by Jay Lake
“No, I do not think so. I will never choose to be grasped within the hand of another.”
“Even birds build their nests together.” She gathered me close for a long time; then we went below to put away the tools of my newfound stealth.
As the spring warmed, the exercises grew more strenuous. All of them. Mistress Leonie’s textile arts were showing me things of which I’d never considered the possibility, such as the weaving of secret messages into the warp and weft of a courtier’s cloak. Likewise Mistress Tirelle in the kitchen. Sometime during a month spent with the making of sauces, we reached a nearly amicable truce around the rhythms of the cooking-she still raged and threatened and beat me away from the fires, but we found a calm before them.
I was permitted to mount a horse, and taught the ways ladies rode, and something of the styles of men that I might judge the quality and training of a horseman. A new woman, Mistress Roxanne, brought boxes of rocks and gems and colored cards to begin my lessons in jewelry. She was thin, sly, and chattering.
As my reading improved, the selection of my books broadened. At the time, it seemed to me that the whole subject of books was haphazard, though later I understood the pattern Mistress Danae was applying to my reading. No recent history, nothing of the city of Copper Downs, and nothing whatsoever concerning the Duke, of whose name and very existence I had then heard only bare rumor.
The greatest effort was expended with the Dancing Mistress. She did not slack with me during the day-we walked through movements, poise, and balance. She brought a clockwork box on a little stand that marked the measures of a rhythm and trained me to its timing. Padded benches and hanging bars arrived for the practice room. We talked about the way my muscles and bones would grow over the next few years, and how making them strong now would help keep them strong later.
After that first period of evening runs, she never again came back early when Mistress Tirelle would know of her visit. Rather, on days before we were to make a late-night run, the Dancing Mistress would leave a scrap of dark cloth on the plain bench in the practice hall. Once Mistress Tirelle was sleeping soundly, I would slip outside in my gray wool wrap and climb the pomegranate tree to dress in my blacks. Without fail, when I descended she awaited me at the bottom. I handed the Dancing Mistress the scrap of cloth, and we would begin our work against the stones.
There was a great deal of running. I climbed, tumbled, fell, spun, leapt. We used the walkway capping the outer wall, measuring distances for me to cross without touching the stone. Before long, I became accustomed to my view of the city beyond, and wondered when and how I would see more.
“Why do we run atop the wall?” I asked her one night in the late spring, as the northern summer was beginning to unfold. The air even at that hour still remembered the warm hand of the sun. “Does the Factor not have guards?”
We spoke as we climbed, practicing finding the cracks in the sheathing stone of the courtyard walls.
“No one would dare breach the Factor’s walls. Not even the most desperate, drunken petty thief.”
“Still, we are visible from the street.”
“No one without looks within. Even if they see us there, who are we? Who would they tell?”
“The Mistresses come and go.”
“Have you ever seen a Mistress come or go at night? Besides me?”
I thought about that. “No-no, I have not.”
“Consider that there might be great and terrible wards on these gates.”
“So they cannot be passed, even by the Factor’s friends?”
The Dancing Mistress laughed. “To be sure. Such a thing makes the guards lazy. As they are not permitted to gaze within the courts on pain of blindness followed by death, they do not watch what we do.”
As Federo had said, except for him, I would know only women.
One night our run was different.
I dropped out of the tree freshly clad. My thighs ached from time spent on a strange horse that day. I was still too small to sit properly astride with any comfort. The Dancing Mistress stood there, her tail twitching as it emerged from a slit in her own blacks.
“Mistress,” I said, bowing my head as I clasped my hands for permission to speak.
“You have the count of twenty to gain the walkway of the outer wall.”
I ran, swift and light as she had trained me. There had been no fog or rainslick tonight, so I could move in safety. I did not bother with the stairs, both for pride and to avoid risk of waking Mistress Tirelle. Instead I scrambled up the wall where the east end of the Pomegranate Court house met the bluestone, then gained the copper roof, then made the last climb to the top.
