Page 31 of Apt to be Suspicious
“What makes you think I’m observant? You barely know me.” Pen said, frustrated.
“I know you were in Salmon House, and I know that some of your house magics encourage certain kinds of observation. Mama was in Salmon. You enjoy cryptic crosswords, which suggests a particular kind of mind.” He added it before she had to ask. “And you just seem like an observant sort. That you have a good mind is demonstrated by Uncle Giles and Aunt Cammie and their reaction. Who else would I ask?”‘
“Dozens of people!” She threw her hands up. “Carillon, you make no sense. You’re not at all logical.”
“That would be why I wish to borrow a cup of it.” He said it with an unreasonably charming smile, but then he went on, tilting his head. “I am trusting my own self. I don’t suppose it would be easier, but if you’d rather call me Edmund, you’re welcome to.”
She nodded, not daring herself to try that, never mind suggesting he might call her Pen. “All right. What have you observed?” He must have spent some amount of time putting together his information, because he presented it in a remarkably orderly manner. He had noticed gossip about a handful of men, all well-off sorts. Like Carillon himself, except they’d gone to one of a handful of the right public schools— Eton, Harrow, Winchester. They were the kind with plenty of money, without a need to marry well for station or income. He then added a few notes about some thefts at country houses in some of that same set.
“How on earth do you know about the thefts?” Pen asked when he came to the end of the explanation.
“Clippings services and a few inquiries. Someone my parents know asked me about it when she realised some of the people involved were up at Oxford.” He glanced up. “Gossip is such a fascinating vector— that’s the word I want, yes?— for information.”
It made her snort. “All right. And you wonder if I’ve noticed anything odd?” He nodded once. Pen did not have his advance preparation, but she had been thinking about the problem on her own for ages. “A couple of things in my own college. Somerville.” He must have known that, he nodded once. “But also, there have been some odd advertisements in the papers. They don’t fit.”
“I saw a couple of those!” He pulled a different notebook out of the other side of his jacket, thumbed through it, and read several out.
“Like that. There are a couple more you didn’t read, going back through Michaelmas term.” Pen bit her lip, realising that she’d just admitted that first, she had spotted something, and second that she’d done a certain amount of investigation already.
“We can come back to that then.” Carillon considered. “What was the other odd thing?”
“There’s a woman in my college— Cecily Styles. I don’t think she’s magical, but I keep wondering if I’m wrong. I can’t pin down what nags at me about her, but there’s something that does. It’s not really her clothes or her hair. Though she has longer hair than you’d think.”
“That is not a name I know.” Now he leaned back, one arm stretched out across the back of the seat. “And I likely would.”
He seemed so confident of it, as if it were the perfect pose, chosen to set him off like some classical statue of an emperor. But she knew more than enough Roman history— it didn’t take much— to know that for a lie.
Chapter 21
A punt on the Isis
“Why on earth is that something you’d know?” Edmund watched Miss Sterling, but more than that, he was trying to get that thread of Naming magic to work to his advantage. It was why he’d proposed the punt. There wasn’t anyone within a good hundred feet or so, and that made it much easier.
His workroom had warding that helped, but any of the public places— a cafe, or the JCR or anything else— there’d have been far too much background noise. Or at least that was how Uncle Alexander described it. Like trying to listen to a musician while people were rustling programmes and papers and such from behind. Now, Miss Stirling’s voice was sharper. She wanted to know the answer to that question, but he could have deduced that from her having asked it.
Her overall reactions were puzzling him, honestly. She’d agreed to come out with him; she hadn’t asked for something that looked less personal. She didn’t seem afraid of him. He knew how to look for that. It had been part of his training as a duellist, under Professor Fortier, for one thing. Duellists were honest. That was the thing. Miss Stirling was used to the cordiality of a vicarage or any other such place. But she wasn’t using that here.
The question now was how to answer that, or rather how fully. It didn’t do to show his cards, even if he suspected she still had information that would be a help. As well as perhaps further resources. “We touched on some of it earlier. I was born into a particular family, with longstanding roots and obligations. Knowing who else is around, what their interests might be, that is something like breathing or reading for us.”
“You don’t look much like it.” Her eyes narrowed. “You’re reading Greats.”
“Yes.” Edmund was not at all sure where she was going with this.
“Why? It’s not— what use is Greats in a world like the one we have?” Now, she was letting him hear her irritation. It wasn’t anger. It didn’t have that edge to it. It was aimed at him, but it wasn’t entirely about him. He was here as a convenient figure of focus for it. Uncle Alexander would be pleased with the analysis later. So would Mama. But first he had to navigate through this conversation sensibly, and not get caught up in the muck of the river bottom or the rushes and weeds at the bank.
“That’s quite a personal question.” Edmund kept his voice even. He could do that. “But, mmm. I’ll give you a couple of reasons. The first is that I like to think the ancients have a great deal to say about war, about peace, about how not to make the same mistakes over and over again. The weapons we fight with are different now, but we are still as dazzled by the shiny new ones as the Trojans were by what Hephaestus made for Achilles. And just as envious and stubbornly minded.”
He turned his palm over, and went on, not giving her a chance to interject. “Second, among certain people— more men than women— reading Greats and coming away with at least a Second indicates a particular sort of mind. It opens doors. I might want those opportunities later. Third, what I actually want to do is philology. Having half a dozen languages under my command, ancient and modern, can’t hurt.”
“Where did you serve in the war? I gather you did.” Now Miss Stirling’s voice was sharp.
“Thank you for not assuming I bought my way into something easy.” Edmund nodded once, partly to give himself space to frame the next bit properly. He could put a bit of magic behind it, to make it easier for her to take his answer at face value. He knew how, but he also didn’t think this actually needed that.
“I was in London, doing the sort of work I’m not permitted to speak about. Aide to someone quite senior, mostly. It was work that mattered, but I also wish I’d been doing fighting of the sort people understand much better.” That was more than he’d meant to say, more than he usually said. It was true and it did not touch too closely to his oaths. If she’d been where he thought she had, she deserved that much truth.
She blinked at him, then frowned and shifted in the seat. “Which languages?”
The thing Edmund was coming to appreciate about her was that she was relentless, like a terrier in search of a rat. There was a determination in her that shone through. She didn’t fuss about the non-essentials. That was it. He was drawn to it in a way that demanded further investigation. “In order I learned them, then. English, obviously. Latin, Greek, French, German, Arabic in three dialects, and while my ancient Egyptian is not yet at an acceptable standard, I continue to improve in all three scripts. One of these days I’ll get better at Middle English. A smattering of Welsh. That’s just enough to be polite in Trellech shops, I’ve never studied it properly.”
