need more, and in Aria Magli the easiest way to be a woman of means is to be one of them.” He jerked his head toward a high window, where a woman much like the one the gondola boy had described leaned out, breasts on display as she waved and blew kisses at the passersby “Eliza has the beauty, the wit, and, thanks to you, the education for it. Why not?”
“I thought you thought her better than the prince's whore.”
“Here, she would be her own whore, and I would mark that higher, aye, my lord.”
“What kind of dresses does she wear, signor?” The gondola boy's voice broke over their argument in a clarion call, pure and utterly without awareness of growing tension. Javier, irritated, looked back at the child and found determination in his eyes, much older than his years. He wasn't unaware after all, but deliberately pulling them away from feuds, no doubt in concern over his payment. Anger faded beneath an appreciation for the boy's business sense, and Javier traced the shape of one of Eliza's flowing, high-waisted gowns in the air.
“Like this, with a band beneath the breasts that makes a false high waist, and the necks are scooped low.”
“Like her,” the boy said with a nod up the canal. Javier twisted to see a woman in just such a gown, who wore extravagantly coiffed black curls tumbling around her shoulders, accept a gypsy man's hand in helping her into a gondola, and leapt to his feet.
“Eliza! Eliza!”
The gondola boy squawked “Signor!” in alarm, while Tomas and Marius both grabbed for Javier's hips, trying to pull him back to sitting. Men and women-women, particularly-passing on bridges and looking out windows paused to look first at Javier, then for the woman he called for, titters of romance and teasing floating over the brackish waters. The woman herself didn't look back, and Marius, tilting to examine her once Javier was seated again, said, “Not unless she's put on two stone since we saw her last. You're not going to endear yourself to her if she hears you're mistaking a barge for a sailing ship.”
“Catch up to them,” Javier snapped. “I need to know where she got the gown.”
“Oh, but it is dangerous, signor, to push and shove on the canals. If my boat capsizes my father will beat me-” His complaints stopped as he snatched the coin Javier threw to him. There was almost no break in his poling as he secreted the money away, and then his voice rang out in a song of emergency, unrequited love, and thwarted passion. That the details clashed and muddled, making no sense at all, bothered no one, and laughing gondoliers made way for the boy and his boatful of hopeful young men.
“You,” the child said to Javier as they approached the woman's gondola, “you hold your tongue, signor. I will talk.”
“He's got no faith in your romancing talents, Jav.” Marius, grinning, reached out to thump Javier's shoulder. “Perhaps he knows you better than we think.”
Javier scowled and the boy aimed a kick at him, unknowing and uncaring of his passenger's rank. “Look winsome, signor, or the lady will not care about your tale of woe.”
“My tale of what?” It was too late: the boy had leapt from his own boat to the neighbouring, causing a shriek of dismay and then of laughter as he knelt beseechingly at the woman's feet. Javier, hoping to look lovelorn, unwisely thought of Beatrice, and felt his expression turn to rage. He dropped his face into his hands, and listened to the story of how he was a cloth merchant's son, wealthy enough to dress well but beggared when his father's silk shipment had been drowned in the Primorismare. Now all his hopes of love and happiness rested on wooing a beautiful girl who did not yet know of his misfortunes.
He had, according to the boy, promised her a gown of extraordinary beauty, of rare and subtle cut, and his heart was inspired by this woman's dress, though in truth even his beloved could never fill it so generously or well as this woman herself did. It was his fate to be unable to look so high as to this woman herself, but perhaps she might share the name of her dressmaker, and where to find her, so that the poor cloth merchant's son might take the last bolt of good fabric he had to his name and have a wedding gown made to change his destiny.
Through all of this Marius and Tomas held fast to the other boat's side, so the boy could return, and through all of it they kept straight faces while Javier's flush of anger faded into amazement. The woman gave a name and an address, and the boy leapt back with an air of unmistakable triumph. “You will pay me very well,” he told Javier, and then, thoughtfully, said, “and perhaps introduce me to your lady friend, for I am a better talker than you, and you might need help.”
Too astounded to be offended, Javier asked, “How can you tell? You haven't given me a chance to say anything.”
The boy sniffed and leaned his weight into poling. “A man who talks as good as me would have put his words in.”
ELIZA BEAULIEU
There has been a rumour that the prince-the king-of Gallin is come to Aria Magli. The courtesans have talked about it with great interest, gathered in Eliza's receiving quarters to examine material and finery and to stand for fittings and argue over trimmings. They've asked her, because she is Gallic, if she knows the king, and have laughed merrily when she has said yes, she does. They have asked for stories of him, and she's told them, from the story of the pauper girl who fell on him and broke his arm while trying to steal pears from the royal gardens to the story of a minor Lanyarchan noble who wore Eliza's fashions to court and caught the prince's eye. She does not speak of her rage at Javier's engagement, nor of the knuckle she broke in bruising Beatrice Irvine's jaw. The others are stories everyone knows a little of, and that she is Lutetian-born, and speaks with quiet confidence, delights the courtesans and sets them to laughing and teasing, which is enough.
They are her best customers, these beautiful and intelligent women. Well, mostly beautiful: there are those whose wit outstrips their looks, but Eliza, who is beautiful herself, is coming to learn that beauty can be made up of imperfect parts, if there is enough cleverness and kindness in their making. There's one woman, a true blonde of icy perfection, who is possibly the most flawless woman Eliza has ever seen, and who is so haughty it steals her beauty. There are moments when Eliza wonders if her own pride has turned her into that kind of woman, and in those moments she thinks of Javier's oft-made offer to take her away from her cheapside beginnings. It may be that the courtesans of Aria Magli have taught her something about both pride and regret that may do her good in later years.
She has surprised all of her customers with her language skills: a woman from Gallin is not expected to have the Parnan tongue so thoroughly in her mouth. The courtesans love it, and laugh uproariously when she tells them that the prince taught her the languages she knows. Eliza's not accustomed to having fun, and it's taken her several weeks to realise that she's enjoying the small life she's built here. She's stolen enough from Javier over the years to have started her business, but because she is young and lovely and has coin, she's widely assumed to be a courtesan herself.
This, to her surprise, bothers her not at all. There's a certain amusement in letting the men wonder which of them she's bedding and for what price, and when they all protest that it's not they who are lucky enough to find pleasure in her arms, they all believe each other to be lying in order to maintain discretion and keep competition at bay.
There are even one or two she might consider taking into her bed, when she feels ready to become that committed to this vibrant community. It is not at all like Lutetia, this city: it seems to grab and give more, both at once, with a madcap fascination for other people's business that is familiar, but more heightened here. Perhaps it's that she's never been quite so included; in Lutetia she was always aware that she was the pauper, and the wealthy folk around her were even more aware than she was. Here, she is merely who she says she is: Eliza Beaulieu, a Gallic woman with a talent for dressmaking.
She is not a woman who expects a king to turn up on her doorstep, staggering from a gondola to the stairs with a leap as clumsy as anything she's ever seen from him. It's only because the gondola boy, a handsome lad with a broad bright grin, is bellowing her name, that she comes to the window at all, another dark-headed flower amid a bouquet of curious courtesans.
The women around her call out cheers and raspberries at Javier's awkwardness, while Eliza simply gapes. A girl at her side elbows her and offers a wicked grin. “No wonder you've stayed away from Parnan men, if it's
