gathered in council, the Chief Elder was the first to speak. All gaped as he proposed that the council promise a feast every moon. Mouths opened wider when he urged each feast continue a second day. In the silence, the Chief Elder enjoyed the purse of Sonru’s lips and the twitch of his shoulders.
Shortly the elders found their tongues. While no one openly opposed the Chief Elder, many asked how they could act on his wishes without greater takes.
The Chief Elder smiled. All knew, he answered, of the island’s prosperity under his four seasons of guidance. Each moon had brought a better life to the people. The better their life, the more they traded at the market. The more they traded, the more stones the trade take netted. That and the stall take had put the vault to near overflowing. With ease the council could act as he asked.
The elders debated, then agreed. Afterwards all smiled at thought of so many more feasts. All save Sonru, whose fish lips curled down. The Chief Elder hid a laugh and thought Sonru looked as one whose cooking pot another had emptied.
After the feast, the Chief Elder basked in the people’s smiles. With the fangs of Sonru at last pulled, the Chief Elder then retired to a hut on the far shore. Here he and his two wives passed the days in ease.
When a moon later he returned to the village, the smiles were gone. It was with scowls that women gathered before his hut that afternoon. The Chief Elder listened in disbelief, then anger, as wife after wife cried her woe. After he dismissed them, he stormed toward the market.
Quickly he summoned the stallmasters and led them behind the village. When they reached the shade of the palm grove, the Chief Elder turned and glared at the three. Jasti, whose eager chatter he had ignored, still wore a great smile. La, his eyes red and cheeks puffed from another night of wining, also smiled—but feebly. Only stout Gonka, sweated from the walk of a hundred paces, met his gaze coldly.
The Chief Elder whipped his glare from one to another. He spoke harshly.
“Why, La, is a pot now offered for six stones when a moon ago only four were asked? Jasti, why are yam cakes now ten, when it was always six? Gonka, why do you ask eight stones for a basket of fish when before five was enough? Why? La, do you lack wine? Jasti, do your loins beg for another wife? Gonka, do you need another servant to fan away the afternoon heat?”
La and Jasti dropped their heads, but Gonka turned and spat. The Chief Elder stiffened. Then Gonka spoke very slowly. In the manner, thought the Chief Elder, of one explaining to a child.
“Chief Elder, every moon the fishers bring me two hundred baskets of fish. Always I have given five stones for each. But the past moon the council bought fifty baskets—for the long feast. The people find less fish at my stall and they offer against each other to fill their cooking pots. One says six stones, another seven, another eight. It is the people who make the askings greater, not I.”
The Chief Elder shook his finger under the jutting chin of Gonka. “Do not weave your market words on me. You, all of you, feast on the island’s prosperity. I tell you, the council will not allow it.”
Jasti hunched before the Chief Elder. He grinned through a worried face and his eyes cast reproof at Gonka.
“Chief Elder, we understand your anger. But we have not gained as it appears. The fishers know what Gonka now must ask—thus they ask more from him. After he trades a basket of fish, he has for himself no more than before—one stone. The same with us all. The same everywhere on the island.”
La nodded solemnly. “It is as he says. Even the wife to all men Chana asks more stones.”
“You should know,” bellowed the Chief Elder.
Gonka smirked. “You wish the asking for fish to return to five stones? The answer is simple. Have no more feasts.”
The Chief Elder stamped his foot. “The feasts are the people’s right!”
Then he stood quivering, furious at Gonka for making him lose his temper like a spoiled child. His voice dropped low and sharp.
“I will bring this before the council. The island will not shelter those who grow fat on the toil of others.”
When the Chief Elder gathered the council that evening, the elders already knew the people’s mood. They also were aware that the choosing waited but a month hence. If the people’s anger were not cooled, everyone on the council knew that after the choosing they would be catching their meals in the lagoon. It would be other men who lived well on the stones given a council elder.
Elder after elder rose to cry against the higher askings. It was obvious where the blame lay, among the greedy ones behind the stalls. How dare they double their gain? Did they already not live better than anyone else?
