Turning away from the street, Yuah Dechantagne made her way up the stone walkway to the family’s home. The huge, stately structure was the largest building in the colony, and had taken the better part of two years to construct. Featuring a large portico supported by four two-story columns, a double gabled roof and more than a dozen stone chimneys; every side of the house was covered with large dual-paned windows. Walking through the gardens and past the large reflecting pool, the fountain, and the sundial surrounded by white roses, she paused to hyperventilate for a moment before tackling the six steps to the portico. Standing at attention outside of the front door was a lizardman, naked except for a yellow ribbon with a gold medallion around its neck. As she approached, the creature reached back and opened the door for her.
“Thank you, Tisson,” she said, sweeping in through the doorway.
Once inside, she walked through the foyer and into the parlor, just in time to see her sister-in-law, the colonial governor, slapping her hand across the protruding snout of another lizardman. The creature wore a similar medallion and ribbon as its counterpart outside, though it was a silver medallion on a green ribbon. The reptilian was also slightly shorter and had darker green skin. Even so, it towered over the woman in the olive green herringbone dress that faced it.
“One more time and I’ll cut off your tail and send you back to that mud hut you came from,” she snarled at the lizardman. “Do you understand?”
“Yess,” hissed the reptile.
“What was that all about?” asked Yuah.
Iolanthe rolled her aquamarine eyes. “How many times have I explained? They still don’t get it. When the flower petals fall off, the flowers are replaced.”
“I think they like the flowers better when they are wilted,” replied Yuah. “It must be a lizard affectation.”
“Well, I’m not going to put up with it. Say, where have you been all morning?”
“New dress.”
“Oh yes. Very pretty.” If there was one thing Governor Iolanthe Dechantagne-Calliere could appreciate, it was a new dress. “The baby was crying a little while ago. I had Cissy feed him.”
“Sirrik!” called Yuah. Another lizardman, mottled yellow with brown stripes, stepped into the parlor from the doorway that led to the library. “Go have Cissy bring down the baby.”
Sirrik walked through the parlor and into the foyer. The two women could hear the creak of the stairs as the heavy reptilian then made his way up. Yuah set her large loaf of bread on the coffee table and sat down on a divan, recently brought by ship from Mirsanna. Iolanthe carefully sat down across from her in a sweepback Prince Tybalt chair.
“I am surprised to find you still at home,” said Yuah.
“I will be going to the office later in the day.”
“Are you going to address the new arrivals? I saw that the ship was being unloaded.”
“I will leave that to your father. He actually enjoys that sort of thing, you know.”
“Yes, I know.”
The groaning of the staircase announced Sirrik’s return. Following closely on his scaly heels was a smaller lizardman, this one wearing a yellow skirt just above its tail. The ridiculous garment was only about eight inches long, hiding nothing because the reptiles had no external genitalia to hide. Nestled carefully within the smaller lizardman’s arms was a small bundle. The beast walked across the parlor and gently passed it to Yuah. She carefully pealed back the blanket revealing the tiny, pink, perfectly formed face of a baby boy. His tiny mouth was puckered and his eyes were closed. He twisted slightly in his sleep, as Yuah tickled his chin.
“Who’s mama’s big boy?” she said, in the voice people reserve for babies, pets, and anything else that can’t actually hear or respond.
“How long has he been asleep?” Yuah asked the lizardman in the yellow dress.
“Haff hour,” said the creature, rolling its yellow eyes toward the grandfather clock along the east wall.
“Half an hour?” confirmed Yuah.
“Yes.”
“He’ll be asleep for some time yet,” said Iolanthe. “Why don’t you let her put him back in his crib?”
“No, I want to hold him for a while.” Yuah turned to the lizardman. “You may go now. Why don’t you check back at three?”
Both reptiles bowed and left the room, Sirrik back toward the library, and Cissy through the foyer. Yuah leaned back and gently bounced the baby boy in her arms while he slept. She marveled at his dark eyelashes and the tiny bit of dark brown hair just sticking out below the blanket.
