“Now isn’t this better?”Andreina asked her husband as, hand in hand, they went back down the stairs. “We can go out and have some dessert firm in the knowledge that we have at least begun our duty to God and to the clan. And don’t tell me thou didst not enjoy it full well!
He blushed, but gripped her hand tighter and she had to be content with that. He had been nervous and eager indeed! Imagine suggesting they go to a dessert house first! As if she would! She had been so nervous that she was afraid she had come across as angry.
Well, she would have to make up for that. And it was her job to direct them toward dessert!
“Now, I am unused to such things,” she said, “so thou will have to aid me. On our budget, what kind of dessert would be appropriate?”
“Father gave me a Keshef a day, seven total, which is running very high class for me,” he said. “I have rarely had fifty pence in my pocket before.”
“Well, that is far more than I have had. Well, except when I was on business. So… does that include the hotel?”
“No… well, tips and things.”
“I tipped the lad a half-pence, which I think might have been high for his station, but he did do a good job. So… maybe spend a nickel for dessert, and another to bring something to drink back to our room? A bit of soft cider?”
“I like soft cider,” he admitted. “And it would go well with the cheese and things in the room.”
“Excellent,” she said. “I will hang onto thee and thou canst find us a dessert house.”
Her husband almost glowed as he reached the front steps of the hotel and turned them to the right. She was thrilled. She had been afraid that he would stay all nervous and shy, the way he had on the way to the hotel. But now he was parading down the street as he wanted everyone to look at him, with her. As if she was the most beautiful thing in the world. Which, of course, he had said she was a dozen or so times already. She would have to give that hotel boy another tip. He had obviously got her husband very much in the mood.
And this street was so beautiful! Small enough so that only five or so people could walk abreast down it, lit by torches, quiet musicians playing on various corners, and the moon shining on the rock the buildings were made of…
“Ketzat to celebrate!” a lass asked, dancing up and holding out her hand. Soon the embarrassed young couple had a dozen or so lads and lasses dancing around them and they handed out the small coins traditional for honey business.
“Did that lad list a dessert house?” her husband asked her and she fished in her pocket and passed it over to him. Then she pulled herself closer and leaned up against him. She could not believe she was married, and to such a husband. Shop class, not at all tall and fat as her confidante had warned. Off to the army but, then, she had known for years this was coming. Sufficient unto the day, she would rejoice in her new husband while she had the liberty to do so.
And in her honey trip. She had spent plenteous time in the Old City, but always before on business, and always wary of thieves and muggers. Now she was able to lean on her husband and take in the beautiful tall buildings a tourist. At least four stories tall, most of them, tightly built together, and the street was hardly larger than an alley, and crammed with people.
And everything was clean, with no smells to speak of. She knew of the sewers, indeed she had been down in one once with her gang when they had had a larger than usual some of money and one of the lads had suggested them as a way around the crowded streets. But she also knew that the lasses here rose early to wash the front of their building and the street in front of their shops, competing with each other for custom and, indeed, pride of cleanliness.
Her husband, holding the list in front of him, looked up at the street names on the buildings at the corner and, looking at the list again, and turned them to the right. Three blocks down he turned them into a small shop on the right.
The shop he led her into was beautiful. Each table had a lantern over it, with a cover that directed the light on the table, making for a very cozy atmosphere. The walls were illustrated tile, with images of the landing and early colony. The floor… she stared down… the floor was some sort of flat tile, cool on her feet, with pictures of fish on a blue speckled background.
The shop was more than half full, mostly with couples, some eating, some perusing the menu, and a couple enjoying each other.
There was only the one set of tables along the right wall, and a skinny aisle along the left, and Lorcan walked them almost to the door to the kitchen before stopping at a table. They sat down across from each other and he picked up the small chalkboard propped up at the end of the table. “What would you like to have?” he asked. “There isn’t anything on here for more than tuppence.”
He laid it down and they bent their heads over it. “I think I want the carmel nut fudge,” he said.
“That sounds delicious,” she said, but kept looking.
“Hast thou decided, Ma’am?” she heard and looked up to see a lad standing there, a grin on his face, and a shop class shirt the same blue as the floor.
