“Jie?” Dari asked, when Deliatus knocked on her door.
“No, dear Dari, Deliatus,” she said, tapping her chest.
Dari shook her head and sat up, oblivious to her own nakedness. She was not as thin as Deliatus had thought--a week of Jie’s teas, goat cheese and vegetables with Bryjer’s bread, rest and care had filled the hollows of her ochre cheeks.
“Deliatus,” Dari pointed, before waving her hands toward the door. “Jie?”
“Oh, you are asking where Jie is?” Deliatus offered, unfolding a dress from the armload she carried. With Dari’s apparent allergy for clothes, her vast knowledge of womanly arts was even more vital, she realized.
“Where Jie is,” Dari repeated.
“While he is nothing short of an absolute gentleman, I’ll not have you walking around improperly dressed with him about,” Deliatus said, setting her old dresses down on the bed. “Dressing is quite important, Dari, my dear. Nudity is lovely in its place, but barring extraordinary circumstances, men ought to pay for the privilege of seeing such a lovely girl bare.”
Dari fingered the fabric of the dresses, confused.
“You act as though you’ve never felt fine fabric before,” Deliatus said. “Perhaps you haven’t?”
Dari shook her head.
“Silks and such are for business and special occasions, at any rate,” Deliatus said.
“Perhaps this would be more practical as a start? From the very end of my girlhood, before I began my career,” Deliatus said, holding up a long, faded, yellow muslin dress tailored like a flour sack with puffed sleeves.
Dari wobbled her head.
“And my hand to the very Mothers themselves, the underclothes are as clean as can be. Mrs. Machen scrubbed them with lye before I packed them away,” Deliatus said, holding a thin set of shockingly modest smallclothes and a breastband up for Dari’s inspection. “There’s nothing strictly wrong with them, they just aren’t suitable for my line of work, you see.”
Dari tilted her head.
“See, you put them on before you put on the dress.”
“Before?”
“Before the dress, yes, dear Dari. They’re underclothes, you see? Ladies wear them underneath dresses.”
“Underneath dresses?” Dari repeated, tugging at the breastband with a dubious expression.
“Precisely! Now you’ve got it! First the underclothes, then, put on the dress,” Deliatus clapped.
“Put on the dress.” Dari asserted.
“Yes, as I explained, it is terribly important to be clothed. Not naked, you understand.”
Dari nodded.
“Put on the dress, not naked,” she repeated.
Dari tossed the underclothes aside.
“Not naked,” she repeated pointing at the dress.
“You make a valid point,” Deliatus conceded. “I suppose underclothes do not make you less naked. But they are a good deal more ladylike. Such a fine girl, wouldn’t you like to be a fine lady?”
Dari shook her head. “Less naked.”
Deliatus sighed. “Very well. But do be careful, if you take to bending or standing on things. It wouldn’t do for menfolk to be catching sight of your Mothers’ bits, as you aren’t in the way of advertising.”
Dari’s brows furrowed in confusion.
“I do go on,” Deliatus laughed, “my apologies. Let’s get you as dressed as you’ll consent to, and then let your good friend Deliatus do something with your lovely hair.”
“Good friend Deliatus,” Dari parroted in lilting syllables.
Deliatus smiled, helping the girl wriggle into the yellow dress.
“Oh, I do hope Jie is right, that you can understand us.”
Dari nodded, squirming against the fabric on her body.
“You trust your good friend Deliatus, yes?” Dealiatus said, showing Dari a bone-handled comb.
“Trust. Yes,” Dari groused.
“Wonderful,” Deliatus cooed, pulling a large pouch stuffed to its limit with combs, picks, oils, unguents, waxes and charm packets from beneath the pile of clothes. Ignoring Dari’s alarm, she set to work with the precision of a surgeon and the gusto of a butcher. “It shouldn’t be such an ordeal with the hair oil darling Jie makes for me, either. My, your pretty purple hair will shine like a gem!”
“Jie?” Dari parroted, wincing at a snarl caught in Deliatus’ comb.
“I gather you ask after him, and not his hair oil? As soon as you’re presentable, dear Dari,” Deliatus said, taking a bit longer than was altogether necessary combing and braiding the girl’s hair. It had been simply ages since Deliatus was permitted to share such girlish’ pursuits. She meant to enjoy it.
“Jie!” Dari shouted, teetering at the top of the stairs.
“Oh, do be careful, dear Dari!” Deliatus called after her. “Look, see how I take the stairs,” Deliatus marched down the stairs, exaggerating her steps for Dari to observe.
Dari shook her head, dropping to the floor and crab-walking down the stairs to the tavern.
“Inventive,” Sam grinned.
“Oh, Sammy, don’t make fun,” Deliatus pouted.
“Who’s making fun? I’ve tumbled down those stairs myself more than once. Dari’s got the idea. Gets her where she’s goin’.”
At the bottom of the stairs, Dari clambered to her feet.
“Jie!” she demanded again.
“I tried,” Deliatus sighed, gesturing to the intricate braid that wound from either temple to join in fishtail plait and the sack-like dress. “I have her convinced clothes must stay on. I think.”
