Read Online The Goldsmith's Daughter by Tanya Landman - Free Book Online

today, Popotl, we have come to sell.”
    My eyes were lowered, as they should be, but I heard an intrigued note in Popotl’s voice.
“We?”
he asked.
    He had barely set foot in the square and already my father had made an error. I was nothing – a girl – and should not have been included in his plans. But the words were out; my father could not recall them.
    â€œWe,” he repeated with a casual laugh. “My daughter is with me, as you see. She is required, sometimes, to fetch and carry. She is cheaper than a slave,” he joked loudly, adding in an undertone for my ears only: “Cheaper, but perhaps more trouble.”
    Popotl grunted. He made no other remark, but I knew I must behave as the perfect, humble, invisible daughter if I were not to inflame his curiosity further.
    It was an agonizing task. As wealthy men began to arrive in the square and peruse the goods we had laid upon the reed mats, I was desperate to see if my work was appreciated; if any noticed its quality. But instead I had to kneel on the ground behind my father, fix my eyes on a corner of the mat and never look up, not once.
    I could not watch their faces and had to imagine the rest of their bodies from what I could see of their feet. One man – of great antiquity it seemed to me – came with feet so withered that the bones were almost visible through the flesh. His nails overhung the ends of his toes, curving like the claws of a jaguar. A crabbed hand reached down and took the figurine I had so carefully crafted. What great temptation it was to look up and see his expression! But I resisted, keeping my eyes fixed on those hideous feet. And when he threw my work back down – dropping it with an icy grunt of contempt – I managed not to move, not to stir, not to cry out with the offended pride of a craftsman. I stiffened, but that was all, and even as I did so I hoped desperately that Popotl had not noticed; I felt in some obscure way that the trader was a threat to me.
    By mid morning my father had sold much, exchanging lip plugs and necklets for cloaks, or the gold-filled quills and cocoa beans that were currency for goods as valuable as ours. As the sun reached its zenith and my body ached with immobility, a nobleman stopped before us.
    I discerned his high status at once. Many in the city go barefoot or wear simple sandals, but this man wore shoes of finely tooled leather. His smooth skin gleamed with scented oil, and the cape that hung to his ankles was brightly coloured, woven in the finest of threads and edged with dazzling feathers of immense cost. I could hear the tinkling of the golden bells that adorned his person; members of the nobility like to be heard as well as seen. This man was clearly one of the elite.
    I felt his shadow upon me as he bent to pick something from our display of wares. My figurine! I held myself still only with great effort; my body tensed with the strain of it.
    The nobleman spoke. “You are a merchant?”
    â€œNo, my lord,” said my father, his tone slightly muffled as though his head was bowed in a gesture of respect. “I am a craftsman.”
    â€œYou fashioned this?”
    My father, a truthful man, hesitated. “It was made in my workshop, my lord.”
    â€œIt is fine work. Remarkably fine. I took it to be Mixtec.”
    â€œThank you, my lord.”
    The compliment was great indeed. Our goldsmiths had long ago learnt their art from the Mixtec race, and many still rated their work superior to our own.
    The nobleman agreed a price with my father – a high one – and made to leave with the figurine. But before he departed he asked, “Your name?”
    â€œOquitchli.”
    â€œOquitchli,” he repeated as if to fix it in his mind. “You dwell in Azcapotzalco?”
    â€œNo, my lord,” replied my father. “Here, in the Tlaltelolco district.”
    â€œIndeed?” The nobleman was greatly surprised that my