The town-port of Niðarós. Ships, bigger than the boy had ever seen before, pulled ashore and unloaded by men intoning rhythmic songs to animate their work. But most ships were already emptied of goods. Goods laid out on blankets and stalls. Smells all around, fruits and vegetables, meats and fish and cheeses. Live cattle. Artisan crafts. Clothes.

Merchants with honeyed words inviting customers to examine their wares, some uttering rhymes to seduce buyers into trying out and spending. And buyers... Men with fine shoes and colourful cloaks and clean tunics underneath, women in wide dresses adorned with rows of beads and embroidered kerchiefs.

The boy stopped to gape at a juggler throwing leather balls into the air and catching them back, forming a turning wheel of small orbs in the air. He felt carelessly jostled by a couple of onlookers, and became conscious that two girls, about his age – or a few months older, twelve years young, perhaps - were looking at him. Lovely and rosy cheeked, one with two braids slithering out of her kerchief, the other with clean, shiny and wavy hair. They smiled at him and he smiled back at their pretty faces. They measured him head-to-toe, down his ragged clothes all the way to his dirty bare feet. Their smiles widened and widened until one of them huffed into a chuckle; the other could not help herself and burst out laughing. They both laughed like they had heard the funniest joke.

The boy's smile vanished. He remained in the road watching them depart, and looked down at his muddy feet.

He had shoes, of course, he just was not wearing them. He would not want them to wear out on the pebbly roads or to get dirty in mud, so he was keeping them safely tied by the laces around his neck. Put on yer shoes when ye go to the fair, Kjartan, and wear the nice girdle ‘round yer waist; people's dressed finely in town! the old woman who was looking after him had told him. She had given him shoes and waved the boy and the old man goodbye when they left for Niðarós with a load of timber in their cart. The cart was theirs, but the horse pulling it was borrowed from a wealthier neighbor.

“Move along, move along!” men elbowed him to make way for a group carrying large crates. Kjartan awoke from his reverie. He went to the fountain away from the road, splashed water

over his dirty feet, wiped them on his cape, and put on his shoes. He tucked his patched trousers into them. Smoothed his clothes and cleaned the splatters. There! He was blending in better now.

He began to stroll again.

“Want a bite, boy?” he heard a voice as he was gazing at a yellowish lump of smoked cheese. The seller winked at him kindly and cut out a small strip, stretching towards him the knife with

the smoked cheese on it. The boy snatched it between his lips and chewed it breathlessly; he did not swallow it right away, but rolled it in his mouth to feel its smoky flavours. He had no cheese at home. They had but one goat that had died, so they had come to the fair to buy another. Such cheese he had never tasted.

“Want a bite, lady?” the man asked a woman and repeated the process.

As he side-stepped against the stall, Kjartan began to arrange his muddy cape, so that its edge covered a lump of cheese briefly. As he turned it up on his shoulders, the lump of cheese was gone. So the boy stepped away, further down the road.

More stalls, more wonderful things. Clothes. A yellow dress with wide sleeves. Yellow - the most beautiful colour he had ever seen! Like an egg yolk. Like the summer mountain flowers that grew around his cottage in the woods. Like the sun herself.

Jewellery. Made of bone and stone, colourful bracelets and necklaces and beads... beads like none he had ever seen before: transparent, shiny and colourful. In all the colours he could imagine. It wasn't gold nor other metal, he knew, but something else. He ran his fingers over them and they were smooth to the touch, like rainbow-coloured drops of pine resin. So beautiful! the boy's grey eyes glimmered.

“You! don't touch that! Away!” came the merchant's voice.

And although he did step away, his eyes still remained fixed on the yellow dress and on the glass beads. The most delightful thing he had ever seen. And a smile flourished on his full lips.

                                                               *

Swallowing the last grape berry, Kjartan strolled beside the cattle market humming a song he had heard. He walked towards an old man further away from the road. White hair under a pointed hood, back slightly bent but sprightly; his large hands, dirty and cracked-skinned were arranging some bags and boxes in the back of a cart. He threw a hurried glance at the lad:

“Hau! where ya been, boy? Thought I told ya not to stray too far, eh?” he motioned towards him to slap the back of his head, but the boy dodged. The old man shook his head. “Got just one more thing to do. When I come back with the goat, we leave, a'ight? Stay 'ere this time, Kjartan! Stay 'ere and watch the cart, ya hear me?” he directed, then sighed annoyed. “Hau, where's me purse?”

The boy squeezed his hand readily behind a sack and produced a small purse.

“'ere, where ya left it.”

“A'ight. Be right back,”

and he paced away towards the merchant surrounded by baaing sheep and goats.

Kjartan looked again at the town that he was about to leave behind. Then at the old man. Then again at the bustling market. And then...

The boy's hands opened the sack in the cart hastily. Inside it, he found a modest cape – one that the old man had bought to wear when going down to the village to meet the farmers and local chieftain - and a simple woolen womanly shawl – a gift for his old wife. Above these goods the boy threw the items he had stolen: the cheese, plums, sausage and bread, and five coins from the old man's purse, and tied the sack at the mouth.

In the distance, he could see the woodsman fumbling, not finding his money, desperate and confused. 

So Kjartan ducked below the rim of the cart to avoid being seen, and leapt away. Among stalls and blankets, among wares and customers, among shouts and chatter, along the road and away from it.

He ran. He was breathing quickly, but he was smiling. Eyes forward. Not one single glance back.