> ♪"Hey! Hie! She flew too high, with fire in her eyes, She sailed with Old Oderos, but she met her own demise! For the crown slipped through, and her life did too, with a blast of gun and flame— Feliza Annabel’s dead and gone, but we’ll never forget her name!"♪ —Enerlish air shanty, The Ballad of Feliza Annabel-Otiz.
STRUGGLING
Airship Cavalier Queen, somewhere in the sea of clouds en route to Prathardesh 09.06.03.12.01
There were sounds in the languages spoken by the ship’s crew and officers that Deng-Nah was struggling with. Some were alike to sounds in his own tongue, and yet subtly different, a matter of half a rice-grain’s width in the mouth between placing the tongue here versus there, or the tiniest snarl of the lip.
Without Mouse’s help, learning it may have been beyond him. Having somebody he could communicate with without speech was the only lifeline Nah had, for the moment. And though Mouse could share his understanding of these sounds, these subtleties and differences, there was much long hard work between understanding and practice.
Still, Deng-Nah could not have asked for a better tutor. After a mere eight days aboard the ship, he was picking up Garanese with reasonable haste. Whatever power it was that granted Mouse this power of mind, it served beautifully for education.
The ship itself was a marvel, and oddly named. Cavalier, from what he had gleaned off Mouse, meant something like ‘showing a lack of concern for what is Proper.’ It seemed astonishing to name a ship after such a definitional vice, but even more astonishing that these folk might actually consider cavalier-ness to be something of a virtue.
They certainly didn’t run her in a cavalier way. Every five hours, the new watch went over the same series of important concerns as the previous one: they checked the many ropes (”Rigging”) for fray, bad knots and other concerns. They swarmed all over the huge bag, sniffing for even the smallest leak. There were skeins of thin cloth hung about the bag and rigging that grew soaked as the ship flew through clouds or rain, and the water was dilligently collected in barrels to be used not only for cooking and drinking, but also for washing clothes and scrubbing the deck.
Every watch repeated these rituals in an orderly manner, marking the time with bells, noting the completion of each task, speaking precisely and clearly and with their own kind of Proper Way. And then, when the work was done, they relaxed and grew informal while they sat around to tend to the less urgent chores like rope-weaving, cloth-mending and other such small acts of maintenance.
While Deng-Nah may not yet be good enough with Garanese to understand much of the conversation, he could tell a lot by the tone of voice and especially the tone of laughter. The humans of this crew, it seemed, had a ribald sense of humor.
The elves, though…
He could scarcely read the elves. Most were sun elves, pyrfey in their own tongue. Their skins were mostly red, or shades of orange, umber, copper and hickory, they wore patterns of bright dots across their cheekbones and noses, and they called themselves Rüwyrdan. According to Mouse, the word meant something like ‘Endless Penance’ or ‘Path of Eternal Regret.’ And then there was the other one, the quartermaster, a she-elf with skin as white as apple blossom, hair twisted into ropes like birch bark and eyes that flashed in many hues. She was Nerissith - ‘Frozen Tears’ or ‘Cold Lament’.
It had never occurred to Deng-Nah that any elves might actually be ashamed of their history. His schooling, very Properly, had never included any hint that the elves were anything other than irredeemable sadists, slavers and monsters.
His experience of them so far was very different from what his upbringing had said. They would laugh and banter with the humans, but they were also more serious, more…careful, somehow. In many regards he found them more Yunei-like than these Garanese and others.
He was in the company, it seemed, of ruffians and low-caste men. Even the captain and owner of this ship was the son of the second son of a tavern owner: a nobody. But to the Garanese, it seemed, being nobody was no obstacle. Airships were not constrained to the Proper and Noble, as they would surely have been in the Empire were they not outright banned.
The…cavalierness of that attitude stung Deng-Nah’s morals somewhat. Rough and low men these crew might be, and Mouse in particular was a thief and burglar, but they all still retained some honor. They had not resorted to piracy, at least…though Mouse knew of those who had. The same freedom that had allowed Captain Jerl’s father to buy and own this ship allowed others to do the same, and do far worse with it. There was no protection in their culture against such abuses of freedom.
Indeed, one of the songs the men sang one night as they shared their meal was, according to Mouse, the mostly true, if exaggerated, story of one Captain Feliza Annabel-Ortiz del Puerto de Acero, a whore turned pirate who’d been the terror of Guild shipping until she’d been granted something called a ‘letter of marque’ on behalf of..well, Deng-Nah wasn’t sure of the details. One Garanese noble had risen up in armed conflict against another, and the pirate-whore captain had thrown her lot in with what ultimately turned out to be the losing side. The song was curious indeed, blending a sort of derision at her misguided choice of patron, admiration for her flare and style, some rather lewd suggestions about how she earned her shot at a pardon, and recounted, with a tinge of regret, how she had ultimately been captured and executed.
“As is Proper for pirates, of course. But you make it sound like she was admired,” Deng-Nah commented to Mouse.
“Oh, she was, kinda. Legend has it, when she was lined up in front of the wall and the firing squad took aim, she ripped her top down and told them ’aim carefully, boys!’” Mouse chuckled, and then laughed openly at the scandalized look Deng-Nah gave him. “Hey, I’m not saying she was a good person, but you have to admire someone with that much style, don’t you?”
