“Well, m’lady, in Engleberg, if a family had a fire or some such, we often got together to help them replace what they had lost,” she suggested. “There was one poor family that lost everything, even one of their babies, and so the wives got together a few afternoons running to make what was needful, clothes and suchlike. If you’ve cloth to spare, I might see if there are some who’d like to help. Most of the folk from Isigne and Selgin can scarce rise from their beds.”
“Yes, and we shall ask the ladies in town too, and the ladies at the baths, I shouldn’t like to leave anyone out,” Ophele said, gently but firmly. She was sensitive about excluding anyone. And then she hesitated and gathered her courage. “And I—do you think it would trouble anyone if I came, too? I am not very good at sewing yet, but I could help with blankets, and I would like to learn, but if anyone would not like it, please tell me directly. I know I am a duchess and the most important thing is to have the clothes and blankets made, so if you have any fear at all—”
“No, my lady.” Amise looked embarrassed. “I daresay…it’s not in the usual way, and as you are a Daughter of the Stars, everyone might worry...but I can see that things are different here. I think everyone will be…very pleased.”
Ophele glowed. She wanted so much to learn to sew; it was a promise to herself, and to Remin’s mother. But it was also an opportunity to get to know the other women of the valley.
“When ought we have it, do you think?” she asked eagerly. “We might have it here, if you like.”
It was a challenge, moving a dozen or so women to a single location in the valley with four feet of snow on the ground, and even more difficult to make room in Ophele’s busy schedule. But Justenin was unexpectedly supportive of the idea.
“You might learn a great deal from this,” he said, when she told him she would need to miss their lessons for a few afternoons. “Whether highborn or low, people are people. I shall look forward to your observations.”
“You might like to have tea and some sweetmeats on hand, my lady,” Mionet suggested, once these plans had been made. “Even if they are commoners, it is only courtesy to offer them proper hospitality, if you will host them in the house of their duke.”
Mionet was very good at helping Ophele to do what she wanted while also making it clear that in Segoile, the roof of the Duke’s house would fall in before such an event occurred beneath it. But Ophele didn’t care. All her life she had been excluded from things, and she wanted nothing more than to sit and listen and learn all the things she didn’t know. She would like to have friends, no matter what their birth. She had a home of her own, and she would be pleased and proud to invite them there.
That was when it occurred to her that shehadinvited them there. She had invited a lot of people, many of them strangers, and they were actually going to come, and she would have to talk to them, and they would all be looking at her and what if she stuttered, or couldn’t talk, or blushed, or did something terrible?
“Invite as many as you like,” Remin said, as she had known he would. Remin did not see why this was a matter for concern, so long as Davi and Leonin were there. “You can charge all the tea you want at Guian’s, though best to leave Wen alone about any snacks. He’s run off his feet, cooking for so many extra people.”
“Maybe Azelma will help,” Ophele said, a little faintly.
Oh, stars. Now there was a menu.
***
When this sewing circle nonsense was first proposed, Mionet had taken her concerns to Sir Justenin.
“It may be that His Grace has no objections to the duchess consorting with peasants, but I assure you, it would excite much comment in the capital,” she warned. Nothing good could come of mixing classes. “I understand Her Grace wants to help—”
“The lady wants society,” Sir Justenin replied, looking at her over the rim of his spectacles as he stood in the doorway of his cottage. He looked more like a secretary than a knight. “This is the best practice she will have, learning to manage in company, before we depart for the capital. I will depend on you to ensure it goes smoothly, my lady.”
Of course he would.
It wasn’t as if it would be achallenge,managing a lot of farmwives for an afternoon. Mionet had spoken with the peasants in her father’s cow hole on multiple occasions. But this was precisely the trouble of mingling classes: the structure of society existed for a reason, so all the rules were laid out clearly and everyone knew their proper place before they even walked into the room. If such an event ever occurred in Segoile, it would be an exceedingly quiet affair, with the duchess and her ladies-in-waiting conferring amongst themselves while the farmwives sewed in industrious silence.
The whole reason Mionet had come to the valley was tobethe lady’s companion. Why should Duchess Andelin go seeking society among the common folk?
“Oh, mercy of the stars, the stairs!” Duchess Andelin squawked the morning of the sewing circle. The treacherous stairs were in the process of being replaced with something less steep and hazardous, which meant there were a number of sawhorses, nails, and similar objects to trip over and step on in the meantime. “Will they be all right, do you think? Coming up with their sewing boxes? Davi—”
“I’ll land them at the top safely, my lady.” Davi looked a reassuring bandit with his eyepatch. Mionet knew Leonin shared her misgivings as to the wisdom of this event, though no man would ever understand how merciless the Roses of Segoile could be over such transgressions.
Davi thought it was a splendid idea.
The duchess had been a bundle of nerves, vacillating between chattering anxiety and petrified silence, and had an unusual number of slips, spills, and breakages that made it a trying morning for everyone. Her current ensemble was the third of the day; the first had fallen victim to spilled tea and the second one to a tear that ripped out a large panel at the back of the skirt, and Mionet couldn’t imagine how she had managed it; there was nothing on whichtotear it in the whole east wing. She was presently wearing one of Tiffen’s plainer efforts, so she might not appear too fine for the farmwives, a pink velvet with cream and gold trimming. She would have been pretty if her eyes hadn’t gotten rounder with every arriving guest.
“There is tea, if you would like,” she said, just this side of audible, and accepted the curtsies of arriving women with a bob of her head. Her hands were pressed together before her, a moment away from wringing together.
Mionet had almost forgotten how shy she was, in the months since they had met. Duchess Andelin was talkative enough among people she knew, even if she had to be reminded to speak up. But as the solar slowly filled with people, she was soon standing alone in the crowd, with two red lines streaking her cheeks. Common women could not make social overtures to her. If the duchess wanted conversation with someone of lower rank, she had to initiate it.
Which was further evidence of Mionet’s contention: all of this was a bad idea.
She was just moving to intervene when someone else beat her to it.
“My lady!” cried Elodie, bursting through the crowd and stopping before Duchess Andelin as sharply as if she had run into a wall. She curtsied, repeated the greeting, bounced on her tiptoes, and then flung her arms about the small woman’s waist. “Are you well? Mama says I am old enough to come!”
Mionet had not missed this little wretch in the least.
