Part Two
He helped three customers as the afternoon became early evening, the second one indeed buying some toilet-scrubbing solution.
Dorrimin couldn’t wait to mention that to Tommick when he came back.
But when the third, and apparently final, customer of the day stayed at the counter to complain about the weather and the incoming storm the watchers off the coast had reported, as well as all the tasks he needed to get done before it hit them, Dorrimin stopped doodling in order to glance outside.
By the time that customer finally left, Dorrimin was at the display window, where he could just see the end of the lane. The winds had picked up. Judging from how quickly the people outside moved, word of the approaching storm had spread.
There was no sign of Tommick.
“One beer,” Dorrimin mumbled.
“What was that?” his mother asked from the second counter.
That counter, against a side wall, was usually for consultations about specific requests or where packages were wrapped before delivery, but his mother sometimes worked on labels for the bottles there.
Right now, she was merely straightening her work area while waiting on whatever she had going in the kitchen.
Dorrimin turned toward her and made himself stop chewing his lower lip. Two weeks from Midwinter was too early to decorate, at least for the family. The business was another matter. If there was one thing Tommick took seriously, it was business, even if his family didn’t appreciate it.
His mother was good at prettying up the bottles and jars.
Tommick had been correct to think she could do something even more special for holiday sale items: new labels, or ribbons, or colored wax seals.
That did raise the price, but if Tommick’s family’s emporium proved one thing, it was that people appreciated spectacle.
And Tommick went to parties. Where people wanted to look their best. To look pretty.
Dorrimin wasn’t pretty. He was plain, all things considered.
Ordinary, and a bit dour when he was taken from his work to be at the counter.
Technically, he was an apprentice, but he would attain his official Mastery soon.
He liked measuring and boiling and extracting, liked developing new concoctions even more.
Custom requests were a fun challenge and often ended up becoming regular products.
The family’s most quality products—and often the most expensive—were even sold in the Fortune Emporium.
Items Dorrimin had personally made were on shelves and tables in the store so famous it attracted visitors from other cities.
The emporium had some lesser quality stuff too of course, from makers who did not have Guild marks on their doors—marks which guaranteed better ingredients, better preparation, and repercussions if the products failed to work or turned out to be harmful—but joining a Guild was expensive if you didn’t happen to be related to a Guild member in whatever Guild you were trying to get into.
Dorrimin thought Guilds ought to sponsor more people, especially the wealthier or more glamorous Guilds, but the city Magistrate and the Guild heads were never going to listen to an apprentice, even one from a respectable family.
When he thought about it, it was funny that he hadn’t met Tommick in the emporium, but then again, the emporium was a very large store, and he suspected that Tommick didn’t visit it much.
Really, it was for the best that they hadn’t met there.
Dorrimin would have been stiffer than usual and awkward in a nicer suit, and Tommick would have been in a far more expensive suit and not at all interested in a storkish Guild apprentice.
Especially not one gawking at bottles of tonic on a table decorated with a tablecloth embroidered with the signature emerald-green FE for Fortune Emporium.
Instead, Tommick had been dressed in his usual, much more unassuming student clothes when they’d met.
He might have been anyone from a comfortable home, and he’d come into the shop with a list, as if he’d been sent out on errands.
No one would have assumed he was a topper at first glance, though Dorrimin still flushed to think of his mistake.
“I was told to come to this shop specifically,” Tommick had said, gazing up at Dorrimin with expectation, as if Dorrimin would be able to translate the scribbled handwriting on the list any better than he had been able to.
He hadn’t been the one to make the list, he had gone on to explain, although Dorrimin hadn’t asked—he’d been too busy staring down into the nicest, warmest brown eyes when they hadn’t been hidden by fallen waves of shining hair.
“She’s feeling poorly,” he had continued, just a college boy with nice eyes then, and not yet Tommick.
“Our maid. One of the maids,” he’d added, the first indication that his family was a little more than “comfortable.” “These are part of her duties, but she’s not well, and I was coming down here anyway to meet some friends, so I offered to get the stuff on her list. But I don’t know what these words say, much less what they mean.
