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Ceria and Chiara stuck close to me after lunch, so I wasn’t able to escape my doom. I had no choice but to return to my room for my appointment with the castle seamstress. I was not thinking about ditching anyway, but they were determined to make good and sure I went.
Exclusive stores for nobility, essentially upscale shops making bespoke outfits, often appear in fantasy stories involving noblewomen. I suppose that these exist to a certain extent in Atius, although they are not off-limits to commoners like one sees in the stories. Even there, the sum total of all nobility in the city just isn’t enough to support such a thing. The majority of customers are the upper-class commoners, the management class of Orestania.
But here in Pendor, we have no city the size of Atius, which probably rivals Victorian London in population. Pendor’s urban populace spreads out among many smaller cities, of which Narses is the largest only by a small margin. It’s not even a tenth the size of Atius. The only industries in this town are shipping and government. If the small upper class here want to visit a store, they can only choose from the middle class establishments. More than likely, for high fashion they hire a private dressmaker who calls upon them at their house.
Thus, the castle has a resident seamstress and a resident tailor. Rather than visiting a dressmaker’s shop like I did in Atius, the dressmaker came upstairs to my room.
Fortunately, considering I was itching to deal with other matters, it took less than an hour. But I was thoroughly caught off-guard by my first experience seeing a traditional Dorian wedding dress. I stared at myself in the mirror as the seamstress checked here and there, figuring out the final adjustments, and the maids worked on constructing an elaborate headdress around my tiara.
Red and gold, as loud and stunning as can be imagined.
Rather than the imposing umbrella expanded by multiple petticoats of Atian fashion, the skirt consisted of overlapping panels of silk dyed vivid vermillion, and covered in gold brocade decorations, highlighted here and there with blue and green, depicting the Spirit Kings of Dorian religion, whose appearances look so much like the dragons, phoenixes and other creatures of Chinese legend. The bodice, relatively form-fitting but not excessively so, had the same style and colors, but rather than the gloriously revealing neckline of Atius, the collar rose high on the neck and covered me properly all the way down to its brightly brocaded hem around my hips. The loose sleeves were form-fitting near the armpits, but turned immediately into ridiculously wide cuffs, trailing nearly to the floor, like the kimono style called furisode.
All in all, except for the Japanese-like sleeves, it was an extraordinarily opulent Chinese dress. Or maybe Chinese dresses sometimes have those sleeves too? I’m not really sure.
The ornaments that the maids were weaving into my hair to determine what would best match my wedding dress were pure Chinese, though. They included wide wings from which gold beads on gold chains dangled to my left and right, driving my peripheral vision nuts.
It does seem weird for both Chinese and Japanese fashions to be common in Dorian countries, but there is actually a pattern to it. Hyper-traditional Chinese clothing like this wedding dress are considered ‘Ceremonial’ gowns, the absolute highest degree of formal attire. The much more common kimonos, depending on the exact styles, are ‘Formal’ or ‘Traditional Semi Formal’ gowns, rather like they have become in modern-day Japan. Meanwhile, garments like qipao for women and tang suits for men, depending on style, run the gamut from ‘Contemporary Semi Formal’ wear, more favored by younger women, down to ‘Casual’ wear, although a ‘Traditional’ everyday wear more favored my mature women also exists, varying by region from clothing somewhat like traditional Vietnamese dress to plainer kimonos. The styles for men have a similar trend.
The palace ladies and maids of Narses Castle wear outfits based upon the Vietnamese-like style, with the palace ladies wearing eggplant-colored silk while the maids wear more practical cotton.
I was caught off-guard again when I held my arms out straight to the sides so that the seamstress could check them. On those sleeves hanging like flags, the seamstress had embroidered the beautiful nude head-to-toe profile of a butter-fly winged fairy draped from my left arm and an equally nude head-to-toe profile of a dolphin-tailed naiad falling from my right.
“Why?” I asked, unable to form a more precise question.
“Those are Deharè and Lâra, the patron spirits of Pendor, My Lady,” quoth Lilsa, one of the maids attending me.
I couldn’t say I recognized them as Mother and Grandmother, since they were too stylized to identify clearly, but the figures were certainly spot on. I never expected to see something this risqué in the embroidery of such a gown.
I remembered Mireia saying that her mother believed her father to be ‘Deloen’, the patron spirit of Suldor. I suspected at the time that he might be a fairy, making Mireia a fairling, explaining her pink hair and high specs. If my mother and grandmother were the patron spirits of Pendor, it made some good corroborating evidence for that. Was it common for such figures in this world to actually be fairies?
“How do you like it, My Lady?” Genette asked once it was all on and all of the pins were in place.
“Honestly, I’m still processing this,” I confessed. “I was expecting something Atian.”
The seamstress looked piqued as she noted, “While the ceremony will be kept small due to wartime, pictures of you will circulate amongst your people, My Lady. For the sake of their future loyalty to you, they must see the future Duchess of our nation adhering to Dorian custom on Dorian soil!”
I had stepped on the woman’s stout pride in her culture, and panicked a bit. Shaking my head and waving my hands, all with greatly restricted motion because of everything hanging from me, I hurried to reassure her.
“I’m not objecting to it! I just have never worn anything like this before. I just wasn’t mentally prepared for it!”
Genette rallied to my defense. “My Lady has spent her life in the North, after all. She naturally grew up dreaming of a white Atian design for her wedding gown.”
Neither I nor the original Tiana had done any such thing, but I held my tongue.
Lilsa assured me, “My Lady, Benedetta told us that the King plans to hold a grand function at the Palace in Atius for you and your husband once victory is achieved, to replace the public wedding you are missing out on because of the war. I am sure your gown for that will be an Atian wedding dress. Nothing else would be quite right, would it?”
