Jay Lake - Green

I found myself wishing my instructresses had come. The snappish ill will of Mistress Leonie would have given me some focus for the rising of my discontent. Mistress Danae would have distracted me. The Dancing Mistress would have set me through paces to draw the energy forth.

Of course, I could step to the practice room or pick up a book or sit myself before the spinet. I did not need a Mistress to tell me to do those things. It was just that nothing mattered.

In time, I noticed the shadows had moved across the floor. A plate was laid next to me, with slices of bread and cheese upon it. Mistress Tirelle had come, then. Did we speak? I wondered.

I could not see how that mattered.

Darkness eventually stole into the room. No one had eaten the bread or cheese. Both had gone stale. My bladder finally moved me from the chair. I stumbled out to find a chamber pot.

Mistress Tirelle sat before the door. She was almost lost within the shadows.

“Emerald.” Her voice was soft. “Tomorrow your days begin again as always.”

“I think not.” I did not bother to ask permission to speak. If she wished to take after me with her stupid tube, I would feed her the sand, and follow it with the silk.

“Nothing has changed.”

“Everything has changed.” I pushed past her to spend a little time alone in the privy.

I emerged with my hunger reawakened to find Mistress Tirelle awaiting me. She seemed almost sad in the darkening shadows of evening.

“When a candidate is given a name by the Factor, that is the signal honor which declares he has found her fit.”

“Who is he to find me fit?” Rage crept into my voice.

“He is master to us all, and answers only to the Duke.” Her own voice hardened. “Sit down and listen.”

Almost a decade’s worth of habit sat me down quickly enough.

“The Duke is all in this city. We are not permitted to instruct the candidates in the recent history of our times, but you will learn.” She glanced around, then back at me. “His eyes and ears are everywhere. He was on the throne long before my grandmother was born, and he will be on the throne long after my grandchildren grow old.”

I was briefly distracted by the thought of Mistress Tirelle having children and grandchildren. The flare of interest died within the gloom of my thoughts as quickly as it had risen.

“He is everything to us, forever,” she went on. “To be raised up as his consort is an honor beyond measure. The daughters of the greatest houses would cheerfully slay their lovers and their chambermaids alike to stand where you do today.”

I will trade them freely without the need for murder, I thought.

“So you listen, little Emerald. We have a year or two left with you at most. If that. Once your flow begins, you will be beddable. At the price you command, you will be bedded. Spread wide and smile sweetly, and your life will be very good for decades to come. Turn your shoulder and raise that pride I’ve never been able to erase from your spirit, and you can still be cut and turned out like any servant girl who fails to give satisfaction.”

She patted me on the shoulder and walked out to leave me alone in the darkness, contemplating the price and purpose of my beauty.

The next months went by in an uneasy peace. My lessons continued, but they were more for practice than for further education. The Factor did not return, which suited me just fine. Neither did Federo visit in that period. My feelings about his absence were more ambiguous.

He’d taken me away once. In quiet moments, I found myself daydreaming that he might take me away again. Given that Federo was the Factor’s man through and through, I knew those for hollow, girlish hopes.

It was the name Emerald that stuck in my ears like a needle in my finger. Every time Mistress Tirelle uttered that word, my blood ran hot. By then, I was old enough to have a care for how well I could conceal my feelings, at least most of the time, but she must have seen the anger.

What was different now was that my tormentor turned away more often than not.

It finally dawned on me that she was finished with me. We awaited only the onset of my flow, or the whim of the Factor and his master the Duke, for me to leave the Pomegranate Court and some other girl-child to arrive through that barred gate.

That thought brought a special terror of its own. A part of me wanted to stay here in the hated center of my universe.

Was I safer within these walls or without?

The answer, of course, was that I was safe nowhere at all.

Even the Dancing Mistress seemed to be marking time with me. We ran familiar routes, worked on the same flips and falls and kick-steps as always. She was no better than Mistress Tirelle in her waiting.

“I don’t want my name,” I told her one night as we ran the Eggcorn Gallery, well west of the Factor’s house. I hated the truculence in my voice, but somehow couldn’t change the tone.

“Girl.” Her voice carried a tired weight. “A name is like a mask. You can wear it for a day, a season, or a lifetime, then put it aside at need.”

In truth, she had not once referred to me as Emerald since the day the Factor had dubbed me so. Somehow that didn’t make me feel better.

“What do you know of names?” I demanded angrily. “You don’t even have one.”

The Dancing Mistress broke her stride. Her eyes were black-shadowed from the faint glow of the coldfire in my hand as she stared at me. In that moment, I knew I had pushed her too hard, as I had done a few years ago over the matter of Federo. I was suddenly desperate that she not leave me now as she had then.

“I am not your enemy, Girl.” I could almost hear her claws flexing. “You might do me the courtesy of recalling that.”

Bowing my head in the dark, I forced an apology between my teeth. “I am sorry, Mistress. Everything since the Factor’s visit has been too out of sorts.”

She turned and resumed her run. I sprinted after, stumbling in my first steps at a strange twinge in my groin. I was not in the habit of faltering, but pride kept me from saying anything. I supposed anger kept her from answering.

That, and she knew well enough what was happening to me. Teaching girls was her business, after all, and every girl becomes a woman in her time.

Far too soon, my monthlies came upon me. The twinges in my back had been a warning, recurring at irregular intervals for a number of weeks. One day cooking with Mistress Tirelle in the great kitchen-we were working over a brawn terrine-my stomach seemed to flip over on me. Without any warning, I bent double and spewed my breakfast on the tiled floor.

Instead of raising her hand to me, Mistress Tirelle smiled and sent me to clean myself. When I lay down afterwards, my nausea returned. I had to work to hold my stomach behind my teeth.

In time, I was forced to roll to my knees on the cold floor, spewing. My mouth stung; I loosed a bit of my bladder. This disgusted me until at a furtive touch I realized there was blood trickling down there.

Mistress Cherlise will be proud of me now, I thought. I am beddable at last. I tried to ignore what this would mean for me in the Duke’s eyes.

Soon enough, Mistress Tirelle brought me cool water and cloths.

I had never seen her beam so.

That night I stared out my door at the moonlight. The yard of the Pomegranate Court was silvered like a jewelsmith’s dream. I was to be Emerald, a jewel in the Duke’s box, placed in a glorious setting to be admired for twoscore seasons before being allowed to fade to some tower apartment with a few aging servants.

The histories Mistress Danae had given me to read were clear enough concerning the fate of unwanted wives and lemans, especially those of low birth.