Fray

by Rowenna Miller

  “Then do something. When you talk to those nobles, be a voice for us. I don’t think they’ll believe it when your prince claims the people are ready to take up arms again the way they’ll believe it when you tell them. You’re close enough to the ground to speak for the dirt.”

  I didn’t like that analogy, but he was right. In the limited time I had spent with the nobles as Theodor’s guest, I felt both their disdain and their curiosity. “So you hunted me down just to ask me to talk more?”

  “Be our voice.” He clutched the well-worn hat. Its top was bleached gray. “Help us. I—I know I wasn’t exactly kind to you this winter, and your brother never understood you or your insistence on spending your talents on nobles. You certainly didn’t make any friends spurning poor Jack in favor of being a noble’s doxy.” I bit my lip. “But I have to admit that you’re in a position we never could have dreamed of. It might lead to nothing, in the end. But damn it all, Sophie, use it.”

  The lump in my throat grew again. I had managed to ignore, most days, that I returned alone to the row house I had shared with my brother every evening, to bury any sorrow over his absence in anger at how he had used me at Midwinter. But I did miss him, and deep in the pit of my stomach, a bitter kernel of worry often swelled into full-blown fear for him. I wanted, desperately, to ask if Kristos had any hand in seeking me out, if he had said anything about me. But I couldn’t. I didn’t want to know any more about my brother in exile, not really. Knowing meant being responsible for keeping that information safe. I needed the distance.

  I straightened. I needed the distance from Niko, too. I couldn’t be tied up with a fugitive, and I didn’t want to risk Kristos’s life by knowing any more about his whereabouts. “You have my word, Niko. I will advocate for what I can, when I can.” Even, I knew, if it meant driving a deeper wedge between me and the nobles that made up Theodor’s world. “But don’t contact me again.”

  “I will have little trouble,” Niko replied with a grin like cracked porcelain, “keeping that promise.”

  2

  “DID YOU FIND ANY DECENT SILK?” THEODOR EXAMINED THE tightly closed bud of a yellow rose next to him; pink and cream climbing roses bloomed in a cascade of petals in the arbor. He had carefully trained them himself, nudging their fledgling vines up the trellis as they grew, year after year.

  “Oh, loads. Cottons, too. And a nice set of wools—good colors, not drab stuff. Alice and I spent all day, and I’ll be going back tomorrow for a few more pieces. You want to come peruse the wares?” I joked.

  “I wish I could. The small council is finalizing the Reform Bill. It goes to the Council of Nobles for debate as soon as we can hammer out the election regulations.”

  “Finally,” I breathed in near reverence for the bill that had taken months for the group of council members under Theodor’s leadership to draft. “Elections—for the councils replacing the Lords of Stones, Keys, and Coin?”

  “Those elections exactly, and the Council of Country.” A smile crept over his face at saying the name borne of a concept cobbled together from political theory books, my brother’s revolutionary writing, and hours of discussion with his small council. What was only an idea would be, if the bill passed, real seats of government filled by real people, elected by their peers, in the fall, serving as a second and equal governing body alongside the Council of Nobles. When the bill passed, I amended. I had to believe it would.

  “So close,” I breathed. “You included the voting provision for women, yes?”

  “Let’s not push,” Theodor said. “The suggestion horrified enough of the small council that it will have to be put off for now. The bill has to be as perfect a presentation as possible,” he added. “If it’s too radical, they’ll call for a quick vote and eliminate it right off, then recess and trot off to their estates for the rest of the summer.”

  “But it has to be enough,” I countered. My relationship to the movement I had thought of for so long as “my brother’s revolution” was messy and difficult, but I knew that trivial changes wouldn’t be enough. Not for Niko, and not for the thousands he certainly spoke for.

