“Then, we need to make the most of your figure,” said Briar. “Stand up.”
Rosie stood, hesitantly.
“Take your shirt off.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“I want to see what we have to work with. Trousers down, too.”
Rosie blushed until her cheeks felt hotter than the stew, but unbuttoned, while Hope walked over and flicked the lock on the door. Rosie gave her a grateful, momentary smile.
“Shift,” said Briar, and she slipped her silk chemise off over her head and stood, awkwardly, in her drawers. Briar walked around her, looking her up and down.
“Well,” she said, “you have hips. Bony, but they have potential.”
Rosie stood stiffly, waiting for the ordeal to be over. The room was pleasantly warm for someone with clothes on, but she was getting goosebumps.
“And, for your weight, a surprisingly good little bust,” Briar continued. “Shoulders back over your hips, and stick your chest out. Hmm. Quality rather than quantity. All right, cover up. I think we can work with that.”
“Mistress Pintuck?” said Hope, to Rosie’s confusion.
“Exactly,” said Briar. She turned to Rosie and explained, “She’s a gnome seamstress we know. Cousin of one of the lads at the manufactory. She made Hope’s suit that she was wearing at the investors’ meeting.”
“Oh, I remember that suit!” said Rosie. “Garnet red.”
“Exactly, and beautifully cut. Mistress Pintuck will fix you up. The question is, how sexy can we get away with?”
“What?” asked Rosie.
“Dignified is strange, but he’s still a man, isn’t he?” said Briar. “New haircut and shampoo, clothes that make the most of your figure, a bit of lace to draw the eye where you want it,” she ran a hand down towards her own cleavage in illustration, “some very light cosmetics, perfume, breath herbs, lean all the way in,” she demonstrated, putting her hand on Rosie’s shoulder, “and you’ll have him sitting up and begging.”
Rosie blushed again. It seemed she was constantly red in Briar’s presence. “You really think that will work?” she asked.
“Sure of it,” said Briar. “Of course, it can’t all be on the surface, but in your case I think he already likes what’s underneath. We want to put the best surface on it we can, don’t we?”
“Um, I don’t know that I can… do all that,” said Rosie in a small voice.
“We don’t have to do it all at once. Don’t want to startle the man, after all.”
“And then what?” asked Hope. “Dignified has no idea about women. He barely remembers his mother, he spent his growing years either under a printing machine or in prison, and he never leaves the lab. We can make our Rosie into a blushing lovely rose, but he won’t know how to pluck her.”
“Is that what you call it?” said Briar.
“Hush, you.”
“Um… I don’t know much either,” said Rosie. “Sorry.”
“Has your mother talked to you about men and women?” asked Hope.
“Not in any, um, detail.” Mostly about the importance of a good alliance, in fact.
“What do you know?”
“Well, um. I know we’re different shapes.”
“Good start,” said Briar. Hope mock-glared at her.
“And I know that we can, ah, reproduce.”
“By means of…?”
“That’s where I get a little vague,” Rosie confessed. Briar was suddenly afflicted with a severe cough, which fooled nobody.
“As it happens,” said Hope, “I have a book.”
“You do?” said Briar, with great interest.
“I do. I’ll let you read it, if you like. It’s a very… graphic book.”
“Oo,” said Briar, with undisguised eagerness.
Rosie’s blush threatened to do permanent damage to her skin. “I don’t know if I should read anything… graphic,” she protested weakly.
“Oh, don’t worry, it’s also very scientific and educational. It’s by a mindhealer, the one that Patient and I are going to.”
“Why… no, sorry, none of my…”
“I have a magical curse which interferes with my ability to have relations with my gentleman-friend,” said Hope bluntly. “The mindhealer is helping us. Is helping us a lot, in fact,” and she smiled a little smile that Rosie wasn’t sure how to interpret. “The book has exercises.”
“Exercises?” said both Briar and Rosie, the latter in shock and the former eagerly.
“Step-by-step. One, two, three. Educational,” said Hope. “I’ve marked my copy…”
“I just bet you have,” muttered Briar.
“…but I’ll get you another when I see the mindhealer tomorrow.”
“So that’s what the two of you do on Threeday nights and Fourdays,” said Briar. “‘Exercises.’” Hope gave her a cool look.
“Patient comes up and stays the night on Threeday, and they spend Fourday together,” Briar said to Rosie, who looked from one to the other, confused.
“We don’t have intimate relations,” said Hope, sending Rosie into another blush. “Can’t, actually, yet, because of the curse. But we do… practical work on my problem.”
“I have no idea what that means,” said Rosie in a faint voice.
“Well, you’ll have to read the book, then, won’t you?” said Briar. “Right. When can you visit Mistress Pintuck?”
“I don’t know. Tomorrow?”
“I’ll take you,” said Hope. “If Briar takes you, Mistress Pintuck will never let you pay her, because Briar was involved in helping to free the gnomes.”
“Peripherally,” said Briar.
“Not all that peripherally. And Mistress Pintuck ought to be paid. What time shall I come and get you? Midday?”
“All right,” said Rosie. “We’ll probably be working. Interrupt us if you have to.”
