wasn’t a real bet, because he’d been with her for hours. But Micah realized she was ravenous.
Rafe grinned. “Ever had tomato pie?”
• • •
Micah hadn’t realized that cheese could be so good, all melty and drippy on top of tomato goop on top of flat bread baked in an oven. She usually hated goop, but this was so salty and chewy and, well, friendly, you couldn’t mind it.
A barmaid brought them both beers. It was thin and nasty; nothing like the warm brown ale that Cousin Seth brewed each fall. Micah gave Rafe hers.
The barmaid came back. She had big titties, and she drooped them in Rafe’s face, like a cow, which made Micah giggle.
The barmaid ignored her. “Anything else you need, Rafe? I gave you extra cheese.”
“I know you did, Margery, and I’m grateful.” Rafe tilted his stool back and looked off into the distance. “Mannerly Margery, milk and ale. That’s a poem.”
“A poem? For me?”
His stool came down with a thunk. “Thing is, Margery, I’m wedded to my studies. And Astronomy is a cruel mistress.”
“Cold up there in the sky, is it? Maybe you need a nicer mistress, then.”
“Probably. But I’ve got plans. Big plans. I—”
“Big plans.” She snorted. “Big ones. Bigger than everyone else’s? Right.”
Margery went away. She wasn’t interested anymore.
But Micah was. “What plans, Rafe?”
“Oh, Micah.” Rafe spread his hands on the table. “Did you recognize the poem?”
“I don’t know poems.”
“There, see? I want everyone to know poems! Poems, and philosophy, and astronomy and geometry and mathematics and—and poems. Beauty. Complexity.”
“How?”
He leaned forward, and his voice got lower. “I’m going to found a school. A school that’s dedicated to teaching—to letting everyone learn beautiful, complex things! First in the city, and then, maybe, all over the land.”
“If you think farm people are stupid, we’re not. We can read, and write, and cipher.”
“Yes, and so can my father! He’s a merchant, with ships and countinghouses. But he might as well be a farmer, for all he knows or cares about the finer things in life. A farmer of the sea, a farmer of coins and—and money.” Rafe finished his beer and started on hers. “And will he support me in my venture? Hells, no. He wants me to study law, and accounting. To join him in his miserable little life of crates and bales.”
“Will you?”
“Hells, no!” he said again. “I’m going to have to get a job, as soon as I become a Master. I’ll need money, and lots of it, if I want to teach the poor.” He was moving his hands around in the air. “Sure, I’ll probably have to earn it tutoring some noble’s kiddies at first, but I’m no climber. I won’t be secretly hoping to be noticed by Lord Papa and raised to a secretarial position on his political staff, so I can help the nobles keep things the way they are. Not me!”
Micah stared, fascinated. “What, then?”
“I’ll write pamphlets about my theories. Then people will come flocking to me—”
“Like sheep?”
“Yes!—No! Not like sheep. Like . . . like . . . Like true men and scholars! To spread knowledge throughout the land.” She didn’t quite know what he meant, but he made it sound nice. “Micah.” He leaned across the table to her, a little too close. “I want you to promise me something. You have a thirst for learning. I know it. Stay here. Stay here and learn.”
“But I don’t want to know poetry.”
“Not poetry.” He leaned back to wave his hands again, and she breathed a sigh of relief. “Mathematics. Start there. But not Padstow. Padstow’s for beginners, and you’re not one. I don’t know who your tutor at home was, but there are doctors here more worthy of your knowledge. Men who can teach you something. Men you can study with. You have to join us here. You have to stay, and study what you love. Will you promise?”
She had never seen anyone whose face lit up as much as his. His eyes were like stars, like the first stars of evening that appeared while the low sky was still blue around the edges. Micah always wished on the first stars.
“Promise me,” he said again. “Not just: Sure, Rafe, anything you say, if you’ll let me go. Promise me you’ll give it a chance, to dedicate yourself to learning with me.”
“All right,” she said breathlessly. How could she not? “But just for a week. Just ’til next market day, when Reuben comes back. Then I have to go home.”
“Sure,” Rafe said. “Sure, Micah, that’s fine.” He gave her another starry smile. “And maybe you can teach us, too.”
“How do you mean?”
“Your cards—the way you play, I mean. There’s some kind of method, isn’t there? You’ve figured something out?”
“Well, kind of. It’s all in my head. But maybe I could draw you a chart . . .”
“Could you?” He gripped her hands harder. “Would you? So I could start winning, too? I could pay all my debts—buy all my friends food—stand the fees for my oral examinations . . . Oh, Micah! If you could do that for me! And I will help you. I swear it. You can bunk in our rooms, I’ll help you find good classes, and find your way round . . . You belong here. I promise.”
He rose suddenly, and slapped some coins on the table.
“Shouldn’t I pay, too?” Micah asked.
“Your first tomato pie? It is an honor.”
That was so nice of him. When she had won all that money, even some of his. And he had shown her all around, and found her card games. You should pay people for their help, she knew that. Micah fished for her pouch. She’d give him fifteen—no, seventeen—percent of tonight’s earnings. And in the morning, she’d start writing him up her likelies tables, so he could start winning, too.
• • •
Facing her family was a lot harder than facing the Riverside swordsman.
They knew exactly who Ixkaab Balam was, and what she’d done, and there were no pretty stories to tell them.
Instead, Kaab let herself be scolded by Uncle Chuleb, and examined by Aunt Saabim, and fussed over by various older female relatives whose names she couldn’t even remember—if she’d ever known them—but who all exclaimed about how she’d grown, and how long her hair was, and how much she resembled her mother (may she never be extinguished, may she never disappear) and laughed or tutted at the state of her clothes, according to their natures. The family’s children wanted presents, the teens wanted to hear about the voyage, the older folk wanted the news from home . . .
Finally, Uncle Chuleb had the sense or the courtesy to deliver the formal welcome: “The Sun shines upon your arrival, Ixkaab Balam, first daughter of my wife’s sister.”
Aunt Saabim picked up her cue: “In a week’s time, we will feast your arrival. (Did your father remember the extra achiote I asked him for?) But now, we welcome you to the House of the Balam in Xanaamdaam. It is your home as long as you respect the laws of gods and humans. Our life for your life.”
Kaab placed her hand on her heart, and bowed deeply. “And my life for yours.”
“What you ask for shall be given, though we must walk the Road of the Sun to get it.”
Everyone bowed to her now, even the littlest kids. Kaab looked around at them all, her people,