Califia's Daughters (19 page)

“But she—”

“Shut up.” Quiet, light, and dangerous. “We'll talk about it later.” She met first one set of eyes, then the other, and both fell away. She glanced at Dian. “There seems to have been a misunderstanding here. May I help you with something?”

“It's all right, no harm done. Yes, I need to speak with Deirdre. I have a baby she's due to feed shortly. Do you know how much longer she'll be occupied?”

“They're nearly finished. Perhaps five or ten minutes. Shall I tell her you're here?”

“Yes, please. Tell her it's Jamilla's friend.”

“Just a minute.” She went in without looking at her two subordinates. They in turn studiously ignored Dian, who walked over to the dogs, smoothed their fur to gentle them, and sent them back to their positions near the horse. Willa stirred again, and Dian jiggled her.

When the woman came back, her jaw was clenched and her mouth tight.

“They want you to come in.”

“Who is ‘they'?”

“My, er, employers.”

“And Deirdre?”

“She's with them. They want to see you, and the baby.” The idea appeared to make her unhappy; Dian thought she could guess why.

“Ah. Menfolk?”

“Yes. Three.”

“I see.” Dian tried not to look amused at the impossible situation this woman had been put into. She turned to speak over her shoulder. “Culum, Tomas, guard. Willa, come and meet your new admirers.”

Under different circumstances she might have helped the woman out, offered to disappear quietly or at least shed her weapons, but it amused her to pretend she did not see the consternation it caused when she walked in with a large, well-worn hunting knife on her belt and God knew what else hidden on her person, the guard knowing that there was nothing she could do to stop her. Even when they were inside, the woman was thwarted at doing her duty, for when she would have taken up a position just inside the door so as to keep an eye on the potentially hazardous Dian, the youngest of her charges waved her out with a flip of his bejeweled fingers. She protested in strangled tones, but the oldest one looked at her.

“It'll be all right, Brigit,” he said. “This woman isn't about to murder us or kidnap us. Are you?” he asked Dian.

“No, sir,” she said. “I already have more than enough to keep me occupied, without more worries.”

“But, sir—” Brigit said without much hope.

“You can wait outside the door, Brigit.” She left, shoulders rigid and an expression on her face that said this would not be the end of the matter, that she would see that her ultimate employers, the women whose menfolk these were, would know the details.

The youngest of the men did not wait until the door closed to laugh derisively, arrogant in his ephemeral power. He was perhaps nineteen, a blonde with elaborately coiffed hair, wearing a sort of doublet and hose affair in brilliant green silk and velvet, his eyes painted black and green with makeup, a ring on every finger. The brown-haired man next to him, about thirty years old, wore more ordinary clothes, less flamboyant in blues and reds but of superb quality. He had faint pocks on his cheeks, and his nose and mouth were pinched as if to keep a bad smell from entering. He dismissed Dian from notice with impersonal distaste, his eyes on Willa as if she were some strange, misplaced, and faintly repulsive specimen of the natural world, a slug on his lettuce or a damp salamander in his shoe. A huge diamond on his left hand pulsed and sparkled in the bright workshop, and Dian reflected that if Laine's scavenged necklace had increased the Valley's credit as much as it had, the jewelry in this room would probably buy the entire place, and half its people as well.

The third man seemed positively plain in his brown jacket and trousers and a snowy white shirt. His hair was peppered with gray, his eyes dark, mustache neat. He was sitting next to a slim, brown-eyed woman who wore a simple long dress of some soft burnt-orange fabric with a drape like a painting. He glanced at Dian with polite interest, although as he took in Dian's rough hair and rougher boots and the delicate head grizzling and rooting in her arms, his expression turned to amusement. The woman seemed lost and glanced around for some clue as to how she should respond. She half-stood to welcome Dian, sank down, plucked at the seams of her skirt, and smiled uncertainly.

“You're Jamilla's friend?” she asked, in a voice that was less womanly than Susanna's. “And the baby. Good. We, uh, we were just finishing up, if you'd like to—”

“Let her sit down.” The oldest man's suggestion was a command. The other two tucked their sleek, tidy feet under their chairs and shifted marginally away from Dian.

