“That’s true.” Brota nodded solemnly. Well done, Thana!
Nnanji stammered. “Er, I wondered if you would sell her for me? You would get a higher price than I would.”
“Probably. A man selling a slave like that means she’s no good. A woman selling her can claim she’s too good. Of course I’ll want a commission. A sixth?”
His face fell. “Thana said you’d only want a fifth.”
“All right. For you, a fifth.”
He beamed. “That’s very kind of you, mistress.”
“My pleasure, adept.”
The port officer departed, Matarro was sent for a healer.
The chance of a Seventh as patient brought a Sixth with no less than three juniors to carry his bags. He was a butterball of a man with a low, oily voice and a smooth manner; green linen gown freshly pressed, black hair slick on his scalp. He frowned when he saw the invalid. The healers clustered around, muttering and prodding, while the laymen retreated into an anxious group in the far corner of the deckhouse. Brota carefully placed herself on Nnanji’s right.
Finally the Sixth rose and regarded the group in some doubt. ‘To whom do I have the honor to report?” he asked.
“To me,” said Nnanji, stepping forward. Brota moved with him.
“The wound is cursed,” the healer said cautiously.
Obviously.
“In the case of a civilian, I would recommend that a chirurgeon be summoned to remove the limb.”
Brota braced herself, but Nnanji’s sword arm barely twitched.
“No.”
The healer nodded. “I thought not. Then I regret to announce that I cannot take this case.”
Brota was ready to intervene, but the lad knew the correct response. “We respect your learning, your honor. While you are here, however, perhaps you would advise us on . . . on these foil bruises on my ribs. What would you recommend?” He had a tear glistening in one eye, but he did not seem to have noticed.
The healer nodded gravely and recommended that Nnanji be kept cool, given plenty to drink but take care not to choke on it, put hot compresses on the bruises every two hours and in between apply a balm, which one of the juniors produced from a bag. Nnanji solemnly thanked him and paid gold for the balm and the advice.
“And you will return tomorrow, your honor?” Brota asked. Nnanji looked surprised, but the Sixth beamed and said of course he would come back to check on the adept’s bruises. She had no intention of remaining overnight, but she did not want the man tattling to the garrison about a Seventh in port. Not yet.
She accompanied the healers as they went out on deck.
“How long, your honor?” she asked.
“Five days?” said the oily Sixth. “At the outside. But he was a strong man. You could, of course, call in the priests.”
Five days
, Brota thought.
The healer was almost a sword victim himself as he left, for Matarro and Katanji had appointed themselves a ceremonial guard at the top of the gangplank, like those the big ships had, and their salutes were erratic. Brota concealed a smile and shouted for Nnanji to come and give them a lesson. He came boiling out of the deckhouse and did so in flames.
“Gods’ armbones!” Matarro said when the monster had gone. “Does he really expect us to stand like this all day?”
“No.” Katanji melted back into a comfortable position. “He’s just upset about Shonsu. Nanj is okay mostly.”
Then Brota was going ashore, and they flashed their swords again, but less dangerously.
They watched as samples of wares were set out on the dock, sandalwood and a few brass pots. Brota settled herself in a chair, and the busy dock life of Ki San thronged by in the hot sunshine. Wagons, rumbling along with loads of barrels and bales, raised clouds of acrid, horsey-smelling dust while highrank traders strolled by with their followers to sneer at the displays. Hawkers pushed loaded barrows, calling their wares to the ships; porters trundled carts. Sedan chairs and pedestrians and mules and pedlars wound their way in and out through the traffic. Robes and loincloths and wraps, in white and black, yellow, brown, and orange flashed by in the bustle and noise. There were many swordsmen patrolling the area.
“What happens now?” Katanji asked, fascinated.
“Puke all,” Matarro said. “If some trader fancies what we’ve got out, he’ll come and inspect it and say it’s all crap, and Brota’ll tell him he’s an armpit and it’s great stuff. Then they’ll both try to make the other name a price so they can say that it’s unthinkable. After that they get down to business. If he’s serious, he’ll come on board and look over the stock itself. Finally they shake hands.”
Not much happened for a while. A few traders sniffed like dogs and wandered away. Then Thana led out Cowie, cleaned, coiffed, and appropriately clad, and took her down to the dock. The Firsts saluted and ogled as they went by.
