Chapter 9: Ch. 8 Foreign Affairs

After Sammy and Julie finished their flirting, they went through their morning routines, ending with another simple breakfast. Then it was time to go.

The mountain pass flat enough, they mounted the horses and rode along, steep slopes either side, rocky. Path narrowing until they couldn’t stay side-by-side, Julie moved in front to lead. However, she thought it seemed safe enough. From what she saw as they went along, there were no precarious boulders or places to set up an ambush, just the odd rock to avoid.

Still, it took them most of the morning to get through. When they did, though, another incredible sight greeted them. Similar yet different, a vast expanse of greenery covered the rolling hills of Sonlettier. While there were trees, they were different trees, and the grass seemed to be a different colour, more bright or, rather, more yellow, she thought; the grass in Schtat was a more mossy green. Especially with the sun high, the landscape seemed light and almost like a painting. Well, she conceded that the paintings she’d seen may well have been of the Sonlettian countryside—a lot of artwork came from Sonlettier.

“Should we camp for lunch?” Sammy asked.

Brought out of her thoughts, Julie nodded and said, “Yeah.”

The slope more gentle on this side of the mountain range, they led the horses down to the nearby tree line. While it had been somewhat humid on the Schtat side from the recent rain, the air now felt crisp, cooler, ground dry. Settled in the shade, they left the horses to graze and ate another meal of rations, the taste sweetened by some berries that had fruited. Julie was thankful that she at least knew wild berries well from her training.

Once the midday sun softened, they set off once again. Although the slope wasn’t too steep, they chose to go by foot, not wanting to push the horses. Sammy took the lead and tried to take them along the mountain range. “The smugglers and like go down, so it would be best to avoid those villages,” she said on the matter.

By nightfall, they had set up a camp and boiled water, and even had fresh rabbit meat to eat alongside some mushed up hard tack. After a quiet night, they carried on, heading down from the mountain range where they then rode along the valleys between rolling hills, Sammy bringing them to streams at midday and again by evening. While journeying, they also picked up more nettles and other bits, the area they were now in less picked than the smuggler’s path they had followed before. So their meals were, while still mostly rations, at least flavoured and accompanied by something more flavourful than boiled river water.

Their third day of travel in Sonlettier went much the same until the late hours of the afternoon. Following a stream, they arrived at a busy village. On the one side, houses hugged the riverbank and spread out from there, loosely lining the few roads that Julie could see. At a guess, she thought there were probably a hundred odd buildings.

And odd houses they were, made of pale sandstone, roofs tiled—far different to the whitewashing and thatching common to Schtish villages. The closer Julie looked, the more differences she noticed: the height of the doors, the size and position of the windows, the windowsills. Even the weeds looked to be different, splodges of colour that straddled both the red and blue sides of purple.

Julie felt fairly disorientated by it all. Uneasy. A place familiar at a glance, foreign upon inspection. That thought reminded her that it actually was a foreign place. For the first time, she had finally left the country where she had lived her whole life. A very late realisation.

Before she could twist herself in any more knots, Sammy spoke up. “It is rather quaint, isn’t it?” she said.

“Yeah,” Julie replied.

Arriving at the edge of the village, they stopped to dismount at Sammy’s urging; she gave, “Sonlettian custom,” as the reason. Julie soon enough noticed a man leading a horse on foot rather than riding it, which made her feel relieved that Sammy knew about the custom.

Although they found their way onto the main road through the village, there was little room to spare, people going this way and that, chattering in a language Julie could only assume was Sonlettian.

When they reached the square at the centre of the village—a massive space with a paved floor—it became clear why it was so busy. Fuel for a bonfire stacked as tall as a person, countless buckets (some filled with water, some presumably waiting to be filled) surrounded the pile, and there were garlands of bright flowers strewn on the lampposts. Stalls had been erected at one side of the square, some already heavy with wooden cups of beer and battered snacks, a couple selling garlands and trinkets, most still empty.

