That night, after Garibaldi sold the furs, he and Sallina sat with the Captain in the Captain's cabin. It was late. Most of the crew was already asleep. Sallina was smiling and hugging Garibaldi's arm. There was a pile of red and green Cloghlogan City Bills on the table, as well as three bags of gold pieces. The Captain and Sallina had counted the money and gold three times. Now the Captain was adding numbers on a piece of paper.
The Captain put his pen down and read from the paper. "Once you change your shillings into gold, you will have a total of one thousand two hundred and sixteen guineas." He looked up. "That's ten-gram gold pieces. Not all your pieces are ten grams. Some of the coins from the chest are twenty-gram, and a few are five-gram. If we want to do this right, we should weigh all the gold, divide by ten grams and say how much it is in guineas." He looked up. He shrugged. "But you want to say gold pieces, so there it is."
"We started with gold pieces," Sallina said, "So we'll finish with them."
The Captain read numbers from the paper. "Sallina bought furs for two hundred and fifty. Together you sold them for a total of five hundred and fourteen." He nodded at the paper. "That's very good going. Meanwhile, Garibaldi lent me two hundred, which I have paid him back with twenty guineas in interest."
"Thank you Captain," Garibaldi said.
The Captain put the paper down and stood up. "If you'll forgive me, Sallina, I think this calls for a celebration."
He opened his wine cabinet and took out a bottle of port and three glasses. He poured them each a glass and sat down again, with his back to the rear windows. He lifted his glass. "Cheers."
"Cheers," Sallina and Garibaldi said.
They drank from their glasses. The Captain closed his eyes. He swallowed and smiled.
"We'll set sail for Godiva on the fourteenth of September, one week from now," the Captain said, "The Endeavor will sail with us. When we reach Godiva, we'll give the crews three weeks shore leave."
Sallina leaned against Garibaldi's shoulder. Garibaldi stroked her hair. This was one of the best days of his life so far. Sallina was proud of him and he was going home.
"I'll send a letter to the Duke of Brickwater," the Captain said, "If I remember correctly, he moves his court to Farthing for Summer and Autumn. I'll send the letter to Farthing."
"Farthing is where we come from," Garibaldi said.
"Yes," the Captain said. "I know that."
"You know a lot," Garibaldi said, "How did you know the name of our home town? We never told you."
The Captain touched his nose. "My business." He sipped from his glass. "I have my secrets, Garibaldi, but they won't hurt you."
Sallina sat up and scratched her head. The Captain looked at her. "Do you have lice?"
Sallina lowered her hand. "No! That's what Otis said."
"Really?"
She sat back in her chair and folded her arms. "Yes."
The Captain pointed at her. "You will go to the Endeavor first thing tomorrow morning, both of you, and have Sally Benton check you for lice."
Sallina frowned. The Captain stared at her. She raised one hand to her forehead. "I hear and obey, oh Captain."
"I should think so, too." The Captain said. He looked down at the piece of paper. "In my letter to Duke Marcus..."
Sallina sat up "Aha! You know the name of the Duke!"
The Captain raised his hand without looking up from the paper. "Quiet, woman. In my letter to Marcus, I will tell him you found one thousand and fifty gold pieces on his land, and that you are willing to return it. Furthermore and you are willing to pay a one hundred gold piece fine for running off with the money in the first place." He looked up. "I think he'll accept your offer. Eleven hundred and fifty gold pieces is a lot of money, even to a Duke. Either way, we'll wait for him to write back. If he writes and accepts, I will go with you to Farthing and present you to him personally."
"And that will help us?" Garibaldi said.
"Yes," the Captain said.
Sallina said, "And if he does not accept our offer?"
"If he does not write back, or if he writes back refusing your offer, we'll take you to Farthing secretly so you can see your families before we leave Godiva."
"And we would keep the gold," Sallina said.
"Yes," the Captain said. "So, it won't be all bad."
The next morning, Sally Benton found lice in Sallina's hair.
"Maybe I got them from that cave," Sallina said.
"Maybe you did," Sally said, "But you can get them just about anywhere in a city like Prudence. You swam in their pools didn't you?"
"Yes."
"Well there you are then."
Sally took out a comb with fine metal teeth. She sat Sallina down on a stool beside the sink in her infirmary and combed the lice and lice eggs out of Sallina's hair. She tapped them off the comb and into the sink. Garibaldi sat on one of the infirmary beds and watched. Sallina's hair was past her shoulders. It took Sally a long time to comb all of it.