  And not, I accepted, for me, either. I had never peddled pamphlets in the streets or been willing to risk fire and scythe in a coup, but change could come without violence now. The past months had shifted that, working quietly with Theodor to build and revise this monumental piece of legislation. Of course I wasn’t welcome in the chambers of the Council of Nobles, but Theodor had asked my opinion, and I had carefully considered what insights he needed from the commoners of Galitha, as well as I could represent them. Moreover, working alongside one another, our relationship had changed in myriad minute and lasting ways. Spark and flash of early romance had softened and built into comfortable coals of earnest partnership.

  Now reform—true, enduring change—was so close that it hung ripe and heavy like the early blackberries in Theodor’s garden, and still as fragile as the unpicked fruit.

  “I think,” Theodor said with a statesman’s deliberate care, “that it will be. The most important, most oft-repeated theme of the literature preceding the Midwinter Revolt was elected representation. Replacing the Lords of Coin, Keys, and Stones with elected bodies and creating an elected council to serve alongside the Council of Nobles should accomplish that.”

  “Yes,” I said with some hesitancy. My brother and his friends would have happily seen the nobles’ control removed completely. I knew, of course, that eradication of the Council of Nobles would have been the kiss of death for the bill itself. “And taxation? The imposition of taxes has always been contentious among the people.”

  “Indeed. I suggested a popular vote for all taxes, as your brother’s pamphlets all suggest, knowing it would be rejected.” I sighed, but Theodor held up a hand. “Knowing it would be rejected, but that requiring approval from their elected representatives in the Council of Country would, then, sound far more appealing.”

  “You’re actually quite good at this,” I said with a grin. I nodded. “Will this—all this—be enough?”

  “I think so.” He reached into the inside pocket of his coat. “If this is any indication.”

  He tossed a smudged pamphlet to me, its cheap binding already coming apart. The Politics of Reform and the Duty of Conciliation: A Peoples’ Responsibility. “That sounds like one of my brother’s titles,” I joked weakly as I paged through it. These reforms are hardly adequate, but they open a door of progress… We must not mistake compromise for concession… Our voices will be heard over the clamor of tradition, as reason and logic that convince the aristocracy of their own injustice.

  I set the paper down slowly. “This sounds like my brother’s work,” I whispered. So familiar in its cadence and diction, so like him. It was like holding a part of him in my hands, letting an echo of his voice speak over incalculable distance.

  “He said he would find a way to keep working. I suppose I should be grateful he’s working in our favor. Somewhat,” he said, nudging the page open to a particularly incendiary diatribe against the liberties taken by the nobility.

  “I—he’s not the only one.” Even here in Theodor’s serene garden, leaning against his chest, surrounded by roses in explosive bloom, Niko’s charge followed me. “I saw Niko at the Silk Fair.”

  Theodor sat upright, pulling me to face him. “Niko Otni? He’s evaded the Lord of Keys for months.”

  “He says you’re not trying hard enough,” I replied blandly.

  “That may be true,” Theodor said. “Things have been blessedly calm and the Lord of Keys hasn’t wanted to upset the quiet with a manhunt.”

  “Well, Niko says you have him to thank for the quiet, too.” I traced an over-bloomed rose with my fingertips, and its petals fell in a fragrant shower into my lap.

  “What did he want?” Theodor brushed the rose petals from my skirt impatiently until I stayed his hand.

  “To impress upon me my responsibility,” I said loftily, then softened. “I need to advocate fo
r the Reform Bill.”

  “You?” He caught himself. “Not that you aren’t as well versed as anyone, but you’re—” He stopped abruptly.

  I watched the flush break over his fair cheeks, embarrassment at what he almost said. “Yes, it’s because of who I am. A common woman. They’ll believe me when I say the people are ready to rise up again if reform doesn’t pass.”

  He nestled into quiet reflection of the yellow rosebud nearest him. “I suppose,” he said finally, “that you may be correct.” He pressed his lips together. “I confess that I’ve been… protecting you a bit.”

  I pulled his hand away from the rose and searched his face. “Protecting me?”

  “If you were noble, if this match was more… conventional, we would be appearing together at social events far more often. Publicly, not quiet evenings at Viola’s salon.”

