• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 2627 0

her middle forties, without the madcap streak that marks so many of that house; which, I suspect, was a large part of how she came to be its Dowayne. I have heard also that she played the harp so beautifully that warriors wept and criminals confessed at the sound of it, but I never had the pleasure of hearing her play. No adept of the Night Court is easily swayed by the sight of money and a Dowayne less than most, but even Moirethe was hard put not to look twice as the Palace Guardsmen deposited clinking sack upon sack on her desk. I could see the Chancellor of the House itching to count it after I thanked the Guardsmen and dismissed them. They left posthaste, shaking their heads at the madness of Naamah's Servants.

"Are we agreed, then?" It felt strange, sitting and facing the Dowayne as a D'Angeline noblewoman fair swimming in gold, with a Cassiline and a chevalier attendant behind me. "Four thousand for her marque, and four thousand against the House's loss of her art and labor in the time she would have made it."

"And a balance of two thousand toward the purchase of materials and a year's patronage at Eglantine House should she so desire; hers clear if she does not," Moirethe Lereux agreed, glancing over our written agreement. "I am in accord, Comtesse. Shall we sign?"

We did, and it was witnessed and approved by the Chancellor after he had opened and peered into each of the sacks, weighing Severio's coinage with sensitive fingers.

"Done," the Dowayne proclaimed. "Anselme." She beckoned to an apprentice, who knelt quietly abeyante. "Will you bring Favrielle, please?"

He fetched her as quickly as he could, I think; still, we had a time to wait. Moirethe Lereux bided patiently, serving us chilled wine and sugared almonds, of which Remy ate a great many. When Favrielle no Eglantine entered scowling, it was clearly at her own pace.

"You," she said without pleasure, beholding me. "I've got half the petty lordlings in the City plaguing me on your account, Comtesse! I didn't ask you to tell everyone who made that gown."

"I didn't," I protested.

"Fortun told them," Remy volunteered helpfully. "They daren't ask you, my lady."

Moirethe Lereux cleared her throat. "Favrielle, for your services in designing a costume for the Midwinter Masque, the Comtesse Phèdre nó Delaunay de Montrève has chosen to bestow a patron-gift upon you. The balance of your marque as established prior to your ... accident... is paid in full, and the balance of funds from the loss of your services. To you is remanded the sum of two thousand ducats,which you may apply toward materials and a year's patronage in Eglantine House if you so choose. You may retain such assistants as you have trained, and all profits in that time would be your own. If you do not wish to remain here," she added, "it is yours clear, but we would be pleased to have you."

Sharp-tongued as she was, Favrielle was at a loss for words, staring at me. "Why would you do that?" she asked me finally, her voice sounding young and bewildered without its customary edge. "You don't even like me!"

Cocking my head, I regarded the seamstress, her pretty face with its scattering of golden freckles marred only by her scarred lip now that astonishment had smoothed away her habitually cross expression. "You told me to let you know when I could transform you as surely as Kushiel's Dart unmade my flaw," I said. "Well, I cannot make you into an anguissette, and I do not think you would like it if I did. But I can give you the means to transform yourself from an unfit adept indentured to years of service in Eglantine House to a woman of independent means and the foremost couturier in the City of Elua."

Still staring, Favrielle gave a short laugh. "You're mad!"

"Mayhap." I shrugged. "So too have been the proposals I have received, and your genius may well have doubled their insanity. That much, then, do I give back, and we are at quits, you and I."

Biting her lower lip, she turned to the Dowayne. "That's it, then? I'm free?"

"Yes." Moirethe handed her a document. "By the tenets of the Night Court,