Chapter 10: Fitting

The tailor on Lantern Row had pins in his mouth and a measuring rope over his shoulder.

He looked at me for a long moment, and then at the rope, and then at the ceiling.

"My lady," he said. "I regret that my patterns go to a size sixteen."

"What size am I?" I asked.

"I could not say. The rope would have to be doubled."

His two apprentices hid their faces in a bolt of cream satin.

I had been in this shop for twenty minutes.

I stood on a little round stool in my shift while a girl with cold hands measured me.

Every time she wrote a number she said "oh."

"Write it down," I said. "Write all of it down."

"I'm a size twenty-two. It is not a secret and it is not a tragedy."

[+10. Refused to apologize for your body.]

"The Lord Justice will not be pleased by a gown that does not flatter," the tailor said, with a thin smile.

"Then he can tell you himself," I said.

The bell on the door rang.

Bastian came in out of the sun in his black coat, with a clerk behind him.

The tailor went the color of putty.

"My lord."

"I had a message," Bastian said, "that you cannot dress my wife."

"My lord, I only said."

"I heard what you said. It was repeated to me on the Row by three people."

He stopped at the foot of my stool.

"You will make her a gown of the cream satin, with a lace yoke and a long train."

"The waist will be cut to her own measure," he said. "You will have it done in fourteen days."

"You will not mention her size to a living soul," he said.

"Yes, my lord," said the tailor.

"The cost does not matter," Bastian said.

"Yes, my lord."

"And you will do all this in silence," Bastian said.

"I intend to take it off her myself, in front of nobody, and I want every stitch to survive it."

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