Free Sterling by Emily June Street Page B

custom paint pulled to the front of the house where we stood arrayed on the steps.
    My stomach twisted in knots. What if the woman turned out to be someone I knew?
    Her foot emerged from the carriage first, followed by her hand—a smooth, delicate appendage that reached for Cortis’s offered arm.
    Her dress, layers of ephemeral silk that swirled around her body like mist, was the soft pink of a dim sunset. She’d painted on her entire face like a mask. Her eyes were drawn in with black, and her lashes looked unnaturally thick. Her hair was so pale that it hardly seemed real. She was clearly a courtesan.
    “Welcome, my lady,” Orgin intoned with a formal bow. The courtesan brushed by him without a glance. She swept by us all, though to ignore us in this moment was exceptionally rude. I guessed she had little experience with household servants.
    I stood at the end of the line, the lowest servant of the house. The woman froze before me, and for a terrorized moment I thought she must have recognized me. How? I had no knowledge of women of her stripe. But what other reason would cause her to stare at me so?
    “There is only one maid?” she queried.
    Poor Orgin, flustered, replied, “Yes, my lady. That is Sera, our chambermaid. We are a small household.”
    The woman tilted her nose in a fine imitation of my sister Stesichore. “But if there is only one, what am I to do for my handmaiden?” She turned her cool gaze upon Orgin.
    “Sera will serve in both capacities,” Orgin said, casting me an apologetic look.
    I wanted to fling my hands up and refuse such unfair duties, but I only nodded and curtsied.
    I preceded the courtesan to the yellow bedroom. Cortis followed with a large trunk.
    “Put it over there,” she commanded Cortis. “And you,” she gestured at me, “come here and help me remove my traveling shoes.”
    She remained upright, forcing me to kneel like a supplicant to remove her boots.
    “In my trunk you will find my slippers,” the woman said. I rummaged until I came across a pair of house slippers.
    She said nothing as I slid them onto her dainty feet. Without being asked, I took the cloak from her shoulders and poured water for her.
    She waved it away. “I’ll take wine.”
    I hurried to the kitchen where Scelpts scrambled to finish the supper preparations.
    She jumped when I entered, and seeing me, she began her tirade. “Of all the insulting things!” she exclaimed. “Arriving here alone and demanding we provide a handmaiden when we are so understaffed! And not even greeting us! What is she, one day out of the gutter?”
    “She’s a courtesan,” I said. “She has no idea how to behave. She wants wine,” I added.
    Scelpts threw up her hands. “In the middle of the afternoon? A lush, too?” Scelpts slammed the cellar door and disappeared. When she returned, she thrust a bottle in my direction, wax seal intact. I’d never actually opened a wine bottle before. I stared at it nervously, trying to recall what I’d seen servants do.
    “Gods in Amaranth,” Scelpts said. “You’ve never even served wine? What kind of maid are you?”
    My hands shook so much I nearly dropped the bottle.
    Scelpts demonstrated the procedure and arranged a tray. “Gracious gods, child, if I’d known you knew so little I’d never have offered you this job.” She shoved the tray into my hands. “Doesn’t know how to make up a bed or clean a hearth. Doesn’t even know how to open a bottle of wine! And this is the girl who’s to serve two duties?” She shook her head.
    I ran from the kitchen, not wishing to hear more.
    Back in the yellow bedroom, the mistress drank her wine. She’d gone through half the bottle before she spoke to me again. “Do you know when he’ll arrive?” she asked.
    “The master?” I replied.
    “Yes.”
    “We’ve had no word. Are you expecting him?”
    “N—no. He does what he pleases. But I want you to tell me the moment you know he is coming.”

    * * *
    T he courtesan