they were sailors and barbarians mostly. Thinking about it, if there wasn't a law, there damned well should be. This was potentially a very dangerous crowd.


Someone had thrown a couple of untidy looking bundles onto the ground which I took to be sheep skins. Welcome steered me over to them and motioned for me to be seated before taking a seat alongside. He looked incredibly pleased with himself as he watched the various activities that were going on around him. The cooks were serving the food. It was rich in colour, aromatic and still, surprisingly, steaming. The various groups of men were now crouching or sitting, either talking together or playing familiar games with dice or with their hands.


A couple of men had thrown down another bundle and were engaged in some contest of strength whilst a few others looked on shouting encouragement and placing bets. All that was really missing was a fire. It wasn't completely dark because there were the dim street lamps that flickered and guttered in the breeze and it was, as always, a very warm night but a central fire was undoubtedly missing.


I wondered whether I would have thought this before my journey to Trellsheim and subsequent trip up into the Trellsgut with the Fire Dancers. However, my musings were brought to a halt when a smiling Ruardean face appeared in front of me holding a wooden platter piled high with rice and curry in one hand and a large flat bread in the other.


He grinned as he handed me my meal. The bread, I realised, was not just warm but was damned hot and I dropped it, much to the man's amusement. He returned to the cauldrons leaving me to wonder how he had managed to hold it in his bare hands. I had tried twice to pick it up but could not manage it. Had I not been otherwise engaged, I might have wondered how it had remained so hot in the absence of any obvious source of heat.


Welcome had been served just after me and before I could ask he tapped me on the arm and demonstrated the correct method of eating. The rice, where clear of the curry, was eaten with the left hand. The curry and any rice in it was eaten by breaking off a piece of the flat bread and using that as a spoon. This was also done with the left hand. Welcome seemed to have taken and held onto his bread without any discomfort but at least mine was now cool enough to pick up of the ground where it still lay.


As each group of men was served, so the noise diminished and soon there was relative silence as everyone, including the cooks, ate their meal. They did this either standing around (most of the northerners) or squatting down in a position that I hadn't been able to achieve since the age of about two years (all of the Ruardean other than Welcome). Only two of us sat on the bundles.


The quiet reminded me oddly of meal times at home when my wife would place a large pot on the table and ladle out various quantities of the traditional rich stew, some with excess of meat, some with lots of beans, others with no meat at all, some with a little sauce. It would go on like this, nine times before we had a chance to scrape the remains in the pot with our own sour bread but the silence as the children ate was my definition of peace.


A tap on my arm brought me back and Welcome suggested that we need a fire if we were going to hear a tale. I wondered if he meant that he wanted me to arrange for it but this concern was soon put to rest when he called over to one of the sailors who had finished his food to pick out a stone for him. I thought that I had misheard him or that perhaps his grasp of the northern language was a bit off-key but this was soon corrected. The man walked over to the cauldrons and reached down under one of them to emerge with a large pair of iron tongs. Where they had come from was anybody's guess. I was sure that they had not been there before but then again I hadn't been looking for them and they were a dark black, sitting under a black cauldron in an area with very little light. Not to mention my bad eyesight and poor night vision.


He dipped the tongs into the remains of the curry (and there was still quite a bit left) and pulled out a large object that hissed and steamed as it left the still bubbling liquid. As he carried it to a space more or less in the middle of the group of men and some ten paces before Welcome, I could smell burning curry. By the time he had placed it on the ground it was charred and black with what looked like patches of glowing red heat.


Welcome stood up before I could manage to question him and, placing his platter on the woolsack, stepped over to the stone. He called for some kindling and some of the men brought him pieces of various sizes and placed them quickly and carefully around the black rock. Again I had no idea where some of the pieces had come from and, whilst some were small and clearly pocket-sized, others seemed too large not to be noticed. However, what happened next drove all out any interest about where bits of wood had come from.


Welcome took something from inside his robe. At first I thought that it was just the betel pouch that I knew he carried but from where I was seated I could not really see. He then crouched before the rock and the wood and spread his arms wide. I heard him say something but the tone was low and all I could hear was the sibilance in the spoken words. Then he rose and stepped back. He appeared to drop something onto the rock and a fire flared up before him. It must have been pretty hot or the wood very dry because it seemed to take almost immediately. He stepped back in a manner that seemed almost ceremonial and then bowed low to the fire. The old man in me suggested that the stepping back was probably to prevent his turban from catching fire but I didn't feel that I was at home to such cynicism tonight.


"Feed it," he said simply as he returned to his seat beside me and I saw several of the men move to bring more wood. Where was it coming from?


"Impressive," I said as he sat down and retrieved his half-eaten platter of food from the ground. “I suppose it's a knack."


"No, it is not a knack."


"Oh, it's magic then," I said, laughing, "because I've never seen a fire take like that before."


"Atcha!" he said as though it was a final comment on the matter but then added a bit as an afterthought.