“…I…suppose such poise in the face of death is admirable,” Deng-Nah allowed. “Or was it simply a theatre of daring to cover for her terror?”
“Bravado. Who knows?” Mouse shrugged. “What sort of songs do you sing?”
“Me?” Deng-Nah asked. “I do not sing.”
“Don’t, or can't?”
“Noble men do not sing. It is Improper.”
“…Why?”
“I…do not know. It is just Proper among nobles that women sing, and men do not. I never questioned why that should be, before. Most likely it is some ancient decree by the Emperor or one of his Lords, the purpose of which is long forgotten...”
Mouse scratched the back of his head. “You know, no disrespect, but your empire sounds kind of…joyless.”
“And we would say that the joys you take so much pleasure in are atavistic and primitive. We are made for higher things than our base desires, are we not?”
Mouse shrugged and half-turned to look out over the sea of clouds below, gleaming white in the reflected light of distant earthmotes and the great white band of the Great Ring. After a moment, he took a swig of the water mixed with some potent spirit that these Garanese preferred to drink. “I don’t claim to know what we’re made for.”
“Well, I know what men more enlightened than I have said,” Deng-Nah told him. “The First Transcendent Emperor wrote a poem on the subject. In it, he states that humans are…like flowering trees. Our roots are embedded deep in an animal nature, and perhaps to escape from it entirely would be the end of us, just as uprooting a tree would fell it. But we cannot flower or if we devote ourselves only to the muck in which our roots are buried. We must stretch as tall as we can, reach for and embrace all that is high and light and divine. That is how we truly flourish.”
“How many Transcendent Emperors have there been?” Mouse asked. “We pieced together the clues that led us to you and your Word Vault from a book at the Thundering Hall, but one detail in it confused me. See…Amir, the navigator, he said that your language and system of writing was devised long ago by the First Transcendent Emperor, but later he said the current Emperor is the third Transcendent Emperor? Even though it’s been hundreds and hundreds of years? How does that work?”
Deng-Nah chuckled. “The Emperors are Transcendent because they have mastered the cycle of incarnation,” he said. “Like more masterful and conscious elves, they may return from death to their elevated position, time and again. But in time, a worthy successor comes along and so to make room for them the Transcendent One moves on to the higher mystery, and the next Emperor takes their place. The last time this happened was very recent: the current Emperor is, as you say, the Third Transcendent Emperor, but he is presently in his second incarnation.”
“But, wait. Isn’t it hereditary? How can the Emperor and the heir both be reincarnations of the same spirit even while they’re both alive?”
Deng-Nah shrugged. “Why should it not be so? The spirit is not bound by time as mortal bodies are. And considering Captain Jerl’s special power over Time, who knows what other mysteries may await a more completely awakened soul?”
He smiled at Mouse’s unguarded skepticism. “That is what it is Proper to believe, anyway. And I do believe it.”
“You do?”
“Why not? Do you believe that the elves are reincarnated?”
“Well, obviously—”
“And you yourself have great power over Mind, and Captain Jerl has power over Time, and the box that gathered dust in my family trophy room for long years contains some other great power of a similar kind. You have met the Crowns and their Heralds, and one of our noble lady allies, you tell me, married the Lord of Plenty and bore him a daughter who is very like to the green-eyed woman who haunts my dreams. And indeed, I saw your face in my dreams weeks before you first broke into my house.” Deng-Nah smiled at the uncomfortable look that flickered across Mouse’s face. “We live in a world of mysteries and wonders. Why should the reincarnation of the Transcendent Emperors not be one of them?”
“I…well, when you put it that way, I guess I can’t think why not,” Mouse admitted.
Deng-Nah smiled at him. “You are an honest man, my friend.”
“Oh, no. I can definitely say that I’m not.” Mouse chuckled.
“Well, I find you so. This exile of mine, this leaving home…it was greatly difficult. You have made it easier.” Deng-Nah rose and bowed low. “Thank you.”
Mouse returned the bow, and they sat again to watch and listen as the ship scudded on through the sky and the night. The crew were singing something else now, though of similar tone.
“What is this song about?”
Mouse, who had been staring out at the clouds, turned to listen to it, then laughed. “Ah…it is…about a woman and her exceptional donkey.”
Deng-Nah turned a skeptical deadpan his way. “…Her donkey.”
“Yes.” Mouse was struggling to keep a straight face. “Men came from miles around to admire it.”
Deng-Nah sighed. “I sense innuendo. Again. Are all Garanese songs like this?”
“Only the good ones.”
Deng-Nah tried to scoff, but truth be told it came out far closer to a laugh than he’d have preferred. He worked his mouth to suppress a smile, and cleared his throat. “Ah. Well. Tell me about our destination, this Pra-thar-desh.”
“I don’t know much myself, I’ve never been,” Mouse admitted. “Amir says the caves we’re going to are where human slaves managed to escape from the Ordfey and lived secretly in the rainforest mountains under Rheannach’s protecton.”
“Ray-an-ack.” Deng-Nah muttered, tasting the unfamiliar symbols.
“What do you call her in the Empire?”