“That’s your dress?” Sam asked, taking in the pale yellow sack Dari wore.
“Even a fine lady needs a washday dress, doesn’t she?” said Deliatus.
“You never did your own wash a day in your life,” Sam teased.
“Of course not. But am I to simply lounge in the altogether Mrs. Machen takes in the laundry?”
“That’s not a bad idea,” Sam grinned. “Not if you’d let me keep you company on washday, at least.”
“Awful, Sammy, you’re simply awful! It isn’t as if she can’t understand us!” Deliatus giggled, giving Sam a playful push.”I’ve brought more dresses I believe will fit her. More modest gowns, from before my career began.”
“If my memory serves, you’ve always dressed for the job you wanted,” Sam said. “Though you’ll hear no complaints from me.”
“Your memory serves poorly,” Deliatus retorted, “I’ve another lovely green dress that is the very portrait of chastity.”
“I recollect that dress. As I remember it, I helped you dye it when the grass stains wouldn’t scrub out,” Sam said, pulling Deliatus by her wrist to kiss her cheek.
“Never! Never is your memory to be trusted,” she declared with a wry smile. They turned to see Dari crouched to the floor, ear to the wooden floor planks.
“Dari, dear, everything all right?”
Dari nodded, her lips pressed together, as if she were listening intently to something no one else could see.
“Jie?” She asked.
“Out tending to the goats and chickens. Why are you in such a hurry to see him? What did he do?” Sam asked, crossing her arms.
Dari blinked hard, closing her eyes to recite:
“Bucket. Mop. Vinegar. Beeswax.”
“Can you speak now?” Sam asked.
Dari nodded.
“Bucket, mop, vinegar, beeswax.”
“She has been echoing me all morning in a reasonable context, but those are the first words she’s offered of her own ” Deliatus said, “What strange words to choose, at that.”
“Search me,” Sam said. “I guess we get Jie?”
Deliatus moved to open the door, but Dari darted past her.
“Dari, my dear! You mustn’t run in your state. Oh, and without shoes!” Deliatus fussed. “Shoes were too much, I’m afraid. You heard the tribulation of simply getting her into a dress and hair sorted, I’m certain.”
“If customers had been here, I’d have been taking bets,” Sam laughed.
Jie stroked a fat little speckled hen, giving her a gentle squeeze.
“I know it’s the natural order of chickens, Snetchy, but you mustn’t let them push you around. They’re just jealous--they all lay boring white and brown eggs, yours are such a pretty green. You ought to be proud! Don’t tell the other girls I said so though, ok?” He whispered.
Settled back on the ground, the hen fluffed her feathers and returned to the other chickens with a proud strut.
“Anyone left?” he asked the assembled hens. They clucked contentedly, pecking at the scraps he’d brought them. Jie hypothesized happier chickens laid better eggs and chickens liked to be complimented as much as anyone else.
Sam thought this hypothesis beyond stupid, but she still accepted the blue ribbon their eggs won every year at the county fair.
“Jie!”
Jie looked around at the chickens, confused, until Dari came into view, running full tilt, barefooted, toward him.
“Dari, stop!” Jie called back--bare feet in a chicken yard begged for all manner of illness. He ran forward and caught the girl before her feet reached the scratched-out dirt where the chickens pecked. Taking her by the waist, he lifted Dari off her feet. She was far heavier than she looked, but not so much as Deliatus has made out. “You have to wear shoes out here. You could get very sick,” He said, carrying her at a half-arm’s length back toward the kitchen door.
Dari wiggled her toes, ignoring his admonition.
“Vinegar. Mop. Bucket…Beeswax.” She said, struggling to remember the last of the list.
“Oh, in that case, go wait inside. I won’t be a moment,” he said, setting her on her feet in the springy grass near his herb garden.
Dari shook her head.
“Ok, wait there, then. I have to carry the eggs in, you see,” he said, turning back to the chickens. Dari took a step to follow.
“I see,” Jie said, conceding defeat.“If you insist on observing my chores, can you hop on my back? “
She frowned in confusion.
“Like, er, this,” Jie bent at his knee and motioned Dari up.
Oh. She’d seen this before, but usually with an adult and a child. It must look quite funny, with two adults, she thought, as she slid her leg across his back, folding her arms around his shoulders.
“Excellent. Now, do try to stay still--your stitches need tending and I’ll be skinned for stew, should I drop you,” he said, tucking his hands under her knees. Dari perched her head on his shoulder, close enough that she brushed his cheek with hers.
“Vinegar, Beeswax, bucket, mop.”
“So you say. We have most of that. The beeswax may prove a challenge.”
“Hmm,” Dari buzzed in disapproval.
“Do you have a plan? These are your first words spoken without echoing and out of meter. They must be important.”
Dari squeezed Jie’s shoulders and gave a short grunt of frustration.
“Tell me all the words you know for it. We’ll sort it out,” he offered.
Dari prattled through a list of words, some Jie very nearly recognized, landing finally at the middle Kanglais word for “wood”.
“Wood?” He confirmed.
“Wood!” she kicked her legs excitedly. Leaning hard against his shoulders, she extended an arm, making a flat hand
“Flat wood?” Jie guessed.