Between all that, people rushed back and forth, adding more fuel or swapping empty buckets with filled ones. Children laughed and screamed, were being merry, being scolded and assigned chores, clinging to busy mothers and struggling to help busy fathers. Elderly folks stood to the sides and watched with expressions that ranged from sentimental to grumpy, some entertaining young children, others snapping at whoever happened to be doing something nearby.

It took Julie a good minute to take everything in, such a chaotic scene. The Royal Palace had certainly held large events, but those had always been such an organised chaos with a strict hierarchy of servants telling lower servants what to do, everyone well-trained to be conscious of their surroundings and have little presence and be quiet.

Sammy reached over and squeezed her hand, taking her out of her thoughts. Careful of the crowd, they shuffled along the road to the other side of the square, following it until they came to a stable near the edge of the village.

With the horses put up, they split their baggage between the two of them. Before they started walking back towards the centre of the village, though, Sammy held Julie’s hand. “It wouldn’t do to lose each other,” she said.

Julie said nothing in reply.

So they idly ambled along, taking in the sights as they went on their way to check the couple of inns Sammy had seen earlier. In the little time since they’d been by, the vast square had grown busier, seemingly everyone in the village bumbling around.

Sammy came to a stop, Julie nearly bumping into her. Looking in front of them, Julie saw the reason for the stopping: an old lady. Hair grey and skin leathery, she held a broad smile on her small mouth, eyes still bright for her age. But what surprised Julie was that this old lady spoke fluent Schtish, sounding every bit a Hopschtat girl.

“Ey, you two ain’t from ol’ Schtat now, are ya?” she asked, voice clattery.

Sammy smiled and bowed her head. “We are, ma’am.”

“Wot’s a pair o’ lasses doin’ out ’ere?” she asked, only to shake her head and talk to herself. “Nay, Marge, no need to pry.” Then she went back to speaking to them, asking, “Ya lovelies got a sty?”

“That is… a sty?” Sammy asked, unsure.

Marge cackled, her laughter sharp and rattly. “Not Hoppers, ey? Ah, beg my manners,” she said, tugging the edge of her cloth cap. “Ya got a place to stay?”

Sammy thought for a moment and then gave an honest answer. “We are looking for one,” she said.

Marge nodded vigorously, her cap very much looking like it should have fallen off, her face wobbling. Then she turned around, giving the old man there a slap on the shoulder.

“Oi,” he said, a deep yet sharp sound.

“We got guests—introduce yerself,” Marge said, punctuating her command with another light slap.

He clicked his tongue, audible even with all the background noise. “You ’ave guests—I don’t remember askin’ anyone over,” he said, grumbling.

“And how many of yer guests did I ’ave to pop out, ey? Remember when we was just gone ’ave a pair of tots? Got one fer e’ryday o’ the week!” she said, a threatening finger waving in front of his face.

He clicked his tongue again. Rather than argue any longer, he let out a huff, arms crossed and mouth in a scowl. Reluctantly, he looked past Marge at Sammy and Julie. “Name’s Pete.”

“There now, was that so ’ard?” Marge said to him before turning back to them. “And I’m Marge. We bin married near a century now—or so it feels.”

Sammy laughed at the joke, sounding natural, while Julie was still stuck somewhere near the start of the conversation. “I hope our marriage will last as long,” Sammy said, squeezing Julie’s hand as she did.

“Oh, believe me, it’s nothin’ special. When ya meet the right man, just tell him, ‘Sorry, luv, already got a fella back home,’” Marge replied.

Julie’s stomach dropped hearing that, knowing that Sammy would say something. But Sammy surprised Julie with a rather subtle answer.

“Oh, I think I’ll say something like that to any man who asks,” Sammy said lightly, laughter colouring her tone. Then, before Marge could say anything else, she tugged Julie a little forward. “I am Sammy, and this is Julie.”

“A pleasure,” Marge said, touching her cap.

“It’s all ours,” Sammy said as Julie chimed in with, “Us too.”

Marge had another cackle before turning to Pete. “Wot ya standing around fer? Not gonna help the lasses with the bags?” she said, nudging him with her elbow.