“You never did,” Matarro said.
“Did, too!” Katanji rolled his eyes. “Last night again! Nanj was snoring like a grindstone. I crawled over and helped myself. Three times.”
“She looks like a lump!” the ship boy said doubtfully.
“Never!” Katanji assured him. “As soon as I start, she just goes wild. Loves it! Heaving and panting! Great stuff!” He went into slavering detail.
Matarro was impressed, but not quite convinced. “Swear on your sword?”
Certainly he swore on his sword, Katanji said, with the confidence of one who could not be discredited. Then their attention was called to the dock.
Cowie’s appearance had proved more interesting than a whole mountain of sandalwood. A trader of the Sixth broke off negotiations at the next ship and hurried over, which was enough to get Brota off her chair right away. A Fifth crossed the roadway at the same time, then another Sixth. Their followers streamed in behind them, forming a crowd, which began to grow and jostle. Matarro swore a few oaths of disbelief, and Nnanji emerged from the deckhouse to watch. It looked as if Brota might be holding an auction, for hands were waving and voices bellowing.
“Haven’t they ever seen boobs before?” Katanji demanded.
“Not like those!” Matarro said longingly.
Then mere was a disturbance at the back of the crowd and it hastily opened for the latest newcomers, swordsmen.
“Holy ships!” said Matarro. “A
Sixth
?”
Nnanji bolted back into the deckhouse. He peered out through the windows, muttering under his breath, trembling with rage and frustration.
Jja was applying balm. She looked up, white-faced and red-eyed, brushing her hair aside with the back of one hand. She smiled slightly. “Adept? If you put the sword under the edge of the bedding and stayed close to the door, then it would come to no harm.”
But Nnanji could not dispose of a trust so easily. He remained in the deckhouse, fretting angrily by the shutters.
The crowd rapidly dispersed, leaving only the troop of swordsmen and a few curious onlookers. Then Nnanji suddenly exclaimed, “Jja! Look at this!”
Together they watched Cowie being assisted into a sedan chair. Incredulous, they saw her borne away with an armed escort. “I have seen many miracles around Shonsu,” Nnanji whispered, “but never one like that. A slave in a sedan chair?”
Brota stopped a moment to talk to one of the traders, then came stumping up the gangplank. When she reached the safety of her own deck she threw her head back and roared a carillon of river oaths, waving her fists in the air. Her crew melted away, knowing better than to speak to her in that mood. She wheeled round and stormed the deckhouse. Katanji trotted after her. Matarro followed more circumspectly.
She almost took the door off its hinges. “There’s your money!” she snarled, smiting a small leather bag into Nnanji’s hand with considerable force. ‘Twenty golds!”
“The Sixth bought her?”
“Yes! The Honorable Farandako, swordsman of the Sixth, reeve of Ki San!” She spat the words. “I had them up to fifty and they would have gone higher—eighty or ninety. Then your
noble
swordsman comes up and says that twenty is more than enough for a slave and takes her. Swordsmen!”
Armed robbery! Nnanji looked at the little bag that still lay in his oversize hand, looked at Brota . . . looked down at the restless, flushed face of Shonsu. “Brother,” he said sadly, “we have need of an honorable swordsman.”
There was no reply.
“He was generous, his honor!” Brota was still quivering with rage. “He needn’t have paid more than one. Or none at all!”
“Why, mistress?” Nnanji asked. “What is so special about Cowie? Why a sedan chair?”
“The king,” Brota said, lowering her voice almost to conversation level. “He collects slaves like her. He need only deliver her to the palace steward and he can be sure of at least a hundred.” And if she had thought to research her market properly, she could have done that.
“I’m happy for poor Cowie,” said Jja. “She goes to live in a palace. The Goddess rewards those who help my master.”
Nnanji and Brota looked at each other, startled and rather shamefaced at not having thought of that.
“Well, you got them up to fifty golds,” Nnanji said, spilling the coins into his other palm. “A fifth of that is . . . ten, right? So ten for you and ten for me, which is what I paid for her.”
Brota snorted, but took the money before he came to his senses.
“Here, Katanji, keep those for me,” Nnanji said. Then he remembered that the two Firsts had been left on guard duty. He exploded at them, driving them from the deckhouse with prophecies of cataclysms and doom.
