Daja's Book by Tamora Pierce

as her hostess did and hummed with pleasure. This was real Trader tea, hot, strong, flavored with smoke. She’d drunk nothing like it since her last night aboard Third Ship Kisubo.
    Polyam smiled. “Talk needs food, or the talkers weaken.” She took lids from the dishes, putting them aside. The plates were laden with things like cold vineleaves stuffed with rice, onion, garlic, and mint, tiny pickled onions, pastries filled with chicken or eggplant and spices, apricots stuffed with almond-rosewater paste, and small fruit tartlets. Last but not least, she saw almond and orange cakes. All were traditional foods among Traders, in caravans and ships alike, and Daja had not tasted any of them in months.
    Looking at her knees, she bit down on her lower lip until she had beaten the urge to cry. If Polyam saw emotion, she would know that Daja was sensitive about Trader food, and she would have the advantage when they bargained. At last the girl took up the threadbare linen napkin Polyam had supplied and spread it over her crossed legs. “I really shouldn’t,” she said, as good manners dictated.
    Polyam was very carefully staring at the table. “It is a poor effort, I know, but my mother’s sister would be shamed to tears if I returned this uneaten.”
    Daja picked up one of each thing, arranging the food on her plate. When she finished her choices, Polyam followed suit. Carefully Daja lifted a tiny pickled onion to her lips and bit down, savoring the tart juice and the vegetable’s crispness.
    Little Bear whined. Daja glanced at him: he was still in the same position at the edge of the dropcloth, but his tail waved slowly. He whined again.
    Something made her look past him. Briar and Tris watched her with nearly the same expression on their faces as the dog. Sandry was too well-behaved to becaught staring. Lark’s back was to them as she helped Sandry to pull the sticks and threads of the new loom taut.
    Daja looked at Briar and Tris again; her face twitched. Polyam twisted so she could see what was going on. Tris cut furiously at aloe leaves as the boy stirred bubbling seaweed.
    â€œIt would be
kaq’s
manners not to share,” Polyam muttered. “Will you join us?” she invited the others. Briar walked over immediately. Little Bear sat up, tail thumping.
    â€œThis is very kind of you,” Lark said as she and Tris came to sit with them. Sandry joined them once she’d rolled up the loom.
    â€œThe people bargaining in Deadman’s District never shared,” admitted Briar, his mouth full of pastry. “They’d let us watch, though.”
    â€œLet us say I have a soft spot for dogs, then,” replied Polyam, scratching Little Bear behind the ears. “And children.”
    â€œYour mother’s sister must have enough
zirok
in Oti Bookkeeper’s ledgers for the next three generations, if she cooks like this for a trade,” said Daja. “Even my clan leader didn’t cook so well.”
    â€œThe head of your clan had to
cook
?” Tris wanted to know. “Why not make someone else do it?”
    â€œTraders prize cooking as highly as the ability to negotiate better prices,” said Lark. “That’s why formalbargaining includes gifts of food, isn’t it, Polyam? People let down their guard if they’re well-fed.”
    Polyam made a face. “It’s not right that a
kaq
knows so much of
Tsaw’ha
ways,” she muttered. To Daja she added, “Or that you are
teaching
them our ways.”
    â€œI was taught your ways by other Traders, when I was just a sprightly young thing,” said Lark.
    â€œShe was an acrobat,” Daja told Polyam.
    â€œAnd a dancer,” added Sandry.
    â€œAnd she passed the tambourine for coins after they performed,” Tris put in.
    â€œI learned what I know traveling with my parents and my nurse,” remarked Sandry.
    â€œThen where are they now, your mother and