04
Two more days then Clarence would be able to Jump with Beatrix. As long as he didn't drink so much he gave himself a hangover, or fought so much he ended up wounded, he could get them out of the forest. With any luck, he would be back in time to track down Jacko. Then he'd show him how to conduct a successful stabbing. That bastard, wounding him and leaving him for dead in a hostile alien world. He'd get what he deserved.
In the meantime, the outlaws needed a fiddle player, and Clarence would give them what they wanted. He sat next to Beatrix on the back of the cart as it threw up clouds of dust. The road deteriorated as the tree roots jutted. The light shone down through the shade in shafts of mottled green to illuminate the track. Birds were singing, and the air was cooler under the trees than it had been in the grassland. Considering the danger, his surroundings were all too pleasant, almost mocking.
"What's going on?" Beatrix asked. She spoke so quietly that he wasn't sure at first she had said anything.
"Outlaws. Don't worry."
Her mouth turned up as she gave him a nervous smile, but even smiling seemed to be an effort for her now and she was sweating and shaking at the same time.
"Is the cut bad?"
In response, she lifted her top and a stench of fish rot and old meat turned his stomach. "How's it got like that?"
"I think the cloth I used to pad it was dirty. The brandy helped, but we drank it all."
On the driver's seat of the cart, James laughed under his breath and Clarence realised that a Lord may well have learned dead languages. He leant in closer, pretending to pay closer attention to her wound, "Remember my name is Ren."
She nodded to show she had heard him, "Ren, can you ask them if they have a Doctor who can help me?"
"They won't help you without expecting something from you," Clarence told her. "Don't ask them."
"What can I do then?"
"Keep it clean. Maybe stitch it up?" Clarence shrugged, it wasn't his field. Beatrix tutted in frustration and lay down. In moments, she had drifted back into a feverish sleep.
"She's getting worse," Clarence told James in Joining Earth Standard. "She's got a fever. If you can heal her, I'll stay here with her to pay you back. I'll play for you and your men, I'll pull my weight. She will too, you know, she's resourceful."
James didn't look round, but he was chuckling as the cart bounced along a narrow path through the forest. After what seemed an eternity, Clarence heard voices and smelled roasting meat before the cart rounded a thicket and came to a halt. Around him was a circle of the forest where the ground was cleared. Rope ladders crossed between trees, and little shelters wound their way up into the canopies. There was an industrious air to the camp which housed both outlaws and their families.
On the ground in the centre of the trees, the little community were preparing for what looked to be a feast. There were large fat hogs roasting on spits and the older wives were brewing soup and baking many things for a feast. Tables were being set up on the ground and in the canopy, a girl swung out from one tree on a rope and attached lanterns to the underside of the shelter floors.
"Is it the summer solstice?" Clarence asked. "We're midway through the year already?"
"Where have you been?" James asked. "It is. But it's so much more than a mid-year celebration. It marks the day we found sanctuary in this forest. We're expecting a special guest."
Clarence smiled, "I know some fine tunes."
"I'll not have anything pro-Council here though Ren."
"That's good because I'd rather cut off my fingers than play 'March to the Light.' I'm a Humanist, James."
The Outlaw smiled at him, a genuine smile this time that didn't have any calculation behind it. "Glad to hear it," he said. "Come get your fiddle." James led Clarence to an old hollow tree; in the empty centre they had set a staircase that wound up the trunk and they followed this up to the treehouse. As Clarence's eyes adjusted to the gloom, he saw they stacked the walls with weapons. They packed any space not taken up by blades with gold jewellery and stolen trinkets. "Here it is!" James exclaimed as he lifted a bundle from a box. Clarence took the fiddle with apprehension, wondering what state the instrument would be in. To his delight, it wasn't bad at all. Clarence tested the strings whilst James watched him as if trying to decide how much of a fraud he was.
"This will do," Clarence smiled. "Just tell me when."
~
By nightfall, Beatrix was shaking and burning up so much that he wasn't sure she would make it to the morning. James agreed to put her into a treehouse with a bed and he asked a woman called Laura to monitor her and clean her wound. Since Clarence had declared himself a Humanist the Outlaws' behaviour towards him changed, and when he launched into some well-known anti-Council songs, they lost their hostility.
"And the Humans shall have their day," followed by "Melt the Golden throne of the Leprechaun High King" and his personal favourite "When The Windlord Sharted." The Outlaws enjoyed themselves so much that they broke a table from dancing on it, and many joined in to add accompaniment to Clarence's playing.
