Rage and Rebellion (Histories of Havenhearth)

1.5 Sophine

Sophine and Adephine decided to first go and get something to eat as they had not had anything in their excitement to leave for town. They went to a small restaurant on one of the alleys off of Food Street. The sisters looked around, the tables were full, this was evidently a popular place. The clientele was mixed. There were a few tables of peasants, like them. There was a table of scholars, and another of spiritualists, and another still of merchants, who seemed to be negotiating over the price of something. She had chosen well, if all of these people also enjoyed the food here. A server boy with a white apron came to greet them, a little surprised to see people his own age eating alone. "We'd like two bowls of soup please,"
"Do you have money?" What a question! A pang of embarassment shot through her.
"How much is it please?"
"Two coppers. Each." Sophine reached into her girdle and pulled out some coins, picking two coins and putting them onto the table.
"Here then,"
The boy snapped up the money and went off to the kitchen, shouting out the order. "Two bowls of soup for the two farmer girls," Sophine did not know whether to feel proud or ashamed of that announcement. Proud because she was buying her own food and sitting on her own in a restaurant, or ashamed because she had been announced as a farmer girl.

The bowls came out piping hot, with cabbage and leek and a big spoon with a flattened bottom for the little dumplings to sit in. The girls slurped it down, possibly the best soup they had ever eaten. The boy chewed on a small stick he had finished picking his teeth with, watching them the whole time. When they had finished drinking the broth from their bowls, the boy asked what else they would like. The sisters looked at each other, both with hope in their eyes for more, so Sophine nodded. "What'll it be then?"
"Well, what do you recommend?"
"Some bread maybe? With egg or meat?" He was upselling now. In general the servers would start with offering the more expensive dishes, but he did not often deal with clientele such as these girls often so he hadn't suggested anything.
"How much is that?"
"Five each."
"And without meat and egg?"
"Three."
"Two breads, with meat and egg please," the boy looked surprised, he clearly had been expecting her to order the cheapest version. He held his hand out for the money, and she handed over the coins. "And two cups of tea." She gave Adephine a wink.
"Coming right up," he said with a smile, he was on their side now, he wanted them to have a nice time. It was clear that this was a special occasion for them. He returned to the kitchen, calling out as he had done before, but this time he said, "for the rich farmer girls," and they filled up with pride, sitting up talk with their chests puffed out, in case.

They scarfed down their bread and meat and egg (again one of the most delicious foods they had ever tasted).
"Let us now go to the cake shop, to close our stomachs with something sweet," Sophine said loudly, so others would hear and know that they had money to spend, but no one took any notice. They stood up to leave left, Adephine whispered to  her sister, "Look, over there! another foreigner." Was Chevelles always full of foreigners? Sophine could not believe she had seen two in the same day. Maybe it was because of Lantern Festival.  A wave of confidence came over her- she might never have this chance again. "I want to say hello. Come on." She walked over.
"Hello," she started, "sorry to bother you, but where do you come from?"
The foreigner, another lady, was this time tall and slim with hair the colour of the earth which Sophine tilled on her fields. She looked a little bit Cassioni, but her features differed from Sophine's own high cheekbones and small mouth.
"What a surprise to hear a Cassioni speak Petroviese so perfectly,"
"Petroviese?" Sophine crinkled the flesh around her eyes and on her forehead.
"Yes, the language of my land. Where did you learn to speak it?"
"I do not know," she said in earnest and the lady laughed. "Well, it is lovely to meet you. My name is Yarazhenya."
"I'm Sophine and this is my sister Adephine."
"You are farmers?"
"Yes, we work the fields west of Chevelles."
"It looks like you bought some candles from my market stall, did you?" The woman peered into their basket.
"Yes, to celebrate the last day of the festival."
"Would you follow me back to the square? If you please, I'd like to give you something."
Sophine started walking behind the woman. Adephine tugged on her sister's arm.
"What are we doing?"
"Didn't you hear? We're going to her market stall."
"I didn't hear anything, you were speaking in a funny language again."
"I was? How strange."
Once at the market stall, Adephine pulled on Sophine's sleeve again, pointing back to the space next to the temple where another crowd had gathered. This time there was a group of foreigners, and from the looks of things, they were a family.
"Do you know those people? Are they too from your land Mrs Yarazhenya?"
She laughed again.
"No need to use Petroviese honorific form with me young woman - I have no idea where you even learnt that - but if they are who I think they are, no they are not of my land."
"But they look so much like you!" Sophine protested.
"I would think they say the same of the Cassioni!"
"How could they? We all look so different."
"Do you? If you look closely, you'll see that they do too," Sophine looked back at them, while Yarazhenya prepared something at her stall.
"Well, they are from a land called Tainland. Across the sea. That's what I've heard at least."
"Tainland?" Sophine asked, "like the teacher?"
"Yes, you know her too? They are spiritualists." Yarazhenya had heard of them through the linguist.
"Spiritualiats are good musicians. You should stay, if you can. Here, this is a gift from me," Yarazhenya handed over a red paper package tied with a matching red ribbon. "It has been a pleasure I have not felt in a long time being able to speak my own language with someone."
"The pleasure is my own. Many thanks." Sophine placed the gift in Adephine's basket.
"I hope to see you again, young woman, as I have much to learn."
"As do I," Sophine put her hands together in front of her and bade her new acquaintance a farewell in the Cassioni style. Adephine followed suit.
"What is happening? I have never had so much excitement. I wonder what will happen next." Adephine exclaimed, looking back and forth between the family and the candle stall foreigner.
"Let's look at the gift later, let's finish our shopping."
"She said that they might do a performance later. Maybe we will have luck and see them with our family tonight? But we must return home."
Adephine's shoulders slumped down in disappointment.
"How much money did the foreigner give us?" She asked her older sister.
"Two silver coins,"
"How many coppers that is?"
"Forty-eight coppers."
"And we just spent fifteen. Four on the soup, Ten on the bread, and one for the tea. That means we have 33 coppers left. Do you think we should spend save or spend them?" Adephine's eyes widened, forehead creased at the prospect of shopping with newfound riches. Sophine did not need to wait for an answer. She knew her sister well enough.
"Let's buy some fruit and cakes for everyone as a surprise."

