“You are the talk of Equilan, Thea!” snapped Calandra, holding the handkerchief to her nose. Aleatha was spraying perfume over her neck and breast. “Where were you last darktime?”[10]
The purple eyes opened wide, or at least wider. Aleatha would never waste their full effect on a mere sister.
“Since when do you care where I was? What wasp’s gotten into your corset this gentle-time, Callie?”
“Gentle-time! It’s nearly winetime! You’ve slept away half the day!”
“If you must know, I was with Lord Kevanish and we went down to the Dark—”
“Kevanish!” Calandra drew a seething breath. “That blackguard! He’s being refused admittance to every proper house over that affair of the duel. It was because of him that poor Lucillia hung herself, and he as much as murdered her brother! And you, Aleatha … to be seen publicly with him—” Calandra choked.
“Nonsense. Lucillia was a fool for thinking that a man like Kevanish could really be in iove with her. Her brother was a bigger fool in demanding satisfaction. Kevanish is the best boltarcher in Equilan.”
“There is such a thing as honor, Aleatha!” Calandra stood behind her sister’s chair, her hands gripping the back of it, the knuckles white with the strain. It seemed that with very little prompting, she might grip her sister’s fragile neck in the same manner. “Or has this family forgotten that?”
“Forgotten?” murmured Thea in her sleepy voice. “No, dear Callie, not forgotten. Simply bought and paid for it long ago.”
With a complete lack of modesty, Aleatha rose from her chair and began to untie the silken ribbons that almost held the front of her nightdress closed. Calandra, looking at her sister’s reflection in the mirror, could see reddish bruise marks on the white flesh of shoulders and breast—the marks of the lips of an ardent lover. Sickened, Calandra turned her back and walked swiftly across the room to stand staring out the window.
Aleatha smiled lazily at the mirror and allowed the nightdress to slip to the floor. The mirror was rapturous in its comments.
“You were looking for Paithan?” she reminded her sister. “He flew into his room like a bat from the deep, dressed in his lawn suit, and flew out. I think he’s gone to Lord Durndrun’s. I was invited, but I don’t know if I shall go or not. Paithan’s friends are such bores.”
“This family is falling apart!” Calandra pressed her hands together. “Father sending for a human priest! Paithan a common tramp, caring for nothing except roaming! You! You’ll end up pregnant and unwed and likely hang yourself like poor Lucillia.”
“Oh, hardly, Callie, dear,” said Aleatha, kicking aside the nightdress with her foot. “Hanging oneself takes such a lot of energy.” Admiring her slender body in the mirror, which admired it right back, she frowned, reached out and rang a bell made out of the shell of the egg of the carol bird. “Where is that maid of mine? Worry less about your family, Callie, and more about the servants. I never saw a lazier lot.”
“It’s my fault!” Calandra sighed and clasped her hands together tightly, pressing them against her lips. “I should have made Paithan go to school. I should have supervised you and not let you run wild. I should have stopped Father in this nonsense of his. But who would have run the business? It was sliding when I took it over! We would have been ruined! Ruined! If it had been left up to Father—”
The maid hurried into the room.
“Where have you been?” asked Aleatha sleepily.
“I’m sorry, mistress! I didn’t hear you ring.”
“Well, I did. But you should know when I want you. Lay out the blue. I’m staying home this darktime. No, don’t. Not the blue. The green with the moss roses. I think I’ll attend Lord Durndrun’s outing, after all. Something amusing might occur. If nothing else, I can at least torment the baron, who’s simply dying of love for me. Now, Callie, what’s this about a human priest? Is he good looking?”
Calandra gave a strangled sob and clenched her teeth over the handkerchief. Aleatha glanced at her. Accepting the flimsy robe the maid draped over her shoulders, Thea crossed the room to stand behind her sister. Aleatha was as tall as Calandra, but her figure was soft and curved where her sister’s was bony and angular. Masses of ashen hair framed Aleatha’s face and tumbled down her back and around her shoulders. The elfmaid never “dressed” her hair as was the style. Like the rest of Aleatha, her hair was always disheveled, always looked as if she had just risen from her bed. She laid soft hands on her sister’s quivering shoulders.
“The hour flower has closed its petals on those times, Callie. Keep longing uselessly for it to open again and you’ll soon be insane as Father, if Mother had lived, things might have been different”—Aleatha’s voice broke, she drew nearer her sister—“but she didn’t. And that’s that,” she added, with a shrug of her perfumed shoulders. “You did what you had to do, Callie. You couldn’t let us starve.”
“I suppose you’re right,” said Calandra briskly, recalling that the maid was in the room and not wanting their affairs discussed in the servant’s hall. She straightened her shoulders and smoothed out imaginary wrinkles from her stiff, starched skirts. “So you won’t be in to dinner?”
“No, I’ll tell the cook, if you like. Why don’t you come to Lord Durndrun’s, Sister?” Aleatha walked to the bed, where her maid was laving out silken undergarments. “Randolphus will be there. He’s never married, you know, Callie. You broke his heart.”
“Broke his purse is more like it,” said Calandra severely, looking at herself in the mirror, patting her hair where a few wisps had come undone, and stabbing the three lethal combs back into place. “He didn’t want me, he wanted the business,”
“Perhaps.” Aleatha paused in her dressing, the purple eyes going to the mirror and meeting the reflected eyes of her sister. “But he would have been company for you, Callie. You’re alone too much.”
“And so I’m to let a man step in and take over and ruin what it’s cost me years to build just for the sake of seeing his face every morning whether I like it or not? No, thank you. There are worse things than being alone. Pet.” Aleatha’s purple eyes darkened almost to wine. “Death, maybe.” Her sister didn’t hear her.
The elfmaid shook back her hair, shaking off the gloomy shadow at the same time. “Shall I tell Paithan you’re wanting to see him?”
“Don’t bother. He must be near to running out of money by now. He’ll be around to see me in the toiltime.” Calandra marched toward the door. “I have the books to balance. Try to come home at a reasonable hour. Before tomorrow, at least.”
Aleatha smiled at her sister’s sarcasm and lowered the sleep-heavy eyelids modestly. “If you like, Callie, I won’t see Lord Kevanish anymore.” Her sister paused, turned. Calandra’s stern face brightened, but she only said, “I should hope not!” Stalking out of the room, she slammed the door shut behind her.
“He’s getting to be a bore anyway,” remarked Aleatha to herself. She lounged back down at her dressing table and studied her flawless features in the effusive mirror.
3
Calandra returned to her work on the account books as a soothing antidote to the wild vagaries of her family. The house was quiet. Her father and the astrologer puttered about in the cellar but, knowing that his daughter was more near exploding than his magical powder, Lenthan thought it wise to refrain from any further experiments along those lines.
After dinner, Calandra performed one more act related to the business. She sent a servant with a message for the birdman, addressed to Master Roland of Griffith, Jungleflower Tavern.
10
The darktime is not truly dark in terms of night falling. It refers to the time during the cycle when shades are drawn and proper people go to sleep. It is also the time, however, when the lower, “darker” levels of the city come to life, and so has developed a rather sinister connotation.