“’Zhi-hai Yoyin.’ The Beloved Lady….What is she like? You have met her, have you not?”
“Seen. She’s…not like I imagined she would be.”
Deng-Nah tilted his head curiously. “How did you imagine she would be?”
“More…ethereal, somehow. And perfect. Kind of…delicate and doll-like, too. But she isn’t. She’s tough. And her face is beautiful, but it’s not perfect, you know?”
“She is beautiful despite her imperfections, or beautiful because of them?” Deng-Nah asked.
“Because of them. Definitely because of them.”
Deng-Nah smiled. “That sounds….”
“Proper?”
“…Well, yes. But I was going to say ’wise.’”
“Yeah. She’s not some immature fantasy of loveliness, she’s…she’s love with all its ups and downs, if you follow me. Not just the good bits, but the rough bits, the fights, the squabbles, the unglamorous mess, and the power of love to make all of that not matter if you just keep working at it.”
“…I sense you have thought about this at length.”
Mouse sighed. “I think about the Heralds and the Crowns a lot more than I used to, now that I’ve met some of them. It’s funny, I stopped seeing them as these distant ideal holy figures who maybe weren’t even really real, and now I see them as….I don’t know. They’re like a friend who’s been around a lot longer, done a lot more, and is happy to share what they know. They’re otherworldly, yes, but they’re also very, very worldly.” He paused, then shook his head. “I don’t know. I don’t think I can do justice to them with words, and I think it’s something you ought to experience for yourself, rather than have me shove it into your head with Mind.”
“Hmm.” Deng-Nah considered that, and nodded. “Well, given the path we seem to be on, I daresay I shall meet them and see for myself before too long. But you were telling me about our destination before I distracted you. Rainforest, you say?”
“Yes. It’s hot, up there on Sayf’s sphere. Back on Alakbir, we used to live underground to avoid the sun, and when they do travel on the surface they wrap themselves in several layers of light cloth. The Ilẹyedun hardly wear anything at all and the people are almost black of skin. But on Prathardesh, neither option really works because the problem there is the humidity. For whatever reason, it rains there more than the other two big Sayfian earthmotes combined.”
“One of those mysteries of the worlds.”
“Yeah. I heard they catch the water in big cisterns and like to bathe and swim and sleep during the worst of the day, then get all their work done in the cool of morning, or immediately after nightfall. Anyway, lots of rain and lots of sun means, I guess, that the forest is something amazing. I heard there are trees on Prathardesh so huge that whole communities live in the branches, because jungle cats the size of bears stalk the forest floor.”
“Can the cats not climb?”
“I guess it’s easier to fend off a big cat that’s climbing a tree than one that’s sneaking up on you in the bush,” Mouse shrugged. “I’ve heard a lot of things about Prathardesh, but I don’t rightly know how much of it is true. But from what I gather, Haptar Getesh is pretty close to the ruins of Vathcanarthen, the old capitol of the Ordfey. Perhaps we’ll see that old city too. I think I want to. I know the elves do.”
Nah shot the elves a suspicious look. “Why?”
“They’re penitents.” Mouse shrugged. “A lot of what they do is about confronting the past. And some of them…well, I won’t share details, but some of our elves were really awful people in the Ordfey.”
“Only some,” Deng-Nah kept his tone dry.
Mouse frowned at him. “You really don’t trust them, do you?”
“Not yet.”
“…Well, you’ll see. Our elves are good folks.”
“Good folks who, once upon a time, murdered their slaves for fun. That stain is not easily removed, my friend.”
“But it can be removed. And they’re committed to removing it, time and again. Trust me, I’d know if they weren’t.”
“Hmm. If I cannot trust them, then I should trust you who trusts them?” Deng-Nah considered it, then shrugged. “Very well…ah. now this song sounds different.”
Not just different, but starkly so. This one was slower, sadder and sweeter. A song about loved ones waiting at home, and the peril of never seeing them again. Deng-Nah felt it in his heart, even if he got only the impression of the words from Mouse this, rather than a translation or summary.
“They just made a liar of you, my friend,” he murmured once it was over, feeling a twinge and ache in his heart. By the Crowns, Di-Ha must surely be giving birth soon. It may be he was already a father… “That one was very, very good. And not so crude. It seems your people have an appreciation for Proper art after all.”
“Of course we do,” Mouse said, softly. “We’re not barbarians.”
“…I…apologize.”
“It’s alright. You spent your life being taught the world beyond your borders was nothing but barbarians and elvish marauders. That sort of thing must be hard to let go of.”
“Even so. I must strive to let go of it.”
Mouse nodded and they sat back in the comfortable silence of two who were already becoming good friends, and listened as the crew sang away the voyage. But Deng-Nah’s thoughts turned always to home, and to his wife, and his child.
And his hope and fear that he’d done the right thing.
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> “It’s ridiculous! All these new rules and laws and proclamations, and the buggers can’t even make the trams run on time!” —Overheard in the bar of the Quarterview Hotel, Auldenheigh
RETURNING TO HATPIN
Well Street, Porterlands, Auldenheigh 09.06.03.12.01
“And what time do you call this, Mrs. Rubb?”