Dari clicked her tongue, experimenting with another tangle of words Jie couldn’t quite grasp. Exasperated, she showed him her level hand again, then wiggled her index and middle fingers in the impression of legs walking.
“Flat wood…” Jie puzzled, leaning over to pick up the egg basket. “Floor? The wooden boards inside for walking about on? Yes? No?”
“Yes!” Dari agreed, kicking her legs with glee. “Floor! Vinegar, beeswax, bucket, mop.”
Jie turned the words over in his mind, mumbling to himself as he carried Dari and the morning’s eggs back to the kitchen.
“Oh! That makes sense. Cleaning, am I right? Am I wrong?” Jie asked, setting the egg basket down open the side door into the kitchen. “Strictly speaking, Dari, you could get down now,” he said, but Dari clung to him, squeezing his hips with her patchwork legs.
Deliatus and Sam looked up from the bar.
“She was running barefoot toward the chicken yard. I convinced her to get on my back rather than get worms,” Jie explained. “Now she won’t get down. On my beating heart, I did nothing to corrupt our ward, except possibly contributing to an attitude of sloth, now that she knows I can carry her.” Jie crouched and gently shook her off. Dari crumbled to the floor before springing back up, all smiles.
“She seemed real keen to find you this morning, shouting nonsense. Nonsense in Kanglais, but nonsense nonetheless,” Sam said. “And nonsense that only wanted to speak to you.”
“Dari’s quite intelligent, just language-confused,” Jie said. “She’s watching us all, and she’s watched me, watching her. At a guess, she asked for me because she believed I would be most likely to understand her speaking, much as she would likely ask for ‘Latus regarding clothes and grooming. Do I guess correctly, Dari? Do I guess incorrectly?” he asked.
“Guess correctly,” Dari parroted with a grin.
Jie ducked a bow, attempting to conceal his pride.
“It’s a lovely dress, by the way, Deliatus. She doesn’t seem to mind it wearing it, either, which I suppose is the crucial element of dressing our friend Dari.”
“Ha!” Dari cackled in agreement.
“Well, what is she on about?” Sam asked.
“Vinegar, a mop, a bucket, and beeswax. Did you try giving her what she asked for?” Jie asked.
“Well, no,” Sam said, “Seemed an odd request. Thought she may just be mixed up.”
“A valid assessment. Please correct me,” Jie said, turning to Dari, “but unless I am mistaken, you wish to clean the floors? Do you want to wash floors? Do you not want to wash floors?”
“Vinegar, beeswax,” Deliatus said, “Oh, yes, that makes good sense. My mother washed her floors with vinegar, of a time. The beeswax is to protect the wood, I believe? Our house was very simple, but my, how her floors shined.”
“Wash floors,” Dari agreed.
“You don’t go around washing tavern floors,” Sam complained. “That’s not the point of a tavern. What, is Lady Ionia planning a visit? The dirt is homely. Puts people at ease.”
“Vinegar, wash floors,” Dari insisted.
“Oh, Sammy, let her. It won’t hurt a single thing. And she’s offering, you won’t have to do a bit of work,” Deliatus insisted, teasing a short lock of Sam’s hair.
“Not a bit, until she gets bored or tired and half the place is neat as a pin and the rest is nice and dusty, as is right and good for a tavern,” Sam said, catching Deliatus’ hand and pulling it away, fighting to ward off her influence.
“I’m finished with my morning chores,” Jie offered. “I’ll help. We don’t open until four bells or so, at any rate.”
Sam crossed her arms.
“We don’t have any beeswax.”
“Beeswax!” Dari repeated happily.
“Beeswax comes second, Dari. I feel certain we could come by a bit,” Jie assured her.
“And her legs, you just said.”
“The stitches healed faster than I anticipated, if her sprint is any indication. I can take them out right away.”
Sam groaned.
“Conspirators! All of you. Fine. Jie, you know where things are. And…”
“A vague threat about what will happen if I am anything other than a perfect gentleman toward Dari,” Jie grinned.
“It’s early!” Sam grumbled, heading for the stairs. “But yes. Stay out of trouble, kids.”
“Indeed,” Deliatus agreed, kissing Jie and Dari on both cheeks and patting Dari’s braids with a proud smile. “I’ve a bit of business to attend to, but ought to be back for dinner. Mothers keep you, darlings!” She called behind herself as she swept out the door.
“Wash floors?” Dari asked.
“You need your stitches taken out and a more substantial breakfast than goat cheese and bread before you undertake such an endeavor.”
Dari groaned.
“Which first? Jie asked. Stitches or breakfast?”
“Breakfast,” Dari muttered.
“My apologies, Dari, but Sam has been quite insistent on this point. She said if we were to ‘keep you’, making sure you were fed and taken care of was primarily my responsibility. A grown woman, I assumed, ought to be no trouble, but there I am with my assumptions.”
Dari crossed her arms.
“Grown woman, no trouble” she challenged.
“A small bit is all I ask. I’ll even cook the single dish I have any talent for.”
Grumbling, Dari followed Jie to the kitchen.
He pulled a large skillet from where it hung from the ceiling and placed it on the cookstove.
