After a break, Ilika smiled with an idea. “Let’s look at the place values using money. I need to teach you about it anyway. Gather around the table, everyone.” He laid the sheet with seven boxes flat on the table.
Everyone got a stool and scooted in close.
Ilika opened his coin pouch. “Luckily for us, your money is also in base ten. Here’s a copper piece. Since it’s your smallest coin, I’ll put it in the ones place.”
“I had one of those once,” Toli said softly, lost in a memory, “but my master saw it and took it away.”
“Slaves aren’t allowed to use money,” Kibi explained.
“Pass this around so everyone can see it,” Ilika said. “A copper piece will buy you a meal or a bath.”
The copper piece soon returned to the ones place box.
“This is a small silver piece. It’s worth ten copper pieces. When it comes back around, it goes in the tens place box.”
Buna’s eyes became big and round as she received it. “I’ve never even touched one before!”
Ilika smiled. “Next comes the great silver piece, worth ten small silvers, or one hundred copper pieces.”
All ten students handled the large silver coin with great respect.
“Then we have the small gold piece, worth ten great silvers, and it will go in the thousands place box.”
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Sata suddenly remembered something about a gold piece she was hoping to earn, and opened her mouth to speak, but shut it without saying a word.
“And finally, the largest coin this kingdom uses, the great gold piece, worth ten small gold pieces, or ten thousand copper pieces.”
“Is that the one we get if we finish the lessons but you don’t pick us?” Miko asked.
“Yes. Three of them.”
The great gold piece went around the table slowly with many comments of amazement at its weight and value. Finally it was placed in its square on the paper.
Ilika immediately saw a problem. “Who still has the small gold piece?”
No one said a word.
“I would like the small gold so I can finish showing you how the coins relate to the places,” Ilika said, more firmly.
“I saw it, but don’t have it anymore,” Kibi said, seated about half-way around the table.
Ilika looked at Boro, seated after Kibi. “Boro, have you seen it?”
“Yes. And passed it on.”
Next was Kodi, trying very hard to look innocent. Ilika skipped him.
“Mati, have you seen the small gold?”
“No.”
“Rini?”
“No. After the big silver came the big gold.”
Ilika took two deep breaths.
“Kodi, it seems the small gold piece disappeared somewhere around you.”
Kodi was silent for a moment, but his face revealed the battle raging inside. “Ohhhh . . . here it is!” he yelled and slammed the coin onto the table.
Then he knocked over his stool, dashed to his bed, and quickly hid under the blankets.
No one else made a sound.
Ilika took several more slow, deep breaths. All eyes were on him, except Kodi’s. He slowly picked up the small gold piece from the table, then sat down on the hearth. A long minute passed before he spoke.
“Kodi . . . I have a gift for you.”
NEBADOR Book One: The Test 160
Kodi was so surprised at those words that he peeked out from under the covers. He saw Ilika just sitting on the hearth. “You’re not going to beat me?”
“No, I’m not. I would never beat anyone for anything. But I need you to come and face me and receive what I have decided to give you, so that we can both get on with our lives.”
Kodi slowly crept out from under his blankets, keeping his eyes on Ilika the entire time. He carefully crossed the space between his bed and the hearth, stopping far enough away to dodge a blow.
“Actually, I have two gifts for you,” Ilika said in a soft, sad voice. He pulled the bills of freedom out of his shoulder bag, found Kodi’s, and put the others back. “I paid five small gold to get you out of slavery. I have given you your freedom, and this bill is yours to keep.”
Kodi took the document with a trembling hand.
“This small gold piece must have been very important to you. I give it to you, to do with as you please.”
Kodi could barely make his fingers work well enough to take the coin.
Ilika continued. “I do not know what your path in life will be, but I know it is not upon my ship. Since a great deal of trust will be necessary for this group to learn all the things I must teach them, I cannot allow people who destroy trust to stay in the group. Tomorrow we will learn to use the money changer. You may stay until then, and that will give you time to say good-bye to the others.”
Kodi was on the verge of tears, but would not let himself cry. He stood a moment longer, then suddenly turned and ran for the door, jerked it open, and bounded down the stairs and out of the inn as fast as his legs would carry him.
After the echo of Kodi’s footsteps faded, the silence that filled the room was deafening. Ilika closed his eyes tightly, forcing tears to run down his cheeks. Soon he heard faint whispering, and a few moments later, the door closed.
With great hesitation, Ilika opened his eyes. His students were all gone, even Sata. Ten beds for his ten students, and now they were gone.
After several minutes of sitting with his feelings, he made himself stand
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up. His shoulders remained slumped and his head bowed as he wandered to one of the windows. He could see part of the plaza, even the bakery, but none of his charges . . . his former charges . . . were anywhere in sight.
