Jenny: Curiosity

There was a bit of a bustle in the village. Descending the seaward road long the tumbling bluffs toward the marshland and salty flats where the fishermen had their huts and little boats, the Guttersnipe, with the stiff upland wind full in her face, could see that the township sprawling at the feet of the old worn villa was swelling with the surrounding population. It was not a fair day, nor a high day. Jogging along, the Guttersnipe mused over all the reasons why a crowd should be drawn to the fishing village. It was not a big village. All it really boasted was the Roman villa - worn and old, but still possessing a rather reputable Flavian family who kept good estate; a small estate, but a good one. It was really only forty miles by twenty, and Vortigern was merely a tenant to the north along the Wear. It was a fact Gwenhywfar reminded her father of on a frequent basis.

She could see no large ships drawn up along the strand, which meant no news, no new wares. For all she could see, it was a typical day. Firefly, just then, took a little bouncing jolt along the steep road, drawing her mind back. She concentrated on her pony's progress until she had reached the flats and was trotting steadily through the narrow wood to come out in the lee of Lord Marcus' villa-crowned knoll, and from then she made her way up the track toward the village square.

While she had only been down twice before, everything looked very familiar. The whole place had the trappings of a fishing and farming world: pens, drying-racks, slaughter houses, dwellings of wattle-and-daub alongside broad-beamed barns. There was the laundry shop catty-cornered to the blacksmith's booth. As she rode by, the heat of the open-fronted building struck her cheek. She noticed, as she went up through the press toward the felter's building, pressed on either side as it was by the doctor and the whitesmith, that the wind had left her when she had come down from the uplands and the air was very hot.

The hubbub drew her eye, quite naturally. It dawned on her with a sense of surprised interest that a sort of auction was going on. There were two very splendid-looking golden fellows, very tall, perhaps twins, from over Ocean, and one girl who looked like an ash switch when the bark has been taken off. She reined in a moment to watch.