“Oh, Malta,” her grandmother groaned. Sometimes Malta felt her name was a sort of club. Almost any time either of them said it, they expressed anger or disgust or impatience with the world. She hung her cloak on a peg, then turned with a shrug.
“I just wanted to see her flame jewels,” she tried to explain, but as usual, neither of them was listening to her. Instead they hurried her inside the hall. It was dimly lit with tall standing branches of tapers. A third of the space had been given over to an elevated stage. The floor that she had always seen cleared for dancing was now lined with rows of chairs. And it was as she had feared. They were late. The tables of food were picked over and folk were either seated already or seeking their seats. “Can I go and sit with Delo?” she asked hastily.
“Delo Trell is not here,” Grandmother pointed out acidly. “Her parents had the good sense to leave her at home. Which is where I wish you were, also.”
“I didn't ask to come,” Malta replied, even as her mother said, “Mother!” in rebuke. A few moments later, Malta found herself seated between them at the end of a long row of cushioned chairs. Davad Restart sat at the very end. There was an elderly couple in front of them, a pox-scarred man and his pregnant wife behind them, and on the other side of Mama were two heavy-jowled brothers. They weren't even interesting to look at. By sitting up tall and craning her head, she finally found Cerwin Trell. He was six rows in front of them, and almost at the opposite end of the row. There were empty seats behind the Trells. She was sure her mother had deliberately chosen to seat her so far away.
“Sit still and pay attention,” her grandmother hissed.
Malta sighed and slumped back in her seat. Up front, Trader Trentor was midway through a long invocation to Sa. It seemed to be a long list of everything that had ever gone wrong for any of the Trader families. Instead of being angry that Sa had let such things befall them, he groveled along about how Sa always came to their aid. If it had been Krion instead of his uncle, perhaps it would have been interesting. In the seats reserved for the Rain Wild Traders, several cowled heads were bent forward. She wondered if they were already dozing.
After the invocation, there was the speech of welcome by Trader Drur. It repeated the same tired litany. All were kin, all were Traders, ancient oaths and bonds, loyalty and unity, blood and kin. Malta found a flaw in the weave of her new robe. It was right at the edge of her knee. When she tried to point it out to her mother, she looked annoyed and made a shushing motion with her hand. When Drur finally resumed his seat and Jani Khuprus came forward, Malta sat up and leaned forward.
The Rain Wild Trader had taken off her heavy outer cloak and hood but her features were still obscured. She wore a lighter mantle of ivory, also hooded, and the lace veil that covered her face was actually a part of that garment. The flame jewels still shone as brilliantly and had lost none of their effect in the dimly lit room. As she spoke, her veiled face often turned to different corners of the room. Whenever she turned her head, the veil moved, and the flame gems flared up more brightly. There were fifteen of them, all as glistening red as pomegranate kernels, but about the size of shelled almonds. She couldn't wait to tell Delo that she had seen them up close and even spoken to Jani Khuprus about them.
The matriarchal woman suddenly lifted both hands and voice, and Malta focused on what she was saying. “We can no longer wait and hope. None of us can afford to do so. For if we do, our secrets shall be secrets no longer. Had not the river protected us, eating their ship to splinters as they fled, we would have been forced to kill them all ourselves. Bingtown Traders! How could this have happened to us? What has become of your vows? Tonight you listen to Jani Khuprus, but be assured I speak for all the Rain Wild Traders. This was more than a threat we faced.”
She paused. A long silence filled the Concourse. Then a mutter of voices rose. Malta assumed she was finished. She leaned over to her mother, and whispered, “I'm going to go get something to drink.”
“Sit still and be silent!” her grandmother hissed at both of them. There were deep lines of tension in her brow and around her mouth. Her mother didn't say a word. Malta sat back with a sigh.
One of the jowly brothers to their left rose abruptly. “Trader Khuprus!” he called out. When all heads turned to him, he asked simply, “What do you expect us to do?”
“Keep your promises!” Jani Khuprus snapped. Then, in a slightly milder tone, as if her own reply had surprised her, she added, “We must remain united. We must send representatives to the Satrap. For obvious reasons, they cannot come from Rain Wild families. But we would stand united with you in the message.”
