CHAPTER 47
Azra'il - POV
Eris agreed to the hair test with the swiftness of someone who glanced at the result on Ghislaine's hair and concluded that desiring the same shine was not vanity, but simple common sense.
She refused to call the desire vanity.
She nicknamed the process "scientific curiosity," an expression I found amusing, given the fact that the word 'scientific' was hardly a part of her daily conversations.
I organised the ceramic flasks in her room with the same practical arrangement I had developed in the previous session. I prepared the basin, the shampoo, the towels, and positioned the chair in such a way that I could work without compromising my posture.
Ghislaine sat silently on a stool in the corner of the room. She had her arms crossed over her chest, adopting that rigid countenance of one who had agreed to be a witness and intended to honour the commitment with her usual warrior's focus.
"You may sit," I instructed Eris.
She settled herself with the rigidity of a soldier taking a defensive position in a trench. She kept her shoulders tensed, determined to go through with it with her dignity as a Boreas heiress intact.
[Eris's red hair will function as the most convincing visual test. If the shampoo works on these red locks, it will work on any type of hair among the nobility.]
〈This is precisely the market plan, Eos. Her hair is our main selling point.〉
I wet Eris's fire-coloured locks using the basin. The warm water ran down the thick strands that, although well-brushed by the maids, had never received any care beyond a soap slightly better than the common sort provided by the apothecaries in Roa.
I opened the flask and began the application of the compound.
The first few minutes passed under a tense silence. Eris kept her spine straight, refusing to lean back in the chair. Her shoulders remained firm, as if trying to prove that the contact of my hands on her head exerted no influence whatsoever on her body.
But her physical resistance did not take long to collapse.
"Hm," she murmured, her eyelids fluttering.
I maintained the massage on the pressure points of her cranium.
"It's nothing special," she stated, her voice slightly trembling, attempting to force an indifference that her body belied.
"I know," I replied, keeping my tone flat.
"It's not even that good."
"Good to hear," I said.
Thirty seconds of silence passed.
"Hhmmm..."
Eris's spine lost its rigidity. Her shoulders dropped a few centimetres, involuntarily yielding to the stimulus of my fingers. In the corner of the room, Ghislaine moved her ears to the position of practical recognition, amused to register the same sensation of torpor she had experienced the day before.
Another minute of circular movements.
"Mmm..."
"You're very good at this…," Eris commented, her voice becoming softer and more drawn out. "Where did you learn?"
〈Why do the women of this mansion suffer from such a persistent curiosity about my hair massages? First it was Ghislaine, now the Red Beast decides to open an inquiry.〉
"I've practised a great deal, Eris. On whomever was necessary to develop the technique." I continued the movements with the mechanical precision that centuries of coexisting with partners of complex temperaments had conferred upon me. "Do you want the details or are you just demonstrating jealousy?"
Eris's red eyes widened immediately. Her ears and cheeks took on a scarlet hue that matched perfectly with the tone of her own hair.
"JEALOUSY?! I AM NOT JEALOUS OF YOU, YOU ANNOYING THING!" she shouted, the indignation at the nickname and the accusation disintegrating her physical torpor.
I stopped the movement of my hands, stepping away from the chair.
Eris was startled by the absence of contact. "Don't… don't stop!"
"But wasn't it you who just called me an 'annoying thing'?"
"The hair!" she exclaimed, her ears turning even redder as she avoided my gaze in the mirror. "D-Don't stop washing the hair, please!"
A small smirk escaped the corner of my mouth. "Understood."
"S-Stop smirking!" she grumbled, sinking a little further into the chair. "You're doing this on purpose…"
"Consider it a small fee for the complimentary use of my specialised labour."
I returned to the massage and a tense silence settled in the room. Ghislaine displayed a mien of pure amusement, her ears trembling slightly as she observed our interaction.
