Beneath the Veil, Page 2

"I won't, my lord." As if I could.

  I watched him saunter away, Lir in tow, and my knees almost gave out. I snuck my hand between my legs, grateful to find nothing had yet soaked through the heavy wool of my trousers. I yanked down the awning to close the stand and give me some privacy, and took a thick roll of rags used to cushion the joba melons in their crates. I stuffed it down my trouser front to catch the flow, and then I ran home to my mother.

  Chapter Two

  "What are you doing home so early?" My uncle demanded as soon as I came in the front door of our house. "Sell all the jobas already?"

  I shook my head. "No, uncle."

  His mouth turned down. "You work like a folly."

  It was an insult of the worst sort...or so he intended. I'd seen follies work until their hands bled, I'd seen them work right up until a few moments before their laboring bodies spit forth a child, I'd seen them work until they passed out from exhaustion. I'd be honored to do the work of any woman I'd ever known.

  I lifted my chin, though my guts churned and I was desperate to escape to the privacy of my room to take care of myself. "The Prince Regent's asked me to serve as his fetchencarry."

  The look of surprise on Akadar's face was so priceless I wished to save it forever. He squinted, then passed a hand over his face. I kept myself from shifting from foot to foot only by sheer force of will. Men stand solidly at all times, unless they're dancing.

  "Prince Regent Daelyn Avigdor?"

  "Yes, Uncle." Ah, Invisible Mother, as if there were more than one.

  "Asked you to be his fetchencarry?"

  Losing my temper would be worthless. "I'm to go this eve."

  Akadar shook his head as though unable to believe what he'd heard. "Sinder's Balls, why you?"

  I didn't need him to tell me I was an improbable choice. I looked like a young man, but I was forever being told I didn't act like one. Too solid, too practical, no talent for cosmetics or poetry or dancing. I had one true skill in fighting, and I'd had no training in it.

  "I don't know." I also didn't care. Freedom stared me in the face, and I was desperate to grasp it, no matter the risk.

  My uncle pursed his mouth and looked shrewd. "And what will I get for giving you to him? How will I earn back everything I spent on you if you're not working at my joba stand?"

  I'd considered keeping at least some of the gold for myself, even holding some back for my mother, but now I offered him the entire bag. Anything to be free of the man who beat me on a whim. "He gave me this."

  "Sinder's Folly!" My uncle jingled the bag in his hands. "This is more...well. I never thought you'd amount to much, I'll give you that. But you caught the eye of a prince. I guess that stands for something."

  "I suppose so." My gut twinged and I stifled a groan. "May I be excused to...to pack?"

  Akadar waved his hands in my direction, already paying me no mind. "Hear this, Amerada? Your offspring is going to the palace!"

  My mother, in the way of all follies, had entered the room on silent feet. Now she turned to face my uncle, and by the way her kedalya swirled around her ankles I could sense she was as surprised at his speaking to her as I was. Akadar hardly ever addressed her unless it was to order her to do some task.

  "Aeris?" She questioned in her soft voice.

  "Don't stand around yapping all day," Akadar snapped, his momentary lapse replaced with his normal manner. "Go help him pack."

  Muttering about gold pieces and lost wages, my uncle left the room. I pushed past my mother, too anxious to get to my room to wait for her to speak. I burst through the door and ran to my drawer, where beneath my spare trousers and shirts I'd hidden soft absorbent pads and ties. It was dangerous to have them there, but would have been worse to have nothing now.

  I pulled at my trousers and groaned at the sight of the dark blood staining my thighs. I hadn't expected so much. The sight of it made me sag against the chair.

  "Here, let me." My mother took the cloth from my shaking hands and set it on the chair. She dipped a face cloth in the basin of water on my dresser, and began to wipe away the blood on my legs and belly.

  I shuddered and shook so hard my teeth chattered. It should've been awkward, my mother tending me as though I were an infant, but being raised a boy had accustomed me to being taken care of. She wet a fresh face cloth, urged me to lie on the bed and put the damp cloth on my forehead.

  "Stay still." She rang the serving bell until another woman of the household, Myrna, appeared in my doorway.

  "Aeris has a headache from too much sun. Bring him some willow tea."

  Myrna didn't like being ordered by my mother, but since my mother had, ostensibly at least, borne a son and Myrna hadn't, my mother was given more status in the household. The other woman grumbled but disappeared and returned with a hot pot of tea on a tray some minutes later.

  I didn't thank her. Men didn't thank women. "Thank you," I did tell my mother, when Myrna had gone. Sudden tears stung my eyes.

  "Hush. Someone might hear."

  She soothed me with her fingers on my hand, but did little more than that. I was too old to be rocked like a baby, and perhaps I'd been a boy to her too long. A woman might embrace another woman in friendship or compassion, but to touch a man in any manner but subservience was forbidden. For a woman to offer comfort to a man was to presume she had the ability to help him -- and no woman was considered able enough to help a man.

  I understood, but my soul cried out at the injustice of it. "Let's run away! I'll cut my hair! I'll put on the kedalya!"