“And that message would be?” someone queried from another part of the hall.
“I'm really thirsty,” Malta whispered. Her mother frowned at her.
“We must demand the Satrap honor our original covenant. We must demand he call back these so called New Traders, and cede back to us any lands he has deeded them.”
“And if he refuses?” This from a Trader woman in the back of the hall.
Jani Khuprus shifted uneasily. She did not want to answer the question. “Let us first ask him to honor the word of his forebears. We have never even asked him. We have complained and grumbled amongst ourselves, we have disputed individual claims. But not once have we stood up as a people and said, “Honor your word if you expect us to honor ours.'”
“And if he refuses?” the woman repeated steadily.
Jani Khuprus lifted her gloved hands and then let them fall back to her sides. “Then he is without honor,” she said in a quiet voice that still carried to every part of the hall. “What have the Traders to do with those who are without honor? If he fails in his word, then we should withdraw ours. Stop sending him tribute. Market our goods wherever we please, rather than funneling the best of them through Jamaillia.” In an even quieter voice, she said, “Drive out the New Traders. Rule ourselves.”
A cacophony of voices broke out, some raised in outrage, others shrill with fear, and still others roaring their approval. At the end of the row, Davad Restart stood suddenly. “Hear me!” he shouted, and when no one paid attention, he climbed up on top of his chair, where he balanced ponderously. “HEAR ME!” he roared out, a surprising sound from such an ineffectual man. All eyes turned to him and the babble died down.
“This is madness,” he announced. “Think what will happen next. He won't let Bingtown go that easily. The Satrap will send ship-loads of soldiers. He will confiscate our holdings. He will deed them over to the New Traders, and make slaves of our families. No. We must work with the New Traders. Give them, not all, but enough to make them content. Make them a part of us, as we did with the Three-Ships Immigrants. I'm not saying we should teach them all we know, or that they should be allowed to trade with Rain Wild Traders, but . . .”
“Then what are you saying, Restart?” someone demanded angrily from the back of the hall. “As long as you're speaking for your New Trader friends, just how much do they want of us?”
Someone else chimed in, “If the Satrap were interested in sending ships up the Inside Passage, he'd have cleaned out the pirates long ago. They say the old patrol galleys are rotting at their quays, for lack of taxes to man them or repair them. All the money goes for the Satrap to entertain himself. He cares nothing about the serpents and pirates that devour our trade. All he cares is that he be amused. The Satrap is no threat to us. Why should we bother with demands. Let's just run these New Traders off ourselves. We don't need Jamaillia!”
“Then where would we sell our goods? All the richest trade is to the south, unless you want to deal with the northern barbarians.”
“That's another thing. The pirates. The old covenant said the Satrap would protect us from sea marauders. If we're making demands, we should tell him that—”
“We do need Jamaillia! What are we without Jamaillia? Jamaillia is poetry and art and music, Jamaillia is our mother culture. You can't cut off trade there and still—”
“And the serpents! The damn slavers draw the serpents, we should demand that slavers be outlawed from the Inside Passage—”
“We are an honorable folk. Even if the Satrap cannot recall how to keep his word, we are still bound by—”
“—will take our homes and lands and make slaves of us all. We'll be right back where our forebears were, exiles and criminals, with no hope of reprieve.”
“We should set up our own patrol ships, to start with. Not just to keep New Traders away from the mouth of the Rain Wild, but to hunt serpents and pirates as well. Yes, and to make clear to Chalced once and for all that the Rain Wild River is not their border, but that their control stops at Hover Inlet. They've been pushing—”
“You'd have us in two wars at once then, battling both Chalced and Jamaillia! That's stupid. Remember, were it not for Jamaillia and the Satrap, Chalced would have tried to overrun us years ago. That's what we risk if we cut ourselves free of Jamaillia. War with Chalced!”
“War? Who speaks of war? All we need to ask is that the Satrap Cosgo keep the promises that Satrap Esclepius made to us!”
Once more the hall erupted with a chorus of angry voices. Traders stood on their chairs, or shouted from where they stood. Malta couldn't make sense of any of it. She doubted anyone could. “Mother,” she whispered pleadingly. “I am dying of thirst! And it's so stuffy in here. Can I just go outside for a breath of air?”
