“Or I could make you much what you are wearing,” she continued after a moment. “Less love, better material, but still a workman’s clothes. You’ll blend, go unnoticed. Perhaps underestimation is your choice? Or perhaps you rebel against being a hunter? Is this path your choice?”
“I’m not sure these are the right clothes for what I am now,” Teer said after a moment’s thought. “But I don’t think I need clothes to declare me a hunter of men. A…” He paused, thoughtfully.
Clothes make the man and the man makes the clothes.
Not just who are you? but who do you want to be?
He was still sickened to have shot Boulder. It had been necessary and he accepted that, but he didn’t want to become the type of man who wasn’t sickened to have killed. He was proud to have ended the threat of Boulder’s gang—and he was proud to have rescued Kova and Pote and Rala. That was the important part.
“A guardian,” he finally finished. “A hunter, yes, but a helper, too. I ride with Kard for reasons I can’t explain, but what we do…we do to help people.”
“Not a worker, then,” Chull murmured. “Not a worker, but one called. I think I understand, Teer.”
Teer waited as she finished measuring him in silence. Finally, she was standing in front of him, studying him up and down.
“What do you think, Teer?” she asked. She gestured at the outfits shown in the store. “These are all too formal for you, yes?”
He glanced around. Two dresses and three varieties of suit. He shook his head and smiled at her.
“Yeah. I’m not that man.”
“You could be,” she told him. “You carry yourself well. Hmm.”
She walked around him one more time.
“Black shirt would go poorly with skin tone,” she noted. “White too. Will you trust me enough to try something?”
“I am lost and trusting Doka,” Teer admitted. “Doka?”
“Chull amazing,” the guide told him, turning to face him. She tapped the corset she was wearing. “Chull make battle corset. Holds, supports, allows breathing.”
“And resists blades,” Chull added. “Bullets too, to a point.”
“All right. Surprise me,” Teer agreed.
“Surprising him” resulted in having the two women strip Teer down to his poultice and re-dress him from the skin out. That was far more than he’d been anticipating, and he was reasonably sure he spent the whole time naked blushing.
When they were done, he was finally allowed to look in the mirror, and he barely recognized himself. He still had his poorly maintained hair and a tenday’s worth of stubble, but the man who looked back at him didn’t fit his mental image at all.
The man wore sturdier boots than Teer had ever owned in his life, smooth black leather that faded perfectly into a durable but astonishingly comfortable set of black work pants. A silver-buckled black leather belt closed the pants and held down a dark blue shirt that was lighter and thinner than anything he’d ever worn.
“The shirt insulates both ways,” Chull told him. “Keeps heat out in summer, in in winter. It won’t stop bullets but it can keep dirt out of a wound. It can serve multiple purposes.”
“I barely know the man in that mirror,” Teer confessed.
“Would you, regardless of the clothes?” the tailor asked. “From what you’ve said, your life has changed a great deal in the last few tendays. The man in the mirror doesn’t look like who you were, but does he look like who you want to be?”
Teer looked back at the mirror. Even with the gun on his belt, there was nothing in the clothing that proclaimed wealth or power or threat. It was solid clothing, the kind of expensive that lasted. It didn’t proclaim I help people in the way he’d been thinking, but, looking at himself, he figured he looked like the kind of solid man folk did ask for help.
“I think so,” he admitted. “I wouldn’t have picked it myself, but I wouldn’t have known where to start!”
“Good.” Chull smiled. “This set fits you well enough, but if you give me till morning, I can have three tailored to your measurements with the coat. Four sets should serve you for a turning at least.”
“Or forever,” Teer murmured, but he nodded. “That sounds fair. How much will I owe you?”
“Wait until you see the coat,” she told him. “Hold on a moment.”
She disappeared into the back of the store again, emerging a few minutes later with a long duster of a similar cut to Kard’s.
“Here, take this,” she said.
Teer obeyed and nearly dropped the coat. It was far heavier than he expected.
“I only have two of these,” Chull told him. “I can adjust them, but I do not make them. A duster like this is more than a coat. There is iron woven into those seams. The silk shirt won’t stop bullets, Teer—but this coat will.
“Once I have sized it to you, you will not feel the weight for more than a day,” she continued. “It will be with you for the rest of your life.”
Doka helped Teer put it on, and he saw Chull’s point. Once he was wearing the duster, it didn’t feel quite as heavy. He turned to look at himself in the mirror and marveled at the ensemble.
“Still don’t recognize the man in the mirror,” he admitted, “but I figure I can learn to be him. He looks impressive enough.”
“Brings out Teer, that all,” Doka said from behind him. “Chull do good work.”
He nodded and looked over at Chull.
“How much?” He figured he wasn’t going to like the number, but the clothes seemed worth it.
“Two stone, fifty shards,” she told him. “No haggling. That’s already discounted because I like Doka.”
He pulled the stamped crystals and glass coins from his purse carefully, slowly laying them on the table as he counted them out.
“Leave
