Banner of the Damned by Sherwood Smith

She laid her finger to her lips and smiled. “You understand, I am sure! You scribes are trained to observe. So are we, and yet, so much of what we are taught is the art of
melende
, which conceals instead of reveals.”
    She paused, so I put my hands together in peaceful assent, feeling very grown up.
    “My sister often asks her scribes, after an interview, what did you see?” She touched the sides of her eyes. “And they will tell her, ‘I saw anger in the tilt of her head.’ Or, ‘I saw the wariness of a liar in the angle of his shoulders.’ I am beginning to have more social correspondence than I can deal with, but here is where we begin our trust.”
    I bowed. She clasped her hands again. “What I really, really want is for you to observe like my sister’s scribes but for me. Because you must know by now, everything I hear is flattery. Everything. I want to descry the truth if I can.”
    This surprised me so much I hesitated, and again she laughed.
    “Shall we begin while traveling to Sartor for the music festival? I always leave the morning after Midsummer’s Day. You can carry the scrollcase I promised my sister would always be near me. I hate that thing, it ruins the hang of my gowns. I’ll continue to carry the emergency transfer token—they made it a finger ring.” She touched her smallest finger.
    “I am ready to travel if that is your wish, your h—”
    She raised a hand, chuckling. “I think I will have to play the game with you. Poppy! Ah-ye,” Lasva cried when the little page appeared. “We will save the cakes yet. I want you to run in and out, so that I may get Emras accustomed to addressing me. Now, if she’s gone, you must say ‘Lasva.’ And when she appears, then it’s back to all the titles. You know that so-called privilege is a matter of social agreement, do you not? That in the baths, we are all skin over bones?”
    Poppy dashed in, her laughter light and free.
    “Your highness,” I said, when Lasva rose and nodded to me, her face full of fun.
    Poppy ran out, and at the royal gesture I said obediently, “Lasva.”
    Three or four more times we played this game. Then the princess had to ready herself for her part in a musical quartette for, at that time, courtiers created what were called air poems—extemporaneous verse while playing insuments. Though often enough the most witty (or that deemed the most witty if someone was courting someone else’s favor or favors) would appear in illustrated form the next morning, delivered by silent night pages, to be enjoyed over morning drink and discussed during the fountain chamber stroll before the Rising.
    Lasva whirled away, saying over her shoulder that I was free to settle in—I had liberty that night but would begin my duties in the morning.
    So I retired to read my congratulatory notes. My mother had folded a queensblossom in hers, a sign that she was pleased—and a warning to live up to my new status. My father sent a gold coin under his seal.
    I saved Tif’s for last, and with trembling fingers opened it.
    The note had only two lines, the first the customary words of congratulation, and then, “Come visit me when you can. On Restday eve you can find us at the House of the Thistle, our favorite pleasure house, or at whichever play is newest.”

SEVEN
     

O F THE P RICE OF S TYLE
     
    O

f course I must go see Tiflis!
    I’d only ventured into the city twice, both times in company with other students. I put on my new pair of outside shoes for my first venture into public as an adult scribe.
    Tiflis lived over Pine House on Alassa Canal. Competition for living space is vigorous in the city. My father had joked that it was probably a Water Guild conspiracy that made addresses on the canals so much more prestigious. The canals were lined with brick walkways, so that people could stroll along them as well as boat on the water.
    I proudly offered my gold coin to a young water girl on the Crown Skya Canal. This was personal