He took a break around midnight, when James addressed his people, speaking in Gaelic and droning on and on about their struggles and hardship, brotherhood, their fine company, the forest's many blessings and more and more besides. He zoned out, drank strong home brew from a wooden cup and rested his hands for the next round of play, but as he rested he saw the girl, Laura, climb down from the treehouse and make her way over to him.
"She's confused," Laura told him. "She's saying odd things."
Clarence became very sober. "What?"
"She keeps asking for Clarence O'Leary, but I told her not to be stupid- he's the-"
"She's been through a lot."
"She said she wanted to go home, that he had to take her back so she could die."
"That makes no sense."
Laura threw her hands up in agreement. "You should go up, it might help."
"If I leave James' party, he might kill me."
Laura bristled, "He won't," she said. "Not tonight, it would be terrible luck. Come, we have a little time."
So Clarence followed her to the treehouse, and he walked up a wooden ramp to a balcony running around the outside of a single room where Beatrix lay sprawled on the bed. Her wound had reopened, and there was blood everywhere. She'd been thrashing around, scratching at herself, and her eyes were rolling. He moved to her side and took her hands; they were clammy and cold.
"Take me back," she whispered.
"Light," Clarence swore. "Laura?"
"Yes?" Laura had been hovering outside, looking between the treehouse and the party with a nervous expression. It was like she was late for something or waiting to see somebody she didn't want to see. Clarence didn't pay her odd expression or the way she shuffled from one foot to the other any mind. He focused on Beatrix.
"I need boiling water, alcohol, a needle and thread and clean rags." What else had Beatrix said when she cleaned her cut the last time? Heat and alcohol kill 'Germs,' whatever they are. It sounded like a load of nonsense, but he supposed Humans would know how to heal Humans. Laura hesitated.
"It's the Solstice," she told him. "It's nearly midnight."
"You want to go drink and party?" he seethed. "James told you to-"
"No," Laura backed away, but it was fear he saw, not desire for fun. "I just have little time to help-unless-" She bit her top lip and looked over her shoulder. "Maybe-" she turned and ran.
Clarence let out a frustrated sigh and checked the wound again. He took off the useless bandages and left it open to the air. The wound stunk and now he looked at it; the cut was down to her hipbone and he could see it amongst the gore. "Light!" he whispered. "Bea I didn't realise it was that bad."
She didn't hear him; she was bordering on unconscious, but shouting outside drew his attention and stomping footsteps came into the treehouse.
"-I can't bargain one for the other," James said. "She's made her mind up Laura and we don't have a say."
"It's done," Laura spat. "I found her first and asked her, It's done and I won't take it back."
Clarence looked up at them, "What's going on?" he asked.
"Clarence O'Leary?" James spat. "I should have seen it as soon as I saw you."
Clarence rolled his eyes. "Don't be stupid."
But something had changed. There was a panic in James that had not been there before and Clarence didn't think it was just his name that had done it.
"You need to leave. Now."
"Give me back my cart and horse and we'll-"
"Not 'we'- you."
So James wanted to keep Beatrix to blackmail him? Perhaps he had figured that despite her backstory if Clarence O'Leary had a girl in trouble travelling with him, that alone would be enough to force his hand. "I don't have any money and I don't have any connections. I'm as much an outlaw as you," he said, though he couldn't square his assumption with Laura's actions. What had he missed?
James didn't seem to be listening. He wrung his hands and looked over his shoulder. Laura stood with her arms crossed and her lips drawn tight.
"Don't look at me like that," Laura snapped. "It's not my choice, James. I don't want to be like her," Clarence thought Laura was talking about Beatrix until she pointed out the door.
"Aye!" James shouted at her, "You've made that clear and all! Clarence, you need to leave now-"
Beyond the shouting came the click of wood on wood, at first faint, but soon it was the only sound. It drowned out the shouting and Clarence watched James curse and Laura shrink back into the corners of the room as a little old woman came in. She was blind, her white eyes rolling in their sockets. She dressed in what appeared to be a thick coat of lichen. Clarence saw a millipede crawl across her shoulder. His magical senses tingled as if he were looking at something made from so much magic it might explode. He did not understand what the woman was. Everything about her felt wrong, dangerous, but not out of place. It was as if he were looking at the power of a forest.
"Interesting," the woman muttered, her hand held out as if it were her eyes and she took steps towards Beatrix whilst humming to herself. Her thin fingers found Beatrix's top and probed the wound, and she shook her sleeve until maggots fell out to feast on her flesh.
