Dragonskin Slippers

by Jessica Day George

  Neither of us speaking, I followed Marta into a cobbler’s small shop. The walls were lined with shelves bearing shoes, and that reminded me with sudden poignancy of Theoradus’s hoard. None of these were as grand as the flowered, feathered, bejewelled and embroidered creations that were his favourites, of course. They were mostly serviceable brown or black leather, the men’s boots grouped on one side of the shop, and the women’s slippers on the other.

  In a hushed voice, as though I were ill or someone had just died, Marta told the cobbler that I needed new shoes, ready-made. He nodded his grizzled head, also speaking in a whisper. I realised that there must be something alarming about my appearance to make them act this way.

  I stood in the middle of the shop, thinking of Theoradus’s cavern full of shoes. Then that made me think of Shardas’s beautiful caves, with their exquisite windows glowing in a double dozen colours, like all the jewels in the world put on display.

  “I’m going to the ball,” I announced abruptly.

  The cobbler, who was just coming to offer me a pair of brown calfskin slippers, gave me a wide smile. “Of course you are, maidy,” he said. His voice was slow, as though he thought I were simple.

  Without looking at him, I raised my skirts above my ankles so that he could try the fit of the slippers. I looked at Marta instead. I could see that she knew what I meant.

  “I’m going to take that cursed ugly gown and rework it, and I’m going to the Merchants’ Ball,” I said.

  “I’ll help you,” Marta said. “On one condition.”

  “Which is?”

  “When you get your shop, I want to work for you.”

  “Done.” I looked down at the slippers I was now wearing. They were light brown, almost golden, with a slightly pointed toe and a low heel. They would match the golden gown well enough. I nodded at the shoemaker.

  “Done,” I repeated.

  Wanting a Dragon, Getting a Prince

  Derda made it clear that if I wanted to get that horrid gown reworked for the Merchants’ Ball, I would have to do it in my own time. At first I was confused: she had seemed supportive of the ball before. But then I realised that she had hoped to get several years’ worth of work out of me before I had enough saved to try for the ball. Also, I already had one prestigious client in the Duchess of Mordrel.

  So, after sewing morning and evening, marking embroidery patterns on fabric and displaying them to the customers all day, I had to sit and sew some more. Derda didn’t want me wasting her good candles on my gown, either, so I used the last of my wages to buy some of my own. That left me with nothing to spend on embroidery thread, and I needed to decorate the gown with my own handiwork to show it off.

  “I’ll pay for it,” Marta offered. “If you’re going to be my mistress, I had better start contributing.”

  “I don’t want to take your money,” I argued. “And I’m not sure I want to be your mistress. How about a partner?”

  “Then as your partner,” Marta insisted, “I have all the more reason to contribute. Give this money to Derda; she buys the finest embroidery thread in the King’s Seat, so you might as well get it from her.”

  Later that day, when the shop was closed and I was sewing next to Marta, Alle nudged me. “I’ll do your hair,” she whispered.

  “What?” I dropped my needle, startled.

  “For the ball, I’ll do your hair.” She shot a look at Larkin. “It’s not fair, what happened. Marta told me you want to try your luck at the ball. I do beautiful hair.”

  “Oh, thank you,” I said.

  To my embarrassment, tears welled in my eyes. Marta had also offered to loan me a silk shawl she had received from an admirer. It was cream-coloured, and would go well with the gold gown.

  I was touched by the support of the other girls. Except for Larkin. Larkin was ignoring me, wearing an expression that I could only describe as wounded superiority. She kept looking over my head and fiddling with the silver ribbons, smugly drawing attention to this sign of royal favour.

  That night I sat in the cushioned seat at the front of the store, saving a candle by using the bright moonlight streaming through the large bay window to see my work. The others had all gone to bed, but I had too much to do.

  My first impression of the gold gown had not changed: it was as if the dressmaker had gone completely and utterly insane. In my opinion, even one fist-sized rose on the skirt of a gown was too many. Sixteen of them was outrageous.