Suddenly the door opened.
Kibi strode in carrying a tray stacked with bowls and rattling with spoons.
Boro came next bearing a lidded cooking pot. Miko and Neti had trays of bread and cheese. Rini had a bowl of fresh greens. Buna carried a tray of cups and Toli had a pitcher of ale. Mati just brought herself and her crutch.
At the very end, Sata entered with a wooden shingle stacked with tarts from the bakery.
Ilika appeared completely confused. “Um . . . what’s going on?”
“We’re celebrating!” Kibi announced with a tone that meant it should have been obvious to anyone with half a brain.
Rini spoke with sympathy. “We could see you needed some time alone.”
“We all went downstairs and agreed it would be a really good day to eat in our room,” Mati reported.
Sata grinned. “And celebrations require desserts!”
“And ale!” Toli added.
Ilika’s eyes remained red and his cheeks were still wet, but he smiled. “I thought . . . I thought you guys were mad at me and had left.”
“Mad at you?” Kibi said with disbelief. “We all want to kiss you and hug you and thank you! Why would we be mad at you?”
“Because . . . what I had to do with Kodi . . . maybe was too much like a master-slave thing?”
“That
was
nothing like what a master would have done,” Neti informed him. “You are so obviously from far away where they don’t have slaves.”
“You see,” Rini began, “we know a lot more about Kodi than you do.”
“Kodi’s been a thief all his life,” Buna blurted out. “Always stealing from his masters.”
“We don’t much care about that . . .” Kibi began.
“But he’s a snitch, too,” Miko spat out. “Always ratting on other slaves. If a master offered an extra potato to find out who’d been goofing off, Kodi was always right there, naming names and pointing fingers.”
“The really funny part,” Neti said, shaking her head, “is that he always
NEBADOR Book One: The Test 162
goofed off as much as anyone else.”
“Wow . . . I’m . . . surprised no one . . . told me sooner,” Ilika said hesitantly.
“We don’t like snitches, and you don’t like snitches,” Boro explained, “so we had to let you find out for yourself.”
Ilika sighed. “I . . . guess I found out . . . the hard way!”
“Yeah, and we are so happy about it,” Mati assured.
“You mean . . . you’re glad it happened?”
“That’s what we’re trying to tell you!” Kibi said, waving her arms. “If you had picked Kodi for your crew, your ship would be on the rocks somewhere in no time.”
“And all of us would have taken the three gold instead,” Miko said with a serious look.
“Wow. I sure am glad I found out about him now, instead of later. Okay
. . . well . . . shall we eat?”
“As soon as you put away all this money you left sitting on the table,” Sata teased.
Kodi
ran.
Mosa saw him bound out the front door, but only shook her head.
Kodi clutched his crumpled bill of freedom in one hand, his small gold piece in the other. He bolted across the plaza toward Rumble Town.
The baker saw him dash and bump into several people. They cursed at him, but he was soon out of sight into one of the alleyways.
When the twelve-year-old was finally alone in a narrow street, he began to feel safe and slowed to a walk. His heart pounded in his chest.
At that moment a large man came striding around a corner with a hundred pound sack on his shoulders, not in the mood to give way to some scrawny kid.
Kodi went flying into a pile of old rotten hay. He lost his hold on the bill of freedom, and the breeze took it.
He sprang up and tried to chase it, grabbed several scraps of paper and cloth he found as tears began to fill his eyes, but none of them were his precious paper.
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Wandering in the direction of the wind, he looked for the piece of paper that said he was free, and when he could no longer follow the wind, he wandered aimlessly, still looking. He didn’t bother to hold back the tears anymore as shadows, then darkness, filled the streets.
“This is a celebration for getting your bills of freedom!” Ilika said, raising a cup of ale.
“Yeah!” Toli joined him, “and that includes the freedom to be a thief and a snitch, like Kodi.”
“I’d rather be a navigator, or something like that,” Mati said with a thoughtful expression.
“Yeah!” the others agreed.
“Mmmm. Good stew,” Kibi commented after taking a bite.
“My mother loves cooking for us because she doesn’t have to use much meat,” Sata said. “She’s good with spices.”
“Our masters ate meat all the time,” Miko said, balancing a chunk of potato on his spoon. “You’ve got plenty of money, Ilika. Why don’t you eat meat?”
Ilika smiled. “Nobody eats red meat where I come from, and I’ve heard it can cause all kinds of health problems unless you live in a cold place and do lots of hard work.”
“Will there be hard work on your ship?” Rini asked.
“Very
little.”
“Strange ship!” Miko said with a tone of disbelief.