"Excuse me," Clarence asked. "What's interesting?"
She padded the wound with moss, and then her dead eyes flicked to him, sniffing the air. Her expression turned sour. "You smell like an abomination" she croaked and sniffed again. "And yet-" she fell quiet again and hummed under her breath. "Yes, a half-breed. Humm."
"My Lady of the Forest," James whispered, collapsing onto one knee. "This was not Laura's bargain to make. This girl is not one of us, we can't give what we do not own. Laura knows that she belongs to you, not this girl."
Laura let out a frustrated whimper, but she was too frightened to protest.
Clarence's mouth was dry, between the maggots writhing in Beatrix's cut and the realisation that Laura had made some kind of bargain with this woman he wanted to jump up and start kicking until he got answers.
"You are right," the old woman told him. "She does not have the power to choose who I take."
Laura's face grew long and pale.
"It is ordained by the flow, as are all things. How like Humans to forget the powers that bind them. How petulant."
"We live only to serve this forest," James said. "You bless us by allowing our harbour. You honour us by choosing Laura as your protege."
Something clicked, like one of Beatrix's Ell-eck-trisitee switches, and fear followed.
"You would do well, Fallen Lord of the Giant Isles, to remember it. Do not fear for Laura, she will learn soon enough to remember it too."
"No!" Laura cried. "Take her!" she jabbed her finger in Beatrix's direction.
"She is already taken," The old woman laughed. "And that which is spoken for can't be repurposed. You, however-" the woman chuckled. "Come here."
Laura cried. She looked towards James as if her life depended on it, but he kept to the shadows with his head bowed. The woman reached out to Laura, and the girl moved towards her as if she were being pulled by an invisible cord. "I think perhaps a spell as something insignificant will teach you humility." When the old woman touched Laura, she turned into a mouse with a 'pop' and was dropped into a pocket in the folds of the old woman's clothes.
"So James," The woman turned, "you restored the balance so your tithe is paid." She motioned to Beatrix, "This girl must continue from this place. It is not her time to settle, and the rotten stench of her guard must leave with her. I will not have his kind infecting my forest."
James locked them into the treehouse once the woman left, so Clarence spent the night monitoring Beatrix while he thought over and over about what had happened. In the morning, Beatrix's fever broke. The moss and the maggots had helped, though Clarence wasn't sure what. When she finally woke up she hissed with pain, "I had the strangest dreams," she gasped. "Some old woman-"
Clarence interrupted her by pointing.
"Oh, that is disgusting-did you do it?"
He told her no. "The old woman did, but she can't be what I think she is- not this close to the Council."
"You're not making sense. Did they hate your playing?"
"Nobody hates my playing. I'm superb." That was a matter of fact, but it made Beatrix laugh. It was a marvel she could in a time like this.
"I feel better," she told him. "I don't know why."
"I think she was a Wytch," Clarence mused. "But she can't be. They are practically extinct."
Beatrix was looking at him, "don't make me say it."
"They are Old Magic, the kind that ruled five thousand years ago, before the Council of the Light. They attached to places where natural magic is abundant and they are powerful, but the Council cull them. They don't like Old Magic and they don't like the creatures that are controlled by it. That's the problem, Old Magic plays games. The Council of the Light is not bound by Old Magic."
"I think I remember her sniffing you?"
"She called me an abomination. The reason she didn't kill me right there and then was my mother's Elemental blood." He paused and saw her face again, "Elementals draw power from their surroundings, very similar to old magic. Before the Council took control, it used Elementals as slaves. Leprechauns create their own magic-and in the eyes of the Wytch that makes us abominable."
There was a knock at their treehouse door and James undid the lock and looked in on them. "We've packed your horse but we're keeping the cart."
"Fine."
"You need to leave before the midday sun."
"Or what, she will turn us to stone?"
"If you're lucky." James' lips tightened, "I heard you live in Ireland? Is it true what they say about you?"
It was a relief that Beatrix couldn't understand James. "They say a lot about me," he said. "Make up your own mind."
"I've got a mind to keep your girl, perhaps you might help us deal with our problem to keep us silent about her."
"Your problem would slaughter your entire community before help arrived. You heard the Wytch James- she's got a unique path."
"That's bullshit, there's no such thing as fate. If they are so good at predicting the future, why didn't they see their own extinction?"
Clarence had to agree, but something told him James didn't quite believe his own words. "Then I'll leave her with you and we shall see," he laughed. He wasn't sure that he was bluffing.
James opened the door wider, "Not a risk I want to take. The entire community agrees you must leave. With her."
