I would rather be shoveling manure into the compost heap than putting on the most beautiful dress I would ever wear.
I clenched my hands together, then forced them apart and down to my sides as my mother settled a beaded net over my hair, pinned it into place, then pressed her cheek against mine to look at the mirror. “You look so lovely.” Then she smiled. “There is nothing to fear; tonight is ceremony only.”
Except she was wrong. Mother had never attended Chejei. She did not know. The ceremony was the whole point. To bumble the ceremony would ruin the future we had planned. It would be nice to simply enjoy the evening—no, it would not. I would prefer to spend my evening at home with one of our novels or with my horse.
I eyed what I could see. The mirror was as small as my hand, but it was still the only mirror I had ever touched. If tonight went well, it would not be the last.
My best friend Louth twirled, letting her skirts flare around her. Maybe I would indulge in a twirl myself. Later. After the Chejei was complete and I did not have to be concerned about ruining my dress. We would never wear such full skirts at home. “You both look lovely,” Mother laughed.
“We do!” Louth agreed, flouncing to my side. “Thank you for helping me with my hair. My papas act like they have never seen a comb before.”
Mother smirked. “They are merely hiding so they can see the full effect later.” Louth laughed.
Mother picked up my gathgumai from the top of my trunk and held it up. I swallowed as the light gleamed off the deep blue. We were here. A year of preparation, of embroidering by firelight with my sisters, of picking over every bead the traders brought into the village, of huddling around fashion sketches with Louth, of practicing the timing of my walk and the steps of the dance. It had to be enough. I could not return home now and attend next year. At twenty-two, I was already at the upper range of what was considered acceptable for presentation.
It wasn’t only nerves clogging my throat. I reached out and just barely brushed my fingers over the fabric.
At home, my gathgumai was a practical garment. I slipped it over my head every morning and tied my lentuhn to it for carrying. Around the back of my neck, it was tattered from the number of times I had replaced the hood. Long enough to drape over my upper arms, the gathgumai protected me from the sun and cold.
Nothing about this gathgumai was practical. The triangular shape was too small for tying a lentuhn—it barely covered my collarbone. The silk had to be handled with care. I had embroidered it so heavily, it felt stiff against my skin.
“I think this,” my father had said one day, holding the blue silk against my face.
I had laughed. “We are not here to dream today, Father.” I had already been holding the finely-woven umber wool and the blue sateen that would become my under- and over-dresses. The silk was far too fine and more expensive than both of the other fabrics combined.
“I agree,” Mother had said, taking the silk from Father’s hand and passing it to the dressmaker for cutting. “You will need a gathgumai for Chejei.”
“I have—”
She had nodded firmly. “You have your work gathgumai, and you have the other one for looking nice, but this one will be special. You do not want to only look nice for Chejei, do you?” With a soft smile, she had added, “Or your wedding?”
This gathgumai was about the future.
Mother laid it over my shoulders and then clasped it closed with the Dragon-shaped frog. Louth grinned at the Dragon. “You are terrified of Dragons.”
I blushed. “I am not terrified! I simply don’t understand why anyone would want to risk being so high in the air when there are perfectly nice horses to get us where we need to go.”
Louth snorted as Mother turned to her with Louth’s gathgumai, then she softened. Hers—a vivid yellow to match her under-dress—had been passed down from her Papa Jeamohi’s family. Once it was clasped, she spun to me. “Look at us!”
“I know,” I whispered. We looked like we belonged.
Someone knocked on the door. “The carriage is here!” Louth’s Papa Widnor boomed.
Louth threw her arm around my shoulders and practically dragged me to the door. “Our first ride in a carriage!” she squealed.
Renting the carriage had been one of the investments into our evening. The distance between the townhouse we had rented and our hosts’ house would have been a doable walk were we at home, but between the city’s traffic and the heat and humidity of late summer so close to the sea, we would have risked a bedraggled state when we arrived. Not the state we wanted to present to society.
