by Rance » Sun Jul 21, 2013 3:44 pm
"I ask," the girl said, "because you are a man who knows numbers. You see? And numbers are very fair. And it is also very agreeable when numbers are balanced just right."
He laughed. He was always so jovial, it sometimes made her feel small. Small, indeed, because here he sat with his fine sandwiches and his tea, and she nibbled with little satisfaction -- he offered humors and small snacks, tea and company; she, meanwhile, could only think of the blood she'd gotten on her hands. The punch of the needle through his skin. His momentary vulnerability. How she'd tried to leverage that against him.
How here, in the lavish comforts of his office, with a white sandwich crushed between dark fingers, she thought to do the same again. But all she asked was:
"Alice," she said, speaking the name with care. "Is -- is she your lady, ser?"
She cared, that much was obvious. The question was one that needed to be asked, to humanize him. To remind her that she would stitch his wounds again, and again still, if ever she must. To realize that she hoped she never would need to, not out of a lack of fondness -- she thought him sweet, good-natured, wholly undeserving of Catch's remarkable perceptions -- but because kind men should simply not be hurt.
The seamstress looked down at her tea.
"It is a -- a very hard time here lately. Loyalties are readily challenged. Those of firm mind are being--" What would be the right word, the best way to say it, "--encouraged to think in ways that might not suit them. Do you understand what I mean, Messa Treadwell? It is why windows are so important." The girl tilted her chin toward the one in which she'd just managed, with his assistance, to climb. "Aside from that, you are a man who knows what is due and what there is to owe. That is money. Yes? That is taxes."
Gloria Wynsee dragged a thumb across the mouth of her teacup, and then abruptly shifted the topic. Her voice fell to a whisper.
"Rhaena Olwak disturbs the numbers. She knows mathematics very well."
It was, if anything, a tasteful attempt at broaching the subject.