Karah bowed her head, looking young and shy. She made Leilis feel old.
Thirty-one keiso were present, sitting or kneeling gracefully on cushions all around the edges of the dance studio, which was the only room in the House large enough for the ceremony of adoption. The mirrors and the bar, along with all other utilitarian features of the room, had been hidden from sight behind tall color-washed screens.
Fourteen independent keiso had come to attend this adoption. They wore robes in restrained colors and few—but expensive—jewels. Meadowbell, her nature as sunny as her wheat-gold overrobe, was clearly amused and pleased by Mother’s departure from tradition. On the other hand, though Celandine’s mouth was set in a good-humored expression, her eyes were cold as the winter sea embroidered on her overrobe: She did not care to have a mere child handed special favors that had never come her own way. Nemienne knew Celandine bitterly resented Karah, with a steady, cold resentment that would wear down the years, but at least Celandine was not a resident of Cloisonné House, so Karah would not be thrown into her close company.
Silvermist, oldest of the independent keiso, would have far more influence than Celandine over the reaction of the flower world to Karah’s too-swift advancement. Silvermist, her silver-shot hair braided with blue ribbons and fine silver chains, had been independent for better than thirty years. Her noble keisonne had long ago given her a house of her own and she had invested his gifts wisely; her wealth showed in her assurance as much as in the restrained elegance of her robes. Her daughters, Bellflower and Chelone, had settled near her. Each of them also had accepted a keisonne and acquired property of her own. Bellflower owned a restaurant near one of the bridges and Chelone a shop that made and embroidered keiso robes. Neither of them would feel in the least threatened by a child such as Karah, and fortunately neither liked Celandine. But what Silvermist herself thought was not obvious from her manner.
In addition to the independent keiso, seventeen resident keiso were present. They were the ones who had the most reason to feel personally threatened by Karah’s early elevation—by her beauty and by the mere fact of her existence. They were the ones who would have to compete with her for attention. These women were bolder in clothing and jewelry and manner than the keiso of independent means, and yet even so accoutered, not one of them outshone Cloisonné’s newest acquisition. They knew it. Most of them resented the knowledge. They knelt in pairs or small groups and murmured to one another behind their hands. Those who were aging pensioners upon the House would hate the too-young Karah for being given an extra chance to succeed where they had already failed.
Rue, aloof from the other resident keiso, had won a coveted spot near the studio’s huge windows. From her patient put-upon air, she would rather have had the studio to herself and the mirrors uncovered.
Featherreed and Bluestar knelt nearest Rue, their heads tilted toward one another, murmuring together. But there was less of an edge to their whispers than to the rest; they were young keiso, kind-hearted and popular. Bluestar had no fewer than three potential keisonne currently negotiating with Mother for her favor, though Leilis suspected Bluestar would in the end accept none of them. The young keiso loved the son of a Laodd noble and intended to wait for the young man to come into property or a court appointment of his own. She, of any of the younger keiso, had least reason for jealousy and more inclination than any to support her newest sister. Or so Leilis hoped.
It would no doubt help that both Featherreed and Bluestar had been deisa with Lily and knew her intimately; they would be sympathetic to Karah’s need to get out of the deisa quarters as quickly as she could. Leilis thought—hoped—that it would take very little management to be sure both Bluestar and Featherreed befriended the girl.
All six of the deisa, clad in black robes traced with blue around the hems, knelt by the door. Their faces were turned down and their mouths stubbornly set, as they took their common attitude from Lily. Lily herself had the sort of fine-boned elegance and striking presence that was most desired among keiso. Of all the keiso and deisa and servants in Cloisonné House, Leilis thought, only the Mother of the House was blind to the failings of her natural daughter.
Lily’s temper was clearly in evidence at the moment, though subtly. She had beautiful sea-blue eyes, with fine arched brows and long dark lashes, but her eyes right now hid depths of anger. The other deisa took their cues from her, for to do otherwise was at best difficult and at worst dangerous. There was a stiffness to Karah’s back, turned now toward Lily, that showed the girl had learned in her three days in the deisa quarters to be aware always of the older deisa. In just those three days, Leilis fancied, the precious, delicate edge of Karah’s innocence had begun to be blunted. Even Narienneh must have seen it.
