Lively conversation and funny jokes bounced around the breakfast table, with hardly a comment about the incident the previous day. While they ate, the innkeeper removed the extra bed.
“Okay,” Ilika began as they scraped their porridge bowls, “I’d like . . . Miko and Neti to do a little shopping for us.”
The young couple’s eyes lit up.
“A big wagon of leather goods comes to market every day. See if they have money pouches. Sata already has one, so we need eight.”
“Can we go into a shop?” Neti asked with barely-controlled excitement.
“Yes, but only on Market Way. One of you should deal with the money while the other handles the goods. Keep an eye out for each other.
Remember what you are not.”
They
both
grinned.
Ilika untied his own pouch from his belt and handed it to Neti. “Two silvers and eight coppers inside. It’s okay to use a silver if the bill comes close, as we have to pay a fee any time we change money, and everyone loves a tip.”
The hatter showed up just as the group was finishing breakfast. Ilika had him measure Miko and Neti, then the pair headed out into the marketplace for their first adventure together as a free couple.
The hatter took his measurements with a straight face and departed, promising the hats in two days.
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Ilika then asked Boro and Sata to go shopping for belts. Sata carefully emptied her own copper pieces onto her pillow and counted them before receiving the shopping money from Ilika.
Not long after those two departed, the tailor arrived with a huge sack over his shoulder. Ilika paid for the lot, and the remaining five students sorted tunics, pants, shorts, and socks, making a stack on each person’s bed.
Soon Miko and Neti were back with eight money pouches, all of different colors or designs. Everyone gathered around and listened to their report.
“We found the leather wagon right next to a sweet biscuit cart,” Miko began. “It smelled so good! We bought one pouch at the wagon, but they were all the same.”
“So we went to look for a shop,” Neti continued. “That’s where it got a little scary.”
“I was just carrying the pouch from the wagon . . .”
“And the shop clerk thought it was one of his.”
“But Neti was smart. She pointed out that it was different from the ones he sold . . .”
“And I said I’d go get the leather man from the wagon if he still didn’t believe us.”
“He backed off, and it’s a good thing,” Miko said.
“Because then we bought seven pouches from him!”
“Very well handled, both of you,” Ilika said, nodding. “What lesson should we learn from your experience?”
“Don’t take stuff you buy at one place into another,” Miko said with a serious voice.
“Everyone see the sense in that?” Ilika asked, looking around the group. “I am only displeased with one thing in your report.”
Neti’s face lost its smile.
“You smelled sweet biscuits and didn’t bring any back.”
Everyone started snickering, and soon Neti was smiling again.
“Go finish your shopping!” Ilika commanded with a grin.
Miko and Neti laughed all the way out the door.
Boro and Sata soon returned with nine belts, and not much later ten sweet
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biscuits came in the door. Before they sat down to a mid-morning snack, everyone wore a belt and a money pouch.
“There’s a lesson in what happened to Miko and Neti that I want you to understand,” Ilika began after eating part of his biscuit. “I did not choose you because you are mindless slaves. I chose you because you are smart and have strong spirits. Some of you will be the crew of my ship someday. Some of you will, I hope, begin honorable professions here in this kingdom. In either case, you will have to make decisions, sometimes hard ones, sometimes on the spot.
You should begin practicing now. When I send you on an errand, I want you
. . . no, I need you . . . to make all the decisions that life will call upon you to make. Sometimes it will be little things, like sweet biscuits. Sometimes the issues will be bigger, maybe even life or death.”
He looked around the table. They all seemed to take in his words.
“I think this shows you the difference between the master of a slave and the captain of a ship. The master just wants you to work, not think. As a ship’s captain, I will be overjoyed whenever I do not have to tell my crew what to do.”
“Damn!” Boro said. “Me and Sata saw some candy.”
Everyone else pointed at the door until he and Sata got the message and scurried out.
When everyone was back in the room, Toli stood up clumsily and cleared his throat until everyone was listening.
“I was very young, so I’m not sure if I remember it right. I know my mother died. Then it seemed like my father had a new wife right away. For a while I was really confused, ‘cause my father wanted me to think she was my mother.
“The only problem was, she hated me — at least that’s what it felt like. I think she wanted a slave, but my father wouldn’t get one. So she used me for one.”
“So you were a slave before you were a slave,” Buna said with understanding.
“Yeah. Then my father died, so there was nothing to stop her from treating me like a slave. I slept in the shed, worked all day . . . you know. But
NEBADOR Book One: The Test 170
it made me mad, so I didn’t do things very well. By that time I was about ten.
“Eventually she started running out of money, so she sold most of the land, and then she sold me. I yelled and screamed that I was her step-son and she couldn’t sell me, but no one listened.”
Toli paused to deal with the painful memory. After swallowing several times, he continued. “I think my father was smart, and would have taught me many things, but we just didn’t have time . . .”
Toli’s story faded into silence as he looked at the floor. Buna stood up and gently put her arms around him.
The feelings that lingered from Toli’s story made the group very quiet during lunch and the afternoon hours that followed. Ilika talked about money changers, and explained the one-tenth fee that was charged.
When he judged they were ready, he gave each a great silver piece and they walked to the nearest money changer. The guard let in one person at a time, who emerged wearing a smile of pride and a jingling money pouch.
Deep Learning Notes
Ilika’s emphasis on taking initiative began to create a distinction between his ship, and the two models we know. On merchant marine ships (private cargo and passenger ships) the crew members are just employees, with little group cohesion and no close relationships with the captain. On military ships, group cohesion is important, but initiative is forbidden.
Toli’s story (as well as most of the others) reminds us what “protections”
young people typically enjoy in a poor society: absolutely none. At what point in Toli’s life might he have been better off leaving and attempting life on his own?
How might Kodi’s life have gone differently if he had stayed with the group one more day, as Ilika offered?
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