Spindle (Two Monarchies Sequence Book 1) (15 page)

“Wake up, Poly. I need you.”

Poly put up one hand to rub her sleepy eyes and was bewildered to find that she had just knocked off her glasses.

“I put them on you,” Luck said unnecessarily, pushing them back on her nose with surprising proficiency. He looked pleased with himself. “Wake up, Poly. There’s something sideways around the village and we haven’t finished in the library.”

“Luck, I’m not dressed! No, let me go: I won’t be pulled around the house in my chemise!”

“I don’t care what you wear,” argued Luck, still tugging. “I just want my books.”

“Well, I want breakfast. And so does Onepiece.”

“Yus,” said Onepiece explosively, clinging to Poly’s chemise in a way that threatened to become embarrassing. “Fist!”

“Yes, darling; you’ll get breakfast,” soothed Poly, disengaging Onepiece’s grubby little fingers and twitching her own fingers out of Luck’s hand. “No, out!
Out
, Luck! I will come to the library when I’m dressed.”

Luck protested, but she pushed him firmly out the door and shut it just as firmly behind him. When she turned around, Margaret was watching her, open-mouthed. Grey eyes met blue: Margaret’s mouth shut with a snap, and she said in the friendliest tones Poly had yet heard from her: “We need to get you some new clothes, Poly: you can’t keep wearing that yellow thing every day. Luck has an account at every store in the village, so we might as well go shopping this afternoon.”

She met Poly’s surprised thanks with a shrug and a humorous: “Oh well, if people think we’re related you can’t go around dressed like that. It looks like Luck chose it.”

“He did,” admitted Poly, feeling oddly protective of the yellow frock. “I think it’s pretty.”

Margaret eyed the dress appraisingly as Poly pulled it over her chemise. “Well, it’s certainly
bright
. Here, these slippers should fit: you can’t go about barefoot. Should I ask about the glove?”

“Probably not,” Poly said ruefully, gazing down at the lacy article.

“All right, we’ll get dresses that match it. What about the hair?”

“What about it?”

“Well, it’s
moving
. Is it a spell?”

The thought of her unnervingly active hair as an aid to beauty struck Poly as exquisitely humorous. “A hundred strokes a night and Gaipur Lotion, you mean? No, Luck threw some magic at me and it stuck.”

“His magic did all that?”

“Not all of it,” Poly said reluctantly. She crouched beside the bed to neaten Onepiece’s choppy brown hair and hefted him to his feet, ignoring his internal burbling with an iron will. She thought he was a little stronger today and wondered if it was just her imagination: certainly he was still as unbalanced as ever. “It was, well,
different
when I woke up. Onepiece, if you want to speak, speak aloud.”

Onepiece made a rude noise at her and said
‘mwah’
sweetly to Margaret, who looked startled and giggled.

“Oh, isn’t he the sweetest thing? Does he do that at Luck?”

Poly grinned. “Just last night. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Luck so startled.”

“I’ll just
bet
,” said Margaret wistfully. “What I wouldn’t give to have seen it! You’d better let me braid that, Poly: we’re all Talented, but self-governing hair is out of the way even here.”

Poly, who had been distractedly trying to finger-comb her hair and keep Onepiece from falling over at the same time, accepted the offer thankfully, hauling Onepiece along with her by his shirt collar. When she sat down the boy seized her knees, fingers thin and sharp, and tried cheerfully to not fall over.

“There’s a Happening tomorrow,” Margaret said offhandedly, catching an escaped whisp of hair that had been tickling Poly’s ear. Fortunately, Poly’s hair seemed to be ambivalent toward Margaret’s particular magic, which sped up the braiding process considerably. “If we can find you something ready-made, you should come with me. Luck’ll be having callers until at least midday, and besides, everybody wants to meet you.”

“Oh! A Happening,” said Poly, all at sea with the implied capital letter.

Margaret gave a sniff of laughter. “I keep forgetting how quaint and old-fashioned you are, Poly: you sound just like one of the old table-tabbies. A Happening is just dinner and maybe a dance. You don’t even need a really plummy dress, so long as it’s smart.”

