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.
“I thought the blues and greens were the rarest and most valuable,” she observed. She took a sip of the wine she still carried. That seemed more polite than asking how a coachman came to have such things.
“They are,” he admitted easily. “But these are very small ones. And slightly flawed, I am afraid. They were chipped in the recovery process.” He shrugged. She saw the movement in the rise and fall of the gem at his throat. “They probably won't burn long. No more than a year or two. But I couldn't bear to see them thrown away.”
“Of course not!” Malta exclaimed, almost scandalized. Flame jewels thrown away? Shocking. “You say they burn? Are they hot, then?”
He laughed, a soft chuckle. “Oh, not in the ordinary way. Here. Touch one.” Again he extended his arm towards her.
She unwrapped her arms from around herself to extend a timid finger. She tapped one cautiously. No. It did not burn. Emboldened, she touched it again. It was smooth and cool like glass, although she could feel a tiny nick in one place. She touched the other one, then wrapped her arms around herself again. “They're beautiful,” she said, and shivered. “It's freezing out here. I'd better go back inside.”
“No, don't… I mean… Are you cold?”