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“I started the fire up before I left to tend to everyone,” he said. “It should be warm enough now.” Jie retrieved an earthenware bowl, six eggs, and a bottle of pungent black liquid Dari had never seen before.
“Watch, if you will. I’m afraid it’s the only thing I can teach you to cook,” Jie said, grabbing two thin wooden skewers from a drawer. Despite Jie’s practiced helplessness in the kitchen, this was not a lie. Not entirely. Sam truly could not cook. Jie and Sam were, like all chicken-keepers in history of human-chicken relations, overwhelmed by a glut of eggs as soon as his hens resembled hens instead of odd patches of fluff on lizard’s legs. Following two weeks of burned-black bricks for breakfast, Jie orchestrated the miracle of his scrambled eggs, a long-buried memory of his mother’s Sobian cooking. What a terrible shame more Sobian ingredients weren’t available in Pickaway, preventing him from recalling other recipes he could prepare, Jie had lamented as he traded Sumayah a round of goat cheese for a bottle of shoyu.
“Look,” He said, cracking an egg into the bowl with a delicate, precise flourish. “Would you like to try?”
Dari took an egg and daintily smashed it against the bowl, the egg yolk and white oozing between her fingers.
“Not bad, for a first attempt,” he said, handing her a bar rag, deftly scooping the shards of shell from their eggs. “could you fetch just a bit of milk from the bucket? Just a small bit,” Jie pointed.
Dari sighed, walking across the small kitchen to find a small mug, which she dunked into the bucket of goat’s milk. Frowning, she poured out about half.
“Excellent,” said Jie, stirring the eggs together into a mass of bright yellow-orange. “Tip that in, would you?”
Dari huffed, but did as he asked.
“And the bottle there? Just a few drops.”
She tapped the bottle gently, dotting the eggs with dark brown spots as Jie continued to stir.
“One last favor, dear lady--if you could place just two fingers’ width of butter into the skillet over there. Take care not to touch it, or get too near.”
Feeling she was being tricked somehow, Dari scooped butter from the crock, then dropped it onto the pan, jumping as it sizzled.
“That’s why I asked you to take care,” Jie said, pouring the eggs onto the skillet. “Excellent for your first go at the kitchen. I burned myself terribly putting butter on a skillet for a long time. Still do, actually,” Jie said, hopping backward from the stove to dodge a pop of overheated butter. “But I can tell you are defter of hand than I was.”
Dari smiled. The compliment felt genuine. Not that Deliatus’ praises for keeping her clothes on weren’t genuine, but there was something--a word Dari could only touch the sides of its meaning--childish about them.
Jie stirred the eggs in the skillet, turning them over and over. Dari watched in wonder as liquid turned to fluffy heaps, like golden clouds. She turned to the cupboard and pulled out two wooden plates, setting them on a counter near the cookstove.
“Many thanks,” Jie said, with a smile Dari couldn’t quite make sense of. He split the mound of fluff into three equal segments, toppling two onto the plates Dari had set out.
“The rest is for Sam,” Jie explained. “She generally prefers breakfast a bit later. I suppose it comes from being a tavernkeep, but you may’ve noticed she is not over-fond of mornings.”
Jie picked up a piece of yellow fluff with the two sticks like the ones he’d used to cook it, scooping a neat nibble into his mouth. He looked at Dari, her hands folded in her lap, and tossed the sticks into a wash bin. Plucking another piece of fluff between his thumb and first two fingers, he took another bite.
“Secrets bond friends,” he said, “I won’t tell if you don’t. Go ahead, try it.”
Dari pinched just a pit of the yellow fluff from her plate, shoving it into her mouth with a grimace. She chewed. And chewed.
Jie’s goat cheese and vegetables, the baker’s bread, for that matter, were beyond reproach. Dari had eaten as well as she rested, but had not realized how badly her body craved hot food. She scooped another mouthful, less dainty, with her bare fingers.
“You like it?”
Dari, her cheeks puffed out like a chipmunk, nodded and smiled.
“As Sam delights in saying, I am a calamity in the kitchen. In general. But I can scramble eggs.”
Dari, unaware of how hungry she had been, tilted the plate and scooped as much as she could into her mouth. Such an enthusiastic reception nearly made Jie want to learn cookery in earnest. Nearly.
“It’s good you like them, then,” Jie chuckled. “And good you learned how to make them yourself.”
Dari shook her head and pointed at Jie.
“You broke an egg, you measured out milk and shoyu, you buttered the skillet, you even knew to take down plates without my asking.”
She wiggled her fingers, slick with butter.
“Yes, well, Deliatus isn’t here, is she? You’re remembering, Dari. Or learning. It’s difficult to tell. Which would you say?”
Dari wiped her greasy hands on her dress, contemplating Jie’s question. She had waken every morning at the Bough in confusion, feeling she ought to be somewhere else, but unable to recall where that may be. Much that others took as nature, like eating, or, worse, using utensils to eat, she found strange. She wondered if she had known about these things before. Her memory was long, but unfocused. She could not remember being a child. She did not know why she could understand what was spoken to her, but was unable to answer in kind. She could not recall learning any of the languages she spoke. Some oddities, like the ancient ceramic chamber pot under her bed, she felt like she ought to recall, but did not. Learning or remembering? She did not know. But she was becoming more comfortable.
