Beneath the Veil Read online

"I won't, my lord." As if I could.

  I watched him saunter away, Lir in tow, and my knees almost gave out. I snuck my hand between my legs, grateful to find nothing had yet soaked through the heavy wool of my trousers. I yanked down the awning to close the stand and give me some privacy, and took a thick roll of rags used to cushion the joba melons in their crates. I stuffed it down my trouser front to catch the flow, and then I ran home to my mother.

  Chapter Two

  "What are you doing home so early?" My uncle demanded as soon as I came in the front door of our house. "Sell all the jobas already?"

  I shook my head. "No, uncle."

  His mouth turned down. "You work like a folly."

  It was an insult of the worst sort...or so he intended. I'd seen follies work until their hands bled, I'd seen them work right up until a few moments before their laboring bodies spit forth a child, I'd seen them work until they passed out from exhaustion. I'd be honored to do the work of any woman I'd ever known.

  I lifted my chin, though my guts churned and I was desperate to escape to the privacy of my room to take care of myself. "The Prince Regent's asked me to serve as his fetchencarry."

  The look of surprise on Akadar's face was so priceless I wished to save it forever. He squinted, then passed a hand over his face. I kept myself from shifting from foot to foot only by sheer force of will. Men stand solidly at all times, unless they're dancing.

  "Prince Regent Daelyn Avigdor?"

  "Yes, Uncle." Ah, Invisible Mother, as if there were more than one.

  "Asked you to be his fetchencarry?"

  Losing my temper would be worthless. "I'm to go this eve."

  Akadar shook his head as though unable to believe what he'd heard. "Sinder's Balls, why you?"

  I didn't need him to tell me I was an improbable choice. I looked like a young man, but I was forever being told I didn't act like one. Too solid, too practical, no talent for cosmetics or poetry or dancing. I had one true skill in fighting, and I'd had no training in it.

  "I don't know." I also didn't care. Freedom stared me in the face, and I was desperate to grasp it, no matter the risk.

  My uncle pursed his mouth and looked shrewd. "And what will I get for giving you to him? How will I earn back everything I spent on you if you're not working at my joba stand?"

  I'd considered keeping at least some of the gold for myself, even holding some back for my mother, but now I offered him the entire bag. Anything to be free of the man who beat me on a whim. "He gave me this."

  "Sinder's Folly!" My uncle jingled the bag in his hands. "This is more...well. I never thought you'd amount to much, I'll give you that. But you caught the eye of a prince. I guess that stands for something."

  "I suppose so." My gut twinged and I stifled a groan. "May I be excused to...to pack?"

  Akadar waved his hands in my direction, already paying me no mind. "Hear this, Amerada? Your offspring is going to the palace!"

  My mother, in the way of all follies, had entered the room on silent feet. Now she turned to face my uncle, and by the way her kedalya swirled around her ankles I could sense she was as surprised at his speaking to her as I was. Akadar hardly ever addressed her unless it was to order her to do some task.

  "Aeris?" She questioned in her soft voice.

  "Don't stand around yapping all day," Akadar snapped, his momentary lapse replaced with his normal manner. "Go help him pack."

  Muttering about gold pieces and lost wages, my uncle left the room. I pushed past my mother, too anxious to get to my room to wait for her to speak. I burst through the door and ran to my drawer, where beneath my spare trousers and shirts I'd hidden soft absorbent pads and ties. It was dangerous to have them there, but would have been worse to have nothing now.

  I pulled at my trousers and groaned at the sight of the dark blood staining my thighs. I hadn't expected so much. The sight of it made me sag against the chair.

  "Here, let me." My mother took the cloth from my shaking hands and set it on the chair. She dipped a face cloth in the basin of water on my dresser, and began to wipe away the blood on my legs and belly.

  I shuddered and shook so hard my teeth chattered. It should've been awkward, my mother tending me as though I were an infant, but being raised a boy had accustomed me to being taken care of. She wet a fresh face cloth, urged me to lie on the bed and put the damp cloth on my forehead.

  "Stay still." She rang the serving bell until another woman of the household, Myrna, appeared in my doorway.

  "Aeris has a headache from too much sun. Bring him some willow tea."

  Myrna didn't like being ordered by my mother, but since my mother had, ostensibly at least, borne a son and Myrna hadn't, my mother was given more status in the household. The other woman grumbled but disappeared and returned with a hot pot of tea on a tray some minutes later.

  I didn't thank her. Men didn't thank women. "Thank you," I did tell my mother, when Myrna had gone. Sudden tears stung my eyes.

  "Hush. Someone might hear."

  She soothed me with her fingers on my hand, but did little more than that. I was too old to be rocked like a baby, and perhaps I'd been a boy to her too long. A woman might embrace another woman in friendship or compassion, but to touch a man in any manner but subservience was forbidden. For a woman to offer comfort to a man was to presume she had the ability to help him -- and no woman was considered able enough to help a man.

  I understood, but my soul cried out at the injustice of it. "Let's run away! I'll cut my hair! I'll put on the kedalya!"

  "And live the life of a folly? After so long as a boy? I think you'd die if you had to do that." My mother sighed, the noise nearly lost beneath her kedalya. "When you were born and the man of my house died, I prayed to the Invisible Mother to tell me what to do. She answered me in a dream. There's no life for daughters, Aeris. So I made you a son. And now, you've caught the eye of the Prince Regent of the city! What more honor can we ask for? "

  "I'm afraid." I pressed the cloth further against my eyes, but the coolness had fled. Without waiting for me to ask, my mother took the cloth and replaced it with a fresh one. "What if the prince discovers?"

  "Men see what they want to see. Women see what they need to see. As long as you see what you need to, you'll know to show the prince what he wants. You've no choice, unless you wish to run away. And if you do that, you'll bring shame to me, and to your uncle, and you'll likely bring the law down on yourself, too."

  "I could run far away. You could come with me."

  "If it were that easy, don't you think I would have done it long ago?"

  I took the cloth away from my eyes. "I don't want to leave you."

  Her eyes glittered in the kedalya's mesh slit. "I don't want you to leave me, either. But wanting is not the same as having. Come. Drink your tea and eat your bread. I'll pack for you."

  I struggled to sit. The tea soothed the cramping in my belly, and I was able to take some bread. My mother moved around the room with swift efficiency, and I envied her feminine ability to complete several tasks at once. I didn't want to watch her work for me, but I still felt awful...and I hadn't been raised to behave any other way.

  "You've a new life opening for you." My mother smoothed the finest garments I owned into a small travel trunk and tucked the silk bag of my cosmetics into a side pocket. "If you please the prince, he may grant you privilege and wealth."

  "And if I don't?"

  "You will. You won't be able to do any less." She sounded so confident. Her strong hands, work-worn and calloused, moved from dresser to trunk, from wardrobe to trunk, and back again.

  It was all I'd seen of my mother in years: her strong, capable hands. Hands that had served me, worked for me, but hadn't been allowed to hold mine. I saw the scar on one wrist where she'd once sliced herself on a bucket of water drawn to quench my thirst.

  I reached out and grabbed her just above the scar. My touch must have startled her, because she flinched. I loosened my grip to tug on the flowin