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have no obligation to keep bargains with pagans if it plays to their advantage. For me, my word is my word, to whomever it is given. I may be far from my people, but not from the eyes of God.
    Win knows well the value of stones. From our earlier purchases we need few words between us to set the boundaries of our bidding.
    In the royal trading house, the officers of the king spread out the stones in shallow wooden boxes placed on small tables one after the other in a long, narrow room, the sapphires on one table, the spinels on a second, the rubies on another. A gaggle of observers with sharp eyes and quick opinions, but most with empty purses, crowd around the tables. When a buyer is ready, he signals a royal trader and they sit down at the table to bargain.
    It is not like any bargaining that you have seen, or rather that you have not seen. I am not teasing you with my words. The table is covered with a dark blue cloth. The buyer and seller do not speak a word. They do not want the public, leaning over them like willows at water’s edge, to know the details of their business. They speak with their hands hidden beneath the cloth. It is all done by touch—
    every finger, every joint has special meaning. Win is teaching me this gentle art, but I am still a child in learning its ways. It is like the touch of hands between lovers as they dance in front of family and friends. There are ways of speaking when the tongue must be silent and even eyes must stare in innocence. One finger is squeezed, then two or three. The message received, fingers are held and squeezed in return. Each knows by touch alone the desire and longing of the other. Even if I was adept at this silent language and my hands could speak while my tongue was mute, it works to our interests that I watch in silence while Win speaks with practiced hands for me. At the table, he buys us time and stones, as it is the custom in Pegu for the buyer to have three days to examine more closely the stones and return them if he is not satisfied with their quality. It is rare that any stones are returned, for it is a great loss of face to the king’s trader, and in lesser measure, does not speak well for the eyes or bargaining skill of the buyer’s broker. I have not taken this path, and do not think with Win’s eyes and hands it is one I will ever need follow.
    I find myself strangely taken with the trade, given my previous disinterest. It was something I did more out of loyalty to Uncle than for myself. It was simply a means to help put food on the table and clothes on the backs of those who had done the same for me when I was young and orphaned. But I have come to see it as more. There is another community other than that of the Israelites, another community beyond the community of the Word.
    A community of exchange covers the world, and we are only a small part of it. Our silver in Surat turned to indigo blue and madder red and silken patola, and once in Pegu, with trade’s alchemy, they are transformed into rubies and sapphires that in Venice will turn to gold and silver once more. A nobleman in Mantua sealing his letters with the finest wax owes the privacy of his words to some half-naked infidel collecting lac in these distant jungles. From places that are only names to us—Sumatra, Chieng Mai, Yunnan, Ava, Ternate—
    come spices, fragrant woods, and colorful cloth that are traded in another no less exotic place for precious stones or rice or glazed jars that themselves bear wine or other spices held dear. From some creature slinking through the jungles comes the musk for the scent a courtesan dabs behind her ears and between her breasts to lure her besotted lover. Where do all those who push themselves away from the table with full bellies think the pepper, cinnamon, and cloves come from to make meat fit for their mouths? Do those Franciscans that bedevil us with their sharp tongues and sulfurous minds believe the incense they inhale with rapturous chants comes