“Five score gold pieces!” Katanji growled when they were back at their posts, safely out of range. “For a mattress?” He pulled a face in disgust. “Boy, someone’s going to get a king-size disappointment!”
Matarro grinned, knowing that now he was getting closer to the truth. Then they started to laugh. They laughed so hard that they almost dropped their swords.
†††
“
Three hundred
!” Tomiyano glanced hurriedly over his shoulder to see if the traders had overheard his astonishment. But they were watching their slaves carry the sandalwood down from the ship and load it onto the wagon.
Brota merely nodded and continued weighing coins from the table into a leather sack. Never had
Sapphire
carried a more profitable cargo, and at those rates they had left thirty golds’ worth sitting on the jetty where Shonsu had boarded.
It was not yet quite noon, and good sailing weather was going to waste.
“Next port?” she asked.
“Three days to Wal. After that three, maybe four, to Dri.”
Five days
! “Cargo?”
“Brass,” her son said, and she nodded. Ki San was proud of its brass and copperwork. Her own collection of pots had been greeted with derision, but fortunately there were only a few score in the hold, leftovers. Load up with this good stuff, and they would all sell together. Moreover there was a brass warehouse directly opposite their berth—that might be a clue from the Goddess or it might not, but it could save the rent of a wagon. Indeed, the trader was already standing at the front, hoping. She handed the bag to Tomiyano and led the way across the road. Had they had to go far, she would have donned her sword. Had it then been needed, he would have wielded it.
The trader was a Third—young, nervous, probably just started on his own. His establishment was small by local standards, yet he had an open-fronted shed large enough to have taken
Sapphire
. New businesses had debts. She made the conventional opening remarks and he replied. There were the customary objections about traders only trading with traders, but she had already found the local way around that, and few traders ever put a sutra ahead of a profit. The quality impressed her, and Tomiyano signaled that it was as good as any he had found. Cauldrons, tankards, pans, knives, and plates—above all, plates. Plates were heavy. She wandered around between the piles, eyes busy. Metal gleamed everywhere, even hanging from the ceiling. She found the dark corner with the junk and allowed for that. Volume, weight, packing, damage . . .
Then she gratefully accepted a chair and put on her helpless widow act. Tomiyano played skillfully along, reading her signals as she seemed to fidget. How much brass could they carry? Depends how many plates, how many pots. She appealed to the trader for help, knowing that
Sapphire
was much roomier than she looked—the cabins were small. They discussed hold size. She said big and Tomiyano patiently said small. The trader believed the sailor.
“Here,” she said suddenly, dumping the bag down. “Three hundred that we just got for our lumber. You take that and we take as much as we can carry. That’s easiest, isn’t it?” She smiled innocently.
Tomiyano roared at her: three hundred golds—they could never carry that much. Yet the trader was suspicious. “You are serious, mistress?”
“Certainly.” Keep him off balance. “Three hundred for all we can carry, our choice. Delivered on deck.”
He laughed. “Mistress! A thousand, perhaps.”
Hooked
!
“Three hundred in that bag, that we just got for our lumber. If you have it brought at once, we can get in half a day’s sailing. If I go elsewhere I haggle and we stay the night.”
He nodded, staring across at the ship, calculating. “For a shipload . . . eight hundred.”
She waddled out of the shed and looked at Tomiyano. “Two more this way, three that,” he said, pointing. The trader called to her, and she kept walking. Seven hundred. She kept on, Tomiyano blustering at one elbow and the trader at the other.
“All the best craftsmen in the city—”
“There just isn’t room for three hundred golds’ worth! It’ll get scratched and dented. And weight! It’ll sink us.”
She snorted. “With Shonsu on board? Ha!”
The cobbles were hard on her ankles and slowed her pace.
“Five hundred, my last offer.” The trader was still with them, and the next brass dealer coming up ahead.
“What if he dies?” Tomiyano snarled. No talk of throwing overboard now.
“The healer said we had five days. We’ve used half of one.”
“Four hundred,” the trader said.
They had reached the next warehouse, a much larger place. The proprietor had been warned by his spies and was waiting. He made the sign of greeting. “Done!” said the young man behind her in a sob, and she turned round and held out both hands.