Chapter 49 A Pouch of Coins
A Pouch of Coins
Laticillo had glassmakers. A number of them.
The shops were outside the city, because of the fire risk.
It had been hard gaining access. There were secrets kept in those shops, techniques that had brought wealth to the city’s ruling family.
It was partly by luck and partly by determination that she managed to convince one of the glassblowers she had some talent at the craft.
It wasn’t enough to get her access to the kiln or the tools.
She sat on a small stool, sorting through cooled remnants of a fire to separate wood-ash from debris, and watched as Mastro Gante used a curved soffieta tube to blow the goblet he was making wider.
In Enar, the glass was mostly green; forest-glass, they called it.
Not so in Laticillo. The goblet Mastro Gante was forming now was a mosaic of flame colors.
She carefully weighed out the ash she’d collected, and mixed in crushed quartz and lake sand to match.
Ayla waited for him to finish, then wordlessly showed him the mixture.
When Gante nodded and returned to his own work, she set it into a basin in the upper hearth and fetched a ladle to stir it with.
It was not a swift process. When Gante’s apprentice came hours later to relieve Ayla, her shoulders and arm ached from the simple act of stirring.
The substance would keep cooking, under constant supervision, for another dozen hours.
She took the two small coins she was offered and trudged home, her body aching and covered in a sheen of sweat from the fires.
They’d been in Laticillo two months, and the days were growing hot.
They’d spent most of their remaining money and sold Flower to buy a home.
It was small, and modest, and their only furniture yet was the kitchen table and chairs, and their bed.
The walls were a mixture of brick and clay, the doorways so low Niel had to duck slightly under them.
But the courtyard behind their street had a shared well, and a garden where their neighbors grew food, with a plot for Niel and Ayla to use.
Children of all ages played back there. The street itself was quiet, but only a ten minute walk to a large, bustling market that was open from sunup to sundown.
She unlocked the door and walked through the quiet house, listening to the distant laugh of children.
Niel was still out. She hoped that meant he’d found work for the day.
With a sigh Ayla rinsed her face and went to the kitchen to figure out a supper.
Niel had left legumes soaking on the counter, and a bread dough rising with a towel draped over the bowl.
She had the bread in the oven and a stew simmering when he returned.
Ayla sat at the kitchen table, looking at the careful ledger she’d kept of market prices and trying to work out how they could possibly survive when she could no longer manage the glassblowers’ shop.
She didn’t know how long Gante would let her keep working, once her pregnancy began to show under her loose gowns, and she wasn’t sure how to ask, even though the language was getting easier to navigate.
She certainly couldn’t spend hours fritting sand and ash to make glass while she was nursing an infant.
Niel came into the kitchen silently. She murmured a hello and quickly closed the ledger.
Ayla wasn’t certain what they’d do for money, but she knew Niel was worried too, and blaming himself.
He went out each day for work, but there wasn’t much that needed doing, or at least nothing steady.
He’d found a few odd jobs, but none lasting more than a couple days.
It wasn’t enough to live off, and they both knew it.
She bit her lip and watched as he approached the table, pausing across it from her. His face was blank of emotion. Niel unbuckled his belt purse and opened it.
Then he upended it over the wooden counter and spilled out a fountain of coins.
Ayla gaped as two handfuls worth of copper and gold coins clattered and jumped.
One rolled towards the edge. Niel grabbed it before it could fall off the table.
He flicked it up into the air and caught it with a grin, then placed it on top of the pile and sat down across from Ayla. She was still staring open-mouthed.
“That ought to tide us,” he said.
“What?” Ayla looked between the pile of money, up to Niel, and back again. “How? Did you rob a gemseller?”
“I came by it honestly.”
“But…” Ayla’s stomach sank. “No. Tell me you didn’t, Niel.”
He glanced away, his expression going tight.
“I knew what you’d say if I told you first,” he said grimly. “But what else was I supposed to do, Ayla? It’s easy money. We need it. You know we need it. Now we have it, and you didn’t even have to worry.”
“You fought in the gladiator pit,” she said, her voice shaking. “We agreed you wouldn’t.”
“No,” Niel said quietly. “We didn’t agree. You decided.”
“Because you can’t fight in that pit,” Ayla said, her voice rising. “People die there, Niel. I don’t care how good you are—”
“I wasn’t at risk. Nobody in those fights has half the training of—”
“You could have been hurt, or maimed, or worse,” she interrupted sharply. She stood, pushing the chair back with a terrible screech. “How could you do this, without even telling me?”
