The Complete Season 1

by Michael Underwood

  “They won’t notice the gown; they’ll be looking at you.”

  “You’re a darling. Clara Galing will notice. She has an eye for such things.” Diane turned a ruby ring on her finger, contemplative. “She isn’t well, you know. Who can say how many more times we will be called upon to listen to harp music in that blue salon, while balancing those tiny saucers on our knees?” She snapped her fingers in annoyance. “If only Honora had held out, she might very well have been contracted to Galing, and have been lady to the Crescent Chancellor before she was twenty!”

  “With a husband twice her age?” The duke, less than ten years his wife’s senior, shook his head. “And anyway, Galing’s besotted with Asper Lindley, now.”

  “Oh is he? With Lindley? I would have thought Asper a bit long in the tooth to attract Galing.”

  “Well, that’s just it.” William leaned back against the armoire, comfortably sure of his facts. “When we were boys, new come to town—thinking ourselves fine young men, of course—Galing took quite a fancy to Asper. But Asper wasn’t having any ‘dry old politician’—his very words, as I recall—he was too busy chasing other men’s wives. Someone had told him they were easy, and he was . . . eager for experience.”

  Unable to nod under Lucinda’s ministering hand, the duchess pressed her lips together in amusement. “And with that shock of gold hair, and that delicate mouth, I’m sure they were only too happy to oblige him. Land!” She laughed aloud. “What a pair you must have made! The scarecrow and the ivory god.”

  In the mirror, she saw her husband blush. Interesting. He’d been awkward on their wedding night, but not entirely ignorant. She’d made a point never to ask him how he’d learned, nor yet with whom. She covered her sigh with a yawn. Asper Lindley! Fancy that. Well, Lindley had her coloring, after all. No wonder William had been so enthusiastic when he met her. “What changed his mind now, I wonder?”

  “His ‘dry old politician’ is not as old as he appeared to us then. And Galing is now the Crescent Chancellor of the Council of Lords. So Asper, having satisfied his taste for pretty girls (while still refusing to wed any, much to his mother’s despair), well, Asper has moved on to men of influence, while he still has power to attract them.”

  It all lined up, even her husband’s slightly sarcastic tone: he wouldn’t understand why a pretty boy would play with him and then move on. William loved deep, and William loved true.

  “You should see the two of them in Council,” he went on. “Sometimes I think the Crescent isn’t paying attention to anything anyone’s saying, he’s so busy staring across the room at Asper Lindley’s golden hair. I doubt he’d have looked twice at our Honora.”

  “Oh, darling. Galing looks twice at everything. I’m sure we could have arranged it.” The languid duchess grew suddenly brisk. “Now, then, let’s get your notes, shall we? If you can convince the Council to lower the tax on barley water, it will be very good for us. Our barley crop has done extremely well this year.”

  • • •

  In the River Street Marketplace, a girl named Micah kept her eyes firmly on her turnip stall. It was a grey and muddy day, “the arse end of winter dragging its dirty tail behind it,” as Uncle Amos liked to say. Winter’s end was mucky and messy enough at home on the farm; in the city it was worse. Not ten times worse—though that was what Aunt Judith always said. As if the multiple of “bad” was always ten! Micah liked people to be more precise. So, with the part of her that was not watching the stall, she calculated how much worse the city was, exactly.

  On the farm, you pretty much knew what you were getting into, or how to avoid it—as long as you wore your clogs in the farmyard. You knew what season to plant things, and when to put the chickens to bed. The way to the pasture didn’t change, and the cows had worn a deep, clear rut over the years between it and the barnyard where they came to be milked.

  The city, though, had streets tumbled about in no particular order. If cows had laid out the streets that wandered and crossed each other, Micah hoped never to meet them. And then there were the buildings, with their different shapes and sizes and ornaments: One was a house where people lived and one was a shop where people sold things and another was a place to get beer and another to get grilled meat, but because the shop had once been a tavern it still had those little windows taverns have, and somehow you were supposed to know what was what by the pictures hanging on boards over the doorway, though why a place with a horseman on the sign sold wine, while a sailing ship sold cloth . . .