  "And live the life of a folly? After so long as a boy? I think you'd die if you had to do that." My mother sighed, the noise nearly lost beneath her kedalya. "When you were born and the man of my house died, I prayed to the Invisible Mother to tell me what to do. She answered me in a dream. There's no life for daughters, Aeris. So I made you a son. And now, you've caught the eye of the Prince Regent of the city! What more honor can we ask for? "

  "I'm afraid." I pressed the cloth further against my eyes, but the coolness had fled. Without waiting for me to ask, my mother took the cloth and replaced it with a fresh one. "What if the prince discovers?"

  "Men see what they want to see. Women see what they need to see. As long as you see what you need to, you'll know to show the prince what he wants. You've no choice, unless you wish to run away. And if you do that, you'll bring shame to me, and to your uncle, and you'll likely bring the law down on yourself, too."

  "I could run far away. You could come with me."

  "If it were that easy, don't you think I would have done it long ago?"

  I took the cloth away from my eyes. "I don't want to leave you."

  Her eyes glittered in the kedalya's mesh slit. "I don't want you to leave me, either. But wanting is not the same as having. Come. Drink your tea and eat your bread. I'll pack for you."

  I struggled to sit. The tea soothed the cramping in my belly, and I was able to take some bread. My mother moved around the room with swift efficiency, and I envied her feminine ability to complete several tasks at once. I didn't want to watch her work for me, but I still felt awful...and I hadn't been raised to behave any other way.

  "You've a new life opening for you." My mother smoothed the finest garments I owned into a small travel trunk and tucked the silk bag of my cosmetics into a side pocket. "If you please the prince, he may grant you privilege and wealth."

  "And if I don't?"

  "You will. You won't be able to do any less." She sounded so confident. Her strong hands, work-worn and calloused, moved from dresser to trunk, from wardrobe to trunk, and back again.

  It was all I'd seen of my mother in years: her strong, capable hands. Hands that had served me, worked for me, but hadn't been allowed to hold mine. I saw the scar on one wrist where she'd once sliced herself on a bucket of water drawn to quench my thirst.

  I reached out and grabbed her just above the scar. My touch must have startled her, because she flinched. I loosened my grip to tug on the flowin
g black length of her kedalya.

  "Take it off," I whispered.

  "It's forbidden."

  The tears broke and fell again. "Please."

  With trembling hands, my mother reached up and pulled away the cloth on her head, and for the first time since babyhood I looked upon her face. We had the same eyes, she and I, the same color blue, the same shape. With her strong hands, she reached for me and enfolded me into her embrace. It was forbidden, but neither of us cared. My mother rocked me and sang a cradlesong to me while we both wept, and I floated in the depths of her love for the very last time.

  Chapter Three

  As dusk grew near, the merchants closed their shops and the poetry houses flung wide their doors. The streets filled with laughter and merriment as men hurried out to meet their comrades and lovers. Nobody spoke to me.

  I stopped in front of the House of the Book, separated from the White Palace by an enclosed walkway. A folly, her arms and legs strapped into the wooden stocks on top of the large platform, didn't bother to lift her head when I walked by. The sign around her neck said "lazy." A pile of crushed fruit around her feet stained her kedalya and drew flies.

  What had she done? Not jumped fast enough when the man of her house snapped his fingers? Perhaps she'd dared to feed herself before someone else, or taken a seat to rest before lifting a heavy load. Maybe she'd had the misfortune of annoying the man of her house, and he'd sent her to the House of the Book and the Book Master to punish her. In Alyria, men had the right to treat their follies any way they chose, so long as they didn't kill them outright.

  Follies were scorned and reviled -- but they hadn't yet been considered unnecessary. Even in Alyria where men were lauded, praised and worshipped, encouraged to seek the company of other men and ignore women when they could and treat them badly when they couldn't, there was still one thing women could do which men could not. Bear children.

  It was the sole reason girl babies weren't killed the minute they left the womb and the only legal reason a man ever visited a folly's bed, or granted her any sort of privilege. A folly who bore a man's sons was considered of more value than one who created daughters. Still, no folly could guarantee to birth a son every time, and there were many who found their privileges and status in the household torn from them when the squalling infant they delivered turned out to have a cunt and not a cock between its legs.

  Turning my back on her was the best I could do, but I did it with more effort than I would have the day before. The blood leaking from between my legs made me more aware than ever of the precarious place I held in society...and how much it would hurt to lose even that small honor. The honor of being male.

  I followed the curving, whitewashed stone wall of the walkway until I came to the front gates of the White Palace. Just inside I could see a courtyard, and further in, another set of gates and a brick wall. Beyond the second wall rose the high spires and rounded dome of the largest and most ornate building in Alyria. Home to the Prince Regent of Alyria and his counselors, his companions, his staff. And now, home to me.

  "Fetchencarry, eh?" The ancient, grizzled porter greeted me with a grunt and a nod. He took in the sight of my tear-reddened eyes, my bag, my finest clothes that were still like burlap sacks compared even to his own garments. "Got papers?"