  I nodded, appreciating this. I had only attended a couple of social functions with Theodor since the Midwinter Ball, and those had been small events, hosted by Viola at her salon or, more recently, by Theodor’s brother Ambrose, who had insisted with firm kindness on making my acquaintance and including me in his monthly card parties. “You didn’t want to put me through what the nobility would say. How they’d look at me.”

  “No, I didn’t. They’re not all like Viola and Annette and Ambrose. Some of them are far more wedded to tradition and the elevated separation of the nobles for the good of the country and all that rot. They’re not pleasant when someone skips serving a fish course at a dinner, let alone something of this magnitude.”

  “I couldn’t avoid them forever. I mean, not if…” I left that hope, that future unspoken but tangible.

  “I know,” Theodor confessed. “I suppose I figured they would eventually accept it without pushing them. That is, I had hoped that time would simply relieve them of their curiosity or surprise, but the tension surrounding the Reform Bill… there’s no chance for them to calm down enough.”

  “I think,” I said, hesitant but unwilling to back away now, “that it’s time. I… I could have done more last fall and winter. Maybe. I don’t know. But trying to hold the ground in between sides only resulted in…” I stopped, overcome for a moment remembering Nia, and Jack, and the hundreds of dead, nameless to me but known and fully loved by others. They had been neighbors, faces I passed in the street. Perhaps the nobility couldn’t account for their loss, but I could. “I can’t stand by again. Speaking for the common people is all I can do, so I will.”

  I paused, absently pulling a few petals from a rose. I didn’t want to bring up the one additional thorn to appearing with Theodor at more social events, but I had to. I hadn’t pressed the issue, but I had not been invited to the spring concert series his mother hosted at the palace, or the official coronation ball—of course, I hadn’t particularly wanted to attend, either. If I was honest, I was content to avoid that potentially painfully terse situation as long as possible.

  “What about your parents?”

  “What about them?” He handed me a new rose, taking away the bare stem I held. “Oh. You mean—right. You’d certainly see them at some juncture and—yes.” I waited. Theodor stared at his hand. I gently kicked his ankle. “I’m sorry, I’m sure once they meet you, they’ll be delighted—”

  “I doubt that they’ll be delighted.” We were going to have to deal with Theodor’s reticence to face his parents about me at some point, but it didn’t have to be today. “Maybe it’s better if we don’t attend anything with them, at least not right away.”

  Theodor studied my face with the same careful, delicate examination he usually reserved for botany. “Very well. That won’t be difficult—we’re often invited to different events. I can think of several opportunities. There’s a dinner at the foreign minister’s house, a concert, and a garden party.”

  “All this summer?”

  “All in the next fortnight.” He laughed at my shocked face. “And this is the off-season—most of the nobility are at their estates for the summer. Be glad it’s not the height of the social season. We’d be swamped. And then that does introduce the question… you will be viewed as taking a more official role with me. As my intended.”

  “And the politics of that…”

  “Damn the politics,” he said, pulling me toward him and cupping my face. “You sit here and tell me you’re willing to be ridiculed and outcast, you’re willing to lose clients for your shop, all for the sake of the reform, and I’m not supposed to simply love you for you, no politics?” He kissed me, impulsive and bright, and knocked more petals into my hair.

  “As much as you like,” I said, tracing his cheek as I pulled back, “but you know that for you, marriage, and this one in particular, is acutely political.” I was an outsider—perhaps harmless, perhaps a trivial novelty, but perhaps something too destabilizing for the already wounded system of nobility. Perhaps, even, an outsider viewed as a malicious threat. “Will the nobility read a threat in that? Will it push them away from reform?”

  “You’re not forgetting a large group of people we can surmise will be quite pleased at the union, are you?” I shook my head—of course I couldn’t forget the people who surrounded me every day, who rented the row houses next to mine and bought strawberries in the street in front of my shop. “And given the fact that they’re waiting for some real sign of progress on reform, I still say,” he said, an arm tightening around my waist, “that this is a politically expedient marriage. The old bats can balk all they like, but what could possibly convey how serious I am about the common citizens of Galitha more than marrying one?”

