Today I
am interviewing Lily, the heroine of Vain.
Her gray eyes are lively, and topped by thin, angled eyebrows. A delicate
blue veil covers her hair, though the color of her brows would suggest her
locks are dark, perhaps even black.
We are visiting in the cavernous hall of the Lord of Ribeauville’s home. We
sit in wooden armchairs with comfortable pads on the seats. A small table
between us holds our silver goblets of watered wine. Smoke rises from the
central hearth nearby, the low fire warming the chilly spring air.
Lily has
been welcoming to me, but tentative, not yet completely comfortable in her role
as mistress of such a great house since her marriage to Theophilus last fall,
in the year 839. She smiles expectantly as she awaits my questions, revealing
tiny dimples in her cheeks.
What
do you do to relax?
“This
will sound odd. Designing a garment relaxes me. By designing, I mean those
first moments when the fabric is spread on the worktable and I have the image
of the tunic in my mind but I have yet to place it on the fabric.” She nods,
reliving the memory of such a moment. “Perfection is possible then. The pursuit
of it diverts me so much that I do not worry about other things.”
I
think maybe I can guess, but as a child, what did you want to be when you grew
up?
Lily
brushes at the fabric of the cornflower blue tunic that seems simple yet flows
around her legs with the perfect drape. “The only thing I ever wanted to be was
a tailor, just like my parents.”
Tell
me about your family.
“The
beginning of my answer is very difficult for me to talk about.” Lily frowns and
repositions her arms so that her fingers can caress a needlecase hanging from
her simple gold girdle. “My mother died about eighteen months ago. My father
abandoned me very soon after her death, leaving me to fend for myself in my
parents’ weaving and tailoring shop here in Ribeauville.” Lily smiles faintly.
“If not for Theophilus — his friends and your readers would know him as Theo —
if not for him, I do not know what would have happened to me, but now he is my
husband and the most important part of my family. We have Nox, our orphaned house
servant, and my father is trying to get back into my good graces.” She shrugs.
“That is my family.”
If you
could apologize to someone in your past, who would it be?
Lily
looks away to a point near the door to the master chamber. “There is a young
noblewoman who thought she would marry Theo. She was very mean to me when I was
a lowly tailor, and she tried to…interfere…with Theo and me after he was forced
to marry me.” Lily frowns as she looks back at me. “I was sharp with her,
without really understanding the trouble she was in. I am not proud of that
moment, even though Theo and my friends assure me she was more in the wrong than
I.”
Is
there a piece of advice that you have received that has really stuck with you?
If so, what was it?
Lily
smiles. “Marian is an older woman who did her best to advise me in the early
days of my marriage. I was miserable. I did not know what to do about my
equally unhappy, angry husband. She told me to begin as you mean to continue. It was good advice because she
taught me to not accept behavior in myself or Theo that I did not want to
persist through the rest of my life.”
Do you
have any special routines or rituals?
“Oh, this
is embarrassing.” A blush stains Lily’s cheeks and she shakes her head. “To get
me to stay in bed when I was little, my father told me to sleep tight against
the wall so the monsters could not reach me. Now I find it hard to fall asleep
without something solid against my back.” What does your husband think of
it? She blushes even more. “He is even better than a wall, so we have both
learned to cope.”
Vain, Book Three in the Evolution
Series, can be purchased at most online book vendors, including Amazon, Barnes
and Noble, iTunes, and Kobo.
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