Adrey paused in hanging up her hat and coat, and gave her landlord the signature wide-eyed, meek look that was the cornerstone of her Adelia Rubb persona. “I, ah…I th-think it’s about the second hour past dawn, M-Miss. Brooknetter?” she squeaked.
“Quite so, girl!” Esme Brooknetter gave her a glare redolent with overbearing matriarchal suspicion. “You were gone all night!”
Adrey glanced around the boarding-house’s small parlor for support, but found none. Miss. Brooknetter’s tenants at her female-only boarding house were a universally somewhat terrorized lot, most of them desperately searching for another address. Unfortunately, Miss Brooknetter did in fact charge very reasonable rates and provided very well-appointed rooms and excellent board for the price. It would have been a genuinely excellent place to live, if not for the woman’s infinite hatred of all things male and, rather more galling, her unshakeable conviction that the women who lived in her house were all a series of silly fillies who were perpetually a single tiny mis-step away from being raped (or worse—seduced) if not reminded of the danger on a half-hourly basis.
They’d all endured this humiliation. There was sympathy, but not the courage to actually jump to Adelia’s defence. Miss Sadie Peason smiled wanly at Adrey over the rim of her teacup; Larnie Midge and Mellie Corroy were studiously not looking her way; and Mrs. Jemma Gower, a widow still wearing her first year of mourning blacks, simply sighed and pretended to read.
They were all much the same as Adelia, really. Governesses or other such respectable careers for upper middle-class and lower upper-class women in their middle to late twenties, who had either never married or whose husbands weren’t around. Or, in Larnie and Mellie’s case, would likely never exist unless they came to some convoluted arrangement of mutual convenience with a male couple who likewise wished to obfuscate their relationship.
Either Esme Brooknetter was entirely ignorant of lesbianism, or entirely approved of it. Adrey wasn’t sure which.
“Ah…well…it’s v-very k-kind of you to w-worry, Miss Brooknetter—” she ventured aloud, laying on Adelia’s stammer a little thicker.
“Where were you, girl?” Brooknetter demanded. Inwardly, Adrey bit her tongue. She was of an increasingly good mind to give the leathery, misandrist old harridan a good does of Countessal hauteur, but that would have required her to break character. Instead, she did what Adelia would do, and shrank to become even meeker.
“Oh, I, um, my employers…y-you see, there was an Ec-eclipse last night, so I s-stayed—”
“Young lady, I thought I made it quite plain what I think about the idea of you staying away from home in the house of a man you’re not married to!” Brooknetter told her, sternly.
Adelia wrung her pinny anxiously. “The…Gladreaves are q-quite happily married, Miss Brooknetter…” she whispered.
“Speak up, girl, I can hardly hear you!”
Okay, that did it. There came a point where even the meekest persona had to stand up for herself, and Adrey felt it had been reached. She flushed pink and straightened her back.
“I s-said…I said my employers are h-happily married, Miss Brooknetter, and I don’t like your…your insinuations against my c-character!”
There was the sound of a teacup being put down and a sharp intake of breath from Sadie. Larnie and Mellie went stiff and still, but their eyes swiveled her way, and Jemma very carefully let go of a page she’d almost torn, suddenly as watchful as a spooked cat.
“I beg your—!” Brooknetter began, but Adrey was hitting her stride now. She still wasn’t about to break character, but there was definitely an Adelia way to handle this.
“D-do you think I’m some sort of, of ffff…of floozy, Miss Brooknetter?” she asked, striking the delicate balance of a timid creature driven to indignation. “Because you seem to think I c-couldn’t control myself around a man for even a second, and I find that quite insulting!”
It was Brooknetter’s turn to flush in the face. “I simply mean…well, I know what men are like.”
“So it’s not my character you doubt, but my juh—my judgement of it,” Adrey said, icily. “Which is it, Miss Brooknetter, do you, do you think I’m ssssuh…some rampant mare, or do you just think I’m f-foolish?”
She met the landlady’s eye with a glare that was pure Adrey Mossjoy. It worked. Brooknetter swallowed, and whatever lecture or indignity she’d been about to pronounce died unspoken.
“I…meant no offense, Mrs. Rubb,” she said. “I’m simply troubling for the well-being of my guests, is all.”
“And it’s vuh-very kind of you,” Adrey repeated. “Thu-though I ssshould take it as an even greater kindness if you would afford me some s-simple respect.”
The silence stretched to twanging point, then ‘Adelia’ deflated. “I-I don’t like…shouting,” she said. “But really Miss Brooknetter, it has been most upsetting.”
To her astonished delight, all the other women in the room nodded, with varying degrees of obviousness. Miss Brooknetter took note of it as well. She gave Adrey a strange look, then cleared her throat and tried to regain some face. “Ahem. Yes…well. Ah. Just…please, Mrs. Rubb, if you cannot make it home of an evening, can you not at least send a note?”
“With the curfew, Miss Brooknetter?”
“…Ah. Yes. I suppose these are, ah…difficult times.” Miss Brooknetter cleared her throat again, then quite abruptly swept up the last of the breakfast crockery and vanished from the parlor. There was a long silence, then Sadie leaned forward and hissed in a delighted whisper with her eyes wide and sparkling.
“Addie, that was amazing!”
