by CJ Brightley
5
So Jontan’s family was chosen to host the next market. Of course.
“You could just avoid it,” Yaika said helpfully. She had obviously noticed the strain in my face whenever we’d passed Jontan’s family’s land the past few days, and that had probably pleased her. Yaika had always insisted that I could do much better than him.
The faint aura of smugness annoyed me.
“No, I couldn’t,” I said, much more sharply than intended. “It’s a market. You don’t have the status to pay for things, nor does Hurik. Someone has to help our parents.”
Yaika pouted. “If they’d let me take my oath a few weeks early . . .”
“It’s against the law,” I said flatly. “Just be patient and wait.”
“You sound like Jontan!” she complained.
I shuddered before I could repress it.
“Is something wrong with Jontan?” she asked slyly.
“Just be quiet,” I said irritably. “It’s none of your business.”
Yaika glowed with know-it-all smugness. I wanted to strangle her.
“Do I have to go?” Hurik whined, walking down the stairway past us, through the dining room, and into the kitchen. Father’s face appeared far above us, at the top of the stairs.
“Yes,” he thundered, lashing his neck-sash on. “And stop that complaining!”
Yaika and I burst out giggling.
There was a loud smack! from the kitchen, and Hurik came out, holding his wrist. “Owwww!” he complained.
Grandmother appeared, with a spatula in one hand and both hands on her hips. “Those are for the market!” she scolded.
Hurik moaned.
“Here,” Yaika said, turning to me. She turned my head and carefully pinned our family’s signature over the loops of coiled braids. “Low-key, but with some elegance,” she said.
I nodded, turning my head to look at it from both sides in the hall mirror. The shakeleaf spines were yellow, which showed vividly against my black hair, and the tonna berry husks dangled over my left ear. It looked artful, yet careless. “What about you?”
“The only place I can put it.” She held a tiny spray of spines and husks over her throat. “It’ll disappear completely if I put it anywhere else.”
I eyed her outer skirts, and had to agree. She had painted the entire white bodice with vivid flowers in all the colors of growing season, the underskirts were dark magenta, and the outer skirts were lavished with intricate embroidery. “Well, what color choker are you wearing?”
“That’s what I was wondering.” Yaika squinted at the mirror. “White to match the dress, magenta to match the flowers at the collar, or black to highlight the tonna berries?”
“Black, definitely.”
“I’m gonna die of boredom,” Hurik groaned, slumping into a chair downstairs.
Father walked downstairs past us, knotting his neck-sash to keep the tassels from dangling. He hated the way they tickled his neck. “How many of our vassals will be attending? Do we know?”
“All of them, probably,” Mother called from above. “They don’t have the resources to travel, and this is the closest a market’s been since we hosted that one three years ago.”
Yaika’s face took on a wistful cast. I smiled, remembering it. That had been fun.
Grandmother came in, carrying a heavy tray of pastries. Lala, our house magician, came in behind her, puffing as she carried out another large tray of jams. Father sprang to open the door for them, nodding to Lala and smiling at his mother.
“How many of those are they going to take out there?” Hurik asked, picking at the wall absently with his fingers.
“Not as many as you are,” Father said.
“Awww!” Hurik cried. “C’mon! I’m not a vassal! You can’t make me do that!”
Father jabbed his thumb toward the kitchen. Yaika and I both startled giggling.
With a surly look, grumbling under his breath, Hurik slouched into the kitchen. Awkwardly balancing another heavy tray, he stomped towards the front door.
“Oh, and your grandfather counted them all,” Father warned, snatching a tumbling pastry from the air. “If any go missing, or fall in the dirt, that’s how many you’ll lose in the next week.”
Hurik looked horribly put-upon. But he squeezed through the doorway significantly more carefully.
“What about us?” I asked.
Father shrugged and went back to knotting tassels. “You’ve both behaved well. You’re welcome to help, but you don’t have to.”
“I’ll help,” Yaika said immediately.
