Chapter Fifteen

Anastasia had known, intellectually, that running a business – or a household – was a full-time job, but she’d never really understood it until Charlotte gave her a tour of the building and introduced her to her co-workers. The office was bigger than she’d realised, the front office tacked onto a warehouse that held row upon row of printing presses, hammering out countless copies of the daily broadsheet and then adding updates and special editions that were hastily passed out to broadsheet criers for distribution. Some sheets seemed fairly stable – businesses placed adverts in the broadsheet, trying to draw in new customers – and others seemed to change hourly, from political updates to aristocratic gossip that she found it hard to believe it could ever be verified. The sound of typewriters echoed through the building, even in the staff lounge. She didn’t know how the staff got used to it.

“You just do,” Charlotte said, when she asked. “Can you use a typewriter?”

Anastasia shook her head. That hadn’t been part of her lessons.

“You’ll learn,” Charlotte told her. “Luckily, you’ll have plenty of time.”

They kept walking through the building, then out onto the streets. “My flat is nearby,” Charlotte said. “You can move in with me when you’re ready,”

“Thanks,” Anastasia said. She wasn’t sure it would be a good thing, but she had little choice. Her salary had sounded high, until she’d realised how little it covered. “What are you going to teach me.”

Charlotte gave her an evil look. “Just you wait.”

She led Anastasia on a long tour of the city, pointing out a handful of landmarks, the mansions owned by the quality, the industrial factories, railway stations and a number of pitfalls just waiting for tourists. Anastasia found it a little overwhelming. Beneficence wasn’t bigger than any city back home, as far as she could tell, but it appeared to be compressed into a smaller area with little room for expansion. The sea, and the gorges that isolated the city from the neighbouring kingdom, were impassable barriers. She couldn’t see any way to increase the land surface without taking hideous risks.

“It’s a problem many of us grapple with,” Charlotte said, as they finished her tour at her apartment. “The world is changing. What will it mean for us?”

Anastasia shrugged. The apartment was smaller than her suite back home, but it was still better than anywhere she’d slept over the last few weeks. Charlotte had a three-room apartment, the walls crammed with books and broadsheets, and seemingly lived alone. Anastasia wondered if she had a lover, or a roommate, then decided it was none of her business. She didn’t want Charlotte asking her too many questions, not when she could easily trigger the curse. Who knew what would happen then?

“My room is off-limits,” Charlotte said, after they finished moving Anastasia’s merger possessions into the spare bedroom. “Anywhere else, feel free.”

Anastasia looked around. The flat wasn’t that large. There was no kitchen, just a makeshift bathroom … she felt a twinge of longing for the bathtub in the inn, even though she knew she couldn’t have afforded it for much longer. A handful of tinned foods and dried meats rested in the living room, but otherwise …

“If you want to bring someone back here, don’t let them into my bedroom either,” Charlotte added. “That’ll get you both in hot water.”

She paused. “You can have the rest of the evening off,” she added, with an evil grin. “Your training will start tomorrow.”

Anastasia swallowed. “What are you going to teach me?”

Charlotte’s grin grew wider. “Everything.”

She wasn’t kidding, Anastasia discovered the following morning. She started by shoving a notepad into Anastasia’s hands and forcing her to take down dictation, then scolded her for any mistakes that made it hard to follow what was going on. Anastasia found it hard to understand which mistakes were picked out, although … Charlotte switched tack suddenly and started drilling her in magic instead, introducing her to a handful of spells that could be used for all kinds of purposes. Anastasia struggled to keep up.

“This spell lets you know if someone is intentionally lying to you,” Charlotte explained. “It’s tricky to cast, but it avoids the issue of insulting someone by hinting he might be a liar.”

She paused. “Can you see any problem with it?”

Anastasia made a face. “If he doesn’t know he’s lying, the spell won’t either.”

“Exactly.” Charlotte talked her through the spell, time and time again. “But you don’t want to be accused of calling someone a liar.”

Anastasia nodded, slowly. Calling someone a liar, or insisting that whatever they said had to be verified, was a major insult, even if it was plain common sense to check an absurd and unbelievable story. Casting truth spells on them was even worse, suggesting they simply couldn’t be trusted. It was a direct attack on their integrity … she recalled her father saying something about a lord he thought was lying about the terms of an agreement with a commoner, but there was no way to tell which of the two was telling the truth. People would be angry on the lord’s behalf even if he was a liar …

“I think I understand,” Anastasia said.

“You have to learn to catch the spell without someone noticing,” Charlotte added. “It isn’t quite as insulting, but they’ll still give you the stink-eye.”

“Got it.”