  Micah did make a map of the streets in her head. She added new ones to it every time she went anywhere in the city. But she couldn’t do anything about the houses.

  In the city you couldn’t always see the sky, and there were no trees at all. And underfoot lay all kinds of garbage that people tossed, not just dog- or cow-poop, and nobody saved it to put on the fields. Because there weren’t any fields. Just a big open square where Micah and Cousin Reuben came every week to sell what the family grew, alongside lots of other farm folk from miles around, people who lived close enough to the city to make it there and back between sunrise and sunset. Micah’s family was a little farther out, so they brought blankets to sleep in the cart overnight and leave for home the next day.

  Weather-wise, Micah put the city at about four times worse than the country. In terms of the number of people, though, shouting and crowding, it was easily one hundred and ten times worse. So Micah kept her eyes on the stall, where all the bunches of sweet little turnips were arranged in the most beautiful patterns. By her. By Micah. Five on the bottom, then three, then two, then one. Eight rows like that.

  And every time anyone bought some, she had to rearrange the whole thing. It kept her busy.

  • • •

  Kaab had convinced the agent to run her a little up the river in a skiff under the bridges, just to get oriented. Maps were all very well, but they didn’t really show the details of a place: the height of a wall, the width of an alley. As it gave him a chance to show off his city and his knowledge to the exotic foreigner, the agent was happy to do it. A boatman did the rowing, of course, moving them northwest against the slow current.

  Kaab pointed to the river’s west side, on the opposite bank. “What are those funny—those pretty little roofs? With all the little chimneys?”

  “Oh, that?” He looked away. “That’s nothing.”

  “Nothing? But people live there . . . ?”

  “Pay it no mind. It’s called Riverside. A lawless place.”

  “Do you say so?” But Kaab knew all about Riverside. Her friend the sailmaker had many stories of the little island in the middle of the river, old in stone and old in mischief, the haunt of—

  “. . . thieves and pickpockets,” the agent was saying, “fences and forgers, card sharps and keen beggars, and, ah, very bad women.”

  Kaab shook her head sadly. It amused her no end to play the innocent stranger with him. “And swordsmen?” she asked doucely. “Are these famous fighters of yours there, too?”

  “The worst of them are,” he said darkly. “These Riverside swordsmen are desperate men. Some do use their talents to move up to a better life, working as guards or duellists for the nobles. But the worst of them . . . well, they kill each other on the street just to try their blades.”

  “I did not know this city was so perilous.”

  “Oh, only in Riverside, lady,” he hastened to assure her. “Don’t you think of setting foot there! Why, the City Watch doesn’t even go there. But anywhere else, you’re safe as houses.”

  She let the funny phrase pass; his tone and his earnest face made the meaning clear. Like everywhere else she’d ever been, it was a nice city, they said, a good city, run by decent people. You’d only get in trouble if you did something stupid. Or failed to follow the seven hundred and thirty-three unspoken rules of conduct that of course anyone should simply know. Fortunately, Ixkaab Balam was a quick study.

  “But must we all cross this terrible Riverside to g
et to the Middle City on the other bank?” she asked. “The very fine shops are there, no? And then one may climb to the Hill, with its stunning houses of the great nobles of the land.”

  He chuckled. “Never you fear, milady! You need never set foot in Riverside. There is a modern bridge upstream, just past the University, that will take you to the new side of the river, where the shops and the people are very fine, indeed. It is a bridge so wide, mark you, that two carriages may pass each other on it!”

  “Stunning,” Kaab murmured. It seemed to be the right answer to everything.

  She wondered how quickly she could shake this fool and get to Riverside.

  • • •

  “Micah!” Cousin Reuben wanted her. “C’mere, boy!” She had to let him call her boy when they were in the city, because that way people wouldn’t bother her. She even wore boys’ clothes, and had her hair cut short. Aunt Judith had put a big bowl over her head, and cropped around it. Once she got used to the feel of nothing covering her neck, though, Micah liked it; long hair was a big nuisance to take care of, and sometimes tickled you when you didn’t want it to.

  A woman with a basket was buying turnips, and Cousin Reuben was trying to count change. He wasn’t very good at it.

