“Oh, he’s over at a friend’s for the evening,” Mother replied. “We didn’t want to inflict him on Seliora for her first dinner here.”
That wording was either accepting or encouraging. The latter, I hoped.
“He hasn’t gotten into too much trouble this week, has he?”
“No more than normal.” Father’s words were dry. “He is learning how to handle accounts and seems to like it.”
“That’s because Khethila’s the one teaching him, dear.” Mother smiled. “Seliora. That’s a beautiful name. Is it a family name?”
“I was named after my grandmother’s grandmother. I’m told that was because she had black hair and black eyes, also. It means ‘daughter of the moon’ in old Pharsi.”
“Do you have any brothers or sisters?”
“Two brothers, one older, one younger.”
At that moment, Khethila returned with a tray, quickly offering the goblets to each of us, and then taking the corner straight-backed chair.
“Rhenn hasn’t said much about your family or what they do,” Father injected.
Seliora glanced at me. “Rhenn can be very protective, I’ve already discovered. It’s an endearing quality. There’s no secret about what we do. My grandmother was the one who created the family business, and we’re all involved in it in some way or another. It’s NordEste Design.”
For the most fleeting of moments, there was a deep silence.
“
Seliora nodded.
“Dear . . . I’m afraid I don’t know as much about this as the men. What is it exactly that you do?” Mother ventured.
Seliora tilted her head, as if at a loss to describe her work. “I’m the one who picks the fabrics for all the upholstered pieces, and I sometimes negotiate with the mills. For custom fabrics, we have several powered looms, and I’m the one who oversees them. I also maintain and repair them. And I do the custom embroidery and fabric designs, and work them out and punch the jacquard cards.”
“You don’t actually embroider?” asked Khethila.
“No. We handle too many pieces to do it by hand. Well . . . there are some individual pieces we might have to have repaired by hand, when it wouldn’t make sense to set up the looms for such a small section of fabric. Then I’d hire that out to one of the seamstresses we can trust.”
Khethila was working hard to conceal a broad smile.
“How did you come to meet?”
Seliora flashed a smile. “We have individual guild memberships, because of the way we’re set up. I met Rhenn at one of the Samedi dances, and one thing led to another. There were interruptions. He couldn’t leave Imagisle for a time, and I was gone for a month this past summer. We had to visit a number of textile manufactories.”
“You must tell us a little about your family. . . .”
“It is a rather large family. . . .” Seliora continued, gently, sometimes humorously, beginning with Grandmama Diestra and continuing down toward the youngest. “. . . and the twins, they’re Odelia’s younger sisters. Because I seemed so much older, they decided that I had to be their aunt, not their cousin . . .”
The bell signifying dinner was ready rang.
“This is most interesting, but we should repair to table.” Mother rose, moving to make sure she was the one guiding Seliora to the dining chamber, through the direct door from the formal parlor, the one that was so seldom used. “This way, dear.”
Father followed, and Khethila lagged. So did I, knowing she had something to say.
She did, although her words were barely a whisper. “Pharsi . . . and from a
“I didn’t. She found me. Pharsi foresight, the same way Remaya found Rousel.”
For a moment, that stopped her. “She really has it?”
I nodded, adding in a lower voice, “Far more than Remaya or anyone I’ve heard of.”
As soon as we had gathered around the table with Seliora at Father’s left and me at his right, and Mother on Seliora’s right, Mother spoke up.
“Would you like to offer the blessing, Seliora, or would you prefer to have Rhenn do it?”
“If you wouldn’t mind one from my family.”
“That would be lovely.”
We all bowed our heads.
“For the grace that we all owe each other, for the bounty of the earth of which we are about to partake, for good faith among all, and mercies great and small. For all these we offer thanks and gratitude, both now and ever more, in the spirit of that which cannot be named or imaged . . .”
“In peace and harmony,” we replied.
“That was lovely. Thank you,” Mother said. “I thought a cool soup might be best for harvest, although it is rather late in harvest.”
The cool soup was limed vichyssoise, and served as a backdrop while Seliora finished the Shelim family history, although in the Pharsi tradition, I knew, it really should have been called the Mama Diestra family history.
After the vichyssoise, Nellica appeared with serving dishes . . . and more serving dishes, as well as two bread trays, but the main course was a veal regis, where the veal filets were split, filled with thin spicy ham and a pungent cheese, then quick-fried, slow-heated, and covered with a naranje cream sauce. Rich as it was, I knew I couldn’t eat that much of it.
Seliora had small helpings of everything. I took only what appealed to me.
“Rhenn, you didn’t try the glazed rice fritters . . . or the twice-baked yellow squash.”
“That’s because I don’t have an interior large enough for everything here,” I protested.
Mother turned to Seliora. “What do you think of the veal?”
“It’s excellent. It’s your recipe?”
“My mother’s, actually . . .”
I listened, mostly.
After we had finished eating the main course, Khethila rose from the table and nodded to Seliora. “Might I ask your assistance, Seliora?”
Seliora smiled and eased from her chair. “I’d be pleased.”
Once the two had left, Mother looked to me. “She is beautiful, Rhenn, truly beautiful in that way that only Pharsi women can be.”
“She is.” I almost replied that she had saved my life, but decided that was information better left for later. “She’s also very modest, and very careful. I knew her for months before she ever revealed who she was.”
“How did she manage that?” Father demanded.
“Very simply. Because of the nature of what NordEste Design does, as she pointed out, they have to have guild members. Seliora is a member of the Woodworkers’ Guild, although she is actually a textile engineer and designer. Officially, on the guild rolls, she is an upholsterer. She came to the Guild Hall on Samedis, always with her older cousin. Odelia is most formidable.” I laughed. “In six months, I’ve had one dinner with her alone, and that was in a public place. Otherwise, there’s always been a member of her family within ten yards . . .”
“As there should have been,” Mother replied. “I do approve of that, and of parents who care so for such a beautiful daughter.” She paused, as if to ask a question, then smiled. “You are fortunate.”
“That she and her family would accept an imager calling on her? I am.” I wasn’t about to explain the reasons. It was far better to let her think what she did.
Shortly, Seliora and Khethila returned, and dessert arrived.
Small talk dominated dessert, apple tartlets, with a lemon glaze, followed by tea. After we finished, and a silence persisted for just a few moments, the kind of silence that everyone should recognize as a signal for farewells, and that too many do not, Mother cleared her throat, gently.
“You must let Charlsyn take you two back to NordEste . . . or . . .” Mother stopped.