This, she reported as best she could to Jie, who listened with closed eyes in deep concentration.
“You aren’t sure what you knew before, but much of this seems new, is that correct?”
Dari wobbled her head, yes, no, maybe-so.
“Either way, knowledge is happening,” Jie smiled, “perhaps it does not matter if it was lost and found, or newly discovered. It gladdens me, either way.”
Dari’s mouth jerked to the side. For his apparent qualities, Jie could make her feel like an object he studied.
“No, not like that,” he corrected himself, as if he read the words on her face, “I was a teacher once, you see…” he pressed his lips together, shook his head and fussed with his clan scarf, tucking a length of it into his shirt. “I have a well-earned reputation as a bit of a bore. I like studying things, but people interested in listening to things I’ve learned are in rather short supply. Forgive me. You appear to be quite close to me in years. I shouldn’t treat you as a student.”
Dari picked a fingernail, thinking.
“Student,” she repeated, touching her chest. “Studying me,” she said, and gave Jie a gentle slap on his hand.
Jie straightened his glasses.
“That’s entirely fair. You are practically a walking study in linguistics, but you are walking, and thinking, and feeling. I apologize for treating you as an object to study.”
“Fair,” Dari repeated, the matter settled. “Vinegar, bucket, mop, beeswax?”
“Stitches,” Jie said, taking Dari’s plate as she groaned in frustration.
“If you stay still, I’d be done far more quickly,” Jie chided, snipping a knot in Dari’s stitches.
“Still,” she groused, straightening her leg in Jie’s lap.
Jie’s forehead creased as he gently drew a length of thread from Dari’s calf.
“Does this hurt at all? Yes? No?”
“No,” Dari echoed, impatient.
“Huh,” Jie said, starting in on another set of stitches across her shin. Her skin released the stitches as easily as pulling a seam from fabric. No scars had emerged, not where his needle had pierced her, not where brambles had torn her. Absent-mindedly, he ran his fingertips along the pale indentation of the healed wound, expecting to feel some indication of an injury invisible to his eye. Following the curve of her calf, he felt only smooth, unbroken skin beneath a delicate down of wispy hair. The hair suited her.The gentle fuzz was nice to touch, Jie thought, not that he made a habit of touching ladies’ legs, unless, of course, he was stitching or removing stitches from them. He hoped Dari could hold out against some of Deliatus’ instructions in ‘ladylike’ grooming.
Dari’s foot pressed into Jie’s stomach with her toes. She giggled in an apparent spasm of ticklishness.
Not that the hair on anyone’s legs was any of his business, Jie corrected himself with quickness.
“My apologies, I mean nothing untoward,” he said, gesturing for her other leg. “You’ve just healed quite swiftly. And thoroughly,” he snipped a stitch. “If I hadn’t dressed your wounds myself, I’d have guessed some magic was involved.”
“Some magic was involved,” Dari parroted.
“Is ‘Latus teaching you flattery so soon?” Jie teased. “I assure you, my needles and thread and poultices are altogether unmagical.” Pushing the hem of Dari’s dress down, Jie bent her leg at the knee to examine what had been a vicious gash on her inner thigh. Dari wiggled with impatience, hiking her dress up far enough to confirm Jie’s suspicion that very little lay between Dari and dress. He looked away. “Hands in your lap, if you don’t mind,” he said, before snipping the tiny knot at the end of the row of stitches. The skin of her thigh was softer, hairless, and yet, the stitches appeared ornamental as he plucked them out. He traced cautious fingertips where her injury had been, which, by rights, should not be healed yet, where, at the very least, a scar should be emerging. Instead, her thigh was as smooth and radiant as turned mulberry heartwood. Dari startled him to his senses with a languid sigh. Jie recoiled, as if she were an overheated cookstove. Dari laughed.
“I’m so, so sorry,” he said, shaking his head, fussing with his glasses. “Honestly, it’s just…very unusual to have healed so quickly and completely. Purely an academic interest. When we aren’t quite so busy, we’ll have to review my earlier process. Perhaps one of my poultices has grown more potent as it aged? I…” he prattled.
Dari pulled her foot out of his lap, making a loud slapping sound as she hit the floor.
“Vinegar, mop, bucket, beeswax,” she repeated, no longer a request, but a command.
“Yes. Excellent. Let’s,” Jie said, rushing away to fetch all Dari requested.
Dari crouched by the bucket of water, flapping her hands in frustration, muttering her way through a half-dozen languages. The spirits of the boards had explained the whole process of cleaning to her, as they had witnessed many years ago, when the tavern had only been a house.
Jie scratched his chin, listening.
“Does the water need to be hot?” He asked.
“Hot!” Dari exclaimed, hopping with excitement.
Jie typically did not care a great deal for housekeeping. He made a few basic housekeeping charms--dust repellent and the like--at request and under significant duress.
But his heating charms were his crowning glory.