“Already figured that out.”
Rosie refused to have a maid. Maids were too aggravating, and they made remarks. So since she had reached physical maturity, nobody else had seen her undressed until yesterday, and here she was with her clothes off in front of other people for the second time in two days. Her blush spread down to the bottom of her ribcage.
Mistress Pintuck was a plump middle-aged gnome woman with an unsmiling face and a thick accent. She walked around Rosie slowly, in both directions, then stepped up and poked her in the small of the back. Rosie straightened up reflexively.
“Better,” said the gnome. “You are tall. Be tall.”
“I don’t like being tall.”
“I don’t like being short, but what can you do?” said the seamstress. “Stand up and look life in the eye. I will make you beautiful clothes, and then you can get a man, yes?”
“I…um…”
“Is that not the plan?”
“Um, well…”
“That’s the plan,” said Hope, who had escorted her to the little shop.
“Good. Men can be idiots, but I think better to have.” She pulled out a tape measure and ran it over Rosie, calling out in Dwarvish to an assistant who sat just outside the tiny curtained booth. There would not have been room for four people, and Hope was pressed up against the wall as it was.
“You are called Rosie?”
“It’s my byname, yes.”
“I make you into a rose. Beautiful. You have good bones.” Mistress Pintuck poked Rosie’s hip for emphasis. “Clothes on. Now we look at fabrics.”
Rosie’s mother dressed her in tan and beige, and even her work clothes followed more or less that pattern, so she headed for that section of the rainbow of cloth on display in the long, narrow shop.
“Come away from there,” said the seamstress. “Here is you.”
Rosie’s eyes fell on an array of warm, soft colours. “Come, come,” said the gnome. “Touch. Feel.”
Tentatively, she put out her hand, and stroked the soft fabric. “Oh,” she said.
“Yes, oh,” said Mistress Pintuck. “W
hich you like most?”
“This,” said Rosie, touching a dark pink, almost the colour of the brick walls at her distant cousin’s Rosewall estate. “And this,” a creamy peach. She spotted a rose gold, and indicated that as well.
“Good, good. You have instincts, when you are not prevented to use them. More.”
She found several other warm fabrics, and the little assistant made notes of stock numbers.
“Now,” said the seamstress, “for contrast, green.”
She found a soft, peaceful green, a bright spring green with a lot of yellow in it, like fresh oak leaves, and a dark green that set off the dark rose pink. She also, passing the creams and whites, brushed against a heavy linen and had it added to the list.
“Good. Now. Design. I will give you shape.” She gestured curves in the air. “You have hips; we use them. Boobs not so big, but we work with what we have. Show beautiful woman on outside, then strong, clever woman inside is not always so afraid.” She shot Rosie a stern look over her eyeglasses. “When you need?”
“When can you do it?” asked Hope.
“Friend of Mistress Briar, Mage Hope, I can fit in. End of next shift-round for first pieces. Come back for fitting on Oneday. How many outfits?”
Hope looked at Rosie, who looked back helplessly.
“Money is not a problem?” asked Hope, and Rosie shook her head. “Two for each weekday, to start with, then. Some casuals for the rest day.”
“I work on the rest day,” muttered Rosie.
“All right, eight working outfits, then. She works in a lab, so practical as well as good-looking.” The gnome nodded briskly, as if to say, “I know my business.” Hope continued: “A couple of casuals for the evenings and for when she learns to take a rest day. Something to go out in?”
“Will we need…?”
“Dignified doesn’t go out, usually, but eventually you’ll want to, and I think he’d go with you. Something nice to go out in,” said Hope decisively. “You’re all right for suits if there’s a presentation or something, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” she said.
“How much for all of that?”
The gnome figured in her head, and named a price which Rosie thought low, comparing it to what her mother usually paid for her outfits. “Half now,” added Mistress Pintuck. Rosie counted out the coins, and the assistant gave her a ticket.
“Back same time on Oneday for fitting,” said the seamstress. “We do good for you, you see.”
Chapter Thirteen: Bondlink
Patient thought he controlled his wince when he saw the airhorse, but Hope, holding his hand, said, “My headaches seem to be gone, and I’m perfectly safe to drive.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You didn’t have to. Come on, get on.”
Lily was delighted with their progress, and pointed out that the more important nakedness had been the way in which Patient had opened up about his wartime experiences. “Such things are hard to talk about,” she said. “And that was exactly the right time. You’re doing extraordinarily well.
“So well, in fact, that I think we can skip the next exercise and go straight to the one after that,” she continued. “The next exercise was going to be washing each other with the washer standing fully clothed outside the bath, but if you agree you’re ready, I think you can get in the bath together.”
They exchanged rapid glances.
“Remember,” said the mindhealer, “this is still aimed at exploration, not stimulation. Use the sponge, not your hands, and don’t linger, no matter how tempting it may be to do so. Plenty of talking, too. Do you think you can do that?”
“Ah…” said Patient. He shifted uncomfortably in his chair.
“Something wrong?”
“I, um, don’t know if I can keep…” My hands off her, he thought, but finished the sentence, “doing this.”
