Sala’s central district was not large, so it did not take me long to reach Cutters Row and the tailor shop opposite Queedle & Clutch. The bell jangled as I entered. Two men sat cross-legged on a raised platform in front of the shop window. The straw-haired man was sewing buttonholes and the black-haired man was finishing a collar. They greeted me with friendly smiles before glancing toward a screen that concealed the other occupants of the room.

“No, the cuffs should not come to the crease of the wrist,” Vai was saying in a tone whose self-indulgent fastidiousness might provoke a less patient man into taking scissors to every garment within reach. “They should be a finger’s width longer—no more!—so the wrist is not exposed when I extend my arm to its full length. You see how that ruins the look.”

I shook out my cape and hung it from a hook at the door.

“I can’t possibly wear this! Please tell me you have not cut the other two to this same length.”

“I have not cut the third one yet, Magister, for I am not sure of the fabric.”

“I have already told you which fabric I want. Did I not make my wishes clear?”

I smiled at the two men, who smiled knowingly back at me. They had obviously endured many of these harangues; I quite wisely never stayed long in the shop when I did come with Vai.

“Of course, Magister, I have already taken care of the problem with the other dash jacket, if you would like to try it on. Let me help you. Just a moment, if you will.”

The tailor emerged from behind the screen to see who had come in. He was a bent old man with the wry demeanor of a person who has for his entire life successfully done business with overly particular customers. “Salve, Maestra,” he said. “Thank you for coming.”

“You are a patient man, Maester,” I said in a low voice, with a glance toward the screen.

He inclined his head, thankfully not denying the sentiment. Like me he kept his voice low. “He holds others to the exacting standard to which he holds himself. The first dash jacket I made to his specifications he wore when Magister Viridor introduced him at the ghana’s court. In the ten days since, my custom has tripled and I have had to advertise for more sewers and cutters.”

Through an open door I could see into a sunny room in back, where men bent over garments in various stages of assembly, conversing in a merry rumble of masculine voices.

“The work out of your shop is very skilled.”