The process of the washing and massage in itself was perfectly innocent. Eris was just a nine-year-old girl enjoying the relaxation of a hair treatment. However, the embarrassment lay in the sounds and the small sighs of approval she let escape involuntarily as my fingers undid the tensions in her head. They were worrisomely compromising noises for anyone passing by in the corridor.
"Hnnnn… yes… right there…"
"Ah… don't stop…"
Those little noises resembled the internal whirring of an overloaded boiler releasing steam under pressure, a shaky, sharp, and damp hiss that seemed to defy any protocol of public decency for an heiress of the Boreas house.
"Wow…," Eris murmured, her body melting against the back of the chair. "That felt… so good…"
The oak door was thrown open with a bang that nearly tore the hinges from the wall.
Hilda Boreas Greyrat invaded the room like a hurricane, with the posture of a lioness ready to decapitate anyone who was dishonouring her only daughter. She was panting, her chest rising and falling in a hurry, and she had an aura of maternal fury that made even Ghislaine's ears jump in fright.
Her grey eyes swept the room with combat-like speed.
They focused on me, with my hands buried in her daughter's soaped-up hair. Then, on Eris herself, who displayed red cheeks, eyes glazed with pure torpor, and a half-open mouth. Finally, on the basin of warm water and the organised ceramic flasks on the dressing table.
Hilda's face undertook a fascinating journey in the following four seconds: it started from homicidal fury, passed through the purest confusion, visited a territory of profound shame that she would surely prefer to erase from memory, and finally settled into aristocratic composure.
Hilda cleared her throat, trying to stabilise her breathing before ruining her own dignity. "What… what exactly are you two doing in here?"
"I'm testing a hair lotion, Lady Hilda," I replied, calmly, without removing my soaped hands from Eris's head. "Your daughter's hair is perfect for the test."
Hilda blinked, the warrior lioness persona crumbling under the veneer of nobility. "Was… was that all it was?"
Eris started in the chair, the torpor immediately replaced by a shame that made her face match the tone of her hair. "Of course, that's all it is, Mother! What did you think it was?!"
"Azra'il's 'shampoo' works," Ghislaine added from the corner, with her usual economy of words. "My hair became soft."
Hilda remained motionless, her eyes darting from me to the ceramic flasks and, finally, to Ghislaine's hair, which did indeed display a brilliant and silky alignment that was entirely new. She opted not to describe the creative hypotheses she had formulated outside the door. I didn't comment on the matter either.
"May I see the result when you're finished, Azra'il?" Hilda asked, adopting an executive posture so as to put an end to any embarrassment.
"The drying stage will begin now," I replied, after having washed and rinsed the foam from Eris's hair. "Feel free to take a seat in the spare chair if you wish to observe the finalisation."
Hilda sat in the nearest chair with the elegance of a lady. She watched the magical drying process in silence. I used the palms of my hands to direct a flow of warm wind, keeping the temperature lower at the root to preserve Eris's scalp and higher at the ends.
When I moved my hands away, Eris lifted her head and stared at her reflection in the dressing table mirror.
Her pupils dilated.
"LOOK AT THIS!" she exclaimed, her tsundere pride being buried by an enthusiasm impossible to contain.
She stood up and brought her face closer to the mirror. She pulled one red lock, then another, turning her neck to observe her left profile, and then her right. "Ghislaine, look how it shines!"
"I'm looking, Lady Eris," the beast-woman replied from the corner. "It's become soft and shiny."
"No, look up close!" Eris extended one of her locks towards her sword master. "It's properly smooth!" She ran her hand through her hair a couple more times, her face flushed with a satisfaction she didn't know how to conceal. "Mother, observe the difference!"
Hilda rose from her chair. She approached the dressing table with slow steps, the neutral countenance of one performing a concrete evaluation and refusing to show excitement before having sufficient data.
She extended her fingers and touched Eris's hair.
She paused her movement.
She touched the red strands again, sliding her fingertips from the root to the ends.
"Eris… it's become very soft. Brilliant," she observed, her voice exhibiting a modulation slightly different from her usual coldness.
