For the Lady Marshall, a Gift

[Rance]

A letter was delivered to Darkenhold, written not with charcoal, but with a careful ink. It was perched upon a small bundle of butcher-paper, within which was a small gift: a circle of dark fabric, the very same that had been furnished for the Militia's stout jackets. It was a bracelet, affixed together with a very fine ivory button in the likeness of a flower. The hems and stitches of the piece were worked in carefully-embroidered red vinework, winding and twisting amid themselves.

The letter was cordial. A little bit of ink-sand spilled from the paper when it was opened.

Dear Ariane,

I am very grateful for you for our talk the other day, you see it made me realize that in sharing my secret with you and only you I am putting myself in a position to better serve both my Marshall and my Lady even if I shall never have the recognition of it,

You see if we are going to have order and very fine things, then sometimes ugly things must be done and I am an ugly girl so I dearly hope you will understand, there IS a place for ugly little women in Myrken Wood and I will do my duty very well to serve a Lady as I must, in secresy and silense.

Today I met a girl, her name was Heddy, she loved Rhaena Olwak very much but had some problematic objects in her possession, namely a poster like that which has been spotted around town and a letter which said on it many poor things about our Lady.

Today I met a girl, her name was Heddy, she loved Rhaena Olwak very much but now she does not have to worry so much about loving anything.

I have made the most darleng thing to give to you, it is a symbol of my gratetude which I have made during breaks in my seamwork, meant just for your wrist or ankle of the same matereals we are making the uniforms with, sometimes I am still scared and cry a great deal but then making beautiful things makes me very cheerful,

What of your bliteroses, have they bloomed, please in haste let me know if they have I will come and we may look upon them together, I will show you what else may be done with their petals and you will wonder where dirty sand people have gotten such injurnuity, also I shall have a look at your belongings when it may be appropriate,

your friend,
Glour'eya Wynsee

[Carnath-Emory]

Glour'eya Wynsee

My thanks for your darling gift. It is terribly precious.

You are welcome of course to visit in haste, for the bliterose which was your gift has
blossomed, and thrives, I think, just as a rose ought to. You are welcome of course
to examine my belongings at your leisure.

I do not wonder at the injury of sand people.


In understanding,

- Ariane

[Rance]

When the courier from Darkenhold came to Menna Atrahasis's shop on Dyer Avenue, he walked as if he'd twigs for legs. He slipped between the tables where other girls worked sleeves, cuffs, and epaulets, gave the Jerno seamstress a folded missive, jerked to a little bow, and then turned to depart.

When he was gone, Gloria tore the blotch of wax and read.

"What is it," said another girl who had pores on her nose that were clogged with black dots.

"Just a letter," Gloria said. "From -- from my Proctor."

Like drawing back the tension on a bowstring, lies were getting easier with practice.

The other girl said, "What did he have to write you?"

"A lesson. A lesson plan for my rhetoric."

"He has the most dashing foreign name, doesn't he, Gloria?"

Girls in seamhouses always talked. Sometimes they compared their breast-sizes as they flashed gorgeous dresses they'd never wear across their chests or secretly wondered if their hair-colored would match the blouse they were seaming. But here, when Menna Atrahasis was tending other business and her hired girls worked in her stead, she constantly heard less talk of stitches and more about fucking and bedding, how they might wish to find good Myrken husbands wearing tall collars, would the Governor's lady turn all men into handsome parlor-boys too, do you think this skirt accents my hips, I have learned the most wonderful trick with my arse, and so on, and so on--

Because young women blinded by the throes of a city's burgeoning beauty were more and more susceptible to dreaming about what the garland-fine future might bring them. In that way, Myrken Wood and Jernoah were so much alike -- fancy was not just the way a girl could dress, but also an adjective that might describe the spread of one's legs.

Girls and boys were so much alike.

But Gloria Wynsee always worked in silence. She'd let the others master the pivot of sleeves-and-shoulders and focused instead on the cuff-lining of finished jackets. She embroidered with a thumb-needle and a dash of hair-fine thread. Her decoration was precise, the finest, and the last touches in the crimson-adorned vine motif on each sleeve took her the longest time--

--because as she leaned over her table, the Jerno girl threaded the tiniest words into the delicate embroidery on each jacket's sleeve. The letters were individual stitches hatched across the underside of each cuff, so minute and small that it would have taken a careful eye to see it as anything more but sweeping, gold-string filigree.

On this one and every other jacket she touched that day was a phrase scarcely taller than a few hairs and no wider than three fingers, nearly hidden by the rest of the intricate ornamentation. To any keen and curious examiner of their own sleeve:

MILITIAS SERVE TOWNS NOT LADIES