Page 44 of Claiming the Tower
Hereswith let out a puff of breath. Honestly, it was almost funny already. “When I come back up. I will ask for some drinking chocolate. It seems that kind of night?”
“Oh, always, if you’re offering.” There was a tug as Bess aligned things to get the last button undone and Hereswith felt the gown relax over her shoulders. A moment later, Bess was helping her get it off over her head, then working on the petticoats. A minute later, the corset was loosened and Hereswith let out a sigh. It had been one of the more formal dinner gowns, everything held up and in just so, and it was a relief to relax a little.
Once she’d been bustled into a nightgown and wrapper, Bess sent her off downstairs. Hereswith put in a request for the drinking chocolate with the kitchen when they’d finished their own supper. She asked them not to rush, as well as checking in with the staff that all was well. Then she spent thirty minutes with Papa before he declared his desire to go to bed. His current work was going well, a bit of admittedly obscure biographical writing, but something he found satisfying. Hereswith enjoyed thinking about people who’d lived a thousand years ago, whose names still meant something to someone.
By the time she made it back up to her sitting room, Bess was on the sofa. Hereswith was certain that her gown had been put away for Mary to tend tomorrow. Bess would have made sure there was a charmlight in place and her book waiting. She smiled as she settled on the other end of the sofa and reached for the drinking chocolate. “You’ve no idea how lovely it feels to come home and know everything’s been in excellent hands. You had a conversation? There’s this evening, but also something from this afternoon. You first, though.”
Bess snorted. “You mean you want to drink your chocolate. Fair.” She took a sip from her own— she’d obviously waited for Hereswith, though probably the tray hadn’t made it up here until a few minutes before. Chocolate took time to make properly, and Cook wouldn’t permit anything improper. Bess set the cup down and then laid out the conversation at the Field in precise detail. Hereswith listened, her head tilted, her own cup largely forgotten until Bess took it to warm it with her hands and magic. “Did I overstep?”
“Of course not.” Hereswith said it immediately. It wasn’t something she had to think about. “For one thing, you are your own woman. I do not wish to have your opinions subservient to mine. That’s no good.” She was feeling, incoherently, for a larger philosophy of something. That, well, that had been brought on by her afternoon, so she was going to have to find words for it shortly. “How did you feel once it was all said and done?”
“Better than I expected, honestly. And there was something in the moment where everyone reacted. Everyone took umbrage at the way Leda was going on. That felt honestly quite good.” Bess hesitated. “I wouldn’t say Leda’s an enemy, precisely, but she’s certainly not in favour of you at the moment.”
Hereswith had heard, once, that there was a theory about multiple timelines existing at the same moment. There’d been a story she’d read what, ten years ago, that played with the idea. No, eight, it was when Papa had been working on the biography of Æthelred. Hereswith had been terribly taken up with the diplomatic aftermath of the Treaty of Lahore as applied to British society. “I’ll have to give some thought to how much I care about that. I suppose that’s one more matter to file in the list that depends on how the Challenge goes. I suppose there’s a theoretical world in which that might be a bother, but I’m not sure it’s this one.”
Bess snorted softly. “Is that how we’re doing it now? Waiting on the Challenge?”
“Well, it will change how much a number of things matter. I don’t imagine that one will be terribly pressing in the next three weeks. Leda is not terribly prone to rapid action. Some nasty gossip, but we knew that was happening. This is just a case of knowing a specific likely instance. If I am successful, the map changes. If I am not, well, she’s not terribly involved with most things I care about.”
Bess opened her mouth, then closed it.
“Yes?” Hereswith sipped her chocolate, but now she was watching Bess closely. “Ask what you’re wanting to ask, please?”
Bess nodded, visibly gathering her thoughts, then trying again. “How can you be so calm about it? Knowing people are out there undermining you.”
Now it was Hereswith’s turn to consider. “That, well. It’s two things. It’s what I feel inside, and what I show.”
“Even with me?” Bess said it, then bit her lip. “Sorry. I mean.”
“Even with you. Even with Papa.” Hereswith looked away, across the room, so she could focus on the words for a moment. “What good would anger do? There are times it has a purpose. But you know how it is, especially for women. If we raise our voices, if we are sharp, if we express an unwanted opinion, far too many men— and no few women— discard whatever we say. One thing my apprentice mistress drilled into my head was that every word I say out loud matters. Not just the choice of word, but the choice of tone, the framing.”
“That is exhausting.” Hereswith looked back now, and Bess lifted two fingers. “How do you do that and not, I don’t know. Collapse at the end of the day.”
“You had the execrable Madam Judson. What did you do at the end of the day?” Hereswith used the insult deliberately.
“Fall into bed, and in the few moments before I fell asleep, despair of anything better.” Bess’s voice was wry now. “No, I see what you mean. I shoved what I was feeling down. Away. It is not permitted to appear. It has no useful place in my life.”
“And now?” Hereswith was chasing something. The question was doing some good, at least she thought it might be.
There was a twitch of Bess’s shoulder. “Now, I don’t know. For one thing, there is much less cause for frustration here, never mind anger. Your father is lovely and— he must have been quite a charmer in his youth.”
Hereswith chuckled. “I’ve heard a few stories beyond the ones he told you. A couple before people realised I was his daughter.” She spread her hands. “I gather Mama found it amusing, rather than insulting to her, but of course he was careful not to overstep once they were married.”
Bess snorted. “Well. And you, you’re just—” She stopped. “You’re like walking out into the gardens, with the light dappling across the corner, and sitting down on a bench, everything quiet and perfect. Or, well, realistically imperfect. You know what I mean.”
Hereswith ducked her chin. “That may well be the nicest compliment anyone’s ever given me.” She sucked in a breath. “I told you a little about the White Horse, before. But that’s the thing that’s always drawn me to them. That sense of the cycles. Land isn’t angry, not that way. It’s impartial in its consequences, sometimes, but that’s a different mode. I try to be more like the land, and less like someone bullying their way through the world.”
“Is that going well for you, then?” The thing about Bess, one of the things Hereswith kept realising and being daunted by, was how she noticed things. And then she said them out loud, at least to Hereswith.
“Sometimes. Sometimes better than others. Being angry at work, the political choices people make with other people’s lives, that will not change anything. It might make things worse, throw away any chance I’d be listened to about the places someone might bend. Or at least think of the practicalities a bit more.”
“Something particular? Besides the gossip?” Bess leaned forward, resting her fingers on Hereswith’s knee for a moment.
“The same awful parts of the war. Who sends men off to fight without a thought about how to feed them or house them? We do apparently. It hasn’t been so terribly long since we had the Napoleonic Wars, people still alive who remember what it was like fighting them. The underpinnings needed.” Hereswith flicked her fingers. “I think of it a little like the underpinnings of a dress. If you want the outer show to be a certain way, the petticoats and corset and such need to suit that. Not go against it.”
“I am certain,” Bess said, “that if you tried that particular explanation on most of your colleagues, they would look at you blankly and then ignore your further comments. Even though, yes, it makes sense.”
“Most of them. Marcus found it lovely, but then he spent the next three diplomatic outings comparing various sartorial choices with ships and such. I had such a hard time not giggling at the wrong times.”