My count was sixteen.
A moment later, the Dancing Mistress was with me. “Next time you will have the count of fifteen.”
“Yes, Mistress.”
She guided me to the outer wall and pointed that I should look over the edge. The street below was a drop of about forty feet.
“How would you make your way down?”
I thought a moment. “I might descend the outer wall, but I do not know if it is slick or rough, nor how well spaced the mortar joints are. Or I could fall, and try to slide along the stones as I descended. I do not think that would serve me well, as it is too far to let my body land in safety.”
“Hmm.”
I looked around. As I’d seen many times before, the walkway extended around the outer edge of the Factor’s house. We had never left the borders of my own court before, even though nothing on the walkway barred me except the distance between one step and the next. “If I pass beyond the boundary of the Pomegranate Court, there may be another way.”
Her voice dropped even lower, not so much a whisper as the shadow of one. “What will happen if you are found beyond the Pomegranate Court?”
“Mistress Tirelle would cut me, then turn me out for a tavern slave. The Factor has gone to a great deal of trouble to keep me bound here in quiet secrecy.”
She did not answer. I stood awhile, feeling a sudden chill that was not of the night air. What were they making of me here? Except for Federo mentioning that I should be a lady, no one had said. What would the Dancing Mistress make of me? Something Mistress Tirelle, and therefore presumably both Federo and the Factor, did not want of me.
“I am not your tool,” I whispered harshly, then sprinted east along the wall past the boundary of my life.
Federo returned to marvel at my height. “You have been growing while I was away,” he said with an easy laugh.
By then I thought myself sophisticated. Some of the lessons about jewels and clothes had sunk deep within my thoughts. This man was my last connection to my father and Endurance, and the only person alive who could tell me exactly where I was born. He did not dress the part, though. Instead this day he was windblown and carefree, clad in strange belled pantaloons and a muslin shirt that fastened across the shoulder.
Not at all the respect my station was due.
“I grow,” I told him. “And learn.” And count my bells, secret though they are.
“Good.” He bent his head, examining my face from an angle rather than turning my chin as he might once have done. “How much does she beat you?”
“Less so these days,” I admitted. “I have found the lock to my tongue, and fight only when I must.”
“Good. I was afraid your stubborn independence would lead you too deeply into trouble.”
With those words, I remembered once again that Federo was not my friend. A friend would have cared for my fate, not whether my words caught too much trouble.
“How is your hunting and trapping, then?” I let my voice grow nasty, much the way Mistress Leonie did when her talk slipped from gowns to gossip.
Federo looked pained, and turned away. “It is more than you know, Girl.”
I watched him walk away and did not feel sorry for a moment. This man had stolen me away from my life and family. What guilt was it on me that I hurt his heart for a moment? He would rid
e free, and I would remain here under the watchful eye and the hard hand of Mistress Tirelle.
Instead I closed my eyes and thought of the smell of rice paddies under the morning mist until the duck woman came to punish me for my insolence.
The next time the Dancing Mistress handed me the dark scrap during our daily exercises, I was ready for a night run. I wanted to show everyone how wrong they were, how shallow and evil they had been. Words were still my way out of this place, but if I could strike a few hard blows before I left the Pomegranate Court, my heart would be gladdened.
Dropping from the tree to the cobbles, I saw she was not there. I froze a moment on the fulcrum between panic and fear. Then I spotted her waiting for me at the top of the wall. I scrambled across the courtyard and up so quickly that the count would have been reset for me.
She watched me come, then caught me as I rushed toward her, spinning to throw me down. I rolled and fell, landing well enough, thanks to the training she had been giving me the past two years.
“What is it?” I hissed, regaining my feet.
“Are you too good for your friends?”
For the first time I realized how freely she and Federo must discuss me.
“No.” My breathing was hard, and my rib twinged.