Garibaldi's hair was short. Sally combed his hair in a few minutes. She found six lice and a few eggs. After that, Sally washed their hair with a special watery soap that killed lice. Sallina and Garibaldi then spent the afternoon washing their sheets twice and hanging them out to dry.
That evening they went out for supper with Natasha and Sharpy at a restaurant in Cloghloganport. They sat around a table with a view through the windows of the ships in the harbor.
Natasha pointed to the bruise on Sallina's forehead. "How does that feel?"
Sallina touched the bruise. "I don't notice it."
"Good. And you're going home."
Sallina swallowed a mouthful of soup. "Yes!"
Garibaldi imagined his parents sitting alone in the evening, worrying about him. "We hope so."
Sharpy wiped his face with his napkin. He put the napkin on his lap. "That's great." He looked at Sallina and Garibaldi. "And what will you do after that? Are you going to come with us?"
Sallina looked at Garibaldi and at Sharpy. "I would like to."
Natasha leaned forward over the table. "Yohiromaki wants to take Jayhan's girl back to Chiin." She opened her eyes wide. "Maybe we'll take him. What do you think of that?"
Garibaldi frowned. "But what about Jayhan, the Captain of the junk? He was Yohiromaki's boss, wasn't he?"
"He was, but he's not now. He's probably in the mines of Independence Island."
"Why doesn't Yohiromaki go rescue him?"
Natasha shrugged. "Nobody knows. He doesn't say much. All he's said so far is that he wants to take the girl to Chiin. So Captain Alicia says, 'How much will you pay us?', and he says nothing." Natasha put her elbows on the table and leaned upon them. "And even better than that, the girl is pregnant."
Sallina nodded. "We know that. Otis told us."
Natasha laughed. "Really? He can spot nits and pregnancy? Did he say who the father was?"
"No."
Garibaldi put his soup spoon down beside his empty soup bowl. "We didn't ask him."
Sallina pointed at Natasha's hand. "Your shirt is in your soup."
Natasha sat up. There was soup on the tip of her sleeve. She put the sleeve in her mouth and sucked the soup out of it. When she was satisfied that her sleeve was clean, she leaned forward and smiled. "We think Yohiromaki is the father."
Sharpy shook his head. "No." He pressed his finger-tip against Natasha shoulder. "You think that. I don't think anything. It's their business."
Sallina raised one eyebrow. "How are they going to get home, if you don't take them?"
Natasha picked up her bowl and drank the last of her soup. Sharpy sat back in his chair and watched her. She put the bowl down on the table and wiped her mouth on the back of her sleeve. "Yohiromaki seems to think we're going to take him there." She shook her head and picked up her tea cup. "He's very strange. Did you know that he sleeps on deck at night?"
Garibaldi frowned. "On deck?"
"Yes. He sits cross-legged on the aft deck, near the wheel." Natasha watched Sallina and Garibaldi while the two of them imagined Yohiromaki sitting cross-legged on the deck in the light of the ship's lantern. "He doesn't even lie down."
Garibaldi folded his arms. He was not sure he believed Natasha. "Even in the storm?"
Natasha raised one finger. "No. Not in the storm. In the storm, he came down and sat in the infirmary with the girl. She was sea-sick." She lowered her finger. "And even then, when he was in the infirmary, he would not talk to Sally. He hardly talks at all."
Sharpy coughed. "Not compared to you, he doesn't."
Natasha laughed. "Even compared to Dan, he doesn't."
Garibaldi remembered the night of the circus, when he was lying in the road with his leg wounded. It was raining. He heard Yohiromaki talking to Baat in Weilandic.
"Yohiromaki spoke to Baat on the night of the circus."
"Did he?"
Sallina nodded. "Yes, they were talking about Baat's dad. I heard them."
The waiter brought a fresh pot of tea to their table. Garibaldi poured tea into their four cups. As he poured the tea, he wondered what would make someone want to sit on the deck at night, instead of sleeping in a hammock or a bunk.
"Maybe he's seasick, but too embarrassed to saying anything about it."
Sharpy blew upon his tea. "That could be." He looked at Natasha. "But you must be glad to have him on board the Endeavor. Dan said Yohiromaki was worth forty pirates in a fight, and Dan's a good judge of that kind of thing."
