Elder Isles 2: The Green Pearl Read Free

well so that finally you can work? Or you have lost your taste for wine?”
    “Woman, control your tongue or you will feel the weight of my hand! I am bored with acrid jokes.”
    “Well then, what is your luck?”
    Sarles displayed the pearl. “What do you think of that?”
    Liba looked down at the gem. “Hmm. Curious. I have never heard of a green pearl. Are you sure it is genuine?”
    “Of course! Do you take me for a fool? It is worth a goodly sum.”
    Liba turned away. “It gives me the chills.”
    “Is not that just like a woman? Where is my supper? What! Gruel? Why cannot you cook a tasty pot of soup, like other women?”
    “I should work miracles, when the cupboard is bare? If you caught more fish and drank less wine we would eat better.”
    “Bah! From now on all will be different.”
    During the night Sarles was troubled by unsettling dreams. Fates peered at him through swirls of mist, then spoke gravely aside to each other. Try as he might he could understand none of the comments. A few of the faces seemed familiar, but Sarles could put no names to them.
    In the morning Junt still had not returned in the Preval. By virtue of established custom, Sarles therefore became privileged to fish from the fine new Lirlou. Tamas, Junt’s son, wished also to go out aboard the Lirlou but this Sarles would not allow. “I prefer to fish by myself.”
    Tamas made a hot protest. “That is not reasonable! I must protect my family’s interests!”
    Sarles raised his finger high. “Not so fast! Are you forgetting that I also have interests? The Lirlou becomes my own until Junt returns me my Preval safe and sound. If you want to fish, you must make other arrangements.”
    Sarles sailed the Lirlou out to the fishing grounds, rejoicing in the strength of the craft and the convenience of the gear. Today his luck was unusually good; fish fairly seized at his lines and the baskets in the hold became filled to the brim, and Sarles sailed back to Mynault congratulating himself. Tonight he would eat good soup or even a roast fowl.
    Two months passed, during which Sarles profited from fine catches, while nothing seemed to go right for Tamas. One evening Tamas went to the house of Sarles, hoping to make some sort of adjustment in a situation which no one in Mynault considered totally fair, though all agreed that Sarles had acted only within his rights.
    Tamas found Liba alone, sitting by the hearth spinning thread. Tamas came to the middle of the room and looked all around. “Where is Sarles?”
    “At the tavern, or so I would expect, pouring his gut full of wine.” Liba spoke in a flat voice which held a metallic overtone. She glanced at Tamas over her shoulder, then returned to her spindle. “Whatever you want you will not get. He is suddenly a man of property, and struts around like a grandee.”
    “Still, we must have an understanding!” declared Tamas. “He lost his rotten hulk and gained the Lirlou, at the expense of myself, my mother and my sisters. We have lost everything through no fault of our own. We ask only that Sarles deal fairly with us, and give us our share.”
    Liba moved her shoulders in a stony shrug. “It is useless to talk to me. I can do nothing with him. He is a different man since he brought home his green pearl.” She raised her eyes to the mantel, where the pearl rested in a saucer.
    Tamas went to look at the gem. He took it up and hefted it in his fingers, then whistled through his teeth. “This is a valuable object! It would buy another Lirlou! It would make me rich!”
    Liba glanced at him in surprise. Was this the voice of Tamas, everywhere considered the very soul of rectitude? The green pearl seemed to corrupt with greed and selfishness all those who touched it! She turned back to her spinning. “Tell me nothing; what I do not know I can not prevent. I abhor the thing; it gazes at me like an evil eye.”
    Tamas uttered a queer high-pitched chuckle: so odd that Liba glanced at him sidelong