“Much is risked on you. I cannot imagine you should be grateful. I would not be, not in your place. But you could at the least be respectful.”
“Of what? The risks taken by people who walk free each day?” I spat on the stones. “This slave girl does not sorrow for displeasing her owners.”
The Dancing Mistress gave me a long silence in which to consider my own words. They were prideful, but pride was all I had. Everything else had been taken from me, stolen away over and over.
Finally she spoke: “I do not own you. Nor does Federo, or even Mistress Tirelle.”
Taking a deep breath, I tried to find a voice that did not lash out with the sting I harbored in my heart. “No, the Factor owns me. You support his claim.”
“You do not know, Girl.”
“No, I do not.” I glanced at the street below. Surely we had meant to finally climb down the wall tonight? Dreading that I might be giving up my only escape with my next words, I said, “I will not be yours, any more than I will be his.”
The Dancing Mistress folded my hand around the scrap, which I still clutched. “Your choices are your own. When you are ready for me to come again, return this to me.”
“When I am ready?” I repeated stupidly.
“When you are ready.” Her face was lopsided with a mix of loss and anger. “Perhaps I will even come back then. As for now, fold away your blacks and climb into your bed. I will have no more of you for a time.”
I climbed back down, slipping twice, and forgot myself to the extent that I went back to my sleeping room still wearing the Dancing Mistress’ blacks, along with the soft leather shoes and gloves I always stored with them. When I tugged my gear off, I balled everything up, snuck to steal needles from the sitting room, then sewed it all into a little pillowcase I had been stitching with the design of pale flowers growing through a broken crown.
My heart was hard for the next weeks. I still had my daily lessons with the Dancing Mistress, but there was no warmth between us. She did not push me away or cause me to be punished, but neither did she embrace me nor spare me good words. A few times I thought I caught her studying me when she believed me too busy to notice, but that was her concern.
At the time, I thought we were done. Pride, like patience, can be taught. But as patience may be unlearned all at once in a hard moment, tenacious pride can be acquired in that same hot rush.
I had not lost my ability to stalk the future, and the villains who ruled my life. I had lost my ability to tell friend from foe.
Mistress Tirelle must have sensed that some break had occurred between me and my favorite teacher. She interrupted a long course of instruction on the mechanics of baking-leavening, flours, inclusions and exclusions to dough-to show me how we might make sweets. These were little crushed preparations of bitter almonds, oil-packed dates, and diced apples, which we rolled in sheets made of pastry and grape leaves. When they were fresh baked, I ladled pine honey over them to set up with the heat and a mixture of scents that made my mouth water unreasonably. We then experimented with sugar reductions, and how fanciful designs could be scribed on the sweetmeats with the appropriate flick of a spoon.
“You must know how someone is honored with the preparation of the final course,” the duck woman told me. “A person can be insulted as well, in the subtleties of preparation. Food is a language.”
I clasped my hands. She nodded.
“What of foreigners?” I asked. “Is their language of food known to us?”
My question earned me a suspicious glare. Mistress Tirelle had always been troubled that I had come from across the Storm Sea, as if the circumstances of my birth were somehow my doing. After a moment, she seemed to decide I was not making a subtle slight against her charter here in the Factor’s house. “Sometimes a cook will trouble to learn a foreign way of eating, to show a bit of respect to a powerful merchant or prince.” Her tiny smile ghost-danced across her face. “Remember, those from far away will never measure up to our standards. At need, we make allowances for them, but it is always a charity they should know enough to refuse.”
My unintended criticism is returned fivefold. I never seemed to be in good standing with any of my Mistresses, for all that some were civil enough. Only the Dancing Mistress had treated me fairly. Then she cast me off as well, I thought.
I stepped away a moment to tend the sugar kettle, which served to hide the tears in my eyes.
“Girl.”
Turning around, I looked at Mistress Tirelle, not even trying to swallow the misery that must have been naked on my face. To my good fortune, she seemed to believe her slight had cut me to the quick.