Natasha sat back in her chair. She smiled at Sharpy. "How many pirates does Dan say he's worth?"
"He didn't say."
Natasha looked at Sallina. "How is Dan, anyway? His dwarf wife took him away to the city hospital, isn't that right? What do the doctors say? Is he going to make it?"
Sallina put her spoon down. "He's going to be fine. The Captain went into the city today to visit him. Dan was asleep. The dwarf surgeon said they had cut him open and done something to his liver and given him some kind of magic medicine. Now he's going to sleep for a few days, and they are feeding him through some kind of tube." She picked up her teacup and breathed in the steam that rose from the hot water. "I don't think the Captain understood what was going on, and I can't go visit him myself. I don't know if Dan would have died if we hadn't brought him here. But the doctors at the hospital said for sure that Dan was going to be okay, and he'd be awake in the next few days."
Natasha nodded. "That's great news." She raised her cup of tea in front of her. "A toast to Dan."
They raised their cups. "To Dan!" They drank tea at the same time.
Natasha put her cup down. "I went over to the Seamist today just before she set sail."
Sharpy looked at her. "What's the Seamist?"
"It's the ship from Godiva. The one that brought the guy who bothered Sallina by the fountains."
Sallina leaned forward. She had not seen Lawrence Matthews since the day they had arrived. But she knew the Seamist was still in port. She could see the ship every day, on the other side of the harbor.
"What did you find out?"
"They are sailing for Sax tomorrow."
Sallina nodded and sat back in her chair. That was good news. The Seamist would not reach Godiva before they did. She did not want Lawrence to tell his stories to the Duke before she and Garibaldi had time to tell him their own story for themselves.
It was a good meal they ate in that restaurant, and Sallina was happy when she and Garibaldi walked back to the Reliant afterwards. The two of them had paid half of the restaurant bill, and Natasha and Sharpy had paid the other half. Sallina was proud that she had enough money to pay for her own meal.
The fourteenth of September was Garibaldi's nineteenth birthday. It was also the day the Reliant was due to sail for Godiva. Sallina had been banned from the dwarf city for seven days. This was the eighth day. Now she could go back, and she did. She left in the morning, saying she was going to give her helmet back to Argus Frood, the Chief Custodian, and maybe visit Dan and Margaret in her apartment.
Garibaldi spent the morning with the rest of the crew, preparing the ship to sail in the afternoon. Sallina had been gone for an hour, and Garibaldi was coiling a rope next to the main mast when one of the crew shouted, "Dan! It's Dan!"
Garibaldi looked up. Dan must have walked up the gang plank without making any sound, because there he was, standing on the deck next to the end of the plank. He stood straight, with his arms crossed, and looked about the ship with a smile on his face. It was that smile he had that went up on one side and was straight on the other. It was a crooked smile, the one that Sallina had told Garibaldi she didn't like. Garibaldi was glad to see Dan's crooked smile again.
There were a dozen sailors on deck. They cheered when they saw Dan. Garibaldi cheered with them. They stopped their work and gathered around him. The Captain was on the aft deck. He looked down at Dan and smiled.
"You're better."
"Aye," Dan said. He held his hands up in the air and called out, "I have something to say."
The sailors stood back.
"Speak," the Captain said.
More sailors ran up the stairs from below. They cheered when they saw Dan, and shouted his name. Dan still held his hands in the air. "Here's the deal, sailors." He looked from one face to another. "I'll come back to the ship with my wife or I won't come back at all."
The sailors went quite for a few seconds. They started whispering to one another.
Garibaldi leaned towards Otis, who was standing next to him. "What's the matter? Seems like a good idea to me. She could help fix things."
Otis smiled. "She's crazy."
"Oh."
Sallina also thought Margaret was crazy. If Otis thought the same thing, it must be true. They would have a crazy dwarf woman on board. That seemed like fun. How bad could it be?
"And sailors!" Dan said. "I want to know your answer now, because I don't have much time to get her ready to come on board. You sail in four hours."
The Captain leaned upon the rail that overlooked the main deck. "Well, sailors. Talk about it and I'll count votes on Dan's proposal." He took his watch out of his jacket pocket. "I'll give you ten minutes."