At that moment a little girl, almost three, in a bright floral dress ran into the room. Her blond hair seemed thin around her chubby, round face, but was supplemented with a large red bow on the top of her head. Bouncing along on her chubby little legs, she was not quite in control of her body, and bumped right into the stuffed arm of Iolanthe’s chair. She was up again quickly, though she left the item she had been carrying, a doll with a dress exactly like hers, lying on the hardwood floor.
“Auntie Yuah,” said the toddler, running to the woman with the baby. “I want to give Augie a kiss.”
“All right, but carefully. He’s asleep and we don’t want to wake him.”
With the exaggerated movements that are so endearing in the very tiniest human beings, the little girl reached up on her tip-toes and puckered up her lips, stretching them out as far as they could go, and kissed the baby, held out by its mother, with a smacking sound. She then rolled back on her heels, almost losing her balance and falling back onto the coffee table.
“Very sweet,” said Yuah. “Now go see Mummy.”
“Don’t you dare jump on me,” said Iolanthe, as the child trundled around the table toward her. “Your dress is filthy. What have you been doing?”
“Making mud pies.”
“Making mud pies,” muttered the governor. “Sirrek!”
The mottled yellow and brown lizardman returned.
“Who is supposed to be watching Iolana?”
“Kheesie,” hissed Sirrek.
“Remind her that the child is supposed to stay clean. If she can’t do her job, I’m sure that there are others who can. And have her draw Iolana a bath.” Iolanthe turned to Yuah. “If there is one thing you can count on the lizards to get right, it’s bathing.”
Yuah gave a half nod-half shrug of acknowledgement; though the vast majority of her attention was still on the sweet, perfect, angelic, little face of Augustus Marek Virgil Dechantagne. At two months old, he was still so tiny and so helpless that without trying, he activated that part of her that seemed to want to do everything for him and to give him everything. And he looked so much like his father. She held and cuddled him for half an hour, scarcely noticing that everyone else eventually left the room. Finally she was rewarded with his dark blue eyes opening. As he looked back at her, she felt the pull of her milk, and carried the baby upstairs and into the nursery to feed him.
Yuah spent the remainder of the day in the most rewarding and pleasant role that she had ever had—that of mother. She scarcely paid any attention to the comings and goings of Iolanthe and the other members of the household. She cuddled and hugged. She played peek-a-boo. She dismissed Cissy when she checked in at three. She skipped both tea and dinner, having a snack brought up to the nursery. Finally that evening, she dressed Augie in his pajamas, and put him to bed. Before she retired to her own room, which was just on the other side of the wall from Augie’s crib, she crossed to the bed on the opposite side of the nursery and kissed an already sleeping Iolana on the forehead.
Yuah’s own bedroom was the type of room that she had dreamt of having as a child. Of course, growing up as a servant in the Dechantagne household, she had seen such rooms many times. Wallpaper with an intricate pattern of pink roses between golden bars covered all the walls, reaching from the golden pattern on the ceiling to the gold floral carpeting on the floor. Pink lace curtains on both the windows matched the pink lace draped above the big brass bed and above the large oval mirror of the vanity. The intricately wrought bedstead matched both the small brass chair in front of the vanity and the small stand in the corner, which held the washbasin and pitcher. Cissy followed her into the room and stood quietly by as Yuah removed her new dress.
Though Cissy, like all the reptilian aborigines was referred to as a lizardman or a lizzie, she was in fact a female of the species. Her silly little skirt was the primary indicator of that fact, for most humans remained ignorant of how to determine gender among their cold-blooded neighbors. It also, like the medallions worn by the male lizardmen, indicated to the local militia and the new police department that she was in the permanent employ of human colonists, and so was allowed the freedom to stay within the confines of the colony overnight, unlike the laborers at the dock or those working on the streets. She was slightly less than six feet in height, several inches taller than Yuah. The skin of her face was a deep forest green, which continued down her back, punctuated with darker stripes just below her shoulders. Beneath her long powerful jaw, on her dewlap, and extending down her front, it was a lighter, pale green. Cissy, like Tisson and Sirrek, and unlike most of the twenty or so other lizardmen on the property, had been working for the household for almost two years, earning Iolanthe’s trust and her husband’s too, for what it mattered. Cissy even seemed to have won over Terrence, and that was saying something.
