by Rance » Tue Jan 14, 2020 2:31 am
Inquisitors look for patterns. Had she not said such herself? Justified with it, wielded it, like a shield against the swords of accusation. How could a seamstress make a fine Inquisitor? A laughable notion, that — one ought to have a brain to inquire, after all, and not just good fingers. But if she looked for patterns, if she saw where stitches started, where they tied off, where the seam became loose or far, far too tight, where one thread had snapped off and been surreptitiously buried, where another picked up the task and continued on, tail-end of the snake...
"The only prediction you can make," said Gloria, with something of a whimsical smile — though even that seemed oaken, forged out of necessity, "is that people with money will want exactly what you do not. Money is a cruel whip. In irresponsible hands, it damages and destroys, and at worst, it might as well tear out the eyes and sense right alongside them."
She squinted at the fire, glancing away from Mary. It confounded her that someone should need her company, let alone want it. So she instead relied on the patterns: if not for want, then, she was sought out for purpose; there was some aid, service, or purpose she could provide. Mary, she spoke in generalities, and her words might as well have been shadows and blurs for all their indistinctness. It was all innocuous questions, conversational inquiries, measuring, pressing, weighing how Gloria might respond, as if testing the tightness of an egg's shell in the palm before trusting it to the boiling water...
"But the idea, Mary, that we ought to feel poorly for — for selling ourselves is what seems most silly to me. If willingly given, a woman's blood and sweat and industry is — is her greatest worth, well beyond her capacity to lift her shift only because a fellow thinks he ought to make another him." Then, a pause — drumming her fingers on the armchair, leaning back as Mary leaned in, providing all the space the other woman might ever need. Softer, now: "You mentioned ideas, Mary. Thoughts about a future. Isn't that so? I take it you've learned something worthwhile, or something worth sharing. So maybe whatever it is, you were born to do it, or to speak truth to it."
Now, she bent forward, the wax-coated strings of her bonnet whisking across her knees. Unblinking, she watched Mary, and gave her ears and eyes.