Fray

by Rowenna Miller

  “We grow the best pears in Galitha,” Pauline confirmed. “And make the best pear cider,” she added.

  “I’ve need of another case for my cellar,” the woman I didn’t know replied. She was older than us, with faint lines of gray in her brown hair that, rather than detracting from her appearance, touched her hair like sunbeams.

  “Of course,” Pauline said. “Oh! I imagine you don’t know Lady Sommerset.”

  “No, I haven’t had the pleasure,” I replied demurely.

  Lady Sommerset held me in her level, precise gray eyes. Pauline continued the introduction. “Lady Dorsette Sommerset, this is Sophie Balstrade. Sophie, Lady Sommerset is the wife of Lord Sommerset of the Council of Nobles and the daughter of Lord Oakes. Lady Sommerset, Miss Balstrade is—”

  “I know quite well,” Lady Sommerset replied with a cool smile. “Her affiliations are certainly no secret in this company.”

  I swallowed a sharp retort and instead let my hand wander to the betrothal binding on my wrist. My meaning was clear—I was not going anywhere. “It’s an honor to make your acquaintance, my lady,” I murmured, keeping my gaze on her delicate pink silk slippers lest I allow the ice I had successfully kept out of my voice to show in my eyes.

  “Indeed,” she replied simply.

  Viola brushed my arm. “I’m completely parched,” she said. “Care for a sip of something?”

  I agreed readily and let her pull me toward a vine-woven loggia spread with tables of petite cakes and grand displays of fruit. A large crystal punch bowl hid among a voluminous display of roses. “It’s not just you,” she said, dipping us each a cup of punch. “It’s that Sommerset woman. Her husband is barely an anybody and he’s a horrid estate manager. She thinks she can hang on by lording her old name over everyone.”

  “It is me, Viola,” I said, keeping my voice low. “I’m sure she’s no pearl, but I—I know that these occasions are not going to be like the salon.”

  “Well.” She shook her head and sipped her punch with near-violent indifference, sending a tiny sliver of orange careening toward the rim. “It shouldn’t matter what her political persuasions are; one is polite regardless.”

  “Politics,” I muttered. “Everything comes back to politics.”

  Viola poked her orange slice back into her glass. “And you—with that little wrist flick, showing off your gold. Quite the subtle gibe.”

  “You know better than I do—how many people here actively hate me?”

  Viola waved the question away like a fly. “I won’t pretend to know how everyone’s politics shake out. Anyone in support of reform sees your impending marriage as a beautiful symbol, and anyone opposing reform sees that marriage as political machination at best and dereliction of duty by Theodor at worst. If you wanted to know how the vote on the Reform Bill will swing, send out wedding invitations and see who replies with their acceptances and regrets.” She laughed, but I knew that she was only half joking.

  I glanced back at Lady Sommerset, curiosity overcoming my better instincts. She had returned to her gaggle of friends. None of them wore the white chemise gowns, and I noticed that three of them had gold and brilliant blue ribbons fashioned into complicated bows pinned to their gowns. Another had decorated her white silk-covered hat in blue and gold rosettes. She slipped a small book from her pocket, disentangling it from the fine cotton of her skirts with a harried flick of her hand. I squinted, but I couldn’t see the title. The smirks on their faces, however, hinted at the content—a libertine piece, a saucy dialogue, or maybe a satirical work raking some current target over coals built of metaphor.

  Theodor joined us, looking faintly drained. “I thought we were supposed to be playing croquet,” he joked, “but I feel rather more like the ball, and the Reform Bill, the wickets.”

  “We ought to start a game,” Viola said. “Just the thing to keep everyone behaving civilly toward one another—let them whack at something with sticks.”

  She sauntered toward the croquet pitch, already set up in a level promenade in the far end of the garden, motioning toward several ladies to join her. My only experience with the game was attempting to fight the ball over the divots of my first employer’s tiny garden at a Midsummer party, but I was pleased to discover quickly the equality in our match—none of us was particularly good. I found myself actually laughing and joking with the ladies and gentlemen playing alongside me and—remarkably—they with me.