Thus, of course, this gathering.
Between Mother and Karah stood a low table of black wood with mother-of-pearl inlay. On this table stood a large bowl, surrounded by thirty-two small porcelain cups painted with flowers or reeds or dragonflies with opalescent wings. The bowl was filled with sweet berry liquor, so dark a red it was nearly black. Leilis had never tasted it.
The adoption ceremony was a simple one. Karah took a cup painted with blue columbines and golden butterflies and dipped it full of liquor. This she gave to Narienneh, offering it carefully in both hands.
Narienneh took the cup the same way, cradling it in her long thin fingers as though it were not only fragile but also infinitely valuable. She said to Karah, “My daughter, your name is Moonflower.” Then she sipped the liquor and gave the cup back to Karah—Moonflower, now—who sipped in her turn and once more offered the cup back to Narienneh, who drained it.
Thirty-one more times, the newest flower of Cloisonné House filled a small cup with berry liquor. Thirty-one times, she shared a cup of liquor with a keiso, beginning with Silvermist, who was the eldest of them all, and ending with Bluestar, who was the youngest. Each time, the keiso who shared the cup murmured a word of advice or a suggestion to their youngest sister, from “Smile, my dear, your life will be beautiful,” with gratifying warmth from Silvermist, to “You must improve your fretwork on the harp,” from Celandine, in a disdainful tone.
At the end, Moonflower came back to place the last cup by the table and kneel on the cushion before Narienneh. She said in her soft little voice, her eyes downcast, “Mother.”
A folded parcel of cloth had lain behind Narienneh. Now the elderly woman took this and formally offered it to her newest daughter.
Moonflower took this parcel and opened it out into a very fine keiso overrobe. Removing her deisa overrobe, she donned the one that marked her clearly as a keiso, her fingers lingering on the rich cloth as she tied the sash. Then she stood facing Mother.
A blue that matched Moonflower’s eyes, the robe was embroidered from hip to hem with the fine-cut leaves and delicate white blooms of her namesake. White moths with long feathery antennae and green-traced wings fluttered in a graceful spiral from shoulder to hip. It was a robe that had once belonged to Mother herself, and a very generous gift—though also one that would enhance the beauty of the House by bringing out the beauty of its newest daughter.
Narienneh said gently, “My daughter, you need fear nothing, for you are part of Cloisonné House. All your elder sisters will teach you and look after you and you must respect them and always be courteous and guard the honor and dignity of the House. Of them all, you must have an Elder Sister to guide your steps as you learn the ways of the flower world.” She sent a glance around the circle of keiso and asked, “Who will be Elder Sister to this youngest of our sisters?”
This had all been settled beforehand, of course. Rue straightened her back, and then bowed slowly and gracefully to the floor.
“Good,” said Mother. “Well offered. Go to Rue, my daughter, and she will teach you the ways of the flower world and of Cloisonné House.”
Moonflower bowed to Mother, straightened, went to Rue and bowed again, and then took her place behind the older keiso.
>
Mother rose, clapped her hands once, gently, and walked, her back straight, out of the studio. She did not seem to notice any of the keiso, and certainly not the deisa, though Lily sent her an angry sidelong glance as she passed her. The keiso left the room one at a time, in silence, in order of seniority—Rue neither early nor late in that precedence. Moonflower, though youngest in the House, nevertheless rose with her Elder Sister and went out with her; she would stay a step behind Rue for weeks, perhaps months, until she was ready to present herself on her own to the House and the candlelight district.
The deisa left after the keiso, Lily first among them. The line of her back was as straight as her natural mother’s, but with anger and offended pride rather than Narienneh’s effortless dignity.
Last of all—neither keiso nor deisa, nor quite a servant—Leilis rose from her place in the corner of the room. She gathered up the cups and carefully stacked them, six at a time, in the now-empty bowl. Then she threw a glance around the transformed studio. Drops of dark liquor marked the floor where each cup, dipped into the bowl, had scattered its own libation upon the polished wood. The floor would have to be cleaned and polished before the screens and cushions could be removed and the room restored to its ordinary function. Leilis would do this task, for it was not fitting that servants should so much as touch the liquor. And she was not, after all, quite a servant.