  “It’s clear as the nose on your face!” the woman with the basket was saying. “I give you a quarter-silver for these, and you give me seventeen brass minnows back.”

  “Eighteen,” Micah said.

  Reuben didn’t seem happy. “You don’t even know what she bought!”

  “Yes, I do. A bunch of the little ones. Right there. I’ve got them in order, so I know. It would be seventeen minnows,” she told the woman, “but you took the littlest ones, so we owe you eighteen instead. Did you want bigger? It would be seventeen, then.”

  The woman smiled. “You’re an honest lad. Not like some of them kids. Yes, give me the bigger ones.”

  Carefully, Micah rearranged the stall to get the right bunch and put the wrong ones back. The woman stamped and blew on her fingers. “Hurry up,” said Reuben, but the woman said, “No, take your time, honey. I know you’ll pick a good bunch out for me.”

  “They’re all good,” said Micah, “but these ones cost more.” The woman didn’t say anything else. But Cousin Reuben gave her the right change.

  “Well, she was a prize,” Reuben grumbled. He looked at the sky. “Sun setting in a bit. Get ready for the ‘Oh-no-I-forgot-dinner’ rush.”

  “If we sell everything,” Micah asked, “can we go home tonight?”

  “Naw, sugar. Too dark to see, this time of year. You don’t want old Rhubarb breaking her leg, do you?” He patted the head of the roan plough horse, who doubled as wagon-puller. “That would make you sad.”

  “Yes, it would. I love Rhubarb. The horse, that is, not the plant. I like rhubarb pie, but that’s about it. Sally likes fresh rhubarb dipped in honey, but—”

  “Dear God! Turnips!” A voice like a trumpet sounded in their ears. “You don’t know what this means to me! You saved my job—possibly my life. Yes, my life for sure.” The speaker was a big man with a beard tucked into his belt, who hardly paused for breath. “How much? See, I’m not even bargaining. I’ll take everything you’ve got.”

  Micah looked at her piles. “Six and a half silver and thirty-two brass minnows.”

  “Why don’t we make it a straight six?”

  “Because that’s not what they cost. If we sold every single bunch, we would get six and a half silver and thirty-two brass min—”

  “My boy’s real good at numbers,” Reuben said, ruffling her hair. “It’s all right, master. You can have the lot for six. And then we can go home, eh, Micah?”

  “Not if Rhubarb breaks her leg! We can’t go home in the dark, Reuben, you said—”

  “Now, now, no one’s going home in the dark.”

  The big man looked at all the turnips. “I shall have to make two trips. Unless . . . ?”

  Reuben looked at Micah. Micah nodded.

  “No trouble, mister; my boy will be glad to help you.” He winked at Micah, which meant “be sure to ask for a tip.” And to her he said: “You just help the nice man carry them all home, and I’ll stay right here and take care of Rhubarb, make sure she gets fed and rubbed down, and make us a nice, cosy bed in the cart for the night. And then we’ll head out at first light, and be home by noontide.”

  “Well.” The man drummed his fingers. “That’s very kind of you. Offering help, I mean. It’s not far—just down River Street and into the University.” Reuben started putting their stock in sacks, while the man explained, “I’m Harcourt Onophrion, cook to the Horn Chair of History. A great man, Doctor Fleming, and he’s throwing a little feast for some other University masters tonight. Something about some dead poet, and they all get drunk and sing and recite. I had a splendid meal all planned for them—not that they notice what they’re eating once the Ruthven red starts flowing—but a very good meal. I was just going over the menu with Doctor Fleming—and he nearly burst a blood vessel when he saw I didn’t have mashed turnips on it. Who knew? Turns out you can’t properly celebrate Dead Poet without Mashed Turnips. Won’t be made a fool of in front of his colleagues. Swears he explained all this to me, but I am here to tell you, he may remember ancient history, but he’s clueless about two days ago. Thank you . . . Yes, yes, that’s very good. I’ll use some greens for salad tomorrow, and pickle the rest of them.”