  My mother had always called sewing her “thinking time”, and now as I sat with my small knife and cut stitches to remove the decorations, I thought. Did I really want my own shop? Did I really want to go to the Merchants’ Ball and woo an investor?

  Well, perhaps. And perhaps not. As much as I baulked at the thought of spending my life working for Derda – never being acknowledged for my designs, having room and board deducted from my wages – the idea of being on my own seemed even more daunting.

  On top of building up a clientele, I would need to find a shop. I would have rent to pay, and there would be furnishings to buy. I would have to find a supplier for my fabrics and threads. And should I also hire maids to serve tea and cakes to my patrons?

  It was almost too much to take in.

  But what else was there? This was the only work I knew, the only work I had ever wanted to do. I supposed that I could go and live with Shardas. He had said that he missed my company. I could live with Shardas in his cave, keeping his windows polished and eating peaches by the bushel.

  Thinking of Shardas, I remembered his insistence that he would hear me if I ever called his name. Shardas, I thought, straining to project the words out beyond the walls of the King’s Seat. Shardas, please come. Shardas, I need you.

  But my gold dragon didn’t come.

  And he didn’t come the next night, when I finished removing the last of the roses and the long swathes of satin from the gown. I held the velvet up to the moonlight and inspected it, my heart sinking when I realised that the roses had pressed down the pile of the fabric and removing the stitches had left tiny holes all over it. I would have to cover the dress in embroidery to conceal the damage.

  There was barely a month left until the ball.

  Marta offered to stay up with me the next night and help me design a pattern for the gold gown, but I refused her gently. I wanted to sit in my usual position in the window and call to Shardas with my mind.

  If he didn’t come tonight, I thought with despair, perhaps he would never come again. I had thought of little else for three days now, but there was no sign of him.

  With a sigh, I lit one of my precious candles and set it in a wooden holder beside the wax tablet I had borrowed from Derda’s supply. I drew the outline of the gown on the tablet, and pricked little dots to indicate where the worst of the stitch holes were. Thinking of Shardas and his gorgeous hoard of windows, I marked the skirt with great panels shaped like pointed arches. It was similar to the basic design of the Duchess of Mordrel’s gown, but on a grander scale. The arched panels on the grey gown had reached only to her knees; these would extend all the way from the hem to the waist. But what to put inside them? Abstract blocks of colour were too simple, and it seemed a waste to merely fill the panels with flowers. Something truly remarkable was needed. The Triune Gods? Ancient knights in combat? I bit my thumbnail and thought.

  When the King’s Guards marched by half an hour later I thought of Prince Luka. I hadn’t had time to read much in the pretty little book he had bought me since that first night. The Lay of Irial would look beautiful done in glass, I mused.

  Or in silk.

  I picked up a knife and whittled the end of my stylus even sharper, then carefully tried to draw the shape of a maiden in one of the panels I had marked out on the gown design. The maiden Irial in one panel, the dragon Zalthus in another, with the tragic betrayal by her suitor in between, centred on the front of the skirt. And the three panels on the back could show other scenes: Irial playing her harp, Zalthus flyin
g over a forest, the ill-fated hunt in which Irial fell from her horse and came face-to-face with Zalthus for the first time. My hands almost shook with excitement. It was audacious, but I thought I would be able to do it. The Lay of Irial, embroidered in thick segments of colour like a stained glass window. Brilliant!

  I fell asleep over the tablets (I had borrowed two more in order to draw my designs with greater detail). When I woke, it was dawn and Larkin was standing over me. Her expression was sour, as it had been since she traded my shoes to Amalia.

  “Didn’t the dragon come?”

  I blinked at her, my head still in a fog of sleep. “Pardon?” I looked down at the tablets fanned across my lap. “Don’t you know the Lay?”

  “Not that dragon,” she said. She pointed at the street in front of the shop. “The gold dragon that came to you before. Why hasn’t it come again?”

  I felt the blood drain from my face. Larkin, of anyone in the King’s Seat, was the last person I would have wanted to see Shardas. With a sudden shiver I thought about the half-open shutter and the fleeting movement I had seen beyond it on the night he had visited. Had Larkin spied on us?