During the period of her keiso apprenticeship, Moonflower would sleep on a mat in Rue’s room, as she would live every moment with her Elder Sister. But she came alone to Leilis’s room even so, late that evening after most of the keiso and all the deisa had gone out about their duties.
“Rue said I should come,” she said, in her soft, gentle voice. She had put aside her elaborate keiso overrobe, so she now wore only a simple pale-blue underrobe.
Leilis had been sitting by her hearth, one hand resting on the largest of the cracked hearthstones, watching a small fire burn in the depths of the great fireplace and thinking about nothing. Or trying to think about nothing, while memories she had thought long put aside seemed to her to flicker among the flames. Long inured to loss, long past any natural bitterness… so Leilis had thought herself. She’d watched more than a few deisa assume their keiso robes, but Karah—was it the special exception made for her, or was it the girl herself who had brought Leilis’s half-forgotten anguish back to her so strongly? Looking up wordlessly at Karah now—at Moonflower—Leilis thought the girl’s inherent sweetness must be responsible. But though the memory of her own loss had become so sharp, Leilis somehow could not regret Moonflower’s ascension to keiso status, or the sense that she herself was in some way regaining a long-numbed capacity of feeling.
Moonflower slipped uncertainly into Leilis’s room, though Leilis had not yet answered the girl. She drifted a step forward, with a natural grace for which many young keiso would have traded their toes. “Rue,” she began, a little uncertainly, but then her voice firmed. She went on, “Rue said you persuaded Narienneh… Mother… to make me keiso. Even though I am only seventeen. She said I should come and thank you. I do thank you. I was afraid of Lily. The keiso… they are not truly like sisters, but even the ones who don’t like me don’t make me afraid.”
“They have the sense to know that harming you would harm the house, and quite possibly bring them dismissal from Cloisonné House and the disdain of the whole flower world. Keiso are expected to be obedient and loyal daughters; keiso who are dismissed find neither the flower world nor the outside world welcoming.” Leilis waited for a moment for the newest keiso of Cloisonné House to understand the point she was making, then added, “But you were right to be afraid of Lily. Did Rue tell you why?”
“She is—she is Narienneh’s natural daughter. Rue said the, the flower world is hard on natural sons because there is so little place for boys or young men here, but usually daughters do well, except that Narienneh—Mother—is blind to Lily’s faults and has indulged her too much.” Karah sounded a little doubtful.
“Narienneh believes that once Lily has become keiso, she will have no need to be unkind,” explained Leilis. “Not all the deisa become keiso. Did Rue tell you that? If they do not receive the command to change their robes—” or were unable to do so for other, stranger, reasons “—then in the end they will become merely servants.”
“But keiso never become… become servants?”
Leilis shook her head. “If a keiso is dull or timid or lazy, she may find herself obscure, dependent on her House for everything, and finally forgotten. But keiso are never demoted. So the deisa fear and hate their rivals, where keiso merely dislike and resent theirs. Mother hardly sees what Lily is, and then when she cannot close her eyes, she believes it is merely the natural deisa rivalry that makes Lily cruel.”
Moonflower came a step or two farther into the room. “Lily is beautiful. I don’t—I don’t understand why she should be so—so unkind to—to everybody. To the other deisa.”
“Do you think beautiful girls are always kind?”
Karah flinched a little and dropped her eyes.
“Ah, well.” Leilis found herself relenting a little. “Lily is different from even the most petty failed keiso. It is her nature to be vicious. She was a sly and cruel child and no doubt she will be a cruel and sly keiso. Some wealthy man will beg for her to be his keimiso, and he will regret it.”
Karah looked shocked, and Leilis found herself adding, “Men are often fools, and to their lasting grief choose wives poorly, flower wives as well as true wives. Surely you have seen this. Lily will find a keisonne whom she can handle as a jeweler handles wire, and she will make his life miserable.”
“Oh,” Karah said in a faint voice.
