by CJ Brightley
Yaika bit her knuckle and nodded.
As Father led her away, Jontan bowed and withdrew. As soon as they were gone, Hurik started snickering.
“What? What’s so funny?” I demanded.
“Somebody else is in trouble for once,” he said with a huge grin. “And it’s oh-so-perfect Yaika.”
“It wasn’t funny,” I protested. “It was —”
“And so much for her grand plans!” Hurik chortled. “How old do you think that heir was, anyway? Five-tens-and-seven?”
“I’m sure he wasn’t that old,” I said, not wanting to dignify him by asking what that meant. “Probably just sixty.”
Hurik doubled over and howled.
6
Yaika, perfect Yaika, was not used to being in disgrace. She wasn’t handling it well.
“But I have to go to the art exhibition!” Yaika wailed, clutching an armload of freshly dyed and painted swatches. “You said I could go!”
“That was before you behaved disgracefully,” Mother announced, tightening a sash around the ties of her outer skirt. “Now you’ve lost all privileges until your birthday.”
A big, fat tear welled out of Yaika’s eye and rolled down her cheek.
I bit my lower lip. “Mother . . .”
“No!” she snapped, spinning on me. Her hair, only partly pinned beneath her gardening hat, whirled behind her in a black wave. “Don’t you start, Raneh!”
“But . . .”
“But nothing,” Mother said firmly. “We’re all going. Hurik is going. Your grandfather is going. But Yaika is not. She’s staying right here with Lala and helping her boil the next batch of stinksap.”
Yaika burst into tears.
“Can I stay home, too?” Hurik demanded, poking his head in the door of Mother’s dressing room. His slicked-back hair and stiff waist-sash looked ridiculous next to Mother’s elegant decor. “It sounds like a waste of time.”
“You can help Lala and Yaika stir the stinksap,” Mother offered, pushing a pink adly into the back of her hair. She braided two small pieces from the edges to tie the flower in place.
“Is that my only option?” Hurik whined.
“You could help the vassals with the weeding,” Grandmother said, passing by the open doorway.
“Or you could shovel dirt over the old latrine,” Grandfather grunted, following after her.
Hurik’s nose scrunched up. “I think I’ll go.”
Yaika burst into tears. “It’s not fa-a-a-air!” she sobbed.
“Why do I feel like I’m being punished, instead of her?” Hurik muttered in an undertone to me as he ducked out of the room.
The Weedless family lived within walking distance, but none of us wanted to spend more time than necessary in the blazing afternoon heat. So we all piled into the carriage, which was an uncomfortably tight fit.
“Ouch!” Hurik complained as Grandmother stepped on his foot getting in.
“Sorry,” she grunted, nearly squashing his arm.
I climbed up and squeezed in between Father and Grandfather. Mother got in last, her layers of skirts filling the rest of the carriage. Most wound up on Hurik’s lap.
“It’s hooooooot!” Hurik complained.
“You think so?” Mother asked unsympathetically. “Try wearing them.”
“I am,” Hurik muttered, shoving folds of softset off his lap.
Grandmother glanced down at her own thin shift and smiled at Grandfather. He grinned back at her, nodding.
So smug that they’re not landowners, I thought grumpily, pushing my thick skirts above my knees.
As we trundled down the packed dirt road, a slight breeze drifted in the window. I breathed it in, grateful that we were at least in the shade, not outside walking.
Grandfather commented, “We’ve got to get those window-covers fixed before cold season, you know.”
“It’s not a priority now,” Father said, looking out the window. “We still have several vassals’ roofs to fix before then.”
“Not to mention the entire south root cellar,” Grandmother hinted.
“Right,” Father groaned. “I forgot all about that.”
Hurik shoved Mother’s skirts off his lap, with an ugly look on his face. Disobediently, they flopped back into place.
“Here it is,” Mother said, pointing out the window. “That’s the Weedless house. I believe the road for their land is right after this.”
