Keith Decandido: Under the Crimson Sun

Vas frowned. “Do not attempt to flatter me.”

The elf shrugged. “I’m not-I merely describe you. I assume that you do not trust underlings to purchase your wares for you, and furthermore that you will be taking anything you purchase back with you on those kanks that you have cluttering up the thoroughfare.”

“And this concerns you?” Vas’s tone was more than a little arch.

Holding up both hands, the elf said, “Oh, it’s none of my concern. I merely hope that your stopping at my humble stand means you might possibly wish to make a purchase. If you do not, then I will bid you adieu.” He took a small bow at that.

“I like you,” Vas said. “You’re as insincere as every other miscreant in this bazaar, but I prefer your approach. More style.”

The elf took another bow. “Thank you. I am Torthal Serthlara, and this is the Serthlara Traveling Emporium. My wife Shira, our family, and I travel about Athas in search of goods we may bring to other parts of Athas. For example, these spices are from several different regions.” He picked up a small bell jar that was labeled in a script Vas didn’t recognize. “This is a sleeping draft from one of the eastern elf tribes. The winds will howl that far out, you see-can keep you up all the night long. This spice-they call it feresh -will dissolve in any liquid, and can be very handy if you need some rest.”

Vas was unimpressed. “My apothecary has many sleeping drafts already.”

“Yes, but these are designed for elves. Forgive me, but your people have less of a constitution than mine.” He indicated the human woman, Shira, who was still talking with the dwarf. “My marriage has taught me that.”

Just as Vas was about to tell Serthlara to back off and stop trying to push the sleeping draft, the elf did so unprompted. “If you have any questions about any of the merchandise, please don’t hesitate to ask.” He grinned. “If I don’t know the answer, I promise to make something up that will sound quite convincing.”

Vas barked out an involuntary laugh. “Very well.”

Before too long, it became clear that the spices were nothing special-most were, like the feresh , of elf origin, and Vas had never been impressed with their goods-but the textiles caught his eye. He saw several bolts of Tyr silk and some linens from Balic. Cristophe verified that they were genuine-not fakes like that Lyd woman tried to peddle to him the previous season.

Looking up, Vas wanted to ask Serthlara about the textiles, but the merchant had joined his wife to continue talking to the dwarf.

However, just then a very attractive woman walked toward him from the other side of the table. She had slight tapers to her ears, and the high cheekbones one would expect from an elf, but her eyes were too small, her shoulders too broad. Her eyes, though, were the same sea green as Serthlara’s. She wore two layers of linen that wrapped around her trim figure, but made sure to display her cleavage. Her arms, bronzed from the crimson sun, were decorated with a row of gold-colored bracelets-at least a dozen on each arm-but which did not clatter like the soft metal. Not that it could’ve been gold. If the people owned enough gold to decorate two arms, they wouldn’t need to live like that. Her thick brown hair was tied back and intertwined with silken strips that created an attractive latticework that also no doubt kept it out of her face.

Speaking in a lilting, lovely voice that reminded Vas at once of his favorite concubine and of the gentle flowing of the water in the templar castle’s fountain, she asked, “May I help you, sir?”

Her words brought Vas up short. He hadn’t realized it until the woman used the word, but Serthlara had never once used the honorific “sir.” Yet his tone had been far more respectful, closer to sincere than any of the other merchants, who dropped a “sir” in between every phrase.

“I’m guessing,” he said, “that you’re the daughter of Serthlara and Shira?”

She smiled. She had not inherited her father’s teeth, sadly, and the smile fell quickly in any case. “Yes-I’m Karalith.”

Offering her hand in the same manner as the women of the Nawab and Vizier castes, Vas accepted it on instinct and kissed it at the middle knuckle, just the way Cristophe taught him. That also impressed-usually you didn’t see merchants who were even aware of the traditions of the nobility, much less practiced them. “I’m Vas Belrik.”

Karalith slowly and gently pulled her hand back. It was, Vas had noticed, far more callused and rough than the hands he usually kissed, with uneven fingernails and scars of varying ages. “Welcome to the Serthlara Traveling Emporium, Vizier Belrik. You have a question about the merchandise?”

“How much is the Balic linen?” he asked, surprised once again at her knowledge of Raam customs. The merchants in the bazaar could generally tell that he was from a higher caste, but usually only those who lived there knew to use the honorific-never mind knowing which one to use.

Nodding her head, Karalith said, “Impressive. I think you’re the first Raami to recognize Balic merchandise on sight. Most of the peoples of your city-state are less-well, refined.”

Vas was pleased that he could impress her as she did him, and for that reason, he was willing to forgive her use of “Raami,” a term used only by outsiders, and considered an insult by the locals.

But before he could express that, Cristophe interjected: “So’s he. But I lived in Balic, so I trained him. Lived lotsa places, in fact. Why-”

Interrupting Cristophe before he started going on at length about his travels-the second-most boring subject in the world to Vas, coming up only behind whatever Tova might be yelling about at a given moment-Vas added, “I was also cheated by a textile merchant last season, so I’ve made it my business to know the real thing when I see it. I don’t like being cheated, and I’m never cheated twice.” Softening his tone, he asked, “So how much?”

“Two coppers a foot.”

“How-wait, what?” He had been expecting an unreasonably high price and then expected to haggle-that was how things worked at the bazaar-but two coppers a foot was actually reasonable.

Then Karalith added, “For the linen. But that Tyr silk you keep fondling is a silver a foot.”

Vas smiled. “A Raam silver or a Tyr silver?” While ceramic coins had become commonplace, each city-state minted its own coins, and often there was a markup if one traded back and forth among different locales’ currencies.

Karalith let out a light chuckle. “It matters not. We’re in Raam, so we expect Raam currency, but we’ll accept the coin of any city in Athas. The price, however, remains the same. We find our customers prefer the simplicity of keeping prices constant, and we’ve found that it evens out in the end.”

“Very enlightened,” Vas said, not expecting that level of consideration to the customer from any merchant, though he was appreciating more and more how the Serthlara Emporium wasn’t just any merchant …

She shook her head. “Don’t know why we call it a silver anyway. It’s just a ceramic coin with a mark on it that says it’s silver.”

“Used to be lotsa silver,” Cristophe said. “Long time ago. The ceramic coins, they were just supposed to be a stopgap until they found more veins of the real thing. That never happened, of course. People are stupid-why I remember-”

Again, Vas interrupted his former tutor. “Regardless of how one pays for it, I have no interest in purchasing any more silk. I have more than I know what to do with. Lovely to the touch, but horrendous to wear out of doors.”

She leaned forward and ran a finger along one of the bolts. “I would think a man of your station would have plenty to do indoors.”