"I'm not done yet," Dan said. He pointed at Harry, who was sitting on a barrel nearby. "Margaret gets your bunk."
Harry stood up. "My bunk? You mean you want to share our cabin with your wife?"
"Those are her terms," Dan said. "She's not like us. She's shy. She can't get undressed in front of other men. So it's in a private cabin, or not at all."
"Dan," Harry said, "I love Margaret, you know I do." He stared at the deck for a while. "But she's nuts, Dan. Face it. She's nuts."
Dan folded his arms. "I like her that way."
Harry looked up at the sails. "And I was so looking forward to having that bunk back."
"Last thing," Dan said, "Margaret and I will pay Harry five hundred shillings a month for Harry's bunk."
"Five hundred a month?"
"You heard me."
Harry frowned. "I would have taken half that. Why five hundred?"
"I bargained for you."
The crew laughed.
Otis spoke quietly to Garibaldi. "Dan bargained with his own wife for Harry." He shook his head. "This is going to be trouble, you mark my words." He smiled. "The good kind of trouble, mind you."
In the end, the crew voted to take Dan and Margaret with them. What else could they do? They loved Dan. He had once been The Master-Assassin of the Satian Sea, or so they believed. And he was a good surgeon, too. Who would leave someone like that behind? Not me.
When Sallina returned from Cloghlogan, Dan had already left the Reliant to fetch Margaret. She and Garibaldi moved their belongings out of their cabin. Harry gave them two hammocks next to one another in the dormitory. Sallina was nervous about sleeping in the dormitory. She would be the only woman. She was not shy about undressing in front of men, and even if she was, she could change in the toilet if she wanted to. Being among men all the time was tiring. When she had the cabin to go to, she could sit there and read and relax on her own. But the crew of the Reliant would be all-men only for the trip to Godiva. They would be in Godiva in three or four days, and after that, the Captains were going to mix the crews of the two ships, and there would be women to keep her company.
Dan and Margaret came aboard in the afternoon. The Reliant was ready to sail and the Captain was pacing the aft deck, waiting for the two of them to arrive. The tide was going out, and he wanted to leave.
"All aboard!" he called.
"All aboard, Captain!" Harry said.
"Cast off the ship! Prepare to make sail!"
Margaret and Dan carried Margaret's luggage down the stairs to their cabin. Sallina was just making the beds when they came in. Margaret put two suitcases on the floor and put her hands upon her big hips.
"I hear you had lice," she said.
Sallina stroked her hair. "Yes, but they're gone now."
"Nonsense," Margaret said, "You'll still have nits in your hair."
Sallina straightened a pillow and stood up.
"I brought a nit comb," Margaret said, "I'll comb your hair out on deck today."
Sallina shook her head. "You don't have to do that. Sally Benton already did it."
"I'm glad to do it," Margaret said. "And when I get lice, you can do it for me."
Sallina looked at Margaret's cascading red hair. "Well," she said, "That doesn't seem like a fair deal."
"I never said it was a fair deal," Margaret said. She reached in her pocket and took out Sallina's little piece of mink fur. "Here, I brought you this. I found it on my bathroom floor."
"Oh, thank you," Sallina said. "You can keep it."
Margaret looked at her. "I don't want to keep it. You take it or I'll throw it out the window."
Sallina took the little piece of fur and put it in her pocket. She was glad to have it back.
"Now, get out of here. I want to unpack a few things before I start getting seasick."
Sallina left the cabin. Dan smiled as she went out. "Thank you for making the beds."
"You're welcome."
"And if you're thinking you'll get used to her," Dan said, "You won't."
"What do you mean by that, you rascal?" Margaret said.
Dan closed the door. Sallina stood in the hall.
"I never get used to you, darling," Dan said.
"Oh, you," Margaret said, "Hey there! Stay away from me, boy!"
A moment later, Margaret laughed.
Sallina walked towards the stairs. When she reached the deck, Garibaldi was coiling a rope and Harry was watching him.
"How's it going down there?" Garibaldi said.
"It's going well." She smiled. She was happy for Dan. And Dan was wrong: she would get used to Margaret.
"Margaret has beautiful hair," Garibaldi said.
"Yes," Sallina said. "She does."
"But the clothes are a bit loud," Harry said.
"Yes," Sallina said, "I'll talk to her about that sooner or later."
"Are you kidding? My gosh. You are going to be asking for trouble."