Father reached behind him and switched off the engine. Hurik scrambled over Mother’s skirts and out of the carriage first.
“Rude boy!” Grandmother scolded loudly, hopping out after him. He was already running down the road, presumably to get into shade as fast as possible. “Honestly!”
Father helped Mother gather up her skirts so she could get down, and Grandfather helped me with mine. I squinted as we jumped down into the bright sunlight. Already, sweat was gathering on the back of my neck. I hoped the Weedless road wasn’t a long walk.
“Help me with this,” Father grunted, tugging at the lever under the engine. “I think it’s stuck.”
Grandfather yanked it along with him, and the lever finally came loose. The whole carriage collapsed into a flat slab on wheels. Father wiped his forehead, which was covered in beads of sweat, and then pushed it ahead of him as we walked down the road into the Weedless property.
“I’ve heard there are new carriages that can turn corners,” Grandmother said, pulling on the front to help steer it off the main road. “Maybe we should get one of those.”
Father shook his head. “Too expensive to be worth the status.”
“But it might be an investment,” she said. “If people notice that you have a fancy model —”
“Nobody notices carriages,” Father snorted. “They’re all the same. The only way they affect status is if you don’t have one, or it looks shabby.”
“Pity,” Grandmother sighed.
The Weedless house came into view. It looked much prettier than the last time we’d come here, all covered in white, poofy ellas flowers instead of dingy grey snow. We didn’t grow ellas flowers ourselves because they spread to cover everything, and were hard to keep contained, but you couldn’t deny their beauty.
Everything seemed bright and festive, which was definitely an improvement from the widow’s somber funeral during cold season. It hadn’t been too sad, because she was after all eighty-two, which I was pretty sure was very old age. But the house had looked kind of neglected when we’d paid our respects to her married children and adopted heir, a boy my age who she’d picked from one of the vassal families.
“I wonder if the heir’s engaged yet,” Mother said speculatively, as we passed a garden fence covered in tangly nectarvine. “If not, he might be a good match for you, Raneh.”
I felt my face go hot. “Mother!” I cried.
“I wouldn’t mind that, either,” Grandmother cackled. “I’m sure Leola chose a nice person to gain her status.”
“Can we talk about something else, please?” I mumbled, waving a hand in front of me as if trying to brush wispyflies away.
“Well, I, for one, am looking forward to the dance room,” Grandfather announced, offering Grandmother his arm as we reached the doorstep. “Would you do the honor of joining me?”
“Why, of course, gorgeous man,” she giggled, taking his hand and following him through the doorway.
I squinted in the dim indoor light as I followed the rest of the family into the house. In the front entryway, artists were setting up their work for admiring. One huge sheet of cloth, painted from top to bottom, caught my attention. I broke off from Mother and Father to go look at it.
“What are those?” I asked, pointing to a pair of strange-looking things near the bottom. Both looked like rocks, only covered with hair, and with sticks coming out of the front. They also had what looked like . . . eyes? Well, probably just my imagination there.
“Hmm?” the artist asked, turning around and looking down from a tall ladder. She was
a short-haired, shabby-clothed woman who was clipping another long painting to hang near the ceiling. “Oh. Those are animals.”
“Animals?” I repeated. “What are animals?”
“Like giant insects,” she said. “They move, like people. Most are extinct.”
“They move?” I asked, gaping at the painting in front of me. “Those rock things?”
She chuckled. “They only look like rocks in that position. Here. Look at this.” She slid down from the ladder and rooted through a pile of fabric rolls, pulling out a small one. She shook it carelessly, and it flapped open in front of me.
I squinted at it, my eyes still not quite used to the dim light. At first, I thought maybe my eyes were playing tricks on me. “They look kind of more like tables now. With table legs, and everything.”
“Like I said. They move, like people.”
I stared at the bizarre things. Surely it was just an artistic interpretation. “Those aren’t really real,” I hedged.