“There’s heating charms under the bar,” Jie said. He pulled the drawer and produced a small, pinkish tablet, crushing it into the water. He held an arm out, keeping Dari back, as he tested the water with his own hand. He broke a tablet in half, dropped it in, and tested again.
“Ok, it’s hot, but won’t burn you. You must be careful with these,” he said, tapping the little carton holding the other heat charms. “They aren’t what you’d call guild standard. A project of my own invention, and I am no master charmsmith. While I’ve not had issues with them so far, overconfidence is the mother of disaster.”
“Hot!” Dari grinned. “Master charmsmith,” she repeated with a grin.
“They’re really quite straightforward,” Jie demurred, watching Dari measure vinegar into the bucket. So removed from the work of tidying things, it did not occur to him to find Dari’s confidence in her cleaning recipe strange.
“I must admit curiosity as to why you’re so keen to dedicate yourself to what promises to be a very dull, very exhausting chore on the first day you’ve felt up to leave your room. I honestly cannot recall, in the ten or so years I’ve lived here, anyone attempting to clean the floors beyond what was necessitated by overindulgence.”
“Wood,” her face scrunched in frustration, fingers curled tight enough that her fingernails bit into the soft flesh of her hands.
“We’re friends, Dari, can we make a promise?”
She tilted her head.
“Promise?”
“Promise me not to worry so much about words. Just use the best words for your ideas you can think of. We’ll get along. Perhaps you needn’t narrow your language, but we should broaden ours,” Jie said, reaching out to gently uncurl her clenched fingers..
Dari smiled.
She babbled the entire story of the wood spirits, their requests and instructions.
Jie nodded, rose, and disappeared into the kitchen.
“Ok. I heard, you want to clean the tavern floor with the aforementioned vinegar and mop, then, I conjecture from context, seal it with beeswax. And something about ghosts,” he called. “Can you repeat yourself, please? A little slower this time.”
Dari explained again, watching Jie’s pencil scritch across a tiny pad of paper he had pulled from the pocket of his work shirt, circling and underlining as it bobbed with letters. He read her words in silence, absent-mindedly brushing chicken down from his hair.
“Not ghosts. Wood spirits? You’re cleaning because something something wood spirits.”
Dari nodded. Close enough.
“As reasonable as most things I’ve heard since you arrived,” said, tucking his notebook back into his pocket. “Will the wood spirits welcome my help?” he asked, surprised the words had come from his mouth.
Dari flopped on the floor and listened.
So long as it's done.
“Welcome help,” Dari agreed, springing upright.
“Excellent,” Jie said, handing Dari a long-lost mop. “Now…how would one go about accomplishing this task?”
“Student,” she laughed, tapping the center of Jie’s chest.
“In this case, very much so.”
Dari held a hand up to silence him, as though she listened to voices beyond his hearing. She nodded, snatched a rag from the bar and tossed it to Jie.
Dari dunked the mop in the bucket of hot water, drew it out, and wrung it between her hands. She nodded at Jie to follow suit with his rag.
Surprising himself again, he did. Watching Dari work for a moment, he moved to the opposite side of the floor, moving tables, settling chairs on top, mimicking the looping lemniscate motions Dari made with her mop on hands and knees, returning to the bucket to rinse and wring whenever she did. He could swear he heard a hiss, a whisper, as rag met floorboard. He dismissed it--he’d experienced stranger things than hissing floorboards: violet-haired girls speaking dead languages and insisting on scrubbing floors because wood spirits had asked her to, for one.
“Mothers and Sisters, it smells like the Feast of the Innocent Departed down here. I thought you were cleaning,” Sam declared, when she thumped downstairs a few hours later.
Dari waved her rag and rattled a cheerful, incomprehensible explanation, while Jie attempted a translation.
“It’s…” Jie scratched his chin. “Good for the wood, she says, it prevents rot and mold…the smell dissipates quickly, she’s sure.
“Look at her while I’m trying to translate,” Jie reminded Sam, who rolled her eyes in response.
Dari tossed a soiled rag at him, prattling admonishment in several languages.
“Sounds like you need to translate better,” Sam chuckled.
He had not mentioned the wood spirits, a point Dari looped back to in several different languages. Somehow, no matter what language he heard the phrase ‘wood spirit’ in, it never sounded any more plausible.
“For the audience, Dari,” Jie said.
“An audience? I’m an audience, now?” Sam chuckled.
Dari cocked her head, grumbling in a language Jie could not guess at.
“Apologies, lady-lord, Dari” Jie sighed. “Dari says wood spirits asked to be cleaned and sealed with beeswax. I do not grasp the whole of her tale, but was certain you’d be skeptical, and hence left this detail from my report, which is not proper translation at all.”
“Apologies,” Dari repeated, patting her chest.
Sam blinked and rubbed her eyes.
“Breakfast. I need breakfast. If there are spirits, just see they don’t get into the brandy, will you?”
“Eggs are on the counter,” Jie called after Sam’s shuffling back. She gave a gesture that may’ve been encouraging, but neither Jie nor Dari could tell.
The boards whispered yes, and Dari smiled at them. Humming the language in seat of her soul, she whispered back: Of course. I thank you for your shelter, for your sacrifice.
