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smackenzieThe weather was fine as Hazel set out for the king's city and the lost prince. The sky was clear and blue, there was a light breeze, it was shaping up to be a good day. Her aunt and uncle saw her off after loading her down with food, water, and advice, and after Adymary knelt down to say goodbye especially to Toast. Hazel grinned to herself. She'd always known her aunt liked her dog.
Hay did not come by to say goodbye. He'd stayed the night but had left just after sunrise, to go back to his own house, change his clothes, get on with the rest of his day, and not have to watch Hazel leave. She'd promised to write to him and reassured him for what felt like the thousandth time that she wasn't going to be gone a year.
Hazel turned around once to wave goodbye, but once she got going she kept looking forward. The first day or so she trekked across fields and through small stands of trees, sleeping outside under the stars and eating the bread and cheese she'd brought with her. Toast was more or less well-behaved, although Hazel thanked the gods and all the saints more than once that she'd thought ahead and brought a leash with her. Technically it was just a length of rope, but she could tie one end around his collar and the other end around her wrist or a strap of her pack, and when Toast went running off after a rabbit or a bunch of birds or a frog, she could prevent him from disappearing. He was less than thrilled. Hazel knew a rope would come in handy.
After a couple of days she finally hit the king's road, which, as the name implied, had been built by a long-ago king and led to the king's city. There wasn't much of a formal network of roads in the kingdom, but the king's road connected the major cities and a few towns, and so far was enough. It was a wide, solidly built track, rising a foot off the ground and paved with flat, heavy stones. In places where there wasn't the money or the interest to keep it maintained, the paving stones had been replaced with hard-packed dirt, which was perfectly fine except when it rained. Hazel crossed a field and found the road in one of the places where people had lost interest and funds to keep up the road, so while it was still solid and straight, it was a little dusty from the heat and dry weather. Hazel and Toast trotted up the slope and turned towards the city.
As she walked, Hazel thought about what she knew of the king's city, aside from the fact that it was huge. She wondered if the three days' walk across was a leisurely pace or the walk of someone in a hurry, and did it take into account time to eat and sleep and rest? She wondered if the streets were also paved with stones, like the king's road was supposed to be, or were they dirt tracks like she was used to. Maybe it depended on where in the city you were - she imagined that the streets around the royal complex were paved with stones and well-kept, whereas poorer parts of the city might just have dirt. But you never knew, as she pointed out to her dog, the streets could be clean and swept and wide all over the capital.
Really, all she knew about the city proper was that it was big, and that it had been laid out and built hundreds of years ago by one of the previous royal families. It was a surrounded by a wall, a circle, with six gates - the north gate, the south gate, the east gate, the moon gate, the king's gate (closest to the castle, of course), and the horse gate. She wasn't sure but she thought she was on the road to the moon gate. Either that or the south gate. Hazel didn't have a map. She trusted the road would take her to one of the gates, and then she could start looking for the prince in earnest. She at least knew she was heading in the right direction.
The third day out she ran into a troupe of traveling actors heading out into the countryside. They told her they'd spent the winter and part of the spring in the city, which was big enough and held enough large wealthy families to make it worth their while. Besides, one of the actors added, in the capital they didn't have to worry about finding a place to shelter from the snow. They all got off the road to rest their legs and eat, and while they took a break, the actors told Hazel about the city. It was big, like she'd thought, and divided into blocks of professions - all the goldsmiths tended to live in one area, and the glassmakers lived in another area, and the bookbinders lived in yet another area. They said there were parts of the city so crowded that the buildings leaned across the street towards each other, the second and third stories blocking out the sun and casting the road in shadow for most of the day. But there were public parks as well, grassy places where you could graze your sheep or run your dogs. Most of them were relatively small but there were a few larger ones as well as the People's Park, which was large and well-kept and laced with meandering walks and little gazebos and at least one teahouse and a rustic pub. The People's Park had a large public stage where the king sometimes put on plays and entertainments for his court and the city's residents. But you had to be someone famous, the troupe said, in order to win a contract for the summer performances.