The oldest man turned back to Deirdre to continue their interrupted discussion, which seemed to concern the colors of a carpet she was doing for him and its relationship with some existing furniture, particularly an ancient Chinese painted screen. They pushed through a great heap of multicolored threads on the table between them, extracting a few, discarding others. Deirdre was so distracted as to be fluttering, the man seemed determined to continue, the other two men started to talk about a horse race, Willa grew increasingly restive, and Dian tried to push away her irritation.

No introductions were made, of course. The horse race talk evolved into ribald speculations concerning the sex life of the jockeys. Five skeins of thread were laid out on the table. The man continued to rummage through the others in a desultory manner, as if he, too, had only half a mind on the business at hand but was for some reason loath to let it go. He did not look again at Dian or the baby but held Deirdre's attention with details that even Dian could tell were needless, and when Dian realized what he was doing her mild irritation boiled over.

This bastard was not in the least interested in talking about yarn samples; he wanted only to manipulate the three females into a state of complete frustration, for his own entertainment. She stood up abruptly and, at the looks on their faces, knew she had overreacted; well, the hell with it. She smiled what felt like a snarl and jiggled the startled Willa.

“I am terribly sorry,” she said to the man. “The child is hungry and seems to be interfering with your discussion. Perhaps I ought to remove her, so you can finish without interruption.” It was a hint not even he could ignore, but she was not prepared for the twist he put on it.

“By no means. If the child is hungry, let it eat,” he said, and waved regally toward Deirdre and sat back in his chair.

From the look on her face Deirdre had not actually lived with men for a long time, and nursing a baby around strange males was an unfamiliar, and not entirely comfortable, experience. Nonetheless, after an initial hesitation she reached gamely for the baby and set about putting the strange armful to her breast under the gaze of three absorbed sets of eyes. Eventually, after what seemed a long time, Willa was suckling.

“I thought yours were older than that,” commented the oldest man. Deirdre looked up.

“Oh, this one isn't mine,” she said. “I'm just helping out until this woman can find a wet nurse.”

“Why?” interrupted the man in green. “What's wrong with her?” He nodded at Dian, who caught his eye and held it.

“Not that it is any business of yours,” she answered deliberately, “but the child is not mine either. I found her, abandoned, at a crossroads. Exposed.” The young man jerked upright, started to rise, caught himself, and looked apprehensively at the nursing pair. The man with the diamond ring had no such compunctions, or pride; he was already on the other side of the room with his hand on the doorknob.

“What's wrong with her?” the young man again demanded.

“Absolutely nothing,” Dian answered blandly. “Just an extra toe or two.”

The man's eyes went to Willa, as if he half-expected an octopus's tentacles to squirm out from the wrappings, but he relaxed slightly in his chair. However, the man at the door would have none of it.

“Come on, Hari, it's time to go. We said we'd be back by one.”

The younger man stood up in agreement.

“Daren's right, Hari, and I've got things to do before the party. Let's go.”

“I'm not finished,” the oldest man said flatly, but Deirdre spoke up, hesitantly.

“Really, Hari, there's not an awful lot more to do right now,” she said. “I'll work up a sample with these colors, and after that you can tell me what you think. But that's going to take me at least two weeks. I'm grateful you could come down and see me.” It was as close to a dismissal as Deirdre was capable of giving, and although Hari did not like it, Dian could see him decide that it was better to accept with grace rather than make a scene. He stood up, nodded to Deirdre, and swept out without further acknowledgment of Dian or the baby.

The door shut behind the men, and Deirdre blew out a sigh of relief. She shook her head ruefully at Dian.

“I'm sorry about that,” she said. “The family is one of my better customers, but there are times when I wonder if they're worth it.”

“I hope I haven't chased them away permanently.”

“Don't worry, they're not that easily put off. Sad, really, all that energy and money, and being men they have nothing to do all day but indulge themselves. Hari's really very clever with colors, he does a lot of designing. He's all right. In small doses. Sit down,” she added, and, “Can I get you something to drink?”