"The result is excellent, isn't it, Mother?" Eris asked, stripped of her habitual defensive aggressiveness.
Hilda turned her blue eyes in my direction. They didn't display the aristocratic chill she had maintained since my arrival at the Boreas mansion; it was a different expression, where the social distance still operated, but was modified by the re-evaluation of value she was performing in real time.
"You made this, Azra'il?" she asked.
"Yes. It took me a few days of testing different mixtures."
"And in a few days you refined a product capable of producing this alignment of fibres," Hilda observed, her eyes turning to Ghislaine's mane and then returning to my face. "On both of them."
"The raw material used is common and easily acquired at the street markets, Lady Hilda," I explained. "The difference lies in the order and the process of mixing, not in the value of the basic ingredients."
Hilda fell silent, her fingers still assessing the softness of Eris's hair. It was the typical mien of an aristocrat who had stumbled upon a high-value-return asset.
"How much do you intend to charge?" she asked, crossing her arms.
"I was planning to charge one gold coin for a medium flask."
Hilda fell silent for a brief second, shaking her head in the negative.
"The selling price must be fixed at one gold and five silver coins," she decreed.
I glanced sideways at her countenance.
"The ladies of the nobility who buy a product for one gold coin don't give real value to the merchandise," Hilda explained, with the wisdom of one who had managed the consumption habits of the local aristocracy for decades. "Those who acquire it for one gold and five silvers feel they are buying something important. They will boast to their friends that they paid that price, not that they paid just one common gold."
[The consumption analysis suggested by the specimen Hilda presents an impeccable accuracy. The pride of the nobility is a highly profitable variable.]
〈I know, Eos. I'm updating my commercial pricing algorithms as we speak.〉
"My planning considered that the high price would act as the main signal of exclusivity," I replied, keeping my voice flat. "If the value is too accessible, the product resembles a common commodity."
"Exactly," Hilda agreed. "And the ladies of lesser means who cannot acquire the product will covet its possession with greater intensity."
"I was thinking that for the white porcelain flask and with a higher quality of ingredients," I continued, indicating the formula variation with refined essences, "it would demand a value of three gold coins."
"Five gold coins," Hilda corrected, without hesitation.
"Five?" I repeated.
"Three gold coins is the price of a high-cost commodity," she explained. "Five gold coins is the price of something that almost no one can buy. In the heads of the duchesses, that makes all the difference. And when she appears at a banquet displaying her locks with this shine and the others ask what she used, she will not mention the low price; she will say that it is a secret and exclusive formula that is not yet available on the market."
I fell silent, appreciating the implacable efficiency of the market engineering that Hilda distilled so naturally.
"Eris," Hilda called, without taking her eyes off my face.
"Yes, Mother?" the girl asked.
"You will begin using this 'shampoo' and will display your hair with this texture at every new social event. When the other girls ask, limit yourself to casually reporting that it is an exclusive product that has not yet been released to the market."
Eris opened her mouth to formulate a protest about acting as an instrument of publicity.
"You will not need to say anything else, my daughter," Hilda continued, irrefutably. "The shine and the fall of your locks will take care of doing all the work."
Eris shut her mouth immediately. She turned back to the mirror, running a hand through her silky hair with the countenance of one who had concluded that this plan was the simplest and most painless task her mother had ever instructed her to perform.
"Does that work?" she asked.
"It has always worked," Hilda replied, dryly. She turned her gaze back in my direction. "Eris has few social commitments, so she doesn't understand the political relevance. I, however, participate in weekly meetings and dinners with the most influential ladies of this city. I will require some samples."
"What is the exact quantity of samples your plan requires, Lady Hilda?" I asked.
"Six medium-sized ceramic flasks and four premium porcelain units," Hilda replied. "Consider the shipment as a market investment. The return will justify the transfer of the units."
"And what is the compensation for your part as an intermediary?" I inquired.
"A commission on the sales I manage to secure," she proposed. "In addition to priority access before the official commercial launch of the product on the market."
