“Master Rafe, there are ladies present.”
The young man—Rafe—gave Kaab a cursory bow. “Apologies, madam. I did not see you standing there. Are you—goodness, you’re one of the Balams!”
He seemed so disconcerted that she had to smile. “I just arrived,” she replied. “I think that is why we never had the pleasure of meeting.”
She put particular emphasis on pleasure and was rewarded with a flashing grimace.
“Madam,” he said, and removed his hat and bowed. “My argument is with my father, not with you. And as my father isn’t here to listen, I’m afraid I have been rude to no purpose.”
“But you would be rude to a purpose?” she asked.
He blinked. “Well . . . of course. Even my enemies would grant me that.”
“Then I say we have that in common, Rafe Fenton. I am Ixkaab Balam, and I’m here to trade for . . . two ounces of saffron from your family. At least, that’s what I estimate. Any help you could give me on the matter of dressing forty hares I will appreciate.”
“What the devil would I know of dressing hares? I’m a philosopher, madam. An acolyte to the ancient pursuit of higher knowledge. We don’t generally concern ourselves with mundane affairs of the common man.” He turned to one of the closed doors—presumably his father’s—and hurled: “Particularly those related to trading and spices and feasts!”
Kaab muttered some choice words in her own language and turned to the trembling chain of servants who had followed the Fenton scion into the room.
“Would you please tell his man of business about the saffron?” she asked in their general direction.
“He’ll be back soon, miss,” said the maid who had opened the door. “But I expect you’ll be needing at least four and a half or five ounces, for that many hares. If you’d like to do them in the Tremontaine style.”
Kaab bestowed the maid with her most brilliant smile. “That is perfect. I thank you very much for your helpful information. Now I will sit here and await the man of business.”
She selected the nearest leather chair and sat upon it. A very tiny embalmed head rested on a raised display cushion to her right. She did her best to ignore it.
Rafe sighed like a north wind, turned to her in a slouch, and regarded her under lowered lids.
“I expect this all-important feast is your fault.”
“You expect correctly.”
“You’re the long-lost daughter.”
“I’ve never been lost in my life!”
“It’s a colloquial expression. And really, never?”
Kaab allowed herself a direct look. “I am a first daughter of a first daughter of the Balam. I have been trained from birth to the service. I do not get lost.” For very long, she amended internally, for honesty’s sake. Confusing left and north didn’t count. Nor did a few dizzy, ill-fated nights in the company of the brilliant Citlali.
“Lucky you,” he said.
Kaab hadn’t felt lucky for seven months, but she couldn’t very well contradict him. And perhaps he was right—she was alive, which was more than she could say for the relatives who had accompanied her on the mission.
“Why do you say so?”
He gave the shut door another moody glance and then cracked a bitter, self-deprecating smile. “Because you wish to do that which you have been born into. I am the first son of a trading family, and I wish to dedicate my life to science. My family is . . . merely tolerant. As if the movements of the very stars in the heavens are a delirium, a fever that will pass if they spoil me enough.”
“I’m sure they have spoiled you sufficiently,” she said dryly.
Rafe didn’t catch the sarcasm. “They don’t bother to understand a damned thing about my world! Take today. Father summons me home to attend your blasted feast—no offense intended—and this week of all weeks is when we must protest the Board of Governors before they vote to ruin the very institutions of higher learning! There are rumors that they’ll meet at least once this week, and if I’m not on hand for the protests, I will never forgive myself.”
Kaab knew that she should ask him about these protests and learn more of the local political situation, but the unquestioning arrogance of his manner made her itch to bait him, just a little.
“You’re very important, then?”
Now Rafe noticed. “I’m—” He frowned at her. “Aren’t you the little princess.”
Kaab widened her eyes. “Do princesses here carry two pounds of Caana chocolate to make trades with the spoiled sons of spice merchants?”
Rafe’s bottom lip trembled even as the rest of his face struggled with outrage. His lip got the better of him and he let out a sweet, rueful chuckle. “Well, you’re interesting, at least. What was that you said about two pounds of chocolate?”
Kaab lifted her bag to her lap and loosened the drawstring enough for the rich, bitter aroma of processed cocoa to drift in his direction. He swallowed.
“Five ounces of saffron, you said?”
She nodded. “And the hares.”
“We’re spice merchants, not butchers!”
“I’m sure you can manage it. Are you not a merchant’s son?”
He looked at her sourly. “A scholar. As I said.”
“I can,” she said delicately, “of course, wait for his man of business. . . .”
He looked again at the bag, with its very valuable chocolate. Even more valuable, she gathered, to a scholar looking for status and leverage over his colleagues than to an established merchant who regularly bought from her family.
Rafe Fenton nodded with sudden determination. “I’ll help you. This business might be significantly beneath me, but”—he cocked his head and gave her a little grin—“I can certainly get you forty goddamned hares. Do we have a deal?”
Kaab automatically put her hand over her heart. He did the same, and they exchanged bows. Only when she met his eyes again did she remember that these people clasped hands to make agreements. He tilted his head in that way he had, as if to say don’t underestimate me. She laughed.
