Chapter 9 – Small Blessings #3
There had already been complaints around town about foreign women.
The Benkki Desans occupied an awkward niche in the feminine hierarchy, and in the Empire, bathhouse attendants might be anything from skilled healers to beauticians to prostitutes.
There had been much speculation as to where the Benkki Desans fell on that spectrum, as well as grumbling in certain quarters about workers of magic, profaning the blessing of the stars.
There were some people in Tresingale who disdained the baths.
But as everyone took their seats to begin sewing, it became clear that Madam Sanai had not sent Bilaki out of disaffection. The woman’s stitches were exquisite, so tiny and perfect that one could hardly be discerned from the next.
“Oh, can you show me how to do that, Bilaki?” Duchess Andelin asked, leaning over to watch as Bilaki willingly repeated a neat double backstitch, sturdy enough to endure the impatient tugs of children. “You must have practiced so much.”
“Since I have five years, noble lady,” Bilaki agreed. “In Benkki Desa, girls make sewing bags when they have five years.”
“That is when girls in the Empire begin their samplers,” Mistress Tregue remarked from a few chairs down. “I imagine you are not used to such plain work, Your Grace.”
On the contrary, Mionet knew that when the duchess had time to sew, it was only on the humblest projects, endless blankets and samplers of her own. Duchess Andelin demurred.
“I haven’t sewed much at all,” she said truthfully. “That’s why I was happy when Mistress Conbour suggested this. I do want to help with the blankets and clothes, but I was also hoping to watch and learn a little…”
She could hardly have said anything that would have pleased them more. And it would have worked a treat on the great ladies of the capital, too.
“Perhaps we might take it in turns, my lady,” offered Mistress Roscout, scenting an opportunity. “Then you might have a chance to observe everyone.”
It was not an entirely innocent suggestion; everyone was eager for their moment with the duchess.
But it wasn’t only for her benefit. Needlework was an essential part of life for all women, and everyone had their own small secrets, decorative stitches and family traditions passed from mother to daughter.
Mionet was so absorbed, she was caught by surprise when Duchess Andelin turned her attention to her.
“Could you show us one?” she asked. “I like those little flowers you embroider, the ones with the hollow circle in the center of the petals?”
“Of course,” Mionet replied. She had been working on a smock and wondering what peasant child was going to be so fortunate as to be clothed by a noblewoman of Segoile, and turned it over promptly to demonstrate on the single large pocket.
“It’s a little snip of the shears, first, and then looping stitches to pull it back and make a round opening… ”
Heads leaned forward all around to watch as her needle flashed, making a raised border around the center of the flower, and then petals. In ten minutes, she had inscribed a small, cheerful buttercup on the pocket, with green leaves on either side.
“My mother used to call it blessing the work,” she said, turning it for the duchess’s examination. “I believe every dress my mother made for me had some small bit of embroidery, even if she hid it where it wouldn’t show.”
“Oh, how lovely,” breathed Duchess Andelin. “I wonder…does anyone know how to make an owl?”
There was a babble of volunteers, and Mionet willingly ceded the field.
It was a surprisingly pleasant afternoon. The stack of new clothing and blankets grew, and for a while everyone forgot the time until there was a knock on the door and Sir Miche stepped inside, looking as surprised to see them as they were to see him.
“I beg your pardon,” he said, offering a swift bow and a charming smile.
Every time she saw that smile, Mionet felt her hackles rise.
“My lady. Ladies. I had forgotten the solar was to become a garden this afternoon. Ophele, I’m off to fetch supper and Mistress Bessin, is there anything you need from the office? ”
“More paper and ink, please,” she replied, oblivious to the pricked ears of the assembled women. “Stars, I had not realized it was so late, I suppose we ought to begin clearing up…”
“Sim and Jaose have horses and sledges ready in the courtyard,” His dimpled smile set off a wave of feminine fluttering. “If there’s anyone left when I get back with Azelma, I’ll send them home.”
“Thank you, Miche,” Duchess Andelin replied, as if she had never heard a single one of Mionet’s lectures on the importance of formal address. The women rose in a murmur of voices to begin gathering their things and bundling up for the journey home.
Mionet was sure that what they said now would not be half so interesting as what they said when they got there.
* * *
Someone was sewing bugs all over Remin’s clothing.