Beatrix looked up at Clarence with enormous eyes. She hadn't understood the conversation as they spoke, Joining Earth Standard. "Are they going to kill us now?" She didn't seem too bothered. "Can you ask them to make it quick?"
"They will not kill us."
She blinked and scratched a hand behind her neck, "Then can you ask them if we can have some clean clothing? I'm covered in my blood again."
"Do you have any clothes for-"
James shook his head, "don't push it, you're lucky to be leaving here at all."
~
The journey out of the forest took them until mid-afternoon. With both Clarence and Beatrix sitting on its back, the horse was making around three miles a bell. Beatrix sat behind Clarence, but she said very little. Unless Clarence made conversation, she just sat watching the miles roll into each other. Her silence was uncomfortable. Usually, the women he met fell over themselves to impress him. It was both refreshing and disconcerting to meet one who was unimpressed. As they rode into the sunset, he had enough.
"Why aren't you more interested in magic?" he demanded. "Why aren't you asking questions?"
"I could ask the same," Beatrix said. He had asked very little about Earth.
"I don't think I'd like the answers," he told her. "There were materials I did not understand being used to craft objects that had no meaning to me. Humans shot something into my skin that made me collapse onto the floor immobilised. I couldn't see the grass or the sky or the sun. Everything was dead. I'm a Humanist, I've always believed Humans should be equal to the magical community, that their progress and their ingenuity should not be curtailed as it is now, but what your civilisation did-" He shivered despite the heat. "No, I don't want to know about your world. I don't want to understand it. It has no place here. It goes against everything I believed."
Behind him, Beatrix was silent. He turned to look at her expecting her to be lost in thought or frowning as she pondered the weight of his words but she was smiling; she looked relieved and leaned back, letting the sunlight fall on her face and neck as if she were bathing in it.
"So?" his voice softened as he studied her radiance. "Why aren't you more interested in Magic?"
"It's not that impressive, is it?" she sighed. "I don't think it will touch my life much if you are a Humanist and ninety percent of the population is Human. I'm more interested in looking up at the sky. It's so blue."
Clarence shook his head and turned away from her. She was full of surprises but he still couldn't tell what was masking and what was truthfulness.
"Why did you come to my world?"
"Honestly?" Clarence asked. "I thought it would be fun. Jacko said it was a world of Humans that had lived without magic for nearly three thousand years and I thought it would be some kind of utopia of civilised, peaceful, enlightened people." Even saying it sounded stupid. "But he stabbed me before he pushed me through the portal and I'm sure he did it because he didn't want me Jumping back- he knew exactly how your people would react to me."
"Sorry to disappoint." Beatrix sniffed.
"I guess if you can create light at the flick of a switch and an explosion powerful enough to wipe out a city, being able to start a fire with your mind is pathetic."
"We didn't have magic, but we knew about it. Our stories are littered with Witches, Elves, Leprechauns and Goblins. This isn't that different, so far it's just like the story books. With actual pain."
Clarence steered the horse off the road and tethered him to a tree, then he prepared a camp for the night. Beatrix tried to help but her cut was still giving her pain and when she lifted a saddlebag from the horse her side opened up and bled again. She tried to keep the wound closed and clean but spent most of the evening swearing.
The outlaws had packed nuts and berries, dried mushrooms, bread and meat. Beatrix grumbled about having to sleep outside, but she fell asleep quicker than Clarence managed. He watched the stars and considered how lucky he was to have made it back alive.
In the morning it was raining. None of their clothing was water-resistant and Clarence's cloak dripped onto their heads as they slept with it stretched out and tied with a string above them. Clarence woke up expecting Beatrix to be up already, but she looked terrible again. Her fever had come back in the night, her eyes were bloodshot and her skin was clammy. Clarence swore and packed away the camp.
"Can you ride?" He asked. She nodded as if in a daze and he took the cloak shelter down and wrapped it around her shoulders before he helped her up onto the horse. She sat in front this time and he climbed up behind her so he could stop her from falling. They rode through the morning, pushing the horse until it was half-mad with exhaustion. By the afternoon, they had reached the coast and Beatrix lost consciousness.
Clarence came down the hill and rode the horse onto the main road. They crossed over the Goodly River then Gelding Town, alive with people, enveloped them. It took longer than he would have liked to force his way through the winding streets of the town. The smell of fish from the markets wafted into his nostrils, reminding him of the ammonia stench of her infection. He couldn't stand her dying in his care. The questions that would be asked and the trouble it would bring him was immeasurable. He spurred the horse on, not caring who had to run to get out of his way. He came to the Flying Dutchman and turned down a side road that went to the stables at the rear. He tied the horse to a post and carried Beatrix through the back door, and a few moments later left for the physician who had his lodgings next door.
