Raea came down holding the carriage door, and when her boots hit the ground her knees failed to take her weight for a moment.
She had spent an entire day inside the White manor. Her shoulders and back had gone badly stiff, and the fingers that had been round a sword hilt ached faintly from being held so long in one position.
Today Raea had been unusually attentive to everything concerning the White manor, because she wanted to understand what had happened to Elaine's body. Unfortunately her clearance was not high enough, and for the moment she was not permitted into the cellar.
Before going home she raised a hand and pressed at her aching temple, then straightened the hem of her coat and walked into the apartment building alone.
The stairwell was a good deal quieter than the street. Behind the wooden doors came the faint sounds of cutlery and conversation. Somebody was frying fish, and the smell of fat and pepper drifted down from the second floor. The tenants above seemed to have made a sweet soup; there was a trace of baked apple in the air as well. Ordinarily Raea never noticed any of this, and when she came home late enough she could not be bothered to warm bread. But on reaching her own landing she stopped where she stood.
A faint smell of seasoning and meat hung in the corridor.
The oiliness left by seared meat, mixed with the sweet sharpness of tomato, and under it softened potato and onion, coming out through the gap under the door in broken drifts. Raea looked at her own door for a while, and rather than easing, her exhausted nerves drew tight again. Her right hand settled naturally on her sword hilt.
Thinking of Elaine and Viola that morning, Raea could only conclude that she had miscalculated.
She had forgotten about that Rosenfeld girl. Had she known, she would have left her shut inside to fend for herself.
Raea checked the lock, and found no sign of it having been forced.
She took out her key and opened the door with her movements kept soft.
Warm lamplight and a much stronger smell of food came out together. In the kitchen alcove Elaine had tied her overlong silver hair back any old how and rolled her cuffs to the elbow, and was holding a wooden spoon, checking the potatoes stewing soft in the pot. Two places had already been set at the table, cut black bread was warming near the stove, and even the shawl Raea usually threw over a chair back had been folded and moved aside.
Raea stood in the doorway and said nothing.
The exhaustion she had gathered all day outside melted at the door the way snow does against a fire, and even the temple that had been aching without pause went quiet for a moment.
She watched Elaine moving about the kitchen, watched her narrow her eyes against the steam as she lifted the lid, and something entirely unfamiliar rose in her, a kind of satisfaction, as though the life she had wanted all along looked exactly like this.
Elaine heard her and looked round.
"Raea? Good, you're finally back. I'm about to die of hunger."
Seeing Raea, and remembering how angry she had looked that morning, Elaine's instinct was to get her into a better mood.
Going out with a stranger without her leave had been, after all, somewhat impolite.
And thinking that Raea had been working outside all day, and that her own stomach was genuinely empty, and that Raea's cooking was frankly poor, Elaine had decided to do it herself.
The hand on the sword hilt slowly came away, and still Raea's eyes stayed on her.
Seeing Elaine looking as delicate and as lovely as that, the resolve that had already been unsteady inside her rocked further.
It was like walking a wire above a drop. The dark thoughts surfaced in Raea one after another.
She did not care whether Elaine was a man or a woman. She could feel where Elaine's soul was.
Husband, wife, it made no difference. Raea only wanted Elaine to stay beside her forever, or to be allowed to look after Elaine for a lifetime.
Yes. A lifetime. All of one life, and the whole of it.
Every day Elaine could make her supper as obediently as this. Or not make it, it made no difference, Raea did not care.
Only, forever, forever, forever to stay at Elaine's side. That was all.
Forever...
"Raea, what are you looking at? Come here, hurry up."
Looking at Raea standing out there in the shadow of the doorway, still with something wary about her, Elaine was puzzled. She spooned what was left in the pot into a dish, covered it, set it on the table and came slowly over to her.
Raea watched Elaine come, and could smell it on her too, that faint and barely-there trace of flowers.
That smell left her somewhat at a loss...
Young master... Elaine.
