The Sorcerer practically handed me to my future.
Although he had been thorough as he explained to me the nature of the bohemian part of town I was to go, I didn’t understand the cause and effect of living amongst the libertines of the Capital City.
I’m sure the Sorcerer did.
We become the people we surround ourselves with. I’m sure you understand that, Shepherd.
Anyway, I did exactly as the Sorcerer told me to, and everything went precisely as he said it would.
He had prepared me well for getting set up in a place of my own.
My palms tingled when my landlady handed me those copper keys. One for the street door and one for my apartment. None of it seemed real until I opened the door for the first time.
Moving in was easy, since all I had was what I had carried when I fled for the carriage that would take me to the Capital City.
I loved that apartment, in some ways even more than my glorious Casa.
By the time I moved in here, I was at ease with riches and the luxury wealth afforded.
But in the beginning of this Life, my apartment was beyond my wildest dreams.
The landlady brought me there in the late morning. The light alone made me fall in love with the place.
The windows faced east, and stretched more than half the height between floor and ceiling. The sun beamed through those tall windows, and the radiance was so brilliant I almost believed I had just entered the gates of heaven.
I knew I had to live there as soon as I walked in.
The spaciousness was too wonderful. In that first minute in what would be my first home, I savored the sweet taste of freedom. Real freedom. And I had never known it in my life.
How incredible it was that I remained inscrutable. I could scarcely breathe. I wanted that apartment so badly it hurt.
The landlady was exactly as the Sorcerer had described, a stout matron with a tight mouth and beady eyes that darted from side to side. She clearly loved money, especially when it flowed to her easily.
She didn’t pay attention, however. If she had been more observant as she guided me on a tour of her best apartments, she could have cheated me with an exorbitant rent.
I managed to talk the rent down to nearly half of what the landlady declared as the proper value for it.
Of course, offering six months rent immediately with a gold coin put the negotiation in my favor.
The landlady stared at me as if I had just said I’d been born on the moon. Then she gushed and promised to be at my service if there was anything more that I needed, anything at all.
After I got to know the Capital City, I found that there were many apartments of a similar style and spacious layout, even with brilliant morning light.
But to me, that apartment has always been the most beautiful place in the world.
The elegant building I moved into was divided into four identical apartments between two floors. Mine was upstairs with a southeastern exposure.
My neighbors across the hall and below me were courtesans, and a con man lived in the downstairs northwestern apartment.
I was shocked that the landlady told me all that straightaway. Yet later I would learn that nobody in the bohemian neighborhood attempted pretense at respectability.
I didn’t take much notice of my neighbors right away. That was my biggest mistake. But I had been in the Capital City for less than a week when I moved in. I was so overwhelmed with this strange and wonderful new place I couldn’t attend to specific people just yet.
My first days in that apartment, I wandered from room to room, looking up the blank walls that stretched so high. I had no furniture for weeks because I had no idea what to get or even how to get it.
I didn’t mind having nothing in my new home. I saw endless possibility in the vast emptiness of the rooms.
The first day I went to the open-air market in the town square, the sights, scents, and sounds staggered me. The cheerful shouts of the merchants to boast of their wares lent a celebratory atmosphere to the place, while the aroma of exotic spices wafted through the air.
When I saw the beautiful rows of autumn produce in yellows, oranges, greens, and some reds, the thought crossed my mind that I may have picked the ripe fruit and vegetables, and my blood ran cold. I couldn’t bring myself to get anything other than a loaf of bread, a round of cheese, and thick slices of cured ham.
It was just as well. When I got home, I found that I had no pots or pans to cook in, and I could have gotten those at the market too.
I stared out the windows for hours, looking at the comings and goings of the people who lived on my street.
They were like nobody I had ever seen before!
Everybody seemed so glamorous, the women with their sweeping gowns, dramatic cloaks, ornate hats, and hair falling in perfect coils over their shoulders. Their parasols may have protected their fair skin from the glare of the sun, but the main purpose served was to make the women look elegant and stylish.
The gentlemen were almost as leisurely as their ladies, their fashion no less decorative with their stockings, heeled shoes, tight breeches, fitted waistcoats, high hats, and canes that were seldom needed for support while walking.
Suddenly, my Patron and Patroness, and their spoiled Daughter and Son seemed provincial and ridiculous with their affected airs once I could compare them to the sophistication and easy confidence of these marvelous Citizens of the Capital City.
I was also painfully aware that the Patron’s Daughter’s clothes that I came with seemed ordinary at best, and dowdy at worst next to the gorgeous fashions I saw everyday. Although I had the money to pay for new clothes, I hadn’t an idea of where I could find them.
This was especially mortifying, especially because I could see I was no longer invisible.
With the exception of the Noble Son, I had never been seen in my life. Yet once I moved to the Capital City, every time I left my building, everybody could have been the Noble Son.
People peered at me closely all the time, openly looking me up and down. Even though their expressions revealed interest and curiosity, rather than hostility, contempt, or even indifference, I was embarrassed. I didn’t look like somebody who belonged there.
I didn’t know it at the time, but everybody in the neighborhood wanted to know about me.
As if I didn’t stand out enough with my country clothes and the air of one who was lost, I would later find out that my landlady had gossiped about me paying six months rent up front with a gold coin.
The Sorcerer was right in that nobody asked questions.
But everybody sure talked.
