“Mistress Mal owns that charity house, and she once told me she would pay more for her clean linen when cows fly.”
Althy went back to chopping more onions, and I had to prompt her again. “But you eventually came to an agreement?”
“Only after I punched a new hole in her house, using one of two wooden cows I had commissioned at the carpenter’s. It went through her wall like a plunger through churned butter. I built it to size, so I expected such results.” Althy continued to chop serenely, paying no attention to my shock. “I paid for the wall, of course, but I also paid to have the second cow erected on the field across from her place. Mistress Mal has been getting on in years, but I’ve found it to be a most effective way to jog her memory. Now, what color would gingivitis look on someone’s heartsglass?”
? ? ?
When Altaecia finally left to take up her duties in the castle, my time was claimed by Polaire. Because of my lessons and my training, the evenings were one of the few times I had for myself. Polaire soon usurped even that.
There were two sides to Polaire as well. She scrutinized me as I entered the small tearoom at the Gentle Oak, her lips pursed. “That’s a horrible outfit,” she said.
“What?” I was wearing the prettiest hua I had. It was a deep maroon, with golden butterflies fluttering halfway up its skirt, and a waist wrap of soft beige with outlines of brown leaves embroidered along its edges.
“We’re meeting the envoy to Drycht, you dummy. He’s an old and cranky stick-in-the-mud, and he wouldn’t approve of women wearing such bold colors.” She gestured at herself, at her lavender hua with tiny lilies painted in large clumps along the bottom of her gown. She shook her veil at me. “Didn’t I tell you to do your research? It’s a little too late to go back and change—he chafes at delays. Let’s see what we can salvage.”
She was right; the envoy was a yellow-faced old man with cheeks pulled down like a bulldog’s, and he drew back a little when he saw my hua. “Do asha-ka take in courtesans now?” he sputtered, scandalized. “Women were not so bold in my day, least of all asha apprentices!” His heartsglass actually bristled, the colors palpitating between turgid yellow and green.
“Forgive us, Envoy Mu’awwan.” I never knew Polaire could gush so. “I told Tea here to come in her most outrageous hua, so you can point out all that is wrong with it, to teach her. Who is the authority on all manners of propriety and custom, I asked myself, and thought of you.”
“Well.” The man relaxed, mollified. “Quite, quite clever of you. Unlike some of my countrymen, I am not one to deny progress and women’s rights—my views are known to be liberal.” I stared at him in consternation. “But with all these indecent girls nowadays showing off legs and ankles without so much as family to accompany them, they wind up in all sorts of trouble. It’s important to cover up, to prevent men from indecent thoughts. Why, the stories I could tell you—if you knew the shamelessness of such women!”
We didn’t want to know, but he regaled us with them anyway. Afterward, he told me the fifty-seven things wrong with my hua, and my dislike for him grew with every justification.
“We’re wearing practically the same thing!” I hissed at Polaire when Envoy Mu’awwan excused himself to go to the bathroom. “How can he find fifty-seven things wrong with mine but not with yours?”
“The Drychta are a conservative people. Most would consider us terribly underdressed, and they avoid the Willows altogether. Envoy Mu’awwan is a diplomat and a progressive man in comparison, but what you consider similar is to him a world of difference. Red on a female implies that she flouts tradition and is therefore a loose woman. You wear the color on your clothes and in the jewels in your hair. Drychta men prefer that their women dress simply, without any ostentatious gems. Your hua has a slit on your side and exposes a part of your leg, while mine has none.”
“Maybe he just doesn’t like the color red.”
“That is no excuse, Tea.” Polaire was stern. “Know the people you entertain. If they are offended, you not only bring dishonor to the Valerian but also to the tearoom you stay at and me by association as your sister. Our opinions do not matter, and if you have to swallow your pride to keep them happy, then so be it. Now, stop slouching. I can hear him coming back.”
We attended a larger party the next night, with a group of wealthy merchants from both the kingdom of Arhen-Kosho and the Yadosha city-states. This time, Polaire was dressed like a princess, in silver and gold, and it brought out the gray in her eyes. The style of her hua was bolder, more brazen; her hair was skillfully piled up on top of her head and kept in place by half a dozen hairpins, where bright diamonds dangled, and long ringlets of brown hair framed her face. I had done my research and had once again donned my maroon hua but had not made myself up to the extent that she did.
The group of men greeted our arrival with cheers and guffaws, the noise loud in the usually quiet tearoom of the Golden Bough. It was early in the evening, and most were already drunk or at least well on their way to being drunk.
“Ah, Polaire! We were wondering where you were! And who is this pretty little thing?” One of the men bounded over, the tallest I’ve ever met. His hair and beard were golden, his face a healthy pink and white, but the hand that enveloped both of mine in a hearty handshake was brown and weather-beaten and twice my size.
“Don’t be so free with my little sister, Aden!” Polaire scolded, slapping his hand away. “Didn’t I tell you to behave this time around or will I have to stick your head into the pond outside again?”
Rather than be outraged, the men laughed harder. “She got you there, Aden!” one called out, shorter and wirier than the bearded merchant, with a thicker accent. “The last time you shook a flannin with Lady Polaire, she sent you headfirst into the fountain!”
“I remember her chasing Balfour around with that pole they clean the garden’s fishponds with. Mad as hops she was—”
“I was tipsy!” the red-haired man with darker skin protested.
“You were tipsy all right—tipped right into the stream!”
The group roared again. A tearoom attendant hurried in briefly, setting large tankards of a foamy golden drink on the table, and hurried out. I was ushered into a place among the cushions between Polaire and a dark-skinned man who was younger than his silver hair suggested.
“Your younger sister, you say?” Aden continued. “What’s your name?”
“It’s Tea, milord.”
“Milord?” Another one of the men guffawed. “No need for formalities. We’re all friends here. Tey-uh? What an odd name.”
“It’s spelled like the drink, Isamu,” Polaire explained.
“How strange to name someone after a drink! Where are you from, Tey-uh? Kion?”
“Her skin’s too dark for Kion, Isamu,” someone said. “She looks Odalian if anything. Or perhaps even Drychta.”