If she took ‘plummy’ to mean fine, Poly thought she could just about understand that. Language hadn’t changed so very much in the last three hundred years, but travelling with someone as succinct as Luck had made her forget the small matter of colloquialisms.

“Won’t the hostess mind?” she asked Margaret, a little at random. The thought that language hadn’t changed much was sticking in her mind, because language
did
change over three hundred years. No one who had studied the Elder Books at the castle’s library could think otherwise; those ancient tomes, heavy with years and almost entirely incomprehensible with outdated spelling and extinct words, were a written testament to the changeability of language.

Margaret tied a ribbon into Poly’s braid end, letting it drop with a heavy thump, and said: “The Prime Lady, you mean? No, as far as they’re concerned, a bucket’s as good as a drop. You’re done,” she added unnecessarily, since Poly continued to sit, lost in her musings.

Poly blinked a little and murmured thanks. Fortunately Margaret didn’t seem to expect to be repaid in kind, and she was able to make her way back to the library shortly thereafter.

By the time Poly and Margaret set out on their shopping expedition there was a line of people sprawling from the front door all the way out the garden gate. Margaret, who had come to fetch Poly from the library, caught sight of them through the front window and hastily bundled Poly out through the kitchen door.

“This way, Poly! If they can’t raise Luck, they’ll fetch whoever they can.”

“What do they want?” asked Poly, peering over the hedge only to be tugged away by the other girl.

“Charms. Spells. Some of them need magic mended or the forest pushed back. Luck’s contract says that they can call from first bell to midday to be seen to, but sometimes Luck forgets about them all morning and then keeps going until last bell.”

Poly was about to remark that anyone who wanted the forest pushed back should perhaps hire a woodcutter instead of Luck when she remembered the quiet intent of the forest, and the way her hair had reached out to it. Perhaps the forest, like the village, was a little more than it seemed.

“Is that what he does when he’s home?” she asked instead, obeying Margaret’s insistent hand wavings to scurry along half-bent behind the shelter of the hedge.

“No, mostly he tries to get out of it when he’s home,” Margaret said carelessly. They rounded the street corner and she straightened, briskly tugging the wrinkles out of her bodice and setting her hat at a more flirtatious angle. Poly, following suit, regretted having no hat: back at the castle hats had not been worn, and she thought they were a delightful nonsense. Some of the older court ladies had worn turbans, but the girls wore their hair long and uncapped, threaded with flowers or jewels; or, if the lady were an enchantress, sparkling spells.

Poly smoothed her hair instead, uneasily noticing that a whole fat skein had already escaped from the braid, and followed in the wake of Margaret’s bobbing straw hat, feeling oddly bereft without Onepiece’s constant nattering in her mind.

“Are you sure your mother doesn’t mind watching Onepiece?” she said anxiously.

It was perhaps the fourth time she had asked, and although she didn’t see Margaret roll her eyes Poly could hear the laugh in her voice as Margaret said: “Trust me, Mum is having the time of her life. She adores having a little person to cook for and clean and bully. No, not that one, Poly: Mistress Holly specializes in frumpy old tabby clientele.
We
want Hobsons.”

Poly followed her dutifully, though she hadn’t seen anything wrong with Mistress Holly’s quiet, long-sleeved displays. She found herself, after the confusing silver tinkle of a bell somewhere above her head, enveloped in a close, bright world of fabric and dress-dummies. Something sharp pierced her foot through the borrowed shoes, and Poly curled her toes, instinctively looking down to find the source of the pain. A bright, steely gleam proclaimed the presence of a pin, which she picked up and passed to the effervescent lady who bustled over to them at the sound of the bell.

“Thank-you, dear!” said that lady warmly, attaching the pin to her collar, where it nestled among several others. “Mika always misses one or two.” She gestured behind her as she spoke, and it took Poly a few, blinking moments to recognize that the tiny, furry bundle of clothes nestled among the draping fabric, was, in fact, a monkey. It was picking at the carpet with the same studious intensity that it would have searched for fleas, and as Poly watched, it drew a wickedly sharp pin from the carpet, and leapt, chattering, to its owner’s shoulder.

