Legend

Bayran Sulu carried her Denarii at her belt in an embroidered purse, yet she never paid with them. She gave them away. The coins had square holes at their centres and chimed thinly as they spilled into her palm.

At noon, when the marketplace shimmered with heat, Bayran stopped by the fountain and asked a water carrier for a cup of water. He had been trudging since dawn, bent under his yoke, between the well and the houses of the rich. He filled the cup with a bow. When she tried to pay, he drew back his hand.

“I’m no beggar,” he said. “I take payment only for what I carry.”

“How many people have you given a drink to today?” asked Bayran.

“I didn’t count.”

She pressed the purse into his hands.

“Take it.”

The coins chimed. The water carrier turned red to the tips of his ears and stood stock-still, as though holding something that was not his. Bayran drank slowly, sip by sip, like the finest wine.

“Whoever knows only how to give leaves others in debt,” she said. “A gift must flow both ways, like the water in this fountain.”

In that city’s marketplace, water carriers are still given the first coin of the day, and they accept it with a bow – in memory of Bayran Sulu’s Denarii.