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Samuel’s mame is many things. She is kind, kinder than the world deserves. She is doting and loving, her heart open to everyone. She is funny and can put her foot down when the situation calls for it. She can be very angry, as all good mothers can be, but Samuel always knows that anger comes from the depths of her love. She is gentle when caring for Samuel’s scrapes and bruises.
What she is not, however, is awkward.
So it is greatly concerning and confusing in equal measure to Samuel, when one day, she comes to him with a bundle of cloth in her hands. Her face is a bit red, and she refuses to meet Samuel’s eyes.
“Schmuli,” she says, dumping the cloth into Samuel’s arms unceremoniously, “here you go. You can return it to Sir John now.”
She looks like a great burden has been lifted from her shoulders and the tone of her voice implies that Samuel surely knows what this mysterious item of clothing is. Which he doesn’t.
Being able to take a closer look, Samuel recognizes it for what it is- a dress. It seems quite luxurious, soft to the touch with a deep, rich brown colour, gold detailing on the bodice. It looks every bit like one of the modern dresses he sometimes sees the wives of the city’s rich and powerful wear, except the neckline on this dress isn’t as low.
Which answers precisely none of his questions.
“What does he need a dress for?” Samuel asks, bewildered. His mame squints, and squints, and continues squinting at him for a good long while, eyes burning into the depths of his soul.
“You mean you don’t know what this is for,” she says, slowly. Samuel feels like he is six years old again and trying desperately to prove that the plate he was holding a minute ago and is now shattered on the floor is definitely not his doing. He shakes his head no hesitantly.
“You really don’t know what this is for,” his mame repeats, leaning forward towards Samuel.
“No?” Samuel squeaks, leaning back slightly. But he would deny it when asked. “Did he ask you to get him a dress for some reason?” And it looks so expensive. Samuel hopes John repaid his mame in full.
But the idea that John wouldn’t trust him enough to procure a dress and rather ask his mame is a bit insulting, though. Samuel’s fashion sense is great. He would be able to find even better dress than this. And it’s not like John hasn’t asked for weirder things before, anyway.
“No, it was already among his clothes” his mame answers, and Samuel feels relieved for a second, before he realizes that means someone unknown must have gotten the dress for John. Yes, he will get John another dress. One even prettier. Samuel stomps down the thought that this is, by all accounts, a bit strange to think towards another man, even if said man is your lover.
“I asked him to give me any clothes he needs washed, and this was among them. I thought you, erm,” she blushes slightly again, “knew of its purpose.”
Samuel doesn’t know what the purpose of the dress should be. Perhaps it’s normal, among rich nobles, to own a dress, just because, well, why not?. Cloth is expensive, maybe they own it to display somewhere so they can show everyone else how richer and nobler they are.
Which doesn’t really make sense, since John told him Christians supposedly value self-restraint, reticence, and humility, but expecting Christians to actually follow what is in that book of theirs, Samuel has learned, is expecting a bit too much.
Samuel tries really hard to remember whether he had some dress-related conversation with John in the last few days, but nothing comes up.
“I don’t know. Of it’s purpose, I mean.”
“Well, good, good,” and with these words, his mame quickly and purposefully marches away, not looking back. Samuel is left standing in the courtyard, abandoned and alone, holding the mysterious dress. If he was raised with a bit less respect, he would think his mame was almost running away from the conversation, but he was raised right, so he doesn’t.
Samuel does a quick calculation in his head.
If John already had the dress among his possessions, he either bought it himself, or someone else had bought it for him. If he bought it himself, then he most likely had it even before he came to Kuttenberg. If he got the dress after he came to Kuttenberg, then he must have asked someone else to buy it for him, on account of John not really being able to leave the basement or the quarter except under serious precautions.
In which case he should have asked Samuel, because Samuel would have found an even better dress, and John would be thankful and give him a kiss on the cheek. Which would be well deserved.
Making his way to the tavern, Samuel notices nobody in King Solomon even looks surprised that he is holding a dress. Well, it is what it is. John’s whims are strange.
