by Patty Jansen
“Are you hungry?” Ellisandra asked.
Sariandra nodded.
“Let’s go and buy something then.”
Sariandra’s eyes widened. “But my father didn’t give me an account code to use.”
And she had none of her own? How old was she? “You don’t need an account. I’ll put it on mine.”
“But I can’t let you . . .”
“Don’t worry about it. Get your cloak.”
Sariandra stared at her.
“Come on, go.”
“Yes, yes.” She ran upstairs while Ellisandra found her cloak. Seriously, what sort of home did this girl live in to be so frightened?
“Where are you going?” Aleyo asked. She sat at her conductor’s chair while the members of the orchestra took their midday break. Her tone was disapproving. Aleyo tended to sound like that.
Ellisandra shouldn’t let it rile her so, but the fact was that it did. She was hungry, she was cold, she was still shaken by Nemedor Satarin’s visit. Aleyo complained about so many things while having so few responsibilities.
“We’re going to buy some food. You lot ate everything.”
Aleyo gasped and clamped her hand over her mouth. “Oh, I thought you’d already eaten. I’m sorry about that.”
No, she wasn’t, and she probably hadn’t even asked if everyone had eaten yet. It wasn’t the first time that it had happened, either. She put on a prim voice. “We’ll just go to the shops. We’ll be a little while. Good luck with the orchestra.”
Aleyo turned around without a word. Good luck indeed.
Sariandra returned wearing her cloak, and the two of them left the theatre building through the side entrance. Walking through the alley to the main street, Ellisandra had no idea what to say. Had Sariandra been anyone else, they would have chatted about the play, gossiped about Nemedor Satarin’s visit, or would have vented about the orchestra. With this girl, there was no knowing where that information would end up.
Since when did the theatre become this distrustful?
They talked a bit about the weather—that was always a safe subject, even if winter weather consisted of snowstorms and snowstorms and oh, did you hear about the snowstorms? So yeah, it was not a very interesting subject.
On the main street, they turned downhill towards the busiest section of the commercial quarter. In the shops and stalls on both sides of the street, trade was in full swing. People lined up in the shops, mostly Nikala workers or servants. Street sellers advertised their wares and tried to stop potential buyers in the street. As two high-ranking Endri women, Ellisandra and Sariandra’s presence caused a few strange looks and raised eyebrows.
On the corner, where the main street met the major side street that led into the Nikala residential quarters, was a grandiose old building built from white bricks. It had decorative granite columns with carvings of flowers and cornices bearing carved leaves and trailing vines. The arched entrance provided access to a large indoor space that held a number of businesses over three gallery levels.
The ground floor of the central part of the building consisted of a large covered courtyard where shoppers sat at tables surrounding open fires. Unlike the similar area at the markets, there were proper chairs with cushions and blankets and waiters walked around collecting people’s orders.
Ellisandra chose a table closest to the fire. She sat down and rubbed her hands while Sariandra took the chair opposite her.
A waiter rushed to the table. “Can I take the ladies’ order?”
Ellisandra ordered tea, bean soup and fish bread.
“It’s quite warm here,” Sariandra said while wrestling herself out of her cloak.
If Ellisandra hadn’t already known Sariandra’s status, her high position would have been evident from her magnificent cloak. The heavy, glossy and mottled tiyuk fur came from the prime males in the herd. The nomads rarely killed an animal like that, because it was worth much more to them in breeding fees than they could ever make selling the pelt, and the price of the fur reflected that fact.
The collar of the cloak was held with an elaborate gold clasp, and the lining of the hood looked like pure fur-tail felt, which was made in a laborious process from the fluffy seed heads of a plant that grew in creeks.
“Don’t look at me like that,” Sariandra said.
“I’m just looking at your cloak. It’s beautiful.”
“Thank you.” Spoken without any enthusiasm.
There was a small, painful silence.
“How are you going with the costumes?” Ellisandra didn’t really want to talk about work, but she had run out of remarks about the weather, and remarks about clothing seemed to be out of bounds as well.
Talking about work would be more productive than the weather, but it all felt so stiff and horrible. When she came here with Tolaki, they’d be laughing about . . . well, things. It didn’t matter what. Just trivial stuff. Gossip or other “women’s talk” as Enzo would call it.
Sariandra explained what she had been doing with the costumes. She said that the books she had on her desk belonged to her half-sister Liseyo whose name came up frequently in the theatre, because she had been very talented when she was caught up in her older sister’s involvement with the Andrahar family which led to both of them moving to Barresh as part of that family.
“They’re beautiful books about historical clothing. I used the pictures to draw the costumes. Tell me what the budget is for fabric then I’ll tell you what I need.” Her eyes shone.
“You really enjoy dressmaking, don’t you?”
She nodded. “Father didn’t like me working in merchant Ranuddin’s shop and I think he was secretly glad when the shop closed, but I cried the whole night when I heard the news. I can’t believe no one has reopened it in all that time.”
