THE DYER AND
THE DRESSMAKERS

BINDIA PERSAUD

We had begun to despair of a dyer ever again appearing among us. Once there were three, serving twice as many dressmakers. Now, there is only Berta, and she has been old since my girlhood. She is blear-eyed and palsied, and her powers have almost deserted her. Jacquetta is a great talker, and she has cleverly steered the tastes of our patrons in a direction that shrouds Berta’s decline. For many seasons now, the ladies of the court have attired themselves in gowns of filmy white, set off with a sash or hat ribbon in some soft vernal shade—primrose, blush, the palest of azures. Things might have gone on like this for some time, were it not for the envoy.

She was a pallid young woman who had come before the Duchess to negotiate a trade agreement. The first goods she displayed were poor and undistinguished, so no one was prepared for what she brought out next. Some audibly gasped when she unfurled the mantilla; the Duchess, schooled in self-mastery, merely pursed her lips and nodded.

I did not witness this, of course. What I know, I gleaned through snatches of gossip overheard at dress fittings. Naturally, I had to see the mantilla for myself. I positioned myself at a high window just as the Duchess was making her way to church. Even from that distance, I could see it was no commonplace thing. It seemed almost alive, a tangle of leaves and roses gracing the Duchess’s slender shoulders. The Duchess treated it with no particular reverence; as she walked, it slipped into the crook of her arm and she left it there. Still, I knew our time had come. We would be stripped of the Duchess’s favor and thrust out into the world.

I did not tell the others this. What purpose would it have served? I left Jacquetta to her chatter and Berta to her drooling and snuffling. The only one who I considered taking into my confidence was Susanna, but she was preoccupied with her daughter. Theodora was so named because her mother had been getting on in years when she bore her. We had searched her, as dressmakers search all their daughters, when she came squalling into the world, but she had lacked the distinguishing marks. Now, at thirteen, she had that peculiar mix of sullenness and gaiety that characterizes girls awaiting their first blood.

She had been told what to expect when her flowers arrived, and we were on hand with clean rags and cold compresses when the day came. Her mother fussed and made much of her, but she was peevish, almost tearful. “Mama, it hurts,” she mewled.

“It’s natural. It will pass.”

She sat up. “It doesn’t hurt there. It hurts here.”

She raised her arm. Nestled in the tender hollow of her armpit was a translucent polyp the size of an acorn.

I forgot how to breathe for a moment. I wasn’t the only one. Elation, tinged with fear, rendered us immobile. Long minutes passed, and Theodora cried in earnest. Ultimately, Berta had to prod us into action. She bid us fetch a length of unbleached muslin and lay it on the floor. Theodora was directed to stand over it, arm raised. Before she could protest, Berta reached out and pinched the protuberance between her skinny fingers. Theodora gave a whinny as a drop of fluid leaked from the polyp. It was as colorless as water, but when it touched the cloth it spread and bloomed into a rich carnelian red. Theodora was still sniffling, but the sight startled her into laughter. It was contagious, as a child’s mirth can be. Berta flashed her gummy smile while the rest of us collapsed into giggles. When we had collected ourselves, I gathered up the material and set to work.

The dress I made was simplicity itself, without frills, without an edging of lace, without so much as an extraneous button. When I had finished, I packed it in a box and slipped our monogrammed card in with it. At first light, we sent it off to the Duchess.

Our fortunes didn’t change right away. Theodora’s earliest efforts yielded up strong, true colors that were perhaps too much for some. Many were loath to give up their old gowns. Even so, one would behold, in a sea of white, a lady clad in zaffre blue or canary yellow, like an exotic bird among a flock of swans.

We didn’t tell Theodora that her work had not found universal favor. We petted and praised her; the first dyer in a generation, how could we not? Still, she discerned the truth. When the girl assigned to clean our rooms stretched upward to dust the mantelpiece, she revealed a flash of scarlet underskirt. Theodora said nothing, but she looked stricken. Of course, it is established practice for mistresses to pass clothing on to their maids, but Theodora’s work was not meant to serve as a drudge’s petticoat. Quietly, she asked me for cloth, armfuls of it, as much as I could supply. When she had it, she retreated to her chamber and locked the door.