When passion had swelled close to bursting, the Chief Elder rose.
“I say the council forbid Gonka never to ask more than five stones a basket. As it has been for us, so will it be for our children and their children.”
The elders, who always argued at least for practice, shouted their approval. Sonru rose behind the cry. With wide sweeps of his arms he demanded the council also return pots, cloth, wine, and yam cakes to the old askings.
As Sonru thrashed the air, the Chief Elder frowned. What Sonru urged went beyond his wishes, for pots or yams were not live givers like fish. But the council again erupted to agree and the Chief Elder held his tongue.
Sonru’s cousin rose. The Chief Elder sneered at the man whose sunken eyes begged of the grave and who obeyed Sonru like a dog.
“Elders,” the cousin’s thin voice whined, “why do we only forbid greater askings? Let us end the trouble for all. I say the council take the stalls and own them. Only then will the people know they cannot be cheated.”
Never before had such words been uttered on the island. The council fell deathly silent. Always what a man built, what he toiled for, was his. Only when theft was proved had the council ever taken another’s belongings. All eyes drifted toward the Chief Elder.
Before he spoke, the Chief Elder thought carefully. Of course it was the cousin, not Sonru, who had cast out the net. It would be the dog alone shamed if the council found these words unwise. If found worthy, then at each hut Sonru would boast himself their father.
The Chief Elder wove great assurance into his voice.
“No, my elders, it is not for the council to own stalls. We can watch over them, as does a father a wayward child, but we know not stall ways. Gonka knows, Jasti knows. Much better than we can they keep busy their helpers, store their wares, and trade with both makers and buyers. We will watch them and we will punish greed, but we must remember we are the council. We guide the island, we do not sweep stalls."
The elders nodded and cast hard eyes at the cousin.
Word went forth that the council had leashed the stallmasters. The people of the island rejoiced. No longer need they fear Gonka and his pack taking ever more of their hard won stones. They also praised the naming of three council helpers, who would each day sit in the market and see that the stallmasters obeyed.
The day following no one took much notice when all wares were sold before noon. The few late to market merely planned to return earlier on the morrow. The second day the stalls were bare by mid morning. More did without and mumbling began. The third day no wares remained soon after the stalls opened. Now curses rained, both on the stallmasters and on those who obviously had bought more than needed.
The fourth day a great crowd waited even before the stalls opened. When Gonka raised his reed covers, the mass surged forward shouting. A fight broke out between two women, and one council helper was beaten trying to form a line. The other helpers ran to the Chief Elder, who sent up the trail for the guard at Wuu’s hut.
The fifth day passed without fighting, for the Chief Elder named six guards to stand in the market. Many still cursed, and many found the stalls empty when their turn in line came.
The sixth day, though, the people were joyous, for that morning they learned they would have revenge. During th
e night Jasti had been caught trading yam cakes for twenty stones. Twenty stones, three times that allowed. All six guards had been needed to save Jasti from flailing arms when he was brought trembling before the council.
With the people pressed about the council hut, Sonru spoke first. His voice crashed like thunder as he raged against Jasti’s greed. When he finished cries of “Club him! Club Him!” boomed through the village.
In the sea of burning eyes the Chief Elder saw the doom of Jasti. Yet he could not let his people tear apart Jasti like dogs did their meat. Speaking at length, the Chief Elder calmed the crowd. In the end, Jasti was put in a provisioned boat and sent through the mouth of the lagoon.
The day of the choosing drew ever nearer. The Chief Elder saw Sonru gathering listeners and winning many nods. Sonru swore that as the next Chief Elder, he would return the prosperity that had slipped away the past moon. Under the four seasons of his guidance, no man would do without.
The Chief Elder chose not to argue Sonru’s words and instead retired to his hut for meditation. When he emerged, he threw two heavy logs into the path of the sleek one.
First, he convinced the elders to limit each family to one basket of fish a day. To prevent cheating, a family would be given yam leaves bearing the council’s mark. When a wife bought from Gonka, she must also present a leaf to one of the
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