by Jenna Rhodes
Nutmeg hooked Grace’s elbow, marching firmly on, keeping her in step. Grace looked down at her sister’s face, unable to read much past the slight heated color blushing her rounded cheeks.
At the corner, she gave Nutmeg the small map and notes from Lily for her to peruse. When Nutmeg looked up and pointed out the direction, she ventured, “Perhaps I should wear a veil . . .”
“Don’t be silly. Hiding a thing often makes it seem more than it is. I think they wear those veils as a quiet way of shouting, ‘Make way! It’s a Vaelinar here, so give way!’ ”
Rivergrace laughed in spite of herself. “Do you think?”
“Do they clear themselves a path? Of course I think so! It gives me an idea, though,” Nutmeg went on, as she steered them down the right path. “Decorated veils might become very fashionable. I wonder if Mom has paid them any attention?”
“Nothing escapes her eye. Nothing.” Rivergrace mulled her words a bit. “Decorating them, though, might be something she’s not thought about.”
Nutmeg nodded vigorously as she led the two of them down the eastbound lane, twisting slightly toward the south as if the hills to the north set all of Calcort sliding downward a bit. The street here sang with vendors no less colorful than the other, and many of them sold wares Grace had never even known existed in the world, let alone wanted, and the two of them moved in slow wonder, taking it all in.
And then someone took Nutmeg’s purse.
Tiiva came into Lariel’s chamber quietly, ledger in her hands, and sat down without preamble, saying, “You’ve got to do something. He’s skulking in the woods, hunting, and he’s scaring the clothes off everyone.”
“Everyone?”
“The game at least. They’ve practically fled the immediate area, as if knowing a predator was among them.”
Lariel did not take her eyes off the arrow she was fletching, her nimble hands moving quickly and surely as she created the weapon. “He is not skulking, he’s camping. And he’ll come in when he pleases, as usual.”
“At least send Jeredon out to him and make certain he is all right. The ild Fallyn will do what they can to pique you after your denial. Tressandre took him in and nearly as quickly threw him out.”
She looked up at Tiiva then, whose neutral expression seemed as carefully wrought as the hunting arrow Lariel held in her hands and whose copper skin was as unlikely to show a blush as any Vaelinar’s skin. “What others would call hurt, the ild Fallyn call foreplay.” She set down the half-done shaft and capped the skin of glue.
“Don’t you feel a bit of remorse? You sent him back to her.”
“I,” corrected Lariel firmly, “sent him as my envoy. If he’s injured, then it’s an injury to me, and he must come report it. If he does not, then there is no injury and I have no quarrel with the ild Fallyn. I cannot act without evidence that anything is otherwise. I won’t be provoked, and he knows it.”
“Still...”
Lariel sighed heavily. “All right, then. Take Jeredon and go out and tell him his queen commands him to return to the court so we can prepare for the Conference. Is that acceptable?”
A faint smile played about Tiiva’s mouth. “Yes, my queen. It will have to do.” She rose, and left with a quiet rustle of her elegant skirts, the ledger book balanced on the edge of Lariel’s desk and quite forgotten.
Lariel glanced at it. She picked up her arrow and began fletching again, her mind on other thoughts as her fingers worked nimbly. She did not even notice that the edge of the arrowhead, not finally sharpened, was still keen enough to bring her blood out and stain its surface. His pride would never let him tell her if things had gone badly. They both knew she dared not take offense from the treatment he’d met. He wouldn’t tell her. Never.
Nutmeg sprinted after the thief without thought, just as she would have gone after one of her brothers who’d dumped a pail over her, Rivergrace half a stride behind her. Neither bothered yelling for aid, as it would only take breath, and they needed that to chase the urchin down. He dashed through the throng of folk as if they were not even there, and the two of them plunged headlong after him, getting a few elbows and protests as they did, but the chase didn’t seem to draw undue attention or surprise. Grace supposed those in the city must be used to thieves of all sizes.