“Just smother me in ma sleep if ya want rid of me,” he said.

While Julie froze up, Sammy giggled, covering her mouth. After a moment, she said, “Is the house far?”

Her question successfully pulled Marge away from teasing her husband. “Nay, just a hopskip.”

To Julie’s relief, Sammy kept control of the conversation as they began the slow walk to the elderly couple’s home, most of the time spent listening to Marge detail her children’s various accomplishments, getting sidetracked every other sentence. However, Julie found it almost reassuring to listen to someone speaking Schtish in this foreign place. And she was surprised at how popular the couple seemed, many people giving warm greetings (or so she presumed, unfamiliar with Sonlettian) as they went.

Fortunately, it really wasn’t far and, something Julie had learned to accept, Sammy was carrying the heavier packs. She wasn’t entirely sure, but she thought the air felt cooler as well; the heat had liked to linger into the evening back in Schtat, yet the sun hadn’t set and already there was a chill to the wind, sharpened by her sweat.

Coming to a stop, Marge said, “Here we are, lovelies.”

Julie turned to look where Marge gestured. The house, while broad, seemed squashed, other houses either side of it, but it was still on the large side. Two storeys tall, windows also peeked out of the attic. Like most of the buildings in the town, it was made of yellow-grey sandstone chunks, a little stained by weather, and the clay shingles added colour, albeit muted by the approaching dusk. Built against the road, there was no room but for weeds, and even those were small as if regrowing after being plucked out recently.

“There was a lot of us ’ere back in the day,” Marge said, talking as she walked the last steps to the house. “O’ course, we wanted to pass it on to the kids, but, well, ya know—grow up in a village, all they wanna do is leave fer the cities, ey?” She followed with a short chuckle.

Meanwhile, Pete had stepped up to the door and knocked twice on it, then gave it a heavy shove with his shoulder. Despite the force, it only opened ajar. Another shove gave enough room to actually enter.

“Old hinges,” Marge said, nodding.

Sammy nodded as well. “I see,” she said.

Marge leaned over and whispered, “Up to me, I’d ask one o’ the young men to fix it, but ya know a man gets stubborn when ’is pride’s on the line.”

Sammy giggled, and she spared Julie a knowing glance.

They filed inside—Sammy and Julie barely fitting through with their packs—but made it no farther before a young woman’s voice echoed from the far side of the house. “Back already, are ya? I told ya, it’s not gonna be any better this year, and I don’t wanna hear how it was back in your day! What good does that do me? Not like I can do anythin’ ’bout it. If anythin’, is your generations fault. Should a taught ’em how to put on a proper festy, then we wouldn’ be in this—”

Emerging at the top of the stairs, the young woman caught sight of the guests and abruptly stopped. Only, it took her a noticeable second to put on a smile, and the next moment fluent Sonlettian flowed from her lips.

Julie had no idea what the young woman was saying, but she imagined it was something along the lines of, “Why didn’t you tell me we were going to have guests?” Whatever was being said, it sounded almost melodious, vowels long and flowing, consonants soft.

The woman herself gave a similar image, someone in her late teens who was not wanting in femininity. She had a modest height and held herself well, long hair that looked well-brushed, face soft and touched by the sun and by blush, her movements full of grace as she descended the stairs. A small smile and bright eyes completed her first impression, and what an impression she left on Julie.

“No bother, these lasses a’ from Schtat,” Marge said.

The woman showed mild surprise, but it grew as Sammy spoke in fluent Sonlettian. And Julie, despite still having no clue what was being said, instantly became enthralled. That familiar and pleasant voice sounded oh so dainty, music to Julie’s ears. Such a beautiful language.

When Sammy finished her couple of sentences, Julie broke her gaze away, happening to glance at the woman; it seemed like Julie wasn’t the only one enthralled.

The moment didn’t linger, though, Marge breaking in for introductions. “This my second daughter’s youngest, Paumé,” she said, her accent shifting for the name. “We call her Pam ’round the house.”

