Troubled Waters

by Sharon Shinn

  “Well, water is the element that will get you clean,” Sima said practically. The heavyset woman was holding a bar of some rough soap that smelled surprisingly fragrant. “You can use this to wash your skin and your hair,” she said.

  They all commenced to lather up and rinse off with great efficiency, since the longer they were in the water, the colder it seemed. Two little girls chased each other in and out of the river while their mother called to them sleepily from the bank; other women jumped in, scrambled out, and swam by while the three of them worked. It was a lively, happy scene, and Zoe found herself smiling the whole time.

  Once they were out and dried off and back at Annova’s campsite, Sima combed out Zoe’s hair and began to make careful cuts. “I would like to trim it short around your face, but Annova says you aren’t ready for drastic changes,” Sima says. “But see how you like it when there is just a little styling.”

  The “little” styling also involved heating slim rods over the brazier and wrapping locks of Zoe’s hair around them, a process that Zoe viewed with alarm. “That’s why I keep my own so short,” Annova said, running a hand over her crisp black hair.

  While Sima worked, Annova began fussing over Zoe’s face with a motley assortment of cosmetics—cracked and nearly empty pots of rouge, dry end-sticks of kohl, crumbled cakes of eye powder. Zoe was surprised to learn she wanted to see what she could become under someone else’s hands. She had always been simply Navarr Ardelay’s daughter. Who else might emerge when that persona was pushed aside?

  Annova had insisted Zoe change into a deep red tunic, more tightly fitted than most of the ones she owned. “You don’t wear enough sweela colors,” she scolded. “They’re the right ones for your complexion.”

  “I like blues and greens. Shades of coru.”

  “Those are good, too, but they must be the right shades.”

  Finally she was dressed to the satisfaction of the older women, her face made up, every strand of hair arranged just so. “There,” Annova said with satisfaction. “This is how you are meant to look when you live up to your blessing of beauty.”

  Sima had brought a mirror, something Zoe had consulted only rarely during the past ten years. It was about the size of her palm and not really useful for getting a good look at her overall image, but what she saw in bits and pieces looked nothing like the person she remembered.

  Her black hair lay perfectly against her face, curling at her chin. Her dark eyes looked huge, the lids shadowed with subtle sweeps of charcoal. Her thin mouth was fuller, redder, and curved in a smile. The gold and scarlet colors of her ensemble reflected deeper color into her sallow skin.

  She was not a beauty, but she looked striking. Clear-eyed. Confident. Slightly mysterious.

  “A coru girl with a sweela heart,” Annova said with satisfaction. “And what do you get with that?”

  Sima was the one who replied. “Steam.”

  SEVEN

  Three days later, Zoe had a job.

  A few more shopping trips to the Plaza of Women, a few investments in the bold colors that Annova approved of, and Zoe found herself exchanging her third gold coin for more reasonable denominations. A quick count of the lumps still left lining her shawl made her think she would race through her inheritance in little more than a year if she continued at this pace. So the next time Calvin and Annova invited her to dinner, she expressed her intention to seek employment.

  “Come with me to the shop district tomorrow,” Annova said. “I’ll introduce you to some friends.”

  The next day, Zoe and Annova spent a pleasant couple of hours strolling by the storefronts while Annova pointed out the boutiques where she knew the owners. They discussed the advantages of working for a vintner, a bookseller, and a woman who made fashionable women’s clothing, but in the end Annova decided Zoe should offer her services to a cobbler and his wife. “Torz, both of them, but she only bore the one son, and he’s proved to be restless,” Annova said. “You can be useful to them, I believe. Coru sustains torz. Water drenches earth.”

