Brille Covella's Arc

Chapter 2 of 13

The market square swallowed Brille the moment she cleared the arch. Drums thumped from three directions. Vendors shouted over each other. She got her wagons parked along the west row and helped her aunt unroll the carpet, but her eyes kept drifting to the recruiting board across the square. She had won her way inside the walls. She still had no idea where the legendary company drank, slept, or signed on new hands, and the festival crowd would break apart by dusk. Brille climbed onto her wagon's step. She scanned faces. She asked the wine merchant to her left. He shrugged. She asked the woman selling ribbons. The woman laughed and said heroes did not shop for ribbons. The bell for the second hour rang. The square was already thinning at the edges. She was setting out the painted panels and clay pots when she noticed a stranger stopped at her table. He was not looking at the pots. He was looking at the largest panel, the one of the dancers, and his thumb moved along the rim of a pitcher as if testing the clay. A small green lizard sat on his shoulder. His coat was good cut, worn thin at the cuffs. A short sword hung at his hip next to a coil of rope. "Northern glaze," he said to the lizard. "Two weeks out from home, still not cracked. That's real work." He looked up at Brille. "You paint these?" "My aunt paints. I fire them." He nodded like the answer mattered. He set two coins on the table for the pitcher he had not asked the price of. Brille did not take them yet. "You've been on a road," she said. "You know the city." "Some of it." "I'm looking for a company. The one in the songs. Silver on black. They post at the recruiting board by noon and I missed the posting." His mouth moved, not quite a smile. He scratched the lizard's throat with one finger. "They don't post. That board is for caravan guards and rat catchers." Brille's stomach dropped. "Then where." "They take names at the back room of the inn under the east bridge. Tonight. After the second bell." He tapped his coins closer to her hand. "They'll ask what you can do. Don't say pottery." "I shoot." "Then say that." He lifted the pitcher, tucked it under his arm, and turned into the crowd. Over his shoulder he added, "Ask for Cassian at the door. That's me. I'll get you in the room. What happens after is yours." He was gone before she could answer. Brille sat down on the wagon step. The coins were still on the table. Her hands were shaking, and she did not know yet if it was luck or a trap. She had until the second bell to decide what she could do in a room full of people who killed things for a living.