Read The Necessary Beggar Online
Authors: Susan Palwick
The Necessary Beggar (17 page)
“When you find it, you will know it at once,” Darroti says conversationally, as if to his ledger sheet. “If you hesitate, it is not the one. Move on, lady.”
She acknowledges this with a quick nod, flips through the carpets quickly and then more slowly and deliberatelyâand then, turning back the corner of one to see the one beneath it, gives a muffled gasp. “Oh,” she says. She tugs at the corner to free the carpet. “Oh, look, thisâ”
“Let me help you,” Darroti says, and abandons the pretense of accounts to hurry to her side. The carpet she has chosen is the one that stopped him this morningâhours ago, it seems nowâthe flaming, noble pattern, all fire and water. His heart thumps in his chest. He pulls the carpet free of the pile above it. “You have a beautiful soul,” he tells her, and at once could bite his tongue. But she only looks up at him in wonder.
“I did not really believe it, that I would find one to match my self. I thought it was like picking out aâa dress, or a cooking pot, some merely useful thing. But it is not like that at all.”
“No,” he says, his mouth dry.
“I did not think I would know my fate so quickly, all at once,” she says, and he thinks,
Nor did I
. He has had no wine since last night, and yet he feels drunk: the good drunk, light and floating, before sickness sets in.
Nor did I
. He has had no wine since last night, and yet he feels drunk: the good drunk, light and floating, before sickness sets in.
And now she will give him money, and go away, and he will never see her again. He begins to feel sick after all. But she sighs, looking down at the carpet again, running her hands wistfully over it. “It is very fine.”
“The best in this shipment,” he says. “Indeed, the finest I have ever seen.”
The finest in the world
, he wants to say, but prudence stops him.
The finest in the world
, he wants to say, but prudence stops him.
“Very fine,” she says bitterly. “And I cannot afford it.”
From anyone else this would be prelude to a round of bargaining, the mandatory protests of poverty from buyer and seller alike, who can never possibly name a price higher or lower than the one they have just offered, and yet always do, until at last they meet in the middle. She expects him to name a price now, this child who could buy half the market with one corner of her silken hood. She expects him to be a merchant, not a man.
He shakes his head. He does not name a price. “Lady?” he asks.
“They will not give me money of my own.”
“Merchant!” Someone is calling him from the pile of sleeping mats. He turns in annoyance, putting out a hand to keep the girl from fleeing, and sees a heavy man, all jowls and glistening sweat, with gold rings on his fingers. “Merchant! I seek a sleeping mat in green and amber! Have you any such?”
“None,” Darroti says, feigning disappointment, although in fact there are three or four such in the pile. He should tell the man to come back tomorrow, that there will be another shipmentâbut no, for the man might come back when Timbor was here, and speak to him, instead of Darroti, and thus Timbor might learn of the lie. So instead, wanting only to be rid of this irritation, Darroti says, “Have you tried the carpet booth across the Market? I think I saw some there.”
The fat man leaves, grumbling at how far he has to walk. Darroti sends up thanks that Timbor is not here, to see that he has thrown away a sale. He turns back to the girl. “Lady. They willâ”
“Not give me money of my own,” she finishes quickly. “My father buys me anything I want, but he will not buy me a prayer carpet. He says it is not seemly for women to be Mendicants. He says I am too young. He wants to keep me at home, caged like a bird; he claims I have no need of Temple. How can he know my needs? He does not know my soul; he does not wish to look at it.”
I do
, Darroti thinks. “Lady.”
, Darroti thinks. “Lady.”
“And so for three years, since I was fifteen and first dreamed of going to Temple, I have saved up bits of change: spare coins from buying sweets or trinkets, the coins my parents give at holidays. I have collected fifty alaris that way, and it was slow work. I thought that fifty might purchase what I needed. But this is worth far more than that.”
Worth the world
, he thinks. The carpet is, in fact, worth at least four times that much.
, he thinks. The carpet is, in fact, worth at least four times that much.