Finding John standing over the table, studying some map, Samuel takes a moment to notice how the candlelight reflects off John’s hair, for once free of his cap. Why he insisted on wearing it even here was beyond Samuel’s understanding.
“Oh, good evening, Sam!” John’s gaze lifts up from the map he was studying.
Samuel crosses the basement and refuses to let himself kiss John properly until he gains his answers. He wouldn’t want to get distracted, after all.
“Mame is sending you back the clothes you wanted washed.” Samuel gives John the dress, and John turns to put it back in the chest where it probably came from.
“Please pass my thanks to her,” John says, and goes back to studying his map. Without explaining anything at all.
Samuel continues standing there, looking at John looking at the map, until finally, without taking his eyes off, John asks, “Do you need something, dear Sam?”
The term of affection would normally make Samuel’s heart leap, but now, there are more important things on his mind, “Who gave you the dress?”
That catches John’s attention, and he slowly looks up at Samuel again, eyebrows slightly raised, mouth parted. He looks at Samuel for a moment and looks, and continues looking, and just when Samuel is starting to wonder whether he has some dirt on his face for John to stare so intently, John finally says, “Who gave me the dress.”
It is not phrased like a question.
“Yes,” Samuel answers, getting a bit tired of repeating everything he says today, “I want to know who gave you the dress.”
John’s expressions shifts, and Samuel is reminded of a cat that has its prey in a trap, with no means of escape and no intention to make its suffering short.
“Sam, are you perhaps jealous?”
“No, I’m not jealous,” Sam answers, because he is definitely not jealous. He is simply concerned that John would rather ask someone else than him for the dress. Which is not jealousy.
“But I would be able to find you a better one.”
John continues looking at him, silently, as if Samuel has grown a second head. Then he bursts out laughing. The force of his amusement is so strong it forces him to sit down on the bench, putting his head in his hands, trying to muffle himself.
He finally calms down after what seems like eternity to Samuel.
“Sam,” he says, breathless, and there are tears in his eyes. Samuel doesn’t think he has ever seen him this hysterical.
“I bought the dress myself, about a year ago, when it came in handy for a mission,” John explains, pronouncing each word carefully. It feels like he’s afraid that saying it faster would make their meaning fly over Samuel’s head.
“How does a dress help you during a mission?”
“Sam,” John says, again, and now he looks like he is at the end of his rope, “you saw me in it two days ago.”
Samuel only gives him a look of incomprehension.
“I told you, in the morning, that I would put on a costume and go undercover to one of the wealthier parts of the city and you told me that if I wish to risk my neck then that’s my problem. So I put on the dress and went out there to listen if I might catch some piece of gossip that might be useful. And then,” John makes a pause, looking at Samuel’s face very intently, “when I was returning in the evening, I met you just a street away from the quarter. I said hello to you, and you looked at me like I was some type of apparition.”
Oh. Samuel does remember that.
“You did not recognize me,” John says, voice drier than a desert.
Samuel honestly didn’t. Now that he thinks about it, that woman did look a bit like John, but her face was painted, and her hair was in a veil, and her gait was different than John’s. And it just did not occur to him that some Christian woman, skipping around the streets of Kuttenberg with seemingly no care in the world, could have been John.
Shaking his head, Samuel sits down on the bench next to John, a bit closer than strictly necessary. Still, there is one thing he does not understand.
“What did you tell my mame the dress was for?”
John props his head with his hand on the table, scrunching his eyebrows in confusion. It seems everybody is confused today. “I did not tell her anything. Why?”
“Well, she was really awkward when she was giving me the dress, and seemed to think I know what it’s for.”
John thinks about that for a bit, then his eyes widen in realization. He groans, and puts his head on the table, banging it slightly.
“What?” Samuel shakes him by the shoulders lightly, nothing being clear to him, again.
“She probably thought we’re using it during our, well, you know,” John stammers, “nighttime activities.”
Samuel has three thoughts on the topic. First is that yes, that would definitely explain the hesitation and awkwardness. Second is that his mame is brave for even touching the dress under such belief.
The third he voices out loud. “We could do that?”
“Oh God,” John groans again into the table and for once, Samuel does not reprimand him for bringing his God into situations that do not call for it.