“I could come to like you, Rafe Fenton. I don’t like everyone.”
“Well neither do I, Princess Balam. Indeed, I’d lay good odds that I’m even more accomplished in the art of making enemies than you are.”
Kaab quite believed him.
Visits home generally never netted Rafe more than a throat raw from arguing (not yelling, as his father loved to put it in that infuriatingly soft way of his) and a strong desire for strong wine, a strong man, and a bed sturdy enough to enjoy them. Depending on how impossible the visit, he had been known to forgo the latter in favor of whatever hard surface lay handy and tolerate Joshua—his best friend and long-suffering roommate—pulling the splinters from his chest the following morning. After receiving his father’s summons to the bosom of the Fenton merchant empire, he’d spent the morning in the pub with Joshua, alternating complaints about the Board of Governors’ proposed bylaw change with even more vociferous condemnations of the petty concerns of the so-aptly-termed petty merchant class.
“Thank the gods they won’t actually vote until next month. Imagine, letting the university doctors dictate which students’ committees they’ll sit on! Choosing one’s own committee has been the sacred right of examining students for . . . centuries, surely! How are we supposed to progress? Have new ideas? Break the goddamned status quo? I ask you! But still, I’m sure to get my slot in the next two weeks. They came too late to touch me.”
Joshua, having heard this many times before, had patted his knee and looked decidedly bored. Micah had been playing cards for minnows and paid him no attention whatsoever. The boy did, however, look up when Rafe gathered his belongings to leave. Micah had handed him a letter, rather ingeniously folded and addressed to Cousin Reuben The Second Stall Past The Chicken Seller Fanoo The One With The Purple Cock.
Rafe had nearly choked on his beer. Micah took this to mean that perhaps she should come with him to the market, and Rafe had wasted five
minutes assuring the boy (and walking gold mine) that it wouldn’t be at all necessary.
But to his surprise, his visit home had yielded an unexpected opportunity: the new Balam girl, striding forcefully beside him in the inevitable ankle-deep muck of early spring. And as an added bonus, her presence had momentarily postponed the inevitable paternal confrontation. He had raided what stores of saffron he knew of in the house, which weren’t quite enough to satisfy the order. So they were now headed to the market, where both hares and the rest of the saffron could be procured, and he could also deliver Micah’s letter safely into the hands of the Cousin Who Must Not Take Him Away.
In the meantime, he had many reasons to be intrigued by the Balam girl’s conversation. Provided that he could channel it to the proper theme. He had long suspected the Kinwiinik of having a much more enlightened grasp on celestial mechanics than those doddering Rastinites who liked to fancy themselves natural philosophers at the University. But the trouble with believing something truly radical—for instance, that the earth revolves around the sun—was that one needed to gather evidence. And where better to look than with those who regularly use the stars to guide them unimaginable distances across the sea?
“I expect that you arrived on the boat that put in just last week. The long-awaited chocolate shipment?”
“Oh,” said the girl, with a sharp little smile, “I wasn’t told what it was carrying. But if it’s from home, it surely carried cacao. And other food, for the feast.”
“Those peppers that could curl the hair of a sheepdog?”
“Many,” she said. “The sun here isn’t very strong, is it? You people, with your ant-egg skin, don’t grow with much head-spirit.”
Rafe had not the slightest idea what ant eggs looked like, nor what that had to do with his skin (or his head-spirit!), but he could tell from her eyes that she was challenging him. He straightened. “The consumption of peppers hot enough to constitute a form of torture is hardly an indication of strength!”
She looked at him steadily. “You would say so.”
Rafe bit his lip on a nasty retort and took a deep, calming breath. He had a point here, and he would not let himself be diverted. He could subdue even his notorious temper in the pursuit of the sacrament of knowledge (as Nereau so eloquently put it).
“So what made you come here?” he asked with all the forced placidity of a tight curl beneath a hot iron.
“Saffron,” she said.
Rafe grit his teeth. “I mean, what made you leave your home? Why travel here? Is your family looking for a husband for you?”
A vague shot, which landed very satisfyingly home. She stopped in the middle of the street and rounded on him. “I am dedicated to the service,” she snarled, “and I may never marry if I do not choose. And I do not choose.”
“Ah,” said Rafe.
“What is that?” She resumed walking.
“What is what?”
“What you are thinking.”
Rafe took his time to consider this. He smoothed down his ink-stained cuffs. “I think,” he said, “that a Balam dedicated to the service would know the contents of the hold in the ship that had carried her from home.”
She scowled at him, but the quivering right corner of her mouth ruined the effect. “I grant,” she said, “that I might have been curious.”
“And it did carry cacao?”
“Aren’t you a merchant’s son? You know well it did. Several very good varieties, including the most excellent Caana I have given your family in exchange for this saffron. Perhaps your father will be interested in discussing a larger purchase.”
Rafe hadn’t thought to leave his father any. But he supposed that the continued prosperity of the Fenton empire was in his most general interests. He could spare a few ounces. “How long was the journey?” he asked casually.
“Oh, three months, the way your people calculate them.”