She is still speaking, as if to herself, her head down. There is no guile in her, no will to bargain. “My father says that I cannot be a Mendicant because men will only want to take from me, not give. He says I will be hounded and harassed. My mother and older sister say they find their souls at home, and so can I, and thusâ”
“None may tell where any of us will find our souls,” Darroti says. He is thinking furiously. He could hold the carpet for her, but Timbor would be suspicious when he came back, and would want to see a down payment; if it has taken three years for her to collect fifty alaris, there is little chance of her gathering the full price. If the carpet stays in the pile, there is the danger that someone else will buy it, for it is a gorgeous thing, and others might fool themselves into believing it the pattern of their own souls.
He glances at the sun. Mid-morning: Timbor will soon be back from his meeting with the widow. He must act quickly.
And so he does, heart pounding. He takes the prayer carpet, swiftly rolls it into a neat tube, and offers it to her with both hands.
And with my heart
. “Tell your father that he is wrong. Tell him that men will give you what you need, just as the cosmos does, for now I give you this.”
And with my heart
. “Tell your father that he is wrong. Tell him that men will give you what you need, just as the cosmos does, for now I give you this.”
Her eyes widen. She shakes her head. “No, merchant! I cannot deprive you of your livelihoodâ”
“I cannot deprive you of your soul, lady.”
Her face tightens. “I am not a Mendicant yet. What then would you have for this?” She is suspicious now. She fears that he seeks some advantage over her, that he will ask for favors of the flesh; that he is only what indeed her father has told her all men are.
Pained, he shakes his head. “Nothing, lady. Unless you grant me knowledge of your name. I am Darroti-Frella Timbor, of honest kin although not noble, and I salute your courage, and wish you fair fortune.”
Still she does not trust him. She holds out a small cloth bag. “You must take my fifty alaris.”
Something has occurred to him. “I will take your fifty alaris, and for them I will give you a sleeping mat to wrap about that other one, so your family will not see it when you take it home.”
“Ah! That is good thinking, merchant. That one, on top: the green and purple. I will take that one.”
He relaxes, allows himself to grin at her as he rolls the sleeping mat around the other. “And now, what will you say when your people ask you why you went alone to the Great Market to buy a sleeping mat?”
“They will not ask me. I left my maid Adda in the healer's house. I took her there so she could lean upon me; she is old, forty at least, and her back is sore. She did not know I was coming to the Market. I will sayâI will tell her and the others that I bought the new sleeping mat for her, to ease her aching back. She favors green and purple.”
“Well done,” Darroti says, approving. “But she and your family will not be angry that you came to Market alone, even so?”
“Nay,” the girl says, and smiles for the first time. Darroti finds himself trembling, as he did once on a winter day when the sun shone from behind a cloud; blinded by the glory of light where a moment before there had been only gloom, he was transported by wonder. He was very small then. This is the first time in all the years since that he has felt that way, as if he is larger than the boundaries of his body. “They know I am impetuous. They will scold me for it, but Adda will love me, and my parents will be pleased. They wish me to be generous, but not to ask for generosity from others.”
Her smile fades a little as she says that last. “I give to you because life has given to me,” Darroti says, very quietly. It is what people say when they make offerings to Mendicants. The girl looks him full in the face, now, and he sees her tremble, as he did when she smiled.
“I take from you with thanks, as I take from the cosmos,” she whispers. It is the other half of the formula. She has grown pale. She swallows and says, “I am Gallicina-Malinafa Odarettari, good merchant.”
“Darroti,” he says.
“Darroti.” She inclines her head.
He bows, very low. When he has risen again, she is gone, making her way through the crowded Market with her precious bundle. He wants to cry after her, wants to implore her to return, that he may feel the sun again. He wants to tell her that only her magnificent soul can elevate his paltry one. But that would not do, and so instead he turns to his ledger sheet, to the dull columns of marching numbers.
Timbor returns a little while later, pleased because he did good business with the widow, who bought new carpets for every room in her large and garish house. “There are so many knick-knacks there,” Timbor says, laughing, “that you cannot move without knocking something over. Ivory fans on wooden stands, alabaster jars, glass statues of animals. I feared that I would break some treasure and have to discount its price from the sale; indeed, I wondered if she had put out the things especially for that purpose, if she had some store-room full of hideous miniatures she only pretended to cherish, that she might use them as a bargaining tool when they were
smashed. But I was deft, both with my limbs and with my speech, and all is well.”
smashed. But I was deft, both with my limbs and with my speech, and all is well.”