  Reuben filled one sack and started on another. “I had to come myself,” Master Onophrion explained. “My boy is down with the quinsy, and I wouldn’t trust Fleming’s manservant to find a black cat in a snowstorm, much less the right kind of turnip. I really am very grateful.”

  “That’s all right. Micah, you take these—not too heavy for you, are they?—and just follow the gentleman. You’ll find your way back, right?”

  “Right,” said Micah. “I’ve been to university. Last time was fifty-nine days ago, when we made that carrot and potato delivery to Nan’s Cookshop. I remember that way. And if this one is different, I’ll put it on my map.”

  “Good boy.”

  “Come, then,” said the cook, “Dead Poet won’t wait forever!”

  • • •

  Back on the dock, Ixkaab thanked the agent profusely, pleased that she would never see him again.

  Oh, don’t thank me, always happy to help such a distinguished visitor, so pleased the first ship is in after a hard winter, please give your uncle my best regards and tell him it’s a privilege to serve the Kin-Winny trading fleet . . .

  His words ran together in his enthusiasm, but she got the gist of it. Xamanek’s light, was he never going to finish? He was like one of the beggars lining the flower-strewn road to Ixchel’s temple . . . Kaab smiled to herself as she figured it out. Of course he was.

  “I will certainly tell my uncle when I see him.” (And not my aunt? She’d heard these people undervalued women. Well, so much the better for her.) “But, sir, please allow the immediate expression of my gratitude for your kindness.”

  Kaab and the agent did the dance of protesting, insisting, protesting, insisting—she made note that, as with the Bakhim, it was the usual three times before he conceded. Kaab dug in her sash for her pouch of cacao, and pressed a reasonable-sized chunk on him.

  He acted as if it were Nopalco gold, and not just a common-variety bean, barely worth a hot bath back home. So she’d given him too much. But what of it? She raised her chin. The Wasp was full of cacao; and she was a first daughter of the House of Balam.

  She let him bow to her one more time, waited until the agent’s attention was once again turned to the unloading of cargo (as it should have been all along), and went to where her personal luggage sat awaiting transport.

  Ixkaab was still wearing her shipboard travel dress: loose trousers and blouse under feathered vest under quilted jacket. Her thick, dark hair was decently wrapped atop her head, and she was grateful for the scarf that covered it all. Ever piece of cloth kept you warmer
here.

  Traders, of course, were supposed to adopt the Local garb, to blend in. There would be plenty of time for that when she had presented herself at her family’s compound. For now, let the Locals think of her what they would! She was not planning to go amongst decent people anyway. Before she settled into being the dutiful daughter of a house of prosperous foreign merchants here, convincing all her kinsfolk that she would never get into trouble again, she needed to test out her newest skill, acquired on the ship from the old crippled sailmaker who had once been a swordsman.

  • • •

  “There!”

  The Duchess Tremontaine finished tearing the long, fine seam of her pale green silk skirt. Her maid was working on the other seam, but the duchess was not above putting her hand to fabric, if it would get the job done faster. And besides, the action of pulling the material apart, the sound of the careful stitches snapping under her hands, gave her satisfaction.

  “Yes, good,” she said. “All that green was getting vulgar. I’m going to wear dove colors this spring. They will look dreadful on poor Sarah Perry, but she won’t dare try not to follow, not if Lady Davenant takes it up, and you know she will. Lady Sarah is about to marry her homely daughter to Rupert Vernay, who stands to inherit Lord Filis and’s not inconsiderable estates someday. What a pity she’ll have the choice of looking either stylish or corpsy at their wedding this spring. Now fetch me the grey satin underskirt.”

  “I fear I have not yet gotten the chocolate stains out of it, madam.”

  “Have you not?” The duchess rested her hands for a moment. But her tone was contemplative, not angry. “Have you not, indeed? Lucinda,” she said with sudden briskness, “you will have to finish the task yourself. Run the seams up the green, so . . .” She bunched the fabric in her hands. “Yes, so it ruches naturally. You need not be precise. Just make sure it falls so that no one can see the chocolate stain on the grey.” Her maid nodded, taking the green silk from her. “I will be writing letters in my closet. I am not to be disturbed.”