“At least then she will leave the House. That will be welcome. Though Narienneh believes that one day Lily will inherit Cloisonné House from her and be Mother here in her place.” Leilis allowed her tone to express a certain doubt of that possibility. “But certainly you’ll have time to establish yourself before Lily changes her robe. Rue will help you. She doesn’t care for rivalry and won’t put herself forward, but she will take her responsibility as your Elder Sister seriously.”
“Yes,” said the girl, with a pretty little downward glance, naturally modest. “And Mother will help me, Rue says. And you. I am grateful for your kindness.”
Leilis said nothing for a moment. Impatience with the girl’s naïvety warred within her with a much more surprising inclination to be gentle. She said at last, her tone only slightly edged, “I’m seldom kind. Ask anyone. Anyway, there’s little enough I can do for you. Moonflower is your name. You are a keiso now. Look to Rue for support.”
“That’s not… Rue said…”
“Oh, yes,” Leilis said bitterly. “Sometimes I manage to nudge a keiso—if she’s already inclined to go the way I think she should. Occasionally I nudge Mother. But I have no authority in this House. Only the merest scraps of influence. Rue didn’t tell you about me?”
Moonflower glanced up. She was as appealing when she steeled herself to be direct as when she was diffident—a rare gift. “She told me only a little. Rue said you understood the danger of deisa rivalry. And that the deisa who… who hurt you was sent away. You are—you are beautiful. She did not tell me what the other deisa did to you.”
And she was, of course, curious. Leilis wordlessly held out her hand to the child.
Moonflower, looking very serious, took Leilis’s hand between both of hers. For a moment she looked only puzzled. Then surprised revulsion came into her face and she jerked away, holding her hands out from her body as though they were contaminated. Confusion came into her expression next, and embarrassment. She held her hands up and looked at her palms, then rubbed them on her thighs and looked in even greater embarrassment back at Leilis.
It took a moment for Leilis to steady her voice, to speak with some semblance of her customary flat indifference. True indifference was not, right now, within her reach. But she was too proud to make a show of los
s, of grief. Of the bitterness of failure. She said, “The effect is even stronger when a man touches me.” She had to cut the last word off short, or she would have lost control of her tone.
Moonflower cried, with intense sympathy, “But that is horrible! Couldn’t Narienneh—couldn’t Mother make it better?”
Again, it took a long moment for Leilis to flatten her tone. She said, her tone colder than she’d intended, “All the mages of Lonne tried, one after another. None of them could remove the spell. None of them understood exactly what Blueflax had done, or how she had done it so—powerfully. One of them tried Blueflax as an apprentice, but she had no aptitude. Another said I—said I was myself at fault, that there was some kind of intrinsic magic in me that had got slantwise to the magery in the curse. He thought if he could get rid of the curse I might have aptitude myself, maybe because of my father. But he couldn’t, so it didn’t matter.”
“Your father?”
“He was a mage, a king’s mage, from the Laodd. He never had much interest in the left-hand daughter whose birth killed her mother. I didn’t know him.” Leilis waved an impatient hand. “He’s dead now—it doesn’t matter.” It didn’t. No girl born to a keiso was likely to think overmuch of her father. In the flower world, mothers and sisters were everything. And, of course, as she was not keiso, Leilis did not truly have those, either. She set her teeth against sharp anger Moonflower surely did not deserve.
“Oh,” Moonflower said in a faint voice.
“But even though Mother wouldn’t send me away, of course I was ruined for the flower world.” Despite everything she could do, Leilis’s voice shook a little at the end of this explanation.
“This is terrible!”
“I’m accustomed to it,” said Leilis. But she had to wait a moment before she could go on smoothly. “It was years ago. But what happened to me made Mother guard you more carefully.” Though Leilis had had to work hard to make sure of it, and now found herself even doubting whether anything she’d yet managed could even begin to guard this innocent girl enough. Or whether she could stand the burden of Karah’s gratitude or trust or whatever it was the girl was offering… Suddenly desperate to recover her solitude, Leilis said, “You will be very busy. You have a great deal to learn. So you had best go back to Rue and rest while you have the chance.” She knew her tone had gone sharp, even savage.
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