Ship of Magic

Page 113

The grief she had thought numbed suddenly clutched at her throat. She turned and hurried off, up one street and down another. She blinked her eyes furiously, refusing to let the tears flow. When she had herself under control, she slowed her step and looked around her.

She looked directly into the window of Amber's shop.

As before, an odd chill of foreboding raced up her back. She could not think why she should feel threatened by a jeweler, but she did. The woman was not even a Trader, not even a proper jeweler. She carved wood, in Sa's name. Wood, and sold it as jewelry. In that instant, Althea suddenly decided she would see this woman's goods for herself. With the same resolution as if grasping a nettle, she pushed open the door and swept into the shop.

It was cooler inside, and almost dark after the brightness of the summer street. As her eyes adjusted, Althea saw the place as polished simplicity. The floor was smoothed pine planking. The shelves, too, were simple wood. Amber's goods were arranged on plain squares of deep-hued fabric on the shelves. Some of the more elaborate necklaces were displayed on the walls behind her counter. There were also pottery bowls full of loose wooden beads in every color that wood could be.

Her goods were not just jewelry either. There were simple bowls and platters, carved with rare grace and attention to grain; wooden goblets that could have honored a king's table; hair combs carved of scented wood. Nothing had been made of pieces fastened together. In each case, shapes had been discovered in the wood and called forth whole, brought to brilliance by carving and polishing. In one case a chair had been created from a huge wood bole; it was unlike any seat Althea had ever seen before, lacking legs but possessing a smoothed hollow that a slight person could curl into. Ensconced on it, knees folded beside her, sandaled feet peeping from the beneath the hem of her robe, was Amber.

It jolted Althea that for an instant she had looked right at Amber and not seen her. It was her skin and hair and eyes, she decided. The woman was all the same color, even to her clothing, and that color was identical to the honey-toned wood of the chair. She raised one eyebrow quizzically at Althea.

“You wished to see me?” she asked quietly.

“No,” Althea exclaimed both truthfully and reflexively. Then she made an effort to recover, saying haughtily, “I was but curious to see this wooden jewelry that I had heard so much about. ”

“You being such a connoisseur of fine wood,” Amber nodded.

There was almost no inflection to Amber's words. A threat? A sarcasm? A simple observation? Althea could not decide. And suddenly it was too much that this woodworker, this artisan, would dare to speak to her so. She was, by Sa, the daughter of a Bingtown Trader, a Bingtown Trader herself by right, and this woman, this upstart, was no more than a newcomer to their settlement who had dared to claim a spot for herself on Rain Wild Street. All Althea's frustration and anger of the past week suddenly had a target. “You refer to my live-ship,” Althea rejoined. It was all in the tone, the challenge as to what right this woman had to speak of her ship at all.

“Have they legalized slavery here in Bingtown?” Again there was no real expression to read in that fine-featured face. Amber asked the question as if it flowed naturally from Althea's last words.

“Of course not! Let the Chalcedeans keep their base customs. Bingtown will never acknowledge them as right. ”

“Ah. But then . . . ” the briefest of pauses, “you did refer to the liveship as yours? Can you own another living intelligent creature?”

“Vivacia is mine, as I speak of my sister as mine. Family. ” Althea threw down the words. She could not have said why she suddenly felt so angry.

“Family. I see. ” Amber flowed upright. She was taller than Althea had expected. Not pretty, much less beautiful, there was still something arresting about her. Her clothing was demure, her carriage graceful. The finely pleated fabric of her robe echoed the fine plaits of her hair. Her appearance shared her carvings' simplicity and elegance. Her eyes met Althea's and held them. “You claim sisterhood with wood. ” A smile touched the corners of her lips, making Amber's mouth suddenly mobile, generous. “Perhaps we have more in common than I had dared to hope. ”

Even that tiny show of friendliness increased Althea's wariness. “You hoped?” she said coolly. “Why should you hope that we had anything in common at all?”

The smile widened fractionally. “Because it would make things easier for both of us. ”

Althea refused to be baited into another question.

After a time, Amber sighed a small sigh. “Such a stubborn girl. Yet I find myself admiring even that about you. ”