  The instant they entered the little shop, they were inhaling the distinctive scents of leather and dye. The day was cool but sunny, and the yellow awning stretched above the door threw a warm golden tint into the front room. The space was small and incredibly crowded. All four walls were lined with shelves that stretched to the ceiling, and every shelf held dozens of small wrapped bundles that Zoe assumed were pairs of completed shoes. A short wooden counter was set close to the back wall, a stool behind it and another bank of shelves behind that. A golden curtain hung over a doorway very close to the counter; Zoe supposed the workroom was behind that, for she could hear the cheerful metallic sound of a hammer tapping a chisel or a nail.

  “Ilene?” Annova called. “Melvin?”

  The curtain brushed back and a short, thin woman stepped through. Zoe guessed she was in her late fifties, ropy and sinewy, with stringy gray hair pushed back behind her ears.

  “Annova,” Ilene said, offering a limited smile. Zoe did not get the impression that this was a particularly effusive woman, despite her torz traits. “Have you come for a new pair of shoes?”

  Annova extended her right foot, clad in a cushioned half-boot. Zoe had never bothered paying much attention to Annova’s footwear before. “No, these are holding up remarkably well,” she said. “I may never need another pair.” She laughed. “Perhaps you do your job too well, my friend.”

  “Other folks require more than a single pair of shoes to get them through their lives,” Ilene retorted. “With those customers, high quality guarantees additional sales.”

  Annova looked around the shop. “Has Barlow joined the family business yet?”

  Ilene’s gaunt face clouded over. “No. In fact, he has expanded his trade route, and he is sometimes gone for quintiles at a time.”

  “Barlow is her son,” Annova explained to Zoe, as if she hadn’t shared this fact before they stepped inside the shop. Zoe nodded and Annova continued. “Still, he must be successful in his trading ventures if he’s going more places.”

  Ilene brightened a little. “Yes—and he has brought us back some remarkable goods. White leather so soft it feels like silk. Fleece to line winter boots. Dyes that I have seen in no other storefront in Chialto. Even the king’s wives have come to us to buy belts and shoes and bags.”

  “I’m glad to hear Barlow is so successful, but sorry to learn that you are without his assistance,” Annova said. “Are you looking for someone to help you out in the shop? I’ve brought my friend Zoe to recommend in case you are.”

  Ilene gave Zoe a sharp, thorough inspection. Her dusty brown eyes were narrowed; her expression was skeptical.

  “We’ve hired workers from time to time, but we’ve always been disappointed,” Ilene said. “One of them stole from us. One was so lazy we had to push him out the door—he was too lazy even to walk out on his own!”

  “You wouldn’t have any of those problems with Zoe,” Annova assured her. “She’s honest and hardworking.”

  Ilene still looked skeptical but not entirely set against the notion. “What have you done before?” she asked Zoe.

  “Only domestic work, I’m afraid,” Zoe said. “I helped my father with his correspondence and his accounts, and I nursed him when he was sick. I managed the household budget, kept the property clean, and cooked for both of us.”

  It was a meager enough set of skills, but Ilene did not look displeased. “So you know how to count and handle money, and you can read and write?” she asked. When Zoe nodded, Ilene said, “Show me.”

  Writing materials were quickly produced, and Zoe carefully lettered her first name, the names of everyone in her village, and the names of all the king’s wives.

  “Very pretty handwriting,” Ilene said, her voice warming up to cautious approval. “Now let me see you do sums.” She rattled off numbers for Zoe to add and subtract, and then pulled out a coin box and had her make change.

  “I don’t know anything about shoes
, though,” Zoe confessed when the shopkeeper actually started to look pleased.

  Ilene waved away this deficiency. “We’re not looking for an apprentice. Melvin and I do all the cutting and sewing. But we need someone watching the front of the shop to wait on customers and prevent anyone from stealing. If one of us has to sit here all day, we can scarcely get our work done.”

  “I’d be happy to sit here,” Zoe said, “if you’d have me.”

  “Then it’s settled?” Annova asked.

  Ilene was still unconvinced. “I’ll ask Melvin.”