It was gloomy inside the tavern; there were a few drinkers and a handful of people eating when he entered with the physician, but they paid him no mind. Mr Smith was a portly man. He brimmed over with his own self-importance. Clarence fancied that he would fall over if he leaned back anymore. Yet he was the only one with Mender's magic in Gelding Town. There were plenty of doctors, but they were Human, and most of them would kill you before they cured you. If Beatrix had a chance of survival, Clarence would have to put up with him. Smith was taking far too long about his business and Clarence grew impatient as he tried to hurry him.
"So where's this filly then?" Smith bumbled, squinting at Clarence and sticking his bottom lip out in an accusing frown. "What did you do to her?"
"Upstairs, it's the room with the door left open. We put her away from prying eyes," Clarence replied, but the physician's face changed at the mention of stairs. Great outrage flashed across his ruddy features.
"Stairs? Is that what you said? It is a sad day when clients wish for a man of my esteem to walk up a flight of stairs like any common person. On an empty stomach too! You will bring her down and supply me with your best ale and food, this indignity is frightful improper." Smith waited for Clarence to jump to, but then caught sight of his snarl and decided that the stairs would be a better option. "Well! Here I go," he muttered, "And if I fall dead, be it on your head. This town shall sorely miss me."
He made a pantomime of the entire affair, grunting in the effort, clutching on to the bannister as if it were all that stood between him and a plunge into fiery depths of the planet's core. He paused at the top and shouted down, "There now," and made a show of mopping his brow. "I'm up, I don't know how you expect me to get down again. Perhaps I shall slide." The physician gave an elaborate wave of his hand, then spun round to flounce off the direction of Clarence's open door.
Mr Smith pushed past Fred, who had helped to carry Beatrix into Clarences bedroom. At first, he ignored Beatrix and looked around at the shabby, tobacco-stained walls. His eyes rested on brown sack curtains hanging over the window. Clarence came rushing into the room just as he was about to pull them.
"Don't!"
The warning came too late; the curtains came straight off in the physician's hand. Clarence and Fred looked at each other in despair.
"Well, I never!" Smith said and went to open the window shutters, which he pushed with such force that the entire thing broke in his hands and fell onto the street below, just missing a man carrying bread.
"Well I never," he repeated, turning to face his audience. "Gentleman, I shall examine my charge."
Smith wet his lips with the tip of his tongue and looked over at Beatrix with hunger in his eyes. He pulled up her top to expose the wound and stuck his finger in the cut. It squelched.
"Right through to the bone!" he cooed. "Bloody lucky to survive this long. Get out, you fellows, let me work."
As soon as the door closed behind Smith, Fred pushed Clarence into the wall outside, "You idiot!" he hissed. "If she is from where I think she's from you can open a portal and send her right back!"
"I can't," Clarence pushed him off and descended the stairs, he said nothing more to Fred until they were in the kitchen and Clarence slumped onto a stool and his head sunk into his arms.
"Well?" Fred demanded, "What's your excuse?"
"Her world has gone," Clarence didn't lift his head from his arms.
"Gone? I'm illiterate Clarence but I'm not stupid, worlds don't just 'go.'"
"They destroyed it. They killed it. I didn't intend to bring her back home with me. Light! a few seconds more and I wouldn't have made it back either. She got knocked through my portal after me and no Fred, I will not send her back to die."
"Sure about that? Why don't you send Smith away? Let nature run its course."
"Would you?" Clarence asked, his head came up. Fred's eyes were glinting, his teeth grinding so much his beard wobbled. When he locked eyes with his landlord Fred dropped his.
"I can't say I would," he muttered. "But then, I'm not-"
"Fred, she doesn't speak our language and I know- I know- you can't afford to employ her, or feed her or keep her at all, but I can."
Fred seemed unsure of his own emotions. Twice he made to speak before he managed it, and when he did, his voice sounded strained. "I was this close to shutting up the tavern and running," he hissed. "When you didn't come back, I tried to confront Jacko, but he's scarpered and he slashed the portal painting up. You didn't consider for a moment that he might have wanted to do you harm? That he didn't like you being here or approaching him. You think you can win a few fights without magic and people will think you are one of them? If you want that, go to the Fringe." Fred took a step back, his eyes widened in shock as he realised the gravity of what he had just said. Clarence was silent for a long time. What was he feeling? Shock, fear, anger, a deep feeling of shame, it all felt the same.
