Page 23 of Enchanted Net
Marius made a small understanding noise. “All right. So what’s different about the Weald? Or wherever we actually were. We’d taken the train to Littlehampton, then horses north, I don’t know, eight or ten miles up the Arun?”
“I know the land there a bit,” Vitus considered. “My family is a client family of the Fortiers. The bigger parties, you know, or the times we can be useful.” He got an uncertain nod from Marius and Aline, but the twins were more familiar with how that worked. It made him guess that the other two came from backgrounds not so tied into the Great Families. “Tell me more about what happened?”
“The readings looked like they were what we expected nearer the coast, but then something, I don’t know, changed. And the whole thing went haywire, and then it stopped working. Do you really think it was the ground underneath, or the rock, or whatever?”
“I think it’s worth doing the work to check it out. Compare where your device has worked, look at the geology there. Or, I don’t know. Where the portals are. Maybe someone opened a portal at just the wrong time. The Arundel portal would be, what, a mile or two, depending where you were.”
Marius got a very thoughtful expression. “That’s a lot of work, but it’s at least somewhere to start, which is more than I had when I got here. Look, let me buy you a drink? Do you have time to chat a bit more? What are you up to, then?”
A handful of minutes later, they’d claimed a table and chairs. Marius had bought a round of drinks for everyone, and they were comfortably tucked into sharing tidbits back and forth. None of them had answers to Vitus’s particular needs. They were all older, but in that ground where they were established in their fields, but not able to be notably generous with someone setting up. Except, that was, with their information. Olivia and Oscar shared a couple of names of people who might be interested in encouraging innovative talisman work - or at least starting with competent. Vitus felt he could offer competence within his scope.
From there, Vitus asked a bit about how they’d gone about establishing themselves. Now they were into a second round of drinks, all four were more relaxed. He got several excellent pieces of advice, about how to set up, how to talk about what he did and where. And also a pointer or two for thinking about rooms to let. Better yet, they shared a few stories of things that had gone wrong for them, or at least sideways, and recovering from them.
The conversation easily shifted from that into more general gossip, catching up on various stories while Vitus had been away. Olivia told a couple, then pursed her lips. “You’re enough younger, actually. Do you know anything beyond the public about Cyrus Smythe-Clive? Such a horrible thing.” Vitus tilted his head, because he wasn’t placing the name immediately. Olivia said, “No, then. Awfully tragic - actually, maybe you didn’t hear. Cyrus married Tanith Cooper.”
“Fox House, four years behind me.” Then he swallowed. “Oh. Mama wrote.” That came rushing back. It had been the sort of unthinkable news that got shared for kind reasons and because people liked to share misery. Though in Mama’s case, it had been so Vitus didn’t offend at some later point.
“They seemed thrilled, wonderfully happy. And she died, leaving him and their just-born daughter. Horrible time. Our families know each other fairly well, though of course Cyrus and Andie are enough younger, we’re not friends, exactly.” Olivia shivered visibly. “That it could come on so quickly, and his sister apprenticing as a Healer, even.” She took a sip of her drink before going on. “He’s just thrown himself into who knows what. Immersing himself in something. No one sees him, even allowing for mourning, which, of course, he’s got every right to do.”
Vitus considered, thinking about who he knew. Thessaly would have overlapped with him, actually, and in Fox House, though he’d have to check the years. “I might know someone to ask. Does anyone have any sense of how the daughter’s doing?” They’d married very young - both of them still in their apprenticeships. But Tanith had been a brilliant alchemist, the sort who got listed in any number of the top alchemists of their generation. Besides the human loss, that she’d been loved, that was something Albion couldn’t afford. Creative alchemists were rare.
Three of the four shook their heads, but Aline offered a quiet comment. Vitus had noticed she didn’t speak unless she had something purposeful to say. “At home with a nursemaid. But the Coopers are apparently, well, they think he’s not fit to raise her, and they should have the chance. It hasn’t come to anything before the Courts yet. But my Mama knows a cousin of the Coopers, Nimby Wallace, and I gather it’s partly because they’re making sure everything’s utterly in order. Not the sort of play you get a second chance at legally.”
Vitus nodded. He’d ask Papa more about that. He might know something about it. While Papa’s work focused on the business side of things, and for excellent reason, knowing about the interpersonal feuds was absolutely essential. “I’ll ask the person who might know when I get a chance. It might be a fortnight or more. She’s got obligations for Solstice.”
“Well, so do many of us.” That got the conversation aimed in a much more genial direction. Marius had a booth at the Midsummer Faire to demonstrate some of his other devices. Olivia and Oscar were giving a lecture there on mending charms for unusual circumstances. In the end, the five of them planned to meet up at the Faire, at the least, and perhaps regularly after that. Vitus took himself off home feeling rather pleased with the day all in all. If he did not have solutions for his problems, he had at least made more connections who might help in time. And good company in several forms was a definite joy.
Chapter17
JUNE 1ST AT THE TEMPLE OF HEALING, TRELLECH
“Now, is there anyone you’d like to make sure you get a few minutes to speak with?” Aunt Metaia paused, just before they entered the gardens proper. Thessaly could hear the buzz of the people beyond, like bees but at more pitches. This was one of the great benevolent gatherings of the summer, bringing people to gossip and chatter and raise funds for the Temple of Healing and their patients in need.
