The Book Man, Chapter 6 (Revised)

6 THE FAIR

Though the binding seemed to help Conrad at first, he leaned heavily on Christian’s arm as they made their way across the street. Out in the starlight, he looked much worse than the accountant had thought: ashen, his face drawn in lines of pain. Christian watched him out of the corner of his eye. It had been a terrible idea to go to the park. He should have kept the balloon-artist still and called for an ambulance, though he didn’t know how he would have managed it when Conrad was so determined to move.

A heavy padlock hung from the bars of the park gate.

“Now what?” Christian said.

The balloon-artist dug in the pocket of his waistcoat and pulled out a large bronze key.

“Naturally,” Christian said.

Conrad’s hands shook as he tried to jam the key into the lock. After a moment he asked, “Could you do it?”

Christian took the key from him and felt for the keyhole. He had just found it when a dog snarled down the street.

“Quick,” Conrad said.

One glance was enough for Christian to see the giant dog bounding down the pavement toward them, followed by two other monster-dogs—hellhounds?—and a trio of crows. His throat constricted. He turned back to the lock, but he had lost the keyhole. His hands shook so badly he dropped the key. The hellhounds and crows had halved the distance between them—the dogs bayed triumphantly—

“Quick, now,” Conrad said again. He was watching their pursuers with narrowed eyes, leaning against the stone wall of the park for support as he waited for Christian to open the gate. “What I wouldn’t give for some iron to swing—”

Christian found the keyhole again and unlocked the gate. He pushed it open just enough for the two of them to slip through and dragged Conrad inside, closing it behind them with a clang of iron as the nearest hellhoundopened its jaws to snap at them. The beast tried to brake, but it slid into the gate, yelping piteously. Smoke roiled up from its hide where it touched the bars. It leapt away, still yelping, and retreated with its companions in tow.

Christian’s legs wobbled like jelly. He clung to a tree and stood with his forehead resting against its trunk until his pounding heart calmed.

“Conrad,” he said finally, but he felt sick and had to stop talking. The balloon-artist looked at him. Christian breathed deep through his nose until he felt up to speaking again. “What—the hell—is going on?”

Conrad smiled faintly and said, “He swears.”

His friend was in no mood for jokes.

“I mean it.”

The balloon-artist didn’t answer. Instead he looked down at his leg, where blood bloomed across the strips of the t-shirt Christian had bound him in. He swayed and began to fall; Christian, forgetting his nausea, darted forward and caught him. He slipped the balloon-artist’s arm back around his shoulder.

“Where to?” he asked. Explanations would have to wait until the injury was taken care of.

Conrad pointed ahead. Christian squinted, but all he could see was trees.

“Are you sure?” he asked.

Conrad nodded.

“Well, alright,” Christian said, and they continued onward.

He couldn’t understand why his friend had been so adamant about coming to the park, but at least the balloon-artist had been correct about its security. The hellhounds had not been able to get inside. But that was little comfort, for Conrad’s breathing was ragged and his leg was bleeding and his body bore down on the accountant’s shoulder like an anchor. And the park, though apparently safe, was horribly dark. Frightening shapes loomed out of the shadows at them until they were close enough to see—a bush, the massive stump of a tree of a fallen tree, a stray cigarette butt left smoldering on the ground.

Yet somewhere far off there was noise of revelry, so distant Christian felt it could not be coming from the park. It must be there was a party somewhere in town. But he could not think why this would be, nor could he remember hearing any such sound before coming through the gate. At any rate, it was better than the baying of the monstrous dogs and the pounding of their paws on the pavement.

The two men wandered on toward the noise. It became more distinct as they neared the center of the park: shouts of laughter, tinkling music like that of a carnival, roars of flame, and the whimperings and snarlings of various unknown creatures all mixed together. Lights flashed ahead, briefly bathing the trees in different colors. Bubble-like butterflies that looked like they were made of balloons floated about at eye level and alit momentarily on Conrad’s hunched shoulders.

Through a wall of hoary oaks, Christian saw crowds of people milling about amongst silk trappings and fire.

“There?” he asked.

Conrad nodded again, too worn to speak. He leaned more heavily than ever on Christian’s shoulder; the accountant’s legs buckled under their combined weight, but he headed for the lights and voices. What he saw when he reached the tree-line made his eyes widen in wonder.

It was as if every festival in the world had been mashed together in one place. Vendors sold sweetmeats and cotton candy; artists in booths showed their paintings and prints; calligraphers offered their services; weavers sat busy at their looms. Wise men from varying nations told the stories of their peoples to eager listeners, each with a cooking pot beside him, ready to dole out food with his tales. Children ran everywhere, quarreling, laughing, shrieking at the feats of sword-swallowers and fire-jugglers, but none of them seemed to be attached to the adults also wandered through the carnival..