The carriage was nothing like our cart at home. The horses were sturdy, kind-looking grays, but much lighter in build than our workhorses. Unfortunately, I couldn’t go up and scratch their chins like I would the horses at home. The exterior shone with polish. I slid onto smooth leather seats. There wasn’t much padding, but it was better than the worn wood of the cart’s benches. Everything was clean and repaired with care.
The village should probably consider purchasing a carriage. If the inn was finished in time for the next season, our guests might appreciate having a way to travel between their lodging and the event house …
Something stabbed into my leg and I blinked at Louth. She sat back. “You are thinking again.”
I blushed. “I am having fun.” Our parents chuckled around us.
“Thinking about work to be done at home is not having fun!” Louth narrowed her eyes in a playful glare before bouncing and pointing out a feature of one of the passing buildings to her fathers.
My father bumped my shoulder with his own. “She is right, you know.”
The carriage started to slow, then turned between two columns. We had arrived. The churning in my belly that I had been trying to ignore all afternoon turned into full nausea.
What if I forgot the steps to the dance? Or the words I was supposed to say? What if I spilled wine on my dress? There was so much that could go wrong this evening.
Father bumped my shoulder again and smiled. “Almost over,” he murmured.
“Look at the windows,” Widnor said, leaning forward to get a better view of the arched windows along the entire front of the house. Three floors tall, it was not the tallest building I had ever seen—because we had been in the city for several days by then.
“What stone is that, I wonder?” Jeamohi asked as he eyed the red-flecked gray walls. “I doubt it is local.”
“There will be plenty of time tonight to consider the house’s construction,” my mother reminded them. “For now, we should focus on our daughters.”
The carriage finally stopped in at the house’s entrance. I popped up. “Wait,” Mother said quietly. “The driver will help you down.”
I blinked at her for a moment—I was more than capable of getting down from the carriage myself—then blushed as I remembered. I would hardly be viewed as a graceful Jitu if I jumped down out of the carriage as I would from the family cart. I was already forgetting everything I had practiced.
I looked up. So many people had almost seen my slip. There was a house staff standing at the door, and two attendees were strolling up the walkway under a parasol’s shade.
Then the driver was there, opening the door and offering a hand. I wrapped my fingers around his, hoping he could not feel the clamminess through his driving gloves.
I stopped to wait on the walkway as our families descended from the carriage. Louth was next and she looped her arm through mine. “Do not turn into me,” she teased. “I fear what that would do to our parents.”
I laughed and felt some of the nausea ease. I had Louth with me and Pai would be joining us as my escort.
“We shall see you this evening,” Widnor said, straightening his tunic.
At the door, the house staff stepped forward. “Name.”
“Milai Nuwuv.”
“Louth Mipshev.”
The staff referred to their scroll, then nodded and stepped back. Inside the entry, the host stood by the stairs with another staff at her side. We stopped to bow. “Welcome,” she said, barely acknowledging us before looking at the staff. “Show our guests to the common sitting room.”
“Please follow me.” The staff at her side bowed to us, then started up the stairs.
Behind us, our host called out to the next attendee, “Hello! So good to see you again. Are your parents coming separately?”
Louth looked at me and cocked an eyebrow. I tried not to clench my hands together and forced a pleasant smile. I knew we were not worth much of our host’s time, but she could have taken at least another moment with us.
We were led up the stairs and down a hall, our feet silent on the thick carpeting. Then the staff pushed open a door. “Someone will come to fetch you when we are ready for the ceremony to begin.”
The door had barely closed behind us when Louth leaned in and whispered, “Is there an uncommon sitting room, then?”
“Louth!”
She shrugged. “It does beg the question.” Then she took in the room—with its three arched windows looking over the street, bright carpets, and plush furniture—and sucked in a breath. “If this is the room where they are stashing us nobodys, what are the other rooms like?”
I was not ready. We should have skipped me and let Zaeerna be the first to present at Chejei. We would have had so much more money saved for her dress and her lessons.
Zaeerna was too shy to be the first. She would refuse and say she had never wanted to present, was not so interested in studying at the University. If I did not do this, Zaeerna never would.
