Juliet Marillier - Wildwood Dancing

The river is up, but the bridge is still passable, so the consignment should get through before the winter, I wrote. I am expecting the goods you ordered from Salem bin Afazi soon. I will make sure they are safely in storage before the weather gets any worse.

I sighed and rested my head on my hand, the neat black script blurring on the page before me. It was almost Full Moon again, a whole month since Father’s departure. The others were excited, making their preparations, counting the days, then the 58

hours, until it was time to cross over into the Other Kingdom.

All I could feel was a profound weariness. This wasn’t the first time Father had gone away, of course. But it was the first time both Gabriel and Dorin were absent at the same time as he was, and it would be for much longer than the usual buying trip. It had even been difficult to secure the services of the ever-reliable Ivan, since his own smallholding was threatened by the rising river.

There was too much to attend to—too much to think about.

I longed for a whole day on my own with Gogu and absolutely nothing to do. It was hard not to let this show in my letter. I must not worry Father; if he believed we were coping well, that would surely help him recover more quickly. Foolishly, I had hoped to hear from him by now, but no message had come.

I had expected the impossible. Constan¸ta was far away—

letters took many weeks to travel such a distance, even supposing there was someone to bring them.

Paula and Stela are helping Florica around the house, I added, and Iulia has been doing her best. These days, Iulia’s best was falling a little short of what it might be, but I didn’t tell Father that.

Now that the nights were growing longer and colder, it was a trial getting her out of bed in the mornings. She hated outside jobs like filling the wood baskets and raking out the chicken coop and feeding the pigs.

“Why can’t one of you do it?” she would whine, her nose red with cold, the rest of her face icy-pale under her rabbit-fur hat.

And I would tell her what Father would, if he were home:

“We all do our share.”

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We are in good health, I wrote. Florica and Petru ask to be remembered to you. Father, I hope very much that your own health is improving in the warmer air of the seacoast. If you are well enough to write, it would be wonderful to hear from you. We send our fondest love. We all miss you, even Gogu.

Your affectionate daughter, Jena.

I sealed the letter, put away the quill, and replaced the stopper on the ink pot. Delivery must wait until Uncle Nicolae had a man traveling in the right direction. I hoped that would be soon.

The day before Full Moon, a cart came with Father’s goods from the east. Somewhat grudgingly, the two men who had driven the cart up to Piscul Dracului unloaded the bundles and boxes. They carried them into our storeroom, then dropped them unceremoniously on the stone floor. Paula and I had weighed out the correct payment in silver pieces some time ago and stored it in a box with a very good lock. The men tried to argue with me over the amount, but I flourished a document with both Father’s and Salem bin Afazi’s signatures on it. After a while they took the silver and left, their tempers much improved by the appearance of a smiling Tati with a bottle of ¸ tuica˘

and a cloth full of spice cakes for the road.

The rest of the day was spent checking the consignment in full and making sure everything was safely stored until it was time for each item to be sold. Fabrics had to be kept dry and protected from dust and moths; spices had to be tightly sealed and out of the light. Carpets were best unrolled and layered with padded cloth.

The chamber we used for storage was huge. We imagined it had once housed grand entertainments in the early days of 60

Piscul Dracului. But the polished marble of the floor had been badly damaged long ago, and the slender, vine-wreathed columns rising gracefully to the painted ceiling bore their share of cracks and chips. Practical shelving had been erected where once elegant lords and ladies might have sat on benches, listening to fine music.

All five of us unpacked the boxes and crates. Hard work as this job was, we loved it. It was like the best kind of treasure hunt. Salem bin Afazi’s consignments were always full of exotic surprises.

Stela found a box full of tiny glass phials and flasks filled with a variety of sweet perfumes: spicy, floral, musky, pungent.

She began to set them out in a row by color, handling each with careful fingers.

Paula had discovered books destined for the monastery near Sibiu: a most precious cargo. Now she sat cross-legged on the marble, spectacles perched on the tip of her nose, engrossed in an old text bound in dark leather.

The rest of us were working together, for there were rolled-up carpets in this consignment, and each had to be checked in its turn and set away. They were long and heavy. By the time we reached the last of them, our backs were aching.

Stela had packed away the bottles and put the box on a shelf. Now she was investigating a basket of curious toys—

wooden bees, and dragonflies, and bats, that whirred and buzzed and flapped their wings when they were pushed along.

Gogu was by her side, enthralled. His eyes bulged with fascinated apprehension. “They’re not real, Gogu,” I heard my sister say. “Not really real.”

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“Oh, look at this!”

Iulia had begun emptying a crate of fabrics. Tati had un-wrapped the protective covering of the first bundle to check for imperfections and water damage.

“Oh, it’s so lovely, like cobweb!” Tati lifted a length of the silk cloth between her hands. It was not-quite-white—the color of a pale spring flower with the smallest hint of sunshine to soften its stark purity. The cloth was exceptionally fine and clung to Tati’s fingers. The whole surface was closely embroidered with a pattern of butterflies done in the same subtle color as the background, so they showed best when light shone through the sheer fabric. Here and there an eye or wing or an-tenna was accented by tiny pearls, by miniature crystals, by odd glass beads with swirling patterns in them.

“Just wait,” I said. “As soon as the wife of one voivode appears in this, the others will be knocking down our door, wanting something just the same, only better.”

“Oh, Jena.” Tati was holding the silk up against her cheek; it was plain to me that she had fallen in love. “This is so . . .”

“There is quite a lot of it,” Iulia remarked, eyes thoughtful.

“And it’s been ages since Tati had a new gown.”

“If we all worked on it, we could get it finished for tomorrow night,” Paula said without taking her eyes off her book.

“Oh, yes!” declared Stela, clapping her hands and making Gogu jump.

“What?” asked Tati, who had been standing there in a daze.

“How many yards do you need?” I asked her. “Iulia, pass me the shears.”

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“Oh, we shouldn’t—” Tati protested, but her eyes were alight.

“Iulia’s right, there’s plenty of it,” I said. “Father won’t mind, and I’ve already signed for the cargo. We won’t be taking much. You’re not exactly a big girl. You’ll need an under-dress with this, it’s almost transparent.”

“I have an old silk shift we can use,” Tati said, coming back to herself. “Are you sure, Jena? Four yards, I think. It’s a lot of sewing in one day. We have to unpack the rest of this first.”

“A project will be good for us,” I said, wielding the shears.

This would make a nice change from staring at columns of figures and worrying. “Let’s hope we have no unexpected visitors before tomorrow night.”