Cold Steel

“No, the cuffs should not come to the crease of the wrist,” Vai was saying in a tone whose self-indulgent fastidiousness might provoke a less patient man into taking scissors to every garment within reach. “They should be a finger’s width longer—no more!—so the wrist is not exposed when I extend my arm to its full length. You see how that ruins the look.”



I shook out my cape and hung it from a hook at the door.



“I can’t possibly wear this! Please tell me you have not cut the other two to this same length.”



“I have not cut the third one yet, Magister, for I am not sure of the fabric.”



“I have already told you which fabric I want. Did I not make my wishes clear?”



I smiled at the two men, who smiled knowingly back at me. They had obviously endured many of these harangues; I quite wisely never stayed long in the shop when I did come with Vai.



“Of course, Magister, I have already taken care of the problem with the other dash jacket, if you would like to try it on. Let me help you. Just a moment, if you will.”



The tailor emerged from behind the screen to see who had come in. He was a bent old man with the wry demeanor of a person who has for his entire life successfully done business with overly particular customers. “Salve, Maestra,” he said. “Thank you for coming.”



“You are a patient man, Maester,” I said in a low voice, with a glance toward the screen.



He inclined his head, thankfully not denying the sentiment. Like me he kept his voice low. “He holds others to the exacting standard to which he holds himself. The first dash jacket I made to his specifications he wore when Magister Viridor introduced him at the ghana’s court. In the ten days since, my custom has tripled and I have had to advertise for more sewers and cutters.”



Through an open door I could see into a sunny room in back, where men bent over garments in various stages of assembly, conversing in a merry rumble of masculine voices.



“The work out of your shop is very skilled.”



“So it is, Maestra, and my thanks for mentioning it. But men will believe the illusion that if a well-formed man looks good in a garment, then they necessarily will also. It takes all my power of persuasion to convince some of these new customers that a different style of clothing would suit them better. Which brings me to my purpose.” He indicated bolts of cloth unfurled across the cutting table. A length of dove-gray woolen broadcloth covered the other bolts; it was exactly the sort of sober fabric Vai despised. “He was insistent about the green floral print but I cannot think the color suits his complexion. Now he has brought in a fabric that is too, ah, decorative for the style he prefers. I intend no offense, but perhaps you could persuade him to a less flamboyant…”



Vai stepped out from behind the screen. The top five buttons of a tepidly green dash jacket were undone. It was indeed not his best color. “Catherine? What are you doing here?”



“Just passing by,” I lied, to protect the tailor. “Goodness, Andevai, you look like a fern.” To give myself something to do before he exploded, I twitched aside the gray cloth to see the fabric hidden beneath. “Gracious Melqart!”



Distracted, Vai looked down, then smiled. “It’s perfect,” he breathed so ardently that the sewers had to conceal snickers.



The cloth beneath was finest wool challis, dyed a deep blue in which whispered all the soft promise of a twilight sky, which subtlety was entirely overwhelmed by its being embroidered with flagrant sprays of bright color depicted as flowers bursting open like fireworks. A person might call it decorative as a euphemism for gaudy.



But what shocked me was that it matched the fabric of the dash jacket worn by the man meant to be Vai in the false dream sketched by Bee to convince Caonabo not to arrest me.



The bell jangled as the door opened. A swirl of chilly, damp air shivered into the shop like a big cat with a cold nose nudging your cheek. A remarkably attractive man with blond hair, a thick mustache, and scarred knuckles stopped short.



“Bold Diana! It is peculiar to find you exactly where I was told you would be.”



“Brennan!” Elation throbbed through my chest. Brennan Touré Du was the first man who had ever truly flirted with me, however mild a flirtation it might have been that night at the Griffin Inn when I had met him, the trolls Godwik and Chartji, and Professora Kehinde Nayo Kuti. I had understood at the time that he was being kind, for a man of Brennan Du’s experience and reputation was quite out of the reach of a girl like me.



Vai’s hand settled possessively on the small of my back as he stepped up beside me. “I believe we have not been formally introduced,” he said in his most coolly belligerent tone. “I am Magister Andevai Diarisso of Four Moons House. Perhaps you will be so kind as to inform my wife and me why you are here.”