When Yuah had taken off her dress and handed it to Cissy to be hung up, she then turned and held on to the brass bedstead, so the reptilian maid could unlace her Prudence Plus maternal bust form corset. Stepping out of that and the rest of her underclothes, she put on her nightdress and sat at the vanity to comb her long brown hair, while Cissy put the corset away in the closet and put all the rest down the laundry chute in the hallway.
“I think that will be all, Cissy,” said Yuah.
“Yes.” The maid turned and exited the room, her long, armored tail, the tip of which was about a foot off the ground, seemed to stay long after she had made her way through the doorway. Back in Greater Brechalon, servants were required to respond with a “yes, miss” or a “yes, ma'am”, but the locals were unable to comply with this necessity having for all practical purposes, no lips. They were quite capable of “yes, sir” but the royal governor had decided that having no form of address at all was preferable to a masculine one for the ladies.
Climbing beneath the blankets of her large bed, Yuah felt more alone than at any time of the day. Her husband had been gone for almost eight months. When he had left, her pregnancy was only beginning to show. Now a beautiful young son lay in the room next door, having never seen, nor been seen by his father. It was a long journey to Brech—almost two months travel time each direction. So eight months was not an unreasonable time to be gone. On the other hand, eight months was long enough to make clear that Terrence wasn’t breaking any records in an effort to return home.
The next morning, Cissy was again present to help Yuah get dressed. Today she decided on a teal dress that featured a very tight bodice and a plunging back. The butterfly sleeves of white lace matched waves of lace that trailed down in layers over the smooth satin skirt. A very large white bow accentuated the bustle, and tiny white bow-shaped beads ran in a single line down the front, from the relatively high neckline, all the way to the floor. She chose long white gloves to accentuate the dress and a matching teal hat, shallow with a very wide brim, trimmed in blue, yellow, and white flowers. By the time she had finished her makeup, Cissy had Augie dressed. Taking her son in her arms, Yuah made her way down the sweeping staircase and into the dining room.
Yuah thought she had made it up early this morning, but everyone was already seated at the long dining table. Professor Merced Calliere, dressed in a white summer suit that his wife had no doubt purchased for him, sat at the head of the table and was already scooping forkfuls of eggs and sausages to his mouth. At the opposite end of the table, his wife, the royal governor, sipped her morning tea. The bright red dress she wore was clean in style and far simpler in cut than Yuah’s teal dress. It featured no lace or brocade or beading what so ever, but the material which covered Iolanthe from the top of the neck to the wrists and down to the floor was so smooth, and so fine, that Yuah would have bet it cost a fortune, and was probably imported all the way from Forlond.
Each side of the table had four place settings, though for breakfast, not all of them were filled. Yuah took her place to Iolanthe’s right. The two seats to her right were empty. At the far end, next to her father, and perched on a stack of books in her chair was little Iolana. The pretty little girl, dressed in bright pink, had her blond hair carefully curled into dozens of tiny ringlets, which framed her aquamarine eyes, tiny freckled nose, and bow-shaped mouth. Directly across from Yuah sat Mrs. Colbshallow. A handsome, though rather worn woman in her late forties, Mrs. Colbshallow had been the family cook for the Dechantagne household. Having journeyed to the new world, she found herself in the rather queer position of being a human servant in a land where servants were lizardmen. Since she clearly was above the level of the lizzies, she had sort of automatically assumed the place of family member. While she was still in charge of all the meals, she only engaged in the actual work of the kitchen when it suited her. Next to her was her son Saba, in a neatly pressed blue police uniform, with large brass buttons. The lanky boy who had been a step-n-fetchit for the Dechantagne home had grown to a handsome six foot three nineteen-year-old. His thick blond hair and flashing moss green eyes were a welcome sight for most girls in Port Dechantagne. Though he lived in a small house across the road, he often took meals with his mother. Next to him was another empty seat, and then next to that, to the professor’s right was seated Macy Godwin. Another staff member elevated to family, Mrs. Godwin had served as a governess and head maid at the Dechantagne family home in Shopton. Now nearing sixty, Mrs. Godwin had settled in to serve as the grizzled aunt neither the Dechantagne nor the Calliere family had.
