At last she let him go and stalked toward the house. Reaching the well, she drew a bucket full of water. “Come on, boy,” she called, seeing that he hadn’t moved. “Let’s wash up.”
The large wooden table had been pulled out from the wall. Benches, their legs hinged so they could be folded and stored under the table, were set on its long sides, while stools were placed at both ends. Niko shared a bench with Daja and Sandry. It was clear that Lark and Rosethorn were expected to use the stools. In her eagerness to put the table between her and the Trader, Tris found that she now shared a bench with Briar. He returned her glare with one of his own. They scooted as far apart as they could.
Lark and Rosethorn crossed their wrists, laying their palms flat on their shoulders, and asked the gods to bless their meal. When they were done, the adults began to pass dishes of food around the table.
“I can’t wait till the vegetables start coming in,” said Rosethorn with a sigh. “Especially the tomatoes.”
“What are those?” Sandry asked.
“Vegetables,” Rosethorn said briskly, helping herself to bread and handing the plate to Briar. “Brought from the far side of the Endless Sea.” The boy grabbed three slices and shoved the plate toward Tris.
“Rosethorn’s the only gardener to grow them successfully on this side of the Endless so far,” Niko told Tris and Sandry.
“Dedicate Crane is trying to grow them in his greenhouse.” Rosethorn made greenhouse sound like midden. “So far he’s failing.” She smiled very sweetly.
“What’s a greenhouse?” asked Briar. He drizzled olive oil and aromatic vinegar over his bread. It was habit to soften bread first, after he had once lost a baby tooth on a crust. Here, where the bread was soft, oil and vinegar added flavor.
Rosethorn watched him. “A greenhouse is a building made all of glass—”
“All glass?” whispered Daja, brown eyes huge. “But that’s expensive!”
“And foolish. Crane thinks he can make fruits and vegetables grow out of season in his—and he can,” Rosethorn added hurriedly, when Lark glared at her. “They just don’t taste like much. And he can’t grow tomatoes at all.”
Briar looked down so no one could see the interest in his eyes. So Niko had been telling the truth, and they did grow plants inside a building here! He wondered how soon he might be able to slip away to see this marvel for himself.
Lark turned to Niko and asked, “How long are you with us this time?”
“At least through the winter.” He sipped a cup of milk. “His grace the Duke has asked me to look at the harbor lighthouses, and the Temple Council has a few chores for me. I’m to freshen the crystals in the seeing-place, for one. And there’s research I need to do in the libraries.” Looking at Tris, he said, “Once I start that, you might like to come along and let me introduce you to the librarians.”
Tris looked at her plate. On the trip from Capchen, he had told her about Winding Circle’s libraries, famed throughout the countries around the Pebbled Sea and beyond. The offer was very tempting. If the librarians knew her, they might steer her to the more interesting books.
“Niko, you are not a dedicate?” Daja asked. “I thought you must be sealed to this temple, since you come here all the time.”
Rosethorn cackled. “He’s no dedicate—that would mean he’d have to stay in one place. He’s a mage—as rootless as a dandelion seed, drifting on the wind.”
Briar and Tris stared at the man who had brought them. Sandry and Daja kept their eyes on their food.
“How else can I see everything I wish to see?” he replied. To Briar and Tris he added, “Yes, I’m a mage. Beyond that, I’m a treasure hunter. I’m here for now, which is all that really matters.”
With that, they ate their meal in silence. Despite the fact that he devoured more than anyone else, Briar was the first to finish. He started to get up.
Rosethorn put a hand on his arm. “Down, boy,” she told him. “You ask to be excused from the table, remember? And wait until Lark gives permission.” That hand pressed down.
For a small woman, she’s strong, he thought with admiration. He sat again. “Can I be excused?”
“No. Listen, you four,” Rosethorn said. “While you’re here, address problems or questions or needs to Lark. She likes children, the Green Man alone knows why.