Sallina wagged her finger at Harry. "You wait and see."
"I'll be waiting, Miss, you can be sure of that. Waiting like a mouse under a trash barrel in tom-cat alley."
Sallina laughed. "What? That doesn't make any sense at all!"
"Of course it does," Harry said. He pointed to a pile of rope on the deck. "Get that rope coiled up right away, sailor Sallina."
"Yes sir, first mate, sir! Right away."
Harry shook his head. Garibaldi smiled.
On the twenty-eighth of September, Sallina, Garibaldi, and the Captain stood outside the large, painted, oak doors of the Duke of Brickwater's audience chamber in Farthing, their home town. It was late afternoon, and they had just arrived by stage coach from Godiva. The coach had stopped outside the Duke's estate.
Garibaldi wore a pack on his back. It was full of gold, and it felt warm. Also in his pack was an axe-head made in Cloghlogan. This was a present for his father. The axe-head was made of bright, hard, steel, and he was sure his father would be pleased with it. Garibaldi had hoped to bring his father an axe-head made out of the same sparkling gray metal as Sukh's axe, and there had been such axe-heads for sale in Cloghlogan. But they cost hundreds of guineas, which was more than Garibladi could afford. So he had settled for the best steel he could buy. For his mother, he had a bright blue, stretchy shirt, and a bag of coffee beans.
The Captain sat upon a velvet chair. He was wearing a short sword at his belt. The sword stuck out to one side when he sat down.
Sallina had her pack on too. Sticking out of the top was the end of a bolt of silk the Captain had given her in exchange for her thermometer. The thermometer was now hanging in the Captain's cabin, near the aft windows. The silk was for her mother. For her father she had an iron tobacco pipe made by the dwarves. The bulge in the bottom of her pack was the helmet Argle Frood had given her. He had told her to keep it. She was going to give the helmet to her brother. But she had the little light stone in her pocket for herself. It no longer glowed, even though Argle had put it through his machine again when Sallina visited him on the fourteenth of September. But she liked the little stone. It went well in her pocket with the little piece of mink fur.
Sallina shifted her weight from one foot to another. Her heart was beating fast.
"Will he keep his word?" Sallina said.
"Good heavens woman," the Captain said, "You keep asking me the same question. Of course he will keep his word."
"But how do you know?"
"I know. You'll see."
Sallina nodded. She shifted from one foot to another. "And anyway," she said, "I like to hear you calling me 'woman'. You always used to call me 'girl'. But now you call me 'woman'. I like that."
The Captain shook his head. "Please calm down before you go in." He pointed to a seat next to him. "Here, sit and breath deeply. I don't think I have ever seen you like this."
One of the doors to the audience chamber opened. A man in a red coat embroidered with gold thread spoke loudly, but without looking at anyone. "The Duke of Brickwater calls the party from the Reliant."
The Captain stood up. "Oh well. You'll have to do as you are." He walked towards the door.
Sallina and Garibaldi walked behind him. The man in the red coat went back through the door and said to whoever was inside, in an equally loud voice, "Presenting the Honorable Horatio Tawnish of Tonbridge Manor, and Captain of the Merchant Vessel Reliant."
Sallina stopped and looked up at Garibaldi. "Tonbridge Manor?" she said. Tonbridge was a town north of Godiva. Her father's brother lived there.
Garibaldi walked through the door. She walked after him.
The Duke's audience chamber was thirty paces long and twenty paces wide. The ceiling was high. There were large fireplaces on either side, but the fires were not lit. The sun shone through high windows along both sides, but not at the ends. The floor was polished wood except down the middle where there was a long, green carpet. Upon the walls beneath the windows were portraits of the Duke's ancestors.
The Duke sat upon a chair on a dais at the far end of the room. He wore a plain white shirt and brown trousers. His beard was gray and square. On either side of the dais stood a dozen people in fine clothes. Sallina recognized one of them as the Duke's son. Another was Lawrence's father, Jameson Matthews. Sallina almost stopped in mid-stride. But she kept walking. Lawrence could not be back yet. The Seamist had sailed for Sax.
When he saw the Captain, the Duke stood up, stepped off the dais and walked forward with his arms held wide.
"My dear Horatio."
The Captain met the Duke half-way across the floor. The Duke hugged the Captain, and the Captain hugged him in return. The Duke stepped back, his hands on the Captain's shoulders.