Sammy gave Pam a slight curtsey, pinching the one side of her riding habit. “A pleasure to make your acquaintance. I am Sammy, and this is my Julie.”

Julie felt her chest tighten, pushing through the feeling to bob her head in greeting.

As if Pam had also noticed the possessive, her gaze went between Sammy and Julie for a moment, her own greeting delayed. “Ah, yes, I’m Pam. It’s good to meet you,” she said, finishing with a shallow curtsey.

“Ey, what ya tryin’ ’mpress ‘em for? They ’eard ya hollerin’ like a mad dog. That’ll teach ya to talk ill of yer elders,” Marge said.

Pam wilted under the words, picking at the hem of her sleeve, the blush on her cheek darkening into splotches.

However, Sammy seemed entirely unfazed by the exchange. “If we could put down our things, won’t you tell us about the festival?” she said.

Julie had to admire how Sammy could phrase things so well.

“Right, no point dillydallying,” Marge said, and then she turned to Pam. “Ye’ve bin cleaning—wot rooms are best? Ta’s and Fi’s?”

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But Sammy interjected. “Oh, we will be sharing a room.”

Julie was rather used to that by now. And as always, she noticed that it wasn’t a question: she and Sammy would be sharing a room.

“O’ course. Bit scary—two lasses on their own, far from home. Anyway, Pam’ll thank ya fer sparin’ another room to tidy,” Marge said, taking it in stride.

With that said, Pam led them upstairs and then to the room at the end of the hallway. A fairly big room, it stretched from the front to the back of the house and had two single beds spaced along the far wall, a gnarled wardrobe between them that had an awful lot of character. Other small pieces of charismatic bedroom furniture littered the place, a broad window on one side letting in the last of the day’s light. Everything rather bulky, it felt a bit cluttered despite the space, but it was a pleasant feeling, the wood natural and far from claustrophobic.

As they had no plans of staying more than the one night, they only put down the packs in front of the wardrobe, no intentions to unpack.

Silent in the doorway, Pam lingered, watching them. Sammy casually looked over and their eyes met. With a polite smile, she asked, “Is there something you wished to say?”

“Oh, no, sorry,” Pam said, eyes wide as she shuffled back.

Sammy softly giggled behind her hand, and Julie noticed a mischievousness in those eyes that was usually directed at her the moment before a teasing. Proving her intuition correct, Sammy stepped over to Julie’s side and held her hand, bringing up her other hand to rest on Julie’s shoulder.

“Did you perhaps want to ask if we are lovers?” Sammy softly said.

Julie’s heart thumped, but her reaction was otherwise muted; she didn’t know if that was because she was growing used to it or because she felt Pam wouldn’t make a fuss. With a few of these “confessions” behind her, she felt like her anxiety stemmed from the attention it brought, so she didn’t dread the (probably) mild reaction of Pam near as much as whatever Marge would have said.

That was what she thought over in the long moment of silence before Pam finally answered. “Y-yes,” she whispered.

Sammy’s smile grew into something natural. “We are, albeit still taking our first steps together.”

A myriad of emotions looked to swell just beneath the surface of Pam’s face, her lips twitching with unspoken words, eyes unable to look their way, fiddling with the hem of her sleeve. And when she again found the courage to speak, she only managed to draw in a breath before Marge’s voice echoed through the house.

“If they wanna see the festy, Fi’s got some rags lyin’ ’round,” Marge shouted.

As if caught with a mouthful of snacks before supper, Pam scrunched up, head bowed as splotches coloured her cheeks. “Yes, gan-gan,” she loudly replied.

After a second of silence, Sammy spoke up. “The festival is tonight, then?” she asked.

Pam weakly nodded.

“What is it for? I am afraid I do not know of any events this time of year,” Sammy said.

“It’s to… celebrate the end of the sowing, and pray for a good harvest. We’re pretty far south, so we sow early,” Pam said, not exactly mumbling, but choosing her words carefully.