And I was here now. The fee had been paid, my name had been registered, and a place had been set for me in the procession. I would embarrass us just as much if I did not present.
We drifted about the room, exchanging polite nods with the others. Louth was almost vibrating with the need to converse, but none of the clutches of attendees seemed open to talking with strangers.
“They came in a rented carriage, both families together.” The words drifted to her from a clutch of other young people. One of them glanced over from behind her hand fan and giggled.
“All of these upslopers, here to beg for attention,” another sneered. They did not even bother to hide behind a fan.
Louth drew herself up and I tightened my grip on her arm. Now was not the time for confrontation. “They are here in the common sitting room with us,” I murmured to her.
She sighed. “I envy your ability to smile through the muck.”
I had no choice. Louth’s family were builders. Even if they lost their endowment, they could hire on to a lortoi or even join one of the consortiums here in Dazyu. Our endowment was agricultural. Which was why our new event house was so important. We needed the additional income to support us when the crops failed. Or, when crop prices were artificially lowered by the Kemzuhr because the war with the Biybolda had left the downslope fields without enough laborers to bring in a full crop.
The treaty had been signed a few years ago now. Hopefully, the war would never be an issue again. My parents had learned, though, and were working to make our home better able to withstand future problems. I was here to do my part in those plans. So, I would smile.
The door swung open again and the staff who had escorted us upstairs appeared in the opening. “Please line up in the order in which your name is called.”
Louth looked at me and grinned. I tried to smile back. This was it.
The tutor we had hired had explained we would be presented in order of precedence. There were seven people ahead of me, including one of those who had sneered at us, I noted. Louth followed directly behind me, which I had expected because her fathers were the Speakers of our village.
We were marched out of the sitting room and down the hall to where it ended in a long balcony. From the muffled sounds of conversation and movement coming from the room below, it had to be the ballroom, though the sight was blocked by large banners hanging from the ceiling over the balustrade.
The staff stopped at the end of the hall and our host appeared from around the corner. “Welcome. Tonight begins the time when Dazyu comes alive. During this season, while the Kemzuhr seek to form laws and lay judgments, society is making connections and forging alliances. You seek to join this society. May you comport yourselves well.”
She paused and the staff stepped forward again. “You will wait silently until your time to walk. Should you leave this line, you will be considered as forfeiting your claim to society and will not be able to walk tonight or in the future.”
Louth looked ready to comment. I elbowed her. Our host’s eyes narrowed on us.
“Let us begin.” She walked back around the corner and the staff motioned us forward.
The balcony ended at a curving stairwell and the staff stopped the first attendee just shy of the top step. Our host surveyed us one last time, then began to descend. I wished the banners weren’t in the way. I would have liked to see how she walked—no doubt she knew it well.
Then I heard the music in the chamber below change to something softer and our host began to speak, welcoming everyone to the Chejei. A beat after she stopped speaking, the staff motioned to the first in line.
“Do you have your token?” the person in front of me whispered to someone ahead of her.
Mine was safely in my bag, which had been packed last night and checked this morning and right before we had left the townhouse. I slipped out the wooden bead, rolling it in my hand and feeling the edges of the paint under my fingers. It was simple, but Pai would love it. I couldn’t wait to get home to see it added to the collection he wore on his work gathgumai.
Wood for marriage. A material that could either break down over time or age beautifully when taken care of properly. Now that her Chejei would be completed, would Pai propose?
It would be the time for it. So many other engagements would be announced by the close of the evening. There was no reason to wait any longer. With both of them being Jitu, they could help their families by being more active in the networking and negotiations that would support their endowments.
And one day, once their parents decided to retire, she and Pai would combine their endowments and become some of the most powerful holders in their lortoi. She and Pai would be able to enact real influence over the Hizhor and the other villages, which would improve the lives of their villagers so much.
The line moved forward. I shifted with it, but the woman ahead of me did not. She had paused to shake her skirt off the heel of her shoe, but I was a beat too late to notice. I jerked back before I walked into her.
The bead slipped from my hand.