It had taken some convincing and much swearing on Sam’s part, as she cleared off the floor of her own room, to scrub down the entire Bough. But it was a small place; with a determined acolyte of the wood spirits, and a determined acolyte of their acolyte, the cleaning was finished by noon.
“Beeswax,” insisted Dari, rolling on the floor of what was now her bedroom, the door propped as wide open as it would go by Jie’s foot.
Jie sprawled on the floor, out of breath. He had spent most of his life in the company of or service to women. He knew better than to try to talk any woman out of completing a mission once her mind was set to it, or at least the sort of women he gravitated toward. Gravitated, he meant in a literal sense. Pickaway was the deepest pit of nowhere, yet somehow, he’d found himself there. Within the hour, he had collided bodily with Deliatus, who, at the time, was fending off a very insistent interested party who was also very short of coin. Seeing Jie’s almond eyes, ink-black topknot, and clan scarf, the heavy pack on his back, the cheapskate lech had turned and ran. Jie had never raised a hand to anyone, rarely raising his temper. He was Sobian, but at the time, was also fifteen. Martial arts were as alien to him as marital ones. Deliatus had strong-armed him, very literally, into the Bronze Bough, delivering him to Sam, who had been in search of an assistant. And ten years had passed. He was pulled toward, and occasionally by, these women. He could already sense Dari would be no different, in as far as her determination was concerned.
“Yes, beeswax,” he panted, “I’ve some housecleaning charms hidden someplace I’m told when mixed with the stuff make an excellent seal for wood. Though the problem lay in obtaining the wax, you see,” Jie answered.
Dari rolled over, ear to the floor. She nodded, hopping to her feet.
“Crock. Big,” she said, hustling to crab-crawl down the stairs.
Jie pulled himself from the floor, following after her.
“A big crock I can manage,” Jie said, huffing into the kitchen, “I’m supposing this is a new direction from the wood spirits?” he asked, returning with a sack and a jar.
Dari nodded, tugging at Jie’s sleeve, leading him from the kitchen out the door. She looked at his hand, red and puckered with the work of the morning, and thought better than to grab it. But it was a close thing.
“Where are we headed, if you don’t mind?” Jie asked, as they crested the hill past the barn. “It’s just that I’m expected back before dinner, and likely to be at least threatened with execution being out in the wilderness with you.”
Dari pointed. An enormous, hollowed out maple stood ahead, buzzing alive with a honeybee hive.
“Absolutely not,” Jie said, grabbing for Dari’s arm, but she eluded him, turning with a stern look. “I apologize,” he began, “I have no intent to order you around, Dari, but taking wax from a hive with no equipment is a needless risk for something so simple as clean floors.”
She glared.
“Oh. Wood spirits, yes. Certainly, these spirits wouldn’t wish you to harm yourself, Dari? Please!” he pleaded, as she walked, barefoot and bold, to the hive. Jie hesitated. If he seized her, dragged her away from the hive, what trust she had in him would shatter. In all likelihood, she could fight him off, anyway, and fling herself headlong into the swarm. “Dari, we can come by your beeswax, whatever you want, some other way,” Jie begged. He switched to halting Middle Kanglais to no effect. “Please, as a personal favor--I’m afraid you’ll be hurt.”
Bees took to the sky in a cloud, alighting on Dari’s hair as if she were a strange flower. She raised a slow hand to the exposed gold of the honey-covered wax, placing the other on the bleached-white husk of the maple tree, leaning close, as if listening. The bees hushed their buzzing to a quiet hum. Dari nodded, dislodging a few bees climbing her hair.
“Crock?” she asked, reaching a hand behind her.
Jie, trembling, took the crock from the sack he carried and handed it to her. Dari pulled away a section of vacated honeycomb with careful fingers and slipped it into the crock. With a polite little dip like a curtsy, Dari stepped back from the hive, the bees on her hair taking flight as one, returning to their hive and their work. She spun, waving the crock with triumph.
A rare occurrence, Jie found himself without words.
Dari turned to him, chattering and smiling. She paused, confusion and apology creasing her eyebrows.
“Afraid?” she struggled.
“Just a little bit,” Jie wheezed. “Dari, how did you do that? Was that magic, or just some old beekeeper’s secret that has the appearance of magic?”
Dari babbled an answer. Jie found himself unable to catch any but a few words, his shock too complete. She squeezed her eyes shut in concentration.
“Ask nice,” she said, finally.
Dari reached into the crock, squeezed off a corner of honeycomb and popped it into her mouth. She chewed a moment, then daintily spat the remaining wax into her hand. Tearing another corner, she offered it to Jie. Bewildered, he took it from her and chewed, the sweetness soothing his nerves. He pulled the spent wax from his mouth and dropped it back into the jar.
“Perhaps we should not trouble Sam with details of how we came by honey and wax?”
Dari grinned, her teeth covered in honeycomb.
