A Good Trade (Patreon)

Someone reminded me that I once wrote a story about the man the ginal coin is named after.  Flipping over a ginal coin at the end of a trade means both sides feel they have received a healthy profit.  So here is the man that is named after.

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Ginal crouched at the top of the escarpment, watching the Rownt of Lartal move about their lives. From this height, he couldn’t tell the difference between these individuals and those who made similar preparations for war in his own Pratoalta. As a trader, he visited both towns. Women, even grandmothers, from both places had claimed his sperm, and he suspected that more than one egg laid in Lartal came from his genes.

And yet.

And yet these people and his would soon battle. Hand against hand, spear against spear and ordinance against ordinance. 

“We should move the merchandise,” Ang said quietly. The girl was growing into a woman, and Ginal had no doubt she had large eyes and itching fingers when it came to their latest trade. The oils and spice would be worth much. However, the success of the trade was ash in Ginal’s mouth. He stared down at this town that would soon be enemy to him, and he could find joy in nothing, not even from the growing evidence that his daughter had her own schemes to steal some of these profits. His girl was growing up and if she had a less capable guardian, she would have stolen them blind by now. Pride grew in his stomach at the sight of her capable plots and machinations. One day she would be a trader to respect. Unfortunately that day was decades if not centuries away, and history conspired against him and his offspring.

“Father?”

It had been years since she had reverted to pulling on their family connection. Shaking his head, he stood. “The cost of the lost grain is nothing compared to the cost of the coming fight,” he said quietly. He had said as much to his neighbors and grandmothers in Pratoalta, but they had not chosen to listen.

“And what is the price of allowing another to take advantage of us?” Ang asked. He could see her aggravation in the pale patches around her eyes and mouth.

He looked at his daughter sadly. She was so close to womanhood, but she still had the impetuousness of youth. “What advantage is taken by one who seeks no profit but only just division of land?”

Ang’s nostrils clapped shut. “Allow me to claim adult status, and I will show them that a just division of land does not include poaching the resources of others. There is no profit in theft when caught. You taught me that, father. Why do you hesitate to follow through?”

Ginal ached for the days when he could pull his daughter into his arms and stroke her neck until she fell asleep. She’d had such perfect trust for him once. She’d followed behind him with large eyes and a quick mind. Her mother had been much the same, and Ginal never regretted that Patit had chosen him. He hadn’t particularly wanted the woman to choose him because she was young and too aggressive for his tastes. However, when she had caught his tail, he’d felt that flash of triumph, that ultimate pride that a female would choose his genetic material to join to her own. There was no more valuable resource than one’s own body, and she selected him. That pride had made the pain more than worth it. And Ang’s appearance at his door twelve years later had become his main joy.

“I will not have you claim adult status only to throw your body onto the fire of this battle,” Ginal said wearily. Part of him wanted to pack up his belongings and walk away from this conflict, but twelve generations of his family had lived in this valley. Change came hard and as he aged, he found it increasingly difficult to break away from the familiar patterns.

“I would make them throw themselves onto the fire like the eggless bastards they are,” she said in a near hiss. Twenty years ago, nostrils that tight would have warned him of an impending temper tantrum, but now that Ang had grown, the anger simmered deeper. But while her temper didn’t flare as easily, he could still see the embers of it waiting. Always waiting. One puff of air, and her fury would roll out like a low, clinging fog.

“The best of traders seek the profit of all involved.”

“And a poor trader doesn’t tend to his own profits.”

Ginal stared at this child he adored, and he was beginning to understand how parents could step back and decline to challenge when their child stood in the temple and asked to sever the family ties. Some days he felt a deep need to escape her, but she needed him. She still acted so rashly. As he watched, she lost more and more of her color and her nose remained tightly closed. 

Huffing, Ginal could scent nothing but the aggression of his daughter. Perhaps it was time to allow her to claim her status. She didn’t listen, and more and more he felt like he had a competitor sharing his home rather than a child who needed his protection. However, at thirty-seven, she was young—younger than most children. Oltgta’s youngling still had shell clinging to him and he was a year older than Ang.

She blinked, her eyes wide as she watched him.

With another huff, he turned his attention back to Lartal. “We’ll retrieve our goods.” If fighting started, there would be no one to defend his goods in the middle of the enemy town. Feeling weary in a way he had not in five hundred years, Ginal stood and started down the jagged line of escarpment to the bustling town.

