Respectable Trade Read Free Page A

power over him, but Josiah could always call on the prestige of being a man. “We must take care not to offend her,” he said. “She will find our business very strange at first.”
    “She was prepared to come here as an employee,” Sarah reminded him.
    “Even so.”
    There was a brief, irritated silence. Brother and sister each waited for the other to speak.
    “I’m going to the coffeehouse,” Josiah said. “I shall see if anyone is interested in coming into partnership with us for the Lily. She is due home at the end of November; we need to buy in trade goods and refit her.”
    Sarah glanced at the diary on her desk. “She set sail from Jamaica this month, God willing.”
    Josiah tapped his large foot on the wooden floorboards for luck. The modest buckle on his shoe winked in the light. “You have the accounts for the Lily ’s last voyage to hand?”
    “You had better seek a partner without showing them. We barely broke even.”
    Josiah smiled. His large front teeth were stained with tobacco. “Very well,” he said. “But she is a good ship, and Captain Merrick is usually reliable.”
    Sarah rose from her desk, crossed over to the window, and looked down. “If you see Mr. Peters in the coffeehouse, we are still waiting for his money for the equipping of the Daisy, ” she said. “The ship sailed two weeks ago, and he has not yet paid for his share. We cannot extend credit like this.”
    “I’ll tell him,” Josiah said. “I will be home for dinner.” He paused at the door. “You do not congratulate me on my engagement to be married?”
    She did not turn from the window, and her face was hidden from him. He did not see her look of sour resentment. Sarah’s marriageable years had slipped away while she worked for her father and then for his heir, her brother, screwing tiny profits out of a risky business. “Of course,” she said. “I congratulate you. I hope that it will bring you what you desire.”
    S IKO WAS UNWILLING TO leave the city of Oyo. He was a city boy who had sold himself into slavery with Mehuru when his parents died. He had thought that with a young man whose career was centered on the court, he would be safe from the discomfort of farming work and rural life. He was deeply reluctant to venture out into the countryside, which he regarded as a dangerous place inhabited by wild animals and surly peasants.
    “For the last time,” Mehuru said abruptly. “Finish packing and fetch the horses, or I shall sell you to a brothel.”
    Siko bowed his head at the empty threat and moved only slightly faster. He was confident that Mehuru would never ill-treat him, and indeed he was saving money to buy his freedom from his young master, as they had agreed.
    “Should we not take porters and guards?” he asked. “My brother said he would be willing to come with us.”
    “We will be traveling along trading routes,” Mehuru said patiently. “We will be meeting porters and guards on the trading caravans all along the way. If there is any danger on the roads, we can travel with them. I am on an urgent mission; we are traveling at speed. You would have us dawdling along the road and stopping at every village.”
    “I would have us stay snug in the city,” Siko muttered into a saddlebag. Aloud he said, “We are packed, sir, and ready to leave.”
    Mehuru nodded to him to load the bags and went into his room. In the corner were his priestly things, laid out for meditation. The divining tray made of beautifully polished wood indented with circular cups filled with cowrie shells, the little purse filled with ash, a cube of chalk, a flask of oil. Mehuru picked them up one by one and put them into a soft leather satchel, letting his mind linger on them and calling for vision.
    Nothing came. Instead he saw once more the prow of a ship, rocking gently on clear tropical waters. He could see a shoal of small fish nibbling at the copper casing of the wooden hull, something he had never seen in waking life.