Raea found the feeling in the depths of her difficult to press down, and only unbuckled her sword belt.
If she could, Raea wanted nothing more than to shut Elaine up in this house right now, to hold her every night as she went to sleep, and then...
And then do some indecent things.
But... by Elaine's own account, there was no good ending for two women.
Raea did not care. Set against the pleasures of the body, what she wanted was a resonance of the spirit.
Or rather than resonance, a twisted possession of it.
And thoughts as dark and as perverse as those had no business appearing in Raea, a woman in holy orders.
She did not care about legal identities, or about Viola. If Viola came round bothering them again, Raea would not object to cutting her down where she stood.
Once Raea had come inside, Elaine went back to the table and lifted the lid, and the heat trapped under it came pouring out at once, the smell of tomato and meat juices going with it, so that a room which had been cold and quiet took on some warmth.
She served Raea a bowl first and set the warmed black bread by her hand, the movement as natural as though she had done it many times before.
Raea looked rather blank. From what Elaine knew of her, that meant she was thinking about something, so Elaine did not ask.
Raea sat down and did not pick up her spoon straight away. Her arms still ached faintly from the long hours on a sword and her shoulders were badly stiff, and yet when Elaine bent to blow on her soup and then looked up to tell her to eat while it was hot, the whole day's labour seemed to be pressed down for a while.
She lifted out a piece of potato already stewed soft. The liquid carried the sourness of tomato and the smell the butter had left behind, and there was not much pork, but what there was had been cooked down tender. Raea ate slowly, and her eyes went over the rim of the bowl more than once to the person sitting across from her.
"How is it?"
Elaine asked it lightly enough, a small piece of black bread dipped in the sauce still in her hand.
Inside, though, she was rather hoping for a verdict.
"It's very good."
Raea answered in earnest, then lowered her head for a mouthful of the liquid. It had been a very long time since she had sat at a table and eaten with anyone. In the years she had lived alone watching Elaine, her life had been extremely simple: eat something plain, do the work that was hers to do, and give what time remained to spying on Elaine.
She had never felt there was anything wrong with that. But tonight, looking at the two places set on the table, she could only think how wretchedly bare those years had been.
Thinking of the life ahead — finishing her work at the Tribunal, pushing open the door and finding Elaine at home waiting for her. They would live together. They would eat at the same table. Perhaps in time they would be like the ordinary families of Greybridge, living side by side every day.
At that thought her eyes stayed on Elaine rather longer.
If Elaine left here and moved into somebody else's home, she would make that person supper. She would say these same words when that person came through the door. She might even become somebody's wife, or husband, as a matter of course.
Her grip on the wooden spoon tightened slightly.
She did not like that thought. Merely imagining a life in which Elaine belonged to another person, and something began to close slowly over her chest.
She should stay here. Here, forever.
Raea finished what was in her bowl quietly, her face showing as little as ever. She had meant to tell Elaine that there was no need to cook in future, that she would learn to do it properly herself.
Having tasted what Elaine cooked, she gradually abandoned the idea.
How had she never noticed that the things Elaine made were this good?
And thinking of Elaine one day becoming somebody else's wife, or turning back into a man and becoming somebody's husband, the darkness in her settled heavier still.
Looking at the pale line of Elaine's neck, Raea only lowered her head and went on slowly finishing what was in her bowl.
Publicly Disclosable Information #7
The Red Vein Relief Society is a private charitable organisation long active in the Arosa Old Quarter, providing the poor, the unregistered and injured workers with free treatment, meat broth, medicine, temporary lodging and local identity witnessing.
The organisation is not large, but its low charges and simple procedures have earned it a good reputation in the Lower City.
Its funds come chiefly from private donations and from a small number of noble patrons. The retired bishop Groen Meyer is among its principal backers, and has long covered medicine, coal, food and the rent on its buildings.
Because he himself lost his family in a calamity, the residents of Arosa generally hold that he funds the Relief Society in order to help those who have suffered as he did.