"I was a fool. It won't happen again." He said it with such sincerity that Fred dropped his crossed arms and took a seat.
"They came too. Asking why you hadn't been seen in a few days. I told them you'd slipped off to Cork. What happened? Tell me everything."
Clarence did as bid, but he missed out a lot. He didn't want Fred to imagine the things he had seen. He told him he had seen dreadful things, things that made no sense, and were best left forgotten. "I'm not sure what to do about the horse," Clarence concluded.
"The brewer Dan would have it. He's got a mate who deals with that kind of thing."
"Then I'll run it over if you think he'll buy."
Dishevelled, soaking and travel sore, the ride to the brewers was uncomfortable, but it meant much needed time alone. Clarence swung from self-loathing to crippling fear, and onwards to self-soothing denial. As long as people thought she was here for Fred the heat would be off of him. He'd collaborate Fred's lies and say he'd gone to Cork to collect her and they were robbed on the way back. She had come from the Fringe, and Fred's grandparents had sailed together. It was easy to explain everything odd about her with a story like that. He just needed to pick a Fringe World- one the Council wouldn't be too interested in if anybody reported her.
The Brewer kept two guards stationed at his yard doors. Both had long daggers strapped to their waist and padded leather and chain mail outfits. It always made Clarence laugh when he considered what Dan was doing, he was so unsubtle about it. The guards recognised Clarence and nodded to him as he pulled up next to them.
"You look like shit," one of them said. Clarence looked down at his coarse peasant clothing, spotted with blood and soaked through from the rain.
"I feel worse."
They let him pass; it was a testament to their lives they didn't make more of a comment, or even seem too shocked at his presentation.
He got down from the horse and led it to the stables, then he made his way into the brewery. Dan was doing something with hops, Clarence did not understand how to make beer on any scale, but he liked the smell and he never complained about drinking it. When the Brewer saw Clarence he laughed.
"Light! Look at you," his ruddy face cracked into a wide yellow-toothed grin. "Thought you'd gone somewhere?"
"I did. Then I came back," Clarence stuck his hands in his pockets. "You busy Dan?"
"As ever," he sighed, but it was clear he could speak, he nodded towards the back of the room, "Come on." They passed between oak barrels larger than a man and through a small door into a back room where several smaller barrels were stacked. Dan eased himself down onto one of them and motioned for Clarence to do the same.
"Something tells me you're not here to order more beer for the Dutchman? Fred would have come himself."
"I've got something I need to get rid of."
"Yeah?" Dan cracked into a grin again. "You can't get rid of your name."
Clarence frowned at him, "That's not-" he motioned to the door. "Got a stolen horse."
"It branded?"
"To a farm, about four days' ride from here, yes."
Dan scratched the side of his mouth, "good horse?"
"Carthorse. It's a chestnut, it's friendly, it doesn't complain and I've ridden hard."
"Who saw you ride it here?"
"It was raining Dan, I don't know, but we weren't followed, and whoever comes after won't come the way we did. Not through the forest anyway. What do you think?"
"I've got a guy- yeah. All right, show me."
They went into the stables together and Clarence watched as Dan looked it over, checked its teeth and its hooves. "You've ridden this thing half to death."
"Got robbed, had to do the same to get back here. Fred sent me to pick up a girl."
Dan laughed, "Fred did? Well, that's a thing. Finally gave up on romance and bought a wife then?"
"Not like that," Clarence shrugged. "His great grandfather served on the same ship as hers, she's been at the Fringe and she's come over to find better work."
"In Gelding Town?" Dan didn't seem too convinced. "The stuff those fringe people believe amazes me. Like they think we piss gold and pave our streets in diamonds."
"She doesn't even speak Joining Earth Standard," Clarence told him, his story going remarkably well. "I can just about communicate with her."
"Yeah? Fred told me you're good with the tongues. Over twenty languages, right? Guess you musicians need to communicate if you're travelling."
"I have been told I'm good with my tongue," Clarence sounded rather smug and Dan's laugh rolled up and down with his stomach.
"I'll give you a fair price for the horse."
"I don't want money, Dan, I'd rather you put it for the pub."
Dan nodded, "Fair enough Leprechaun," he slapped Clarence on the shoulder. "I don't suppose you want me to tell him?"
"No, let him think I've lined my pockets and spent it all at Bells, I won't have him feeling he owes me."