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stallion in line. As the boy jumped the next horse, and the next, his taut muscles standing out
against his tanned skin, his father imagined the boy decked in the rider's silver spangled tights,
silver bows in the braided manes of the gleaming white stallions. The old man had seen that once
before, when he was only a boy himself, and his own father, mother, and uncle dazzled the crowd at
the Great Ring in Tarzak. Now, the sun dipped into the horizon, Jeda began his tricks, balancing
on one horse, tumbling off, then leaping to the next to balance on his hands. He flipped from the
horse's back only to land and pirouette on the next. The old man watched Jeda's face and could
tell the boy was no longer thinking of their ar-
gument. Glowing in rapture, the boy and the stallions were one.
This is how it should always be, thought the old man. But after a moment, he shook his head,
knowing that it might never be. Tonight the house would be quiet and sullen, until either Jeda or
Zani, Jeda's mother, would begin the argument again. The spell broken, the old man turned from the
ring.
"Come, Jeda. We go home."
Davvik turned to Zani, shrugged, and looked back at the old man, silently concentrating on his
meal. Jeda, seated on a cushion across the low table from Davvik, between Zani and the old man,
shook his head and pushed the tung berries on his plate around with his finger. Davvik leaned on
the table. "Hamid, you are unreasonable. Look at Zani, your wife. When will she get a new robe?"
The old man broke some cobit and dropped the two pieces of bread on his plate. "You sit at my
table to insult my wife, Davvik?"
"It is not an insult, Hamid, but the truth. Don't trust my words; look for yourself."
The old man lifted his eyes and turned to Zani. Her robe, like Jeda's and his own, was many times
patched and mended. Her hair, still streaked with black, framed a tired face bowed in shame. Hamid
looked back at the logger. "Miira is not a wealthy town, Davvik. We are not the only family in
patches."
"I have no patches, Hamid." Davvik waved his hands about the room. "No one in Miira, or anywhere
on Momus for all that, need wear patches. Not if they have any sense. The new market centers are
prospering, and my wood is bringing good prices. Think what you could do with four hundred
movills..."
Hamid slapped his hand on the table. "They are liberty horses, Davvik! They will not pull your
sleds. Never have their mouths felt a bit nor their backs a harness." Hamid shook his head and
turned back to his meal. "What can a roustabout understand about liberty horses?"
Davvik clenched his fists and flushed red. "And you, Great Hamid of the Miira riders, you
understand, do you?"
"Yes."
"Then, understand this, as well. I am no roustabout; I am a logger a businessman. There are no
more roustabouts, Hamid, because the circus is dead, gone, naught but a dream in an old man's
brain!"
The old man pushed his plate from him, and peered through shaggy white brows at his wife and son.
Both seemed very concerned with their plates and eating utensils. "Zani."
She looked up, not meeting his glance. "Yes, Hamid?"
"Why have you invited this bastard son of a carnival geek to eat our bread?"
Davvik stood, his lips twitching with unspoken oaths. Turning, he bowed toward Zani. "I am sorry
for you. I tried, but it is no use." He turned toward Jeda. "Boy, my offer of thirty-five coppers
a day still holds. I can use a good rider " He looked at Hamid. "To drive horses at useful work."
Bowing again, he turned from the room into the street.
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Hamid turned back to his meal, but Zani clasped his arm with a fierce strength. He saw tears in
her eyes. "Old man, you asked me a question; now, you hear my answer! I want my sons back. That's
why Davvik sat here tonight, and you shamed me. Your son and I we are ashamed!"
"Wife..."
"But whose wife will it be, Hamid? Not yours, unless Jeda stays in this house and my three other
sons come home!" Hamid winced. The old woman's threat was empty, but it hurt all the same. He
watched as she stood and walked into her room, pulling the curtain closed behind her. The old man
sighed and turned to look at his son. His eyes cast down, Jeda sat holding his hands in his lap.
"And you, my son?"
Jeda shrugged one shoulder. "Am I a barker, father, to find words when there is nothing to say?"
"You think I am wrong, then."
The boy looked up at nothing. "I don't know." He looked at Hamid, his hand on his breast.
"Everything I feel agrees with you, father." He dropped his hand, shaking his head. "But
everything I see agrees with Davvik. We aren't like the magicians or clowns; our act can't play
the roadside fires. We need a ring."
"There are rings, Jeda. Here in Miira, the..."
"Father, to use the;sring our act must draw coppers. When did the ring in Miira, or the Great Ring
in Tarzak, last see riding?"
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