“Oh-oh, it was…I’m sorry.” ‘Adelia’ shrank down into her timid mode again.
“Oh, don’t apologize!” Jemma said. “I’ve dreamt of telling her the same for months!”
“Please, I…I d-don’t want to make anything more of it…” Adrey was in fact now worrying whether she’d gone too far, antagonized her landlord and would now have to close down and move her safehouse. That, and she was honestly surprised herself at the outburst. ‘Adelia’ it seemed had rather a lot more grit and spunk in her than she let on.
Personas were funny things, in that regard. Live in them for a while, and they inevitably started to take on a real life of their own. Addie Rubb, tall and well-built but oddly shy and awkward, with an unexpected core of steel.
The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
Or maybe it was just there was still a lot of Adrey herself in there, no matter what she did. Either way…best not do something like that too often. But a safehouse couldn’t properly be a safehouse if a nosy landlady was watching her like a hawk. She needed more freedom to come and go. Perhaps she’d just earned that.
“Just forget it, please…” she murmured.
“Hardly. I think I shall re-live that moment in my head for years to come,” Jemma commented. When ‘Adelia’ blushed again, she relented. “Oh…very well.” She flashed Adrey a smile, took up her book again, and resumed reading with a smile playing about her mouth. Adrey glanced at Mellie and Larnie, and noted that Mellie in particular was twisting some hair around her finger and biting her lip.
Ah. Well. She cleared her throat, stood up and excused herself in a squeak barely louder than a whisper. As she passed the scullery, she saw that Esme Brooknetter was having a good stiff drink to calm her nerves. The older woman looked up at her, cleared her throat and looked away.
Well…either the safehouse was burned, or it was about to become a rather more tolerable place to live and work. Time would tell. Adrey inwardly chuckled at herself, and headed upstairs.
“You just can’t resist finding trouble, can you Addie?” She asked herself as she went.
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The genteel troubles of a few middle-class ladies at their boarding house were, of course far less trouble than she courted that afternoon, when she checked in at Besom Safehouse. The station’s custodian wasa youngish man, dark of skin and nervous-eyed, who visibly had to restrain himself from giving a paranoid look up and down the street as he let her in. He was rather new at this, Adrey guessed.
“Mister Skinner ‘as an assignment ‘fer ‘ya, miss,” he said he led Adrey through the cover business—a broomsquire’s workshop—and into the back rooms where Skinner was waiting with his usual collection of maps, books and notes, plus the necessary wood stove for rapidly disposing of physical evidence.
He gave Adrey a tight little smile as she entered. “Might be a serious matter, this,” he said without preamble.
“Share.” Adrey joined him at the table and looked down. The map this time was of Docklands, somewhat out of date but the outline of the new Oneist airship yards had been sketched in with red ink. Skinner, however, pointed to a spot slightly upriver of them.
“Seems th’ whole Clear Skies fleet an’ the Oneists own ships are all comin’ to Auldenheigh. The Oneist docks’re so crowded, they’s started rentin’ berths an’ mooring masts all up an’ down th’ river. Them berths bein’ occupied is costing some rich an’ important people some shrapnel, so…” Skinner turned a paper around and pushed it toward her. “This here fine gentleman’s throwin’ a bit of a how-d’you-do. To smooth ruffled feathers.”
Adrey frowned at the woodcut portrait, and the invitation it was attached to, to the effect that Dafid Lendwick invited Lady Samandra Bannant to his salon at blah blah address blah blah date and time, RSVP, ETC. “I know him.”
“…How close? He know you?”
“No, no. He’s one of Ellie’s cousins on the Lendwick side of the family. We never met in person, fortunately. But I know Ellie never thought much of him. Too…well. Lots of ambition, and little heart to temper it.”
“What’s a bleedin’ nobleman got to be ambitious about?” the young custodian asked. “’E’s already rich, in’t‘e?”
Skinner chuckled at the eyebrow Adrey raised. “Crowns’ truth, I wonder t’same sometimes,” he admitted.
“Ah, the great divide at work. The upper class don’t really understand the working class, and the working class don’t really understand the upper class.” Adrey sighed, and gave the custodian a shrug. “The Lendwick family married into House Banmor via Ellaenie’s mother, but Dafid here is two or three branches over on the wrong side of the family tree. The Ardensborough Lendwicks. They always did like to lean heavily on the name…Anyway, there’s probably just as many people ahead of him in line of succession to be Duke as there are in front of you.”
She smiled at the lad’s widening eyes. “In other words, he’s not really anyone important by birth, but being somebody important is everything in the nobility. Oh, sure, there are plenty of landed gentry who just sit around enjoying dances and big dinners on their estate rent, but they’re short-sighted idiots. It’s not a long-term prospect for the family. If you keep splitting an estate equally among all the sons, then pretty soon each one is lord of a manor the size of a letter paper, and they won’t be able to find a lady wife. And if you only give the estate to the eldest son, then, obviously, the younger sons get nothing and they resent it. So unless they want their children to fall out, or worse drop of the nobility and back down into the working class—and, no offense, what good parent would want that?—nobles are constantly jockying for position, prestige, wealth and to increase their estate. Especially if they’re not the eldest heir. As I recall, Dafid is the…third brother, yes?”
Skinner nodded.
