Part Two #2
Pretty eyes had gone wide, then shuttered.
“Don’t worry. I am not needed there, so I wouldn’t tell them about you even if I had the opportunity to.
It’s the state of most second youngest children, I imagine.
What would I even tell them? A counter person helped me run an errand for Millia?
They’d just wonder why I was doing Millia’s work for her. If they wondered anything.”
“I don’t understand.” Dorrimin had been strangely feverish. In that moment, he’d blamed it on fear but now he wondered; Tommick had grown so quiet.
But then Tommick had rallied to ask about payment, learned his family had a credit account, lingered in the shop to look over bottles and peer at labels, and then finally purchased Luxuriant Hair Soap and Luxuriant Hair Softener in the cucumber scent as a set.
He’d returned the next day for a hand cream—for Millia, he said, and passed on a message from her to Dorrimin’s mother.
He probably did think of Millia as a mother figure.
Dorrimin had finally met her a month later and hadn’t known what to make of her smiles, and fussing over his height, and her winking at him when she’d said Tommick’s name.
Tommick, who was a good lad, she'd insisted, before raising her eyebrows significantly at Dorrimin.
She must not have mentioned anything to the Fortunes, and though she kept coming in for regular purchases—which she could have had delivered but perhaps enjoyed an excuse to leave the mansion for a while—Tommick became a regular visitor.
Tommick could also have had his items delivered, or just purchased them from his own family’s store.
Maybe he began to do that, because after a while, he stopped wasting his money on products he very likely didn’t need and stopped in simply to say hello or to keep Dorrimin company as he worked.
There were names for things like that, but whether it was friendship or an attempt at courting, Dorrimin couldn’t say. Mostly because he hadn’t asked.
He didn’t like that; he’d preferred to know what things were. What good were things if they were unknown and unquantified? But if he asked, there was the chance that Tommick would feel awkward around him and the visits would stop.
“Are you brooding?” The question from his mother startled him into taking a step away from the window. “He’s probably gone home. He can see the weather getting worse just as you can.”
Dorrimin didn’t bother to ask who she meant. His mother would arch an eyebrow the way she had when Dorrimin, all of twelve, had begun spending too much time in the bath.
He refused to blush.
“He says we ought to put up decorations for Midwinter, that people spend more money when they see them. He also suggested we do up the windows with items more aimed at gifts or… things to use to get your house or your face ready for parties.”
“Did he?” His mother paused. Her hair was up in a smooth, soft tangle at the top of her head, as was the style for longer hair at the moment.
It was considered romantic. She wore a collar and tie where Dorrimin did not, long skirts instead of pants, and a tie pin of a silver clockface.
She had taken off her coat long ago, probably to cook, and she still had on her kitchen apron.
“That might be a good idea. Won’t hurt anything to try, at any rate.
Although we still need to hire someone soon. Perhaps it’s a good time.”
“Some of the jars and bottles would need to be pretty.” Dorrimin did his best not to sound perplexed or disapproving. He understood the need, he just wasn’t good at that sort of thing, so he’d be no help.
“What a good friend Tommick is,” his mother remarked, eyebrow arched after all, leaving Dorrimin fighting not to squirm.
“When the weather clears, you can go buy some nice garland. And I’ll think on perhaps some glass bottles and ribbons in prettier colors.
He might be a help there too. Then you two can make an evening of arranging everything. ”
“That’s what Tommick said,” Dorrimin replied without thought, and felt a jangle all through his nerves like he’d touched a hot burner in the lab. “He has one more exam before the school break,” he added quickly, frowning so his mother wouldn’t know how unsettled he was.
His mother pooh-poohed that. “Well, I’m sure you’ll keep him on track. Anyway, you know he doesn’t care a toss for college.”
“He likes his classes about poetry and books… and art.” Dorrimin added that last one thoughtfully.
“And the lectures from scholars visiting the city. But you’re right, he doesn’t give a—he doesn’t care about college.
” Dorrimin could not say toss and then imagine Tommick tossing off, not with his mother right there.
“It’s what the mountaintoppers do, though, isn’t it?
To prepare them for work and parties. Like Guild training, but for politics and such things.
” Dorrimin abruptly realized that with Tommick’s older siblings working for the business, and his younger sibling still too young to do much, the Fortunes might intend Tommick to go into politics.
The position of City Magistrate was more or less filled by people from different topper families taking turns serving out the terms. The Council of the City of Eladia was much the same, despite the elections.
Both were like the Guild Assembly, really, except Guild members mostly weren’t toppers.
Being involved in politics meant Tommick would spend more time up top, at meetings and parties and fancy gatherings, and less time spent whiling away his afternoons with Dorrimin or at pubs.
“He might go into politics.” Dorrimin’s chest was hollow. “Or they might send him overseas to help with the importing and exporting side of things.”
“They might,” his mother agreed, “unless they had good reason not to. Or he might become like a lot of other middle children of rich families and do nothing. Or he could strike out on his own.”
Dorrimin sucked in a breath. “And go where?”
“Anywhere. Although I suspect Tommick likes the city too much to want to leave it.”
“His friends,” Dorrimin agreed sadly over the sound of his mother’s sigh. “He’s never even had a job. He’d struggle.”
“Possibly,” his mother agreed again. “But he could have help if he wanted to try. You wouldn’t help him?”
“Of course I would.” Dorrimin sent her an irritated glare. “But he wouldn’t ask. And he has his college friends who are also toppers. One of them would probably give him a job.”
“As I keep saying, there are Guild apprentices who take courses at the college too. You could, if you wanted. Once we hire someone and they’re trained, you’ll have more time.”
“I know what I need to know,” Dorrimin insisted, as he usually did. But he did glance to the main counter and the doodles around his receipt notations.
“Dorri dear, that is not how innovations happen. You should keep your mind open. You’re a gifted chemist, but you would be more creative if you saw more of the world, or at least more of the city. You need to get out more.”
Out was loud. Often chaotic. Dorrimin didn’t care for it.
But. “Do you think it’s quieter up near the top?”
His mother took a moment to think about it.
“The ride up was windier, as I recall. I used to put on my best and go with your father to their pubs. Not their restaurants. Those are far too pricy with how picky he is about food. But they built sections of wall to channel the winds away toward the mills to the west or out to the east over the farmlands. Their rows of big houses are quite sturdy, with solid walls. Inside those houses, they probably don’t hear much of anything of the rest of the city. ”
The farmlands started on the inside of the Second Wall and continued beyond, all the way to the Third Wall, which Dorrimin had never seen.
The walls had been built ages ago to allow the city to defend itself from the monsters roving the greater countryside, but none of those had been near the city for a long time.
He’d never even been to the Second Wall, and only seen the First, the innermost wall at the base of the mountain, as a child. He’d never really thought about it.
“Is it quieter outside the walls?”
His mother shrugged. “Never been.” Most in the city hadn’t, for why would they need to?
Although farmers and traders traveled back and forth all the time.
“But you could do that too, if you like. Go wander a bit. Maybe meet some of the farmers who grow our herbs and the plants we break down into components. Or the mineral miners. Your father could take you the next time he goes. He probably should anyway. It’s not necessary to visit and befriend them, but he likes to keep things amicable. ”
Dorrimin’s father, like Dorrimin, preferred not to be interrupted from his work, but he still took the time once or twice a year to travel down and bring his suppliers gifts from the shop.
Both to acknowledge the quality of their work and to keep them happy, in case another Guild tried to start an incident.
Dorrimin didn’t understand scheming but it was something some people did.
Guilds as well as the heads of particular workshops generally tried to avoid conflicts by sticking to the rules about competition and traditions, but conflicts did happen.