Nutmeg kept on the young fellow’s heels, with the help of Grace who could see head and shoulders above most, and called out twists and turns as the urchin dodged into alleys and down back lanes, twisting tightly into a shadowy quarter of the city. The uneven paving below their flying boots turned into hard-packed ground, and then the urchin doubled back suddenly, past Grace’s reach and would have been gone but that Nutmeg threw herself in a diving tackle that brought both of them to earth with a gasping thud.
The boy rolled onto his back, laughing and choking for breath, and raised his hands in the air. “I give, I give. Dun be settin’ the guard on me.”
“Who needs the guard!” Nutmeg demanded as she promptly sat on the young man’s chest and pegged him down by his ragged collar. “Now give me my purse back, and don’t you be telling me you tossed it somewhere.”
“Mercy, mercy, ye wouldna hurt a poor motherless boy, would you?”
“Your mother is probably waiting around the corner with a stick. My purse!”
He laughed again at that, dark brown eyes twinkling, even as he squinted his face up at her, expecting a blow or two. “Can’t be city-born, you run too well. I’d say you were country bumpkins, but you know too much. So you caught me. Just finish me, and don’t let anyone know, ’cause I got me rep, you know?”
“I don’t want your rep, I just want my purse,” Nutmeg told him emphatically.
Rivergrace leaned against a building, in the shadow, watching for anyone else coming in or out of the alley, although she heard no one, she thought there might be a pair or two of eyes spying. The urchin rolled an eye at her, not unlike Bumblebee when he thought he might be carrying too much weight for his own good, and looked back up at Nutmeg from under a fringe of curly brown hair.
“Must be a mighty full purse to be important enough to chase me into a back alley where anything could be waiting.”
Nutmeg took a deep breath and shook the boy by his collar. “I have three brothers,” she told him. “And I’m not past stripping you down like it was bathing day to get it off you.”
“Now that’s an offer I canna turn down.” The boy grinned. He was still grinning when Rivergrace bent over him, letting the sun strike her face and her eyes. He paled then and tried to wiggle out from under Nutmeg.
“It would be wise,” she remarked, “to give it back.”
“Let me up, then.”
Nutmeg let him sit up, but stayed sitting on his ankles. He reached inside his patched pants and pulled out the purse, hefting it as he did so. “Pretty light for all this fuss.”
She grabbed it from his hand as Rivergrace straightened up, keeping her gaze steady on the urchin. “It’s not what’s in the purse, it’s the bag itself. My grandma made it for my mom and she gave it to me.”
He shrugged. “What if I needed it more than you?”
Nutmeg opened the purse and shelled out the three bright coins inside and dropped them in his lap before standing up. “Then take them.”
He whisked them away with a sweep of his hand over them. Rivergrace blinked. She hadn’t even seen him pocket them, but they were gone. “Ye’re a real lady,” the lad said. “But ye’ll be losin’ that purse again, sooner than soon.” He rose, and dusted himself off. “Not city folk, and ye’ll be marked in any crowd. So iffen ya dun want to be losin’ that again quick, ye hold it like this.” He took the purse from her and showed her how to carry it, tucked under her elbow and with her arm through the strap in a certain way. He corrected her a few times as she tried to wear it the same way. Finally, he patted her arm. “There. N’ one’ll be grabbin’ it now, or light-fingerin’ it open. It’s not only secure, but, well, ye’re holding it like one of us.” He low
ered his voice and looked about. “We dun be stealin’ from ourselves, ye know.”
“Ah.”
Nutmeg wrinkled her nose and then echoed Rivergrace’s noise of understanding. “Thank you. I think.”
“No bother.” He balanced on one foot as if about to dash off again, then paused. “Seein’ as how ye were so generous, and ’tis a hot day, how about I buy you two lasses a winterberry ice? No hard feelin’s an’ all?”
They traded looks. He shrugged as if their hesitation hurt his feelings a bit, but he tried not to show it. “My older sis, she has a stand. Just about the corner or two. I’ll be leadin’ ye back to the market lane, not down another alley.”
Grace nodded. “That would be nice of you.”