“Ah, yes—the fet des cootyua. I always heard of it being held in Anaber, but—as you said—it does stay warm in these parts,” Sammy said, her hand moving from Julie’s shoulder to excitedly gesture as she spoke. Once she finished, though, she turned to Julie and that free hand joined her other one, sandwiching Julie’s hand between them. “Oh we must attend, yes? I have heard so many beautiful things about it.”

Julie had no reason to oppose and there was a brilliant smile accompanied by pleading eyes to persuade her, making her quietly said, “Sure,” an easy reply.

In a blink, Sammy leant forward and left a kiss on Julie’s cheek, the next moment her eager gaze on Pam. “May we see the clothes?” she asked.

Pam looked more stunned by the kiss than Julie, and Julie was very stunned herself. That had been their first kiss in front of someone else, after all, and she couldn’t imagine what Pam thought of seeing such a thing. It was one thing to be strange, so long as one kept it in private, but Julie thought that Pam would surely have found it disgusting.

Only, when she looked, she couldn’t quite tell what Pam was feeling, her expression blank.

After another moment of silence, Sammy stepped forward and tugged Julie with her. The movement brought Pam back to life. “Y-yes,” she said, quickly turning around. With similar haste, she scurried down the hallway.

Sammy tittered as she and Julie followed Pam. Back by the stairs, Pam opened a door into a smaller room, just the one bed inside, yet it had a larger wardrobe as well as a tall chest of drawers with a mirror on top.

“There’s a lot o’ dresses in ’ere,” Pam said, opening the wardrobe.

She wasn’t lying. Rather than a rail, the inside wall was neatly dotted with pegs to hang clothes on—and there wasn’t one spare. Really, it gave an impression of some strange piece of art: weirdly shaped columns of contrasting colours, stuffed neatly within a wooden frame.

“Fi was a bit… popular. She liked dresses and, well, her sweet’arts liked making her ’appy,” Pam said, only to cringe once she finished. “Sorry, ya don’t wanna hear ’bout that. And I don’t mean to make her sound…. She’s very kind, and pretty. When I was a tot and my maa visited ’ere, Fi always played with me, so she’s… a really good person, and she deserves to be a bit spoiled.”

That time, she fell into a moment of reminiscence rather than regret at her waffling. However, she quickly sobered, burying herself into the wardrobe to hide her blush.

“’Nyway, dresses…. Wot a’ ya lookin’ fer?” she asked, voice muffled by the dresses.

Julie looked over at Sammy and saw her with a strange expression. To Julie, it looked almost sentimental, as if Sammy herself was fondly remembering something from her childhood. But that didn’t stop her from answering Pam.

“For Julie, something like maroon—oh she looks good in browns with hints of red. For me, white or something light so we have a good contrast,” Sammy said.

“Right,” Pam said, and then said it again but softer to herself. She rifled through the collection of dresses from one end to the other, finally taking out a pair of dresses. “These good?” she asked as she held them up.

Sammy took the brown one first and she held it to the fading light before holding it in front of Julie. “Yes, this looks perfect,” she said, smiling.

Julie felt her heart beat quicker at those words, unsure why. She didn’t have long to think why either, Sammy moving on to the other dress.

“What do you think? Does this suit me?” Sammy asked.

It took Julie a moment to realise those questions were directed at her, another moment to look at the dress. The colour rather reminded Julie of pearls—not that she’d ever seen any up close—and the style had a youthfulness to it, something she thought a girl might wear to a dance. And she thought that that style rather suited Sammy: pure, unaffected by the world.

“Yeah,” Julie simply said.

Sammy’s smile became blinding. Indeed, when she turned and directed it at Pam, Pam had to look away. “We shall borrow these if we may,” Sammy said.

“Ah, yeah, o’ course, no problem,” Pam mumbled.

“Then, shall we go change?” Sammy said to Julie, and she quickly followed up by asking Pam, “Oh and I am sorry for burdening you further, but could you assist us? I am not familiar with how we should do up our hair for the festival.”

Pam gave a smile and nodded, then walked to the door.