They were small things, less than half the size of his fingernail, and they appeared in the oddest places: behind a button, tucked into his sleeve, and once even inside a pocket, a raised, bug-shaped object that he discovered by chance.
It was not a mystery he had much leisure to solve, but he frowned as he examined the latest object, a blotchy little thing with huge round eyes. Was Magne doing it? Why?
Maybe it was a valet custom? Like signing a painting.
“How did it go today?” he asked as he and Ophele were getting ready for bed. By now she had held her sewing circle several times, and he knew she had barely been able to sleep the night before the first gathering.
“It was so nice. They showed me how to make a smock, and I finished my first one by myself today! I even sewed a flower on the pocket,” she said happily. “And I like listening to them. I never knew so much was happening in town. Did you know that Master Peltier is courting Mistress Roscout?”
“Really?” The man was ancient.
“Yes, Mistress Tregue was teasing her about it, I thought it was sweet—oh, and Auber!” Her eyes opened wide as she turned to look at Remin. “He’s been calling on Isilde, one of the ladies from Meinhem. Isn’t that lovely?”
“Blast, I knew and I forgot to tell you.” Remin was disappointed that she had beaten him to it. “I found out before the fever.”
“I saw them together when Vinzetin was sick, Isilde was beside herself…” For a moment, her eyes darkened. She still was not entirely over the losses of the valley fever. “Will he ask her to marry him, do you think?”
“He asked if I would allow it. She’s a commoner, and her boy…Vinzetin is a bastard,” Remin replied, with a reassuring caress. “I told him to marry who he wants, but it will be difficult for both of them.”
“That isn’t Vinzetin’s fault, or hers,” Ophele said indignantly. She always turned fiery on the subject of the women who had suffered Valleth’s ravages; Vinzetin was not the only fair-haired child among the survivors of Remin’s villages.
“I don’t think so either, but it’s something they must consider,” Remin answered, smiling to himself as Ophele waved this away to imagine their wedding instead, wondering whether they would stay in Tresingale forever and how it would be, when Vinzetin had a little brother or sister to look after.
Setting his robe over the footboard of the bed, he spotted yet another embroidered bug, this time inside the collar. Really, that was a little too intimate.
“Wife, remind me to talk to Magne tomorrow about my clothes,” he said, disgruntled.
“What about?” Ophele was laying out her own robe and slippers for the morning, and examining the pretty embroidery on both with a pleased expression.
“He’s been sewing bugs all over them,” Remin said, bluntly and unwisely.
There was an indignant squeak.
“They aren’t bugs, they’re owls!”
“Of course they are.” Remin instantly reevaluated everything he knew about the natural world. Obviously, it was an owl. A fat, bug-eyed, spotted owl with two-antennae-like objects sticking out of its head. As soon as he imagined Ophele sewing it, it was adorable. “I love it.”
“You’re just saying that.”
“I’m not,” he assured her, sliding into bed and pulling her beside him to examine the object together. “Look, eyes and wings.”
“It’s supposed to be a blessing,” she sulked, picking at it with a fingernail. “It does look like a bug.”
“Maybe if it had a beak,” he said guiltily. “I’m sorry, wife. I do like it. Sew as many as you like, I’ll wear any quantity.”
“It would serve you right if I did,” she replied, looking up at him with a reluctant smile. “What would you tell everyone, when they wondered why you suddenly had bugs all over your shirts?”
“I would tell them that this is a sacred owlbug, which my wife sewed for my protection,” he answered solemnly, and made her burst into giggles.
“It’s an owl,” she said as he moved over her, pushing her legs apart. Her voice was suddenly breathy.
“It’s an owl,” he agreed huskily. The scent of her perfumed skin was making him giddy.
With the valley fever and the somber reflections of solstice night behind them, he had been applying himself conscientiously to getting an heir, and the hours spent above her and in her were the most blissful of his life.
If he still had dreams, they were easier to bear with the feel of her etched in his skin.
And her little blessings, stitched into his clothes.
He was aware of the small bump of another owlbug against his wrist when he met Tounot at the barracks a few days later, to prepare new quarters for Huber.
Respecting Huber’s wishes, Remin had stayed away from the infirmary, though Genon had had to amputate a further two inches of Huber’s arm before he finally rallied.
Now there was nothing to do but let him heal.