Page 24 of Fortune's Blade

It was hot, to the point that sweat was rolling down my face to match the ogre’s by the time I made it to the front of the queue. And then abruptly remembered that I had no money. The vendor looked at me expectantly, and I looked hungrily back, trying to think how to explain that no, I didn’t want any when I was practically drooling.

“One of each,” Ray said, coming up alongside. And then I guessed he repeated it in the merchant’s cant of the marketplace, because the cleaver started flying once more.

“We have no money,” I reminded him in a whisper, in case anyone spoke English.

“Babe, we got all the money,” Ray said, and flashed me a view of the moneybag which the guard from our old tent had been filling with coins all morning.

“When did you get that?” I asked, surprised.

“When he was distracted with you. I picked his pocket right before I hit him over the head.” He thought for a minute. “I knew you could handle yourself. I woulda been there for you otherwise, even if it meant losing the money.”

Considering how much Ray liked money, that was a high compliment. I smiled at him as the ogre handed over a tray full of meat. “You did very well.”

He grinned. “Yeah. Let’s go have some fun.”

And fun was had.

While I wandered after him, eating the largest part of an unknown beast, and then letting a couple of stray dogs lick the remains off the thin wooden slats of the tray, Ray spent lavishly. He bought me a necklace of varicolored beads of amber that were as big as the end of my thumb and reached almost to my waist. I liked the green ones best, which looked like the color of spring leaves in the forest. The light sparkled through them, showing off all the little flecks and glints, like the dappled sunlight on the forest floor.

He also bought me a thigh-length, fuzzy, poncho-type garment in a hue that almost matched the green of the beads. It was light enough to be comfortable on a warm spring day but would also be cozy at night when the temperature dropped. It had a swishy bottom with a fringe, and I kept walking funny to make it shimmer causing Ray to laugh and draw me farther into the crowd.

He added a pair of sturdy trousers and several tunics to my growing wardrobe, along with a bright blue set for himself that almost matched his eyes. He also purchased a sturdy leather backpack for both of us, and finished off by negotiating for some boots. But he made me choose my own pair.

I stood there for a moment in front of the little craftsman’s booth staring at a wall of leather. There were so many! And size didn’t narrow the selection down as it would have on Earth, as a quick spell would fit any to my feet.

“Take your time,” Ray said meaningfully, as he was using our shopping trip to chat with the vendors, trying to find out where in the massive market Marlowe might have been taken.

That wasn’t going so well, as all anyone could talk about was the upcoming fights, where the Queen’s champion would take on all comers, including someone called The Punisher. From what I understood, the new queen was quite bloodthirsty and her champion even more so, giving the challenger little chance. But that only pushed up the odds, providing an opportunity for real profit should the underdog come out ahead.

It also made everyone even less likely to discuss the fate of a rather battered, ill-tempered, and smelly senator than they might otherwise have been.

Still, I did need boots, as the soft soled, slipper-type things that Ray had acquired for me from our companions on the road were inadequate to trekking about the countryside. I appreciated them, nonetheless, as he had traded an afternoon of hard labor around camp for them. But it seemed that they had been meant as a stop gap.

Leaving me staring at a wall of gradated colors, everything from earth to jewel tones and from plain to highly ornamented.

“The red’s nice,” Ray suggested after a moment, and I obediently reached for them. “Of course, so’s the blue. That tooling is well-done. And then there’s the brown; it goes with everything, don’t you think?”

I shot him a glance; I knew what he was doing. “I like the black,” I said, reaching for a pair of plain, serviceable looking items with reinforced toes. I would have preferred steel, but these were not combat boots. Yet they were good, thick leather and would probably—

I paused, my eyes landing on a light gray, suede pair with green embossing up the sides in vine-like swirls.

A closer look showed that only the vines were embossed. The leaves were different shades of green leather that had been inlaid into the surrounding suede and then sewn in such a way as to suggest veins. They were also painted overtop to make them even more life-like.

My forehead wrinkled.

The boots had soft sides that wouldn’t protect the calves, slouchy tops that would get caught on everything, and the velvety suede would get dirty quickly. Not to mention the excessive amount of ornamentation, which would only draw attention to us. They were dress up boots, the kinds of things you wore to a festival when you wanted to impress.

They were not practical.

I found myself reaching for them anyway, and running my fingers over the supple leather.

I had never chosen my own clothes before. Not even something as simple as a pair of boots. I wore what Dory wore; my taste was her taste. And her taste would have led me to the sensible black pair. They would wear better, be harder to see at night, and the plain sole would leave few prints behind, and those would tell a tracker little, being difficult to distinguish from everyone else’s.

This pair had a design incised into the sole, a ridiculous thing that had no purpose except to leave happy little leaf prints wherever you stepped.

Dory would laugh at the very idea, and rightly so. No one in their right minds would consider them, not in a position like ours. I needed to get the black.

So why did I find myself slipping on the gray instead?

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