SUGAR AND SPICE AND ALL THINGS NICE
Part 1 of 8
Twenty little girls in two straight lines sat cross-legged on sunlit mats. They placed iris, anemone, cyclamen, oleander, and dittany-of-Crete in green glass vases. Back and forth Teacher walked, making notes on her tablet. Gold heads, brown heads, black heads, auburn bent over their work. Twenty pairs of hands, twenty pairs of eyes, one quiet room.
The mentist slipped through the quadrangle doorway, sandals tapping the threshold. Teacher smiled. “Miss Yilmaz.”
“How are they?”
“Obedient as always.—Briseis, nice form. More oleander.”
“Yes, Miss.”
“I’m here for Andromache.”
Teacher nodded. “Andromache, put away your work.”
She pitched her voice just so. A girl laid down her flower at once, limpid-eyed.
“Yes, Miss.” Precise, busy hands: vase, to the window. Mat, folded. Extra flowers, in a wet cloth on the black stone counter.
Andromache donned her sandals on the white stone walk outside, and they went to Miss Zugasti’s office.
The geneset designer beamed. “How are we today?”
The solemn ten-year-old curtseyed, silver-white hair in a crown braid. “I am well, Miss.” She wore a pastel green tunic and a sort of brass necklace, a ring she could lift over her head and remove, but must not. Her sandals stayed by the door.
A toy basket waited on a Penesthelian rug. “Play for us.”
“As Miss pleases.” Cross-legged, Andromache put the toys in a row: doll, cup, horse, ground-car, trowel, duster. Spatula and bowl. She chose each in turn, cradled the doll, and served her the cup. Curried the horse and polished the vehicle with her hem. Gardened the carpet. She paced the room on pale white-pink feet, dusting, dusting.
The geneset designer watched her pretending to mix in the bowl. “Academics this week?”
“Reading ten nine three. She had a practical mathematics exam. The score—” Yilmaz mentioned a number. The designer puffed her cheeks, concerned.
“Too high. Can it be medicated lower? It wouldn’t do to be found out now!”
“We already have her on a lot. The pharmacist’s becoming expensive.”
“How much can he ask? He’s involved also.”
“He has expenses,” the mentist said. “Then there’s interactions. We must take care.”
The little girl placed the toys in the basket, put the basket away, and stood with gaze down and hands folded.
“Andromache?” the designer said.
She raised green doe eyes. “Miss?”
“If I asked you to do less well in mathematics, would you?”
“Less well, Miss?”
“It’s unnecessary to be best in everything. You’re working with your sisters.”
“We are building a world,” Andromache said mechanically.
“Yes! Sometimes, we should do less so others may do more.”
Andromache dipped her chin. “I will try, Miss.”
“Smaller scores make it easier for Miss Yilmaz to keep records. You like Miss Yilmaz, don’t you?”
The eyes slid to the mentist. “Yes, Miss.” Eyes back.
“Good! Let’s try something else.” The designer clumsily arranged a lumograph to capture video. “—Ctimene!”
Her assistant came from an office alcove and curtseyed, hands folded. A thin flicker of brass lay tight around her neck. “Miss?”
“Andromache, you recall last time?” Zugasti asked.
She gazed up at the young woman. “We are good sisters, Ctimene.”
“We are, Andromache.” Ctimene smiled down.
“Is it proper to break a cup?”
Ctimene seemed amused. “Oh, no. Haven’t they taught you? Breaking things isn’t proper.”
“You’d not break one?”
“No, unless there was an accident.”
“If a citizen told you to?”
“Yes. But no one wishes me to break things.” She laughed lightly.
Andromache took a breath and pitched her voice—so. “There is a tray of cups in the cabinet. Take one to the tea-sink.”
Ctimene hesitated, then found the tray and six red glazed cups painted with leopards.
At the small sink, she paused. “Sister…”
“Is the leopard running?”
Ctimene looked at the cup. “Oh! It is running,” she marveled. “La! How lovely.”
The cup rested in her palm, poised painted leopard waiting there. She touched the still brushstrokes on the surface.
“Are you afraid of the leopard, Ctimene?”
“Perhaps,” the woman admitted, withdrawing her finger.
“Is it creeping in the grass?”
“It is—!”
“Ctimene, it’s biting!”
The assistant’s hand spasmed and her mouth went O. The cup clattered and broke on the porcelained steel.
She gasped in horror. “Sister! What have I done?” Her hands shook and she covered her mouth. “Oh, Miss. I’ve broken it!”
“It was an accident,” Andromache said. “The cup fell.”
“It’s all right,” Zugasti said.
Yilmaz offered the shaken assistant a pastille from a tin, then traced a silver adjuster along her temple. Ctimene closed her eyes, blinked. “Miss,” she said to Zagasti. “I’m sorry,” she curtseyed, “I—I was doing something for you…”
“I broke a cup,” Miss Zugasti said. “Clean out the sink.”
Yilmaz patted Andromache’s shoulder. “Well, done. Remember,” and she pitched her voice to a certain tone, “do not practice that without me.”
“No, Miss.” Eyes wide, lids dropping, deep curtsey.
Yilmaz beckoned the girl to a round table by the window. “Play a game?”
“As it pleases Miss.”
The designer shuffled a deck of cards. “We shall play Corsaro. Do your best, Andromache.”
Pasteboards flew as the broken cup rattled in the wastebin. Andromache arranged her hand. Cups, leaves, captains, wives, house-girls, pilots. They played for buttons. Andromache collected most of them in twenty minutes.
Miss Yilmaz and Miss Zugasti smiled at each other. “Very good, Andromache,” Miss Yilmaz said. “You’re skilled with numbers.”
“Thank you, Miss. I like to count.”
Zugasti shut down the lumograph. “This new video will excite my…acquaintance. There’s a fortune to be made. To learn every card shown in the game—and to influence the servant dealers! Would you work hard for someone who liked numbers?”
“It is proper always to work hard, Miss.”
“Indeed it is,” Miss Yilmaz said, jolly. “All she needs is leadership experience to improve poise and confidence. She leaves crèche, he collects her for a modest sum, we collect our final fee, and we’ll be all happy indeed.”
Zugasti imagined a comfortable cottage near the sea. “Well done, Andromache.”
The girl turned rich green eyes on her. “Thank you, Miss.”
Once again, rejection season benefits us all! And this, to be frank, is an important story in the legendarium, so it’s nice it’s freely available. See if you can figure out why!