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said, keeping my voice steady with an effort.

  “Princess Amalia was very curious about the dragon as well as the slippers.”

  “How did she know –” I stopped myself just in time and forced a disingenuous expression on to my face. “Why would she ask about dragons?”

  “Because I told her that I had seen you talking with one,” Larkin said, her expression perfectly complacent. She looked as if we might be discussing embroidery, or what to eat for breakfast, and not the possibility that a dragon had called on me. “Her Highness is very interested in dragons.” She looked down at my tablet. “As I see you are, too, whether or not you admit it.”

  I was saved by Derda, who came out of the back room to complain that I was lingering over my personal work when I should be working for her. I gathered up my tablets and slipped past Larkin. Taking my seat beside Marta in the back room, I set the tablets under my stool, covering them with the sweeping skirts of my shopgown. Marta raised her eyebrows, but I just shook my head, mindful of Derda’s eyes on me.

  When Larkin limped into the room a minute later, my hands were full of cool, slippery silk and I was hard at work. But inside my bodice my heart was hammering, and beneath my skirts my knees trembled. Larkin had seen Shardas!

  When one of the maids came to announce that there was a caller in the shop for me, I almost stabbed myself in the palm with my needle. So preoccupied with Shardas was I, that for a moment I imagined Shardas crouching in the pink-draped shop, being offered tea and cakes by another maid.

  “Prince Luka?” The girl looked at me like I was daft. “The second son? Of the king? He is here to speak with you.”

  “Luka?” I cleared Shardas from my head. “Oh, yes, I’m coming.” I put down my work and got to my feet. Before I could step out of the back room, however, Marta caught my arm.

  “Are you mad? I don’t care that you call him Luka, and that he buys you silly books! He’s still a prince, you goose!”

  And once more Marta straightened my gown, tidied my hair, and replaced my apron with a scarlet sash. “Much better!” she declared.

  “Luka?”

  The maid who had led me out to meet him gasped at my familiarity. I thought she was going to stand there and stare at us the whole time, but Luka and I both looked at her until she realised that she was gawking and scurried back into the kitchen.

  Luka grinned, his hands in the pockets of his long coat. “Hello, Creel. I just came to see how –” His gaze sharpened. “Are you all right? You look tired. Here, sit down.”

  I sank into one of the overstuffed chairs. For a moment, I imagined falling asleep, and wondered what Derda would do if she came out and saw me snoring in one of her “patron chairs”, a bemused prince sitting across from me.

  “What’s happened to you?” Luka studied my face, looking anxious. “You seemed happy the other day, shopping. Has something happened since then?”

  “Princess Amalia stole my slippers.” I didn’t see any need to sugarcoat the truth. Luka knew me, and he knew Amalia. “She convinced Larkin, who works in the back room, to bring them to her. In the night. She took them.” Really, I hadn’t noticed how tired I was until I sat down. I sat as straight as I could, keeping my back well away from the soft cushions behind me.

  “Amalia had your shoes stolen?” Luka looked astonished, then perplexed. “She has hundreds of shoes! Why would she steal yours?”

  “You know, they were unusual, she wanted them.” I waved my hand vaguely.

  “I’ll make certain that she pays you for them, if I can’t get them back from her.” His face clouded, and he lowered his voice. “In the meantime, do you have shoes? Other shoes? I know that a lot of people of your station have only one pair …”

  “Oh, Luka!” I let out a tired laugh. “You are very sweet. Especially for a prince. Derda made me go and buy another pair that morning. She made Larkin pay, but only half the price.” I lifted my skirts and waggled my plain (but admittedly good-quality) slippers at him. “Because Amalia sort of paid me for my slippers.”

  “She ‘sort of’ paid you?”

  “She had Larkin bring me an incredibly ugly gown of hers as payment. So now I’m going to the Merchants’ Ball. Which I hadn’t planned on attending. And which I definitely cannot attend wearing a gown that ugly. Not if I want to find someone to invest in my dress shop.”

  Luka looked even more confused. “So, you are going to the ball?”

