III. Market
The market was busy this time of day. The early morning shoppers had come and gone, and the majority of those left considered the market more a social event than a business endeavor. It was almost certainly the worst time to introduce Somner to the market and the market to Somner.
Everyone stared at Somner as they went past. Somner was extremely tall and his coloring was odd, so he attracted a great deal of attention. And, although they couldn’t feel it, the energy fluctuating under Somner’s skin was very distracting. Dane had taken to wearing the sight-cream constantly of late, so that he was able to keep a close eye on Somner’s energy levels in this critical first week, and fright caused the dark blue power to flare and quiver in turn.
Dane pushed through the outdoor vendors in Geometric Square and broke through the crowds at the corner of Teapot Avenue. There were vendors there as well, but the crowd wasn’t as bad. As long as he clung to the edges, he could easily travel from Teapot to Bookseller Road, Clothier Lane, and Apothecary Road before heading back into the throng to obtain provisions for his upcoming trips.
“Where are we going?”
Somner spoke very quietly, and Dane had to tilt his head close to even begin to grasp what he was saying. From the corner of Dane’s eye, he caught sight of a mage playing a dice-and-cup game with a crowd, the low-level imp that possessed the mage’s cup enabling him to win every throw.
“Clothier Lane, first,” Dane explained, looking away from the mage. “Walk beside me, if you please. I find it hard enough to hear you as it is.”
Somner frowned and sped up to draw beside him, his curious blue eyes somehow sad. Dane felt inexplicably ashamed of himself, as if he had yelled at a child.
“You are much paler than Valerian. Clothing that suited him sometimes looks strange on you, and if you are to be visiting the Prince Courts with me, it will be necessary that everything you wear suits you.” Dane snaked out a hand and pulled Somner to a stop as a horse and rider barreled down the middle of the street they were attempting to cross.
Somner nodded. His expression was an odd one, somehow sweet, and was amplified all the more by the loose white curls that framed his face. Valerian’s face.
Dane quickly crossed the street and studied the shop fronts, looking for the particular one that he knew would not care overmuch if he brought in such a strange-looking customer. Midway down the street, Dane opened the doors to Jem’s. The small silver bells that hung over the doorway rang when Dane went through the door, followed closely by Somner. The shop boy smiled when they entered, standing up from his stool and bowing low. “Welcome, Master Dane,” he said, a hint of a grin on his face. “How may I serve you today?”
“Good afternoon, Ian,” Dane said warmly. “I’m seeking for Somner to be outfitted in a new wardrobe. Is Master Jem in?”
Ian smiled brightly. “Yes. Just a moment.”
He disappeared into the back, returning shortly with an older man and two women, one a teenager and the other closer to Dane’s age. The women curtseyed briefly and swarmed Somner, tugging him deeper into the shop. Dane barely hid a grin at Somner’s panicked eyes. Jem grinned, resting his hands on the crown of his walking stick.
“Pleasure to see you again, Dane. Who’s your friend?”
“His hair is like snow!” the younger of the women exclaimed, pulling on a strand of Somner’s white hair.
“Far more like clouds, m’girl,” the older said, retrieving a measuring tape from the pocket of her apron and thrusting it into Ian’s hands. The motion was deft, but rough. “Do your job, boy.”
Ian grumbled good-naturedly and started his measurements.
“He is Somner… Jefferson, I suppose,” Dane replied after length. The lascivious grin that Jem gave, Dane ignored. “You know, most would consider employing women here to serve men distasteful.”
“Ach, but they’re such pretty things.”
“And no one else would employ them in this profession, you soft-hearted old fool.”
Jem shrugged, watching the women as they made idle comments about skin tone, coloration, and fabric swatches. “Good at what they do, s’true. He Valerian’s construct?”
Dane swallowed hard, rubbing his right wrist thoughtfully. “Yes. Valerian’s construct. It went off perfectly, just as we had planned. The spells are multifold, so the destruction of one should not compromise the whole. I layered the—”
“How did Geoffrey take it?” Jem interrupted. Dane fought down his annoyance at that, though he knew that Jem cared very little about the technicalities of high magecraft.
“Well enough,” Dane replied curtly. Changing the subject, he said, “I would like at least six shirts in whatever pattern or patterns Somner might choose, and three pairs of trousers. A bespoke suit would be welcome, but there’s not enough time available for such an undertaking before we leave, so if you could coordinate any alternative dress shirts with the suits Valerian ordered before, it would be pleasing.”
Jem snorted, saying dryly, “And the colors of those suits? I don’t too well recollect what I made yesterday, and less what I made seven years ago.”