"It's chemistry."


I was none the wiser for this - of course I knew what chemistry was. We weren't in the Dark Ages. It's just that I still could not understand how he managed to light a fire that easily. I was skilled enough in my own way when it came to fires but I decided however to leave it at that. Welcome clearly did not intend to discuss the subject further and from the little I did know of him, I knew that he wasn't normally slow to share information that he considered appropriate.


Once the fire had started up one of the sailors produced a small drum from a bag that he was carrying and began to thump out a beat. Another began to play on some kind of pipe. It looked a bit like a flute only it was a bit smaller and was not played in a transverse position. He started up a tune and two more men jumped into the empty space before the fire and began a strange jig of a dance that had all the sense and feeling of a combat. The music started fast but as the two men jumped and swirled, the tempo increased so that after a while they were moving around each other at considerable speed, never touching but ever so close.
The sight of men dancing used to embarrass me but that was before the Fire Dancers. Now it fascinates me in a way that I would not have thought possible. I can't explain it and frankly if I tried it would probably sound weird.


They stopped suddenly and the men watching cheered and clapped, passing round the drink and calling for another dance. Two more men stepped up to the call and began their version of this combat-like dance and so this was repeated time and time again.


We sat there in what seemed like a position of importance and I felt very much like a special guest. For a while we watched in silence, or rather watched and clapped to the beat of the drum until it became too frenetic and we lost it. Then after a while Welcome drew me aside and began to explain a bit about the ceremony earlier that day (although in fact I suspect that by now it was technically yesterday, as it were). Then he went on to say a bit about why he had invited me to it (which I didn't entirely believe) and then to the dinner party that it seemed he had no intention of going to. I felt that I was simply used as a piece in some large fabrication that he had been creating but exactly why was completely lost on me.


"Ok, so what's all this really about then?" I asked.


I couldn't help it. It was so obvious that something was happening that I felt I would appear stupid not to have spotted it, even if I didn't actually grasp what it was.


I wondered if I had offended him by the question because, for a while, he just looked at me with those intelligent deep eyes of his. For what seemed like an age, his face remained unreadable but then, ever so slowly a smile crept over his face.


"Atcha. Atcha, my friend. Let's get to it then.”


He paused and looked at me for a while, his eyes sparkling with a kind of mischief.

“I’m getting married,” he said.

“Congratulations,” I replied, almost mechanically.

“No, no,” he said. “I’m getting married in the Quarters and I want you to come. I knew that if I asked you straight out, you would have said no, so I thought I’d try a little subterfuge.”

A small smile crept over his face.

“If I’d asked you to come and have a curry with this lot late at night, I am sure that you would have made your excuses or at least said yes and then not turned up. (It’s what I would do!) So, I thought that I’d invite you to a couple of events that you’d probably hate but would be curious enough to go to. That dinner party would have been enough to drive anyone sensible out into the night. Once out, where would you go? Along the quayside of course to listen to the silence broken by the chattering halyards. There you would inevitably see the Cor’moran and ,being a ship from your homeland, it would have drawn you in!”


“Oh,” I said, feeling a bit like a fish on a hook.


I felt a little used and to hide my slight annoyance I responded to the wedding invitation.


“That’s very kind of you but do you think that I would fit in there?”


Quite apart from the out and out annoyance at being played like a trout, I really had no desire to spend another day standing around and looking foolish. Then the old man in my head spoke up and mentioned the clothes.


“Clothes be damned,” I thought.


Yes, there was the issue of what to wear as well but right now it seemed a little excessive to be worrying about such a thing. I hadn’t agreed to go.


“It doesn’t matter,” Welcome replied, adding as an afterthought, “Of course you will, it’s a wedding. Everyone fits in!”


From my experience, that was certainly untrue but before I could protest, he continued.


“I want you to make me a story.”


This was starting to presume to go too far. I was going to say that I had plenty of stories to tell him and that I didn’t need to go to a wedding to do it but once more he stopped me.


“I want a story of my marriage day and all the celebrations around it, as well as the build up to it. I want it seen from your eyes and,” he hesitated just a bit, “and I want it written down.”


“I don’t do that,” I said simply but with a slightly hard edge to it.


“Atcha!” he said as though waving the problem away. It doesn’t matter. You can tell it and I will get one of my people to write it down as you speak it.”


I looked at him, vaguely aware that there was talking going on around us and there was the sound of music somewhere beyond our own immediate conversation.


“Well,” he asked impatiently, “what do you think?”


I looked at him for a while as the discussions carried on in my head. He looked young and keen and eager. Part of me didn’t want to let him down. That will be the boy. Another part of me said that I didn’t do that and the idea of a tale about a wedding was a nonsense. He could sometimes be a callous bastard, that old man in my head.


“She must be a special person for you to want to do this.”


