Jay Lake - Green

Her breathing dropped to near silence, just the faint passage of air. I extended my arms without moving, and looked with my ears.

It was silent, as always in the Factor’s house. But the silence of a city is not an absence of noise, any more than there is silence wherever people live.

At home, when I was very small, the fire had crackled, even well after it died to coals and the eye-watering odor of ash. Endurance whuffled in his pen, his gut rumbling all night long. Animals yipped in the stands of trees. Night-hunting birds sang their prey songs.

Aboard Fortune’s Flight, the sea had constantly slapped the hull. The boiler’s kettle burbled below the deck, while someone always must run to orders or coil a line or call out a log reading, even in the deepest hours of the night.

Here the silence was eased by the faint snap of a fire within the house. The streets away from our walls echoed their noises. The wind eddied differently around the high, blank inner wall than it did rattling through the pomegranate branches or sliding along the copper-clad roof.

Now, concentrating, even the Dancing Mistress’ breathing seemed loud.

I listened to the tree a moment, let its damp bark smell tell me where it was. I turned from there toward the faint echo of the breeze worrying at the inner wall. One slow step, to find the slight slope of the cobbles away from the pomegranate tree’s little circle of stone-bounded soil. Another slow step to the flattening out. Vague echo of street noise behind me. Wall before me. I began to walk with deliberation, keeping my hands loose and ready for a fall should there be an unstable cobble or some trap left by my Mistress to teach me further wariness.

After twenty-two of my paces, I reached up to touch the inner wall. I’d known it was there. The horse box should be a few steps to my left. I listened for a while. The box made no noises, for it was fairly compact and had sat there through many seasons. It was too small to trap the slight breeze that blew. Memory would be my guide.

I turned, took a step, and slammed into it. The stones caught me hard as I fell flat.

She was above me a moment later. I heard the last of her footfalls, while her breath huffed close. “You know this place as well as you know the fingers of your own hand. Yet mark where you are right now. How will you fare below ground?”

“By following you, Mistress.”

“By following me.” She knelt-I could tell by the faint creak of her joints, the rustle of her tunic, and the change in the sense of warmth as the Dancing Mistress came closer to where I lay flat. “I see differently from you, Girl. Heat is almost a color to me. Underground tends to be very wet, and the water is not at all like dry stone in that view.”

“I do not see heat, Mistress.”

“No, you do not.” She touched my shoulder. “There are other ways. It is always dangerous to show a light down there. Fire mixes poorly with bad airs in some tunnels. Other people and… things… will see you from an unfortunate distance. But there are small lights, coldfire scraped from a certain mold on the walls, that can aid you without substantial risk of betrayal.”

“I understand the danger,” I said.

“Good. Now run the courtyard with your blind.”

I fell six or seven more times, but I ran the courtyard around the outer edge. I feared she would make me climb the wall, but she did not.

The next day, I wore an ankle-length skirt to hide the bruises. Mistress Tirelle said nothing, but I feared stripping it off for a beating, so I took care to be especially pleasant and tractable.

Federo came again shortly thereafter, somewhat beyond the conclusion of his promised year. Snow had not yet reached us, but frost was on the cobbles in the mornings. The pomegranate tree had shed the last of its leaves, while the wispy clouds that painted the highest part of the sky in winter had begun to make their appearance. I detested the cold, but the smell of the season always lent me energy.

When my captor appeared at the entrance to the upstairs sitting room, I threw myself into an embrace.

He caught me, staggered back, then pushed me to arm’s length so that he might give me a good look. I was able to do the same for him.

I knew he saw a girl longer in leg and arm, but still far from a woman. They had never cut my hair here, except to trim the ends, so it reached below my waist. My clothes were better-I had made them myself, of course.

As for him, Federo looked worn. The year of his travel had added five to his face. I did not remember him with lines in his skin before. The bones of his cheeks were visible.

“Have you been ill?” I asked.

Behind me, Mistress Tirelle cleared her throat with a hard-edged rattle. I had spoken out of turn, though I knew she lacked the nerve to discipline me in front of Federo.

“A bit.” He smiled, and I saw his teeth were yellow. “Sometimes foreign food does not agree with my digestion. I have heard good reports of you, Girl.”

It took great restraint for me not to look at Mistress Tirelle. Her eyes bored into my back fiercely enough, I was certain.

“I shouldn’t know, sir. I follow my lessons diligently and always mind the Mistresses.” He saw my face, and knew that I meant more than Mistress Tirelle heard. I added, “I may never use these arts again.”

“You are meant to be exquisite, not bent to labor. Even the labor of great ladies.”

Mistress Tirelle cleared her throat once more. Federo had said too much.

“I will speak to your Mistress now,” he said. “Go and play some instrument, should you have one.”

My bone flute sat on a stand downstairs, though both Mistress Maglia and I despaired of me ever wringing more than the most vapid melody from it. “Yes, sir.” Curtsying as I was being taught lately, I raced away.

The years unfolded. Federo passed in and out of my life on a schedule only he understood. Mistresses came and went, teaching me etiquette, lapidary, manners, fencing-that with the man’s blade so I would know what I saw before me-as well as architecture, joinery, the management of funds, and the true secrets of how goods were made and sold into markets and great houses.

At the same time, the Dancing Mistress worked me on jumping and tumbling and stranger things-running in place on the back of a teetering chair, or swinging from a curtain rod, for example. We danced as well, for the benefit of Mistress Tirelle and any other listeners: the bright pavane and the lesser pavane, the women’s sarabande and the season-wheel, the prince’s step and the Graustown bend.

One night every week or two, we ran the rooftops, the underground, and occasionally the streets. As I grew taller, she coached me in changing my climbing technique, forcing me to continually relearn my falls. In the darkness Below, we practiced some of the throws and blocks she had used on me the night I had tried in earnest to fight her.

That was an education all over again. Meeting a sparring partner in the deepest dark, moving only by sound and breath and marking the placement of her feet. The bruises on my face we explained as we always had to Mistress Tirelle-from hard work in the practice room. The lie had become notably threadbare, but whatever fear the Dancing Mistress held for Mistress Tirelle had not lessened over the years.

That all flowed through Federo, of course. Over time, it had become very clear to me that they were training me for some vigorous task. Not to bring about violence, I thought, for all the lessons in the night were about movement and defense and survival, but some other purpose, which entailed the risk of being a target. This was layered within the work of making me a great lady of the Stone Coast.

Those lies were threadbare as well, though it might be fairer to call them avoidances. The Factor’s women could hardly spend every waking hour sharpening my mind, then expect me not to use all the logic and experience being poured into me.