“I suppose he’s not Encircled? Free collaborator?” Adrey guessed. When Skinner nodded, she mirrored it. “Then throwing his lot in with Clear Skies and the Oneists must be his gambit for prestige. And you want me to attend this ‘how-do-you-do’ of his.”
“Aye, you have it,” Skinner chuckled. “Shake hands, dance, drink, get the measure o’ ‘yer fellow guests, see jus’ how much support we’ve really got among the nobs. See especially if there’s anyone we might recruit. We’ve got any number of common folks like me an’ Mutt here, but Blackdrake reckons we need more of the upper crust on our side.”
“I’ll need a carriage and driver. And a plus-one, ideally”
“Carriage we can arrange, Mutt can drive it. As ‘fer your plus-one…I got nobody. Sorry.”
“That’s a shame, but I can craft the Samandra Bannant persona to match.” Widowed maybe? Usually a safe bet among the working class, though nobles being the frightful gossips they were, untimely young deaths did tend to become widely known…so, no. Keep it simple, she would just be an old maid who’d yet to attract a husband or fiancee. Make her…bland and uninteresting? No, not if she wanted to engage people for information. She could borrow a little from Adelia Rubb to make her sort of retiring and quiet, but…no. Make her abrasive, haughty, a little overconfident. The sort of woman the average man would balk at marrying for fear of being plowed under by his wife.
Hmm. She’d want the brown wig, the slightly unfashionable one. And a little extra padding under her stays to make her seem a touch dumpy…
Skinner chuckled. “I can see the wheels’re turnin’ already,” he declared and handed over a collection of papers. “Here’s the full brief an’ what we have on the other guests. Your support is posin’ as a servant, details on ‘ow to make contact is all in there. Burn after reading, you know the dance steps.”
“I do,” Adrey nodded.
“Arright. I’ll leave ‘yer to it. Mutt’ll keep lookout. See you next whenever-I-see-’yer, Countess.”
“You too, Skinner. Go safely.”
“Safe as I can.” he flipped her a jaunty little salute, and vanished.
Adrey accepted Mutt’s offer of a cup of tea, and settled in on a rather elderly and lumpy couch to read the briefing. Despite fully knowing the danger she was taking on herself, the largest part of her was incredibly eager and excited for this. This was what she’d signed up for!
Mutt delivered her tea: she sipped it once, then forgot it existed as she read, made notes, formed her persona, and committed it all to memory. By the time she remembered it existed, it was stone cold.
No matter. She tossed all the papers except the invitation into the stove, drank the cold tea, and slipped away out into a rainy evening to head home.
To her surprise and delight, Miss Brooknetter gave her a slightly large serving and insisted she not trouble herself with the dishes tonight. Clearly ‘Adelia’s’ outburst had left the landlady with rather more respect for her. Or perhaps scared her that a paying tenant was on the verge of leaving. Either way, it was a pleasantly quiet evening in which she was left in peace to plan her persona for the salon.
By the time she went to bed, she knew exactly who Samandra Bannant was. And she couldn’t wait to be her.
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> “The first age of free humanity began deep in the mountains of Prathardesh, in inaccessible dells and valleys where not even elfish troops could come easily. The diaries of a number of prominent Fey slave-hunters suggest that expeditions into the mountains to punish the runaways invariably ended in failure, and often in the slaughter of the hunting party, and the elves in their arrogance eventually decided a few runaway slaves could not possibly be a danger. In this way did the seed of the empire’s fall take root…” —Denrick Roth, Elves.
THE AIR ABOVE PRATHARDESH EARTHMOTE
Cavalier Quen, Haptar Getesh 09.06.03.12.07
From the air, Haptar Getesh’s role as a refuge for escaped human slaves during the Ordfey years made perfect sense. A “getesh” was a Prathardi term without a clear Garanese translation. It referred to an identified and named region of land, but not a big one. The closest Garanese equivalent might be a “barony,” except that getesh, by definition had no baron or lord, or anything at all really. They was unclaimed, unregulated territory. Lawless country.
The reasons why were the exact same reason humans had fled there in those dark days. The getesh was a sort of bowl or basin in the high mountains near the earthmote’s furthest dexter point, where a ring of blunt cloud-mantled peaks shielded an ovoid valley, and bathed it in nearly perpetual mist and rain as the clouds boiled and rolled back rather than escaping. Waterfalls leaked out here and there among the stubby summits then lingered around their base, creating a deep and slow-moving river whose green-brown waters made most approaches to the getesh impossible.
Within the bowl, though, the rainforest was spectacular. As the Cavalier Queen swayed and rolled through the turbulence around the valley’s edge and bellied down into calmer air, a flock of vivid birds took off and streamed past the prow.
One of them, bright green but for the vivid pink of its beak and a black chinstrap, landed on the rail by Jerl’s hand and blinked at him and tilted its head curiously. When he failed to do anything other than look at it, it sidled closer as if expecting something. Then, by whatever avian logic drove such decisions, it sidled away again, emitted a sharp, high, loud call, and took wing again.
“I think it wanted you to feed it,” Derghan commented. He was up on deck to get some fresh air, a drink and a bite to eat, and had stayed up to enjoy the view. Jerl could hardly blame him: it’d be miserable below decks in such hot and humid climes, and Derghan was certainly flushed pink and sweating in the jungle climate.
