Page 56 of Homeless

The man stirred, then, oddly, looked swiftly towards his scale. Elizabeth followed the direction of his gaze. The chains hung evenly, but the pans were removed. She frowned and nudged Darcy’s elbow. His response was nearly invisible — a faint tick of his cheek before he turned his attention back to the money changer.

Señor Aramburu did not reach for the gold. He looked at it, and then he looked at Darcy — the shabby cuffs, the dust, the good bones of a man dressed like a bad month — and then back at the coins. She could see his thoughts printed across his face, clear as a book. Rich man. Tattered clothes. Something to hide.

She had copied her uncle's exchange tables for six months in a back room in Gracechurch Street, and she had never once imagined her survival would depend on her recollection. She knew to the shilling what those doubloons were worth. And she knew, the moment the man opened his mouth, that he did not mean to give it.

“He says the gold is very fine,” she murmured, while the man went on being pleasant.

“What does he offer?”

She made him say the figure twice, to be sure her temper was earned, and it was. “That is robbery. Two-thirds, perhaps, of their worth, and he is proud of himself for it.” She kept her face sweet, because a sweet face bought more than an angry one.

“Tell him he will earn his fee, but we demand a fair exchange.”

Elizabeth forced a little laugh, a wider smile, and started talking. It was almost a pleasure, that was the shameful truth of it. There was so little on this journey she could actually do — she could not pay the debt or free her uncle or do anything to turn away the black looks of men in doorways and courtyards — but this she could do, this she was good at, and it felt like taking off a shoe with a stone in it to be, for four minutes, simply competent.

She argued him up. Not to a fair price; fair was not on offer today. But to bearable, and she made him count it out himself, coin by coin, so that he should feel each piece of silver leaving.

“That ring,” Darcy said, pointing to a small, bright thing in the case. “Ask him for the ring.”

Something in her stomach lurched and clenched. A ring? That… that was…

“Elizabeth, the ring,” he insisted. “I cannot be forever chasing men off who mistake your impertinence for availability.”

She swallowed and pointed to the thing in the case. “Queremos isso — eso, también.”

Señor Aramburu was now counting out coppers, and he stopped. Elizabeth saw the calculation cross his face before he smiled broadly, even laughed. He put the rest of the coppers back into his tray and pulled the ring out, saying something about newly married Ingles, and offering his grandest felicitations.

He opened his palm to show her the ring, but the moment she reached for it, he closed his palm and named a price that would have subtracted half the silver he had already laid on the cloth.

“Is he trying to renegotiate?”

“He is trying to lie,” she replied.

“Tell him he has cheated us enough for one day. The ring is in addition to what is already agreed upon.”

“I have a better idea. And do not look surprised at anything I say, or you will spoil it.” She turned back to the man and informed him that she would not negotiate anything until she was permitted to inspect the merchandise.

Aramburu gestured magnanimously and held it to the light with a little speech she almost admired for its gall. But Elizabeth raised her hand between them without comment until he dropped it into her palm.

“Far too light for gold,” she told Darcy.

He plucked it out of her hand to examine it himself. “Pinchbeck. Brass, essentially.”

“So… worthless?”

“Not entirely, but close to it.”

“Rather fitting, do you not think?”

He made a face and put it back into her hand. “It shines like gold and looks convincing enough. Does it fit?”

She slid the ring onto her fourth finger, then held it to the light. Brass, convincing enough to sell a lie, cool and weightless as a promise nobody meant. “It may turn my finger green, but it will not fall off, and it looks exactly like what it is pretending to be. It would stay vaguely circular for long enough to get us out of the country.”

She put it back on the counter so that Señor Aramburu would not see her admiring it with anything resembling interest.

“Es falsa.”

Aramburu’s face altered. “¡No es falsa!” He picked it up and held it so that the light caught the edge. “¡Es oro!”