“I don’t like children in my garden—not without my say-so, anyway,” she added with a glance at Briar. “Play somewhere else. Tell Lark where you go, always. Me you leave alone. And that workshop on the side of the house, the one that’s mostly wood? That’s mine, too. Touch anything in there, and you will die the worst death I can invent.”
She looked at each child in turn, then smiled, showing teeth. “I’m glad we had this little talk.” Placing her napkin beside her plate, Rosethorn went outside.
For a moment there was silence. Then Lark said, “Her bark is worse than her bite.”
“Bet her bite’s poisonous,” muttered Daja.
“Just with the bark, you die slow,” added Tris. They grinned, then remembered that merchants and Traders disliked each other, and turned away.
“Dedicate Lark?” a voice called through the front door. “I have boxes from the girls’ dormitories for your boarders.”
“One moment,” Lark called. “Briar and Daja, as senior guests, will you clean up, please? Once Sandry and Tris are settled, we’ll do a schedule of chores so no one gets stuck with the same tasks all the time.”
Niko hastily folded his napkin and got to his feet. “I’ll see everyone later,” he said, and followed Rosethorn out.
Lark chuckled. “He thinks he’d get snagged for moving duty. He only does what he wants to, our Niko.” Rising, she went to the front door.
As Daja started to gather the dishes, Sandry leaned over the table to grab Briar’s sleeve and Tris’s. Halted from leaving the table, they stared at her. “Niko brought you both here?” asked Sandry.
“So?” demanded Tris, peeling the girl’s fingers off her sleeve. “What if he did? It doesn’t mean he owns me or anything.” She stomped across the floor, on her way to claim her boxes from the cart.
Sandry turned her blue eyes on Briar. “He brought you?”
He shook her off. “I don’t like nosy Bags,” he snapped. Grabbing a bucket, he went out to the well.
“Well, if Niko’s a mage, at least I know how he managed to find me in the middle of the Pebbled Sea,” remarked Daja in Tradertalk.
“I was—hidden by magic,” Sandry replied in the same language. “So he found you, and he found me—and then he brought us here. Why?”
Daja shrugged. “Mimanders have their own reasons for everything they do,” she replied. “I’m guessing that mages who aren’t Traders are the same. Forget it. You’ll just give yourself a nosebleed if you think about it too hard.”
Sandry touched her small nose, then shook her head and went to get her belongings.
Her things set up in her new room, Tris hung partway out of her window, trying to see the clouds. The morning storms had passed, but the sky was far from clear. The wind shifted, bringing unfamiliar voices to her ears.
“—know how chancy divination is.” It sounded like Niko. “These images are too diffuse. There aren’t enough of them. From their scarcity, I’d hazard that they are about a possible future event, not one that is probable.”
“We should be able to tell!” This voice was not at all familiar. “If we keep trying—”
Tris wiped her forehead on her sleeve. If crazy people heard voices, why did hers make sense? She’d read about madness: voices told the insane that they were gods, or that the neighbors planned to murder them. Her voices always had real conversations. And wasn’t “divination” a word for telling the future?
“You must do your best.” Tris winced. How did Moonstream become one of her mad voices? “Tell me of any change. And let’s prepare for a quake. I’ll—”
“Um—Tris?”
She gasped, and nearly fe
ll out of the window. Small hands gripped her skirt and hauled her back into the room. Her feet on the floor again, she whirled to glare at the invader: Sandry. “Don’t you knock?” she demanded, straightening her spectacles.
“I did knock,” replied the other girl. “And I called. You just didn’t hear me.”
Tris shook out her dress with trembling hands. “What do you want?”
Sandry hesitated, taking in the other girl’s scowl. In for a copper, in for a gold, she thought. “This winter, I—went a little crazy. With embroidery, and needlepoint. I have these hangings, more than I’ll ever need…. I thought you might like one.” She retrieved a plump, neat roll of cloth from the bed, where she had dropped it, and held it out.