“You think they see people often up here?” Jerl asked. “It seemed used to humans.”
“Eh. Birds get around.” Derghan shrugged and gestured over the rail at the valley now unrolling below them. “So where are these caves?”
“Up in the far end, yonder,” Jerl indicated them. “See that waterfall?”
“Right, I remember. Raksuul’s Skirts, right?” Derghan nodded, watching them. The falls started out as a single white stream emerging from a crack high in the valley wall, but then splashed into a tooth of stone that jutted out directly below, and ended up raining and foaming down an all sides much like, yes, the fabric of a lacy skirt.
“Mhm. The caves are under there…” Jerl aimed his telescope, looking for a good landing site. None immediately presented themselves. The jungle was a craggy green cloud sea presenting no suitable clearings, nor any solo trees standing noticeably taller than the others to serve as a mooring post. And the ring mountains were practically vertical. He had to sweep back and forth and refocus for some minutes before finally spotting something they could use.
“…There. Helm, fifty points to starboard, down slow.”
“Aye aye!” Gebby’s hands gave the wheel a sure and well-practiced turn, and the view rotated around them as he effected the maneuver. “New heading is one-oh-eight.”
“Ahead port speed, bring us in for a ladder drop.”
“Derghan—” Jerl began, but his friend was already heading below.
“Way ahead o’ you, boss man.”
Jerl smiled and nodded as the big man vanished to tend to his engines. He could hear Sin and Marren shouting in Feydh and Garanese as the crew attended to the tricky task of bringing an airship in for a low hover. And—he focused and looked around carefully—yes, there was Mouse stowing some stuff and keeping their Yunei guest out of the way.
He caught Deng-Nah’s eye. The nobleman returned a polite little nod, then stretched up to continue watching over the rail. This would be the first time he ever set foot on a foreign earthmote, Jerl reasoned. He must be feeling some trepidation.
For that matter, so was Jerl. Could this whole voyage have been wasted time? He wasn’t following one of Time’s premonitions just…interest. Interest and a hunch without any basis in either fact or power. But ever since reading about the caves of Haptar Getesh and seeing the rubbings back at the Thundering Hall, this place had weighed in his mind. There was something about it that called to him and made him want to see the ancient refuge with his own eyes.
He couldn’t wait to get down on the ground
----------------------------------------
An hour later, he was beginning to rethink his eagerness. The air under the trees was a soup, fragrant with the sweet scent of decaying plants and so dense with humidity that the lungs had to drag it in forcefully. Jerl was wearing only a simple linen shirt and light breeches, and both were drenched from his own sweat and clinging to him. Mouse and Sin were both similarly struggling, with Sin in particular looking sluggish and exhausted.
There was no trail or track in this jungle. Every step involved either find away around some obstacle, or hacking through it. Every ten paces seemed to bring a new fallen log wallowing in the stink of its own decay as insects gnawed its innards, or a dense thicket of vines that may or may not conceal thick, muscular snakes. It wasn’t the walk or the heat alone that drained, but the endless work of making progress.
The Rüwyrdan seemed to be more in their element. Most were wearing nothing at all, beyond the single long, narrow cloth they wound and tied around their loins for underwear. And Deng-Nah seemed not to show any hint of discomfort at all, despite being so short he had to take two steps for every one of Jerl’s. He kept shooting amused looks their way, as though their discomfort amused him.
“Tell him…to stop bloody smirking, would you?” Jerl finally complained. Mouse rattled off an incredibly fluent string of the Yunei language, and Deng-Nah paused to bow in apology.
“We…close, yes?” he ventured, and gestured up the slope. To judge by the roar and the sweet scent of airborne water, Raksuul’s Skirts were near now.
“Yes. I think,” Jerl agreed. The little man nodded amiably and trudged forward with his machete in hand, continuing to carve a path.
Jerl had to admit, Deng-Nah was a surprise. Apparently Yunei nobility considered it extremely Improper for a man to be out of shape and weak. A man of Deng-Nah’s status needed to be a capable soldier and able to defend himself. What Deng-Nah lacked in height, he made up for in stamina and a kind of solid, phlegmatic perseverance that let him shrug off the jungle’s hardships and just keep hacking his way through.
So it was in large part thanks to his efforts that they broke through a hedge of dense, waxy leaves and emerged out onto the slopes of the Skirts. The rock was bare, unless one ignored the moss clinging into every sheltered crack and crevice where it wouldn’t instantly be washed off. Underfoot, the topsoil was entirely washed away to reveal loose debris, through which the water drained to trickle away downhill and form a meandering watercourse that raced off down into the getesh bowl’s depths.
The caves, in theory, were above them. Though from this angle, Jerl couldn’t see a damn thing.
Sin scrambled a ways up the slippery wet rock until she could shove her head under the main fall. She sighed in relief, lingered there for perhaps half a minute as she washed away the heat, then hopped back down.
“Definitely the right spot. I can hear echoing stone up above,” she reported.
“Not an easy climb, even for Fey. Even less easy for Wights,” Harad commented. “The slaves who came here were brave and tenacious.”