  “Tell me,” said one plump lady with azure-blue eyes and a silk hat to match, “is it true that the common folk actually want to elect representatives?”

  I arrested the incredulous reply that came to mind first, and instead demurred, “Of course it’s true. Why wouldn’t it be?”

  “I’ve heard so many people say that they don’t think the common people are capable of the responsibility,” she replied, lifting her croquet mallet and flicking a bit of clover from it. “I daresay it will be a new experience for them, if the bill passes.”

  I swallowed. This was why I was here, I reminded myself. “They are very used to responsibility,” I said evenly. “The responsibility of feeding their families and heating their houses and caring for their children and their aged parents. They are well suited for the responsibility of maintaining their country’s good health, as well.”

  She paused, taken aback by the seriousness of my reply. “I see,” she said slowly. “Ah, dear, it’s my turn. Quite the game, isn’t it?”

  I was flushed pink by the time the croquet games ended, having finished solidly in the middle of each match but feeling as though I had won something more. Several ladies and one lord had openly inquired or left an open avenue for my opinion on the reforms, and I had imparted, as confidently as I could, the pressing need and hopeful dedication of the common people. The common people, I didn’t need to state in so many words, like me.

  “You seem happier than after that stuffy dinner,” Theodor commented as we drove away. “I didn’t know you played croquet.”

  “Clearly, I don’t.” I laughed. “I didn’t realize most nobles were so poorly practiced.”

  “It may have been the honey mead punch,” Theodor confessed, “that led to quite a few missed wickets. At any rate, by the end of the match, you seemed rather at the center of things.”

  “I really don’t enjoy being at the center of anything,” I confided.

  “I know. And there is something more I wanted to ask you to do, but I fear it’s too much.”

  “Too much?” Irritation prickled in my voice. “You could let me decide about that.”

  Theodor resisted, then laughed, seeing that I was determined. “Every five years, the leaders of Galitha, Kvyset, East and West Serafe, and the Allied Equatorial States gather for a summit. We meet this year, at Midsummer, in West Serafe.”

  “West Serafe in midsummer. That sounds miserable,” I replied amenably, anticipating a request for summer-weight clothes for the queen or some other dignitary and mentally adjusting our already-tight schedule.

  “I didn’t pick it.” Theodor sighed. “Clearly, this year poses some difficulties. The king does not want to leave Galitha so soon after the insurrection. The involvement of Kvys mercenaries—which the Kvys officials continue to claim they have no knowledge of, for what it’s worth—is making that particular tension worse. And the only acceptable dignitary to send in place of the king is completely untrained and doesn’t know his head from his ass.”

  “And who is that?”

  “Me.” Theodor’s mouth twitched into a wry smile. “It’s me, Sophie. I’m supposed to lead a diplomatic envoy to West Serafe in—what? A month?—and I have no idea what I’m doing.”

  “Oh,” I said. My most pressing concern—how much I would miss him—surprised me with its strength, but I pushed it aside. “You have some experience, with international delegates coming here to Galitha. And you’ve traveled.”

  “Well, yes,” he admitted. “I’ve sat in on dozens of meetings with the East and West Serafans, so
me with the Allied States, and a very cold late-autumn meeting in Kvyset. I suppose I did assist with hosting the delegation that came for Annette’s marriage contract, too.” He sighed. “It doesn’t seem like enough preparation for actually representing the entire country.”

  “There probably isn’t enough training in the world for that. But you’d best get used to it, Crown Prince.” My laugh felt dry as sawdust—if he had to get used to representing an entire country’s interests, I wasn’t many steps behind him.

  “I had hoped to convince you to accompany me.” Anticipating my doubts, he rushed to add, “It’s only a fortnight. Maybe a few days more if travel doesn’t favor us. In almost any other circumstance, it would be customary for a spouse or fiancée to accompany a delegate. I recognize that this is not entirely typical, but I feel it sends a very important message for you to attend. To the common people of Galitha, to the nobility, to our allies.”

  I had not expected this. “I—I’m afraid I won’t have the slightest idea of what to do.”

