the justice of his evidentiary methods.
But first he had to gain the Balam girl’s confidence. So he elbowed his way through the milling crowd of bourgeois dowagers and scullery maids and potboys sniffing and cawing and bargaining for the winter’s last root vegetables and the spring’s first asparagus and peas. He had been going to this market since he was younger than those potboys, and while his merchant background was often a source of shame to him in the University, he could not help but hear the energetic clatter of a market day as a hum that warmed his veins and told him that here, too, was a home.
It is no longer, he told himself viciously. He could exploit his experience and contacts without quibbling over the implications. Knowing the fair price of sea bass on a spring morning after a storm did not make him a closeted merchant. It made him a young intellectual with layers. He sighed; he could practically see Joshua rolling his eyes.
The hares were duly selected and sent along to the Balam compound with the saffron via a boy. That only left the letter in his pocket.
“If you wouldn’t mind,” he told the Balam girl, “I have one last errand to attend to before we head back.”
She inclined her head. Quite regally. Damned princess, he thought, more savagely than necessary. He was nervous about meeting Micah’s cousin.
Cousin Reuben was unmistakable (and Micah’s directions precise—Rafe did indeed note the purple cockerel). He had the family nose (flat) and the family jawline (square) and the family hair, precisely the shade of wheat before a harvest. He wore muddy breeches, fingerless gloves, and a well-kept leather hat with a large white feather that practically gleamed above the late-season rutabagas.
“What can I get for you today, son?”
Rafe scowled, realized this might not put the cousin entirely at ease, and forced a smile. “I have a letter,” he said. “From your cousin Micah.”
Cousin Reuben frowned. “I’ll be damned. Another one? With another excuse, I’ll bet. Well, let’s have it.”
He took the letter, looked over the folds, and took his time unpacking it. He read with his finger beneath the evenly spaced lines, pronouncing the words in a low voice.
“Cousin Reuben this is Micah I have found many friends here especially Rafe Fenton who is showing me many things especially math. You remember how I like math—Oh, don’t I!—and it turns out that here there is plenty of it so I think I’ll stay another week. I’m very sorry for neglecting the garden I know it is time for asparagus because I had some soup last night and also because the rains have come. I promise I’ll come back next week as soon as I solve these ek—eek— What the hell word is this?”
“Equations, sir,” Rafe said.
“. . . as soon as I solve these equations they’re very interesting. I’ll tell you all about them next week. Love, Micah.”
He peered over the letter. Rafe tried not to fidget. “You’re the one who’s taken our Micah, then?”
“Now hold on, I haven’t taken him . . . he’s a genius! He deserves to have his intellect planted in fertile soil! Not left out to rot in the country!”
Cousin Reuben looked a little worried. “Is he, now? Does he? And what if he isn’t all you University types hope?”
“He absolutely is, sir.” Rafe was very sincere. The Balam girl gave him a searching look.
Cousin Reuben sighed. “The kid does sound happy. Math.” He shook his head. “I trust you to take care of our Micah, son. Fenton, eh? I’ve met your father.”
Rafe couldn’t tell if this was a threat or a statement of confidence, but he felt a momentary urge to take a potshot at the gleaming feather with one of the sandy turnips. Instead he made vaguely reassuring sounds and hurried away.
“What was that about?” the girl asked. She easily kept pace with his large strides; in fact, she seemed to glide beside him. His scowl deepened.
“I have his cousin in my rooms. A boy wonder. A mathematical genius. The key to all of my financial and academic worries! I just need to keep him.”
“The cousin of the root vegetable vendor?”
“I could hardly believe it myself.”
“And why is he a key? Academically?”
Rafe turned to her. “Because he can put into practice my evidentiary theories! Our best theories demonstrate that the earth is round. But how does it move in the heavens? Rastin tells us that it doesn’t move at all, merely anchors hooping planetary motions. But that makes no sense, and no one has the balls to say so. There are equations that no one has been able to solve—some don’t even think they’re worth solving! But this boy—Micah . . .”
“You think he can solve them?”
Had he said too much? But the girl only seemed mildly interested. He wanted to know how the Kinwiinik managed to travel such great distances without the help of any landmarks, but he had no idea if his equations (if Micah’s equations) were related to their navigational techniques. And she was probably telling the truth about her unfamiliarity with that side of her family business. Who had ever heard of a woman mathematician?
“I do,” Rafe said, after a moment. “I’m betting my career on it.”
The girl considered this. “Do you know . . . I have been curious about your fine University ever since I arrived. Could you show me? And can I meet this remarkable boy?”
Rafe felt his smile spread like morning sunshine. “I would be delighted, my dear . . . er . . . what’s your name again?”
“Kaab,” said the Balam princess. “You may call me Kaab.”
• • •
Micah sat at the same table in the Blackbird’s Nest as she had the first time that Rafe brought her—in back, near the kitchens. It was a good table: away from the crowd by the bar and the rowdier gamblers. During an early afternoon on a market day, the low-roofed, tallow-lit room was full, but Micah could still think around the beer smells and kitchen noises and gamblers’ patter. All she had to do was keep her eyes on the worn cards in her hand, and the fascinating pattern of the ancient wood grain beneath them.
“Call,” said the long-haired student sitting across from her. He tossed the last of his minnows casually on the pile at the center of the table. Micah calculated that the pot now held enough for two and a half tomato pies and two ginger beers. Or two tomato pies and three ginger beers. Micah frowned, trying to decide which she would prefer, and decided that it would depend on how hungry Rafe was. She had come here on her own today because all the money was gone from the chest in their rooms and she had wanted something more than a roasted potato. And now she could buy tomato pies for herself and Rafe, to thank him for the place to sleep. And the equations. The equations were very nice.
Micah didn’t have a good hand—just a pair of Suns—but the long-haired student couldn’t have any card higher than a Beast and the older man in a dockworker’s clothes had held a three-of-a-kind that would have beat either of their hands, but he had folded for reasons that still escaped Micah, though she had learned to accept them, like the weather.
“All right,” Micah said, and held