[Lady Hilda Boreas seeks to guarantee exclusivity of consumption before other ladies of her same social class register the existence of the merchandise. Whoever establishes the standard of aesthetics dominates influence.]
〈An impeccable market strategy, Eos. She understands the mechanics of aristocratic vanity.〉
"My counter-proposal fixes your commission at fifteen per cent on each transaction," I presented. "The test samples provided today will be treated as a laboratory courtesy. Additionally, the first flask of the premium variation of each new formulation will be delivered to your quarters before reaching any other client."
Hilda kept her gaze fixed on my countenance for a few seconds.
The left corner of her lips displayed a subtle elevation, the smile of one who has recognised an interlocutor, a seven-year-old one, who understands the rules of transactions.
"Twenty per cent commission," she counter-proposed.
"Seventeen per cent."
"Eighteen per cent commission, and I guarantee you ten clients by the end of this week," she finalised.
〈I think I will accept the terms of eighteen per cent, Eos. The guarantee of ten clients stabilises our production cash flow.〉
[Transaction analysis registered with success.]
"Deal closed at eighteen per cent, Lady Hilda," I agreed, extending a hand to seal the transaction.
Hilda nodded her head soberly, sealing the agreement with the dignity of one who had assumed the management of a promising new financial asset for the Boreas family.
"There is just one last variable I need to register before I retire," she said, rising from her spare chair.
"Say on, Lady Hilda," I replied.
"You are Paul Greyrat's daughter," she declared, staring at my snowy countenance.
"Unfortunately, an established fact."
"That is now," she said, with the specific quality of someone making a concession they had carefully evaluated, "less relevant than I had initially assumed."
It was not a compliment of maternal affection. It was the formal revision of an unfavourable technical opinion she had previously formulated, communicated with the fewest words necessary to maintain elegance. Coming from Hilda Boreas Greyrat, that declaration represented a monumental advance in our coexistence.
She retired from the quarters with the same rigidity as always, carrying her samples and with her head already processing the logistics of the sales. The wooden door closed softly behind her.
Eris remained static before the dressing table mirror, running her fingers through her silky red locks with the regularity of one checking if the physical transformation was not temporary.
"Thanks for the shampoo," she murmured in a low voice, keeping her eyes focused on her own reflection.
By the standards of Eris Boreas Greyrat, that expression of gratitude represented a concession of extreme rarity, uttered only because the physical evidence of her brilliant hair prevented any defensive attitude.
"It was a practical test of a laboratory hair formulation, Eris," I replied, dryly, gathering my materials. "The thanks should be directed solely to the efficiency of the formula."
Eris turned in my direction at once, her cheeks red with indignation at my coldness. "I'LL THANK WHOMEVER I WANT, YOU ANNOYING ALBINO! AND NOT A CLAY FLASK!"
I didn't bother to contest her noisy protest.
Ghislaine rose from her stool with that economy of movement of one who had watched the entire spectacle and formulated her own conclusions.
"Until tomorrow, Lady Eris, Azra'il," she said, retiring towards her own quarters.
"Until tomorrow, Ghislaine," Eris replied, still too busy massaging her own silky locks at the dressing table to divert her eyes from the crystal of the mirror.
I gathered the flasks and towels, organising each item with my usual methodical gestures.
I had entered that room with the purely scientific intention of testing the acidity of a hair compound on dehydrated red locks.
I was leaving the premises with an approved, high-performance formulation, a girl who would spend the rest of the autumn evening admiring her own image, and a lady of the high nobility of Asura officially tasked with transforming courtly vanity into monumental profits.
At some geometric point in the afternoon, between the first massage and the eighteen per cent commission, the laboratory cosmetics experiment had ceased to be domestic chemistry and had converted itself into a high-market-penetration operation.
I possessed no justification whatsoever to utter any complaints.
Capitalism and the audacity of Hilda Boreas had revealed themselves to possess an excellent practical utility for the Boreas house.