didn’t approach them to send me a message?”
She bent her head low. “Who am I that I should push myself into your life? No, Nwaha and I are unimportant people now. But enough about me. Your wife is a beauty, Taer. But—” she clicked her tongue “—only one wife?”
Father nodded.
“You’re being stingy with yourself, Treads Lightly. Most rich men spread themselves around. They don’t tread lightly when taking earthly joys. But I’m glad to see you’re well, my friend. We’ve often asked the ancestors to protect you.”
The poor are allowed their scheming, I suppose. Especially the poor who once were wealthy. I would have liked the woman better if she hadn’t chattered so much.
Father bowed his head. “I’ve prayed for your family also.”
“Waihai!” she said, “The Good Maker obviously heard our prayers, but not yours.” She followed this with a laugh so obviously meant to call the market’s attention to the fact she was speaking to the King’s Captain that if I hadn’t wanted to meet her daughter, I might have found an excuse to leave.
Father was always patient with deceptions, however. Or perhaps he was more gracious about them. Or maybe he simply didn’t recognize them as often as I did. He said to her, “Give my prayers some credit for your health and happiness.”
“You don’t want credit for something so small and puny, my friend.” Her conniving was relentless.
Wishing to stop it, I asked, “But where is Nwaha? He’s wrong not to have told Father you were settled in Satilo.”
“Your father knows how proud Nwaha is.” She pointed across the marketplace, to the other side of the Sun Fountain where a tattered banner blew before an equally tattered tent. “That’s our home. Our shop.”
Father began walking towards the shop but—she reminded me of actresses I saw once in King Jaguar’s palace—she stopped him, bending low and clutching at her chest. “Don’t dishonor us, my friend, by coming into our house. The shame would be too great. I would be doubly shamed to serve a guest the poor food we have.”
“To hold my friend in my heart and eyes is all the sweetness I need,” Father answered.
That was a common phrase in the old days, intended to free the poor from the oppression of the hospitality laws, and for a moment, I feared the old woman had overplayed her hand. If, out of respect for his friend, father declined to enter Nwaha’s house I would be deprived of seeing the girl.
Monua, perhaps suspecting she had played her role too well, lowered her head to the side. Then, crooking her hand, she said, “But if you do not mind poor fare, come and see. I know you’re kind and will not be disgusted at our lowly position.”
Waihai! My heart leaped! It seemed full of a most profound happiness. I must have been smiling like a fool, for Father gave me a questioning look and gently touched the tiny hairs sprouting on my lip. Perhaps he only smiled at his own happiness at being suddenly reunited with his old friend. Whatever the reason, we both were in good spirits.
Our smiles faded when we entered Nwaha’s three-room shop. When I was a young child, my Little Mother taught me an alphabet song:
“If ever you enter a house and find it dirty, dingy or disarrayed,
Don’t judge the dwellers of that domain.
For a dirty, disarrayed, and dingy house
Declares its owners are poor, ill, tired, or grieving.
Dinginess doesn’t imply defect or dereliction.
Dirty houses do not display dirty hearts.
Decisions decided on disarray should be disregarded.
Your heart would itself be dirty and disarrayed
To determine another’s worth on such dealings.”
I remembered the little song and restrained my mind from harsh judgment.
The public front room, where Nwaha worked his trade as a tent-maker and where Monua made and sewed dresses, was the most presentable, even though its buckskin walls were crumbling away. I didn’t see the inner room where their daughter slept or the third room, which was Nwaha’s and Monua’s, but the scattered fabric remnants and the abundance of scavenged sundries in first room hinted the unseen rooms hid overwhelming poverty.
Nwaha directed Father to a rickety wooden stool. His tightly curled black hair was turbaned in the northern Theseni style despite the heat of the day. Although he was about Father’s age, wrinkles lined his face, making him seem older. “My eyes rejoice to see you,” he said. “What victories you’ve had, Treads Lightly! Your name rings out in many war songs.”
“When you hear them, don’t sing along with them,” Father said, sitting down. “Those victories have cost me deep defeats.”
“Even so, I’m as proud of your successes as if they were mine.”
“They are yours, Nwaha,” Father answered. “I could not have won a quarter of my victories if your spirit had not sustained me.”
“So you are Father’s childhood friend?” I asked, although as a youth I should have stayed silent in the presence of an older man. “So we meet again? And this time, I’m wearing a breechcloth.”
He laughed, and his teeth gleamed white against his dark brown skin.
“But tell me, Nwaha,” I began, “is there anything you need?”
Father gave me a reproving look. I silenced myself immediately, realizing to ask such a question was a breach of etiquette that would only shame Nwaha.
However, Monua leaped at the opportunity despite the embarrassment spreading across Nwaha’s face. She deftly avoided Nwaha’s extended left hand as he tried to prevent her from speaking. “Your father’s generosity is known throughout the region,” she continued. “And it seems his son shares that same generous nature. But let us not burden your father with our misfortunes.”
“How could you burden me, Nwaha?” Father asked. Preserving the honor of another was an art. Father turned to me. “Son, the talk of two old men will not interest you. You know how your Mamya worries when we return late. She dotes too much on her little charge. Now, don’t give her any cause to worry. Ride straight home.” Yes, he wanted to pay Nwaha’s debts, but speaking of such matters in front of me would have been an etiquette breach. That was how things were done in the old days. Subtly, tactfully.
Yet, I wanted one more glimpse of Monua’s daughter. “Permit me, Father,” I said, “to go to the horse dealer? You wanted the painted stallion, didn’t you? The one who looks like a sunset during the cold moons. Shall I buy him?”
“Bargain well,” he answered. “Don’t let that cheater take advantage of your youth. Instead of riding Cactus home, ride that one. Study how he behaves and tell me all your observations.”
I immediately got up and raced out the door. When outside, I searched the arcs and walkways of the marketplace until I saw Monua’s daughter. I found her at last, a long way from Nwaha’s shop, near the Sun Fountain. She held a water jug in her hand. I hurriedly paid for the stallion after bargaining only enough to assure a fair price, then followed her as she approached two Ibeni beggars sitting beside a hemp plant. The men’s faces were tattooed, a sign they had committed treason against the king—probably some conspiracy with the Angleni. None in the marketplace offered them quixa, water, or food. None but Monua’s daughter.
I watched to see if she exchanged any words with the beggars. She did not. In those days, an unmarried Theseni woman could not speak to a strange man, but taboos could be worked around. Kneeling beside them, she put fruit and bread in their hands. These they ate greedily and humbly. She fed them then, unspeaking, hurried away. No one in the marketplace reproved her for this, which I considered strange and wonderful indeed. I smiled, seeing her kind, brave heart; seeing it, I loved her