  "The Prince Regent didn't give me any papers. He just told me to present myself here."

  The porter grumbled and reached into his silken vest, the front of which was spotted with the remains of his past several meals. He pawed around for a few moments, then pulled out a thick pad of creamy paper with a cover of embossed leather.

  "Lemme see." The porter squinted, licked a grimy thumb with a tongue like a slab of roasted beef, and turned a page in the small booklet. "Says nowt here about a new fetchencarry."

  My heart sank. I'd have to return to my uncle's house. Before I could take even one step away, however, the porter stopped me.

  "Wait a minute. Lemme check this out. You stay here."

  He lifted bulk from his bench and waddled toward the paired guards in full livery who stood on either side of the inner gates. He spoke to them, and one left his post to duck inside the gates.

  I turned back to watch the street. The White Palace was built in what had once been the center of Alyria city, though time and commerce had changed the borders many times since then. Now poetry houses lined the street , their fluttering flags sewn from the finest silks and cottons in bright, sometimes garish colors.

  A pair of men in the finery of noblemen stumbled out of one. One clapped the other on the shoulder and told a joke that must have been bawdy by the way they burst into guffaws of drunken laughter. I couldn't tell if they were lovers or only comrades. Either way, all I could find to envy them was the gold jingling in their purses and their fine clothes. As one paused to vomit in the gutter, disgust pinched my mouth and nose. I'd never behave like that. I turned from the sight.

  "Here! Folly, clean this up!"

  A woman, her kedalya dusty and heavily patched, had rounded the corner. Her back bent beneath the weight of her packages. She'd moved to the other side of the street as soon as she'd seen the merrymakers, but now paused.

  "Didn't you hear me?" The first man jerked a thumb at his friend. "Get this mess cleaned up."

  My fists clenched as I watched the woman put down her packages and cross toward the man who'd spewed his supper. She stood looking for a moment too long, and the first man cuffed the side of her head. She went to her. I thought I heard a low cry, but I must have imagined it. No woman would ever make a noise in front of a man who'd demanded a task of her.

  As I watched, she began to swipe at the filth with the hem of her robe. The man who'd puked got to his feet and laughed as he watched her futile attempts to rid the street of the mess he'd made. The woman bent further over her task. The second man pushed her down until her face almost touched the ground. The two men laughed.

  "Stop it!" The cry burst from my throat before I could stop it. I'd crossed the street without realizing my intentions. My entire body shook with rage. "Stop that! She's not yours to treat that way!"

  "Here, now. What's this pup about?" The second man asked the first. His look of comic amusement would've been funny if I wasn't so furious.

  I bent and lifted the woman by her elbow. Beneath my hands she felt as light as a bag of down. She reeked of the ale-sour vomit streaking her robe. I caught a glimpse of her eyes, wide and startled, through the slit before she dropped her gaze and scuttled away from me.

  "Boy, you're sorely in need of some manners. Who are you to tell us what to do? What are you, a follyfucker?" the first man said belligerently.

  "She's not your folly." I stretched to my full height, which wasn't much compared to that of the first man. I came to his shoulder, and he probably outweighed me by a good thirty measures or so. "You don't have the right to treat her this way."

  His eyes flickered over me, then at her. I saw with some alarm he was not as drunk as his friend, who'd now stumbled over to sag on the bench outside the poetry house. Nor was he as drunk as I'd first thought. He passed a hand over his mouth and when his fingers came away he was grinning.

  "Spoiling for a fight, ain't you?"

  I shook my head and curled my fingers into fists to hide their trembling. "Go, old mother," I said to the woman, who took a startled step back at the name I'd given her. "Before you get hurt."

  "Mother, eh?" The first man narrowed his blood-shot eyes at me. "You are a follyfucker!"

  I turned on my heel and headed back toward the gates. The first rock hit my shoulder and when I turned, the second struck just above my eye. Instant, blinding pain knocked me to my knees. Shards of gravel bit my hands as I pushed myself up. I put a hand to my head and it came away covered in blood. I stared at it, stunned for a moment, confusing it with the blood between my legs. Another rock spanged the gravel next to me, and my mind cleared. They'd hit me with a rock, and I was bleeding because of it. They still thought me to be a b
oy...else rock throwing would have been the least of my worries.

  "Look at 'im, Fearnly," said the second man, who had a handful of stones and was aiming for me. "Look at 'im squirm!"

  "Aye, Haverford." Fearnly nodded and let out a guffaw that made my vision waver from the force of my anger. He held a smooth stone in his right fist, and he tossed it at me. It struck me on the shoulder hard enough to knock me back.

  "You're brave to throw stones like schoolboys," I said through gritted teeth. I raised my fists and took a fighting stance. "Fight like real men!"

  Haverford snorted and his stones fell to the ground. With a curse he bent to gather them up and fell off the bench. He sprawled on the sidewalk, arms and legs akimbo, and muttered loudly but didn't get up for some minutes.