  She disappeared through the curtain, reappearing moments later with her husband in tow. He was a big man with a short brush of thick gray hair still holding traces of brown. He was a little stooped and, despite his size, radiated an air of supreme gentleness. He was wearing a workman’s apron stuffed with tools, and his sleeves and clothing were streaked with dyes.

  When Ilene introduced him, he looked Zoe over with watery green eyes that were more accustomed to focusing on objects than on faces. She held herself very still, thinking too much animation might confuse him.

  “Take her to a temple,” he said to his wife, turning back toward the workroom. “See if any of the blessings make sense.”

  Ilene looked relieved. “I’ll do that,” she said, adding to Zoe, “You’re willing?”

  “Of course,” she said.

  “I’m coming with you,” Annova said.

  They ended up at the same temple Zoe had visited when she pulled blessings for the twin girls. That seemed propitious, but she didn’t want to be overly optimistic. She wasn’t quite sure how this would work. It was difficult to pull a negative coin from the barrel since, of course, the very word blessing was meant to be reassuringly positive. What particular character trait might Ilene view with doubt and suspicion?

  There were, Zoe knew, a few coins tumbling around in the depths of the barrels that were so old and so worn their glyphs were impossible to read. People called these ghost coins; they were usually considered unlucky, hinting at a future too dire to predict or a personality too debased to describe. When drawn for an infant, they were sometimes believed to forecast a very short life. The acolytes went to some trouble to sift these ghost coins out of the temple barrels, but unless they dumped the entire contents on the floor and refilled the barrel piece by piece, there was no way to screen them out entirely. A ghost coin might be unlucky in this instance, she thought; she wouldn’t pull out any disk unless she could detect some pattern raised into the metal.

  “You choose a blessing, and then I will,” Ilene directed.

  Zoe plunged her hand into the cool metallic bounty, found a piece clearly stamped with some design, and pulled it out. She handed it to Ilene without looking.

  “Honesty,” said the shopkeeper. For the first time she showed Zoe a genuine smile. “That is a very good trait to possess.”

  “And now you,” Annova said.

  Ilene buried her hand wrist-deep in the barrel before pulling out a single coin. “Wealth,” she said, and now she offered an even wider smile. It didn’t make her look particularly pretty, or even more rested, but it was an inviting expression. Zoe smiled back.

  Ilene said, “My husband and I would like to hire you to work at our shop.”

  Zoe slipped into this new phase of her life like a raindrop slipping into the sea. It was so effortless. It required so little of her except that she simply be.

  She liked having a reason to rise in the morning and to spend a few extra minutes improving her appearance. She liked the ride on the crowded bus down the wide boulevard, followed by the walk through the shop district just as all the doors were opening, before any customers had arrived. She liked having her days filled with just enough responsibilities that they could occupy all her attention, leaving her no time to think about the bigger questions that always crouched at the back of her mind.

  She felt like a groggy sleeper who had just awoken from a long and troubled dream and was not yet ready to face the living nightmares waiting in the other room. If she could have, she would have fallen back to sleep, but it was too late. The best she could do was to refuse to leave the bedroom for as long as possible.

  Ilene made it very clear what Zoe was expected to do. When no customers were inside the cobbler’s shop, she was to stand at the open door, smiling and waving at little girls, offering compliments to the well-dressed women. What a lovely tunic that is—we have a pair of shoes that would match it perfectly.

  When customers did step inside, Zoe either retrieved their shoes from the shelves, took their money, and noted the transaction in a huge ledger, or she learned that they wanted to buy a new pair. If ready-made shoes were good enough, she would pull a few samples off the shelves for the customers to try on. If they wanted to be fitted for a new pair, she called for Ilene. The cobbler’s wife would instantly step through the curtain, carrying her measuring sticks, offering her thin smile, and asking dozens of questions. Was this to be a boot, a sandal, a formal shoe, a casual shoe? Did the customer want the finest imported leather or the sturdy domestic kind? Did the client prefer a sober black or a whimsical red? A low heel or a higher one? Fancy stitching or plain? When was the shoe needed? Zoe was surprised to learn how much fashionable, custom-made shoes could cost; she was frequently handling gold and quint-gold pieces as clients handed over their deposits.