Although Darroti is fond of his father, and would normally enjoy the tale, he can barely bring himself to grunt in response. Gallicina, Gallicina. All is dross but that. He forces himself to act interested, and indeed he is grateful that Timbor's expedition went so well, since the sale will help make up for Darroti's extravagance.
Timbor, humming, is looking through the new shipment now. “These are lovely work.”
“Aye.”
“Made you any sales this morning?”
“A sleeping mat, marked down for a frayed corner,” Darroti answers, making a comic face. “Another, whole, for fifty alaris. A room carpet.”
“It was slow, then.”
“Aye,” he says, the lie sticking in his throat. The shape of the universe has changed, and he must feign talk of common commerce.
Timbor flips through the piles, still humming. Darroti realizes that his father, of long habit, is counting the new goods to check them against the bills of lading. The pile of prayer carpets will be one short, and he cannot account for it by a sale. “The prayer carpets were not all there,” he says. “We purchased ten and received only nine.”
Timbor looks at him in surprise. “Aye? The Barrina weavers are not usually so careless.”
“Perhaps one was stolen along the route,” Darroti says. He does not wish to get the weavers in any trouble: he must be careful here. “The packaging looked torn, although I saw no damage to the nine.” There have been such thefts before, although they are infrequent; he prays that his father will accept the explanation.
“A pity,” Timbor says with a shrug, and turns away, whistling. The widow has put him in an excellent mood, and Darroti sends up thanks. “Well, little matter, if it does not happen more often. May whoever took it have found the pattern of his soul.”
Or hers
. “Aye,” Darroti says quietly. “That is a good wish.”
. “Aye,” Darroti says quietly. “That is a good wish.”
Timbor looks at him now, frowning, alerted by some new note in Darroti's voice. “Are you well, son? You look pale.”
“I am fine, Father.”
“Were you out drinking again last night?”
“I was with friends. I am fine, Father. I am not ill.”
Timbor shrugs and smiles, and reaches out to squeeze Darroti's shoulder, and then turns to speak to a customer. Business is brisk for the rest
of the day, and Darroti forces himself to concentrate on work. He bargains well, seeking by small increments to make up the price of the gift he gave this morning, and by the time the Great Market closes at sundown, he and his father have done very well indeed.
of the day, and Darroti forces himself to concentrate on work. He bargains well, seeking by small increments to make up the price of the gift he gave this morning, and by the time the Great Market closes at sundown, he and his father have done very well indeed.
As they lock up the booth, Timbor says, “Will you come home with me for supper, Darroti?”
Always Timbor asks this, but usually Darroti declines. He goes off to have supper with his friends, to eat greasy sausages and drink wine and then seek out whichever whore is next on his list. But tonight Darroti wishes to do none of that: he only wants to be alone, to dream of Gallicina. “Aye, I will,” he tells his father, and Timbor gives him a startled glance.
“You are sure you are not ill, Darroti?”
“Only tired from a day of bargaining,” Darroti says, summoning a smile, and Timbor chuckles and looks pleased.
And so Darroti goes home for supper. The family is delighted to see him, if surprised. His brothers smile, and their wives fuss, and the children clamber on Darroti's lap. They treat him like a king, and he realizes, with a kind of wonder, how much they love him.
After supperâHarani's excellent bread, and stew, and cool clear juice to drinkâDarroti tells them he is sleepy and goes to his small room. His sleeping carpet is slightly dusty, and he realizes that he cannot remember when last he actually slept here. He lies down, staring at the ceiling; at last, after this long day, he can allow himself to drift completely in reveries of Gallicina. He replays each delicious moment of their meeting, each word she spoke, the tone of her voice, the planes of her face in the shadows of her hood, the play of sunlight on the costly gray silk of her robe. He wonders if she thinks of him at all. He finds himself hoping that she has made a hero of him, for his gift, and then he is ashamed: he gave the carpet freely, and not to buy her love. And yet how he hopes that she will recall him, remember his name, come back to thank him!
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