They went to the fruit and vegetables market and chose some melons and summer berries, and something called a dragon fruit, with fuscshia spiked skin outside, white flesh and black seeds on the inside. They stopped at a  cake stall, which had shaped sweets, decorated with nuts and dried fruits. Some were perfect circles, in different colours, others were shaped like flowers and trees, land and sea animals, fruit and other foods, earth, water and air spirits. Sophine's favorite was a fish the colour of a red apple, with long, whimsy fins which flowed around her like a silk robe- it was even more beautiful than the perfect peach she had previously admired. She decided to buy both of them. Adephine picked a cake in the shape of a star, and together they picked some of the plainer circle ones for their family members, the weight of the basket now starting to strain from the meat, cakes, fruit, candles.

They plodded along the dusty track back towards their house, snacking on the berries they had just purchased with the extra money from the first foreigner, feeling as they were as rich and as lucky as if they were of the ascendancy. The sun high in the sky now, their bellies full of food and their minds full of thoughts. It was strange that Sophine had been able to speak to the foreigners in their languages, but she thought not about that, and imagined her family's faces as they showed them all that was in the basket. They walked along until they reached the field out in front of which stood a little shrine made of earthen bricks with a timber roof. It had been built by her grandmother. "Let us each burn an incense stick here, to thank the earth spirit for all of our good luck today," Adephine was carrying the basket upon her back now, and she put it on the ground, and very carefully pulled out the incense sticks. Someone had left one burning recently and she was able to light hers from that one and then her sisters from hers. They stood there together, facing the shrine and gave their thanks silently, watching the red smouldering of the stick and the smoke of the incense curl up into the rafters of the roof of the shrine. "Did you give thanks?" Sophine flicked away the ash.
"Yes,"
"You know what I just realised? We haven't even looked at the gift from the Petroviese?"
"The what?"
"The foreign lady from Petrovia that we met. The land south of Cassion."
"I've never heard of it,"
"The candle-maker who gave us the red package. Let's look at it before we go home,"
Sophine and her sister sat down at the side of the shrine, and gingerly, she untied the ribbon, and peeled back the paper. Inside was a beautiful collection of coloured candles: red ones for luck, blue ones for happiness, orange ones for prosperity, green ones for harvest, and white ones for health. And right in the middle of them all was the most beautiful pale yellow candle, in the shape of a sunflower, the large flowers which grew out behind their house and which they sometimes planted in their fields. "It's too beautiful to burn. Let's keep this one, in our bedroom, and we can look at it anytime we feel sad- what do you think?"
"A secret?" Adephine asked.
"Yes, do you promise?"
"Promise," and Sophine wrapped it back up and put it into her tunic, thinking about how and where she would hide it. As the sun neared zenith,  soon to start its decent in the sky, the sisters finished the walk home with high hopes of excitement for the return that afternoon with the rest of the family.