“Yes,” said Rue, nodding. “Go to bed, child. Take your kitten and go to sleep. Leilis—”
“I’ll wake Mother,” said Leilis. “You’d better warn Sweetrose and give the stupid girl a chance to get herself together.”
“Yes,” said Rue. She gave Karah a little push toward the room they shared and strode away toward the deisa rooms.
“This was an assault. An assault. On a keiso.” Narienneh was exactly as outraged as Leilis had predicted. She fixed the unfortunate Sweetrose with an unforgiving stare. “You have never been the most clever girl, Sweetrose. But this!”
Besides the Mother of Cloisonné House, only Terah, Rue, and Leilis were present. Rue would be, of course, and Terah was the retired keiso Narienneh most depended on in managing household affairs, but there was no obvious excuse for Leilis’s presence. Nevertheless, Narienneh hadn’t sent her away. No one seemed to find this surprising.
Sweetrose, an exquisite girl of sixteen with dazzling huge eyes and a pretty, artless manner, was close to tears. Leilis knew that the girl’s artless manner actually rose from a wit too dim for artifice. But the girl could manage a certain basic charm. Easy tears were part of this.
Narienneh, of course, was not impressed by girls’ tricks with tears. She said now, both impatient and regretful, “Well? You thought I would take no notice of this jealous attack on a keiso?”
“But… she’s not even really a keiso,” Sweetrose protested, eyes brimming. “Truly, I never meant… and Lily said…”
The crack of Narienneh’s hand on the surface of her desk was as sharp as the crack of a whip, and nearly as alarming.
Leilis hid a sigh. She could have warned Sweetrose not to bring Lily into this. In fact, she should have. Mother was now, if possible, even angrier.
Mother leaned forward, her fine-boned elegant face rigid. “Do not dare throw guilt for your own acts on the other deisa!” she snapped. “Do not dare!”
Sweetrose, thoroughly quelled, shrank in the face of this rage.
Narienneh straightened, drew a slow breath, and let it out again. All her anger seemed to go with it, leaving only a weary regret. “You’ll have to leave this House, child,” she said at last. “There’s no way else. No. Stop that weeping, foolish girl. You should have thought twice and three times before that outrageous trick of yours! Only great good fortune spared my newest daughter a ruined spirit or spoiled disposition.” The phrase my newest daughter emphasized Sweetrose’s lack of that status. “It’s quite plain you haven’t the sense to make a keiso in Cloisonné House. Go fetch your things, girl. Terah will help you gather them. Out. Go.”
Narienneh watched the former Sweetrose stumble from the room, then turned a hard glance on Rue. The dancer, with a streak of ruthlessness few would have guessed at, only returned a short nod and strode out after the unfortunate girl.
The Mother of Cloisonné House stared after them, expressionless.
Leilis, surprised by an unexpected impulse toward sympathy, bowed her head a little to make Mother notice her.
Narienneh, her eye drawn by that gesture, glanced toward Leilis. After a moment, she nodded permission to speak.
“A foolish, weak-willed child,” murmured Leilis. “But so many girls are foolish, no matter how pretty! How fortunate there are keiso Houses willing to shelter such girls, so long as they are earnest and industrious, or the flower world would never have enough young deisa coming up.”
Mother glanced thoughtfully after the departed Sweetrose. “Earnest and industrious, I will allow. Sweet tempered and willing to please, ordinarily. But such an ugly resentment of our newest keiso, and such poor judgment!”
“Foolish talk in the deisa quarters should never be encouraged,” Leilis agreed.
The glance Narienneh directed toward Leilis was sharp. “You believe I should write her a reference?”
Leilis widened her eyes just a little. “That would be very generous, Mother. With such a reference, one of the lower-tier Houses might take the child as a deisa. Riverreed House, perhaps. That would spare Sweetrose being forced into an aika House, or worse, some dockside establishment.”
“I am surprised you should concern yourself with her,” Narienneh commented, but the Mother of Cloisonné House clearly liked the idea of providing at least a small boost to her rejected deisa. She sat down at her desk, pulled out a formal roll of parchment, and set quill to it. She wrote quickly for a moment, then held the resultant note out to Leilis.
Leilis, wondering herself about her own generous impulse, took the parchment by the edges, careful of the drying ink, and scanned the delicate clear script. She glanced up.