“No beard hairs off my chin! She owes me.” He flashed another grin before jogging off, leaving them to follow in his wake again, although at a considerably slower pace than before. After three sharp turns, they emerged from the shadowy backside of buildings into the sunny and bright street, the noise of the throng greeting them again. He did indeed have a sister selling cold juice, although she looked old enough to be his mother, with lines in her face, but she smiled, and dried two clean glasses on her much-patched apron and ladled out the winterberry drink when he asked her.
Nutmeg talked with her a bit while something else drew Rivergrace’s attention. Behind the stand, in the open street with very little traffic across its span, a handful of children milled about, chanting and playing, their skip rope slapping the dirt in steady rhythm. She drifted over to watch and listen.
“Four forges dire Earth, Wind, Water, and Fire, You skip low And I’ll jumper higher. One for thunder By lands torn asunder Two for blood By mountains over flood. Three for soul With no place to go. You skip low And I’ll skip higher Four on air With war to bear.”
The chant made her shiver, but they hardly seemed to pay attention to the words as their feet and rope kept beat and soon they were onto another rhyme, something about boyfriends and kisses and soon a missus, without any notice that the sunshine had, for a moment, grown much colder, and the very air had seemed to have a voice that chanted with them.
Rivergrace turned away as Nutmeg called her impatiently and realized she had been called several times before. “We have to get on.”
Rivergrace finished her drink in a gulp and pressed the mug back into the seller’s hands. “Thank you,” she said, and hurried after her sister, waiting for the summer to warm her again.
Chapter Thirty-Three
“DERRO! AND THERE you are, at last. I was hoping your father would let you come today!” The shop door flung open even as Nutmeg and Grace stood on the street, admiring the trim double door, the wainscoted window, and the sign creaking on its hanger arm out over the street, carved with a hat and gown. It took their breath away, the place seemed so grand, and neither could find words to think that Lily owned it now. Their mother stood framed in the doorway, her trim Dweller figure seeming even smaller, but her smile and her energy more than filled it as she flung out her arms to bring them in.
“Look at you! Did your da not even give you time to wash up? Nutmeg, you look like you’ve been wrestling with your brothers again!” Lily removed a cloth from her belt and dusted them both down vigorously with snaps and flicks before tucking it back at her waistline and beaming at them. They had not seen the place yet and Nutmeg’s mouth hung open as she caught a glimpse of the back wall lined with racks and wardrobes, not full of goods, to be sure, as Lily had not yet begun work or gotten clients as she wished, but oh, the possibilities. A chunky young woman, her hair pulled back into a drab bun, her face always creased with a worried frown that looked like it might be permanent, came from the second room, and curtsied to them.
“This is Adeena,” Lily announced. “Adeena, my daughters. Nutmeg, with bright eyes that so aptly named her for the spice, and Rivergrace, with eyes like an ever-changing sea.”
Adeena was of Kernan stock, so she stood taller than either Nutmeg or her mother, but Grace towered another head and near shoulders over that. If anything surprised the seamstress, it did not show in her face. Nothing showed other than that perpetual grimace of worry.
“G’day, and I hope the sun was fair but not too warm.”
“It’s a beautiful day out, but getting hot, and the nights about as short as they can be,” Nutmeg told her. “Have you got your bolts in yet, Mom? And patterns? And have you tables and have you those great caged dolls for fitting?”
“We have,” Lily told her, “everything that a high-toned shop has.” She sat down on a padded stool. “What do you think?”
“I think it’s wondrous,” Grace murmured. She glanced about the two-room shop, with yet another small area behind curtains. There were perches for hats and gloves, as well as racks for clothing of all kinds. She touched the brim of a straw hat, decorated with a spray of flowers that looked so real their lack of scent disappointed her.
Nutmeg leaned over a table, covered with cloth, and a paper pattern browned and frayed at the edges from many uses. “Is this what you’re making now?”
Lily chose her words. “It’s something Adeena and I are discussing.”
“This is not at all what we saw on the streets. Mind you, we came the way the common folk walk, so I have no idea what grand people might be wearing. But this seems . . .”
“Old-fashioned?” Lily offered.
