And he had never mentioned the fact that he had, more than once, gone with his fellow employees to Pakt’s house for a meal and a convivial evening. It would not have occurred to Leesa that there were any circumstances under which an indigo man would have social dealings with a guldman—would walk into his house, sit at his table, eat his food. She could scarcely comprehend the fact that Nolan worked in harmony with half a dozen gulden men, and she had literally refused to acknowledge that a guldman could be his superior in the workplace. She would have disbelieved him if he had told her he had gone to Pakt’s house for dinner and enjoyed himself very much.

Before he had come to the city, Nolan would have been just as shocked to think he could have enjoyed such an event. Before he had come to the city, Nolan had seen maybe a dozen gulden in his life, and he had always had to restrain himself from staring. It was not polite to gawk at someone strange, inferior, and unfortunate, his mother had drilled into him. The courteous thing to do would be to act as if you did not notice such a person’s defects, did not realize that his gold skin and fair hair doomed him to a life of misery and worthlessness. Treat any gulden you encounter (though there were not many in-country and almost none in the lush lands where the Higher Hundred had their estates) with the cheerful compassion you would give to a mute child, an injured dog, a feebleminded old man. And never let him realize how terribly sorry you feel for him.

His mother, of course, was widely considered to be the most broad-minded of women. Most of the other indigo matriarchs—and their spouses—could not bring themselves to speak of the gulden with such tolerance. Although the ultimate gilder insult was used sparingly, virtually every other term of opprobrium was casually applied to members of the gulden race. A guldman was a thing to sometimes fear, always revile, and certainly avoid.

So when Nolan came to the city, he was astonished. Not only did gulden walk the city streets as if they had every right to be there, they ate in blueskin restaurants and patronized blueskin shops, and no one questioned them as long as they had the cash to pay their way. They could be found in any profession, though they tended toward the more scientific and mechanical pursuits; they were engineers, chemists, architects. They were also lawyers, restaurateurs, political appointees—in short, they were everywhere.