The perfect daughter. I rolled my eyes. Of course she’d never miss this opportunity. “I guess I’ll help too,” I said, more grudgingly.
By the time we finished loading the hand-cart for its last trip, I was sweating. Grandmother trundled along with the cart as Hurik, Yaika, Mother and I each carried a small platter with the delicate pastries that couldn’t be bounced along with the rest.
As we set down our platters on the table Grandfather and Lala were arranging, I looked down at myself and moaned. Yaika’s clothing was immaculate, and my outer skirts were covered in purple jam stains.
“Oh, I can fix that!” Lala cried, swooping down on me. She looked eager for the excuse to escape setting up pastry displays. “Wash out the stickiness at that pump over there. Quickly!”
I ran. When I returned, my skirts were sopping wet.
“Now we just diminish the blue . . .” Lala said, “and . . .”
The stains steadily became the same red as my skirts.
“There we go!” she said triumphantly.
“Thank you,” I said fervently, squeezing out my wet skirts.
“Father,” Father said, turning to Grandfather. “What’s your advice about status we should spend?”
“I’d go with a ratio of 4:2:1:1:1 for you, your wife, and each of your children,” Grandfather said absently, leaning over to arrange a pastry into perfect line with the rest.
Father coughed. “Which means . . .?”
Grandfather looked a trifle annoyed. He straightened. His white tunic, the sign of a mathematician, shifted at his shoulders.
“No more than this much for you,” he said, holding his hands way out, “no more than this much for your wife” — scrunching them a bit further in — “and no more than this much for each of your children.”
“Thank you,” Father said.
“What about me?” Yaika asked anxiously. “Who’s going to buy things for me?”
“Let Raneh do it. She can spend double what she normally would, as long as half of it’s on your behalf.”
“Um . . .” I said.
“Jargon,” Father murmured.
Grandfather’s jaw twitched. “Just check with me if you get more than two-tens-and-five different —”
“Jargon, Father,” Father sighed.
Grandfather flung his arms up in the air. “Why in the world,” he ranted, “do we have different numbering systems for age and rank versus everything else? Why can’t people just describe ages as one-ten-and-eight, instead of using specialized words like ‘eighteen’? Maybe then people could count higher than five for everything else! But no, only ages and heir rankings are apparently allowable for anyone who’s not a mathematician, despite the useful applications of improved specificity —”
He went off on this vein for awhile.
“What is he even talking about?” Yaika muttered under her breath.
I nodded, my face hot with embarrassment. People were turning to look at him.
“Father,” Father said firmly, putting his hand heavily on Grandfather’s shoulder. “Could you perhaps save this discussion for other mathematicians?”
Grandfather subsided in grumbling, his brows heavy. He sat back on one of the cushions Hurik had dragged out for him.
“It’s stupid,” he muttered. “Why is everybody kept in such perpetual ignorance?”
I swallowed. That I understood, and it sort of bothe
red me. I’d never really cared much about mathematics, but I felt the same way about magic.
Almost habitually, my hand traced the flowerbed beside me for signs of groverweed. But of course there wasn’t any. Not in one of Jontan’s family’s gardens.
“Well!” a woman gasped, flopping down onto the grass beside us. “Have you heard the news? A Ruler’s heir is coming today!”
“What?” Yaika gasped, her eyes widening.
“Here?” Mother asked. “That’s exciting.”
“Isn’t it?!” the woman squeaked. Her voice was much too high-pitched for her apparent age. “Apparently he’s thirty-eighth heir, and —”
“He?” Yaika leaned forward, eyes alight. “He? How old is he?”
Hurik groaned audibly.
The women leaned forward conspiratorially. Her worn vassal clothes rustled. “I don’t know, but I’ve heard he isn’t married.”
“Well, of course he isn’t married,” Hurik said loudly. “He’s an heir. Even the Ruler’s heirs can’t be —”
Grandmother muffled his voice with a hand over his mouth.