"How long has it been? Ten years?"
"Something like that, my Lord."
The Duke pointed to the Captain's new beard. "Still have the goatee, I see."
The Captain smiled.
The Duke looked down at the Captain's tummy. "You have grown fat. I hope that is a sign of prosperity."
"Not really, my Lord."
The Duke lowered his hands. "How sails the Reliant?"
"Well, my Lord."
"I see you have your sword. Do you still fence?" The Duke jabbed one hand sideways a few times, as if he was fighting with a small-sword.
"No," the Captain said. "Not for many years."
"No? But you were the greatest, Horatio! Remember Harry Rakes? Oh," the Duke clasped his hands together. "What a duel. Swords flashing, metal clattering upon metal, the sawdust on the floor of the common room of the Chequers Inn. What a day! What a victory for you! And what a prize!"
The Captain nodded. "Yes. I remember."
The Duke frowned. He put one hand upon the Captain's shoulder.
"I was so sorry to hear about Penelope."
"Thank you, my Lord," the Captain said.
The two men stood quietly.
The Duke squeezed the Captain's shoulder. He let his arm drop to his side. "Won't you be my guest at supper tonight?"
"I would be honored, my Lord."
The Duke nodded. "Good." He looked over the Captain's shoulder at Sallina and Garibaldi.
"You must be Sallina Franks and Garibaldi Smith."
The Captain stepped aside. Sallina and Garibaldi bowed, just as the Captain had taught them.
"We are, my Lord," Sallina said.
The Duke walked forward. "Horatio tells me you have had some adventures since fleeing my domain with my gold."
"Yes, we have," Sallina said. "My Lord." Her hands were shaking, so she put them behind her back.
The Duke looked at Garibaldi and smiled. "You are Tannenbaum's son."
"That's right," Garibaldi said.
The Duke waited. The Captain coughed. Sallina nudged Garibaldi.
The Duke leaned forward and whispered. "You are supposed to say 'my Lord'. It's polite. I don't mind, really, but it's the law."
Garibaldi looked at the Duke. "But you make the laws, my Lord."
Sallina clenched her teeth. What was Garibaldi doing? They were almost free. Was Garibaldi going to ruin everything by being rude?
The Duke laughed. "And you are just like your father!"
"Thank you, my Lord," Garibaldi said.
The Duke turned and said aloud to the men and women standing at the other end of the room. "Just like his father!"
The men and women laughed and nodded.
"Indeed he is, my Lord," one of them said.
The Duke waved his hand at the man with the red coat. The man ran up and stood beside the Duke.
"The little book, give it to me," the Duke said.
The man with the red coat reached into a bag he carried by a strap around his shoulder. He took out a small, green book and gave it to the Duke. The Duke opened it at a page marked by a ribbon.
"This is the diary of my great-grandmother, the Duchess Lidia," he said. "She writes here, at the age of seventeen, that she buried her dowry of one thousand guineas in the forest above the estate when she was twelve years old. She did it because she hated my great grandfather, Duke Osmund, and never wanted him to have any of her father's money."
"It was her father's money?" Garibaldi said. Sallina nudged him. "My Lord."
"That's what a dowry is, Garibaldi Smith. Money from a woman's father to her new husband. It's supposed to make the marriage more attractive to the man." He shrugged his shoulders. "I don't understand it. But that's the custom among aristocracy. We all have to do it."
He closed the book. "So, it would appear that you found those one thousand guineas when you uprooted a tree."
"So it would seem, my Lord," Sallina said.
"My great-grandmother never found the chest after she buried it. She was only eleven when she married my great-grandfather. Poor girl."
"Did she ever learn to love her husband?"
The Duke shrugged. "Who knows." He pointed to the wall on their right. "There he is, Duke Osmund. Does he look like the sort of person you would love?"
Sallina squinted at the portrait. It was in the shadows beneath a high, sunny, window. "I couldn't say, my Lord."
"They had five children," the Duke said.
"Well, that's something," Sallina said, "My Lord."
The Duke looked at Sallina and Garibaldi. "I have been thinking about your case since I received Horatio's letter, and I have come to a better understanding of it, I think."
Sallina bit her lip. Oh no, she thought. He's changed his mind. He's going to take the gold and throw us in jail. Why had she come here? Why had she believed that he would be fair to them?
