chapter 2 the foil
The days passed with the monotonous, but pleasant, hum of repetitious manual labor, with products to show for it. Jilyan began to suspect that during her cushiony childhood, she had missed out. When she caught her reflection in the mirror pane in the anteroom of the shop, she noted a vivacity in her eyes, like a single white spark, that she had often seen in her peers of humbler estate growing up. It was as if they had known a secret power of great value, without knowing that they possessed it and therefore carrying it aloft with a confidence that Jilyan had not, at the time, understood.
She and Eckthellie quickly became tepid acquaintances, then polite colleagues, and were more slowly approaching what might be called a sort of truce; perhaps even a friendship. Jilyan was a quick study and understood finery, so her natural eye added to the already avant-garde designs Eckthellie created in her fashionable hats. When the weather was pleasant, traffic from neighboring villages and the occasional trader from cities further out trickled steadily in and out of the shop, always leaving with more than was their stated intention to buy. More than once, Jilyan’s youthful grin and infectious energy caught the attention of a visiting man, but when he tried to look her full in the face, she would quickly duck away, begging pardon for some errand she suddenly remembered she must see to. It wasn’t something she was happy of — indeed, many of the men had seemed respectable, even well-bred — and Jilyan longed for a brave hero to rescue her from her estate just as keenly now as she had when reading antiquated adventure books in her youth.
The man who did come crashing into her life was not at all the type that she expected. It was another gloom-ridden day, like to the one when she had first begged for employment. No one had yet come into the shop. It was still early, and Eckthellie had made a rare days-long journey to a southern city, so Jilyan sat alone in the anteroom. There was one small and worn, but elegantly carved, table, a stove and teapot, and two fine, painted porcelain teacups (though a bit chipped in spots) for both her and her employer. It was a good day to be alone - to think. She raised the cup to her lips, savored the cardamom’s aroma, and prepared to sip the hot beverage.
That was when said man came crashing through the back door.
If, dear reader, you have ever been startled by a very loud and inexplicable noise that vivisects the perfect silence like a blade, you will understand why Jilyan, at first, could make no noise, clutching at her heart as if willing it to stay in her body.
A moment later Jilyan screamed, but it was barely enough to penetrate the walls, given that the man clapped his hand over her mouth immediately. He scanned the room with keen, bright eyes, his breathing labored as if he had been running. Apparently, the solitude suited him well enough that he began to relax, finally loosening his grip over Jilyan’s mouth though still controlling her arms.
Jilyan bit at his hand, but he appeared to have expected that. He pulled it away deftly, chuckling quietly. “Alright, alright. I have no intention of hurting you. Simply, stay quiet until I’m able to move on well enough. I do have steel on me, and I do not fear using it. Yes,” here he exhaled long-sufferingly as if she had been arguing with him, “even on a girl, if I must.”
Jilyan examined her assailant sidelong as he let her arms free, and willed her hands to stop trembling. The man flipped a dagger in his hand to demonstrate the point he had last made. Jilyan’s eyes widened. Sensing her discomfort, he turned a playful smirk upon her, and noted her face for the first time.
“Not a girl,” she heard him mutter, a calculation. He suddenly resumed his suspicion of the surroundings. “Since when did this milliner hire apprentices? Especially slips she could knock out with a blow from her pinky finger.”
Jilyan spat out, “Whatever your intention, I take you for what you certainly are - a criminal.”
The man was already peering around the door to the main room, scouting for safety. Satisfied, he turned and addressed her. “Criminal is only a word for a person who refuses to kowtow to arbitrary rules created by his fellow humans. For example, I don’t want to lay a finger on you, nor anything in this shop, no matter what it’s worth, because I’m not here to commit wild, malicious, horrific acts. I only need to hide for a minute.”
He took a step toward her. Sensing it was a test, Jilyan stood firm and unmoving. It took all her courage. She was unused to tete-a-tete confrontation with any person, let alone someone who had threatened her.
Looking at Jilyan but seeming to speak to himself, the man muttered, “Not that I expect someone like you to think in anything but opposite extremes.”
She noted the hard jaw and the dark waves framing darker eyes, the muscles tense in his shoulders. If she had seen only these things, she might’ve cowered, but lying beneath it was an overwhelming sense of helplessness and exhaustion. “Who are you hiding from? And why?” Jilyan demanded.
“A constable to whom I owe money. As it turns out, half of the bribe I last paid to him was counterfeit coin.” He shrugged minutely. “I’ll leave you to decide whether or not I knew it was counterfeit before he did.” Receiving no response, he continued. “The man is insane. He’s at the bottle constantly, and when he’s not, he’s still mercurial and raving.”
“I know of whom you speak,” Jilyan replied. Indeed, Constable Ivers was a thorn in the flesh of anyone who had the misfortune to make his acquaintance. Of all her would-be suitors, he was the worst — by far the rudest and most untoward toady she could have imagined. “Perhaps you should’ve considered Ivers’s character before you put up security for him.”
“He was the only constable I deemed corrupt enough to take a bribe, so I actually had no choice,” the man piped up with an odd degree of cheer.
“Did you hurt someone?”
“No.”
“Why did you need the bribe?”
“To help get someone out of town and out of memory. Someone innocent.”