Ilika just smiled.
Kodi eventually dried his tears as he stumbled through the dirt streets of Rumble Town. He still clutched the small gold piece in one hand. It was way past dinner time and he was getting hungry, so he wandered on until he came to an eatery. With some fear, he went inside.
“Wha’dya need, lad?”
“Can I get dinner?”
“Show me your money.”
Kodi held out the little gold piece.
NEBADOR Book One: The Test 164
“That’ll buy you all the dinner you want!” the man said with a huge smile, taking the coin.
Kodi felt funny about what he had just done, but his stomach was yelling at him, and he could smell the cooked meat and fresh bread. Soon he was seated at a table and had a large plate of sliced red meat, bread, cheese, a big tankard of ale, and two dishes of custard.
“If you want more, just yell!” the man assured, returning to the kitchen.
By the time he had eaten half his food, Kodi couldn’t take another bite.
“What’sa matter kid?” the man asked when he came through collecting dishes.
“I can’t eat all this. I gave you way too much money for half a meal,” Kodi said, his voice beginning to shake.
“I ain’t no money changer,” the man said sternly. “If you needed to change money, you should have gone to a money changer.”
Kodi began to realize what he had done. Tears were threatening to come back, but he wouldn’t let them, not again. He wanted to be strong. He wanted to be smart. He had seen other people pay a copper piece for dinner.
He remembered the copper piece in the ones place. He remembered the small gold piece was supposed to go in the . . . the thousands place.
He ran out of the eatery and didn’t stop running for a long time.
“Do I owe the baker for these tarts?” Ilika asked as he licked the tasty purple filling.
“Nope. They’re paid for,” Sata said with a smile of pride.
“We couldn’t have gotten them without Sata,” Kibi explained. “She’s the only one with money.”
“Would you like me to pay you back?” Ilika asked the innkeeper’s daughter.
“No, my treat! You’ve done lots of wonderful things for us.”
“You all need coin pouches,” Ilika said thoughtfully, “so you can get used to handling money and doing some of the buying.”
“Wow!” Boro said with amazement. “You’ll let us go out and buy stuff?
But where will we get the money?”
“I’ll give it to you, as long as you spend it wisely.”
NEBADOR Book One: The Test 165
They all looked amazed but happy.
“We’ll do more money lessons tomorrow. Let me think . . . we have clothes coming, and a bath in the afternoon. Oh, yeah, the hatter is coming in the morning. We can squeeze in some lessons.”
“What will Kodi be able to do with that coin you gave him?” Rini asked with concern.
“Well, if he uses it wisely, he can eat at inns for almost a year, or buy food in the marketplace for about two years. Or he could buy a cart and an old horse or a donkey.”
“I’m glad,” Rini said, relieved. “I wouldn’t want him to be out there with nothing.”
“That’s why I gave it to him.”
“I’d
never trade all the stuff you’re going to teach us for one measly gold piece,” Buna said.
“Me neither,” Sata agreed. “There’s no way to get an education unless you’re noble-born.”
“I’ve been in the College of Nobles,” Ilika said. “I don’t think they learn very much there. Not nearly as much as you guys are going to learn.”
“Do you think they learn what a million is?” Sata asked.
“I doubt it.”
“I know what it is now!” she said proudly. “Um . . . I think . . .”
Everyone
chuckled.
A light rain fell that night, then toward morning the air became quite cold.
Kodi found old hay behind some barrels, but was shivering and tossing and turning to stay warm. A city guard heard him rustling.
“Hey, lad. Don’t you have somewhere to go?”
“No. Not anymore,” Kodi said with a shaking voice.
“Do you have any family?”
“No . . .”
“Do you have money for an inn? A copper will get you bed and mush a few blocks from here.”
“All
gone.”
“Come on. I can’t let you stay there. I’ll take you somewhere they’ll give
NEBADOR Book One: The Test 166
you something to eat, a place to sleep, and work to do.”
“Okay.” He knew what the guard meant. He was ready to go back. This freedom stuff was just too strange.
Deep Learning Notes
Why was Sata motivated to keep quiet about her arrangement with Ilika involving a small gold piece?
Why did Kodi try to steal the small gold piece, instead of the great gold piece?
What does this situation tell us about Ilika?
Kodi became depressed when he lost his bill of freedom. Even though Ilika explained that it was just a copy, Kodi probably assumed that by losing the paper, he had lost his freedom. The author has observed many modern people in a panic when they lose their birth certificates, which are also just copies.
We have seen before that in this medieval culture, merchants do not give change. In our culture, change is given, but large bills may not be accepted, and few merchants like to received anything larger than $20 bills.
How did this experience change the level of trust in the rest of the group?