However, before they changed, Julie had something she needed to take care of. Having never had a need for euphemisms, she hesitated over what to say until Pam stepped into the hall. “Um, is there a place I can… pick flowers?” she said.

Pam turned around with a mild frown. “We ’ave some in the garden, but the geiarlon at the festy are cheap a’ chalk?”

Between the two of them, Sammy merrily giggled to herself. Then, leaning towards Pam, she spoke a few words of Sonlettian that cleared everything up.

“Oh! Oh,” Pam said, her mouth settling into a cute, embarrassed smile. “There’s a’ outhouse through the kitchen,” she said to Julie.

“Thanks,” Julie replied, her own smile, while also embarrassed, more of a pained one.

Not wanting to linger, she went off on her own little journey. Her knowledge only took her to the bottom of the staircase; from there, she investigated the hallway, one room closed and the one opposite it a lounge. Further along, there was a cupboard under the stairs, then another closed door on one side, but, to her relief, the other door was open ajar and lit inside, the worktop speaking of a kitchen.

That relief only lasted a moment.

Inside the room, she was greeted by Marge. “Ah, Julie was it? Some’in’ the matter?”

Julie froze in place for a long second, far from used to actually talking to strangers (especially with Sammy around). Given her state, she was also rather focused on something else.

With her thoughts failing her, she blurted out, “I need to pee.”

“That’ll be the outhouse, then,” Marge said, nodding along. She then turned and gestured at the door just past her. “Can’t miss it.”

“Thanks,” Julie mumbled; unable to muster a smile this time, she just bowed her head.

Fortunately for her, the rest of her journey went without a hitch, even the trip back. But her footsteps slowed in the upstairs hallway, coming to a stop by the door as she heard Sammy speaking. With the door only open a sliver, she couldn’t see Sammy and Pam from where she stood, just listen to them.

“… wanted to kiss a woman?” Sammy asked.

“Yes,” Pam said, barely above a whisper.

And Julie couldn’t move. Hearing those words, she instantly recalled the sorts of things Sammy used to get up to, and assumed this was another of those times. Yet, unlike the past, her heart began to ache in her chest, painful.

That feeling distracted her, bringing to mind an intense anxiety that she was ill. In the growing silence after Pam’s answer, the anxiety consumed Julie, a hundred things it might have been flickering through her mind, a light-headedness narrowing her vision, legs growing unsteady. Each second dragged out longer than the last. She leant against the wall, trying to regulate her breaths as she’d been trained to do under pressure.

Before she could get herself under control, though, Sammy started speaking again and, as always, Julie couldn’t help but listen.

“I do not know much beyond my own experience, but I did have that same curiosity, and only with regards to women—never men. The urge to be near them and make them smile and laugh, to touch and kiss them, to connette them. Though now, I may appreciate the beauty of other women, but those feelings are for my Julie and her alone.”

In the moment of silence that followed, Julie settled down. Only, her mood like a pendulum, it swung beyond calm as a kind of manic energy bubbled up inside her. Pushed by it, she couldn’t stay still and so opened the door wide enough to fit through.

Inside, her gaze sought out Sammy first, who was sitting on the one bed. Pam, then, stood a few paces away, face splotchy and hands wringing, and she stared at Julie with wide eyes and a thin mouth.

Sammy smiled at Julie. “Is that better?” she asked.

Drawn back to Sammy, Julie nodded and walked over, taking a seat close by Sammy’s side. Still bubbling over, Julie felt the need to do something and so, acting on impulse, she leaned over and left a light kiss on Sammy’s cheek. As she pulled back, Sammy’s hand found hers and gave it a squeeze.

Acting like nothing had changed, Sammy looked at Pam. “I have not learned enough about those who are like us to give any meaningful advice. However, what I can say is that there is no feeling more euphoric than finding someone who not only accepts you, but returns your affection.”

Pam gently nodded while unable to meet Sammy’s eye.

Sammy laughed a few notes with her free hand covering her mouth. “Let us talk tomorrow—we have a place to be tonight.”

“Y-yes,” Pam said, nodding.

So they prepared for the festival.

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