Part VI
Vel grinned with glee when she first stepped into her new townhouse. The servants she had hired to make the place livable had scrubbed it clean and filled it with polished furniture. The new clothes had arrived too and after a luxuriously hot bath, she donned a silk dress that caressed her skin delightfully. Invitations had already started pouring in for social calls—apparently all the merchants and nobles of the city had heard of a mysteriously wealthy lady captain taking up residence in Garren.
But which invitation should she accept first? She knew virtually no one in the country except perhaps the wizard-king. She scooped up all the calling cards and told her servants that she was not to be disturbed while she was busy writing replies. Vel locked herself in her new study and spread the invitations on a desk. She took out the battered tinderbox she kept in a dress pocket and struck it once.
Meeny appeared at her feet. "Good afternoon, mistress. What can I do for you?"
She waved a hand over the invitations. "Do you have any expertise on who to call and who not to call in Garren society? I'm afraid I don't know anyone and I don't want to offend anyone accidentally."
The smallest dog-spirit pounced on the desk and sniffed at the cards. "I'm afraid not, mistress," he said finally. "You might want to call on Moe."
"Moe?"
"He has a bigger brain than I do."
Vel frowned but waved Meeny away and struck the tinderbox thrice. Moe appeared and as usual, he was taking up much of the room space. The largest dog-spirit inquired about her needs. She posed the same question.
Moe blinked and his platter-sized green eyes seemed to whirl like gears as he cocked his head and thought. "I do not believe you will offend anyone if you do not call on them as long as you pen a reply," he finally said. "Who you call on will be your own business and your own choice."
"But I don't know where to begin! I'm the daughter of a watchmaker—the fourth daughter at that—and my family never had to call on anyone considering our station. And the rest of my life was consumed with the war. I had no time to learn about social subtleties."
"In that case, you might be better off first meeting with some people who might be more forgiving about any social gaffes."
"All right. That would eliminate the bluebloods, right?" She sat down and peered at the cards.
"The ones with titles, you mean?" said Moe. "Perhaps, but not necessarily. The bourgeoisie can sometimes be socially ambitious."
"Actually, what would most interest me would be those who know the wizard-king and the circumstances that the duke took over the throne. Especially those who would be willing to gossip in front of me without being suspicious of my questions."
"That would be tricky," the dog-spirit replied. "I do not know the personalities and reputations of humans I do not serve."
"If that is the case, then I will have to start blindly then." She stuck her hand into the pile and pulled out one invitation. "This one is a card from a Mrs. Reynard of Parey Road. As I recall, it's in a rather fashionable neighborhood."
"Populated by wealthy merchants," Moe supplied.
"Extremely wealthy merchants," Vel nodded. "Well, I suppose I'll drop in for tea and see what I can find out. The worst that could happen would be a tediously boring afternoon over cakes and sandwiches."
Afternoon tea at Mrs. Reynard's turned out to be beyond boring. The woman holding the gathering only talked about herself and Vel nor the other guests could get a word in edgewise. Her first try at gathering information in the higher social circles was a bust. Feeling somewhat discouraged, Vel ended up taking dinner in her own rooms and dismissed her new servants for the night. She sat up in her bed, knees drawn up to her chin, and watched the crackling fire that one of the servants had tended in the fireplace before being dismissed.
Growing up, Vel always spent the time in the evenings in the kitchen with her siblings while her mother and occasionally her father would tell stories and gossip about their day. When she was in the army, she and her fellow soldiers would gather around a campfire during one of the fighting lulls and tell stories from their childhood. It wasn't so much the stories that she missed but the closeness between her and the people that she had cared for. In Mrs. Reynard's saloon—where the woman had held her tea party—there was no closeness. Everyone had been separated by expected social protocol.
Watching the flickering flames, Vel's thoughts turned to the golden-eyed wizard-king. If she had any sense, she would stay out of Tarsican politics and intrigue. With the Catonia-Aldenbar war, she had had enough of it to last several lifetimes. Let the king fend for himself. But no matter how hard she tried, she could not quite get him out of her mind. It was his fault, she thought resentfully as her fingers strayed to the nightgown pocket where she kept the tinderbox. Why did he have to think that he was in a dream and to kiss her with that wicked mouth of his?
As if some outside force had seized her fingers, Vel took out the tinderbox and struck it once, twice, three times. The dog-spirits appeared at the foot of her bed, watching her with large green eyes and waiting for her command. But instead of immediately telling them what she wanted, she told them of her dismal afternoon. Moe cocked his head. Meeny yawned, as if bored. And Miney shook his head as if he thought she was some silly gossip.
"That is not why you summoned us, is it?" remarked Moe. "You don't want our opinion about this Mrs. Reynard. You will be visiting someone else the next day?"
"Oh, most assuredly." Vel frowned. "But this won't get me anywhere. I don't know how to start or where to proceed. It's doubly hard since I don't know anyone in this city."
"Perhaps you need someone who knows Tarsican society to help you," said Miney.
Vel shook her head. "But how are you going to find such a person if you don't know the people here either?"
The dog-spirits glanced at each other, suddenly stumped by that conundrum.
She leaned back on her pillows and stared up at the ceiling. "To be honest, I don't really want to think too much about all these social calls. They seem rather pointless compared to a lot of things—like war and life and death. What I really wish is for someone to just talk to. Could you," and she paused for a moment, listening to the faint dissenting thought in her mind but soon brushed it off, "bring me the wizard-king again, please?"
Meeny let out a soft woof as if he was chuckling. "All right. But don't blame us if he's beaten up again." And the three dog-spirits disappeared.