Tris looked at it, then glared. “Is something wrong with you?”
“What on earth are you talking about?”
“Just because we all have to live here together doesn’t mean you can forget your rank! Look at you, hobnobbing with a Trader, and now me. You can’t do that! I’m merchant blood, understand? It’s in my last name—Chan-d-ler.” Tris spoke the word very slowly, as if Sandry were not quite bright. “You’re probably an ei or a fa something.”
“That doesn’t make any difference,” Sandry said, her mouth set in a mulish line.
“Only a noble would say something so idiotic.”
“Here I’m the same as you!”
Tris’s laugh was as harsh as a crow’s. “You wear slippers at four silver astrels the pair, cotton broadcloth at six silver creses the yard, and—and silk chiffon that’s a gold astrel the yard, and tell me you’re the same?” She tugged hard at her own ugly dress. “There is definitely something wrong with you. Go away.”
“I was trying to be nice.” Sandry placed the hanging on the desk. “If you don’t want it, then give it to someone else—I don’t care.” Chin high, she walked out.
Tris slammed the door and glared at it. She couldn’t see a latch that would stop anyone else from barging in. A nice thing with a thief in the house, she thought. Not that I have anything worth stealing.
The roll of cloth sat on her desk, a temptation on cream-colored linen.
She thinks I’m stupid enough to believe her, thought Tris. She thinks people never pretended to be my friend before!
Curious, she spread the hanging out. It showed a six-spoked wheel, with a different, brightly colored bird at the end of each spoke. Flat, the hanging was good-sized, two feet by one foot. It was easy to see how the sticks at the center of the roll would fit to make a frame, and how the cloth would attach to it.
For a long moment Tris stared at it, thinking about how beautiful it was. Did she say she did this work? the girl wondered. That can’t be right—probably it was servants, only she claims what they did for her own. Nobles do things like that.
Gently she traced an embroidered toucan’s over-large, gaudy beak. She loved birds—they coasted so beautifully on the wind, or mastered the air with darting turns. Looking around, she found a blank space on the wall that needed to be filled. The hanging could go there, where she could see it from the bed.
If she wants it back, I can tell her she gave it, and I’m keeping it, Tris thought fiercely. That will teach—what had Honored Moonstream called her?—Lady Sandrilene.
Daja, carrying her staff, followed Sandry downstairs. No one else was in the main room by that time. “I take it you heard,” Sandry remarked with a crooked smile. Plumping herself on the bottom riser, she put her chin on her hands. “Not all nine-fingered girls have hatchets,” she said in Tradertalk. “Some of us just tried to have a conversation with a snapping turtle.”
“She is right, you know,” Daja told her in the same language. “You should keep to your own kind, not try to make friends with Traders and mean girls with red hair.”
The other girl sighed. “Not you, too! No, my mind’s made up. I’ll make friends with whomever I want, so there. I just need more uvumi.”
“Patience? Why? Why keep trying?” asked Daja, surprised. “Another noble would have smacked her for what she said. Any other noble never would have bothered with me, either.”
Sandry made a face. “If I lived like that, I never would have had any friends. See, it was my parents—they traveled all the time, instead of tending their lands and being in attendance at someone’s court. The nobles we visited thought maybe children would get funny ideas from me, so they said theirs were always in the country—or in the city—or sick with something.”
“So you had to make friends with Traders and commoners?” Daja shook her head, whistling silently. “That is strange.”
“It was hard. Commoners and Traders don’t exactly fall over themselves to be friends with nobles, if you haven’t noticed. I just learned patience, like I said. Uvumi.” She grinned up at Daja.
The black girl shook her head. “Lark says I can go for a walk. You want to come?”
Sandry rose, smoothing her skirt. “Another time? I have to finish unpacking.”
Daja nodded and headed out of the cottage.
5
Bearing the staff when she went out was still hateful, but after being jumped, Daja knew she had to carry it, just as any Trader did in an unfriendly town. She planted it solidly in the dirt as she walked, throwing a coat of dust over the new brass and ebony.
