Continuing the serial release of The Plainsrunner under a Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike license – (CC-BY-SA).
Sage gets shoes and sets off to sell her glider.
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rjb
Chapter Seventeen – New Shoes
Exhausted though she was, Sage had trouble falling asleep. She used the flashlight to arrange some blankets on the floor – there was no straw – then switched it off immediately. Fisher had told her not to leave it on, because that would waste the batteries. She guessed that the batteries must be what made the light, in place of fire. She pushed the button a few times, marveling at how that could give her light so easily, then used it only enough to get settled. After that she spent what felt like hours lying in the dark, not falling asleep.
The darkness was complete, with not even the faintest line to show where the door was. She had to consciously blink her eyes to tell if they were open or closed. Especially the side eyes. It was in this strangeness, in a black room in a stranger’s house in the still-mysterious city, that Sage spent her wakefulness thinking about her predicament. Tomorrow Digger, a man she hardly knew, was going to take her out in this strange place and try to “find her something.” Also, they were going to get her some shoes. She had Skylight’s assurance that it was an easy and painless procedure, and also for the best. She said it would keep her feet from getting sore. Flexing them and feeling the residual ache, Sage decided that would be a good thing.
One thing in particular occupied her mind. Her glider had attracted so much attention that her curiosity was inflamed. What made it so interesting? What made it valuable? Even valuable enough to kill her for. And another thing above all. She’d had no idea of its existence until it fell out of the sky, but everyone here seemed to know all about it.
She was mulling all these things in endless circularity when she finally dropped off. She felt as if she hadn’t slept at all when she was awakened by knocking on the door.
“Just a minute,” she said, getting up and feeling her way to the door. She started to open it, then went back and groped around for a blanket. She threw it on and, suitably covered for city eyes, opened the door. Squinting in the bright morning light, she was able to make out Digger standing there.
He said, “You shouldn’t open your door until you know who’s there. If I wanted to rob you, it would be all over now.”
She cleared her throat and spat in the street, then she said, “But you don’t want to rob me, do you?”
“No, of course not.” He glanced at her spit, then told her, “It’s okay to spit here, but barely. Some people might not like it, but enough people do it to make it okay.” He waved an arm toward the center of the city. “Some of the streets we’ll be on today are a little more upscale, and it won’t be okay there.”
She looked at him for a few seconds, then said, “Wear your blanket. Don’t spit. Is there anything else I should know before showing my face in your precious city?”
“Whoa,” he said. “Are you always this grumpy in the morning? And yes, there are plenty more things you need to learn.”
“Grumpy?” she said, anger flaring. She cut it off. She knew she owed him gratitude, not anger, for what he’d done. “Sorry,” she said. “Couldn’t sleep.”
“Don’t worry about it. After what you’ve been through, you’re entitled to a little leeway.” He looked at her sternly. “But just a little. Some of the places we’re going today, they’re not going to give you any. All they care about is what’s in it for them.”
She nodded. She’d grown accustomed to a world that gives you no leeway. She’d survived that, and she could surely survive a few city people. She headed for Skylight’s kitchen. “Come on,” she said. “I’ll get cleaned up and we can head out.”
“Sage,” he said. When she looked, he tipped his head at the open door.
“Oh, my ancestors,” she said, and went to get the key.
They were back on the same street they met on yesterday. The difference this morning was that Sage wasn’t carrying her panniers, or her spear. She was going to take her spear, but Digger told her people don’t do that in the city. She shrugged and left it, and now here she was all fresh and fed and feeling better, and they were headed in toward the center of town where the taller buildings were. But before they even reached the next cross street, or before they’d gone one block, as Digger put it, they stopped in at the farrier’s recommended by Skylight.
Feeling extremely awkward, especially when he was working on her hind feet, his breath on her haunches, Sage listened while he talked her through it.
“We caught it in time,” he was saying. “There’s no serious damage. No cracking or splitting.” He patted her haunch, causing her to stiffen. “We’ll have you fixed up and out of here in no time.” He rubbed his hands together. “So,” he said, “iron or rubber?”
She looked at Digger, and he said, “Rubber, Hammer.” Then to Sage, “Iron lasts longer, but it’s for heavy duty use, and I don’t think you’re going to be doing that kind of work. Rubber wears out quicker, but it gives you better traction. Also, it’s better for indoors. Some people don’t like iron shoes in their houses, marking up their floors.”
Hammer started with her front feet – “So you can see what I’m doing.” – and she stood there, clutching the sack containing her glider while he pounded nails into her feet. After the first flinch, she was all right. It didn’t hurt. It actually felt kind of nice. The way he gently but firmly cradled her feet as he worked on them made her feel … Well, she admitted to herself, the attention … She had never had someone pay this kind of attention to her feet before. When it was over and he was done filing and buffing her hooves, she found that she was disappointed.
As they were leaving and she was thanking Hammer, she surprised herself with how shyly she spoke to him. Then he winked at her and said, “It was a pleasure, dearie. Come back any time.”
She stumbled out onto the street, feeling the strange new detachment in her feet. She picked them up and down, turning in a circle while she stared at her shiny new hooves. She stomped experimentally, enjoying the sense of protection her new shoes gave her. Even the sound was different, the clattering a lot more muted.
Digger smiled indulgently and waited.
“He didn’t even ask me what I had to trade,” said Sage as they walked. She continually looked down at her feet as they lifted and fell.
“Don’t worry. Hammer and I have an arrangement.”
“Another one of the people you helped before?”
He nodded. “That’s right. Otherwise we’d have had to pay him.”
“What would he have taken in trade?” Sage couldn’t think of anything she had that would be appropriate.
“We’d have given him money,” said Digger. “There’s not much barter any more.”
“Money?”
“Yes,” he said, pulling some coins out of a pocket in his grey blanket. “When we buy and sell things, we use these. They’re kind of like tokens, with different values.”
“So, you’d have given him those in return for putting these shoes on me? That doesn’t seem very even.”
“It wouldn’t be, if it was a straight trade. But he can take the money then and buy other stuff.”
They walked quietly while she thought, then she said, “Ah! The money. Those tokens. They’re always worth the same. And everyone agrees on what they’re worth.”
“That’s right.” He was impressed by how quickly she got it.
“And a lot easier to carry around, too,” she said. “Where can I get some of this money?”
He laughed. “There’s work,” he said. “You work for someone and they pay you. Or you could do like Rat and Snake and steal people’s stuff to sell for money. Or you could sell something valuable of your own, which is what we’re going to try to do today.”
“Something valuable of mine?” She looked down at the sack holding her glider and stopped dead.
He stopped beside her and said, “You need money to get started, and that’s a valuable item. I think we can get you a good price for it.”
“But it’s …” she started. “It’s my glider.” She looked at him, her eyes pleading.
He was firm. “It’s the only thing you’ve got that’s worth anything.” He paused. “Well, maybe except for that necklace.” He ignored the shocked look on her face. “And you might get something for that spear.” Her eyes got even wider. “But the point is you have to sell something, and I might have a buyer for it.” When she didn’t answer, he said, “What else are you going to do with it? Carry it around everywhere?”
She stood for a long time, then her face set hard. “Right,” she said, hefting the sack, “let’s go sell my glider.”