I said this to avoid giving an answer immediately because as I stood right now the answer was negative and I didn’t really want to let him down like that. At least not right now. I don’t really know why it mattered so much to me as I hardly knew the man but somehow it did.


“She is, my friend,” he replied. “She is my sun and my stars! She has the most wonderful rich dark hair that tumbles down to her...”


I switched off a bit here because I didn’t want to hear about this girl’s breasts. I also recalled hearing something similar about his previous wife who, according to his tale, had died so tragically.

When I came back into focus, he was watching me carefully. Actually, I would be tempted to say that he was watching me eagerly. He looked for a few moments like a child who has made that opportunistic request after spending hours, if not days, working up to the fact.


“I’m not sure that I could do justice to the event,” I offered.


It was an excuse and sadly it was not a good one.


“Added to that I am a Collector. I don’t tend to make up my own from scratch,” I tried to explain to Welcome’s eager and pleading face.


“Yes yes...” he dismissed the excuses as they poured from my lips and, as I finished speaking he said, “So that is a ‘yes’ then?”


I began to wonder if the conversation that we had had was actually different from the one that I thought that I had. I looked hard at him with every intention of saying a resounding ‘No’ but it was the eyes. My answer was a resounding ‘Yes’.


“Ye was!” he shouted in triumph in Brutaspeke.


Around our encampment, for although it was a public place in the city, that is what it looked like right now, faces looked up.


“Appen ‘es a comin!” Welcome shouted out once more and seemingly unable to contain himself he jumped up and punched the air.


I’m not sure if anyone around us really cared about the issue. There were a few nods of recognition or acceptance or whatever but generally people got back to their own matters.


“Thank you, my friend,” said Welcome as he pumped my hand vigorously. “It will be good! I will pay you well.”


“No,” I said and immediately regretted it, “I will not take payment for this. “It will be my wedding present.”


What rush of blood to the head made me say that? Perhaps it was the because I already had the Pardoner’s gold in my sack or perhaps it was the fact that I was strangely fond of this young man. I have no idea. It was foolish, I know.


“Atcha,!” he said, “You are very kind.”


The moment was gone. I had just better make sure that I didn’t let my wife find out that I had turned down a commission.


“We sail on the next tide.”


The words were so far away from my thoughts about all this that I didn’t register what Welcome had said. In fact, it took quite a long time indeed for the words to reach any available processing function in my head. Eventually however, they did.


I must have looked slightly put out. Well, actually, I was slightly put out.


I knew that Welcome was watching me.


“That is why I wanted you here tonight, before we sail."


Welcome said this with a hint of finality and I guess that he was right. The job was done. The only problem was the ‘before we sail’ bit.


“Sorry,” I asked, “what do you mean, before we sail?”


Without any hesitation, he replied.


“My boat heads for the Quarters on the morning tide. That’ll be a bit after sunrise at a guess although I am not the expert on these things. I leave most of that to Marfus.”


He grinned but I have to say that he looked a little green at the very thought of sailing.


“I’m not looking forward to it though, we Ruardean make terrible sailors. It’s the sea-sickness...”


You know, he almost belched when he said the word. It put me off guard and my growing annoyance was temporarily suspended whilst a little hint of sympathy came creeping in at the sides. Well, one has to sympathise with a man who becomes the Master of a boat when he knows that he cannot balance the sea itself with the contents of his stomach.


I stared absently at the fire for a while and tried to mull over the change in plans that were obviously underway. It wasn’t the sea voyage that worried me despite the fact that I wasn’t particularly at home on a moving surface. My biggest concerns were about my pack and my lodgings. The thought of heading off to the islands with only my day sack was a serious matter. The lodgings, I guess, would look after themselves.
As I watched the flames dance in front of me and listened to the now subdued conversations that were taking place in the background, I decided that I needed to raise this matter with Welcome. He seemed lost in his own thoughts as I turned to him but that was no excuse. It wasn’t my fault that he had more or less abducted me and was planning my next journey for me.


It took a couple of attempts to make contact with him but eventually he zoned in and smiled.


“Atcha,” he said before I could speak. “I have that in hand. Scytrek has gone to your lodgings and he will be back before we sail with your pack.”


The pleasure that came from the thought of being reunited with my pack was replaced fairly quickly with the obvious concern about how he was going to get in and then, with true paranoia running riot, I started to worry about whether he would secure the place on leaving. The thought of returning at some future time to my rooms filled with the wretched cats that stood guard in the hallway outside, not to mention their collective progeny over the as yet unknown time period, was not comforting. The rooms didn't even belong to me, they were a short tenancy.


“How will he manage this?” I asked rather testily.


I couldn’t help myself. All the apparent subterfuge was beginning to take its toll and tiredness was also becoming a part of the equation.


“Don’t worry,” he replied, “he’ll sort it all right. He’s a good man. Resourceful.”


He paused and then after a second or two he called to one of the men who had been sitting talking to the Ruardeans on the other side of the fire.