  “Getting the reforms passed.” I laughed.

  “Fair enough. I’m working on it.” He tweaked my nose, and I swatted his hand away with a grin. “Formal dinner next week then?”

  I mustered my resolve and offered him a gentlemanly handshake, which he returned, then kissed my palm. “You have a deal.”

  3

  “I WANT TO EAT THIS,” EMMI SAID, PULLING A BOLT OF SHOT SILK, cross-woven with gold and pink warp and weft, from the shelf. It was newly arrived from the Silk Fair and had already been picked up for an order. “Really. It’s just too delicious.”

  “But can you imagine a whole gown of it?” Alice asked, screwing up her mouth. The dual colors produced a brilliant sunset hue, and the effect was bright—almost too bright.

  “Yes,” replied Emmi dreamily. “With a sheer white apron to break it up? Trim of the same fabric?”

  “On some fat old countess dripping gems, toting a tiny dog that smells of the scullery? That’s who would pick that color, not some fashionable young lady.” Alice shook her head. “You’ll see.”

  Emmi just laughed. “What fell in your tea this morning?”

  “Plaster, actually,” Alice said. “The roof is leaking again. At least it’s cropping up now and not in the middle of winter.”

  Alice did seem in a more dour mood than usual, and Emmi more effervescent. The two usually coexisted quite peacefully, almost complementary in their moods. Today, I feared, might be an exception. Still, Alice had the management of the shop’s schedule, ledger, and staff of two so well in hand that I felt more and more at ease leaving it in her charge when I had business elsewhere. Someday, I knew, Alice would make a fine shop owner. The thought came as a sharp, almost painful, surprise, that if I ever left shopkeeping, for marriage or politics, having Alice take over my shop and its license would be a nearly seamless transition, in everything but the charm casting.

  “At least this time we needn’t worry about whether the customer can carry a whole ensemble,” I said. The silk was for a sash, for one of the frothy white chemise gowns in the style I had created and that Viola had made so popular. All of the ladies at Viola’s salon had one, created by me or by one of the dozens of other seamstresses who had quickly copied the style for their clients. A welcome bit of unadulterated professional pride swelled in my chest—I had set a new style. The city’s elite seamstresses, the private hires and upscale shops,
were copying me. Though I had built my business on charm casting, becoming known for my designs and the quality of my work had always been a quiet, driving goal.

  “And for that, it’s absolutely perfect,” Alice said, holding the length of silk she cut next to the white cotton voile.

  Emmi couldn’t disagree, and she set to stitching the bright edges into a tiny hem. “One more down,” she said, “and the board still full.”

  “Very good,” I said. “I’m going to try to catch up on pieces that are waiting on charms.” That list was growing—and only I could complete those orders. Emmi was a charm caster in the traditional Pellian methods of clay tablets and herb sachets, but our limited lessons with charm-cast stitches had proven ineffective, and there wasn’t time to spend on refining her technique.

  I slipped behind my screen in the workroom, taking a deep breath to push the list of orders and deadlines to the back of my mind as I sank onto the divan. The piece was one of my favorites from the spring’s commissions, a dainty blue riding habit trimmed in sharp black. The young merchant’s wife who had commissioned it had been content with imbuing the trim with the protection spell she wanted. It allowed for precision with the charm and, better, let Alice and Emmi handle the construction of the jacket and petticoat themselves. I threaded my needle with black silk and began with an anchoring stitch. The black wool tape was already pinned in place with Alice’s careful workmanship. I took a few uncharmed stitches to begin to tack it securely into place.

  Then I took a deliberate breath and began to pull the charm into the thread as I stitched. The golden light gathered around my needle and thread, and I fell into the easy rhythm of drawing the charm into each small stitch I made. I had only finished a few inches when my needle slipped.

  At least, that was my first assumption—the golden light I was so used to controlling hiccupped and then receded. I caught it and drew it back, and resumed sewing. But it happened again, and as I squinted at the fabric under my hands, I almost dropped my needle.