“As real as you or me,” the artist said cheerfully. “They’re rare, but they still exist out in the rimlands. I’ve been there. I’ve seen ’em personally.”
Whoa. “You’ve been out to the rimlands?” I squeaked. “That’s really far away!”
“Yep. Edge of the Rulership,” the artist nodded casually. “No people past the mountains. Geo didn’t do a good job with the land right by the ocean, so most agri crops won’t grow there, and it’s not hospitable to humans. Good to visit if you bring enough food for the journey there and back, though. Wild. Pristine. Not many places like that anymore.”
I didn’t understand most of what she was saying, so I just nodded.
“Have you ever seen a map of the whole Rulership?” the artist asked, her face lighting up. “You’ve got to see it. Just wait!”
She swished the small roll back together and went rooting through the stack. At last, she found another that was slightly larger.
“Here,” she whispered, holding the roll of fabric reverently, “is one of the rarest sights in the Rulership: a map.”
She whooshed it open dramatically. I stared at what looked like a carriage wheel, with a bunch of little squiggles between the spokes at regular intervals.
“Um,” I said. “It’s . . . nice?”
“This is what the Rulership really likes like,” the artist whispered, her eyes bright and eager. “Almost no one remembers it. But the traveling artists know. This is the Ruler’s Road.” She pointed to the spokes. “These are the rivers.” She pointed to the squiggles. “And this is the rim of the Rulership.” She spun her finger around the perfect circle. “Do you see how odd it all is?”
Um, I thought. I still didn’t see what she was talking about. This carriage wheel was the Rulership? “It looks pretty even to me,” I hedged.
“Precisely!” the artist cried. “Because geo did exist! Some might doubt it, but it did!”
“Um . . . what’s a map?” I asked hopefully.
“They think I’m crazy for believing it existed,” the artist hissed, leaning forward, “but there’s no doubt about agri, and the signs are all there that it’s going to happen again.”
Okaaaay . . . maybe it’s time to start backing away now. She’s sounding kind of crazy.
“I, uh . . . I think you’re right. I’m going to go look at that now,” I said hastily, pointing randomly further into the room, and made my escape.
The thing I had pointed at turned out to be a display of embroidered bodices, so I felt obliged to look them over, despite the fact that most of them were pale lavender or light green, and therefore dull. I picked one up, a rather pretty purple-and-blue piece that I knew Yaika would like. “How much status would this take?” I asked the artist.
He looked me over. “All of it.”
I blanched and dropped the bodice immediately.
As I ducked into the taste room, I found Hurik gorging himself from an almost-empty table.
“Hurik!” I cried, grabbing his plate as he got up to load it again. “These are supposed to be a courtesy for the guests!”
“I’m a guest.”
“All of the guests!”
“Too bad,” he said, ducking under my arm to load up on sticky cakes and fluffy meltsweets.
I growled and spun out of the room to go look for Grandmother.
Upstairs, I found the dance room, which was probably a master bedroom under normal circumstances. All the furniture must have been dragged into another room, because the only places to sit were a few chairs in the corner for musicians. There was a group of them there now, improvising a wild melody. Grandmother was giggling like she was Mother’s age.
Maybe I’ll look for Father instead, I thought, ducking out of the room.
I checked the door to the right of the dance room, but it turned out to be the smell room, and my parents weren’t there. So I checked the left side, which turned out to be the music room. My parents were listening to a memorized composition that a solo musician was playing.
I snuck in carefully; making noise in the music room during a performance was very bad manners. I sat behind my parents, fidgeting as the large soloist man played a long, low, interminable dirge. Hurik’s going to eat everything at this rate!
At last . . . at very long last . . . the solwind blower finished and bowed proudly. The audience stamped their feet in appreciation. “Hey, Mother,” I hissed, tapping her on the shoulder. “Hurik’s in the taste room. He’s —”
“Oh, no,” she groaned. “Say no more.”
She gave Father a quick kiss and ran out the door and down the stairs. I thought I heard a distant wail from Hurik.
