'That's harder for a Carver, I'll admit. Although, if your fancy dressmaker puts you to embroidering camisoles and petticoats, you won't see much of those either after they leave the shop. I doubt she'll have you dressing her best customers from the start.'
'No, of course not, the apprenticeship is seven years. But her apprentices have established their own shops.'
'Still seems a long time to tie yourself to someone who isn't family. And she wants her girls to live in the shop, I hear.'
'I'll have a half-day free twice a month. I'll visit.'
'Won't be the same,' grumbled Volponia, pulling her blankets closer around her thin old body.
'Ah, don't,' said Sophraea, dropping to her knees by the bed. She clasped one of Volponia's long, thin hands in her own equally slender fingers. 'Everyone has been arguing against this. But you don't know what that shop is like. It's so beautiful, all those piles of velvet, silk, ribbons, lace, and embroidery. And little delicate chairs with gilded legs. None of the ladies ever talk in anything but the most genteel tones. There's no shouting or banging or kicking a stupid ball against the wall of the house at all hours! And nobody who works there smells of anything stronger than soap!'
'Can't say that about the Carver boys.' Volponia patted Sophraea's dusky curls. 'But we'll all miss you. That's why we fuss so.'
'I know,' Sophraea said, springing up and hugging Volponia one last time. Every time she thought about leaving Dead End House, Sophraea couldn't help the stupid tears clogging up her eyes and making her sniff. She loved her family but she really could not see spending the rest of her life sewing shrouds. And she certainly wasn't big enough or strong enough to carve monuments or build coffins like some of her sisters-in-law.
Besides, if she lived in Castle Ward, there would be some distance between her and her overly protective relatives. She might even get to flirt with the same man more than once!
Much to Sophraea's surprise, Lord Adarbrent arrived at Dead End House early the next morning. Since they had first crossed paths in the City of the Dead, the elderly nobleman never failed to greet her courteously. More than once, she had heard him refer to her as 'a good girl' to her father.
Of course, Sophraea was not sure that Lord Adarbrent actually realized that she was seventeen and fully grown. He still tended to offer her sweetmeats and pat her on the head, just as he had when she was five.
But she had a letter of recommendation all written. out for him in her very best hand and only one or two very tiny smudges from being carried around in her apron pocket for days on end. If he would only sign and seal it, she could apply for the dressmaker's apprenticeship in the Castle Ward.
Despite her best efforts, Sophraea could not attract Lord Adarbrent's attention. The old man had hurried across the courtyard with only the barest of bows in her direction to knock on the door of her father's workshop.
'Lord Adarbrent,' said Astute Carver with genuine pleasure at the interruption. The two shared a passion for the history of the tombs contained within the walls of the City of the Dead.
Usually during a visit, the conversation would turn from Lord Adarbrent's current plans to the history of the City of the Dead. Lord Adarbrent greatly admired the Carvers' family ledger, which recorded all the details of their work and had often called it an 'incomparable history' of the cemetery.
Once the old gentleman had found the design for a curl of seaweed carved by a Carver ancestor on a mausoleum's door. He told Astute and Sophraea where that emblem could be found etched in a certain family's crest. Lord Adarbrent then related how that twist of seaweed was linked to the long forgotten tale of a blue-skinned wife who came from Naramyr and vanished back into the Sea of Fallen Stars after her noble husband's death.
'They were a restless family after that,' finished Lord Adarbrent one rainy afternoon as a much younger Sophraea perched wide-eyed and wondering on an overturned urn, listening to his story of the elf wife. 'None of them could ever bear to see a ship making ready to leave the harbor, for fear that the lure of the wind and water would be too great for them.'
Lord Adarbrent, Astute Carver often declared, was the only man in Waterdeep who knew the great City of the Dead better than the family. And Lord Adarbrent would hem and haw in his usual manner, murmuring 'You are too kind. I have learned a great deal since I began my visits here.'
That day, however, the elderly nobleman was almost curt in his exchange with Astute.
'I need to look over your ledger,' he said far more abruptly than usual.
'Certainly, my lord,' said Astute, pulling down the big book bound in black leather and setting it on his worktabie. 'Can I fetch you a chair?'
'No need,' said Lord Adarbrent as he waved him away. The old man leaned heavily on his gold-headed cane, carefully turning the crackling pages of the family's ledger. 'He's gone too far… that upstart… this is a matter of honor.'
Astute winked at Sophraea. In Waterdeep, old Lord Adarbrent was often called the Angry Lord for his mutterings as he stalked through the streets. Less kind souls also referred to him as the
Walking Corpse for his dour physique. The Carvers rarely saw that side of his character, but obviously something had touched off the nobleman's well-known fiery temper.
Finally, with a hiss of rage, the old man turned away from the ledger. 'Venal cur.' He glared out the workshop door as if he could see the person who annoyed him so through the walls and buildings of Waterdeep. 'Well, that is what I needed to know.'
He scratched his chin, a habitual gesture of contemplation for the old gentleman. 'Now. What to do? What to do, indeed!' he muttered to himself.
With an obvious start of recollection, Lord Adarbrent acknowledged Astute Carver. 'I am sorry, more sorry than I can say, that I must leave so soon after arriving.'
'You are welcome here, my lord, whether for a short visit or a long one.'
'Very kind, very kind, I'm sure.' The old nobleman hesitated in the workshop doorway, as if trying to decide where to go next.
Given the gentleman's mood, Sophraea wondered if she should wait to ask him for his signature. A kitten wandered out from under her father's workbench, part of the latest litter deposited there by the Carver's striped mouser. The black-and-white furball tangled its tiny claws in her hem and purred. Even as she reached down to disengage the kitten, Sophraea decided she could not put off asking Lord Adarbrent for another day.
The customers' bell clanged. Two men entered through the street-side gate, the long and lanky Gustin Bone and the hairy doorjack of Rampage Stunk. Lord Adarbrent took one look at the latter man and spun sharply on his heel, striding across the yard to the gate leading into the City of the Dead.
'My lord,' Sophraea started forward, dropping the kitten back with its littermates and pulling her letter out of her apron pocket. Two of her cousins carried a newly polished coffin out of
Perspicacity's workshop. Sophraea dodged around them.
But she was too slow to catch Lord Adarbrent. He plunged through the gate and charged into the City of the Dead. Sophraea ran down the moss-covered steps leading to the gravel path, intent on catching the old man. But even as she rounded the Deepwinter tomb, she lost sight of Lord Adarbrent.
With a sigh, she stuffed the letter back into her apron pocket and turned back toward home. The next time, she promised herself, she wouldn't hesitate. She'd catch his lordship just as soon as he set foot in the Dead End courtyard and she would get that signature. She just couldn't spend the rest of her life waiting. She needed to make her dreams happen.
Yet, looking back at Dead End House looming over the cemetery's walls, Sophraea felt the usual pang at the thought of leaving home. The long windows glowed a warm yellow, a Sign that the aunts were already lighting the lanterns to chase away the late afternoon gloom. She could swear that the wind brought her a sniff of wood smoke and supper cooking from the house's crooked chimney.
As Sophraea retraced her steps, a faint sound caught her attention. A whisper of a noise, not nearly as loud as the rain beginning to patter on the dead leaves littering the pathway or the wind scratching the branches together.
Sophraea stood perfectly still, listening. It faded away even as she concentrated, the sound of a woman sobbing, a very young woman sobbing as if her heart was broken, 'lost… lost… lost.'
The crunch of very real feet on the gravel distracted Sophraea. Gustin Bone was hurrying toward her.
'There you are,' he said with a smile lighting his bright green eyes. Then, as he took in the Deepwinter tomb