Hazel listened as they told her about the university and the public reading houses and why yes, the king's agents did pin huge sheets of paper to the walls outside the castle to give people the news. There were rooming houses where you could stay, as well as lots of places to eat and historic sights to see and at least one small temple to each saint in the pantheon. Worship of the Lord and Lady was of course the official religion, but the capital was a tolerant place, and you could worship who you wanted and how you wanted as long as it didn't involve anything too messy or illegal, like disemboweling your neighbor's cat without your neighbor's permission or knowledge.
Hazel asked about the princes and princesses, and if any of the actors had heard there was a prince missing, but they just looked at her as if she'd gone mad. The royal family did sometimes go out into the city, but not many places in the city, and the royals never went anywhere without an entourage and bodyguards. You could always tell the royals - they were the ones with the gold tassels on their horses and coaches, and on any public outing they were the only ones with red and gold tents. No member of the royal family had ever gone off by him- or herself, without any keepers and disguised as an ordinary person. At least, added one of the actors with a wink, not that we know of.
The city had been built along a river, the actors said, but that part of the city was mostly warehouses and merchants' offices. But in the summer there were boat races farther down the river, usually just outside the city walls, and you could see the royals and courtiers and ambassadors and everyone lined up along the banks, sitting under canopies on temporary grandstands and tiers of seats. It was something to see, all the boats with their trappings of the various noble houses and guilds, all of them crowded with rowers straining for the finish line. Afterwards there was always at least one celebration you could talk your way into.
They all sat and talked for longer than either the troupe or Hazel had planned, and as they packed up and got ready to go their separate ways, one of the actresses pulled a ribbon out of her pack and tied it around Toast's neck. He barked and jumped up on her to give hee a slobbery doggy kiss, and she laughed. Hazel was a little embarrassed, but not much, because the actress really didn't seem to mind. They told her dogs were fine in the city, although there were a lot of feral homeless cats, and Hazel might want to consider keeping Toast on his leash. They weren't sure how easy it would be for her to find a place to stay with a dog, but there had to be somewhere. It was a big city, after all.
The fifth day she caught a ride with a man riding a cart full of cheese wheels, big wax-covered rounds stacked under burlap and white canvas to keep the sun away from them. They were aged, smoked cheeses and Toast couldn't sit still on the cart seat but kept trying to either turn around or jump into the cart bed altogether. The driver admitted he wouldn't have thought anyone, man or dog, would be able to smell the cheese through wax and burlap and canvas, but maybe he was wrong. He wasn't the cheesemaker himself - his wife and her sister made the cheese - and usually they'd sell them in their own town and the surrounding area, but the city markets were open to anyone who could buy space for a stall, and he'd been selling his wife's cheese there for the past year and a half now.
He didn't mind giving Hazel and Toast a ride, he said. It was pretty lonely driving a cart by yourself. His wife and her sister couldn't go with him this time because they were busy with the cows and the cheese, and his oldest son was helping them out and his youngest son was just getting over an illness. He had a couple of dogs at home, shepherding dogs to keep the cows in line, but they didn't like the city so he couldn't bring them with him to keep him company. Toast barked at that, but Hazel thought he was just barking because the word "cow" came up, and when he wasn't teasing Hay's parents' goats he liked to chase cows, even though the cows weren't much fun to chase because they never ran very fast. They just mooed at him and shifted their butts around and switched their tails in his face.
The cart driver asked Hazel why she was going to the capital and she lied through her teeth and said she was going to visit her cousin who was a glassmaker. (One of the actors had told her about a glassmaker he'd met.) She said she hadn't seen her cousin in ten years and wasn't sure where the woman lived, and did the cart driver know where the glassmakers' guild was? Maybe she could ask there. He gave her vague directions to the glassmakers' quarter, although he wasn't sure but he might be sending her to the tanners and dyers. She thanked him anyway.
words: 1908
total words: 9262
Hay did not come by to say goodbye. He'd stayed the night but had left just after sunrise, to go back to his own house, change his clothes, get on with the rest of his day, and not have to watch Hazel leave. She'd promised to write to him and reassured him for what felt like the thousandth time that she wasn't going to be gone a year.