The lady patted it absently on the head, provoking the monkey to display its teeth as it secured the pin in her collar with the others, and said: “You must be Poly, dear: Mrs Hobson, very much at your service. Josie mentioned that you might find your way here today. Blue and green, I think. Bespoke or ready-made?”

“Two ready-made and two bespoke,” said Margaret, forestalling Poly. “Luck’s account.”

Poly felt her lips quirk ruefully at the corners and reflected once again that Margaret and Josie really were very much alike. She allowed herself to be bustled up onto a step-stool, and hoped fervently that dressmaking had become more expedited with the passing of three hundred years, not to mention the loss of whale-bone and stuffing as regular accoutrements to a frock. Judging from the flush of pleasure mantling Mrs Hobson’s cheeks and the dreamy look of an artist in her usually sharp black eyes, however, Poly rather thought not.

Poly was pinned into a dress of moss-green velvet with silver trim at the cuffs, her feet encased in the softest of new slippers, when the door swung open madly, violently ringing the bell, and a young man strode into the room.

“Good heavens! A maiden!” One bright blue eye laughed at Poly from between the fingers that the young man put over his face. “Madam, I protest I wasn’t looking!”

Poly met the dazzlingly blue gaze and felt a pleasant shock that made her say more prosaically than usual: “Well, there’s not really much to see.”

“I beg to differ,” he said, with a frankly admiring gaze.

Poly hoped rather desperately that her cheeks weren’t as hot as they felt, and was grateful when Margaret said: “Oh, don’t tease her, Michael. She’s not village: she won’t understand you.”

Wondering if she should feel insulted, Poly said calmly: “I won’t take offence, I promise, even if I’m
not village
.”

Margaret grinned at her, informing Poly that she had reacted appropriately. “Don’t you think it’s a little dark?” she asked, nodding at the green velvet.

Poly’s fingers curled into the velvet protectively. She
liked
darker colours. The frock was pretty and quiet at the same time, and the silver trim added a touch of distinction to the greenness that was pleasing.

“It’s warm,” she said instead. “And it will wear well.”

“What tosh!” said Margaret indignantly. “That’s no reason to buy a gown!”

“It sets off your eyes,” said Michael, leaning casually into the window and giving Poly an unabashed look-over. “Grey eyes, slate-black hair, and moss green velvet–” he kissed his hand with a flourish. “And
what
hair! What have you got in there? Spells?”

“Little bits and pieces of magic,” said Poly. She self-consciously touched a hand to her hair and dropped it in annoyance when she realised what she was doing. “Mostly from Luck but some of it came from my– from a boy we met, and I found some floating outside the village.”

Michael cocked his head. “Free magic, eh? What–”

“Oh, Michael, what do you want? We’re
busy
.”

“Well, if you don’t want your invitations I suppose I’ll leave you to your shopping,” said Michael, without moving. “I have patterns to cut, too, you know.”

He winked at Poly, who much to her own mortification found herself blushing again, and turned to greet Margaret’s sharp-eyed interest with wide, innocent eyes.

“What invitations?” Margaret demanded, abandoning Poly’s prospective wardrobe for more important considerations. “Who is having a party, and why do you know about it before me?”

“Sheer charm of manner and the small fact that me Ma happens to be the one giving the party. Two weeks from now, last bell. Are you coming?”

“
If
I have nothing better to do,” Margaret told him loftily, her tone belying the anticipation in her eyes.

“I was asking
Poly
,” said Michael provocatively. “I don’t much mind whether or not you come, Miss Margaret; only me Ma told me to ask.”

“Fibber,” said Margaret, but without heat. “If I didn’t talk with you no one would. You need me there.”

He shrugged and tilted his head enquiringly at Poly, who said: “I’d love to come. Will your mother mind if I bring along one very small boy?”