The smile on her face could not melt the ice in her eyes, but the flames of eagerness were lapping up into their pits. Salvia did not fully grin; her bloodline had cursed her with a grin that made her look half-mad. “It ensures,” she explained, choosing her words carefully. She had been educated in the ways of Salsola since she was a girl, but to her length of memory, they had never formally invoked the covenant before. “That we would trade fairly; a first look at things, a chance to offer before others might. Likewise, we would ask the same for you—obviously both sides would be given freedom to take business elsewhere, once the other had seen it.”
This would best allow Salsola, for example, to pick out things that might sell better in Freetown (or, with the Captain’s help, in London) should the coyotes not desire the trip. Such things, she further thought, might make trade with the Southerner’s possible. The distance was simply too long for Salsola to bear the weight and effort, and why not lose some profit in order to save their own muscle? The idea excited her and filled the girl’s fast-working mind with a thousand possibilities. “It’s an unbreakable pact,” she warned cooly. “To make it is to give a vow.”
Her eyes, that sharp and summer-bright shade of green, were watching the tall woman carefully. She had no idea if the coyotes would value such archaic ideas with the same honor-code of Salsola, and certainly doubted it, but hoped that some part of them might understand the importance of such a thing.