It was a beautiful late spring day—growing weather, if one cared for such things. Rows of vegetables, fruits, and herbs flourished in the gardens beside the spiral road, a promise of winter food. Channels of water ran between them, so the land drank its fill. Dedicates in Earth-green, like Rosethorn and Lark, and novices in white tended the plants. Other dedicates in Water-blue looked after the irrigation system, making sure that all areas got the right amount of liquid. Passing the western temple, Daja stopped to bow, hands together in front of her face, in respect to the gods of Water.
On the far side of that building, plants were replaced by carpenters’ shops. Beyond those were the smithies that lay around the southern temple, dedicated to the Fire gods. Today she ignored the soft voice of her upbringing, the one that sneered at her interest in lugsha, or craftsmen, in Tradertalk. She watched a sweating female apprentice pour molten copper into a mold and a master silversmith put the last touches on a silver urn.
At last her feet drew her to a small, isolated shop tucked into the shadow of the southern wall. Inside, a black man labored, his back uncovered and rolling with sweat. Bald on top, he’d let the rest of his hair—as well as his beard—grow long and wild; they swayed as he pounded hot metal. Under a leather apron, the top of his red habit hung from its rope belt, gathering soot as it brushed the anvil.
“Kirel!” he called over the chime of hammer-blows. “I need the top full—Hakoi bless me, I sent him out.” Glancing around, he saw Daja. “Girl, a favor? I need my top fuller.” He pointed to a long counter, where a number of metal and wood tools waited.
She leaned her staff on the wall and went to the counter. “What’s a top fuller?”
“Like a hammer, but the head’s rounded—”
For a moment she saw nothing but hammers. Then she found one that looked like his description. “This?” she asked, picking it up. It had weight in her hands, and authority. Her skin prickled with excitement. She’d never touched a smith’s tools before.
“That’s it!” She thrust the fuller into his grasp. He struck the hot metal with the rounded end, flattening red-hot iron to one side. “ ‘Prentice—had to—get a bucket,” he explained between blows. “Should be back by now.”
“What are you making?” she asked, watching the pattern of his strikes. He pushed the metal with the top fuller’s rounded head, until it bulged in back of it like pie crust under a rolling pin. The metal glowed a dull, sullen red, its smell sharp and bitter.
He lifted the piece. “A strap for a door, when I’m done with it.”
Daja raised her eyebrows. The metal was already three feet long. “It must be a dreadful big door.”
The smith grinned. No
t once did the steady blows of his fuller lose rhythm. “It is—the duke’s treasury,” he explained. “There’ll be eight straps all told—two of the finished ones are over there.” He nodded toward the counter. Next to it she saw a pair of long, thin pieces of black iron leaning against the wall. “Take a look, if you wish.”
Daja obeyed. The finished strips were four feet long. Something under the surface of the metal moved as she looked at it, like the muscles that flexed under the man’s skin. Were there letters in the iron? Frowning, she reached out, then yanked her hand back.
“You can touch them,” called the smith. “They won’t bite.”
Daja smiled and ran her fingers over the beaten metal. The iron was cold, but warmed quickly when she rested her hand on it. “I thought I saw letters here a moment,” she commented, as much to herself as to the man.
“Letters, is it?” It was hard to tell what he thought from his breathless voice. “Well, you’re right. Not everyone sees them, I have to tell you.”
“I can’t see them—not anymore.” She rubbed her fingers over the metal. The sound of feet approaching at a run made her flinch and grab her staff.
“Frostpine, you wouldn’t believe how slow they were!” A huge young man with braided fair hair and blue eyes came into the forge, a bucket in each hand. His run had tossed both hair and a soot-streaked white habit out of order. “If I was the Duke’s grace himself, they still would have taken forever!” He looked at Daja as he set his burdens down. “So I made them give me two buckets.”