but old habits died hard and in effect they’d been replaced by clockers with no titles but lots of money. Supposedly this was fine by the prelate, because a self-made man showed merit and the good blessings of the Clockwork God, who rewarded truth and industry. Or so all the newspapers and storytellers said.
Kacha seemed to have an odd effect on men, though Vocho could never really see why. Five years ago the fashion had been for stick-thin ethereal women strapped into plain black dresses that went straight up and down, with deathly pale faces and long lank ringlets. Thanks to a new artist who’d painted portraits of the prelate’s wife and others, the fashion was now for plumply voluptuous women, hair piled up and puffed out to the size of a small pumpkin, in ridiculous dresses that swept the floor behind them, usually with lots of frilly things around the neck and wrists that Vocho couldn’t name.
Kacha had managed to never quite fit into either category, being what Vocho thought of as sturdy and not giving a fig about fashion anyway, except in a “Can I fight in it, or will it just get in the way?” manner. Not skinny, not plump, but somewhere in between where her muscles tended to show a little through whatever shirt – or farmer’s sister’s dress – she wore. Above all, she was his sister. All he usually saw was a pain in the arse – too ruddy perfect. But while even in a poor light after a couple of beers only a compulsive liar would call her beautiful, he grudgingly supposed there was something about her. He just had no idea what attracted men like flies. If he’d known, or if he hadn’t been her brother, perhaps everything would have been different, he supposed.
“What’s he doing here?” Kacha hissed under her breath.
“I, er, I asked him to come – sent a message as soon as we got back,” Vocho whispered back.
“You what?” She didn’t have time for more than that so contented herself with trying to kill Vocho by glaring at him.
Dom came in, a soft-looking little man with a pale, watery sort of face, a handkerchief often pressed to his nose and washed-out brown hair dressed in the latest style – a loose pigtail worn pretend-carelessly over one shoulder and powdered to make the hardiest man sneeze. Maybe that explained the handkerchief. He was dressed for a ball, not a trek across a muddy farmyard, but to Vocho’s annoyance he didn’t seem to have a splash of mud anywhere on his exquisitely made shoes, and his breeches were a pristine white. His clothes were worth more than this all-but-derelict farm and everything in it – silk, more silk than Vocho had seen this side of a Reyes whorehouse, embroidered and studded with sequins, feathers, tinkling trinkets and who knew what else until the man fair rattled when he walked. Vocho itched to turf him out on his ear, maybe liberating some of those clothes in the process, but this was their disguise and he had to keep to it. Besides, having a rich friend with a powerful father couldn’t hurt, and Vocho had invited him for a very specific purpose. He just hoped he wasn’t going to regret it later, when Kacha said all the words that by the looks of her mouth, clamped so thin it had almost disappeared, were demanding to be said. Vocho was pretty sure his ears would be bleeding by the end of it.
Dom fluttered the hand with the handkerchief Vocho’s way, took Kacha’s hand with the other and bent low over it. “My dearest Kassinda.”
They’d had to come up with new names, as the old ones were so hotly sought after, but had managed it so that they could still call each other Kass and Voch, as they always had. Saved on unintentional slip-ups. Only now those were short for Kassinda and Ranvoschan.
By the way Kacha’s nose wrinkled, it was taking all her control not to whip her hand away or cuff Dom around the ear. This was not how you treated a lady of the guild, if you liked your face the same way it started. People had been thrown in the Shrive for less. Dom didn’t seem to notice – he never did, not the looks and glares, not the whispers behind his back or the occasional plain words. Instead he smiled his watery smile and turned to the chest.