The Mirov parlor smelled of boiling cabbage, damp wool, and the faint, sweet decay that clung to Great-Aunt Hespa’s ‘deathbeds’. Today’s theatrical performance featured a particularly convincing pallor, achieved, Linni suspected, by applying a thin paste of flour to her aunt’s already papery face. Hespa lay sprawled on the best settee, a lace handkerchief clutched to her chest, making a series of pained, gasping noises that rattled the single pane of glass in the window.
“The chill… the chill takes me, Tamshen,” Hespa wailed, her voice surprisingly robust for a woman expiring by noon. “I see the ancestor’s garden. And there, beside the gate… is that… is that Borin Skarn, with a basket of fresh sausages?” She coughed dramatically, then squinted at the portly, sweating man shifting from foot to foot near the hearth, his plaid apron stained with something dark and distinctly meaty.
Borin Skarn, the village butcher, beamed. “Aye, Great-Aunt Hespa! Finest cuts for the matriarch! And for my betrothed, once the papers are signed!” He produced a greasy, blood-flecked bouquet of dried wildflowers from behind his back, their petals already wilting.
Tamshen Mirov, threading a needle with serene precision, did not look up. Her hands moved with the practiced rhythm of a woman who found solace in repetitive, detailed work, despite the impending calamity. Linni, perched on a stool by the window, stifled a giggle, muffling it against her worn sleeve. The entire charade was absolutely hysterical, though she knew her older sister saw nothing funny about it.
The front door, made of warped pine, shuddered. A sharp rap, not unlike a woodpecker with a grudge, cut through Hespa’s dying lament. All conversation ceased. Even Borin Skarn looked momentarily pale, his sausage bouquet drooping.
The matchmaker stood framed in the doorway, a formidable presence against the swirling snow. Her silhouette, even in the gloom, was sharp, defined by a meticulously starched wimple and a coat of dark, expensive wool. Her eyes, small and dark like river stones, swept over the room, settling on Hespa’s prone form with a flicker of something close to disdain. She held a heavy leather satchel, its metal clasps glinting ominously.
“Great-Aunt Hespa,” the official's voice was dry, flat, and entirely unbothered. “Your health is, as ever, a matter of great public interest.” She stepped inside, bringing with her a gust of freezing air and the scent of expensive, medicinal herbs. “I understand you have once again found yourself upon your final threshold. A pity it coincides so precisely with the Mirov family’s outstanding marital obligations.”
Borin Skarn puffed out his chest. “Guildmistress, I stand ready to fulfill those obligations! To provide a proper household for Tamshen and her kin, as any good husband would!”
She spared him a glance, a dismissive flick of her gaze. “Indeed, Master Skarn. And the Matchmakers’ Guild is always prepared to facilitate such unions, especially when they ensure the continued stability of the commune’s housing and ration distribution.” She turned to Tamshen, who finally looked up, her plain grey eyes meeting Krovul’s without a trace of fear, only a quiet, almost clinical observation. “Miss Mirov. Your Great-Aunt’s… current condition has necessitated a rapid resolution. Without a legally recognized marital status, your current dwelling designation is unstable. And as for your sister, Linni, given her age and lack of a marital contract, the Directive on Unassigned Laborers mandates her conscription to the Veridia Labor Manufactory by spring.”
Linni stiffened, all humor vanishing into tight, shallow breaths.
Tamshen, however, simply set her needle down, smoothed her apron, and rose. She walked to a small, unassuming chest tucked beneath the window, a chest Linni had only ever seen used for storing spare buttons and thread. From it, Tamshen withdrew a single, folded piece of parchment. It was yellowed with age, the Imperial seal pressed into the wax still remarkably crisp, albeit faded.
She presented it to Krovul, not with defiance, but with the quiet dignity of a librarian returning an overdue book. “My apologies, Guildmistress. I believe there has been a clerical oversight on the Guild’s part.”
Krovul took the document, her brow furrowing with suspicion. As her eyes scanned the familiar Imperial script, a slow, ugly flush crept up her neck. Her fingers tightened around the parchment, crinkling the edges. “This… this is an official crown marriage certificate! Dated five years ago! To a… Stellor Hant? The disgraced scholar? This is a forgery!”
Tamshen’s expression remained placid. “The wax seals are quite intact, Mistress. I assure you, it is quite legitimate. My husband, Stellor, and I, were legally wed five years prior. The Guild’s records, I presume, are simply in need of updating. Perhaps the original paperwork was misplaced during the last provincial census consolidation.”
The woman's lips parted, her cheeks mottling purple. Her voice, when it came, was a furious hiss. “Misplaced?! This is an outrage! An elaborate deception! I demand to see this… this ‘husband’ of yours! Now!”
Just as the words left her mouth, the entry door, which had been rattling precariously in its frame, blew open with a groan of protest. A gust of icy wind, thick with the scent of woodsmoke and damp earth, swept through the room, sending a plume of soot from the hearth swirling into the air.
Standing in the doorway, half-frozen and covered head to toe in black soot from what appeared to be a recent chimney collapse, was a tall, gangly man. His spectacles were askew on his nose, his threadbare scholar’s robes patched and singed, and his usually pale face was smudged dark. He blinked at the assembled company, shivering violently, and then, his gaze finding Tamshen, he asked, his voice raw from the cold, “Is the offer for a warm hearth still… valid?”
Krovul leveled a stiff finger at the soot-covered scholar, then at Tamshen. “Then prove it! Right here, right now! A passionate lover’s embrace!”