“No, thanks, I had something a little while ago. Do you mind if I take a look at the workshop?”

“Not at all. Here, I'll come with you, just let me switch her over—what's her name?”

“Willa.”

“Willa, that's right. Little ones like this are so easy to handle, once they get the hang of it.” And so saying she tucked the child more firmly against her body, straightened her dress, and led Dian out of the office space and into the workshop. It was a bright, noisy space, with seven or eight women, two of them slim brown-skinned figures dressed in the brilliant wraps Dian thought were called
saris
. All of them were talking happily over the clatter of their looms while half a dozen children played around their feet.

“Which one is yours?” she asked, nodding at the pile of multicolored kids.

“None of that crew. Mine are taking a nap—they're twins, fifteen months and all mischief, but thank God they're good sleepers. Do you weave?”

Dian was grateful the woman had not asked, Do you have children?

“No, but I have a sister-in-law who does beautiful work. She'd love this.”

“This is the lighter stuff in here, for curtains and upholstery to go with the carpets. My part's through here,” and she ducked through a draped doorway into a smaller shed behind the main one. Five huge frames held works in progress, and three women looked up at their entrance, their flying fingers not even pausing. A fourth woman knelt on the floor atop three hundred square feet of spectacular, sinuous gold and scarlet dragon on a rippling background of blues and greens, a pair of sculpting shears in her hand. Dian went to stare at the carpet and make noises of unfeigned appreciation. Deirdre brushed them aside.

“It's all right. Nothing very challenging, aside from the size, but they tend to like traditional designs in Meijing. Boring, but it pays the rent.”

“How much would something like that cost? If that isn't—”

Deirdre casually named a sum that made Dian blink and clear her throat.

“And a small one, maybe by one of your apprentices?”

“For you?”

“A gift. For a man.”

“What kind of thing does he like?”

Dian was at a loss.

“I don't really know. I mean, he likes the sorts of colors you were laying out for those gentlemen, but he hasn't been around—been with us—very long. He's quiet. Funny. Strong. He likes waterfalls,” she offered a bit desperately, and Deirdre laughed.

“A strong man who likes waterfalls. That should be fun,” and then she paused and her dark eyes began to focus far away. “I wonder,” she said, and a minute later, “That might do it,” and still later she dragged herself back and smiled absently at Dian. “I was going to do a small sampler for Hari, perhaps I'll do an actual carpet instead that would do for your—what's his name?”

“Isaac. His name is Isaac. I could pick it up in six weeks or so, if you've got it finished—I'll be coming back through around then. Or if not, maybe next spring, someone from my family will be coming up then.”

“Six weeks should be good. Isaac, you say. And waterfalls. Hmmm.”

Ten minutes later Deirdre put Willa back in Dian's hands and waved away her thanks. When Dian turned in the doorway, Deirdre was already bent over a large sheet of paper on the worktable, a bristling cup of colored pencils pulled up in front of her.

         

Dian's last stop before reaching Meijing gleamed at her from several miles down the Road, a dazzling white-walled hacienda atop the last set of hills before the city. Three hours after leaving Deirdre's shop, she turned Simon's head to follow the insignificant signs pointing to
cantina
and entered a maze of alleyways that stepped and twisted and finally fell away respectfully a distance from the inn's perimeter wall, whitewashed and laid with a businesslike icing of broken glass and wire along the top. She dismounted and led Simon through the massive black gates. Once inside they were pounced upon by a silent brown child who looked remarkably like a miniature Carmen; she tugged at the reins until Dian relinquished them.

“I'm not staying,” she told the child. “I'll be here less than an hour.
Yo estaré aqui menos que una hora
,” she called, shrugged, and sent Culum and Tomas off after them. The woman who appeared from the inn's doorway sent a rapid fire of choppy syllables rattling against the back of the retreating child, who merely hunched her shoulders another fraction of an inch and continued walking. The woman, all squat browns and blacks, looked a question at Dian.