Read Online The Gandalara Cycle I by Randall Garrett & Vicki Ann Heydron - Free Book Online
Authors: Randall Garrett & Vicki Ann Heydron
Tags: Sci Fi & Fantasy
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waist-high, grass-like plants that had to be some kind of grain. Evenly spaced humps of vines or low bushes what they produced I could only guess.
Smaller tracks crossed the caravan road, and as the morning brightened we passed Gandalarans on the road. Some carried wood-handled, bronze-headed tools toward the fields. Others were leading laden vleks in to the market.
I sat up on Keeshah's back and moved forward to ride just behind his shoulders, asking him to slow to a walk. The people who passed us greeted me politely and edged carefully past Keeshah with looks of mingled fear and curiosity on their faces. Those who led vleks simply stood still until we had passed, holding tightly to the looped halters so that the beasts would not stamp around and spill their cargo.
And so we had come to Raithskar at last, and I had paused a moment to absorb my first impressions of the place which was to be my home now.
I yielded to Keeshah's impatience and urged him on; he ran eagerly toward the gate, and then stopped.
*Well? * I asked him. *I thought you were in a hurry?* He twisted his neck to look back at me.
*City,* he explained. *Get off*
*Oh, sure. Sorry.*
It was logical. Balgokh had said that Markasset was the only Rider not connected with the Sharith. Therefore I was the only man in Raithskar who could ride instead of walk. Common courtesy demanded that I shouldn't flaunt it. I dismounted and walked into the city beside Keeshah with my hand resting lightly behind his left ear. That, too, was at Keeshah's direction - a ritual gesture to assure the people in the china shop that the bull was under control.
The bustling marketplace reminded me strongly of the older sections of Fez and Marrakesh. The streets here were wider and much cleaner, but the noise and the confusion were the same. There was color everywhere, as though the town itself was rejecting the uniform paleness of the desert. Most of the shoppers wore long- or short-sleeved tunics of lengths which varied from very short for the children to ground-sweeping for some of the women.
Here and there a man was dressed, like me, for the desert: loose trousers tied at waist and ankles, long-sleeved tunic slit to the waist for leg freedom, soft leather boots calf-high under the trouser legs, a piece of cloth tied so that its loose edge hung down the back. More commonly, however, and almost as a rule for the vendors seated in the shade of the selling stalls, the men wore only the loose, comfortable trousers.
No one made any attempt to blend colors or find compatible combinations, and all the colors were bright. A green tunic was belted round with red; yellow trousers screamed against a rich purple tunic; a worn blue tunic was patched neatly at the shoulder with lurid orange.
I blinked at the vivid display, but soon found that the unplanned, fluid melange of colors cheered me. Unmistakably, I had left the desert behind me.
The only pattern of color to be seen was in the fabric awnings under which the merchants sat. Each one was a square of canvas supported and stretched by a framework of wooden poles. In places there were several of the same pattern grouped together. Markasset's memory told me that the weave of the fabric identified the merchant; much like a Scottish tartan identified a clan.
Merchandise was arranged in the same neat, hollow squares under each awning. They were spaced so that a customer could walk all the way around them. The merchant or his man sat in the center of the square, calling out the value of his goods and hawking business like a carny talker. A customer could touch, look at and, within reason, test any merchandise as long as he remained standing or kneeling. When he'd found something he wanted, he literally "settled down" to dicker, seating himself beside his choice. Then the merchant turned to him and they began to haggle over price.
The bright, busy stalls lined the boulevard three deep on each side of the wide, hard-surfaced street. The
Smaller tracks crossed the caravan road, and as the morning brightened we passed Gandalarans on the road. Some carried wood-handled, bronze-headed tools toward the fields. Others were leading laden vleks in to the market.
I sat up on Keeshah's back and moved forward to ride just behind his shoulders, asking him to slow to a walk. The people who passed us greeted me politely and edged carefully past Keeshah with looks of mingled fear and curiosity on their faces. Those who led vleks simply stood still until we had passed, holding tightly to the looped halters so that the beasts would not stamp around and spill their cargo.
And so we had come to Raithskar at last, and I had paused a moment to absorb my first impressions of the place which was to be my home now.
I yielded to Keeshah's impatience and urged him on; he ran eagerly toward the gate, and then stopped.
*Well? * I asked him. *I thought you were in a hurry?* He twisted his neck to look back at me.
*City,* he explained. *Get off*
*Oh, sure. Sorry.*
It was logical. Balgokh had said that Markasset was the only Rider not connected with the Sharith. Therefore I was the only man in Raithskar who could ride instead of walk. Common courtesy demanded that I shouldn't flaunt it. I dismounted and walked into the city beside Keeshah with my hand resting lightly behind his left ear. That, too, was at Keeshah's direction - a ritual gesture to assure the people in the china shop that the bull was under control.
The bustling marketplace reminded me strongly of the older sections of Fez and Marrakesh. The streets here were wider and much cleaner, but the noise and the confusion were the same. There was color everywhere, as though the town itself was rejecting the uniform paleness of the desert. Most of the shoppers wore long- or short-sleeved tunics of lengths which varied from very short for the children to ground-sweeping for some of the women.
Here and there a man was dressed, like me, for the desert: loose trousers tied at waist and ankles, long-sleeved tunic slit to the waist for leg freedom, soft leather boots calf-high under the trouser legs, a piece of cloth tied so that its loose edge hung down the back. More commonly, however, and almost as a rule for the vendors seated in the shade of the selling stalls, the men wore only the loose, comfortable trousers.
No one made any attempt to blend colors or find compatible combinations, and all the colors were bright. A green tunic was belted round with red; yellow trousers screamed against a rich purple tunic; a worn blue tunic was patched neatly at the shoulder with lurid orange.
I blinked at the vivid display, but soon found that the unplanned, fluid melange of colors cheered me. Unmistakably, I had left the desert behind me.
The only pattern of color to be seen was in the fabric awnings under which the merchants sat. Each one was a square of canvas supported and stretched by a framework of wooden poles. In places there were several of the same pattern grouped together. Markasset's memory told me that the weave of the fabric identified the merchant; much like a Scottish tartan identified a clan.
Merchandise was arranged in the same neat, hollow squares under each awning. They were spaced so that a customer could walk all the way around them. The merchant or his man sat in the center of the square, calling out the value of his goods and hawking business like a carny talker. A customer could touch, look at and, within reason, test any merchandise as long as he remained standing or kneeling. When he'd found something he wanted, he literally "settled down" to dicker, seating himself beside his choice. Then the merchant turned to him and they began to haggle over price.
The bright, busy stalls lined the boulevard three deep on each side of the wide, hard-surfaced street. The
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