  When the shop closed at night, she added up the numbers in the ledger and the coins in the money box to make sure they tallied. Then she brought the money to the back room and waited while Ilene counted it again. Zoe would stand very still and just let her eyes wander around the workroom with its long benches, neatly aligned rows of tools, spools of thread and cord, and shallow shelves of stretched leather. Along the main workbench, wooden lasts lined up in a row like so many upside-down feet.

  Against the back wall, under a narrow horizontal window, was another table and a row of small cauldrons. On dyeing days, these would be boiling for hours as Ilene mixed pigments until she was satisfied with the colors. She would carefully set out the sections of leather and brush on layer after layer of color with long, smooth, flawless strokes. The sharp scents would fill the workroom and drift into the front room and out into the street. When she was coming back from lunch, Zoe could smell the cobbler shop for blocks before she could see it.

  Some of the boutiques in the shop district never closed, but Melvin and Ilene shut their doors on firstday. Zoe was always glad to finish that eighth day of labor, knowing that what came next would be a day of rest. Ilene would hand over her wages—three silver pieces—and Zoe would go directly to the Plaza of Women. She usually spent two coins buying food for the next nineday and special treats she could share with Calvin and Annova. The third one she would sew into the hem of her shawl.

  Because who knew when she might need to run away again?

  Zoe had worked at the cobbler’s for two and a half ninedays before there was even a ripple of trouble. It had been a particularly busy afternoon, with customers filling the shop four and five at a time, all of them wealthy, most of them imperious and not used to waiting. Ilene had had to leave off the dyeing and help Zoe at the sales counter, where most customers were retrieving shoes they had ordered some time ago.

  “Everyone wants shoes for the holiday,” Ilene said to Zoe during a rare quiet moment. “It’s always like this right before Quinnahunti. And sometimes right before Quinnasweela. Our two busiest times.”

  “I hadn’t realized Quinnahunti was so close,” Zoe admitted. It was the loveliest time of year, late spring melting into early summer, and at the village they’d always celebrated the changeday holiday with food and games.

  “Oh, yes! Just four days away now! There will be fairs in both the Plazas, and celebrations at the palace,” Ilene said. “Everyone wants to wear their new clothes, so we’ll have crowds of people for the next few days.”

  Which didn’t bother Zoe in the slightest, until she tried to balance her accounts that night. In
the press of people, the scramble to make sales, it appeared that she had failed to record a transaction—or, worse, failed to give someone the right change. The money box held one more quint-gold coin than it should.

  Frowning, Zoe methodically redid the arithmetic and recounted the coins. No, there was still one extra quint-gold in the box. She supposed Ilene could have made the mistake just as easily as she could have, since Ilene had been waiting on customers half the day, but she certainly wasn’t going to point that out. She gathered the ledger and the coin box and slipped past the curtain into the back room.

  “How did we do?” Melvin asked. He was using an awl to punch holes in a strip of leather. He was often still working when Zoe left, though she didn’t have a sense that he stayed on the job because he was worried about finishing projects by a promised deadline. No, she thought he simply loved the tools and accessories of his profession so much that he did not want to put them aside. “The place seemed full from the minute we opened.”

  “It was our best day since I’ve been here, but there’s a problem,” Zoe said.

  Ilene, who was standing by the shelves, counting sheaves of leather, quickly turned. “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  “We have more money than we should,” Zoe said. “A quint-gold. Either I didn’t give someone change when I should have, or I forgot to write down a sale.”

  For a fleeting moment, Ilene’s face showed satisfaction before she smoothed the expression away. “Oh! Not your fault. I thought we would run out of small coins, so I added a handful of silvers and coppers to the box. I meant to take out a quint-gold, and I forgot.”

  “Good,” Zoe said. “Then everything adds up.”