One of the lizardman waiters placed a plate of eggs, sausages, black pudding, baked beans, sliced tomatoes, and toast in front of Yuah. Balancing Augie in the crook of her left arm, she picked up her fork and used the side of it to cut the eggs into bite-sized pieces. The local lack of chickens did nothing to lessen the humans’ appetite for eggs and the local countryside obliged. There were many birds in Birmisia, as well as dinosaurs, and quite a few animals that seemed to fall somewhere in between the two groups. Wild eggs had proven to be the most abundant food source offered by the new land. Early on, the colonists had scavenged them for themselves, but this had given way to trading with the local lizardman tribes for them. Now, with the exception of manual labor, eggs were the largest source of wealth for the reptilians.
“I believe there is something wrong with your dress, dear,” said Mrs. Godwin.
“Oh?” said Yuah.
“Yes, it’s missing the back.”
“Perhaps you have it on backwards,” offered Mrs. Colbshallow.
“I happen to know that both of you saw this dress at Mrs. Bratihn’s,” said Yuah. “You’ve just been waiting until I wore it so you could play at being blinkered old ladies.”
“It does show rather a lot of skin, for a day dress,” said Iolanthe.
“Backs are all in, in Brech,” said Yuah.
“I think it looks very nice,” said the professor.
“Oh shut up,” snapped Iolanthe.
When breakfast was over, Yuah bundled Augie up in blankets and tucked him neatly into the baby carriage she had ordered from Brech. It was baby blue, as befitted a boy, with a cute lace edged sun shade and very large round wheels to make it easier to go over the mostly unpaved roads of Port Dechantagne. Picking up her teal parasol, she pushed the stroller out the front door and waited at the bottom of the steps as Tisson carried baby and all down to the level ground. It was cool and somewhat on the breezy side, so she tucked the parasol into the carriage and pushed on down the roadway.
Though she hadn’t quite decided on a destination when she left the house, it wasn’t long before Yuah realized that she was walking east toward the heart of the colony’s Zaeri community. Here along the edge of the town, yards were large, filled not with flower gardens but with rows of vegetables, and houses were for the most part small one or two room affairs. White gravel paved the road here as most everywhere else, but there were few paved or even stone walkways. Here people walked across grass yards to the front doors of their bungalows.
Three women were outside working, and stopped weeding or turning soil in order to watch the woman in the teal dress push along her baby carriage. Each of the three women wore utilitarian dresses, which though they were the same shape and covered a similarly large bustle, had none of the lace or decoration of Yuah’s dress. They were made of coarse brown cloth over white cotton under-dresses. Instead of hats, they wore bonnets of brown linen. A fourth woman looked up from digging the weeds from her garden as Yuah reached the point directly in front of her home. She put aside her hoe and stepped quickly to the roadside holding out her hand.
“Mrs. Dechantagne, how lovely to see you.”
Honor Hertling was dressed in the same sturdy brown and white clothing as her neighbors. Her sleeves and the front of her dress were stained with dirt, and she wore a beat up pair of men’s work gloves. Twenty years old, with large, sad eyes, a small nose, and raven hair, she was not classically beautiful, and not just because of the ugly scar that ran across her left cheek to her chin. She was cute though, in an indefinable way. Yuah reached out to take her gloved hand.
“Oh, sorry,” said Miss Hertling. She pulled her hand away and removed the glove, then grasped Yuah’s hand firmly. “What a lovely dress.”