  “That will make two of us.” He grinned. I rolled my eyes at his exaggeration. “I figured I’d alleviate our suffering a bit and invite Annette to accompany us. She’s as savvy about foreign affairs as most of the council, but what’s more, she understands the social nuances of all the dinners and receptions and whatnot.” He traced his gold bracelet. “And then when we get back, we can get to planning a wedding in earnest.”

  My eyes widened, but I nodded. “All right. But if I’m being honest? I’m terrified.”

  “I know,” he said. “I am, too.”

  9

  EMMI AND I LEFT EARLY ONE MUGGY AFTERNOON TO JOIN OUR Pellian charm-casting friends at our favorite coffeehouse. The months after the Midwinter Revolt had been difficult for some of the casters; Venia’s brothers had been involved and their livid father had thrown them out of the house, and Lieta had lost a son in the fighting. We didn’t meet for months, with the city under a cold veil of mourning and its various factions—workers, merchants, nobles, Galatines, Pellians—uncertain in trusting one another. As spring thawed the city and the snow and ice released their hold on the streets, the meltwater began to flow, and we resumed our visits.

  Lieta waited on the steps of the shop, facing the sun with her eyes closed in her weathered face. Emmi tapped her arm. “Ah!” she said with a grin. “The sun feels so wonderful, doesn’t it?” I was surprised to see a red-and-gray cockade pinning closed her traditionally Pellian, busily printed cotton neckerchief. Viola’s statement had caught on among her salon and spread through the class strata of Galitha City quickly enough, but I hadn’t realized it had penetrated so deeply into the Pellian quarter that octogenarian Lieta would wear one.

  Emmi and I had to laugh—the hot sun felt like choking oppression to both of us. “It’s just your dusty old bones that want to drink up the heat,” Emmi joked.

  “You two never knew Pellia. This—this is a fine summer’s day in Pellia.”

  I shook my head. “Right now I think I’m grateful I’ve never known what a scorcher in Pellia feels like.”

  Lieta laughed. “Yes, the sun stretches—that’s what we called the long midsummer dry spells—are a bit strong. Venia and Parit are inside.”

  Parit was Venia’s cousin, a new member of our regular charm-casting group with a quick wit and a dry sense of humor. Like Venia, she had come from Pellia as a child, but like Emmi, she was more acclimated to Galatine culture than her cousin.

  The women exchanged pleasantries, Emmi chattering happily about the new gown she was draping and Venia sharing a new recipe for saffron rice she had perfected.

  “Sophie, are you going to teach Emmi how to cast with needle and thread?” Venia passed me a cup of strong cold-brewed coffee.

  Emmi flushed. “I’m not that good at sewing yet,” she said, protectiveness raising her voice a bit. We hadn’t discussed charm casting in stitches becoming a more regular part of her training yet after Emmi’s initial attempts hadn’t worked. Given my difficulties in casting, I had been putting it off.

  “Emmi’s progressing wonderfully. I do think we’ll work a bit more on the finer stitches and draping—I think it’s easier to incorporate the casting into something you’re confident with,” I said. I hesitated. These were the only people I knew who might have some insight into my problem, but I feared that admitting my difficulties could open the door to other admissions—curse casting.

  “I need to work on my prick stitching,” Emmi confided to Venia.

  Parit giggled. “That sounds rude. And painful.”

  “Top stitching. Tiny stitches,” Emmi amended, blushing.

  I decided I had to ask. “I wonder—has anyone ever struggled to cast a charm?”

  “Oh, lots of times,” Venia said. “When I was first learning, I had trouble concentrating, trouble making the clay tablets themselves, trouble keeping the charm going…” She ticked off reasons on her fingers. “I wasn’t good at it for a long time.”

  “I don’t think anyone is,” Lieta said gently.

  “I meant more… recently,” I said. “I mean, after you’ve learned. Does anyone backslide? I’ve never taught anyone before,” I added hastily, covering my reason for asking.

  Parit scrunched up her mouth. She used a deep carmine on her lips, accentuating the faces she made as she talked. “Not that I know of. At least, it’s never happened to me.”

  “Me either,” Emmi said. “But I’ve never really learned anything new beyond basic casting.”

  “I stopped casting for a while,” Lieta said. I sat up straighter. “After my husband died. It was as though… as though I didn’t have the energy,” she explained.