Nearly three hundred people lived in Lartal, most of them farmers and workers in the local mines. They would be formidable in battle. Beside him, Ang walked, her long limbs swinging loose and her short tail swaying. Ginal’s nose tightened as his own daughter tried to tempt one of the Lartal Rownt to grab her tail and start a fight. Some days he was fairly sure his beautiful girl still had eggshell stuck to her back.

The men and women watched from doorways, children conspicuously absent as Ginal headed for the central square where he’d arranged to pick up his goods. Always before Lartal had been full of noise and movement. The young and growing town was full of children, one for every house it seemed. They would laugh and chase each other’s tails in mock games of dominance. Music would rise from some houses, and vivid cursing from others as craftsman turned the local gems and metals into jewelry worthy of trade. The small town had a hard life on the edge of the valley historically dominated by the more established Pratoalta, but they always seemed to enjoy life.

So often Ginal heard the elders intone, “A good trade does not give pleasure to a bad life.” Normally he would argue the point, but today he finally understood. This was a good trade driven by the people’s need for basic foodstuffs, but Ginal took no pleasure from it.

“There,” Ang said, jerking her chin toward the pavilion where one of Ginal’s older carts waited. Clay jars full of spices and glass bottles of oils were carefully packed and strapped down, not that Ginal would trust the work of another. He would unload the cargo and repack it for the long haul back to Pratoalta. Ang had reached an age where she would intentionally bounce a cart over ruts to break her father’s goods, so he would have to haul the load himself. As much as Ginal took pride in his daughter’s growing independence, her demonstrations made him miss the days when he could give her tail a hard yank and order her to shape up.

Ginal reached the shade of the pavilion and began to unpack the supplies. Each bottle contained exactly the agreed upon amount and every jar had finely ground spice, so he had no cause for complaint. And Licer clearly expected Ginal to accept this payment for the earlier food shipment because he had not even appeared to try and bicker over last details.

“Can we go? The smell is beginning to bother me,” Ang asked with a tight-nosed look over at their audience.

“You say you are an adult in all but name, little dalit. If you wish to leave, you may.” Ginal continued to methodically load the jars, layering packing cloth between them. Licer had even included each of the 26 cloths Ginal had sent with his cart. The man did not want to give Ginal any cause to complain to a grandmother. Given that their towns ran toward war with the abandon of a fire-maddened desga, the irony amused Ginal the way one might be amused at the brutal death of a great competitor. The more positive emotions could not quite overcome the excessive bitterness.

Ang paled at the insult, but she simply curled her tail tight against her leg and quieted. If war came, the grandmothers would likely grant Ang’s request for adult status. She had a strong arm and enough fire to send her running toward the enemy.

Weary, Ginal stood between the handles of the cart so he could pull it home. However, the sight of Tanlit standing on the roadway stopped him. Ginal had often purchased Tanlit’s fine skins. The man hunted well and always landed his spear in the animal’s eye where it died quickly and the skin remained whole. In other valleys where prey had grown more scarce, his wares brought good profits. Now the man stood staring at Ang. She was so young that he was as tall as she, and his tail flipped violently as he locked gazes with her.

Another day or time Ginal might have suspected that Tanlit wished to invite her to choose him for mating. While Ang was too young for such antics, she had the wide shoulders and strong frame that would one day make many men flip a tail at her. But now… now the invitation had a darker meaning.

“Do not try,” Ginal warned his headstrong girl. “Tanlit, I had thought you had more honor than to tempt one who is still listed among the children. Perhaps you think war should include those who haven’t yet shaken free of the egg.” Ginal drew himself up to full height. He didn’t have the power or the muscle of Tanlit, but he had nearly a hundred years of growth on the man, which allowed him to look down at the hunter.

Tanlit paled around the nose and mouth, but he continued to flip his tail even as he switched his gaze to Ginal.

“I fight adults. My mistake was in assuming I was looking at an adult who would challenge me with that expression.” Tanlit glanced toward Ang, and Ginal had to admit that his daughter looked ready to pick up a spear and throw herself into battle.

He had to fight to keep his own expression neutral. “The young often wear that expression,” Ginal said, and without further comment, he began to pull his cart out of the pavilion. Tanlit backed up to make room for him. Ginal could scent his daughter’s aggression as they passed the hunter. It made his nose itch.

If no one stopped this madness, he would lose her. He could see no other option because she was old enough to fight and young enough to not understand the reason for avoiding the battle. At a curving fork in the road, Ginal stopped. He could go home, but having done that, he could think of no other move that would prevent the tragedy he could see coming.