“You like it? A little bird told me that you might not approve.” Yuah was suddenly aware that she was using one of Iolanthe’s expressions.
“Mein sister and her friend.” Miss Hertling’s accent suddenly became thicker. “I am thinking that the Drache girl likes to stir up trouble. Would you like to come in for some tea?”
“Thank you.”
Tossing her gloves onto a potting bench near the garden, the young woman opened the door. Yuah parked the blue baby carriage in the yard, and lifting little Augie out, followed into the house. The structure was very small and consisted of three rooms. The front room, only about eight by twelve feet, served as parlor, dining room, and kitchen, as well as any number of other functions for which the Dechantagne household would have had individual rooms. From the cast iron stove at one end of the room to the shelf filled with canned goods at the other, the room was impeccably clean. A single bookcase contained a dozen volumes and was home to two small porcelain vases holding cut flowers. Bright light shown in through the lace-curtained windows. Augie began to fuss as Yuah stepped inside.
“He’s probably hungry again,” she said.
“If you would like to nurse him now, you may sit in the rocking chair, while I make our tea.”
Yuah set the swaddled baby on the chair as she went about the fairly arduous task of freeing her breasts from the many layers of her clothing. Though two of her three undergarments had been fashioned with breast-feeding in mind, the gorgeous teal dress had not. By the time Augie was able to begin suckling, he was red-faced from crying and his mother was nearing exhaustion. Yuah pulled the suddenly quiet baby close to her body, now bare from the waist up, and reached with a free hand to accept the cup of steaming tea. Miss Hertling turned the lock on the door, which consisted of a small piece of wood with a single nail holding it to the doorjamb.
“I wouldn’t want Hertzel walking in on you,” she explained. “I think he might faint.”
“Isn’t he working at the dock?”
“Yes, but sometimes he comes home for lunch.”
“Thank you again for your hospitality. I suppose I would have had to walk all the way back home, or find a spot beside a tree.”
“That probably wouldn’t have been a good idea. I’ve seen velociraptors eating out of people’s garbage twice this week. I doubt that one or two would chase down a full-grown person, but they always seem to multiply. I hate to think of one of them getting after a baby.”
Yuah pulled Augie even closer. “I hope you have notified the police.”
“I have. The militia too. They keep chasing the beasts off and they keep coming back.”
Yuah turned Augie around to give him the other breast. He cried for just a moment as she shifted his position, and then happily went back to feeding. She brushed his thin brown hair back away from his face.
“I don’t want you to think that I disapprove of you or your clothes,” said Miss Hertling, pulling one of the dining chairs forward to face the rocking chair, and sitting down in it. “I just think that it is very important to preserve our traditions.”
“There is nothing in the scripture or the Magnificent Law that prohibits the wearing of colorful clothing.”
“Yes, I know. But my sister and I come from Freedonia. You must understand that in Freedonia, the Zaeri face extinction.”
“You don’t really mean that do you? Extinction, as in death?”
“Murder is being committed and sometimes it’s sanctioned by the government. Those Zaeri who stay are being discriminated against and forced to move to specially designated areas. Laws are being passed that limit Zaeri rights and create special Zaeri taxes. Those Zaeri who do leave, find themselves unable to return. Things are only going to get worse, too. King Klaus II has publicly called the Zaeri an unclean race.”
“That’s abhorrent.”
“Yes, but that’s the way it is. My parents were killed and my brother, sister, and I were chased out of our home. But they couldn’t destroy what we are. We are still Zaeri and we are still alive. I think it’s important that we remember who we are. We should maintain our traditions.”
“I suppose I can understand your feelings about it,” said Yuah.
“Things must be strange for you though,” mused Miss Hertling. “I hadn’t really thought of it before. You are one of only a handful of Zaeri from Greater Brechalon. You must feel as different from us, from the Freedonians, as you do from the Kafirite Brechs.”
“Yes. I hadn’t thought about it either, at least not much, but I have been feeling isolated lately. It’s probably postpartum angst as much as anything.”