Hazel turned around once to wave goodbye, but once she got going she kept looking forward. The first day or so she trekked across fields and through small stands of trees, sleeping outside under the stars and eating the bread and cheese she'd brought with her. Toast was more or less well-behaved, although Hazel thanked the gods and all the saints more than once that she'd thought ahead and brought a leash with her. Technically it was just a length of rope, but she could tie one end around his collar and the other end around her wrist or a strap of her pack, and when Toast went running off after a rabbit or a bunch of birds or a frog, she could prevent him from disappearing. He was less than thrilled. Hazel knew a rope would come in handy.
After a couple of days she finally hit the king's road, which, as the name implied, had been built by a long-ago king and led to the king's city. There wasn't much of a formal network of roads in the kingdom, but the king's road connected the major cities and a few towns, and so far was enough. It was a wide, solidly built track, rising a foot off the ground and paved with flat, heavy stones. In places where there wasn't the money or the interest to keep it maintained, the paving stones had been replaced with hard-packed dirt, which was perfectly fine except when it rained. Hazel crossed a field and found the road in one of the places where people had lost interest and funds to keep up the road, so while it was still solid and straight, it was a little dusty from the heat and dry weather. Hazel and Toast trotted up the slope and turned towards the city.
As she walked, Hazel thought about what she knew of the king's city, aside from the fact that it was huge. She wondered if the three days' walk across was a leisurely pace or the walk of someone in a hurry, and did it take into account time to eat and sleep and rest? She wondered if the streets were also paved with stones, like the king's road was supposed to be, or were they dirt tracks like she was used to. Maybe it depended on where in the city you were - she imagined that the streets around the royal complex were paved with stones and well-kept, whereas poorer parts of the city might just have dirt. But you never knew, as she pointed out to her dog, the streets could be clean and swept and wide all over the capital.
Really, all she knew about the city proper was that it was big, and that it had been laid out and built hundreds of years ago by one of the previous royal families. It was a surrounded by a wall, a circle, with six gates - the north gate, the south gate, the east gate, the moon gate, the king's gate (closest to the castle, of course), and the horse gate. She wasn't sure but she thought she was on the road to the moon gate. Either that or the south gate. Hazel didn't have a map. She trusted the road would take her to one of the gates, and then she could start looking for the prince in earnest. She at least knew she was heading in the right direction.
The third day out she ran into a troupe of traveling actors heading out into the countryside. They told her they'd spent the winter and part of the spring in the city, which was big enough and held enough large wealthy families to make it worth their while. Besides, one of the actors added, in the capital they didn't have to worry about finding a place to shelter from the snow. They all got off the road to rest their legs and eat, and while they took a break, the actors told Hazel about the city. It was big, like she'd thought, and divided into blocks of professions - all the goldsmiths tended to live in one area, and the glassmakers lived in another area, and the bookbinders lived in yet another area. They said there were parts of the city so crowded that the buildings leaned across the street towards each other, the second and third stories blocking out the sun and casting the road in shadow for most of the day. But there were public parks as well, grassy places where you could graze your sheep or run your dogs. Most of them were relatively small but there were a few larger ones as well as the People's Park, which was large and well-kept and laced with meandering walks and little gazebos and at least one teahouse and a rustic pub. The People's Park had a large public stage where the king sometimes put on plays and entertainments for his court and the city's residents. But you had to be someone famous, the troupe said, in order to win a contract for the summer performances.