“I think I’d like the raspberry fudge,” she said. “And my husband would like the caramel nut fudge.”
“Whipped cream for both, only a penny,” the lad said, nodding and grinning.
She smiled, “How lucky. That is just what we planned to spend. You don’t have a bottle of chilled soft cider, do you?”
“With the fudge, or to go? We keep a stock, but you’ll have to return the bottle.”
“To go,” she said. “But… how much?”
“Honey trip?” he asked, grinning at them. “Whole thing, including coin for me, make it nine pence and a kiss.”
She grinned and leaned forward and kissed his cheek. “Thou art very fresh! Now scamper, we wish to be alone.”
He grinned and scampered, and she looked back to Lorcan, who was blushing. “How do you do that so easily?” he asked.
“Oh, its a class thing,” she said. “And this is his business, he spends all day talking up the lasses. He can tell from my frock and my speech that I’m lower, so knows just what he can say and what will be pleasing. He would be more distant if he had to deal directly with thee. And if thou wert crystal they might have sent his sister out so thou couldst flirt with her.”
“In front of you?”
“Don’t ask me to explain high class,” she said. “Those lasses almost boast of how their husbands like to flirt, when they aren’t going on about how cold they are to him in bed. Disgusting, if thou ask me, and hardly Christian.”
He leaned forward, “Can I ask you something?” he said.
She grinned over toward him, “Our contract is fully fertile,” she said, moving her toes on top of his and watching him squirm. “Thou canst always freely ask.”
“Not that. I mean a personal question.”
“Oh,” she said, sitting back. She was silent for a few minutes, thinking. The contract didn’t include personal questions, that was true. And her lass friends had not at all agreed as to how far thou shouldst allow thine husband into thy personal life.
“Turnabout’s fair trade?” she asked.
“That means… you get to ask, too?” he asked.
“Yes. One extra on either side.”
“So… neither of us can fall behind by more than one or…”
“Or we stop until the other can catch up,” she said.
“For today…?”
“No. For our honey trip… and longer if we both like the way it goes. Both of us.”
“That’s fair.”
“Well, thou hast begun the game, what question has thou?”
“Why…” he started, but just then the lad came in with their fudge and cream.
“Scamper now,” she said to the lad, when he looked like he was going to comment on the meat, and the lad left.
“Well?” she asked, ladling some cream on her fudge.
“Why… why did you choose fully fertile?” he asked.
She ladled some more, and then took a bite. “This is good,” she said, and looked him in the eye.
“That question really was out of bounds,” she said, and then held up her hand when he started to speak. “I didn’t say I wouldn’t answer it, but thou must give a lass a space to answer.”
There was a long pause while they both ate. “Two answers,” she said. “Firstly, and thou must never tell my parents this, but I heard them arguing one time. I won’t tell thee what caused it, but my mother was upset, and my father said, “Well, thou shouldst have gone for fully fertile, then!”
“And she yelled back, ‘Like thou wouldst agree to that!’”
“And he said, ‘Like thou wouldst!’ And then there was this really long silence, and then, well, they kissed and all. And then the next day there was this bit of fuss, with one of my uncles coming over, on my mother’s side, and then one of my father’s brothers and… well.. .thou truly must not tell anyone this, but I snuck down when they were all in the kitchen and I found that they had written a new marriage contract, look thee, which was written as fully fertile.”
She sat back and there was another long pause, “And their marriage got a lot better after that, and we were all a lot happier. So I decided that when my turn came that was what I would seek.”
“I didn’t even know about such things when I was that age.”
“Well, I’m a lass and they tell us a lot earlier. And we were street class, especially back then, and we lived on top of each other. There was very little I didn’t know.”
There was a long pause, and then she said, “Well, my turn to ask a question.”
“But, you didn’t finish your answer!”
“I said I had two answers,” she retorted, and stared at him.
“Very well,” he said. “What is your question?”
She put her spoon back in her fudge. “I think I will wait until we are back in our room,” she said. “I want to make sure I ask a good one.”
He stared at her, but she just grinned and dug into her fudge.
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Von