“What is it that’s concerning you?” asked Lily, cocking her head in a listening posture.
“I love Hope very much,” he said, “and I’m very attracted to her. It’s difficult to keep holding back.”
Lily nodded slowly. “You’re concerned that this exercise might test your self-control.”
“Yes. And I don’t want to trigger her.”
“Hm,” said Lily. “Perhaps, in that case, we shouldn’t push forward so quickly.”
“Can I say something?” asked Hope. Lily nodded, and Hope shot a glance at Patient, who said, “Of course.”
“I’d be willing, if you wanted, to, um, relieve your tension for you.”
Patient looked at her, trying to read her posture. He touched her hand, and caught a sense of reluctance.
“No,” he said. “That’s not how things go between us. We move forward together, or not at all.” He felt her relax.
“Patient,” said Lily, “you just touched her hand. What happened there?”
“If I touch her, it’s easier to tell what she’s feeling,” he said. The two women exchanged glances.
“Do you know,” said the mindhealer, “that when you were talking about telling your war story, you each, at exactly the same moment, put a hand out and clasped them between you, without looking at each other or fumbling?”
“Ah,” said Hope. It was a pleased sound, and Patient, confused, looked at her for clarification.
“We have the beginnings of a bondlink,” said his beloved.
“What? But we’re not oathbound.”
“No, or even promisebound, which makes it especially remarkable. I was expecting to get a decent link at our oathbinding — since I’m a Mage-Minor in mindmagic — but to get one now, even one that only works on contact, is unusual. And good news.”
“Excellent news,” said Lily. “Not all couples get the link, and few get it so early. It’s especially remarkable given that you haven’t been physically intimate together.”
“My parents have never had it,” said Hope. “I understand why, now, too, and I want to talk to you about that.” Lily nodded.
“My aunt and uncle have a strong one,” said Patient. “She looks out the window before he turns the corner of the barn.”
“How far is that?” asked Lily.
“Oh, twenty, thirty paces?”
“That’s a good range. What about your parents, Patient?”
“They had it. They both always knew which room the other was in if they were in the cottage together. And — I know it’s a different thing, but when I was in the military I had a decent groupsense, I could tell where my men were and how they were doing when they were several paces away, even though we hadn’t been bonded long.”
Lily smiled. “Well, then, I think you can trust that your bond is going to be a good one. As far as the exercise goes, do what you both feel comfortable with. I certainly trust you to work out between yourselves what that is. Now, Hope. You were going to tell me something about your parents.”
In a dull voice, Hope outlined what her father had told her. Lily frowned.
“That’s certainly a difficult background. Your mother was always cold to you?”
“Yes. Or angry. And she warned me against men,” Hope said, sitting up straight with a sudden realisation.
“What kind of things did she say?”
“Oh, I don’t remember the details, but when I was going away to the university she predicted that I’d get involved with some boy and lose everything.”
“Well, she was only half right, wasn’t she?” said Lily.
“I suppose.”
The mindhealer thought for a moment. “You’re familiar with time-trips?” Hope nodded.
“What’s that?” asked Patient.
“It’s a mindhealing technique,” said Hope. “You take someone back in their imagination to a time when they were hurt, and help them deal with the event better than they did at the time.”
“That’s a good summary,” said Lily. “There’s a variation I’d like to try. When I was studying, one of my professors came up with it as an expe
riment. I don’t think he ever wrote it up, though. Also, I’ve never before worked with a couple who I thought I could practice it with successfully.”
“What are you thinking of?” asked Hope.
“Well, since your bond is so good already, and Patient may have some degree of mindmagic talent — albeit untrained — I wonder if we can have him present with you in a scene from your past, maybe one with your mother, so that you have someone who loves you there to support you.”
“That sounds good,” she said.
“What’s involved?” asked Patient.
“It’s a trance practice. I’ll teach you the trance, it’s not hard, and then we’ll take you both in and see what may be done.”
“But how does this trance help Hope?” asked Patient.
“It’s a helpful fiction,” said Hope.
“What’s that?” said Patient.
“A helpful fiction is something that you know isn’t literally true, but that you treat as if it was true in order to achieve some goal or emotional state,” said Hope. “Like a metaphor or a fable.”
“Oh. So we would be, what? Experiencing these events like a vision?”
“More or less,” said Lily. “People’s experience varies, but you would, for the duration of the trance, be participating in these events as if you were present. The important thing is that you would have your current knowledge and abilities, both of you, and could intervene in the events to make them turn out more positively. And then, when you come out of trance, Hope would have that memory of an alternative past to draw on and change how she feels and acts in the present.”
“That part is a well-known technique,” said Hope. “We did it a couple of times when I studied mindmagic. But it’s usually only the person themselves who can go back. I’ve never heard of anyone else being able to accompany them, except perhaps the healer.”
“That’s what I’d like to try, though,” said Lily. “If you’re both willing.”
“If it will help Hope, I’ll try anything,” said Patient, and Hope felt a deep love for him well up within her. She reached over and squeezed his hand, and nodded to the mindhealer.
Hope and the Patient Man Page 14
