“You dark red horse, you!” she said, giving me a shy smile and a playful jab on the sternum. “Why didn’t you tell me you could see so much red?”
“I didn’t want to seem a braggart,” I replied, regretting that she had been there to hear me speak of it.
She moved to kiss me again, but I didn’t want this to get out of hand. “What about Doug? I understand you and he are on a half promise?”
“Doug is very sweet,” she conceded, “but he’s likely only a fifty-percenter. It wasn’t a true half promise, anyway—more of a default position on my part. Do you really have Alpha Redness?”
“More or less.”
“If that is the case,” she said with a smile, “I’m going to speak to Mummy and Daddy about altering my marriage plans. If they agree, I’d be more than happy for us to be wed as soon after our Ishihara as possible.”
“Violet,” I said, beginning to see that this was getting monstrously out of control, if not a little scary, “I’m very flattered by your interest, but I’m on a half promise to an Oxblood back in Jade-under-Lime.”
“Tish!” she replied with a smile. “Conjoining with a Purple is considerably better than with an Oxblood.
How many people get to trade their surname up five steps in one hit? Edward deMauve . Sounds kind of classy, doesn’t it? And what’s more,” she added with a giggle, “my dad’s rolling in cash. Your father should demand at least ten grand for you. I’ll have my father speak to your father, and we’ll announce it just as soon as everything is set.”
She leaned over and kissed me again, smiled and whispered in my ear, “There’s more where that came from. Much more. Did you know that deMauve girls have a reputation for insatiability regarding the procreational arts and a one hundred two percent feedback rating?”
“I wasn’t aware of it.”
“Well, we do. I’ve gone to considerable lengths to prepare myself for my wedding night, and in respect of this, I don’t mind if you want to practice with a Grey so everything is functioning perfectly. I have an egg chit ready and waiting. You can impregnate me on our wedding night, so I’ll be with child by the spring—we can call her Crocus. Won’t that be simply glorious?”
“No,” I said. “In fact, not at all. Not one little—”
“Hush!” she said, placing a finger over my lips. “You’re a passenger now, my dove—no worries from here on in.”
She sighed happily, and then a cloud passed over her features. “Oh!” she cried, placing a hand to her mouth as a sudden thought hit her. “We’ll have to get a postponement on your High Saffron gig, at least until you’ve got me pregnant. That way it won’t matter so much when you don’t come back.”
“I can’t marry you until I’ve got residency, Violet, and that’s even if I wanted to, which I don’t.”
“Love will find a way,” she said cheerfully, “and what love can’t provide, my father’s wallet certainly will.
We should meet for a romantic walk and discuss my future this evening—shall we say at lamplighting tonight, next to Munsell’s twice-lifesize bronze?”
“I’m busy.”
“Of course you are—with me.” She laid a hand on my cheek. “I’ll make a few notes about the guest list and the menu for you to agree with. But to show that you can also bring some input to our relationship, I will permit you to choose our pet names. I’m so happy we were demerited together—otherwise we’d never have met and fallen so wonderfully in love.”
She blinked at me and smiled, then asked what was on my mind. I think she wanted me to tell her how ecstatic I was, but all I could think of was how I could use this nightmare to my advantage.
“Do you have any loganberry jam?” I asked, thinking of the Apocryphal man and his gateway to knowledge.
“A jam connoisseur, eh? You and Daddy are going to have so much in common. I’ll check the cellar. Do you want a spoon as well?”
“Just the jam.”
“Loganberry it is. Until this evening, gorgeous.”
She gave me another smile and skipped off down the corridor and out of the Council’s Chapter House.
I watched her go with a feeling of dread, and cursed myself for my weakness. I should have just told her to get knotted, but up-color girls seemed to have a tongue-tying effect on me. Besides, Violet was probably not the sort of person to accept a “get knotted” answer to anything she had set her heart on. I walked slowly back out into the daylight. Although I did not know it, the yateveo that would eventually devour me was suddenly three large paces closer.
Tommo and Dad
2.6.03.24.339: Finder’s fees are not permitted to be higher than 10 percent.
I found Tommo waiting for me outside, sitting on the wall of the village’s color garden. The yellow had run out sometime overnight, and the grass was now a sickly shade of blue. The pump would have been switched off, but the remaining color would take a few days to leach through. I wasn’t feeling that well disposed toward him, so I just walked off in the direction of home.
“What did you get?” he asked, trotting to catch up.
“I didn’t get anything,” I replied. “I lost eight hundred.”
“Wow,” said Tommo, visibly impressed. “Not even I’ve lost that many in one hit. Never had that many to lose, actually.”
“And I’m leading the expedition to High Saffron.”
“You’re insane. And I’m not sure they can do that as a punishment.”
“I volunteered—in return for six hundred merits.”
“Not quite so insane but still amusingly irrational. But with a one hundred percent fatality rate, it will be difficult to draw up odds on this one. Unless . . .”
“Unless what?”
“Never mind. Violet was grinning fit to burst when she came out. What was that all about?”
He’d doubtless hear about it in due course, and I’d rather he had the correct story from me so I explained what had happened.
“Congratulations,” he said, “I’m sure you’ll be very happy together.”
“Happy?”
He shrugged. “It’s a relative term. If you’ve got that much red,” he added, “you’re going to be prefect.”
“Perhaps, but not here. I’ve got an Oxblood to marry and a stringworks to inherit.”
“That will all change when Violet gets weaving on her father. You’re Chromatically made for each other.
Violet is way down the blue end of Purple and your Red plums are just the thing to keep the family at the pointy end of the Chromatic Hierarchy.”
He smiled and put a hand on my shoulder. “Eddie, my friend, you are in a uniquely strong bargaining position. Do you want me to negotiate your dowry? The deMauves are pretty oiled. I’ll only charge ten percent.”
“No.”
“You drive a hard bargain—five percent, then.”
“No.”
“Two?”
“I mean I’m not marrying Violet.”
“You’ll come around to it.”
I accused him of attempting to profit from my enforced marriage, but he didn’t even bat an eyelid.
“Listen,” he said, as though I were the one being unreasonable, “I need that commission if I’m to avoid Reboot on Monday. Could you have that on your conscience?”