They paused for lunch – sandwiches and water – and then headed into the newspaper office and into a rear section. It reminded Anastasia of her closet back home, practically a room in its own right, but the clothes stored in the office were intended for hundreds of different social ranks and occupations. A dandy’s doublet hung next to an outfit that would have shamed a street cleaner, both resting next to a pimped-out dress and one that looked so flimsy the only thing keeping it on was the eyes of every man in the room. There were little flat caps, the mark of a working man, and helmets topped with exotic and colourful feathers she doubted were real. One jacket looked to be made of real dragonskin, although she doubted that too. Dragonskin was so expensive even her father hesitated to authorise the expense, no matter how much protection it offered against dark magic. The one in front of her couldn’t possibly be real.

Charlotte shut the door, muttered a privacy spell, and started to undress. “What’s the most important thing to keep in mind, when choosing a disguise?”

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Anastasia didn’t know. “To make sure it fits properly?”

“To make sure it is neither too much nor too little,” Charlotte said. Naked, it was clear she was a little shorter than Anastasia had thought, her presence somehow compensating for her lack of size. “An actress can overact, sometimes spoiling the performance if she overdoes it, or not even try to act. Some actresses have to act in a manner that suggests they’re bad actresses, even if they’re actually very good at it. They want people to see them acting, but they also want to be seen as actors pretending to act rather than bad actors.”

“I’m confused,” Anastasia admitted.

“So was I, when I started,” Charlotte said. “If you’re dressed like a great lady, yet you bow and scrape in front of your social equals, do you think anyone will believe you?”

“No,” Anastasia said.

“Correct!” Charlotte picked up an outfit and pulled it over her head. “And if you’re dressed as a maid, yet boss everyone else around, what do you think they’ll think?”

“That you’re uppity,” Anastasia said. She’d known maids who were dismissed for even the slightest hint of disrespect. “Or worse.”

“They might not believe you,” Charlotte admitted. “Most disguises don’t stand up to scrutiny, young lady, and once you give someone a thread of doubt they’ll start pulling on it until the entire disguise comes apart.”

She turned, revealing that she was dressed as a maid. The appearance was all wrong … it took Anastasia a moment to realise the obvious, that Charlotte was still standing and acting as if she were in charge. The more she looked, the more she could see other flaws in the disguise. She wasn’t wearing any livery, not even a single badge. And she didn’t have her eyes respectfully cast down.

“You need to look a little more respectful,” she said.

“Among other things,” Charlotte agreed. “You not only have to look the part, but act the part. Get undressed.”

Anastasia hesitated, glancing at the door, then gritted her teeth and stripped nude. Charlotte looked her up and down, then passed her a pair of woollen undergarments and a single undershirt. The former itched when she put it on, the latter feeling oddly uncomfortable against her breasts. She was lucky, she supposed, that she wasn’t particularly well-endowed. Her mother would have had to bind her breasts, if she wanted to pass as a man, and that would be even more uncomfortable, if not painful. Charlotte studied her again, then held out a pair of trousers and a shirt. Anastasia felt naughty pulling the trousers on. She would never have been allowed to wear something so tight back home.

“You make a pretty boy,” Charlotte teased. “Just tie up your hair, then put it under a cap.”

“This isn’t going to fool anyone.” Anastasia looked at herself in the mirror. She looked like a young woman wearing male clothes. “They won’t believe in me …”

“They’ll see what they expect to see,” Charlotte said, carefully adjusting the clothes. “Walk around the room, focusing on staying upright. Don’t swing your hips …”

Anastasia scowled as she tried to follow the instructions. “Does this actually work?”

“Surprisingly often,” Charlotte said. “You’re lucky in one sense, growing up in an aristo household. Most common-born girls find it harder to show the assurance of a man.”

“Oh.” Anastasia wasn’t sure what to make of it. “Why …?”

Charlotte’s expression darkened. “Even here, most young women are under the thumb of their fathers, then their husbands. Legal rights aren’t always enforced and they know it. Or worse …”

She scowled. “You need to be careful, though,” she added. “Posing as a man brings its own dangers.”

Anastasia stared down at herself. “In what way?”

“You’ll be challenged more openly, and you’ll find it harder to duck those challenges without being scorned,” Charlotte said. “Most men are reluctant to strike a woman in public, certainly without significant provocation, but that doesn’t hold true for other men. You offend some prideful bravo, he’ll try to strike you. I go around dressed like this” – she indicated her dress – “and I have to worry about wandering hands trying to get up my skirt, I go around dressed as a man and I need to fear someone who might punch me in the face. Pretending to be a man is very different to being a woman.”

She winked. “And there are some horror stories about my colleagues who dressed as women,” she added. “One’s cover was nearly blown by a drunkard who let his hand crawl up the skirt and found himself touching a rod of iron.”

Anastasia blanched. “And what happened?”

“He punched him out,” Charlotte said. “Which was lucky, because losing his cover could have gotten him killed.”