A thin, reedy-looking boy got on the stand, looking nervous. He opened his mouth to sing, and a squeak came out. His eyes went wider, and he trembled like a brown leaf during harvest season.
“Hey, you!” someone called from the front. “Bet you don’t know the first thing about singing! What’re you doing up on the stage?”
The boy looked angry. He took a huge breath, then started belting out the words to a common folk song, badly.
Was that Derrim? I thought, leaning forward to look. I think that was Derrim. Who else would be so rude?
Mother appeared in the doorway as the boy singer finished, squeaking the last notes out of tune. I got up as a few people stomped their feet politely.
“What’s up?” I whispered.
“Hurik and I will be going back home,” Mother whispered back. “I’ll be back with the carriage soon. Tell your father.”
I nodded and went back to my seat. He glanced up at me quizzically, and I opened my mouth to explain, but then the next musician started. I closed my mouth and shrugged helplessly. Father nodded and smiled wryly.
When the woman finished singing — thankfully, it didn’t take long — I explained the situation to Father in an undertone. He sighed and clutched his forehead.
“Why do we even bother trying to culture the boy?” he muttered under his breath.
Honestly? You should probably stop trying.
“I’ll go downstairs to wait for your mother,” Father whispered to me. “You can stay here if you want.”
I nodded as he got up. By this point, the next musician was fumbling with a large, multi-stringed instrument, and started tuning it. Since it was okay to talk during a tuning, I took snuck up to the front to see if Derrim was there.
Sure enough.
“That,” I hissed, sliding into the seat next to him, “was rude.”
“That,” he whispered back, “was my little brother. I know how to handle the kid.”
“By mocking him in front of everyone?”
“He needs to learn to how to handle embarrassment before he gains status,” Derrim said coolly.
I folded my arms. “I’m still mad at you, you know,” I informed him.
Derrim looked perplexed. “What for?”
“What for?” I asked in a strangled voice. “What do you think?”
“Aww, how sweet,” h
e said with a huge grin. “You’re jealous of Gendri.”
I ground my teeth. “No, Derrim. I am not jealous of Gendri. I am mad at the way you treated her.”
“Oh, please,” Derrim said, rolling his eyes. “Like you’re one to talk.”
“Have you at least apologized?” I demanded.
“Ehh.” Derrim shrugged. “I never apologize. I’m never sorry.”
I got up, in disgust.
“Hey,” he said, catching my arm. “You been to the perfume room yet? There’s one I put there.”
“I dread to think.”
He snickered. “No, seriously, it’s a nice one. Come on. I’ll take you.”
The musician on the stand was glaring down at us, plainly ready to start his piece. “All right.”
We headed out the door, and the sound of indignantly plucked strings echoed after us as we headed down the hallway. I glanced into the dance room, where Grandfather and Grandmother were trying to learn a new step, and then followed Derrim to the smell room. There was only one other person in there browsing.
“Smell this,” he said, picking up one of the vials. It had his family’s signature of yellow laceleafs painted on it. “I made it.”
I took a cautious sniff. Then my eyes widened. Oh, wow.
“Linnis berries?” I said hesitantly. “Are those linnis berries?”
“And slipgrass and tonna husks,” he said proudly. “But slipgrass is the hardest part. You can only use the roots, and they have to be dried just right, or the scent goes funny.”
I sniffed the vial again. “That’s amazing. Is this why you’re always experimenting with those crazy perfumes?”
“You can’t get good at something unless you experiment,” Derrim shrugged. “You can’t know whether it was a success or failure until you see how others react to it.”
I nodded slowly. That made a surprising amount of sense.
“Okay!” Derrim said, rubbing his hands. “So, I’m thinking something like this for your next bouquet. Bright red lennies and yellow laceleafs, interspersed with — wait for it — orange ellases! What do you think?”
Orange ellases?! Whoa. Where did he get those? I’ve never seen —
Wait. Wait, wait, wait.