Nicola Griffith - Ammonite

she said to Zabett, “that’s agreeable to me. You?”

Zabett nodded shortly. “But you’ll pay the fee, as it’s your people who caused the trouble.”

They spat on their hands, and shook.

Marghe whispered to Thenike. “Wouldn’t it be a good idea if they agreed now, while they still don’t know who it is, what the punishment would be?” She had seen too many negotiations, on Earth and off, fall to nothing because not enough was agreed at the start.

“Tell them,” Thenike said, and gestured.

Marjhe took a deep breath. Pretend it’s just like negotiating something for SEC .

“Shake, too, on the reparation price and the punishment you’ll mete,” she said, stepping forward. While Roth and Zabett prepared to haggle over that, she turned to Thenike. “Any ideas on how to settle this thing?”

“One or two, but they’re not perfect.”

Marghe thought fast. “These tokens. Zabett has to smash them to see if they contain a fish tooth, otherwise they’re not genuine. So… Zabett makes them? Yes.

And someone’s given her a dud. But…” They were one-time use only. “That’s the central difficulty of the matter, then: once the credit’s smashed, it’s invalid. So how do we check?”

Roth and Zabett were still talking. Some of the sailors appeared resigned to a long discussion and had sat down in the dusty courtyard, Marghe thought hard. There was no perfect solution. “The only thing I can think of is that we ask each sailor to take off all her tokens, and empty her pockets, too, just in case, and put them on the ground in front of her. Then we choose one from each pile and smash it. We keep doing that until we smash a dud.”

“Some may only have three or four. Losing even one will be a great hardship to the innocents.”

“I know.”

They were silent; Roth and Zabett had finished talking, and were waiting.

“I can’t think of anything better,” Thenike said eventually, “and it may be that you won’t have to break many.”

“Me?”

“You.” Thenike deliberately stepped back. Marghe looked around her. She was Marghe Amun. A viajera. She straightened her shoulders and stepped forward.

“Roth.” She motioned for the captain to join her thirteen sailors, then stood before them. “Take off your credits and put them on the ground before you. We’ll break them one at a time until we find out who did this.”

Roth and two others looked resigned and unfastened anklets and necklaces, dropping them into the dust at their feet. The others glanced at each other.

“Why should we?” one asked, a small fair woman with a chipped front tooth.

Marghe’s heart was thumping. There was nothing to make these women do as she said. Nothing at all.

“Juomo’s right,” said a tall woman the color of rich river mud. “We’ve done nothing wrong. I don’t have enough credits to let them get smashed to pieces for nothing. We could sleep aboard.”

Several nodded in agreement, and folded their arms.

Marghe looked at Zabett. “Perhaps Zabett would agree to replace any genuine tokens that get broken?” Zabett nodded. The innkeeper was on her side, at least.

Maybe this would not be so bad after all.

The sailors still looked stubborn. Roth looked at them one by one. “I agreed with Zabett that the journeywomen should sort this dispute, Juomo, Tillis. This is the way they’re doing it. If you don’t like it, elect another captain.”

Marghe saw by Roth’s easy stance that the captain knew the sailors would not go that far; she began to enjoy herself. This might work.

The women muttered, but began to strip themselves of their wealth. Marghe set aside the urge to grin and watched carefully.

One woman placed a string with just two clay disks in the dust; Tillis, four.

Juomo, with the chipped tooth, offered a necklace of five.

Tillis looked at Juomo’s necklace and frowned. Juomo pretended not to notice.

But Marghe did.

She stepped up to Juomo, touched the necklace with one foot. “Perhaps you have more credits than this.” She watched Juomo’s carotid thump as her pulse increased. “We wish to see it all.”

“You’re seeing it.”

“I don’t think so.”

Juomo stepped back a little, tucked her thin hair behind her ears nervously.

Marghe was no longer enjoying herself. She held out her hand. “Give me the rest.”

Juomo bolted, but Tillis shot out a leg and tumbled her into the dust. The big woman hauled Juomo upright by her belt and casually wrapped one arm around her neck. Tillis yanked up Juomo’s sleeve. A string of twenty or thirty credits was wrapped around Juomo’s biceps. “Knew she had more,” Tillis said with satisfaction. She snapped the leather thong and unthreaded one of the clay disks.

She dropped it in Marghe’s outstretched hand. “Try this.”

Zabett was there now, and Roth and Thenike. And the other sailors were picking up their dusty credits.

“Leave them awhile,” Marghe said, “until we’ve tested these.”

“You can’t smash my credits!” Juomo shouted.

Tillis shook her. “Shut up. If it’s real, then you can have one of mine.” She grinned at Marghe. “Test it, journeywoman.”

Marghe was not sure she would be able to tell a dud from the real thing. She held out the disk to Zabett. “I think we should give Zabett the privilege.”

After the excitement in the courtyard, lunch was late. Marghe and Thenike ate outside. The clouds were thinning, letting afternoon sunshine heat the wood of the table, releasing a spicy, resinous scent. Their plates were almost empty; they were eating fruit.

Thenike had been explaining to Marghe the credit system. Zabett and Scathac gave board and lodgings on a barter system; if an individual or crew had a large item that was worth more than the number of nights or meals needed, then the innkeepers gave them credit, in the form of clay disks. One disk equalled one night. Because of their fixed value, and because the sailors traveled from one place to another, mixing with other travelers, the clay disks had begun to assume the status of portable wealth in those places—ports and well-frequented areas, especially around the coast.

Protocurrency. Several years ago, Hamner, the innkeeper in South Meet, had arranged with the two northern innkeepers to honor their credits if Zabett and Scathac would honor hers. They agreed, and now the disks were becoming more popular as currency.

Marghe paused, a goura half-peeled. “But if the disks are being used as currency, then much of it stays in circulation.”

“True.”

“That’s nice for Zabett and Scathac: they only have to honor part of what they receive goods for.” She cut several slices from the goura and laid them on a plate. A boatfly hummed near the glistening fruit and Marghe waved it away. “So what effect does this currency have on the trata network?”

“Not much. The clay credits are a coastal phenomenon. Besides, trata is about more than wealth. It’s about power, and favors: who is beholden to whom. It’s about friendships and enemyhood, a webwork of who is known to be trustworthy and who not. Currency is for strangers.”

They chewed on the fruit for a while.

Marghe remembered the panic on Juomo’s face as she tried to run, as she tried to get away from her, from Marghe. No one had ever run from her before. “What will happen to her?”

“Juomo? All her credits will be taken and smashed. Those that prove to be genuine will be replaced by Zabett and Scathac. But they won’t ever let her stay at their inn again. And Roth will be looking for a new hand. I doubt anyone else will take her on board, unless they’re desperate.”

“But what will she do?”

Thenike shrugged and ate another piece of fruit.