Jie’s title as “man-of-all-work” was a bit of a misnomer, to his mind. Within their first year together, an unspoken agreement had passed between Jie and Sam that he would work diligently and faithfully, but mostly on work he wished to do. To Jie’s credit and Sam’s relief, this category was quite broad. Jie was more of a “man-of-most-work-and-then-reading-things”. He knew how to make a wood sealant from beeswax from his reading; theoretically, combined with one of his more experimental dust repelling charms, he could make it such that it needed applying only once every few years. This was, however, theory. Making Dari’s wood sealant, separating wax from honey, debris from wax, calculating the oil to wax proportions, the amount of heating charm powders to keep the mixture from seizing, all for apparent “wood spirits”; he felt himself a man-of-all-work in his very bones.
He could practically smell the open book on the bar, pencil, sharpening knife and pad at the ready.
“Thanking to you,” Dari said, beginning to rub the mixture into the planks of the kitchen. She stopped, concentrating. She touched her chest, held a hand out to Jie. “I, as well,” Dari smiled and continued at her work.
Jie watched her, hunched and smiling as she worked. At no point did she ask him to help go over the floorboards again on hands and knees to bring an already unnaturally clean tavern floor to a shine. And yet he heard himself say:
“I appreciate your thanks, Dari, and what I assume was the thanks of your wood spirits. But please, we began this enterprise together, let us also complete it. I’m more than happy to help you.”
Dari nodded her appreciation. She started to sing her strange songs, in and out of languages Jie understood as she worked. Strangest of all, crawling along, waxing with his own brush, Jie found he truly was happy to help.
“The unending cheek of some men!” Deliatus shouted, letting the door slam behind her. “Sweet Sisters, why does it smell like the Feast of the Innocent Departed in here?” she complained, sniffling, before catching sight of the shining floor. “Why, I believe I can nearly see my own reflection. Such interesting things that will do for business! Granted, it is quite nicer than the typical dirt and soot, if you don’t mind my saying.”
“I might mind, just a bit. It’s what Dari was goin’ on about this morning, only it’s got something to do with wood spirits,” said Sam, moving to take a heavy sack Deliatus carried. “Who has insulted my favorite girl, and where does he live? I’ll have a word.”
“An absolute scoundrel who didn’t bother to mention he had no gold until after. He handed me that,” Deliatus seethed, pointing at the sack.
Sam’s stomach turned over as she reached. It turned back as she pulled out what appeared to be a small side of beef. She breathed. Not pig.
“Veal, he called it. Not gold, I called it, and threatened to tell his old mother I’d been keeping him company, but he hadn’t even been paying me properly for it. He had not one thin coin, and kept weighing me down with,” she shuddered, “meats.”
Jie creaked down the stairs to a suspicious look from Sam.
“‘My lady-lord, can we please drop the pretense that I am going to somehow besmirch the innocence of our ward? We’ve spent the day on the floors, I imagine you might notice, ending with your room.”
Sam scowled.
“Dari was quite insistent. She has an excellent point, to have the entire place shining like the palace at Amissopolis, spare your room, would look quite strange.”
“To who?” Sam demanded.
“Me, for one, Sweet Sammy,” Deliatus said with a smile, “I think it looks just lovely. All Dari’s idea?”
“Floors are for standing on. With feet. Feet are supposed to be dusty!” Sam declared.
“Entirely Dari’s idea,” Jie assured Deliatus, “but the experience was rather enlightening. I was able to try out a few household charms I’d theorized on, but never put to practice.”
“Well, at least there’s that,” Sam said, doing her best not to admire the sheen of the floor. “And Deliatus, I will personally wring the neck of whatever scallywag thought he could get away with disrespecting your craft, just set me in his direction.”
Deliatus sighed, collapsing into a dramatic heap on the bar.
“I would, but I knew you’d be Mothers-blessed for something other than pork, sweet Sammy. That's why I brought the wretched mess to you straight away. For dear Jie and Dari’s stew pot,” she said. “Oh, Sammy, you needn’t hide your excitement. I know you hate pig nearly as much as I hate being bartered with.”
“You are the midnight star on a moonless light, ‘Latus,” Sam said, swooping to kiss Deliatus as she rushed the sack of beef to the kitchen, “but I’ll still deliver a thumping if it’d please you. You two,” Sam called to Jie and Dari, “Get started on the stew, would you? It needs to simmer a spell, doesn’t it?”
Jie drooped with exhaustion, covering his eyes. A light hand landed on his shoulder, accompanied by a soft, cooing babble from Dari.
“It’s very kind of you to offer help, but you are mad if you believe I’d let you anywhere near a knife,” he splayed his hands for Dari to examine the scars on his fingers. “See how bloodthirsty the little devils in the butcher block are?”
Dari prattled what had the cadence of a retort, reaching to smooth Jie’s disheveled hair back. He sighed, her palms resting on the sides of his head.
“If you insist,” he relented. “But you must promise to follow my instructions. I don’t want you injuring yourself, ok?”
“Follow instructions, ok,” Dari parroted, hopping ahead of Jie into the kitchen.
Deliatus leaned her head on her hand, watching Jie straighten his back and follow Dari into the kitchen as if he had not just spent eight hours scrubbing and waxing floors. It was very early still. As caught up in his own mind as he tended to be, she doubted Jie recognized what was happening. Worse, the poor girl could end up another of his projects. Yet she couldn’t help but smile at the peals of laughter floating out of the kitchen.