  I sank back, slightly disappointed. She didn’t describe the dark magic infiltrating her work as she continued, “I tried several times, but it was as though I couldn’t focus enough. The light kept slipping away. It only lasted a few months. I probably shouldn’t have tried to work while I was still in mourning,” she added.

  “There’s a reason we have the quiet fortnight,” Venia replied, referring to the Pellian custom of families retreating after the burial of a loved one, usually for two weeks but sometimes more. Others in the community brought them food, ran their errands, and did whatever work was necessary for them.

  “Galatines don’t,” Emmi said.

  “Galatines don’t know a good thing if it doesn’t come from Galitha,” Parit said. “But how are you supposed to manage a quiet fortnight if you need to make your day wages?”

  Lieta nodded in agreement. “I tried to work too soon. It was Galatine thinking, not Pellian,” she said. I bit my lip; this wasn’t pertinent to my problem at all.

  “At any rate,” Parit said, “I had a question for you, Emmi—you said your mother used different tools for her tablets?”

  I let the conversation flow away without me, its current dipping into clay types and the wording of inscriptions that had been passed down from mothers to daughters to granddaughters.

  “Is something troubling you?” Lieta said quietly, laying her hand on my arm, the motion familiar and maternal, though we were not related.

  I shook my head as Parit related a story about the Pellian quarter’s market day. The others laughed as she mimicked a Pellian market woman shooing rambunctious children from her stall. “Everyone has moved on,” I said, almost without meaning to.

  “From this winter?” Lieta pursed her lips. “Not quite, I do not think.”

  Her son. “I’m sorry, I wasn’t thinking.”

  “No, you’re not mistaken. It is like any other Galatine summer in so many ways.” She sighed. “My miri’ta—she is struggling. It pains me.” She used the Pellian term for a daughter-in-law. There was no good Galatine translation for what I knew meant something closer to “given daughter” or “gift daughter” than the Galatine phrase, which sounded more like a legal relationship than a familial one.

  I nodded, thinking quickly. “She is taking in work?”

  “She sews, actual
ly. She’s quick with mending. She tried to pick up work at the laundry, but the forewoman didn’t like her.” I wondered why—was it because she was too close to the Red Caps, or that she was Pellian, or something altogether unrelated?

  I hesitated—Alice had already placed the advertisement, and already had inquiries. I didn’t want to imply that I didn’t trust Alice to find a new hire, but I wanted to help this woman. “Tell her to inquire with my assistant,” I said.

  Lieta looked surprised. “But she—she is no couture seamstress!”

  I glanced at Emmi with a smile. “If she can learn, she can become one. And if she can’t”—I shrugged—“I am like any other business owner. I will give her severance and she’ll be no worse off. What is her name?”

  “Heda,” Lieta replied. “She’s a good worker.” She paused before adding, “And soon you will be someone’s miri’ta, as well. It is a blessing, to be given another family.” She didn’t need to add that I had no family of my own left, and in the Pellian traditions, this made me worse than a pauper.

  “Yes,” I said, “though I am not sure they will welcome me as kindly as you’ve welcomed your miri’ta.”

  Lieta smiled sadly. “Yes, it is a different world that you move into. Are they kind to you?”

  The question took me entirely off guard. I hadn’t stopped to consider whether I had received or even expected kindness from some of the most powerful people in the country—and my future family. “Some of them,” I said. “Theodor’s parents… there is some distance there. But his brothers here in the city are kind enough. Ambrose is a student of law at the university, and Ballantine is in the Royal Navy—on occasion he’s here. They are both welcoming, but of course they’re also very close to Theodor.

  “Gregory and Jeremy—the twins—are both at the military school in Rock’s Ford. They’ll be sixteen in a year and will both commission in the army, so I doubt I’ll see much of them in any case. Jonamere is too little to know any better, but I made him a stuffed lion and so he likes me well enough. Polly—Lady Apollonia—isn’t quite sure what to think of me, I believe.” I knew enough of Theodor’s golden-haired, whip-tongued sister to know that she loved her brother fiercely and, given who I was, reserved her trust when it came to me.