Colemenoport
Zephyr’s Edge Lounge
They sat in a garden under a canopy striped in bright colors that rippled in the warm breeze, sipping the wine that their server had suggested as a pleasant “end of day” vintage.
Mar Tyn was no judge of such things in terms of worth or vintage. Such wine as there had been in Low Port had been sour, or sweet. The sour had been unpleasant in the mouth, and the sweet wine too often was sweet from added sugar meant to disguise the taste of unkinder drugs.
This wine . . . was pleasant in the mouth, and tasted of citrus and vanilla. He had another sip, and closed his eyes to better enjoy it.
“Now, there’s a gentle finishing up to a busy day,” Dyoli said. “Our server did not misinform.”
Mar Tyn opened his eyes to see her smiling at him.
“A pleasant refreshment,” he said, smiling back, and Dyoli laughed.
“You have been studying the master trader, I see. Be warned, my Mar Tyn; supporting that style requires considerable reserves of energy.”
“It can do no harm to identify useful phrases and study the best time to use them,” he protested. “I don’t aspire to the master trader’s style. It would look ill on me, I think.”
Dyoli lowered her glass and studied him, her expression speculative.
“Not ill, but—startling. If you were a trader, it might do, as an honest advantage, you understand.”
Mar Tyn half-laughed.
“Only, I don’t understand. What is an ‘honest advantage’?”
“It is what Master Trader yos’Galan gains with his artless conversation and his air of being, just slightly, foolish. Certain persons fail to see beyond that, or, indeed, to reason their way to the conclusion that a master trader cannot be a fool. Those persons may attempt to overreach. Whereby the master trader has learned something of importance, to himself, and to trade.”
“Does your brother practice an honest advantage?”
“He had used to produce an impression of sheltered youth, but he must have refined himself by now. I shall be certain to ask him, when next we meet.”
Mar Tyn put his glass on the table, so as not to drink all the wine at once.
“Are we likely to meet your brother again?”
Dyoli’s eyebrows rose.
“Certainly, we must. Ixin is a partner in the venture here on Colemeno, and Til Den is the master trader responsible for that. Eventually, he must arrive to see what the contract has produced.”
She also put her glass down.
“It will be later rather than sooner, unless Master Trader yos’Galan asks him to come.”
“After the whole port inventory, then.”
“Oh, surely. Quite likely we will be well set up in the office before we see Til Den again.”
“You’re very certain of the trade office. The inventory hasn’t been started yet.”
“The fact that the inventory has been opened means we have progressed a half-dozen steps down the path toward the trade office,” Dyoli said. “The master trader must follow the forms, but I do not have the sense that he would have called Qe’andra dea’Tolin to the fore if he had not already been convinced that Colemeno will do very well, for Korval and for Ixin.”
Mar Tyn leaned slightly forward. Something had brushed against his Gift—an unsettling feeling at best. Yet, he felt no compulsion to rise, or act, or, indeed, to do anything other than sit under the awning in the pleasant breeze, sip wine and say to Dyoli—
“What if, despite everything, it is discovered that Colemeno will not do?” he asked, hearing the urgency in his voice, and wondering if that was what his Gift was acting on.
“Dyoli,” he said sharply, “are you Seeing?”
She showed him empty hands.
“I am seeing only my love,” she said. “As for your question—either the master trader will open the market, or he will not. If he does not, he will move on to his next target of opportunity.”
“And we with him?”
“Ah, I see,” Dyoli said, her brow clearing. She glanced to the side. Following her gaze, Mar Tyn saw their server approaching.
“Are you content to order a meal and another glass?” Dyoli asked him. “We might continue our conversation at leisure.”
Mar Tyn held himself still for a long moment, allowing his Gift time to manifest. Nothing arose.
“In fact,” he said to Dyoli, “I am—content. And also hungry.”
“That settles the matter, then,” she said, and turned, the server having arrived, to ask regarding the evening meal.