The old lady and the whey-faced blonde creature stood. The magister said, “Mrs. Totham is an accomplished body scientist, and Miss Totham is a cloved woman.”
There was a sound like a strong wind blowing through from the women gasping or murmuring or shifting in their chairs. Body scientist was what polite water-drinking types called necromancers, and up till now Delly had been reasonably fucking certain that cloved women were just a goblin story for scaring kids with and not a type of person that actually existed in this particular and late period of human fucking endeavor.
“She ain’t, either,” said Delly, before she had time to tell herself to keep her damn herring-hole shut. Cloved women were supposed to be wild-eyed hillclanners who turned into feral pigs at will and ate men who came into their villages after dark, and this girl looked like she could be overcome by a largish pork sausage.
“Are you implying, Miss Wells, that I don’t know my own business?” inquired the magister.
Delly shook her head, feeling her innards clamp up. She didn’t know why she had to always go and talk when all she relefting well needed to do was sit still and be quiet. “No, Magister. I only meant to express my surprise, Magister, that a young lady of such daintitudinous aspect might be a cloved woman, Magister.”
The magister looked at her cross-eyedwardly. “Daintitudinous,” she said, “is not a word. And I have been made perfectly satisfied as to Miss Totham’s abilities. As are the Bastennes, who have engaged the Tothams on more than one occasion for their services as bounty hunters.”
The handsome trollish woman looked interested in that. “The Bastennes? My mother and father worked for them back when I was still the proverbial twinkle in dear Pop’s eye. Jolly small world, eh?”
Delly blinked, not sure which way to squint at the expensive silver-coated plum-puddingness of that accent coming from this woman. The magister just looked resigned. “I suppose that I might as well introduce you, Miss Cynallum.”
The big troll gull popped up to her feet. “Winnifer Cynallumwynsurai, at your service and keen as razors,” she said. “Winn Cynallum if you’re short on time.” Then she popped right back down again.
There was a bit of a pause from the throng before the magister gained the strength to continue. “Miss Cynallum,” said the magister, “is a markswoman and illusionist.” Then she stopped and looked constipated for a bit before she carried on. “As well as a practitioner of . . . hand-to-hand combat.” Delly could see why she’d been looking like she found the words so indigestible now: had to be hard to make that sound nice and prim and ladylike.
Miss Cynallum didn’t look like a woman who minded, though. She looked comfortable as could be, like she thought she had every right in the world to be just where she was. Delly liked it. It was calming just to rest her eyes on. She seemed to notice where Delly’s eyes were resting, too, because she looked right back at her and smiled. Delly felt her face heat up. “Wouldn’t mind learning some of that” was what then came popping out of Delly’s damn cursed pothole of a mouth.
“Oh, really? I’d be happy to teach you. Just pop around to my quarters once we’re established at the job and we’ll have a bit of a wrestle,” Miss Cynallum said. Then she went red and looked as if she’d like to grab herself by the throat and squeeze.
The whole room sat in deep disquietude for a span. Delly offered up a prayer to her ancestors, wishing them eternal and painful relivings for having produced such a dunce of a descendant. Then Magister Fentan said, “On that note, I would like to inform you all of the work that you shall be required to perform and the standards of deportment I shall expect all of you to abide by during the duration of your employment.”
Delly started to pay a mite less attention at this juncture. She thought she could guess at the main points. Essentially, she ought to do none of the things toward which she naturally inclined, and do all of the things she thought were a real pain in the tits. That seemed to be the thrust of it when she turned her ear toward listening: that they would be keeping an eye on the lady at her intended’s fine house and during the journey to the place, and that they’d be expected not to make asses of themselves while they were doing it. Nothing that sounded too taxing to Delly, other than having to stay out of bars for a span.
It was when Magister Fentan got into the real meat of the matter that Delly endeavored to truly attend. The term of their employment was to start in five days—grand—and no advances would be given on payment—less grand—which would be fifty tocats for the two weeks—so grand that Delly gasped a bit at it. That was rent for more than half the year. No one else seemed near as impressed as she was, which just proved what a bunch of damned clanners the rest of them were. Fifty in two weeks. Sakes.
Delly gritted her teeth through the rest of the meeting, then got herself a signed note from Magister Fentan attesting to the terms of her gainful employment. As soon as that was in her hand, she was off like a frog on a hot rock. She first trotted by the jail in order to thrust the note before the disbelievingly narrowed eyes of the warden, who told her that she was a sly creature who, if actually employed, would soon give her employer every cause to regret a decision that was likely preceded by their indulging in strong spirits—a statement that Delly told him she found very injurious to her daughterly affection for him. Then she took herself off, whistling, to find her landlady.
Mrs. Medlow was pleased enough to know about Delly’s impending employment but didn’t see fit to lift the hard promise. Delly, defeated, retreated to the bar below her room for a drink or two and a few minutes of quiet ponderation.
It took about half a glass of gin to get Delly into an expansive frame of ponder. This job was a hell of a thing. Enough money to get her own rent settled, and enough to get her mam into a room, too. More than that, even. Enough to get her mam out to one of those nice places in the countryside where they sent rich clanner ladies with nervous conditions, which Delly always took to mean that they’d been on too much gin and drip and needed to be dried out. Maybe she could send her mam to dry out in a place like that where there were nice trees and flowers and clean beds with mattresses that got turned and aired every week. Maybe her mam would be the woman Delly remembered from a few weeks when she was eight years old, fresh out of a stint in jail, sober, and suddenly full of consternation over her daughter having raised herself like a wild animal up to this point without any civilized intervention. The woman who bought bread and butter and a new bar of soap and gave her daughter breakfast and bathed her and plaited her hair and took her to the Elgarite Hall to register her for the halton school. Maybe Delly would get to see that version of her mam again.
Or maybe Mam would take a vow of chastity and join a fucking halton tomorrow, while Delly was dreaming.
Delly ordered another gin. The first few sips pulled her back above the cold, killing waters of childhood memories, and a few more after that set her toward the contemplation of comely prospects for an evening’s company. She started off thinking about a fella she knew who was a reliable way to waste a few hours, before her internal eddies pulled her toward someone else. That Cynallum gull from this afternoon.