  “Yes. Now.” I glanced over my shoulder to make sure that Derda wasn’t hovering in the doorway, eavesdropping. There was no sign of her, but I lowered my voice all the same. “I don’t think I’m cut out for working for someone like Derda. I think I’ll be a lot happier knowing that someone else isn’t taking the credit – and the money – for my work.”

  He grimaced. “Well, I’m afraid that it is standard practice. When an apprentice creates something the credit is always given to their master, because the master taught them to begin with.”

  “But Derda didn’t teach me to sew, my mother did!”

  “I suppose that’s true –” He hesitated. “I’m sorry, but there’s really nothing I can do about that. But I can get your shoes back.”

  “You can?” I clutched at my pink skirts.

  “Look, the situation with Roulain is a bit dodgy, there’s no denying it. We need this marriage, and we need it badly. But if Amalia is going to be our future queen –” he made a face – “she really must learn to respect our people. I’ll see to it that you get your slippers back.”

  A wave of relief washed over me. “Thank you, Luka! I’m sorry I was so angry about … things.”

  “I quite understand.”

  “I’ll go and fetch her horrible gown.” I hopped to my feet. “I’m afraid that I’ve ripped most of the ornamentation off it, but she can have it remade. Or burned, I don’t care.”

  “No, no.” Luka shook his head as he also stood. “You keep it. Make it over and wear it to the ball.” He lowered his voice. “You’re talented. You can find an investor and open your own shop. Leave Derda and get the credit you deserve for your designs.”

  I heard a noise and looked over my shoulder to see Marta coming out of the back room. She was carrying a magnificent gown, another of the duchess’s, held carefully across her arms. Alle was holding the door wide open for her.

  “You remember Marta, don’t you?” I asked.

  “Yes, yes, of course.” Luka smiled at her. “How are you?”

  “Very well, Prince Luka.”

  “That’s a nice gown,” he said, nodding at it.

  “Thank you,” Marta and I said at the same time.

  Luka laughed. “I take it you both worked on it?”

  “Yes, for the Duchess of Mordrel,” I said, fingering the green wool. Marta had done the sewing
, but I had subtly embroidered the sleeves and hem in a slightly darker green. “It’s for the royal wedding.”

  “Oh.” Luka’s face tightened.

  “So,” Marta said when she had laid the gown carefully on the counter, prior to wrapping it for delivery. “Did you tell His Highness about your slippers?”

  “Yes.” I clapped my hands in delight. “He’s going to try to get them back.”

  “That should be easy enough. Just send him to collect them.” She jerked a thumb at Tobin.

  Tobin raised one sardonic eyebrow, his arms folded. He grinned at Marta.

  “You don’t scare me,” she said, raising her chin. “But I can imagine that a Moralienin the size of an ox would strike a little fear in the heart of that uppity princess.”

  “What’s a Moralien-in?” I hadn’t thought that Marta had ever noticed Tobin, and now she was looking at him rather … admiringly.

  “Moralien is a large group of islands in the Ice Sea,” Marta lectured me. “It’s ruled by a Council of Elders.”

  I gave Marta a speculative look, and she blushed. Interesting. Tobin grinned at me, but then ducked his head in an almost shy gesture at Marta. Very interesting.

  “We’d best be going,” Prince Luka said. “I need to see about getting your slippers back. And I have some other duties to attend to. I just wanted to come and see if you were well, and ask if I could meet you on your next day off.”

  “We’re not really supposed to have young men calling on us,” I told him.

  “Another reason for us to have our own shop,” Marta piped up.

  Luka frowned questioningly.

  “Marta is going to come with me, and be my partner,” I explained.

  “Capital idea,” he agreed.

  “But I wouldn’t worry about your young man, Creel,” Marta went on. “I believe that Derda has decided to make an exception in the case of Prince Luka here.”

  I blushed even harder. “Well, er, if you really must be going,” I said to Luka.

  He, too, was looking a bit red in the face. “Er, yes, we really must. Come along, Tobin.” And they beat a hasty retreat.