The Seven Markets Read Online Free

of her wished he would but the day was beginning to stride away on long legs and she was well past due home. She adjusted the strap of her shopping bag and started walking, only checking occasionally to make sure he wasn’t sneaking up on her from behind.
    She walked, and as she was approaching the borders of her family’s land, Ellie became aware of something approaching.
    Her first thought was that Joshua had somehow gotten past her by cutting across the open land and was now coming upon her from the wrong direction. This made her smile and feel quite warm inside. As the object grew closer she was able to make out details, and hear noises, and she observed that it was not Joshua coming to surprise her.
    It was a wagon.
    Iron wheels rattled and groaned as they turned over the uneven road. Ellie could hear the tinkling of bottles brushing against one another and the clatter of what she guessed to be pots and pans whenever a wheel found a divot to fall into or a large rock to crash over. Whoever loaded the wagon, she thought, had done a poor job.
    It moved faster than it looked, closing the distance between them with haste. When it was near enough she could hail the driver, Ellie stopped. She raised her hand and called out.
    “Hello!”
    “Hail,” the driver said, easing to a stop before her. “Is this the village of Oberton?”
    “It is, sir,” Ellie said. “Where are you bound from?”
    “Oh far, quite far, my lady. May I ask you, is it Midsummer yet?”
    Ellie told the man, who was short and stout with a great, red beard, that Midsummer was yet two days distant.
    “Bugger,” he said. “One day, I tell you, one day.”
    “Sir?”
    He shook his head, and Ellie could see the shape of a smile forming beneath his nest of facial hair.
    “I’m early, of course. Always early, or late, but never on time. I swear, I don’t know what it is with me. You, you live here, don’t you?”
    “Yessir,” Ellie said.
    “Has word come yet of the Market?”
    “Yesterday,” she said. “Three days’ warning, just like in the stories.”
    He snorted. It was almost a laugh.
    “In the stories. Of course ‘just like in the stories.’ Why wouldn’t it be? Where d’you think the stories is from, after all? That’s jolly, it is.”
    “Sir?”
    He shook his head again, as if trying to force all the contents into their proper locations. “Apologies, my lady, it’s been a long journey. Your village is lovely, I’m sure, but hardly convenient for traveling. Probably for best my flubbing the dates, now that I reflect upon it. Better late than never, they say. I say early beats them all.”
    She couldn’t think of anything to say better than “yessir,” so she nodded, hoping that would be sufficient.
    “Can I ask you,” he said, tying off the mules’ reins and stretching, first his arms and then, standing, his legs. He twisted his back and cracked his neck and leapt down to join her on the ground.
    Standing fully upright, the bearded man barely came to Ellie’s waist.
    “Always a bit pesky, sorting out what’s appropriate, what I can show and what needs be held back. Don’t suppose I could enlist your aid for the briefest of moments, could I? Make it worth your while, I will.”
    “It would be my pleasure,” Ellie said, glad for something different to say, unsure of what she’d just agreed to.
    He rounded the wagon, opened several latches, and threw up a panel on the side so they could peer inside. As Ellie watched, he dove in and rummaged around. He came up with a long-handled shovel with a dark iron face.
    “Y’got these, do you?” he said.
    “Pardon?”
    “These, er, shovels, eh? Y’got ’em?”
    “Do we have . . . shovels?” Ellie said, considering. “Yes, we have shovels.”
    “About this size? All done up like?”
    She reached for the shovel and turned it over in her hand. Papa and Tom Johnson, the hired man, did most of the manual labor around the farm. Ellie had handled a shovel before. For all