Mama and Father might appear at one of them, but today, Aunt Metaia had been the one to make the donation for their entrance. Thessaly was certain it was a generous one, though subtly conveyed in an envelope. She’d seen the way the woman at the gate had reacted to the slip with the sum to be claimed from the bank in due course. Aunt Metaia made a point of being at this sort of thing. She considered it one obligation of the Council. And, of course, it was also useful for whatever her current projects were.
The gardens would be glorious, of course. They were some of the most diligently tended in all of Albion. The people in them would be just as brightly dressed, showing off their summer frocks and parasols and whatever other accessories.
The entire feel of the place was different from Arundel. That was nagging at her now. This, for all it was a space of no small amount of pain and suffering in the course of eventual healing, felt hopeful. Arundel felt like it was waiting for something. It wasn’t something out of a gothic novel, not exactly, but it did feel like there was an uncomfortable emptiness somewhere, just out of sight.
Though perhaps it was also the company. Being with Aunt Metaia felt glorious, as it always did. Even when they were behaving as women of their station ought to in public. Of course, Thessaly preferred their time in private, when neither of them fussed about upright posture and their best manners or the approved topics of conversation. But even with those restraints of society in place, she loved watching how Aunt Metaia wove through the world.
Thessaly considered the question. At school, she’d spent most of her time with the other duellists. At least when she wasn’t working on an assignment or essay or practising Incantation or Enchantment or some such for an exam. Now, it was complicated for her to talk to them socially, particularly in any relaxed form. That was hemmed in, limited to scheduled sessions at one of the private salles, and she wouldn’t be able to do that until after solstice. Her time was so full of dress fittings and social obligations with the Fortiers. Anyway, duelling wasn’t sociable, not the same way.
Of the girls she’d been closer to at Schola, a few would be here. More would be home with small children or expecting one, and few of the women of her class lived in Trellech all the time. Some of that was worries about the portals, but of course a new baby was apparently entirely exhausting, even with nursemaids. Thessaly would presumably find out herself in due course, but not for a bit yet. Wedding first, then the rest of it.
The other half were still busy with their own apprenticeships, and they’d drifted in different directions. Oh, it was a pleasure to chat when they ran into each other. They did from time to time, somewhere like these garden parties, or in the Fox’s Den, the Fox House club a little south from here along Trellech’s Club Row.
Thessaly also had her own membership at Bourne’s now. Father had insisted on sponsoring her. But navigating that socially was even more complex than the duellists, and she hadn’t bothered for months if she wasn’t with Childeric. There was a particular form of social warfare played there, about the precise choices of clothes, charms, and hair among the women. She could play that game and win it, but she also knew it to be absolutely exhausting. And whether or not they were there together, Bourne’s meant dealing with Childeric and his expectations. He spent a fair bit of his free time there, and so did most of his closer circle. Anything she did would get back to him immediately. That was entirely too much bother.
Now she shook her head. “I will let you know if I do.” Aunt Metaia, on the other hand, had a plan for today. She had various bits of Council business to do, not that she’d specified it to Thessaly. A word in a number of ears, arrangements to get together before the Solstice rites. But she mostly wanted to introduce Thessaly to people she didn’t know yet who would be interesting.
Aunt Metaia thought about the world and the people in it in a way Mama didn’t. Mama and Father treated their connections as levers to move the world, but Aunt Metaia went about it differently. She wanted to see what was individual about someone, what made them smile or lean forward. What caught their eye, Aunt Metaia had put it that way once, and what they ignored. It was curious, because by any reasonable measure, Aunt Metaia had more actual influence and power. Far more than Mama and Father did, more than Thessaly could herself hold now or likely in the future. Yet, Aunt Metaia thought Thessaly could do the same. Insistently.
Aunt Metaia was younger than Mama by eight years, but that eight years made a lot of difference in terms of energy and willingness to finish the argument. Thessaly knew they’d been arguing about introducing Thessaly to a wider circle of acquaintances - among other things - for the past few weeks. Maybe longer. Mama had finally thrown her hands up and said she certainly couldn’t stop Aunt Metaia doing what she was going to do. She’d then turned around and told Thessaly to be properly appreciative.
Now, her aunt steered them both through the guests, nodding and smiling at several people along the way. They made a pleasant pair to look at, at least. Thessaly was wearing one of her newer gowns. It was a muted green with decorations from white to golden yellow, with a few ribbon roses echoing the real flowers in the decorative garden beds. Aunt Metaia had not, for once, chosen the peacock green she favoured. Today she was wearing something to match Thessaly’s green, but darker, like mature leaves or grass in a meadow.
The introductions went well enough. They’d gone through four, all women a little older than Thessaly, with a range of different specialities. One - Gwendolyn Harrow - had an interest in Enchantment that might be a good mesh with Thessaly’s interests. Another, Christel Williams, was someone Thessaly remembered slightly from school. She was three years older, she’d been in Owl House, but now she was wrapping up an extensive apprenticeship in Ritual magic.