Ellisandra thought the shop had been over-priced and thought that the merchant was a bit of a leery old man, but she guessed he did know a lot about high-end fashion. “What do you suppose has happened to all the workshop equipment?”
“It’s all still there, collecting dust, as far as I know. Ideal for someone to take it over. But none of his sons were interested.”
“The entire building is still owned by the Andrahar family, isn’t it?”
Sariandra nodded. “There are still some tenants upstairs but the bottom two floors are empty now. I don’t understand. They could easily rent out the space.”
The building in question had become an eyesore with the shop at ground level boarded up and the upstairs office windows gaining more and more dirt with every passing year.
The waiter came and brought tea and a large plate of fish patties that were so hot that they steamed. Ellisandra took one and bit a piece off. The salty taste exploded in her mouth.
“Get stuck into them, because they get cold very quickly.”
Sariandra picked one up daintily between thumb and index finger and bit a piece off. “This is very nice.” She looked around the courtyard. “Nice place, too.”
“Haven’t you been here before?” She couldn’t imagine that, since merchant Ranuddin’s workshop was just up the road.
“No.” She blew on the white flesh inside the fish patty.
“Didn’t you ever have a break at the workshop?”
“We always ate inside. The merchant provided the food.”
Ellisandra had found that a lot of businesses did that, and the staff would sit around a table and discuss work. Midday was always an excellent time to find someone in a business.
“How come you worked there? It’s not something one of us would normally do. Were there any other Endri in the workshop?”
“No.” Sariandra took another fish cake off the plate. “Are you sure you don’t want me to pay for this?”
“Look, next time we come here, you pay, all right?”
She nodded, not looking convinced.
“It’s all right. It will happen. We come here a lot.”
“I thought the theatre staff would feed us.
That’s what they told my mother.”
“They’re supposed to, but sometimes there is no theatre staff on duty, or they forget or, like today, you don’t get any. There is never quite enough, and those actors always eat so much.”
Sariandra smiled, uneasily.
“You have never done anything like this before, haven’t you?”
She shook her head. “No. I wasn’t quite expecting . . .” She shrugged and clamped her hands in her lap.
“Is there a problem?”
“I promised my father that I’d stay in the theatre and not talk to strangers.”
“Am I a stranger?”
“No, but . . .”
“But what? When you finish drawing, you’ll have to go out and buy materials, and you’ll have go to the stores to sort out accessories. You can’t just hide in the building.”
Sariandra nodded, nervously.
“Do you want me to come with you?”
“No. I’ll be fine.” She looked at her hands.
“Do you actually want to be in the theatre? Because if you don’t then—”
“Of course I do! I want it more than anything.” Her eyes glittered. She looked away.
Whoa. “Then what is the problem?”
“There is no problem. I’ll do everything exactly as you say, even if you want to use blood and ripped clothes in that last scene. I’ll do it. You’ll be happy with my work.”
“Are you afraid that your father won’t like it if we make the last scene gory?”
“He won’t.”
“Tell him to blame me. Tell him I told you to do it.”
“He’ll force you to resign.”
“It’s my last year anyway. I’m getting married. Anyway, we’re not doing anything wrong. For the purists, we’ll be performing the play more accurately, because it must have been horrific.” She shivered, remembering that all of the Mirani classic plays were based on real history. Vaguely, she remembered some to-do over Coldi people wanting to visit the simple unmarked cairn that signified where those prisoners had been buried. She remembered there had been an application to council by Asto to put up a plaque. She didn’t think there was one on the cairn, but the last time she had been to the cemetery had been after her grandmother’s death, a long time ago. Burial horrified Coldi people, apparently. They wanted their bodies to be burnt. “If we perform the play as I propose, the audience will know how I feel about the play. They’ll know how all the women and the artists of Miran feel about violence in the name of glory. About the glorification of violence, about striking people when they’re already down.” Her voice had risen during her speech and people around then looked over their shoulders.
And then another thing. “You’re recording this, aren’t you?”
“I’m—what?”
“That thing you showed me yesterday. It records what I’m saying, doesn’t it?”
“It does not.”
“Then why are you carrying it around with you all the time?”
“I told you, because I can get into contact with my father. He wants me to be safe. I know you don’t believe me, but I don’t care. No one ever believes me. Everyone thinks my mother and I are stupid or something.”
“I don’t think that at all—”
“You do, and even if you didn’t, I don’t care. It’s none of your business anyway.” Her cheeks had gone bright red. She picked up her cup and cradled it in both her hands. They trembled.
Whoa, what was going on?
Sariandra drank, which possibly made her cheeks go even redder. Ellisandra took the last fish patty, which by now was almost cold. She ate it anyway, for the sake of having something to do, but the fish had gone dry and lost most of its taste.
“I’m sorry,” Ellisandra said after a lengthy and very awkward silence, although she wasn’t quite sure what she had to be sorry for. She wiped her fingers on her dress. “Look, I don’t know what is going on, but I didn’t mean to make you feel that we think you’re dumb, because it’s not true and we don’t think that at all. It’s just that . . .” She spread her hands. “In the committee, we are also each other’s friends, even Aleyo, never mind she can be really annoying at times. We gossip, we laugh and talk about silly things.” She let her hands sink to her lap. Sariandra just looked at her.