Lartal would not yield claim to the fields they had seeded. Pratoalta would not concede the loss of their traditional territory. And Ginal had no power to convince the grandmothers on either side of the conflict to listen to reason. How creatures a thousand years old could still make such disastrous choices baffled him. It defied logic.

“Father?” Ang asked quietly. She stood so close that her tail slapped his leg and he pressed his lips together at her. Ducking her head, she pulled her tail closer.

She was too young to control her tail or her fate, and as her father, it was his responsibility to raise her well and see she did not die before becoming a mother herself. Turning toward the center of Lartal where the storehouses and temple stood, Ginal began to pull his goods.

“Father!” Ang’s voice had the sharp edge of desperation now, but Ginal ignored her. Pulling his cart past homes and gardens and the new solar panels that had grown so popular over the past few decades, he approached their temple. It was the traditional shape of a pyramid, only instead of having the first floor open, they’d opted for a more innovative design with the north side of the building open to the air on each floor. It made the building look like it was ready to tilt over to the side like a badly loaded cart. 

Sounds of distress came from the warehouses. Normally only goods would be stored there, but concerned parents had moved their children and their ill to this more easily defended position. Ginal pulled the cart to the open side of the temple’s first floor. Cameras clicked into motion, and he suspected the Lartal grandmothers were already broadcasting his image to the Pratoalta grandmothers. Any mistake he made would be taken as more proof that Pratoalta sought this conflict.

Ginal waited as first one grandmother and then another appeared at the opening. Ang’s breathing rasped in his ear as Ginal watched one grandmother after another come into the open. Pratoalta had nearly thirty grandmothers, but the slow procession of Lartal grandmothers ended six women later with a grandmother so old that her twelve foot frame had begun to lean forward with age and she leaned on a walking stick.

He waited, but the old grandmother only stood watching with pale eyes, and Ginal shivered with the truth of what he must do. Moving to the side of his cart, he caught his daughter’s gaze and held it as he reached down for the side of the cart. Her eyes widened in confusion, and then Ginal applied his considerable strength to the solid wood frame. Lifting his cart, he threw it over. 

Clay and glass shattered against the stones, and Ang leaped back, but a shattered jar of kaile showered her with red spice and she blinked in horror. Oil slowly ran along the stones, running into the narrow cracks between them. For a second, the cart rocked slowly on its side and then it tumbled over, landing upside down.

Ginal knew his own skin had paled. He felt it in the heat that gathered in his muscles and his chest, and when he looked around, he saw only pale faces and wide eyes. The old grandmother with her light gray eyes took one small step forward, but other than that, the entire town seemed caught in some spell.

“If we are all going to pauper ourselves on a ridiculous battle, let me be the first to start,” he spoke loudly. “If I must lose the good repute of my trading partners, if I must sacrifice my goods to the defense of my home against those I once twitched my own tail at, if I must watch my daughter die over some piece of territory, then let me start now. Let me lose everything now so that when this fight demands that I give up what little I have left, I will not hurt as much. That is where fools lead,” Ginal gestured toward the mess. Brilliant red and yellow spices dusted the ground and landed on the oil making little cakes of oil spice that would feed the bugs.

Ginal took a step closer to his daughter, a woman who was now nearly tall enough to look him in the eye. If she lived, she would be a stunning woman… a strong grandmother to shelter strong children. If she died, she would die young and foolish. “That is the cost of conflict,” he said quietly. Her eyes were so wide that that second ring of black was clearly visible all around the green. “And that is the least of the costs I will pay if someone does not begin to calculate profit and loss in a way more sane than a single year’s seeding or a territory marker buried so deep in the mud that an otnod could not find it.”

Reaching up, he allowed himself to run fingers along the side of Ang’s neck the way he had not since she’d been thirty and had announced that she was too old for such babying. She continued to stare at him, confusion written across her face.

After that brief interlude in which he pretended that he could keep his girl safe, Ginal turned and started walking out of Lartal. The rest of the town appeared still bespelled by Ginal’s madness, but after a second, footsteps raced after him. The strong scent of kaile preceeded Ang as she fell in beside him. They walked side by side as the houses thinned and the escarpment appeared in the distance. Slowly she reached out and brushed fingers across the base of his tail. The tentative touch of a child seeking comfort made his skin contract, although he could not have said whether pleasure or fear caused the reaction. 

Unwinding his tail from his leg, he draped it over his daughter’s arm, using it to pull her closer as they walked. He had done all he could. If he could not stop a war, maybe he could offer her the wisdom to survive it. It was a good trade.