We four, and everyone on Salt Island, but I didn’t volunteer the information. “I know what will happen to me if the wardens track me down. But would something happen to you, Aunty?”
She paused in her grating. “It speak well of yee that yee ask, gal. I would be arrested and lose everything I own.”
“That is a terrible risk. Why take me in?”
She indicated the sewing basket and a folded stack of old clothes. “Here is a great lot of torn hems, ripped sleeves, and holes worn in elbows and knees. We people who live outside the old city have come to believe Expedition’s Council see us as these old clothes to use and throw out. If yee was the daughter of a Council family, we would hear no talk of sending yee to Salt Island.”
“My father wrote that if all are not equal before the law, then the law is worth nothing.”
“A wise man, that one who sired yee. Walk he still among the living?”
I looked away because I could say nothing.
“Seem the grief is still fresh,” she said kindly.
She returned to cutting, grating, and grinding, while I found peace in mending as she talked about how her people could trace their descent to sailors on the first fleet. She had herself married a man whose grandparents had left Celtic Brigantia to make their fortune in the markets of Expedition. Her husband had passed on a night three years ago when an owl had roosted atop the roof. Her three sons worked a fishing boat with their uncle her brother, and her only surviving daughter Brenna, the one with the Roman sweetheart, helped her run the lodging house. Uncle Joe, widower of Aunty’s sister, oversaw the part of the establishment where folk came to eat and drink.
“Do you have gaslight on all the streets in Expedition? Only a few places have gaslight in Adurnam.”
“All of the old city and the harbor district and troll town, of course. We here in Passaporte District got the street lighting three years ago. Only because we took to the streets in protest that we pay land tax and excise tax and we shall see something for the coin we pay to the Council’s treasury. But Lucairi District and them on out there? Nothing. They must still rely on fire banes to light they way at night.”
Here was my chance to find out more about mages in this part of the world.
“Fire banes work like common lamplighters and linkboys here?” I finished off mending a threadbare elbow with a pattern darning and held it up.
She looked surprised. “’Tis as good as tailor’s work. Yee have a neat hand for a woman. Fire banes likewise work for the fire wardens and at areitos and other night gatherings.”
“What’s an areito? A festival of some kind?”
“’Tis the Taino word for a sacred or community gathering, what the Romans would call a festival. As for the other, all fire banes must register with Warden Hall. That is the law. At that time they swear never to enter any association with other mages.”
“I’ve seen the power the mage Houses hold in Europa, so I can understand people in Expedition might be cautious about mage associations. Is there a button for this?”
“In the tin. It need two. If yee’s not registered as a fire bane, yee can be arrested. If yee go to register, yee’s not yet registered, so yee can be arrested if they want to arrest yee.”
“That’s exceedingly unfair! Why would the wardens want to arrest fire banes anyway?”
“Because they sell them to the Taino. The proceeds go to Council’s treasury.”
“Why would the Taino want fire banes?”
“Why, as catch-fires. No Taino fire mage take a first breath come the morning without a catch-fire nearby.”
I paused, needle frozen in midair, remembering the three salters Drake had used to catch the accelerating fire of his magic so it wouldn’t consume him. “That’s awful! Why would anyone let fire banes be taken and sold?”
“Because the wardens only take them who have no one to protect them. Fire banes born into a family with much money or a big house in the old city never go missing, never is sold out, nor never is they forced to work for the fire wardens. There is one rule for the rich and another for the rest. So a maku come to these shores is easy game. Yee shall find, Cat, that folk round here say nothing to the wardens no matter what we go a-seeing. Yee understand?”
Since I understood she was telling me that she knew Vai was a fire bane and that I was never to mention it to anyone, I nodded. I fished out another button and began sewing it on. “Are there many powerful fire mages in the Taino kingdom?”
She lowered her voice. “’Tis best be cautious and not speak of behiques, Cat. Yee would not want to come to they notice.”
I moved on, for now. “When did General Camjiata come to Expedition?”
“He and his people landed in Februarius. That man have caused so much trouble over where yee come from. And now he come here and go asking for we help. He want us to pay for he to start up a new war back there in Europa.”
“He traveled here to get aid from Expedition’s Council?”
“He asked. ’Tis one thing the Council done right. They said no.”
“They refused to help him! Is that why he went to the Taino capital? To seek Taino aid?”
“So it look. Any reckoning we look at it, ’tis bad news for Expedition. One time long ago there was many caciques on Kiskeya. Now there is only one, and that one rule over all the islands of the Antilles. I foresee nothing but trouble if the Taino decide to look this way.”
“So they’re an empire, like the Romans. But if the Taino cacique and his clan are so powerful, why don’t they just take over Expedition Territory and its factories and port?”
She smiled. “A smart gal, too, to ask that question. No wonder Vai is so smitten with yee.”
I pawed through the tin looking for a button I did not need. Feeling her gaze on me, I poured buttons onto my palm and scrutinized them.
She said, “If the Taino is one thing, they is holders of the law. In the First Treaty, the Taino caciques swore they shall never cross the border between Taino country and Expedition Territory. So by Taino way of thinking, to break the treaty is to dishonor the cemi. Yee know, they ancestors. By the by, Cat. When I speak of agreements, it remind me. Vai ask me last night about renting a hammock in the common hall. I thought he mean for Kayleigh, but he mean for he own self. Yee and she is to share the room, which he pay for, and he to sleep elsewhere.”
The buttons were bronze and formed out of the same mold. In a household practicing economy, it was wise to buy plain buttons so they could be interchanged on various garments.
“Not that ’tis any of me business,” she added in a tone that implied the opposite, “but peace in the house make peace in the heart.”
The buttons stared back at me. Not that it was any of their business!
“It’s not my place to speak of such intimate matters,” I said in a tone I hoped walked the fine line between being polite and absolutely crushing this subject into oblivion. “I was hoping to ask to borrow thread. I’ll pay you back, of course. I can salvage a great deal from my skirts and petticoats by piecing together one skirt from the remnants. I could manage a few work vests-singlets, I mean-from the scraps if your little lads have need of such. It’s quite good quality wool challis…” I trailed off, surprised to find my hands in fists, buttons biting into my palms.
She gave me a measuring look. “Happen that young man ever hit yee?”
“Hit me? Like, beat me?”
“He don’ seem like that kind. But I reckon I best ask.”
“No. That’s not what happened. Although he’s said some pretty awful things to me.”
She smiled wryly. “I admit, that lad have a sharp tongue when he wish, not that he ever use it on he elders! And he think very well of he own self.”
“That is a way of describing it,” I agreed.
She chuckled. “Yee may use any of the thread in the copper tin. If yee’s feeling up to it, I reckon I shall set yee to serving food and drink in the evenings. Yee’s a pleasing gal to look on, and yee have a bold way of speaking. ’Tis hard to get help these days with the factories hiring so many.”
“I can do that. Aunty, I’m grateful to you for taking me in. I mean to earn my keep.”
“Seeing that look on Vai’s face when he brought yee back is keep enough, but fear not, gal. I shall see yee earn yee bed.” She laughed merrily at whatever expression blanched my face.