“Perhaps you should introduce your sister to him,” Mother told me, a smile quirking at the edges of her mouth.
“Oh!” the woman gasped, leaping up. “Lesa! Lesa! Guess what I heard!”
Yaika squealed and bounced up and down, her fluffy skirts flopping as the woman disappeared into the distance. “What if the Ruler’s heir is fourteen? Or even thirteen! Even if he’s sixteen —”
“You do realize what thirty-eighth heir means, right?” Hurik said loudly. He folded his arms and glanced at Grandfather. “It means there are three-tens-and-seven people ahead of him. That’s nothing!”
Yaika shot a glare at him.
“On top of that,” Hurik continued, his voice rising, “if he were really fourteen, he would be even lower down the rankings, because there are at least six-tens-and-three Ruler’s heirs, and the average age —”
Lala flicked her fingers his direction. His loud voice disappeared from hearing.
Grandfather looked proud. Father looked about to explode. Mother looked exasperated. Grandmother looked weary.
“Come on,” I said, snatching Yaika’s arm. “Let’s start looking for things.”
Yaika was thoroughly absorbed in a display of dyes when I saw someone run past shouting something to a friend about having seen the heir.
“Hey, Yaika,” I said, tapping my sister on the shoulder.
“Go away,” she said, batting my hand away. “You have no taste in color.”
I do so, I thought indignantly. “He’s here, Yaika.”
“That’s nice.”
“He’s here. The heir.”
“Tell him I need another minute,” she muttered.
“The Ruler’s heir! The one you wanted so desperately to meet!”
“Oh!” Her head shot up. “Oh! Oh! Oh!”
“Come on,” I said, tugging her arm. “He’s probably that way.”
“Wait!” she cried. “Which one of these looks better with the lavender I got over there?”
She held up two swatches that looked exactly the same to me.
“That one,” I said, pointing randomly.
She scrutinized them again. “No. You’re wrong.”
I tightened my jaw.
The vassal who’d made them waved. “Mathematician!”
The nearest man in a white tunic ambled over.
“We’re getting that one,” I said, pointing at the blackish jar Yaika had scooped up.
“Right.” The mathematician scratched at his beard. “Start now.”
I pushed a steady dribble of status toward the vassal.
“Stop now,” the mathematician said.
“Thank you,” the vassal beamed.
“So where’s the heir?” Yaika asked, clutching her jar as we walked back to our family’s area. She unscrewed the lid and peeked inside at the sloshing liquid. A terrible odor wafted out at me. “Can you see him?”
“No, but I sure can smell your dye,” I complained, scrunching my nose. “What’s in that thing?”
“Stinkberry sap,” she said absently. “It makes the vividest blue.”
“Stinkberry sap!” I howled, holding my nose. “Why would you want to paint your clothes with stinkberries?”
“It’s odorless after you wash it a few times,” she said, rolling her eyes.
“You are carrying that home,” I threatened.
“It’s not my fault that Mother won’t let me grow stinkberries mysel— fabrics!” Yaika squealed, running off in another direction. Her skirts fluffed like a swirl of petals all around her.
“And I’m not following you!” I shouted after her.
When I got back to our area, Mother and Grandmother were handing out pastries, while Grandfather supervised the status transfers. Father was probably off looking for the specialized tools Grandfather had said we were going to need if we were going to fix the vassals’ huts with roof damage from the cold season.
“Have you bought anything for yourself yet?” Mother asked from behind our trays, handing a pastry to a handsome young man. She smiled at him, and he gave her rather more status than Grandfather required.
“No,” I sighed, watching the young man walk off, licking the fresh tonna berries off the top. A tiny bit of pink juice dribbled out of his mouth, and he licked it up quickly.
“You’re running rather low on status,” Mother said. “You probably shouldn’t let Yaika get anything else.”
I focused. My status didn’t seem too bad, but then I realized I was close enough to Mother for both of ours to pool together. For two landowners, this was quite low.
