Page 51 of Apt to be Suspicious
“There is a whole series of times when the gods impersonate someone. Usually, someone the person, the human they’re talking to, knows. Sometimes the human notices they must be a god, though. It’s rather interesting when you stack all the stories together. I was looking through them last night, my notes and a couple of translations.” He glanced over at the bookshelves. “I like to think I’d notice if a god talked to me.”
Pen listened to this, then tilted her head. “Are you— are you religious, Edmund?”
To her surprise, he flushed. “Reasonably, yes. Not Christian. And what I do, not in any public sort of way. Though I’ll go to chapel at Exeter now and again. I like the flow of the ritual even if it’s not mine. It’s well designed for what it’s doing.”
It was the oddest discussion of the Church of England she’d had in some time, though she couldn’t argue with any of it. “I go because of my grandfather— he’s a vicar. But I like evensong for the same reasons. Soothing. Predictable in a way that has, I don’t know, deep chronological roots.”
“And maths and music dance well with each other,” Edmund offered, looking up at her. Someone else might have peered over glasses, but this had a sudden intimacy to it, without actually requiring her to do anything about that. More she was going to have to think about. Then he offered another form of vulnerability. “A particular devotion to Mercury, in his Romano-British forms, as consort to Rosmerta. There’s a little shrine in the conservatory. You’ve walked right past it.”
Pen had very little idea what to do with that information for a moment, then she blinked. “I— isn’t he known for being a trickster? You have seemed...” Her voice trailed off.
Now, Edmund had a particular sort of smile. “A man— or woman— can seem to be one thing and be quite another. Though that’s our question, isn’t it?”
“Ours?” Pen twisted to face him better. The position of his chair and her bit of sofa made that a little tricky. “Why am I here?”
“You are the one who noticed something odd. You can be in places I can’t. And— well. You’ve had good ideas so far. You also don’t have any observed moral objections to hiding information in at least some cases.”
“I’d argue that cryptography is mostly— well, the parts I’ve been around— figuring out what other people are hiding. Though also hiding things better.” Pen ran her hand over her face. “Now I’m making your argument for you, aren’t I?”
“I gathered from Uncle Giles and Aunt Cammie that your proposal involves some amount of theory about better cyphers.” His voice was utterly neutral for a moment, then it warmed. “Do say you’re taking Uncle Giles up on his offer?”
That immediately made her lean forward. “You want me to? You said it wasn’t a bother to— all that.” Even though he’d gone to some lengths about it.
“It was no bother to connect two people— three— interested in the same things, who really ought to have been introduced years ago. I enjoy doing that sort of thing, when I can.” Edmund waited a moment, but Pen did not know what to say to that, and held her tongue. “At any rate, some conversation yesterday clarified that it might be useful to figure out some things. I have been given advice about how to put some of it into motion, but I would very much like your thoughts and help.”
“My help.” Pen sounded entirely dubious. “Why would you need me?”
“For one thing, I’m fairly sure you can do the locational magic calculation part quite easily. It’s the end of term. I’d rather not bother Professor Wain. I took Time and Place, but my focus was on ritual spaces, and this is a little different.”
Pen snorted, but she couldn’t actually argue with the maths being easier for her. “What is it you’re trying to figure out?”
Edmund took a breath, reached for his notepad, and then glanced at it, as if to remind himself of some order. “The information I have strongly suggests a couple of things. First, there are some earlier photos of Cecily Styles that don’t quite match the current woman. It’s hard to tell, of course— the general particulars match, hair colour and overall build. But there’s a lot of space in those. Dark hair, medium height and build, all that. She dresses well, but that’s not the sort of thing in the official records.”
Pen couldn’t argue with that either. “All right. And?”
There was a longish pause before Edmund said, carefully. “My war work was secret, like yours, and for many of the same reasons. Dancing around both of our oaths, what I can say is that I know where you were working, and I visited there once or twice. Very much in the train of senior administrators, of course.”
Pen blinked at him, multiple times. “You. Wait.” She let out a huff of breath. “I don’t know what to do with that information.”
“For the moment, I hope it simply gives some grounding for the next part. Which is that through that, I have a connection that agrees there’s something a trifle odd about Miss Styles and her background. Nothing obvious, but of course, so many kinds of hiding aren’t. For both good and bad reasons.”
“I’ve wondered for a bit if she might have been a refugee who came here through unusual means, making a life now.” Pen knew a few other stories like that. People who had borrowed papers, then been stuck using them, in a kind of infinite limbo. Or others, who’d had everything destroyed in the Blitz, and remade themselves into something new.
“If it is something innocent, I’m hoping that what I have in mind will clear that up. And it can remain entirely unofficial. But if it’s not...” Edmund shrugged. “We have hints she’s certainly targeting people who can’t defend themselves in that way. There might be a good reason for that, but there are also a number of less desirable ones.”
“All right.” Pen let out a breath. “What is it you want to do?” She listened as he explained the outline. Parts of it still needed to be worked out, permission from Lord Davenport, the setup of the space, all that. But it was, she had to admit, a practical sort of plan. Someone had thought about the places it might go wrong, though perhaps not all of it. “What if she screams or claims you attacked her or something?”
“Some of what we have in mind will keep that private,” Edmund said carefully. “There’s some discussion of having someone else, who has skills I don’t, in case we need them. My father’s steward, Master Benton.”
Pen considered that. “You aren’t dashing in to be a solitary hero?”
“No.” Edmund looked at the shelves for a moment, then he stood, going over to stare at something on one of them. A photograph, though Pen couldn’t see what it was. Or who, rather. “One thing I’ve thought about a lot is the structures that allow for visible heroism. Brave people doing necessary things, but it takes a lot to put them in the right place. Then I think about Telemachus, isolated in his own home. Odysseus, on his way home, until there’s only him and whatever help he can persuade along the way. Penelope, on her own.”
He turned to look at her then. Pen spread her hands. “You know I’m named after her. I’ve never been entirely sure what to think of it. But also yes, I know the stories. Child’s version of the Odyssey on the bookshelf when I was young and all that.”
“She’s enigmatic in the text. If you want chapter and verse, as it were, I can show you. If you’d like.” There was, she thought, something there that was shy, not a mood she expected from someone like Edmund.
She found herself saying, “Yes. I’d like that. When we’ve sorted out this plan you have. What is it you think you can do magically?”
