28. TWENTY-EIGHT
TWENTY-EIGHT
ATTILATIA
Location: Poqualle District, Seraphinden
When Attilatia returned home from Shrokan’s messenger station, Pinto was already waiting.
His scowl stopped her in mid-step until she realized his expression was a purposeful pantomime of her own.
She rolled her eyes, lips pulling into a smile.
The one he returned was so resplendent it might have blinded her, had she not been wearing oculars.
“I could smell the fekkas and cologne from Shrokan,” she grunted. It was the first time she had invited him over, as opposed to the standard of waiting for his invitation or ascending the musky stairwell to his flat, unannounced.
“And I could feel the caustic passive-aggression from Korshuva.” He nodded at her faded tipiana, dashed with green palms. It was the most worn of her collection: suitable for errands in Shrokan. “You look enchanting as ever.” The worst part was, he meant it.
Heat touched Attilatia’s cheeks, and she shrugged a shoulder. “Come in.”
As they picked their way through the waist-high flowers that obscured the stone path to her rear entrance, something shifted against Attilatia’s ankles. She stifled a scream.
“What is it?” Pinto pulled a dagger from… she could only guess where.
Attilatia breathed a sigh of relief as Toronoff mewled. “I—I think I have a cat now.”
She unlocked the door and pushed it open into the dark interior. It was nearing highsun, and exhaustion had begun to weigh on her eyelids. But tomorrow was her off-day. Plenty of time to catch up on sleep. If she waited any longer to enlist Pinto’s help, she might talk herself out of it.
“Have a seat.” A sudden self-consciousness scratched at her.
Compared to the overabundance of Pinto’s flat, her home was practically barren.
She busied herself lighting the hearth for a pot of tea.
Then she scritched Toronoff behind the ears while the cat helped himself to a lump of cheese she’d forgotten on the table.
Attilatia’s limbs felt like jelly. She mentally cycled what she intended to impart on Pinto and each time it felt worse than the last. But, times being so dangerous, she had to assume Pajanak could be a trap.
What she knew of Roskaad on paper suggested it certainly would be.
But what she felt? That was different, and almost more frightening than his probable deception.
Regardless, she needed someone she could trust to hold her keys. Just in case.
Pinto cleared his throat, and Attilatia realized they had been silent for some time. “Did I ever tell you about my travels through Pazir?”
Attilatia dropped pinches of herbs into the now steaming kettle and placed it on the slab on the table. She set two cups beside it and sat. “No.”
“Ah. A marvelous journey. It’s been thirty years now.
That was during the Grey Period, at the height of Azadonian trade.
” He poured them each a cup, and lifted his toward her in thanks.
“I was commissioned to deliver one thousand white silk dresses to the Pazirian king for all his court maids to wear for his son’s coronation.
Highly ceremonial. A phenomenal honor. You see, on that night, after the coronation, the prince would choose one lucky maiden to become his queen. ”
Attilatia blew on her tea. “Misogynists.”
Pinto carried on with his usual enthusiasm. “In preparation for the festivities, a cask of wine—the size of some ships—had been rolled into the ballroom. Never had such a cask been engineered, and the morning of the coronation, it cracked. Wine flooded the ballroom.
“I was getting ready for the ceremony when it happened—you know me, it takes me hours to decide what to wear. I had unloaded the silks in the ballroom earlier in the day. The palace coordinator was in such a panic, he mistook the dresses for linens. He’d thrown them to the floor to sop up the mess. ” Pinto clucked his tongue.
“But you had already been paid, hadn’t you?” she asked. “It wasn’t a monetary loss?”
Pinto looked at her as though she had suggested he set his robes on fire. “Entirely beside the point, Atti! The prince was supposed to be presented one thousand brides in white silks of incomparable quality! The entire evening was ruined!”
Attilatia tried to take a sip but couldn’t get it down. “Whatever was the poor, poor prince to do?”
“I felt the same way.” He winked, and Attilatia fought the urge to accidentally drop her teacup into his lap. “But that’s when the Fates transformed a disaster into something magical.”
She batted him on the shoulder. “What happened?”
“The king’s laundress was a beautiful young woman.”
She clapped a hand to her forehead. “I boycott the rest of this story. Why don’t you tell me a fourth time about how you avoided Chori import taxes before their last twenty-year festival instead, eah?”