She changed clothes again, dressing as a young man and then as a regal aristocratic middle-aged woman. Anastasia had to admire her skill, particularly when it came to posing as an aristocrat. The layers of makeup intended to hide advancing wrinkles, the kind of cosmetics most older women would loudly denounce while using as much as possible, was just as good when it came to hiding the lack of wrinkles. A few shifts in how she presented herself and it was hard to see through the disguise, even though Anastasia knew it wasn’t real. The young man was slightly less convincing. She wasn’t sure why.

“You’re a woman too, and women tend to pick up on small details quicker than men,” Charlotte warned. “Thankfully, most also tend to keep their mouths shut unless they feel genuinely threatened.”

Anastasia kept her thoughts to herself as Charlotte changed back into her male guise, then led her out onto the streets. It felt … odd to wear male clothing, odder still to try to walk as a man. The world was both safer and colder, she noted grimly. There were no wandering hands trying to touch her, no flesh-crawling sensations as someone accidentally brushed against her, but passing women eyed her with suspicion, their faces so cold and hard she wondered if they had seen through her guise … or, perhaps worse, if they’d been fooled. There was no hint of warmth in their gazes, just a terrible suspicion that was all the worse for being unjustified. It was hard not to feel hurt by the way they looked away, keeping a wary eye on her without making it obvious. A couple even crossed the road as they saw her coming. It was enough to make her want to tear off the disguise and reveal herself.

“They hate me,” she muttered, as they returned to the office. The only woman who had shown any interest in her was a clear prostitute, offering services she couldn’t possibly accept. It would have blown her cover beyond any hope of recovery. “Why …”

Charlotte made a rude noise. “And now you see the downside of growing up in a noble household.”

Anastasia felt stung. “What do you mean?”

“Answer me a question,” Charlotte said. “If you get into a fight with a man about the same size as yourself, who’ll win?”

“I don’t know,” Anastasia said.

“Him, almost certainly,” Charlotte told her. Her tone was flat, but Anastasia could hear a hint of bitter frustration underneath. “The average man is a third again as strong as the average woman. Given the advantage of superior strength, a man can easily overwhelm a woman and pin her down, particularly one without the training to use what assets she does have or the nerve to go through with it. He doesn’t even need to do anything to make her ready for him – he can just rip her clothes away and force himself inside her.”

Anastasia felt sick. Maurice had done it. Time and time and time again … the memories haunted the back of her mind, a testament to the existence of people too horrible to be allowed to live …

“It isn’t just that.” Charlotte added. “A father can beat his daughter. A brother can beat his sister. A husband can beat his wife. That’s a reality for women who don’t grow up in an aristocratic household, with bodyguards to defend her and sorcerers to prove what really happened. Those that don’t … it’s common for women to be blamed for their own treatment, from a raped women being ordered to marry her rapist to a battered wife being told she must have done something to deserve it. And so women are suspicious of strange men. How can you blame them?”

Anastasia gritted her teeth. She had been ignorant of her own ignorance. Again.

“You need to learn to defend yourself too,” Charlotte added, as they changed back into their regular clothes. “Do you carry a blade?”

“Just a simple one,” Anastasia said, holding it out,

“You’ll need a better one,” Charlotte told her. She took a smaller blade and wrist scabbard out of a drawer and held it out. “And training.”

She drilled Anastasia in that too, over the next few days. Anastasia had never really listened to any tutor before, not any more than she absolutely had to, but Charlotte was different. It wasn’t just her formidable personality, or the fact she needed the skills, or … it was that Charlotte had a way of compelling attention that none of her tutors possessed. They had no authority to force her to listen, no ability to make her do lines or physically discipline her or anything. Only her father had that sort of authority and he was too busy to pay much attention to her. She wondered, sourly, just how much worse she’d made things by not taking her role seriously. She’d been the Crown Princess! It was her job to prepare herself to take the throne …

And Circe is out there somewhere, doing … something, she thought, time and time again. What is she doing? How long do I have?

The sense that time was running out gnawed at her, even as she tried to master the skills she’d need to be a reporter. Rockfall was too far from Beneficence for the kingdom’s affairs to be of pressing interest, and what few reports reached the free city were vague to the point of uselessness. No one was interested in Princess Anastasia, no one gave much of a damn about what she did … certainly not inside her kingdom. Anastasia would have taken it as a galling lesson in just how unimportant she was, compared to others, if she hadn’t been so worried about her parents. Who knew what was happening so far to the south?

“You can sleep in tomorrow,” Charlotte told her, one evening. “We’re going to be up late tomorrow night.”

Anastasia blinked. Charlotte was a morning person, who had no qualms about ordering her apprentice out of bed at sunrise. It was odd for her to let Anastasia sleep in … Anastasia had a quiet suspicion that the reason she didn’t have a roommate was that she was difficult to handle, certainly early in the morning. “What are we going to be doing?”

“Wait and see,” Charlotte said. She passed Anastasia a stack of briefing papers, topped with the latest edition of Who is Who, Zangarian edition. “It may be nothing, but there may be a story in it. You never know.”

And she winked.