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VAI

“Which one would you choose?”

The woman behind me grips my sleeve. We’ve known each other for ten minutes, and she already thinks I can help her find a decent husband in this yard.

I wish I agreed with her.

“Ask whether you may write to your family,” I whisper. “Watch who gets offended.”

“Number four!” the handler calls.

“That’s me.” I ease her fingers loose. “Make them answer before you choose.”

I climb onto the auction block. Behind me, the woman asks the handler to wait while she fastens a button at her throat. He complains, but she keeps him there until she’s finished.

I hope she’ll be as stubborn with the buyers.

There are too many men in the yard. Monsters, mostly, with enough money to buy a wife and enough leisure to spend the afternoon deciding which one. A six-armed merchant wears rings on every finger. A creature near the gate keeps tasting the air with a blue tongue.

A tusked bidder near the front looks me over and smiles. I smooth my skirt over my thighs and make myself meet his eyes.

“Number four. Vaidemara of Tesseny. Twenty-five. Healthy. Literate. Experienced in settling trade disputes.”

My mother called me Vaidemara when she was pleased with me. She’s been dead seven years, and hearing the auctioneer say it makes me want to snatch his card away.

Everyone else calls me Vai.

In the lower market, where my sister Asha sells bread with her husband Tovi, people usually shout it. Someone always wants me to make a neighbor listen before a scale weight gets thrown.

I can usually get people talking. A man who refuses to move his cart will move it for a woman he wants to impress. Two bakers who hate each other will share a flour delivery if it keeps a third from buying the whole load.

Last winter, I found a grain seller who promised to supply several stalls at a price they could all afford.

Hadrin missed his first delivery. I persuaded everyone to give him another chance. When the bondhouse refused to lend him any more money, I guaranteed the loan. Asha put up her stall as security because I told her we could make it work.

Hadrin ran with the money.

The debt is mine. If I don’t pay, the bondhouse takes my sister’s stall.

“Two hundred,” the six-armed merchant calls.

I rub my thumb against the place my wedding ring will go.

The Temple tested my blood years ago and found no match. Yesterday I paid my own entry fee here. The money from this marriage could pay off the debt before the bondhouse takes the stall.

I told Asha afterward.

She was still wearing her apron. She wiped her hands on it twice before she could speak.

“We could lose the stall.”

“I can stop that.”

“You could have asked what we wanted.”

Tovi sat on the stairs behind her. He’d been mending a tray. He held it in his lap while we argued, one corner still loose.

I couldn’t bear looking at him.