Hazel listened as they told her about the university and the public reading houses and why yes, the king's agents did pin huge sheets of paper to the walls outside the castle to give people the news. There were rooming houses where you could stay, as well as lots of places to eat and historic sights to see and at least one small temple to each saint in the pantheon. Worship of the Lord and Lady was of course the official religion, but the capital was a tolerant place, and you could worship who you wanted and how you wanted as long as it didn't involve anything too messy or illegal, like disemboweling your neighbor's cat without your neighbor's permission or knowledge.
Hazel asked about the princes and princesses, and if any of the actors had heard there was a prince missing, but they just looked at her as if she'd gone mad. The royal family did sometimes go out into the city, but not many places in the city, and the royals never went anywhere without an entourage and bodyguards. You could always tell the royals - they were the ones with the gold tassels on their horses and coaches, and on any public outing they were the only ones with red and gold tents. No member of the royal family had ever gone off by him- or herself, without any keepers and disguised as an ordinary person. At least, added one of the actors with a wink, not that we know of.
The city had been built along a river, the actors said, but that part of the city was mostly warehouses and merchants' offices. But in the summer there were boat races farther down the river, usually just outside the city walls, and you could see the royals and courtiers and ambassadors and everyone lined up along the banks, sitting under canopies on temporary grandstands and tiers of seats. It was something to see, all the boats with their trappings of the various noble houses and guilds, all of them crowded with rowers straining for the finish line. Afterwards there was always at least one celebration you could talk your way into.
They all sat and talked for longer than either the troupe or Hazel had planned, and as they packed up and got ready to go their separate ways, one of the actresses pulled a ribbon out of her pack and tied it around Toast's neck. He barked and jumped up on her to give hee a slobbery doggy kiss, and she laughed. Hazel was a little embarrassed, but not much, because the actress really didn't seem to mind. They told her dogs were fine in the city, although there were a lot of feral homeless cats, and Hazel might want to consider keeping Toast on his leash. They weren't sure how easy it would be for her to find a place to stay with a dog, but there had to be somewhere. It was a big city, after all.
The fifth day she caught a ride with a man riding a cart full of cheese wheels, big wax-covered rounds stacked under burlap and white canvas to keep the sun away from them. They were aged, smoked cheeses and Toast couldn't sit still on the cart seat but kept trying to either turn around or jump into the cart bed altogether. The driver admitted he wouldn't have thought anyone, man or dog, would be able to smell the cheese through wax and burlap and canvas, but maybe he was wrong. He wasn't the cheesemaker himself - his wife and her sister made the cheese - and usually they'd sell them in their own town and the surrounding area, but the city markets were open to anyone who could buy space for a stall, and he'd been selling his wife's cheese there for the past year and a half now.
He didn't mind giving Hazel and Toast a ride, he said. It was pretty lonely driving a cart by yourself. His wife and her sister couldn't go with him this time because they were busy with the cows and the cheese, and his oldest son was helping them out and his youngest son was just getting over an illness. He had a couple of dogs at home, shepherding dogs to keep the cows in line, but they didn't like the city so he couldn't bring them with him to keep him company. Toast barked at that, but Hazel thought he was just barking because the word "cow" came up, and when he wasn't teasing Hay's parents' goats he liked to chase cows, even though the cows weren't much fun to chase because they never ran very fast. They just mooed at him and shifted their butts around and switched their tails in his face.
The cart driver asked Hazel why she was going to the capital and she lied through her teeth and said she was going to visit her cousin who was a glassmaker. (One of the actors had told her about a glassmaker he'd met.) She said she hadn't seen her cousin in ten years and wasn't sure where the woman lived, and did the cart driver know where the glassmakers' guild was? Maybe she could ask there. He gave her vague directions to the glassmakers' quarter, although he wasn't sure but he might be sending her to the tanners and dyers. She thanked him anyway.
words: 1908
total words: 9262
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Date: 2004-11-05 06:57 pm (UTC)still loving it
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Date: 2004-11-05 08:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-11-05 09:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-11-08 01:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-11-08 05:04 pm (UTC)