“Don’t disregard your feelings so quickly. If only I had known you were interested in being part of the Zaeri community here… well, I could have done something.”
“I don’t know if I am interested. For a long time I didn’t want to be a Zaeri at all. When I was a little girl, my mother took my brother and me to shrine every week. Then she died. I was only five.”
“Losing a parent can shake one’s faith.”
“My father called a Zaeri Imam to cast a healing spell. He did too, but it didn’t help. My mother got sicker and sicker until she died. My father of course, refused to allow a Kafirite Priest to bless her.”
“Do you think a Kafirite Priest could have healed her?”
“I don’t know, but I’ve seen so many people healed by their priests. If Kafira is not the daughter of God, how can they work such miracles?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know how magic works. I have seen Zaeri Imams perform miracles and I have seen it from Kafirite Priests, and I have even seen it from a frightening blond woman parading around in her underwear.”
Yuah laughed.
“I don’t know how any of it works,” continued Miss Hertling. “Then again, I don’t know how lighting a steam engine on fire makes it go faster either.”
“I’m sure my brother-in-law could explain that one for you.”
“Perhaps.” Miss Hertling leaned forward in her chair. “When our shrine is built here, I would like to invite you to come.”
“Is it actually going to be built?”
“Yes, just up the road. The foundation is already finished. It should be completed within the month.”
“But you don’t have an Imam.”
“That is true. But I feel confident that God will provide.”
“Perhaps you could get one from Freedonia,” suggested Yuah. “In fact, with all the strife there, so many problems, there must be many who would like to come here to Birmisia. They could start new lives here.”
“We are way ahead of you, I’m afraid. Don’t believe that there is no discrimination here though.”
Yuah pursed her lips. “You don’t have to tell me.”
“However, we have a great ally in your sister-in-law.”
“My sister-in-law?” asked Yuah, and the look on her face caused Miss Hertling to smile.
“Yes, the governor so much wants to see the colony grow, that she doesn’t even mind that it is ‘a bunch of zeets’ from Freedonia who are the new arrivals. She has, from her own pocket, paid the advance costs for three more ships to bring more refugees from Bangdorf. This after the Colonial Council voted against funding them with public funds.”
“Knowing Iolanthe,” said Yuah, “she must believe there is a profit to be made.”
“Oh, I’m sure that is the case,” replied Miss Hertling. “Nevertheless, I expect that her name will be expounded in song as the greatest Kafirite friend of our people since Princess Aarya.”
Yuah laughed again. “Oh, I can’t wait to hear that song!”
Augie was finished feeding, so she tossed him over her shoulder and patted him on the bottom until he gave a great burp. Miss Hertling held out her hands, and Yuah handed the baby to her to hold as she put back on her clothing.
“Well, I suppose I’ve taken up enough of your time.”
“Not at all,” said Miss Hertling. “I am so glad that you came by. I do hope you will do so again. You should come by for dinner. I can’t fix anything as fancy as the famous meals of the Dechantagne household, but you won’t go away hungry. And that reminds me. I have you to thank for the loaf of bread you sent home with Hero. That was one more thing that I didn’t have to do this week.”
“Don’t mention it.” Yuah stood up and took back Augie from the young woman, stepping toward the door. Miss Hertling turned the simple wooden lock and opened the door for her, then followed her out. The baby was asleep again, as Yuah snuggled him into the baby carriage. She then turned to see Miss Hertling reach inside the door and pull out what at first looked like a cricket bat, but then she realized was one of the lizardman weapons, studded along the edges with sharp pieces of volcanic glass, creating a sharp edge. The young woman closed the cottage door. Then she stepped toward her.
“I think I will walk you home,” said Miss Hertling, pointing down the street.
“Thank you,” said Yuah.
Fifty yards away, three two-foot-tall, brightly feathered beasts were fighting over the remains of a small animal. They snapped at each other with long teeth-filled jaws, and ‘squawked’ loudly as they attempted to use their sickle-like three-inch claws to pull the carcass away from one another.