Christian started forward, but there was a squeal from underfoot. He looked down in surprise to see a squat man, the size of a garden gnome, gazing up at him with wide blue eyes. They stared at each other for a moment, equally astonished, Christian’s foot frozen in midair, and then the little man squeaked in fright and waddled away as quickly as he could. Christian blinked several times and set his foot down.

“What—is—it?” Conrad asked with an effort. In the light of the fires before them he looked worse than ever, and sweat beaded on his forehead. “Why’d—we—stop?”

“Nothing,” Christian said. “Where—?”

The balloon-artist pointed a shaking finger.

“Rovers,” he said, and then he groaned and crumpled against his friend’s side.

“Conrad—Conrad! Hey.” Christian shook him, but he was unconscious. “Hey. Hey.”

He cursed and looked where his friend had been pointing. Rovers? Grouped together on the western edge of the clearing were perhaps a dozen vardos, their horses unhitched and grazing in a makeshift corral. Their owners stood outside the caravan over cast-iron pots with bellies big enough to fit a man. The women called out to passersby, offering palm-reading, fortune-telling, and homemade cures for disease and baldness and a bad love life (a strange combination, Christian thought). Their husbands and sons challenged other men to games of dice and cards. Despite that, the crowd was thinner here.

He edged toward the caravan, dragging Conrad through the crowd. A wiry woman with a mane of dark hair caught sight of him as he approached and asked in a thick accent, “You want your fortune told?”

Christian shook his head.

“Come,” the woman said. “Best palm-reader you will find in any Rover camp. I can tell you when you will fall in love, when you will die.”

“I’d rather leave that to fate,” Christian mumbled. The woman nodded.

“Wise man, you are. Best left to chance after all.” She grinned, a bright grin that made her swarthy face look younger, and when she spoke again her speech sounded different. The thick accent had vanished. “So what do you want?”

Christian’s shoulders ached, his legs shook, but with a final burst of energy he pulled Conrad out of the crowd and laid him on the ground in front of her.

“My friend needs help,” he said. “Please, he’s been hurt. A massive dog or—actually I’m not sure what—”

Her smile vanished.

“The balloon-man,” she said. She glanced around the clearing as if expecting at any moment to see a hellhound bounding toward them. “Bring him in.”

She pulled a curtain back from her wagon’s entrance and disappeared inside. Christian hoisted Conrad back up and half-dragged, half-carried him after her.

Inside, the wagon was lit by kerosene lamps and hung with scraps of fabric. The effect was bright and cozy, a nice place (Christian thought) to spend a stormy afternoon reading by lamplight.

“Put him there,” the Rover said, gesturing to the bunk against the back wall. Then she turned away and went digging through a bookshelf full of bottles, muttering to herself as she went. “I’ve got rose water, I’ve got linseed oil… Willow bark… Thyme oil, yes, I’ll need that—”

Christian laid the balloon-artist on the bed and tried to stay out of her way as she rushed back and forth through the tiny space, gathering herbs, oils, gauze, and scissors. She cut away the bits of Christian’s t-shirt and the leg of Conrad’s trousers and cleaned the blood away. Then she handed a towel to the accountant. He looked at it dumbly.

“Come on,” she said, flapping the towel at him. “Take it. I’ve only got two hands.”

He took the towel but stood there wringing it anxiously instead of doing anything useful. The Rover sighed.

“Hold it against the wound,” she said. “Tight, now, you hear? Need to keep him from bleeding out while I make something for the pain.”

“Oh,” said Christian. He approached the bunk and pressed the towel against his friend’s leg, feeling sick as it slipped against the balloon-artist’s blood. Conrad’s breath came in shallow wheezes.

The Rover swore.

“Comfrey,” she said. “Comfrey—of course I don’t have it. You, you know what comfrey looks like?”

“Me?” Christian said.

She blinked at him as if he was an idiot. He felt like one, at the moment.

“Yes,” he said. “Yes, I know what it looks like.”

“How about calendula?”

“Calen—?”

“Pot marigold.”

“Yes,” Christian said. “I’ve got it at home.”

She plucked a basket from a high shelf and said, “There’s an herb garden on the far side of the rose beds. I need comfrey leaves and calendula petals for a poultice, quickly.”

She took the towel from him, shoved the basket into his hands and said, “Go on!”

He was so flustered by the whole situation that he fell backwards out of the wagon without even thinking to ask where the rose beds were.