Syl piped up, “We’re all hoping it will be held as a celebration of your first anniversary, My Lady!”
Both of these women had clearly grown more accustomed to my presence, because I could sense nothing of the fear from before. This, despite the fact that they both wore the bracelets of my father’s victims, even though, from the look of them, it meant he had preyed on girls younger than my current age.
Thanks to their own ease, I could relax around them in a way I couldn’t before. Although, I had not idea why their worries had subsided. In fact, right now, they felt downright supportive.
Lilsa continued, “Anyway, it’s natural to not be accustomed to ceremonial attire, My Lady! Most women only wear it for their wedding and never again!”
Syl began giggling, and Lilsa frowned at her. “What?”
“Well, My Lady is hardly ‘most women’, you know? If she had grown up here in Narses, she would have worn outfits like this for every birthday!”
The seamstress chuckled. “In fact, I have all but completed the dress for My Lady’s investiture as Duchess already, and I have a design for her next birthday already on my drawing board. It’s the Ninth of the Month of Full Harvest, I believe?”
The chatter continued around me like that while they and the seamstress made various adjustments and corrections, until they at last released me. Even though everything had been amicable, I left my suite feeling like I had just fought a battle. Who knew holding still for the seamstress could be so fatiguing.
By sheer coincidence, Rod was released by the tailor at the same time. Or perhaps not by coincidence. More than likely, the appointments had been for one hour and the seamstress and tailor had both used every second of it. But whatever the reason, I was able to catch him as he left the guest suite that had become his and Mireia’s room.
“Your Royal Highness,” I greeted him.
Once again, like I had noticed every time we met ever since I woke up, he looked like he was on the verge of saying something, but didn’t. Instead, he simply replied, “It’s ‘Rod’, Ti.”
The lips of Sir Gald, who was at his elbow, twitched in an almost-smile.
I gave him a patient nod. “Very well, Rod, can you spare me a few minutes of your time? I have an important matter regarding my army to discuss.”
He hesitated, then hedged, “I’m expected in the war room.”
I looked over to Hedrit, who had been waiting for me outside my suite. “Mr. Hedrit, would you inform the war room that His Royal Highness will be a few minutes late?”
“At once, My Lady!” the footman declared, and hustled off down the hall toward the other end of the solar.
Rod bridled. “Ti, if this can wait…”
Interrupting him, I stated, “If you want me to start talking about military secrets in the corridor, I shall, but I would rather do so in the security of my sitting room.”
I gestured back at the door I had just come out from. “If you would please, Your Royal Highness?”
He had a slightly bitter look, but he nodded and proceeded in the direction I had indicated.
After we sat and Genette was already serving tea– I suspect that, in order to produce it so fast, she had used her Fire attribute trick to reheat the tea brewed for me earlier, but whatever– I gave him a serene smile and stated, “I just want to know what military secret could be so compartmentalized that even my military aide only has the vaguest description of it. A description that sounds farcical, I might add.”
He frowned, glancing over at Genette to communicate that he didn’t want to say it in front of her.
“Genette, once you have finished, please depart and close the door behind you. Then you should keep all ears away from the door.”
She finished pouring my cup while nodding. “At once, My Lady.”
Rod already having his cup, she retreated with the tea service and pulled the door shut.
He contemplated it without speaking, so I went first. “I’m very curious to know exactly how you plan to lead an invasion of Oto. It does seem difficult.”
“That’s obviously a code name, Ti. I’m not aware of any real land constructed on top of the clouds.”
Actually, back in the Elder age, at the height of human civilization, several grand flying palaces actually did exist. None survived the great war that ended everything, of course, but stories like Oto were likely memories of them.
I nodded. “Alright. Then explain why Colonel Morgas couldn’t be told that.”
He frowned, then hedged again. “This is an operation of the viceroyalty, not the duchy.”
“If it involves Pendor troops, and I already know that it does, then Morgas is to know about it, Your Highness. You aren’t getting away with that excuse.”
Rod looked away, complaining, “I’m not trying to get away with anything!”
“Tell me that without lying to me,” I retorted. “The only reason you wouldn’t tell my military aide, unless you are claiming you have reason to suspect her of treason, is that you don’t want me to know about it! But if it’s my troops who could be killed, going to battle because they signed up in my service or that of my mother’s, I need to know!”
“It’s not lying,” he muttered.
“Remember the lectures that Uncle Matthias gave us? Hiding the truth is a form of falsehood, when you are hiding it from one who has a right to know it.”
I was an eyewitness that Rod had received that lesson. Ged had received his ethics lessons earlier than us, but Rod, Amelia and original Tiana all took them together.
He stared at his cup and didn’t answer.
“Rod!”
He finally glared up at me. “I just don’t want you haring off on your own again! You were out for three days after the last time!”
I sighed and pinched the bridge of my nose. “I’m sorry about that, okay? I had to protect Amelia…”
“You’ll have some excuse for the next time too!”
I wanted so much to retort, but I couldn’t come up with a defense.
After several seconds of bitter silence, I simply stated, “Tell me where Oto is, and why you’re afraid I’ll get involved.”
The internal struggle was in full view in Rod’s eyes.
“No matter what, I have to know where my troops are headed!” I declared. “If you don’t tell me, then I will follow! I’ll have to!”
I’m sorry if it’s a bad habit I should be getting rid of. It’s the only way I can satisfy Tiana’s burning need to protect everyone.
Finally, he crumbled.
“It’s our code name for the Highlands region where our parents are,” he admitted. “After debriefing the recovery party, we decided that the only way to handle it was to militarily occupy the whole area.”
My eyes grew wide.
“You’re going to send common soldiers to a place where something was able to kill Mother?“
