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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.
I fetched my ruined skirts and borrowed scissors from one of the neighbor men. At a table in front of an interested audience of children and the regular customers who always came early, I began dismantling the ripped and torn remains while I spun a carefully worded tale that left out Salt Island, James Drake, and Prince Caonabo, and jumped straight from the watery attack to my beach rescue by buccaneers. The rains came through, as they did every afternoon, and more people gathered as folk left off work for the day and came to drink and relax.
“Yee say yee was attacked by a shark? Describe what yee saw, gal.”
“It was very large, and a nasty shiny gray, and it had dead flat eyes. I must say, I’ve never been so terrified in my life.” Except standing before the creature who sired me. “I punched it, and it swam off.”
They laughed and whistled. Several began debating whether it was a carite or a cajaya, two different kinds of sharks known to attack people. I looked up to see Vai standing in the back with arms crossed, glowering as if I had personally offended him. By the evidence of sawdust dusting his skin, he had only recently come in and not yet washed; he’d tied a kerchief over his head today, making him look very buccaneer-ish, a man about to sail off in an airship except of course for the minor issue of his deflating the balloon and thereby causing a spectacular crash.
“That shark is not the predator yee shall have been feared of, gal,” said Uncle Joe. “’Tis they buccaneers yee shall have feared more. Seem yee was rescued off the beach by the Barr Cousins. They is called Nick Blade for he knives and the Hyena Queen for the way she laugh.”
