Dear Diary,
I am pleased to report that the business with the scribe is concluded now- and in my favor! Faboo told me it would be all right and it was! He is a good sort, for a man, and a kajirus. But I swear, and this is a secret, sometimes I consider him a better friend then the girls. He doesn't gossip for one, except about slaves, and who cares about that, and he acts sort of not like a man, enough that I can ignore that he physically is one.
Anyway, the scribe did haul me before a magistrate and made her case. Maxwell refused to hire a lawyer for such a "triffle" as the case, but he stood for me himself. Once the woman was done ranting she called several witnesses, all of which attested to the unraveling of the thread and her tripping over her own robes and landing so...aaa well, it seems she had shown off some of the frilly undergarments she wore to everyone who was there, sometime while breaking her pinky finger.
After she was finished, she demanded I give to her the price of the work, and twenty gold! Twenty! I would not see that in a lifetime! I had started to cry again when Maxwell spoke, and Diary, he was magnificent! He illustrated so expertly that I can't be held accountable for the damages since I did not place the door nail where it was, or force the scribe to get caught by it, and that since the work had been paid for after it was done and inspected, if she had fault with it, she should have not paid at all, but since she did, she admited de facto that the work was superior enough to pay for. Something like that, he said many words I did not understand.
At any rate, the magistrate listened very gravely to the scribe's pricey lawyer and to my humble dyer brother, and he decided in our favor! He even instructed the woman to pay us for court costs, and to pay him for wasting his time with "drivel." It is odd how all men have considered this matter so unimportant, but how important we women thought it to be. The scribe swore she would ruin me for this and tell all her high caste friends not to patron the shop and I do not doubt she will try. But my regulars come, and my business has not suffered at all during this long, long worrisome month, and I have the feeling that more consider it more her fault then my own.
I think I will make a new tunic for Faboo to wear at the shop. I think I will make it scribe caste blue.
Happy Ending
The Lost Thimble
Dear Diary,
Life is horrible! I don't think I can ever show my face in public again! I had done work for a woman of the Scribe's caste, way too much blue if you asked me, and it was good work. She paid me fully and then went to her party, or whatever it was that she went to and she snagged the rising moon on her hem on a door nail. The embroidery began to pull out, leaving what she claimed was a trail of blue thread in her wake. She claims she did not notice it and that many laughed at her behind her back, and then she says that she tripped over the thread and broke her pinky finger and now it is all crooked!
But the worst is, she blames me for this incident. Oh, diary, what ever shall I do! The woman accosted me in the middle of the market as I was purchasing some red threads, and accused me of subpar workmanship! Was it my fault that she is a clumsy, graceless cow? Is it my fault her party was held in a place falling apart that has door nails sticking out?? Oh, but she made such a scene, and ranted and shrieked and pointed her broken finger at me, and it is all crooked now, and oh! I think I am ruined!
I cried all afternoon on Faboo's shoulder. He has been great in all of this, politely turning away my regulars and asking them to return tomorrow. Though he cited "family" issues, everyone in Ar must have heard of the incident by now! If it were not for Faboo, I would be more a wreck then I am. He locked up the shop and suggested I return to my apartment to "get a hold" as he put it. And then he came up bringing tea and listened to me cry the remainder of the day until he had to return to Maxwell's. Why can't more men be like Faboo? Understanding and gentle I mean. Maxwell blew off my complaint as if it were nothing! Nothing! I am ruined and he thinks it nothing and my only friend left is a kajirus!
My work is NOT shoddy, that bitch should have watched where she was going! I hate women like that, who think because of station or wealth they can get away with anything. But Diary, she is threatening to sue me unless I return her what she paid, plus pain and suffering. I could be hauled before a magistrate! I could end up in the stocks! Ruined, for the good of a door nail!
What a somber epitaph that would be. Here lies Lucretia's Pyre, Maxwell could say, dead for the good of a door nail.