"On the the one hand," he said, and he held one hand out beside him. It was the hand that held the green book. "Because you are bringing the gold back, I can't really say that you stole it. Maybe I could say you borrowed it without permission, but I'm not inclined to. On the other hand," He held out his empty hand. "You ran away from my police in Godiva." He laughed. "Jumped out a window, if I recall correctly, throwing my great-grandmother's dowry pieces all over the street so you could get away."
He looked at them.
"That's true, my Lord," Garibaldi said.
The Duke nodded. He put his hands and the little green book behind his back and stared at them for a while.
"So," he said. "I'll accept the return of the one thousand guineas you found, and I thank you for it. But I must punish you for fleeing the law. You must each serve six months in jail..."
Sallina gasped and looked at the Captain.
The Duke held up one finger. "Or pay a fifty guinea fine."
"Oh," Sallina said. "Only fifty guineas?"
"Fifty guineas each," the Duke said. "Fifty guineas is almost two month's income for the average family in this Dukedom. A very heavy fine, I think, for the average person." He leaned forward. "So far as I know, you are not exceptionally rich, are you?"
Sallina shook her head. "No, my Lord."
"I will pay the fine, my Lord," Garibaldi said.
"So will I, my Lord," Sallina said.
The Duke smiled. "Good. That's settled then." He looked up at the man in the red coat. "Arrange this." He turned back to Sallina and Garibaldi. "Don't do it again."
"We won't, my Lord," Sallina said. "But there's one thing that you have not mentioned, my Lord."
"What is that, Sallina Franks?"
"We found more than one thousand guineas in the chest, my Lord."
The Duke frowned. He opened the little green book and held it up. He pointed to the page, but he did not show the page to Sallina. "It says here that the chest contained one thousand guineas." He looked up. "Are you disputing the written statement of the Duke's honored great-grandmother?"
Sallina stared at the Duke. Was he being serious? The girl was eleven years old when she buried the gold. She probably couldn't even count up to one hundred, let alone one thousand. Maybe nobody had ever counted how much gold was in the chest.
"Yes," Garibaldi said, "We dispute the statement made by your great-grandmother, the Duchess. But we accept your judgment as our Duke, my Lord."
The Duke snapped the book shut. "I am not a judge, Garibaldi Smith. I make laws, but I do not sit in a court and judge people. I do not have that power, nor would I want it."
Garibaldi did not know what to say. If the Duke was not a judge, why was he deciding how much they should pay as a fine, and how much time they should spend in jail?
The Duke stepped backwards and spoke aloud, so that everyone in the audience chamber could hear. "Sallina Franks and Garibaldi Smith found a chest of gold on my land. It belongs to me. I believe it contained a thousand guineas."
The men and woman nodded and whispered among themselves. The Duke waited until they were quiet.
He looked at Sallina and Garibaldi. "I thank you for returning my gold. But I accuse you of fleeing from my police. I will press charges against you in the Farthing Criminal Court unless you pay compensation of fifty guineas each to me, the Duke. If you decline my offer, and you are subsequently found guilty in court, you face up to a year in jail."
The men and woman whispered. Sallina saw Jameson Matthews with his arms folded, staring back at her through his thick beard, smiling. After a while, the men and women were quiet.
"As you can see, Garibaldi Smith," the Duke said, "I am not judging you. I am offering you a settlement out of court." He smiled.
"Thank you, my Lord," Sallina said, "We gladly agree to your settlement."
"You are welcome." He pointed to the man in the red coat. "Follow him and he will take the gold and issue you a pardon."
Sallina and Garibaldi bowed.
"Do you plan to stay in Farthing?" the Duke said.
"For two weeks," Sallina said.
The Duke smiled. "Your families will be glad. They have missed you very much. They came here several times to ask for my clemency."
"I am sorry to be the source of concern, my Lord."
The Duke laughed. "You restored to me one thousand guineas that I had lost. I rather think you have nothing to be sorry about, Sallina Franks, nor you, Garibaldi Smith."
"I agree, my Lord," Garibaldi said.
The Duke laughed. He said aloud to the men and women, "He agrees!"
They laughed.
"And after your two weeks here," the Duke said to Sallina and Garibaldi, "What are your plans?"
Sallina and Garibaldi smiled.
"We sail for Chiin!" Sallina said.