I should have looked before I left the house. ”
“The mansion,” Dorrimin had corrected, not snippily, but he did prefer to use the correct terms. Anyone with several maids was probably quite rich indeed.
But he’d taken the list from the boy’s suddenly motionless hands and examined it again.
“What is your maid’s name? Or describe her if you don’t know. ”
That hadn’t been snippy either. He’d swear to it.
The boy had blinked several times, then floated up to the edge of the counter. “Millia. Of course, I know her name.”
Restraining himself from scoffing, Dorrimin had walked over to the second counter where a package was already waiting, marked For Millia.
“We anticipate regular customers,” he explained, hesitating for a moment when he’d found the college boy smiling at him in a strange, almost intoxicated, way.
He’d opened the package to check for at least the same number of items as were on the list, and was better able to match some of the scribbles to products now.
“Hopefully, Millia won’t get into trouble for any errors,” he’d added crisply, with no idea who Millia was, though his mother probably did.
It was important to keep wealthier families happy to retain their business, but Dorrimin didn’t approve of them mistreating their servants.
“There should be a Guild for servants,” he’d added, bringing the package back to the main counter.
He’d ignored the shock on the topper’s face.
“Or a union, like with the city guards and mail carriers.” Since they didn’t produce anything, they weren’t allowed into the Guilds, but their unions were similar in purpose.
One needed leverage to negotiate with the Magistrate and all the toppers.
“To protect them. In case someone is trying to take advantage of them.”
Then he’d raised his head to look pointedly down his nose.
The college boy had stared at him, astonishment all over his face.
He’d finally shut his mouth, before sweeping a slow, careful look over all of Dorrimin that was visible above the counter. For a terrible moment, Dorrimin had felt like a looming, threatening creature. And then like a foolish one for saying all of that to a topper.
Then the boy had cracked a smile, his eyes lighting up.
“Millia is near my mother’s age, which might do it for some, it’s true, but that is more how I regard her.
Calm your worrying, you marvelously odd thing.
You can ask her about me the next time she’s down here if you like, if you don’t believe me, as you have no reason to.
You’re so marvelous,” he said again in a musing tone, as if he wasn’t really speaking to Dorrimin despite staring at him.
“Not a best-seller but a one-of-a-kind item that few could afford, but those who could would pay anything.” Then suddenly, he’d been addressing Dorrimin again.
“How old are you? You’re not at the college. ”
Hit with all of that, as well those eyes fixed on him, Dorrimin had gone hot under the collar he hadn’t put on that day either.
“I didn’t mean insult,” he’d muttered at last.
“No, you definitely did,” the boy answered, still clearly delighted. “But if I had been trying to flatter and sweet-talk a maid in order to take advantage of them, I would have deserved it.”
That had made everything worse. Dorrimin had scowled through his blushes. “I assumed things,” he’d admitted gruffly. “I shouldn’t have.”
“It’s touching that you think a scion from the mountaintop would need to run errands to take advantage of a servant.
” The boy’s tone had been a little patronizing, but Dorrimin had been an idiot, so he hadn’t objected.
“The sort of person to do that would more than likely simply threaten their employment. Which I would also not do,” he added.
“Nor, for all their faults, do I think my parents would allow. Maybe.”
The smile had briefly disappeared as he’d seemed to consider the matter.
“No,” he’d finally decided on a sigh. “They have strict rules about it for the store employees and customers, in any event. They want the counter clerks and sales people to be friendly, and customers do love to misinterpret that. Or perhaps, as you might say, to take advantage of the difference in their stations, thinking an emporium clerk has to go along with anything. My mother must have witnessed someone trying that, now that I think about it, because while she is strict about employee conduct, the employees are to report inappropriate behavior immediately so the floor managers can swoop in. That was her policy.”
“Oh.” Dorrimin had felt a strange sort of relief based solely upon the word of a stranger, and then a moment of cold horror. “Emporium?” It was strangled, terrified. “You’re a Fortune?”