“Not now!” her mother snapped.
“Malta, shut up,” her grandmother added. She didn't even look at her, she seemed to be trying to follow a conversation between two men three rows ahead of them.
“Please,” Jani Khuprus was calling from the stage. “Hear me, please! Please!” As the babble died down, she spoke more quietly, forcing folk to be silent to hear her. “This is our biggest danger. We quarrel among ourselves. We speak with many voices, and so the Satrap heeds none of them. We need a strong group of people to take our words to the Satrap, and we must be united and sincere in what we say. One strong voice he must heed, but as long as we tear at one another like . . .”
“I have to use the back house,” Malta whispered. There. That was something they never argued with. Her grandmother gave a disapproving shake of her head, but they let her go. Davad Restart was so intent on what Jani Khuprus was saying he scarcely noticed her slip past him.
She stopped at the refreshment table to pour herself a glass of wine. She was not the only one to have left her seat. In different parts of the hall, knots of folk were forming and talking, all but ignoring the Rain Wild Trader. Some folk were arguing amongst themselves, others nodding in mutual agreement with her words. Almost everyone there was substantially older than she was. She looked for Cerwin Trell, but he was still seated with his family and appeared to be avidly interested in what was going on. Politics. Privately Malta believed that if everyone just ignored them, life would go on as it always had. The arguments would probably last the rest of the evening and spoil the party. She sighed and took her wine with her as she stepped outside into the crisp winter night.
It was full dark now. The footpath torches had burned down. Above the icy winter stars sparkled. She glanced up at them now and thought of flame jewels. The blues and the greens were the rarest. She couldn't wait to tell Delo that. She knew how she would say it, as if it were something she just assumed that everyone knew. Delo was the best for sharing such things with, because Delo was a hopeless gossip. She'd repeat it to everyone. Hadn't she spread word among all the girls about Malta's green gown? Of course, she had also told them about Davad Restart making Malta go home. She'd been an idiot to tell Delo the whole truth, but she'd been so mad, she just had to talk to someone. And tonight would make up for that embarrassment. She wouldn't tell Delo how bored she had been, only that she had stood outside and chatted with Jani Khuprus herself about flame jewels. She strolled down past the coaches, sipping at her wine. Some of the coachmen sat within the carriages, out of the cold, while others hunched on the boxes. Some few had gathered at the corner of the drive to gossip amongst themselves, and probably share a sip or two from a flask.
She walked almost to the end of the drive, past Davad's coach and then the Rain Wild's one. She'd left her ratty old cloak inside and was starting to feel the chill of the evening. She held her arms close to her chest, resolving not to spill wine down her front, and strolled on. She stopped to examine the crest on a coach door. It was a silly one, a rooster wearing a crown. “Khuprus,” she said to herself, and lightly traced it with a finger, committing it to memory. The metal glowed briefly in her finger's wake, and she realized the crest was made of jidzin. It was not as popular now as it once was. Some of the older street performers still made their cymbals and finger-chimes from jidzin. The metal shimmered whenever it was struck. It was a wonderful treat to the eyes, but in reality brass sounded better. Still, it was one more thing to tell Delo. She strolled idly on, and imagined how she would phrase it. “Odd, to think how a human touch sets off both jidzin and flame jewels,” she ventured aloud. No, that wasn't quite it. She needed a more dramatic statement than that.
Almost beside her, a blue eye winked into existence. She stepped back hastily, then peered again. Someone was standing there, leaning against the Khuprus coach. The blue glow was a jewel fastened at his throat. He was a slight figure, heavily cloaked in the Rain Wild style. His neck was swathed in a scarf, his face veiled like a woman's. He was probably their coachman. “Good evening,” she said boldly, to cover up her momentary surprise, and started to walk by him.
“Actually,” he said in a quiet voice, “it needn't be a human touch. Any motion can set them flaring, once they've been wakened. See?” He extended a gloved hand towards her, then gave his wrist a shake. Two small blue gems popped into evidence on his cuff. Malta had to stop and stare. It was not a pale blue, but a deep sapphire blue that danced alone in the darkness.