“And what would you have me do instead?” Niel asked, his voice breaking.
“I wander the city, all day, everyday, and come home fucking empty-handed. Do you know how that feels? We’re barely surviving with what you bring in, Ayla, and you know it.
You’d be better off without me if I’m eating more than I provide for.
How can you ask me to do nothing, when it’s so fucking easy for me to take care of us?
” he gestured at the pile of money, more than she’d made in the past month with the glassblowers.
Enough for them to live off of for weeks.
“And did you think,” she answered, her voice shaking, “what would happen if you didn’t come home? I didn’t even know you were there, Niel. You would have just vanished. And where would I be then?”
He was quiet a moment, his jaw working.
“It didn’t cross my mind,” Niel admitted gruffly. “I knew I’d win. I wouldn’t have done if it I thought—”
“But that’s the point,” she said, her voice going high and tear-choked. “We talked, Niel. We agreed it was too much risk. You agreed, you said you wouldn’t, and you went and did it, and I didn’t even know where you were. You can’t leave me alone here.”
“Please, Ayla,” he said. He came around the table to where she stood, and took her hands. She drew them back. “I’m not leaving you here.” His voice was frustrated.
But he wasn’t seeing it. She was worried about money, but she’d rather be desperately poor than have Niel risk his life. How was she supposed to live without him? How was she supposed to raise a child on her own in this land that wasn’t quite home yet?
“You can’t do something like that without telling me,” she whispered. “Never again. Promise me, Niel. I don’t want you in those pits, but the lying is worse.”
“But if I’d told you, you’d have been angry, and you’d worry—”
“And this is better?” Ayla said. “I’m still angry, and worried, and, and you’ve lied to me—”
“I didn’t lie. I did go out for work,” Niel snapped. “There wasn’t any. There hasn’t been any. I walked past the pit and I thought for once I’d make something useful of myself.”
“This is useful,” she cried, and gestured at the food she was cooking, the food he’d started.
“Being with me is useful. Making sure you're alive for our child is useful. The money isn’t worth anything without you here.
You're good for more than killing.” Embarrassingly, hot tears slid down her face.
She swiped at them and gulped air, fighting back a sob.
For a moment Niel turned away from her, and she thought he was going to leave, but he made a strangled sound and turned back. His arms wrapped around her and he crushed her tight in an embrace.
“I didn’t realize,” Niel begged. “I really thought, if I could bring the money home, you’d be glad for it. I thought if you didn’t have to worry about me while I was in there, it would be fine. I thought you’d be happy I'd done it, Ayla.”
“It’s fine,” she whispered, because she wanted it to be. Being at odds with him felt like her heart was splintering. It felt nearly as bad as knowing he’d been dueling in a blood match across the city, with her utterly unaware.
“It’s not fine,” Niel rasped. “It’s not. I won’t do it again. I swear it, Ayla. I swear it. Please, forgive me. I didn’t think. I just wanted to take care of you.”
“Promise me,” she said, even though he already had; she was terrified, clinging to him now as he crushed her shoulders, both of them trembling.
“I promise,” Niel said. “I’ll find another way to take care of you. I will. A better way.”
“Alright,” Ayla said. She sniffled. “If… if we don’t stir that, it’s going to burn.”
Niel loosened his grip on her, but he didn’t let go until he’d pressed a kiss to her forehead, and another whispered apology.
“Do you want me to take the money back?” he asked quietly as he went to the pot. Ayla, finding it difficult to stand, sank back into her chair.
“What? No. Of course not.” Her eyes flickered to the small fortune on the table. “I mean, it’s here already, so… we might as well…”
“Should we buy some things? Make the house more comfortable?” He asked. “You need a better chair, don’t you, than just that wooden one? If you’ll be sitting with the baby—”
“No,” Ayla said firmly. “We’ll make do with what we have. We’d better keep saving. We might need it to last.”
She saw Niel nod, though his back was to her at the stove.
“Alright,” he said. “I’ll… keep looking. There must be something here I’m good at.”
“I know there is,” Ayla said fiercely, and when he turned over his shoulder to look at her, she smiled at him. “We will make this work, Niel. I know it. Just don’t lose hope.”
“How can I?” he murmured. “You’ve given me enough luck for a lifetime. I just wish I could take care of you properly.” He opened the oven door and pulled the bread out with a dish rag. The smell of it wafted through the air. Ayla breathed in deep.
“You are,” she said, and meant it, and wished he could believe her.