It had taken so much negotiation before Tiffen struck upon a style that offended no one: soft, comfortable clothing made of the finest silk, velvet, satin, and combed wool, exquisitely tailored and often with some innovation of bodice or sleeves to set it apart from Segoile. If Mionet had been tied to a rack, she would have admitted that Tiffen was actually a quite capable tailor. In the capital, he might have been a designer of note, barring his refusal to hold with some more impractical innovations of women’s dress.
The duchess’s gown was one of those artistic compromises, a soft melon like a watery sunrise, with satin panels embroidered with mossy leaves, tiny rosebuds, and thistles. Frills of lace edged the neckline and lined the panels of the bodice, and Mionet could see a pink diamond brooch at the center of the neckline so clearly, it was always shocking to realize there wasn’t one. She comforted herself with the careful pleating at the back of the lady’s skirt, which cascaded into a train that was like the last rays of sunlight rippling on the Brede.
It was a gown that Mionet would have been proud to wear herself, if it had not suited Duchess Andelin so exactly. The colors, the cut, even the soft, feminine ruffles were scaledperfectly to the petite woman, complementing her youth and beauty while lending some of the dignity required of a duchess.
A spark burst from a log in the fireplace, landed on Duchess Andelin’s skirt, and singed, unnoticed.
Mionet’s eyes very nearly filled with tears.
“…different sort of stones for the inner hearth, as won’t crack in the heat or cold,” one of the masons was saying, tapping one of the ashy stones. “And that’s the thing about mortar, too, you need a good mix to handle changes in temperature…”
The duchess listened with fascination as they explained how mortar was made, where they got the stones, and even how they made the bricks, with a charged debate over various kilns. Mionet exchanged a glance with Leonin, the only other person of sense in the entire estate.
“And it’s only the four of you making all this,” the duchess marveled as they huddled over a sketch of the flue system. “How many fireplaces will there be?”
“Well, we haven’t added it up exactly, lady, but one for just about every room in the house. Though we won’t be doing the kitchen,” said the shortest mason, tapping that area of the diagram with a thick finger. “Needs special work, that.”
“I suppose it would, they are a different shape, aren’t they, and with all those iron things in them? The kitchen hearth in Aldeburke could fit three pig spits, or one whole cow.” She bent over, examining the various diagrams. “Will all the hearths in the house be so big?”
“A fair size, even for the small rooms. Too bloody cold in the winter, beg pardon,” the man added, bobbing an apology before Mionet could reprimand him. The duchess heard enough such low talk from Davi.
But it was inevitable, when the duchess invited low men into her solar. And when the bizarre luncheon had finallydragged to a close, she bid them farewell and sat down in her chair beside the fire, looking pleased.
“I was so worried, but they were very nice, weren’t they?” she asked, and then a frown fleeted between her eyebrows. “Please excuse me.”
She had had to excuse herself several times that day and begged off dance practice altogether, blushing and stammering and making poor excuses. It was a weakness she would have to work on. The lady was good at evading a subject with partial truths, but she was very, very poor at outright lies.
“Is she sick?” Davi asked, glancing at Mionet.
“Indisposed,” she replied, in a tone that forbade further questions. A servant would have known better than to ask, but Davi was in an ambiguous position as an almost-hallow; something more than a mere servant or guard, and he had some right to inquire after the health of his ward. But it was not for Mionet to divulge.
All of these lines were soambiguousin the Andelin Valley, the careful divisions between rank and role blurred as they would never be in Segoile. And it only got worse when the duchess returned.
“I wonder if I might invite—oh, Justenin.” She brightened as he appeared in one door at the same time she was coming in the other. “It was such fun, talking to the masons, I would like to invite others as well. It only seems fair to include everyone, doesn’t it?”
And Justenin, a common knight of no background at all, saw no problem with this whatsoever.
The duchess hosted luncheons several times a week thereafter, inviting all manner of strange people, from architects to plasterers to a selection of merchants from town. She invited Brother Oleare and Justenin to discuss the nature of man and made everyone else fall asleep. She invited the carpenters todiscuss the decorative gables in the library. She hosted a fiery debate on breadmaking between Wen, Azelma, and Noulen, a baker who had just arrived and was getting an explosive introduction to Tresingale. And as the crown of this string of lunacy, she invited all the pages from the barracks one afternoon. Twenty-some boys between the ages of seven and thirteen, and one spotty, scowling fifteen-year-old.
It was chaos.
“Jacot!” Duchess Andelin exclaimed as the boys trooped into the solar, lined up by height as if for a parade. It had taken half an hour for all of them to be divested of muddy boots and winter clothing downstairs. “Oh, there are so many of you, and Valentin, look how tall you’ve grown! You must give me your names one at a time, please, and then we shall have luncheon.”
She was nervous. Her fingers clutched tightly in her skirt as she went down the line to allow each boy to offer his courtesy, and some of the boys were hardly less awkward. But most were noble-born and set an example for the others, and there were a few that the duchess had apparently met before, who greeted her with delight. Soon, all of them were seated at the long table, with hot water crust pies filled with venison and game fowl to tempt even the picky palates of little boys, some of whom had to be seated on folded-up blankets to reach the table.
Mionet had objected when this was proposed. What had a duchess to do with a lot of dirty little boys? Really, she could barely articulate her objections. It just was notdone.But the duchess had looked at her and saidwhy not,and for this particular occasion, there had been surprising opposition not just from Duchess Andelin, but from Justenin, Miche, and even Duke Andelin himself.
“They need to know their duchess,” His Grace had replied, when Mionet voiced her concerns. “Everyone in the valley mustknow her on sight. One day, these boys will be men, and they will have to defend her, if necessary.”
“And they will need to know how to behave in the presence of a lady,” drawled Sir Miche, with an amused glance at the duchess. “You never know how you might improve them.”
It would be nice if the presence of ladies had worked some improving magic onhim.Mionet had to bite her tongue to keep that thought to herself. Miche enjoyed great favor from the duke and duchess, but all three laundresses visited his cottage with scandalous frequency.
She had never anticipated this. She had known Tresingale was the back of beyond and would lack all amenities, grace, and refinement, but never dreamed that they wouldchooseto reject every convention of the Empire. At least once a week someone burst out with some new heresy that left her open-mouthed with shock and struggling to produce a reasonwhythey should observe even the most basic hierarchies.
Which was how Mionet came to be sitting between two pre-pubescent pageboys, eating venison pie and pointedly demonstrating the proper use of a napkin.
The conversation was stilted, at first, between the boys’ close attention to their food and shyness before the duchess. But she soon coaxed the boys she knew into telling her about their training and adventures, and then confiding more disastrous secrets that made even Leonin cover his mouth to hide a smile.
