trade. I have never met any who speak of you.’
‘No-one speaks of me,’ he said, ‘And I have no regular customers for people rarely return.’
You’d think that was a warning, but I was sick with love. I didn’t hear it.
‘Perhaps you can speak of what you sell?’
‘I deal in words,’ the man said. ‘I will give you the power of one word for one week. In return, you will give me one word forever. That word and all its properties will be lost to you. But only to you,’ he said, as if it was a special bonus.
It would have been better if I’d had time to prepare, but as I’ve told you, I had never heard of such a man or such a trade. And there was something about his steady eyes and his calm demeanour that reassured me. I can smell out a desperate man or a grasping one. This man was neither.
He watched me for a moment then seemed satisified I had made my decision.
‘Now,’ he said. ‘What word is in your heart, what word is it you yearn for?’
‘Caroline.’ I said. There was no other word in my life but her name, my lovely, my longed for Caroline.
‘Then you can have control of all that is ‘Caroline’, should you wish it. You have one week to make her yours. I wish you well.’ He smiled and I felt that he truly did want the best for me and all the power that my chosen word would bring.
‘What word will you give me?’ he asked after a pause.
‘It,’ I said. I was proud of my quick response. I could do without ‘it’ for I would use ‘that’ instead.
He was too elegant to laugh out loud but I saw the amusement in his eyes.
‘Come, come,’ he said. ‘And you a merchant’s son.’ Don’t ask me how he knew. ‘I do not want any old word. I have needs of my own.’
He pulled a dagger out of his belt and I stiffened.
‘I am creating a weapon,’ he said. ‘Perhaps you would like to give me the words cut or slice? My blade would be the keenest in the land for it would never need sharpening.’
I had some wits about me. I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life sawing at my meat or wielding a dull blade. Sharpness was not a property I wished to lose. I shook my head.
‘Accuracy,’ he said. ‘And my blade will never miss its target.’
I was hardly going to say yes to that one. He frowned.
‘Beauty,’ he said. ‘If you will not give me a blade that takes a life in a sigh then you can at least give me one I am proud to look at.’
He twirled the dagger in his hand. The hilt was wrought in grey metal and a dull white jewel sat on the handle.
‘I cannot give you beauty,’ I said. ‘Where is a man without beauty in his life?’
The Word Dealer smiled and twirled the dagger again. It looked sharp to me and I had no doubt the man was accurate with it.
‘A colour perhaps?’ I queried. The little shop was bright and he himself was more so.
He considered for a moment, then inclined his head.
‘Someone has obviously given you red,’ I said. ‘So I will give you blue. Blue, and your jewel will become the most precious sapphire in the land. And your front door will be much improved.’
I was relieved, and surprised, when he said ‘Done. In one week blue will be gone from your life forever.’
It seemed like a pretty good bargain. I’ve always preferred autumn colours and I live in a land of grey skies.
I went to the bakery early next morning. Bakers are always up before dawn. Caroline was standing at the counter, handing out loaves with her usual smile.
‘Caroline,’ I said. Her name tasted rich and heavy in my mouth.
‘Pieter!’ she said, her face lighting up at the sight of me. ‘I was thinking I had not seen you for a time.’
I had bought a sweet roll only yesterday but from her face you would have thought I’d returned from a sailing trip of several years duration.
By the end of the week we had spent every spare moment together. I spoke her name over and over again, when she was with me and when she wasn’t . The joy I felt at the sound of her pure, sweet name is inexpressible. We walked hand in hand through the Duke’s Gardens and sat under the shade of flowering trees, fed ducks on the lake with scraps of her bread. She showed me how to knead dough and I kissed the flour off the end of her pretty nose. Her lips were as warm as I’d imagined and her hair as soft as I’d dreamed. And then the week was over. Dawn broke and found me fretting and tossing in my bed. Now that I had tasted Caroline’s love, how could I bear to lose it? My suffering would be multiplied a thousand thousand times from the pain before. Would she still love me as she said she did? Would her passion disappear? Or had she and I found something lasting, something that would continue without the need of spells and sorcery? I decided to send her a message, asking her to meet me under the trees in the Duke’s Gardens, by the lake we had sat by for so many hours. If she came, I would know she wanted me.
My feet were heavy and dread shrouded me as I walked to the gardens. The skies were grey, but then, they always were. I looked at the ground, hardly able to lift my head and see the empty space where she did not stand.
She was there! My love, my Caroline, was waiting! She rushed to me and wrapped her arms around my neck. Her lips found mine and I breathed in the warm, baked bread scent of her. She loved me still and no sorcery lay between us. I drew back and looked into her eyes. I felt the blood drain from my face.
‘Pieter? What is wrong?’ she said. ‘You look like a corpse!’
She was the one that looked like a corpse. Did I mention that Caroline had eyes the colour of cornflowers, of forget-me-nots, of a rare summer sky? Now she had eyes of clear glass, empty eyes that revealed no emotion, that showed me no love. And me? I have blue eyes too. Our children would inherit them. I saw a vision of my future family around the dinner table, their little faces turned towards me with vacant glassy stares.
All the same, I think I could have got used to it. I loved her after all and I told you before that it is what someone is like, not what they look like, that counts. If she had been blind, or terribly injured, I would have loved her still. But I had to tell her. A truth like that cannot lie unspoken between two people for a lifetime. And as I mentioned, Caroline is honest. She hated the thought of me manipulating her, of trading love and emotions that should be natural and pure. The idea of being bought was loathsome to her and worst of all, she couldn’t bear the sound of her name on my lips. It didn’t matter that I was the only one one who saw her like that, with those eyes.
‘I will always know,’ she said. ‘Every time you look at me. And if we were to wed and have children, how would I show you our new born babes?’
So there it was was. I, the eldest son of a reputable merchant family, traded a colour for a lifetime love and ended with neither.
Still. There are good trades and bad trades and one must capitalise on the first and recover from the other. I have a full beard now. I prefer not to shave, or undertake any task that requires me to look in a mirror. I rarely eat bread as I find there’s something about the smell that turns my stomach. Sometimes I pass Caroline in the street or see her in the market. She will not meet my eyes, or those of my brown eyed wife. My wife and I are happy together and it gives me great pleasure to see the smiling faces of our growing family around my table. And while I have never felt that deep yearning, that intense passion for another that I felt for Caroline, it does not matter. I am grateful for what I have and I would not trade it for anything.
***
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