She stayed sequestered for some time. Susanna was concerned; if we had not held her back, she would have shouted and banged on the door. When Theodora finally emerged, she was limp and exhausted, but a faint smile of triumph played upon her lips. When we entered the room, we saw the heaps of fabric had been transfigured. The new dyes were simultaneously richer and subtler. Harmonious shades blended together, or, conversely, contrasting hues warred with each other. Each new shade was married to a quality that was not color, but somehow served to elevate it—creaminess, or depth, or luminosity.

As Susanna began to roll the lengths of cloth into bolts, Jacquetta, who had a keen instinct for these things, assigned herself the task of naming them. I had the steadier hand, so I affixed labels and took dictation. A lovely rust-red shot through with gold was christened Maharani. Fiamma Rosa was the name given to salmon-pink with an opalescent sheen. Purple edged with green, like a week-old bruise, was dubbed Walpurgisnacht.

We could have held a private meeting, invited our most exclusive clientele, but in the end we decided to set up a stall in the inner courtyard, like the humblest of merchants. In the morning, we attracted mostly curious onlookers, with actual buyers no more than a trickle. By midday, that trickle had swelled to a stream, and by evening, it had become a deluge. I did nothing but sew for a month straight. My hands cramped, I began to see double, and there was a pounding in my head like a great anvil being continuously struck, but it was worth it. We were given grander apartments, and the Duchess sent Theodora a letter in honor of her elevation to the post of official dyer. I still remember her look of shy delight as she broke the seal.

It wasn’t long before we began to receive private commissions. One of our first clients asked for a dress the color of snow. It was a cool white, of course, but there was something more to it. Somehow, Theodora had captured the hard glint of the sun against a frost-laden field, the dark hollows where rabbits burrow.

Then there was the masque of dusk and dawn. A lesser dyer would have clothed half the party in rosy hues and half in somber ones, but Theodora could see beyond that. She picked out those colors common to both, but the dyes she created for dawn were pellucid, while those for dusk were wrapped in haze. The astrologer, when she came in for a fitting, said when the revelers danced together it was like a great celestial event, the confluence of the morning and evening skies.

Demand came thick and fast after that, and it wasn’t long before we had to start turning people away. Theodora was the arbitrator. At first, we had demurred at this, citing her youth, but she would not be swayed. No matter how many times she was asked, she refused to reproduce the colors of fruits and flowers, perhaps considering them beneath her. She entertained only those requests that struck us as outlandish. We didn’t know the cause, whether it was childish arrogance or a wish to discern the limits of her talent.

One such case was that of the alchemist. The woman rarely left her laboratory, so it was a surprise when she presented herself at our studio. Susanna escorted her to a chair where she sat blinking, like a mole that has ventured aboveground. When she spoke, her voice creaked. “I want a dress the color of remains. Do you understand me? It has to be the color of debris, dead things.”

For once, Jacquetta was startled into silence. Susanna answered. “Madam, I don’t think we can—” Theodora cut in. “I’ll do it.”

Susanna looked worried. “Darling, are you sure—”

“I said I’ll do it.” Her voice was soft, but there was no mistaking the steel behind it.

It took her a whole afternoon. From outside her door, we heard grunting and a cry of pain, but she completed the task as promised. The dye she produced was a dull maroon shade with a thread of brown running through it. It exemplified the notion of decay so perfectly, I was compelled to hold my nose while sewing, even though there was no real odor.

Jacquetta named the new shade Caput Mortuum. The alchemist pro-nounced herself delighted and paid us twice as much as was agreed. We all crowded around Theodora and congratulated her, but she shrugged us off.

Not long after that, an ancient, doddering lady-in-waiting came to see us. There had been a love affair in her youth, but her paramour had been sent abroad as an ambassador and had never returned. She still wore a cameo at her throat as a token. She wanted a gown in remembrance of their love; love thwarted, love denied. At this, Susanna stepped in and refused; what could Theodora know of such things? Her daughter overruled her, and the gown, ash-violet with a silver luster, was duly produced. That might have been the end of it, but six months later, the lady’s lover returned to court. She came back to us, and this time the dress she desired was to be in honor of love ascendant, love triumphant.