Alarmed, I looked around to see if Mother had made any major purchases. Then I nearly jumped back. Grandmother was blazing with status, far more than she ought to have. What in the world . . .?
“Add this much,” Grandfather advised, holding out his hands.
Mother nodded and touched Grandmother’s arm. Her status swelled, while mine and Mother’s dwindled.
“Aren’t people going to think she’s the landowner, and you’re the vassal?” I asked, confused.
Grandmother smiled. “Maybe they’ll realize that I’m making sure her children can’t access more than they should.”
Oh. She’s a safety-keeper. That makes sense. But wait a minute . . .
“You don’t have to do that!” I protested. “I’m responsible!”
“You have trouble saying no to Yaika,” Mother said flatly.
I glanced down the walkway to see Yaika admiring a delicately painted set of fabrics that another family was displaying. She had cast aside burrun and softset, perfectly adequate for most occasions, and was going through fluffweave and wormthreads.
“Oh, spare us,” I muttered.
“Exactly,” Mother said.
I marched over to Yaika, determined to put my foot down.
I got there just in time to see her make a fool out of herself.
She was fighting with a man over a particularly sumptuous length of swishlash — actually fighting with him, both of them tugging on one end and screaming like they were three years old.
“I saw it first!” Yaika screamed. “I know exactly the kind of dress to make from it!”
“And I want it for a waist-sash!” the older man shouted. He looked older than my father, and his hair was knotted in a complicated signature of filias.
Oh, no . . .
“Look who she’s met,” Hurik observed from beside me.
“Only Yaika,” I moaned. “Can’t she see it?”
“Excuse me,” a polite voice said, tapping the older man on the shoulder. He spun, looking furious. Yaika snatched the swishlash and held it aloft triumphantly.
I leaned over to the side just far enough to see — well, of course — Jontan.
He made a beautifully elegant and formal bow, and then presented the man with a bouquet of wilted filias. “My name is Jontan. My family are the hosts of this
market. We are extremely honored to have your presence here today.”
I glanced over at Yaika, whose glowing triumph seemed to be dissolving into horror. Apparently she had finally seen the filias signature. She stood there, stunned, her mouth falling further and further open.
Hurik snuck forward and yanked the swishlash out of her hands. Then he threw it at me.
“Buy it,” he hissed.
“But I don’t know if I even have —”
“Buy it.”
I glanced over at the mathematician nearest me. She was a tall, slender woman whose white tunic was rather too baggy. She shrugged.
So I swallowed, and I focused, sending a rapid stream of status toward the landowner family who had made it. Just when I was starting to feel dizzy, she gestured me to stop.
I leaned on Hurik’s shoulder, panting. That had taken almost all my status. I had never been this low on status before. Ever.
Jontan was still talking, I realized fuzzily. What next? I blinked as my thoughts started clearing. Of course. There was really only one thing to do next.
I wrapped the length of swishlash carefully around my arm, walked over to where Jontan stood, and bowed low to the Ruler’s heir.
“My family would be deeply honored if you would accept this humble token of our admiration,” I told him.
The man’s eyes brightened. “What a delightful gift!” he beamed. Then he sent me a chunk of status that was . . . not nearly as much as I’d paid for the swishlash, but at least more than nothing.
As he strutted off, knots on the back of his tunic bouncing, I put my head in my hands and breathed a shaky sigh of relief.
“Nicely handled,” Jontan said.
“No thanks to Yaika,” Hurik added.
“That was the heir?” Yaika squeaked. “But he’s so old! The Ruler’s not even that old!”
“A Ruler can inherit heirs from the previous Ruler, you know,” Jontan said.
“But — but he’s so old!” Yaika wailed. “Nobody should be that old and still unmarried! It’s — it’s unnatural!”
Jontan looked stern. “Nothing about the Ruler is unnatural, Yaika.”
I felt my status rise. With a sense of dread, I turned to see Father looming over us. “Yaika,” he said dangerously. “We need to talk.”