Pinto swatted at her. “I’m just getting to the good part! You see, the king’s laundress worked the whole day through to get the dresses clean in time.
“The woman was a miracle worker—the silks were as good as new! The maidens of the court came to her one by one to don a garment and whisk away to the coronation. But when the event finally began, the laundress discovered that all of the clean dresses had been taken. She had nothing to wear—”
“I think avoiding the coronation sounds like a wonderful reward for her hard work.”
“—until she found a single, wine-stained dress wadded in the corner of the washroom. With no time to clean it, she donned the dirtied red dress in shame. But against the sea of white gowns, she caught the prince’s eye.”
Attilatia groaned.
“They fell in love. A marriage ensued and, so far as I have heard, they proceeded to live a long and happy life together.”
“Preposterous.”
“They had twelve children!”
“That isn’t a long and happy life. Do you know what a tax it is on a woman’s body to have even a single child?” Pinto’s shoulders shook and Attilatia chortled along. “Is there supposed to be a moral to this story or something?”
“Not at all.”
“Then why did you put me through it?”
“To take your mind off whatever it is you’re so nervous to tell me.” Pinto took an appreciative sip of his tea, then drained it and set his empty cup on the table. “Perfection.” He poured himself another. “You added moss?”
Attilatia nodded guiltily.
“It’s been years. Where did you get it raw like this?”
She sipped at her cup, savoring the taste: earthy and bitter and sweet all at once.
“Five years back, I nearly collided with a man in Shrokan. He’d pinched a full bundle from a raider vessel, and they were fast on his tail.
I made opportunity of his misfortune. Bought the whole thing for twenty silver notes.
It’s lasted me some time, used sparingly. ”
“It is a real treasure. Reminds me of home. How much do you have left?”
“You’re looking at it.” She tilted her chin at the kettle.
Now Pinto was quiet again, and she felt self-conscious all over. Was this what generosity granted her? She wasn’t sure she wanted it.
“Thank you for sharing,” he finally replied.
“I don’t often have company.” She had never had company.
“What do you need from me, Atti?”
Attilatia wished from the bottom of her heart that he hadn’t presumed her invitation to be transactional. But of course, that was a silly wish, considering that it was.
“Do you believe—in the dragonfly?” she asked.
The question was absurd. The pattern forged by the tendencies of the Fates at a cosmic and quantum level was Azadonian folklore, told to children to simplify and find meaning in the world.
“I am a man who believes in what he knows and, like many, is sometimes prone to believing in what he doesn’t know.”
Attilatia started to pull her knees into her chest, but stopped as Toronoff hopped into her lap with a purr that could rival a rockslide.
“Something has happened. And I don’t know what to make of it.
I’ve been getting this… feeling. Like I’m sitting right at the center of something world-shattering, and if I just tip my chair the wrong way, it’s going to change everything. But—well, I—what do you make of that?”
Pinto rubbed his chin. “You are not a woman prone to superstition. But you have endured much, and you are going through more. I think what you are feeling could be a trick of your mind to reaffirm your purpose, your path, your impact.” He gave her a look that pinned her in place.
“And I also think you should listen to what you are feeling, because it might be sounder evidence than logic can supply.”
How entirely unhelpful. “Pinto.” She looked up from Toronoff’s mottled fur and into his kind eyes. “Should anything happen to me, I want someone to know what I have…” ‘Accomplished’ sounded conceited. “Made.”
“Is that all?”
“No.” She chewed at the inside of her cheek. “We’ll get to that. But there is an order to these things and I—oh, I’ll just show you.” She rose from her seat—Toronoff protesting with an indignant mewl—and pulled the rug away from the floor of her kitchen.
Pinto’s eyes grew wide. The trap door sat there, obvious and awkward, as if it had been eavesdropping. She’d added a combination lock to it in recent weeks, as her paranoia rose. She stooped to unlock it, fumbling with it twice before remembering she’d changed the combination the night before.
“Did I just witness you… make a mistake?” Pinto asked.
“Well of course I’m not going to get it right with you just sitting around, watching!” she snapped, correcting the combination. With a yank, the door yawned open. “Come on, then.”
Pinto gave his tea a forlorn look and set it on the table.
They descended the wooden ladder into the laboratory, and Attilatia pressed an activator on the wall. One by one, a dozen sets of red distortion lamps flickered to life, illuminating the subterranean space.