“So many! Is that normal?”
“If we sail straight through the North Sea. Sometimes the boats spend much time on the coast, and then on the islands of stonecutters and basket makers.”
“Is that part of your service, then? Sailing those great boats?” He took care not to appear too wide-eyed, merely curious. “Watch your step.” He took her arm to keep her from slipping into a hole in the road. From the smell of it, the bums playing jacks nearby had used it for a latrine.
She shook him off gently. “Some are specialized for that service,” she said. “And others . . . for other things.”
“You have some of these other skills, I take it? I won’t dare ask you what they are.”
“Clever of you.”
Rafe had to strangle a grin. “And those great journeys,” he said as the market came into view. “You are guided by . . . maps? Charts? It must have taken your people many, many generations to find the way.”
“Not so many,” she said absently. “We follow the way of the Four Hundred Sibling Gods, who are the stars in the sky. The priests interpret their signs and give us the routes.”
“And how long have your people known the earth is shaped as a sphere?”
She frowned. “It is—is it?”
“That’s what we believe now. But moving across it is—”
She bared her teeth. “A complete mystery to me.”
Oh damn. Perhaps he hadn’t sounded as casually uninterested as he had thought.
“I just meant—”
“So where do we find the hares? Or should we look for saffron first?”
Their glance felt like a brief clash of blades—one which he summarily lost. He had always suspected that to navigate those great distances the Kinwiinik must have some knowledge of mathematics and natural philosophy which those at the University lacked. Given the proposed bylaw change, he had to sit his Master’s exams within the month if he didn’t want to find himself at the mercy of a handful of hidebound doctors who despised him (for entirely trivial reasons). If he could do so with some actual mathematics for his theories about the sun and the stars and the earth’s place in the universe—if these could be bolstered by the truth of why navigators from the Land either foundered on unexpected shores or drowned in their attempts to traverse the large ocean distances that the Traders from the chocolate lands did as a matter of routine—
Well, even old hidebound curmudgeons like de Bertel couldn’t fail to acknowledge the justice of his evidentiary methods.
But first he had to gain the Balam girl’s confidence. So he elbowed his way through the milling crowd of bourgeois dowagers and scullery maids and potboys sniffing and cawing and bargaining for the winter’s last root vegetables and the spring’s first asparagus and peas. He had been going to this market since he was younger than those potboys, and while his merchant background was often a source of shame to him in the University, he could not help but hear the energetic clatter of a market day as a hum that warmed his veins and told him that here, too, was a home.
It is no longer, he told himself viciously. He could exploit his experience and contacts without quibbling over the implications. Knowing the fair price of sea bass on a spring morning after a storm did not make him a closeted merchant. It made him a young intellectual with layers. He sighed; he could practically see Joshua rolling his eyes.
The hares were duly selected and sent along to the Balam compound with the saffron via a boy. That only left the letter in his pocket.
“If you wouldn’t mind,” he told the Balam girl, “I have one last errand to attend to before we head back.”
She inclined her head. Quite regally. Damned princess, he thought, more savagely than necessary. He was nervous about meeting Micah’s cousin.
Cousin Reuben was unmistakable (and Micah’s directions precise—Rafe did indeed note the purple cockerel). He had the family nose (flat) and the family jawline (square) and the family hair, precisely the shade of wheat before a harvest. He wore muddy breeches, fingerless gloves, and a well-kept leather hat with a large white feather that practical
ly gleamed above the late-season rutabagas.
“What can I get for you today, son?”
Rafe scowled, realized this might not put the cousin entirely at ease, and forced a smile. “I have a letter,” he said. “From your cousin Micah.”
Cousin Reuben frowned. “I’ll be damned. Another one? With another excuse, I’ll bet. Well, let’s have it.”
He took the letter, looked over the folds, and took his time unpacking it. He read with his finger beneath the evenly spaced lines, pronouncing the words in a low voice.
“‘Cousin Reuben this is Micah I have found many friends here especially Rafe Fenton who is showing me many things especially math. You remember how I like math’—Oh, don’t I!—‘and it turns out that here there is plenty of it so I think I’ll stay another week. I’m very sorry for neglecting the garden I know it is time for asparagus because I had some soup last night and also because the rains have come. I promise I’ll come back next week as soon as I solve these ek—eek—’ What the hell word is this?”
“Equations, sir,” Rafe said.
“‘. . . as soon as I solve these equations they’re very interesting. I’ll tell you all about them next week. Love, Micah.’”
He peered over the letter. Rafe tried not to fidget. “You’re the one who’s taken our Micah, then?”
“Now hold on—I haven’t taken him . . . he’s a genius! He deserves to have his intellect planted in fertile soil! Not left out to rot in the country!”
Cousin Reuben looked a little worried. “Is he, now? Does he? And what if he isn’t all you University types hope?”
“He absolutely is, sir.” Rafe was very sincere. The Balam girl gave him a searching look.
Cousin Reuben sighed. “The kid does sound happy. Math.” He shook his head. “I trust you to take care of our Micah, son. Fenton, eh? I’ve met your father.”
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