Page 11 of Hemlock & Silver
Aaron looked startled to be consulted, then slightly panicked. “I… err… yes, Mistress Isobel?”
“You see?” Isobel waved the green fabric at me menacingly. “Tell her, Aaron.”
“Uh…” The guard’s spine hit the wall beside the door as he attempted to retreat. My sister sometimes has this effect on people. “I’m not really a judge of such things, I fear?”
“Nonsense. You’ve seen plenty of women in your life. Surely you must have formed some opinions.”
Judging by Aaron’s face, he was ready to disavow having ever heard of women, let alone seeing one.
“It’s a lovely color,” I said, trying to come to his rescue. “Just not onme.”
“Lovely!” Aaron said, seizing on this as a lifeline. “A marvelous color! Like—um—melon rinds?” Isobel’s eyebrows went up, and he tried again. “New grass?”
Isobel frowned at the swatch. “More celadon than grass, I would have said.”
“Yes. That, too. Absolutely.”
“Perhaps,” said the proprietress, “a compromise? A scarf of this color would go beautifully with the right shade of brown.”
Isobel pursed her lips thoughtfully. Aaron gazed at the proprietress with naked hope blazing on his face.
“I’ll take a scarf in that color, then,” I said.
“But will youwearit?”
My sister has known me too long.No.“Yes.” She narrowed her eyes. I attempted to look like a person who wore decorative scarves. (Honestly, I would like to be that sort of person. I simply never learned the knack.)
“If Mistress Anja would prefer, I have a new line of scarves that are quite subtle,” the proprietress said, and draped something more like a priest’s stole around my neck.
Isobel groaned. “Now youreallylook like a nun.”
“I rather like it,” I said, checking my reflection in the mirror. It did have an ecclesiastical quality to it, granted, but it looked more like a badge of office than decoration. (Also, Aaron had been right—it was exactly the pale green shade of a honeydew melon rind.)
“It lends you a certain authority,” the proprietress said. “These are very popular among some of my clientele.”
I suspected, as I paid for the scarf—and several others that Isobel had picked out, muttering—that what she meant was her older and more boring clientele. But I also suspected that I would shortly be in need of all the authority that I could get.
CHAPTER 4
When we arrived home, Javier was still standing inside the gate, guarding the courtyard, but there was a boy waiting there, too. He kept shifting from foot to foot and looking around, as if hoping to spot someone. I took in his clothes—too large, frayed hems, sandal straps broken and inexpertly mended—and knew at once who he was looking for.
“I’m Anja,” I said. “How can I help?”
The boy looked up at me gravely. His eyes were too large for his face, and there were blue shadows smudging the lower lids. “Healer Michael sent me,” he said. “It’s my brother. He’s… uh…” He slid a worried look at Javier.
Afraid of guardsmen. That doesn’t bode well.“You can tell me,” I said, turning to place myself between Javier and the boy. “No one will get in trouble.”
The boy swallowed. “He, uh, was in a lotus-smoke den. For too long.” He swallowed again. “He’s at the temple. He won’t wake up.”
“Ohhell,” I said. “Wait right here.” I bolted for the house, nearly trampling the startled Javier. Most of my equipment was packed, but I always left a bag by the front door for emergencies. I snatched it up and was back out the door before it had finished swinging shut. “Saint Adder’s temple?” I asked. “Not the hospital?”
“The temple.”
That wasn’t good news, but I didn’t stop to say so. “Come on, then,” I said, and took off down the street.
Behind me I heard Isobel say, “No, givemethe packages—yougo after her!” Hopefully that meant Aaron was following, but if he wasn’t, I didn’t have time to wait.
Women my size generally don’t run if we can avoid it. There are, let us say, certain structural concerns in the chest region, and I hadn’t had time to put on the sort of binder that would keep things tamped down. But I could still manage a pretty good trot, and the Temple of Saint Adder wasn’t that far away as the crow flies, at least if you’re willing to dash across a main thoroughfare or two.
