Dawn on a Distant Shore by Sara Donati Read Free Book Online Page B

a good price on his furs. Nathaniel reminded himself it was only for today,
maybe for tomorrow. If they could find this man Jones; if he could be bought.
He was aware of the weight of the double-sewn leather bags he wore strapped
across his chest, some twenty pounds of near-pure silver.
    So focused was he on
the idea of the Welshman that Nathaniel missed the first signs of the scuffle.
From just to the left among the stalls came a guttural scream-- crisse de téte
â faux! --and a fist swung close enough to make him sidestep. Before
Nathaniel could even be sure what was happening, the crowd rushed in, their
errands and the cold forgotten with the promise of some entertainment.
    A butcher and a farmer
sputtered and spat at each other across the carcass of a huge pig. The butcher
had a head like a cannonball: heavy jowled, with a skull as pink and bristled
as the mountainside of unmoving flesh at his feet. The farmer was black haired,
twenty years younger, twenty pounds lighter, angrier. There was a fresh cut on
his cheek. It made Nathaniel aware of the familiar weight of his rifle across
his back, the comforting heft of the tomahawk tucked into his belt to lie flat
next to his spine.
    All around the crowd
heaved like a wasp-stung mule. Robbie swore, and swore again. He loved crowds
even less than Nathaniel did.
    A man jumped up on a
barrel. "Moe, j'prends pour Pépin, moe, p'is j'y mets dix shillings,
lâ! " he shouted, waving a coin over his head.
    The farmer grinned at
that and lunged, fists flying briefly. He fell back before the bigger man could
get a lock on him, and new bets were shouted in English, Scots, French, and
other languages Nathaniel didn't recognize.
    Next to him Robbie
grunted as a young boy tried to climb his back for a better view. A ripple and
jostling, muttered complaints, and a redcoat pushed his way to the forefront,
stopping just opposite Nathaniel. Slope shouldered and soft bellied, frizzled
red hair, a mouth full of tiny teeth the color of cheap tobacco. He had the
pinched expression of a little man with less authority than he wanted and more than
was good for him.
    "Jesus
wept," muttered Robbie at Nathaniel's ear. "There he is, that's
Jones. Ach, will ye look at him strut, the wee Welsh half-a-cockerl."
    "Here, here! What
goes on, what's this?" With his chest pumped up, Jones's bellow was astoundingly
loud, but the men ignored him, locked in a tussle that sent them rolling over
the dead pig to crash into the stall. For a moment they were lost in a landslide
of smoked ham hocks.
    Next to Nathaniel, an
old woman in a mangy blanket coat pulled on Jones's sleeve. "Denier has
been fooling with the scales again," she hollered above the noise.
"Young Pépin decided to teach him a lesson. And high time, too."
    The two had rolled
apart. The butcher hauled himself up on the ledge of the half-collapsed stall,
his fist closing over a meat cleaver as he began a slow turn.
    " Pépin! "
shouted the man who still perched on the barrel. " Faites attention! Il
a un poignard! "
    Nathaniel saw the
first flicker of real rage in the young farmer in the way his shoulders
loosened and his face drained of color, all in a split second. Crouched in the
chaos of the destroyed stall, he grabbed a long boning knife and snapped to his
full height, his arm coming up to meet the butcher as he turned. In one smooth motion
an acre of canvas apron fell open from neck to hipbone, the flap gaping to
expose a hairy fish-white barrel of belly.
    Not even Jones could
yell over the shouts of surprise and shocked appreciation.
    Barking like an
enraged boar, the butcher dropped the cleaver to grab at his clothing, the huge
head rearing up just in time to catch the knife, in earnest now. An almost
careless flick of the younger man's wrist and the vast pink cheek split open. A
rainbow of blood in a shower, and Nathaniel flinched the warm drops out of his
eyelashes as Denier threw himself forward, only to go sprawling over the pig
and strike his