“We will be sending a fine bread out tomorrow.” Her voice dropped. “To be judged.” A strange, false smile drew her lips upward like dead men plucked reluctantly from the soil. “Think on what you will make that will reflect best on the Pomegranate Court.”
I clasped my hands again. She frowned, but tipped her chin that I might speak.
“Judged by whom, Mistress?” I asked. “Against what?”
“What happens outside the walls of the Pomegranate Court is no concern of yours, Girl. We’ll send your work out, and it will be judged.”
The answer seemed clear enough to me. There was to be a competition among the courts of the Factor’s house!
I swallowed my own answering smile. Several years in this place, and finally I could show my worth. I could only thank the sun there was not to be a riding competition. It might have been better for me if we were playing at tree climbing, those invisible girls and I, but this would do. This would do.
Early the next morning, I sifted through grades of flour and sugar in my thoughts. Duck eggs, for their richness, or quail’s, for their delicacy? I was still considering inclusions in the bread, but a wash for the top seemed apropos. Coarse sugar and cardamom could be sprinkled to accent the loaf.
My washing went quickly, and my cotton shifts were ever my cotton shifts. We were approaching autumn, but I did not need a wrap yet, not even early in the morning. Heat and cold were almost the same to me now, except when my breath stung or I was required to protect my feet.
Out on the balcony I saw a mist swaddling our little courtyard. The pomegranate tree bulked strange in the poor light, its branches splayed like broken fingers. The air smelled of cold stone and the not-so-distant sea. My eyes strayed to the branches where my night running blacks should be. They were stored away now, and the Dancing Mistress’ little scrap with them.
Baking was so much… less… than pushing myself in darkness. Would I rather be a girl who could make a pretty loaf to please a lord, or a girl who could gain a rooftop on a fifteen count unseen by those within the house?
Neither choice
held a purpose, I realized. Mistress Tirelle had told me time and again I would not be expected to ply my arts. Only to know them very, very well.
A frightening question occurred to me: Were the Mistresses failed candidates? Perhaps Mistress Danae’s knowledge of letters or Mistress Leonie’s mastery of sewing and weaving were the result of a dozen years behind these bluestone walls before some defect or small rebellion had cast them out.
I wanted to go home. More than anything, I wanted my life back. But if somehow that never happened, I did not want to spend my years here teaching other girls lessons I’d learned under the blows of the sand-filled tube.
That brought to mind what I missed most about my night runs with the Dancing Mistress. Not the work, but having someone who would allow me to speak, and without reservation heed the words I spoke.
Then it’s too bad for her that she used me ill!
The anger buoyed me. That emotion I put away to sustain me through the day, and headed downstairs to the great kitchen. I would not break my fast until Mistress Tirelle gave me permission to prepare the morning meal, but I could look over my spices and flours and bring my earlier thoughts closer to the oven.
This was the best day yet with Mistress Tirelle. We had a project, and my skills had grown strong enough to lead.
The Pomegranate Court had recently taken a delivery of a batch of exotic fruits, which I was told had been grown in a glass house that brought a little sliver of the southern sun to the Stone Coast. I chilled plantains on ice, then sliced the fruits thin and fried them with sesame seeds. The smell of that cooking was heavenly, for sesame improves almost everything. At the same time, I reduced guavas to a jelled paste into which I folded crushed almonds. That sweet-and-bitter combination made my mouth water as well.
For the crust, Mistress Tirelle and I made a very buttery dough, which I stretched and folded and stretched and folded, layering coarse sugar and thin-sliced almonds in at the last. The dough I cut into a dozen squares. I spread the guava paste within these, arranged the crisped plantains, then folded the dough over again. I topped each with a wash of quail’s egg, more coarse sugar, a few grains of rock salt, and a scattering of sesame seeds. I placed a whole nut in the top of each so that they would bake up with a dent, into which I planned to place a slice of chilled plantain when the pastries were out and cool.