“If it makes you feel any better, invite some friends to come on the committee.”
Again, there was no reaction.
Ellisandra sighed. She rose and put on her cloak. “Let’s go back.”
They walked back to the theatre in silence. Aleyo and the orchestra had vacated the large backstage room, and someone had dragged tables into the middle where a merchant had spread out rolls of fabric. Sariandra went to talk to him, while Ellisandra continued upstairs. She stopped at the door, glancing at Sariandra’s designs. The device Sariandra had shown her yesterday lay on the table.
11
WELL, THAT made her feel like a profound idiot.
On the other hand, if Sariandra didn’t have the thing with her, then why hadn’t she said so? Wasn’t her father supposed to know where she was at all times?
Come to think of it, he knew. The device would be telling him that his daughter had been in the theatre all day.
Damned if she understood this.
She went upstairs to her office to find that while she was out, the printer had delivered a pile of paper, which was on her desk. Reprints of the missing pages in the individual actors’ parts. She’d go and insert them now so that she could hand out the texts.
On her way back downstairs she met Sariandra coming the other way. She walked past and into the drawing room without saying a word.
Ellisandra felt awful. Whatever was going on with the High Councillor’s daughter wasn’t her business.
But then again, imagine having a father who demanded to know where you were every moment of the day.
Demanding not to talk to strangers. Strangers being anyone he did not approve of. Maybe she was a stranger in that definition. An independent woman, not afraid to speak her mind, with no man in her life who could tell her what to do.
Until she married.
That was a thought that kept coming back.
She wished she had more confidence that Jaeron was going to share her outlook on marriage, but all signs were that he was going to be traditional and expected to lead the household and tell her what to do. The fact was that, having lived with her brothers, no one had told her what to do for quite some time. And she’d probably dislike it if someone tried.
A very scary thought.
And somehow that explained why every time she thought of her upcoming wedding, her gut knotted with nerves. She’d be a bad wife. She talked to men other than her husband. It wouldn’t be long after their wedding that rumours would start to flow about how she talked back to her husband and how she tried to tell him what to do. People would laugh behind their backs. She was fine with that because people always laughed behind your back when you ran the theatre and you put something in a performance that they didn’t like, but Jaeron wouldn’t be fine with it at all, because he had his business and that was serious and bad gossip wouldn’t make him look good at all. People would tell him to have a good talk to his wilful woman and beat the notions out of her.
The old family matrons usually said how a child or two fixed wilful women, but to be honest, she wasn’t sure if she wanted to be fixed. Or if she wanted her life to descend to mothers’ gossip circles, where the only subjects of conversation concerned children and what they were or weren’t doing at what age.
It will be different once you’re expecting, Gisandra had said, but honestly she couldn’t see why it made any difference at all.
Already, the men were always trying to steer her away from political discussions or treating her as if she had no interest in what went on in Miran. Once there had been women in the Mirani council, but now there were none. Once even there had been a woman High Councillor, but she now lived at Hedron.
&nbs
p; And no matter what Nemedor Satarin said, she couldn’t believe that he had really asked Jaeron if she could use her charms to get information out of the foreigner. That was just wrong in so many ways. From now on, she was going to make all effort not to talk to the stranger anymore. Then she couldn’t betray his trust and couldn’t get into trouble with Jaeron for flirting with another man either.
Although the latter disturbed her on another level, but she seriously wasn’t going to go there either.
Downstairs in the library the stacks of scripts still lay on the large table. She inserted the reprinted sheets in each set as needed. These she tied with a ribbon to which she attached a card with the actor’s name. They would be responsible for the text while they rehearsed and would need to return it in the best possible condition afterwards.
By the time Ellisandra completed sorting out and tying up the scripts, it had gone dark.
She had meant to apologise to Sariandra, but when she came back upstairs, she found that the High Councillor’s daughter had quietly finished her work and Ellisandra had not noticed her leave. Well, bummer. It was absolutely vital that the theatre committee work as a team, so she would have to patch something up tomorrow, although what form that patching up would take, she had no idea. Whenever she and Aleyo had a fight, they’d go and buy tea and cakes, sit by the fire and laugh about stupid things. It happened quite a lot, and it was a wonder both of them weren’t as round as barrels. Sariandra didn’t seem to know how to laugh and be silly.
Having already tried the tea and cakes thing, what could she do to make her relax and simply be friends?
Ellisandra grabbed the quaint old book of notes for the play—more to read—and put it in the middle of the table before she left the theatre. She walked quickly through the snow-covered streets. A lot of workers had finished for the day and many of them hung around the open fires at the markets where the food stalls were doing a roaring trade.
The streets, too, were still quite busy despite the darkness.
All this was in stark contrast with her house, where it was warm, but where the dining room was deserted.