“Gray, black, brown, and I believe there are at least two mage coats in blue and green.” The women were now excitedly holding a dark red silk next to Somner’s face, comparing his white hair to it and smiling. Dane sighed. “I shall be the next street over at Tuesday’s Gate, if you can send Somner over after you’ve finished.”
“I’ll put it on your account.” The older man’s eyes laughed. “Have fun.”
Dane nodded and left the tailor’s, walking down the busy street until he reached the corner of Clothier Lane and Bookseller Road, then entering Tuesday’s Gate where the two streets met. The shop was doing a brisk trade in books. It teemed with them, leather-bound and thick with yellowing parchment paper. Dane meandered amongst the shelves, scanning the titles. Gregori’s Compendium of Incendia Everto was new addition, which assuredly Dane must acquire for himself, as well as Summoning the Trickster: A Novelization. Valerian would like that—he didn’t learn well from the dry writing style that many of the old authors favored, so Dane probably should…. He managed to stop his hand the barest millimeter away actually picking up the novel and took a shuddering breath. He hadn’t tried to buy anything for Valerian in years, not since seven months after Valerian died, when Dane had just stopped trying to shop or do anything at all in an attempt to—he didn’t know what.
Perhaps Somner would like it, though.
Dane took the book and set it on Gregori’s in his arms. Somner wasn’t Valerian. Dane knew that he had to differentiate the two, and yet….
He had to treat Somner better. The bathing issue was only one instance of him forgetting to take even basic care of the construct, and he had fed Somner only for the sake of intellectual curiosity, and it was a good thing he had since it replenished Somner’s energy levels somewhat.
The construct felt no hunger, though, which was really very interesting. Dane wondered if he might develop a taste for particular foods regardless, or was fondness for food subject on an actual need for nutrition that a construct might not possess…?
“Dane?”
Dane turned to the girl who was speaking to him and smiled courteously. “Lady Cartha. How are you this afternoon?”
Cartha was not quite pretty—she was tall for a woman, and her thick, straight brown hair was pulled back simply and in a style that was less than fashionable—yet she had a presence. She gave Dane a frustrated look and said in reply to his pleasantry, “I’m fine, thank you. Dane, did you succeed?”
Dane resisted the urge to put a hand on her shoulder and tell her that it would be all right. They had been close, once. “I’m sorry, Cartha. I succeeded, but not in the way we might have hoped.”
Her lips quivered before they firmed, her eyes growing heavy-lidded as she struggled to hide her grief. “It’s… all right. He said that it would not succeed to actually bring him back, and he always knew things like that. We all hoped, but it was foolish to expect anything. I… I’m grateful to have the time with him that I had.”
This time he did reach out, gently clasping her hand. “You know that he would have married you if he could, Cartha.”
She smiled bitterly. “I know. I’ll… I’ll go. I do not wish to see the construct, if it’s here. I wish you all the best, Dane. Demons spare you.”
Her hand slipped from his and she walked away, soon turning from his area of sight. Dane looked at the shelves blankly until, when he finally looked up, Somner was there.
A spike of fear hit Dane—had Somner been there for his conversation with Cartha even?—and he barely managed to growl out, “How long have you been here? Is it really so hard for you to make an attempt at obtaining my attention?”
Somner shrank back against the shelves, letting his hair fall over his eyes. He had already been shaking before Dane spoke to him and God damn it, why was it so hard for Dane to think before he spoke?
“I’m in bad temper. I apologize.” He could barely say anything to Somner without needing to apologize. “What did Jem say?”
“J-J-J-Jem s-said that h-h-he would t-t-t—” Somner looked like he was going to cry. “S-sorry. I c-can’t….”
The blue energy was practically seeping out of Somner’s skin with his nerves. Dane carefully laid a hand on Somner’s, pushing some of his own vital energy through his fingertips. “Just wait until you calm down and tell me then,” he said, displaying more patience than he thought he possessed. “I’ve found a few books already,” he offered. “You’ll probably find Gregori’s 'Compendium of Incendia Everto' to be interesting, judging from some of your prior choices from my collection. The Compendium catalogues the known types of fire demons. It’s Gregori’s most famous work—he died collecting the information on the last demon, a particularly horrid ifrit that no one knows anything of except the name.”
Somner’s shaking was slowly ceasing, but Dane felt oddly reluctant to let go of him, so he kept his hand where it was.