“Something like that. And Grace and I had the most marvelous idea. The Vaelinars wear veils, sometimes even covering the eyes. We could make them like starry skies or fields of butterflies, sparkling, so much more than just gauze.”
“Really?”
“Really. Some embroidery, a sparkle here and there.
Imagine, Mom. So many people wearing so many things out there.”
“The Vaelinars used to shop here,” Adeena offered quietly. “Sometimes their custom is all anyone wants, sometimes they are shunned. It is difficult to know how tastes will run from year to year. Yet, Mistress Farbranch, they are monied and if you could get their trade back, it would more than help sustain the shop.”
“And we need that, we certainly do.” Lily eyed the old pattern a bit. “Still, we don’t need to throw the baby out with the tub water. This has its uses, it’s a basic pattern to base others upon. It follows the lines smoothly, with a flow to it. Let’s keep this for reworking.” She stood up briskly as Adeena leaned over to roll the pattern carefully and stow it away.
“And you, my young lasses, are already dirty, so I think I’ll put you to cleaning the back workroom and fitting area! It’ll be an adventure, there’s much left back there. Ribbons and buttons and pins and more.” Laughing, Lily led the way to their adventure.
They spent the rest of the afternoon having great fun making order out of chaos, binning buttons according to size and type and color, matching ribbons to each other’s fancy before hanging them neatly from wooden arms that were fastened to the wall and could swing out “like herb drying arms,” Nutmeg declared, sweeping and dusting and readying great racks which would hold far more bolts of cloth than they currently had in the shop, and when they were done, Lily had come in with cold mugs of flavored water, and they sat and looked at the results of their work. Then Nutmeg told her their tale of the urchin and her purse and had their mother laughing far more than scolding before the story was done.
Lily wiped her brow and took a deep breath. “No doubt that Tolby is your father,” she remarked. “You tell a tale as well as he does, and if it weren’t for that, my young lass, I would have punished you for taking such a chance! Chasing off into the city after a thief? Do you know what kind of trouble you could have gotten into?”
“I wasn’t worried, with Rivergrace with me. After all, she faced down a Bolger renegade once!”
Grace had been drinking and choked slightly as she pulled her cup away and coughed. “I don’t know what got into me then, Meg, and you can’t hope that would ever happen again!”
Nutmeg put her chin up.
“I know a thing or two about throwing my fists, and kicking, too, if it comes to that. It all worked out, anyway.”
“So it seems.”
Nutmeg had kept back the part about giving the lad the few coin pieces she’d had in that purse, and Rivergrace decided against reminding her of that. It seemed prudent not to.
Taking off her apron, Lily began to fold it neatly. “I’m sending the two of you back now. We’ll have cold meat pies and salad for dinner, since it’s still quite warm out, unless the men got into the fixings while we were gone. If not, we’ll have to make do with stewed vegetables. I can’t do it now, Nutmeg, but if the shop picks up, it could be we can offer your new friend some work. They have a great trash dump outside the gates, and we’ll be needing someone to haul our scraps and such now and then. Think he could handle Bumblebee?”
“No, but Bumblebee will probably learn the way on the first drive, and he can just go along and make it look official.”
That brought another chuckle from Lily. “No doubt! On your way now. Adeena’s gone home already, but I want to look at the patterns without her worrying so. Times change, and she seems afraid of that. I understand why Mistress Greathouse did not offer to sell her the business. It would be too great a burden for her. Not that you should ever let her know such thoughts.” She eyed the two of them and both nodded in agreement. She stood. “Away with you, then! See you before candlelight!”
In a tale told in the toback shops, after the sun has set, and weak lamps reflect the blue-cloud smokes of those passing time by, one sometimes speaks of the poor shop-keeper who is alone in her shop and looks up to find a stranger standing by her door. The tale-teller will speak of the fear which flickers briefly through her eyes as she puts her shoulders back and greets the stranger. The stranger is no mean being to overlook or be light with. He is tall and shrouded in black, hiding even his eyes and the back of his hands from sight, but he is well spoken when he finally speaks after long moments of listening as if to assure they are indeed truly alone.