I was working on that very same dress when Theodora came and planted herself by my side. She stroked the material as I started on a seam. One might have expected it to be red, but instead it was a rich amber, like cognac swirled in a glass. I stayed quiet, so as to invite Theodora’s confidence. I was closer in age to her than any of the others, so if she were to unburden herself, it would be to me.

She let her hand fall away. “It isn’t right, you know. The color.”

“How can you say that? It’s perfect.”

She didn’t reply, and I didn’t venture to speak again until the silence pressed in on us. “Why aren’t you happy, Theo?”

For it was so; she was unhappy. We had been loaded with high honors, but none of them pleased her. Just the week before, we had been invited to dine with the Duchess herself. True, we were placed at the very foot of the table, but it was a privilege, nonetheless. Theodora should have been glad, but she pushed her food around her plate and barely raised her head the entire meal.

She brought her hand to the fabric again. This time she burrowed her fingers into it. “There are colors behind the colors. Colors no one else can see. I can see them, but I can’t make them.”

With that, she got up and left. Perhaps I should have followed her, but I didn’t know what to say. I could have let Susanna counsel her, but there are things beyond even a mother’s wisdom. I left well enough alone, trusting that matters would right themselves in time.

Our next assignment came from the Duchess herself. We were to design the uniforms for the new maids of honor, each with a color corresponding to a particular virtue. Red for courage, green for temperance, blue for prudence, white for chastity—what could be simpler? Theodora had got no further than the first two before we could tell something was wrong. The red was a rusty oxblood, and there was something bilious about the green. She looked unwell; her face was pale and slicked with sweat and she was holding her arm at her side in an odd manner. Some maternal intuition prodded Susanna into action. She seized her daughter’s wrist and pulled her arm above her head.

The protuberance had swelled into a bubo. It had blackened and was twice its previous size. Theodora swayed on her feet, and Susanna reached out to catch her. We encircled her and ushered her into bed.

She stayed there for the next two weeks. She lay in a fever, weakly clawing at the blanket. When she spoke, we couldn’t make out what she said. The words sounded like gibberish, but perhaps they were the names of colors from some realm beyond our own.

We passed her last task on to Berta, but before long, the assignment was forgotten. More pressing matters had overtaken the court, namely, the purported death of the Duchess’s consort.

No one had ever seen the consort, but rumors abounded about them. Some said that they had died years ago, after being impounded in a dungeon below the palace. Some said that the consort was not a human being at all, but some manner of beast. The consort’s death and the Duchess’s grief may have been feigned, but the mourning she imposed on the court was all too real. She came to us personally to apprise us of her will.

We gathered around her in a semicircle, heads bowed. We had never been so close to her before, and it was rather like standing in the full glare of the sun. If she noticed our unease, she had the grace not to remark upon it. Before she spoke, there was a scrabbling behind Theodora’s door. She was alone in the room; we would have left Berta to watch over her, but she was our only dyer now, and we needed her. At the sound, the Duchess raised her face, as if scenting the air, before turning to us.

“The rest of the court can make do with black armbands, but I myself will need full mourning; gloves, gown, and veil. You can do this, yes?”

Susanna spoke, her voice tight. “My daughter is ill.”

“Is that so? I’ll send for the court physician.” She turned on her heel. Over her shoulder, almost as if it was an afterthought, she added, “This isn’t a request.”

As soon as she was gone, Susanna sprinted toward her daughter. We didn’t follow until we heard a thin keening emanating from the chamber. When we entered, we saw Theodora face down in a sea of ink. I don’t know if the bubo had ripened and burst of its own accord or if she had helped it along, but she had fulfilled the Duchess’s command. The sheets were dyed a black so absolute that it was like staring into the void. Theodora herself, by contrast, was a pitiful bone white, as if some vital essence had been leached from her.

There was nothing else for it, so I started on the Duchess’s mourning clothes. The sheets glistened, but the dye was fast. One never knows, though; perhaps this dye will insinuate itself under the wearer’s skin, thinning her blood, stopping up her breath. I hope it does.

I laid aside a scrap of sheet for Theodora’s shroud. She had said she saw colors that no one else could. Perhaps she can make them now.