Read Online Daja's Book by Tamora Pierce - Free Book Online Page A

fiercely, she broke off the rod.
    â€œThat’s not nice, is it?” Briar asked the vine, running his hands over the trunk. “She doesn’t appreciate what a beauty you are, is all. She’s used to iron being dead.”
    â€œIron isn’t dead!” protested Daja. A stroke of the hammer put a head on the nail; another tap sent the finished piece into her water bucket. “It’s just not the same as plants!”
    They all turned at the sound of clumsy steps. It was the Trader Polyam coming through the arch that opened onto the main courtyard. Everyone’s jawdropped. The part in her hair, down the center of her scalp, was traced in bright yellow paint of some kind: it ended in a dripping mark on her forehead. Her one good eye was lined in the same color; so too were her mouth, nostrils, and both ears, scarred and unscarred alike. Her neck, wrists, and ankles all sported chains decorated with small wooden charms. Each charm was painted with an odd design in bright yellow. Yellow thread was wrapped around the top of her staff; more yellow thread bound one legging to her wooden limb. Even her toenails and fingernails had been tinted yellow. The color almost seemed to glow, even on the bumps and dents of her scarred face and in the shadow of her ruined eye.
    â€œWhat happened to
you
?” asked Briar.
    â€œTrader Koma protect me,” whispered Daja, forgetting that she had just wrapped her fingers around a rod that was still heating in the fire. “You’re
qunsuanen
.” She had heard of the
qunsua
ceremony, its use and intent. Never before had she seen it done—though she knew it when she laid eyes on the results.
    â€œWhat do you call that shade of yellow?” Sandry inquired. “It’s so
vivid
.”
    Polyam stared at her for a moment, as if she didn’t believe what the girl had asked, then made a face. “I call it yellow.” She looked straight at Daja. “Are you happy?” she demanded. “I can now talk to you. I candeal with you. I can even bargain with you. And I will never, ever, acquire enough
zokin
to erase this from the books of the caravan.”
    â€œI don’t get it,” said Briar. “What’s koo-soo—what’s
zokin?
And the other thing?”
    Polyam looked away. Obviously she wasn’t about to explain.
    â€œI never heard of the koon-soo thing,” remarked Sandry “but
zokin
is the credit listed against your name in the ledgers of your people. Pirisi—my old nurse—was a Trader,” she explained to Polyam. “Pirisi said there are two kinds of
zokin
, the kind that’s your actual savings in coin, your part of the ship’s—”
    â€œOr caravan’s,” Daja added.
    Sandry grinned at her. “Or caravan’s profits. The other kind of
zokin
is, well, honor, or personal standing. Is that the kind you mean?”
    Polyam stared at her. “It’s not right, a
kaq
knowing so much of our ways.”
    â€œShe’s not a
kaq
,” Daja said flatly, staring at the woman. “She is my
saati
.” The word meant a non-Trader friend who was as dear as family. “So are Briar and Tris—and our teachers.”
    â€œAs for
qunsuanen
—koon-soo-ah-nen,” Daja repeated slowly, for her friends, “it’s, I don’t know, she’s been cleansed.” She felt a little sorry for Polyam. The Traders might as well have named her a plague carrier, to say she was specially privileged to deal with
trangshi
. “All the paint, all the runes on the charms,are to keep my
trangshi
luck from sticking to her. When they go, she has to follow the caravan for ten days, wash in every stream and pond and river they find. The
mimanders
will pray over her and do ritual purifications—”
    â€œAs they did all last night,” snapped Polyam. She hopped over to the iron vine to take a better look at it. “So let’s deal and get it