Tris looked at it, then glared. “Is something wrong with you?”
“What on earth are you talking about?”
“Just because we all have to live here together doesn’t mean you can forget your rank! Look at you, hobnobbing with a Trader, and now me. You can’t do that! I’m merchant blood, understand? It’s in my last name—Chan-d-ler.” Tris spoke the word very slowly, as if Sandry were not quite bright. “You’re probably an ei or a fa something.”
“That doesn’t make any difference,” Sandry said, her mouth set in a mulish line.
“Only a noble would say something so idiotic.”
“Here I’m the same as you!”
Tris’s laugh was as harsh as a crow’s. “You wear slippers at four silver astrels the pair, cotton broadcloth at six silver creses the yard, and—and silk chiffon that’s a gold astrel the yard, and tell me you’re the same?” She tugged hard at her own ugly dress. “There is definitely something wrong with you. Go away.”
“I was trying to be nice.” Sandry placed the hanging on the desk. “If you don’t want it, then give it to someone else—I don’t care.” Chin high, she walked out.
Tris slammed the door and glared at it. She couldn’t see a latch that would stop anyone else from barging in. A nice thing with a thief in the house, she thought. Not that I have anything worth stealing.
The roll of cloth sat on her desk, a temptation on cream-colored linen.
She thinks I’m stupid enough to believe her, thought Tris. She thinks people never pretended to be my friend before!
Curious, she spread the hanging out. It showed a six-spoked wheel, with a different, brightly colored bird at the end of each spoke. Flat, the hanging was good-sized, two feet by one foot. It was easy to see how the sticks at the center of the roll would fit to make a frame, and how the cloth would attach to it.
For a long moment Tris stared at it, thinking about how beautiful it was. Did she say she did this work? the girl wondered. That can’t be right—probably it was servants, only she claims what they did for her own. Nobles do things like that.
Gently she traced an embroidered toucan’s over-large, gaudy beak. She loved birds—they coasted so beautifully on the wind, or mastered the air with darting turns. Looking around, she found a blank space on the wall that needed to be filled. The hanging could go there, where she could see it from the bed.
If she wants it back, I can tell her she gave it, and I’m keeping it, Tris thought fiercely. That will teach—what had Honored Moonstream called her?—Lady Sandrilene.
Daja, carrying her staff, followed Sandry downstairs. No one else was in the main room by that time. “I take it you heard,” Sandry remarked with a crooked smile. Plumping herself on the bottom riser, she put her chin on her hands. “Not all nine-fingered girls have hatchets,” she said in Tradertalk. “Some of us just tried to have a conversation with a snapping turtle.”
“She is right, you know,” Daja told her in the same language. “You should keep to your own kind, not try to make friends with Traders and mean girls with red hair.”
The other girl sighed. “Not you, too! No, my mind’s made up. I’ll make friends with whomever I want, so there. I just need more uvumi.”
“Patience? Why? Why keep trying?” asked Daja, surprised. “Another noble would have smacked her for what she said. Any other noble never would have bothered with me, either.”
Sandry made a face. “If I lived like that, I never would have had any friends. See, it was my parents—they traveled all the time, instead of tending their lands and being in attendance at someone’s court. The nobles we visited thought maybe children would get funny ideas from me, so they said theirs were always in the country—or in the city—or sick with something.”
“So you had to make friends with Traders and commoners?” Daja shook her head, whistling silently. “That is strange.”
“It was hard. Commoners and Traders don’t exactly fall over themselves to be friends with nobles, if you haven’t noticed. I just learned patience, like I said. Uvumi.” She grinned up at Daja.
The black girl shook her head. “Lark says I can go for a walk. You want to come?”
Sandry rose, smoothing her skirt. “Another time? I have to finish unpacking.”
Daja nodded and headed out of the cottage.
5
Bearing the staff when she went out was still hateful, but after being jumped, Daja knew she had to carry it, just as any Trader did in an unfriendly town. She planted it solidly in the dirt as she walked, throwing a coat of dust over the new brass and ebony.
It was a beautiful late spring day—growing weather, if one cared for such things. Rows of vegetables, fruits, and herbs flourished in the gardens beside the spiral road, a promise of winter food. Channels of water ran between them, so the land drank its fill. Dedicates in Earth-green, like Rosethorn and Lark, and novices in white tended the plants. Other dedicates in Water-blue looked after the irrigation system, making sure that all areas got the right amount of liquid. Passing the western temple, Daja stopped to bow, hands together in front of her face, in respect to the gods of Water.
On the far side of that building, plants were replaced by carpenters’ shops. Beyond those were the smithies that lay around the southern temple, dedicated to the Fire gods. Today she ignored the soft voice of her upbringing, the one that sneered at her interest in lugsha, or craftsmen, in Tradertalk. She watched a sweating female apprentice pour molten copper into a mold and a master silversmith put the last touches on a silver urn.