“The other that I’ve acquired so far is a popular novelization of an incredibly boring old text, written to express the concepts in an amusing way. It will be curious to see whether the author manages to impart the skills as effectively as in the original, though I doubt he’ll be able to even remotely be able to instruct with the same efficiency of the actual 'Summoning the Trickster', no matter how boring a text it was.”
Somner smiled. The expression caught Dane off-guard, and he stopped talking. “It sounds interesting,” Somner said. “I, uh… Jem, he said that he would send the clothing to the university tonight and to give you this note.”
He handed a small scrap of paper to Dane. On it, Jem had scrawled, Next time, don’t leave the boy here by himself, Lord Jefferson. Dane winced. It was never good when Jem referred to him by his title. I thought he was nearly going to have a heart attack. If he makes it to the bookstore safe, consider me impressed.
Dane went cold at that, absently folding the note and putting it in a pocket. Somner could have gotten hit by a carriage, been accosted, become lost… but he hadn’t been. Dane was a bad guardian and Valerian was an idiot for getting him into this.
“Come,” he said, pulling Somner over to the shelves with an arm around his shoulders “Pick out a few books. Not too many, mind—funds will be tight until I secure a position. But a few.” Somner lit up, blue eyes looking even bluer, and didn’t move away from Dane’s arm.
Dane couldn’t avoid dealing with this. Somner wasn’t Valerian, not in the least, but not touching him or paying attention to him would hardly change that, and Valerian wouldn’t want that.
“I’ve heard good things about that one,” Dane said mildly, nodding toward the book that Somner had hesitantly taken down.
“Samsa mentioned it in one of the books in your work room,” Somner said. It was more words than Dane had ever heard from him, really. “She said that it expressed some theories of the mechanics of spell-circles that might make altering them possible to better define the perimeters of mage/demon interactions. It sounded brilliant!”
Somner flushed suddenly and stopped talking. Dane laughed. “Yes, Samsa does make it sound brilliant. I’ve wanted to read that one anyway, if you don’t mind me borrowing your book.”
“M-mine?” Somner smiled warily. “A-all right.”
Dane smiled back at him and felt very, very guilty. Somner had spoken more in the last five minutes than he had in the past three days, due only to Dane being the slightest bit kind to him.
They purchased a total of nine books, regardless of Dane’s vow to spend thriftily. This time, Dane made sure they stayed close together while on the street, pointing out to Somner the people, what they were doing, and whether the shops they passed were of any note. They managed to get through the other errands with little further difficulty and back to the university without any problems whatsoever. It was strangely pleasant to spend time with Somner, if he managed to forget that Somner’s body had once belonged to Valerian. Dane had not spent an extended amount of time with another human being in seven years.
Dane put their packages carefully on the sitting room table as Somner took off his boots with an air of great relief and began to prowl around the sitting room. As he stalked the books, Dane went into his work room. Valerian’s trunks were there, holding all of Valerian’s old clothing; his books; the ball that he had liked to toss in the air for hours while he thought about particularly complex spells, infuriating Dane to no end. Dane crouched down next to them and opened the one nearest to him.
They had been like brothers. Hells and sulfur, Valerian had even freely-given his body upon death so that Dane could complete the project for his mage’s license. Dane wanted… to not have Valerian’s body stalking books in his sitting room. He wanted Valerian to be stalking books in his sitting room, not that he ever did. Valerian hadn’t really liked to read—he had more greatly enjoyed actually performing the experiments than reading about them beforehand.
If only Valerian’s mother hadn’t been an idiot. If only Valerian hadn’t died.
“Somner, do you want to choose what clothing you’d like to pack to go with your new things?” Dane called.
Somner came into the work room slowly, peeking shyly up at Dane through his hair. How such a tall man managed to make himself so small, Dane would never know.
“All right. Thank you, Dane,” he murmured, sinking to his knees beside Dane.
That was another thing: Valerian had never been as soft-looking or graceful as Somner.
“I think that one might look good with your coloring, though we haven’t tried it yet,” Dane remarked as Somner poked at a shirt.
Somner smiled up at him and Valerian had never looked at him like that. The expression wouldn’t have suited Valerian in the least, regardless of the fact that it was his face making it now.
“Thank you, Dane,” Somner said, still looking at him like he had just invented the Pyramus-Whit summoning circle despite being neither Pyramus nor Whit. He wanted to say that he hardly deserved Somner’s thanks, but that would make Somner flinch again and look away.
“You are quite welcome,” he said instead. He touched Somner’s arm lightly, directing the construct’s view with a jerk of his chin. “I think the pale blue would suit you as well.”
Somner seemed rather determined to have the last word. “Thank you, Dane,” he said, and this time Dane could only smile.