“Eh.” Jerl shrugged. “We’re airshipmen. Climbing is what we do. Come on—”
“No.” Harad sat down.
“…Explain?”
“This is a place slaves fled to be free of our cruelty. We are Penitents. We will not tread in their sanctuary.”
Jerl frowned at him, then looked at Sin. “You too?”
She shook her head. “He’s right. But…chal-an-chal. I’m sworn to go where you go, if you command it.”
“It’s fine. Stay here if you prefer.”
She nodded gratefully and climbed up to a spot where one of the Skirts’ smaller sub-falls rained down, and sat under the cool water with obvious relief.
Jerl looked to Mouse and Deng-Nah. Mouse just shrugged and did his best to wipe his palms dry. Deng-Nah was looking pensively up at the climb with a calculating eye and his head on one side. Jerl came up beside him and dried his own hands. “You a good climber?” he asked.
Deng-Nah shrugged. “I will…try.”
“Fair enough. Up we go, then.”
Harad wasn’t wrong. Even an elf would have struggled in places, and Jerl had seen Sin use magic to shimmy up a wall as though she was part gecko. The cliff face was wet, slicked with moss here and there, and the stone was worn smooth by millennia of water where it wasn’t knife-sharp. He could only assume that the slaves used to reach it by ropes thrown from above, but surely somebody had been first to make the climb?
Maybe not. If Rheannach herself had founded this place, well…she had wings. But Jerl was learning that it wasn’t like Crowns and Heralds to do things for people, that wasn’t their way. They seemed to prefer to teach people that what seemed impossible was more often than not actually within their reach.
And sure enough, there was a way up. Somebody had chiselled handholds into the stone.
It certainly wasn’t easy. In fact, it meandered back and forth across the cliff and passed behind the falls twice, and there were many false paths that would have got an unwary climber who didn’t know the proper way into deadly trouble. But Time kicked in, and premonition guided Jerl by the right path just as it had let him know Civorage’s safe combination.
Deng-Nah came behind him, though he needed a little help here and there where his height kept him from stretching quite far enough. Mouse brought up the rear. There were a couple of near-misses, a moment when Jerl found himself hanging by one hand while Deng-Nah dangled from the other one…but eventually Jerl clawed his way up a final ascent and tipped over the lip of a cave mouth to lie flat on his back and rest for a moment.
Deng-Nah patted his shoulder gratefully, but didn’t sit down.
“Thank.”
Jerl flapped a hand to convey ‘no problem’ but said nothing as Mouse labored up over the edge and joined him on the ground to catch his breath.
“Fuck…me,” he gasped.
Despite his own fatigue, Jerl couldn’t resist: “Too tired,” he said. “Ask me later.”
Mouse snorted.
They lay there recovering awhile. The cave’s ceiling was nothing much to look at, being, well, the ceiling of a cave. It was made of rock. The rock was grey. The mist and fume of the falls made it wet, and here and there the wetness ran down to drop from the roof and leave behind the slim stone barbels that would one day be stalactites, but it really was nothing special. Not worth the climb at all, he thought.
Then he sat up, and changed his mind entirely.
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> Foreigners arriving on Garanhir for the first time often assume it is a single greatly united culture, and that the differences between, for example, Enerlend and Oderlend are no more pronounced than the differences between opposite ends of the same town. And to a large degree this is true, but the details can be tricksome. For instance, for persons of the same sex to dance together at a formal event would be scandalous in Frudlend, thrilling in Urstlend, unremarkable in Enerlend, and expected in Oderlend. Such myriad confounding subtleties are present all across the Nested Worlds, and so I must beg the reader to bear them in mind while they enjoy my impression of other cultures. —Prince Ruber of Valai, preface to MyTravels.
THE HOW-DO-YOU-DO
The Walled City, Auldenheigh, Enerlend 09.06.03.12.07
Samandra Bannant stepped down out of her carriage with her back ramrod straight, gave the manor a judgemental look as though comparing it unfavorably to her own manse, then produced a brass coin from her purse to tip the driver. With this minor courtesy done, she dug out the little filigreed silver bar of her folding reading glasses, peered through them at the invitation, gave the bodice of her gown a sharp tug, patted her hair, and strode up to the front doors.
The invitation was inspected and passed inspection without comment—as of course it would be—and a young footman escorted her into the manor, handed her off to the announcer, then returned to the front door and left Samandra to wait impatiently while the three others ahead of her were announced.
She listened intently as they were called, matching faces to the lineages and names she’d studied so dilligently in preparation for tonight. The Peerage Review was an annual circular in high society, and an invaluable aid as a who’s-who: Samandra, naturally, had it memorized.
The real Samandra Bannant, of course, was not present. In actual point of fact, there was no “real” Samandra Bannant at all, as she was an invention of Lord Gilber Drevin and the Blackdrake Network. Ostensibly, she was a gentlewoman who had inherited a modest fortune and an estate on the River Afan after her parents passed away without a male heir.
Still, she had existed in the Peerage Review since even before Ellaenie went into exile. Lord Drevin had maintained such convenient falsehoods even then, and now his foresightedness had paid off beautifully.
Samandra tidied her clothes and patted her hair again as she stepped up to be announced, then gave the footman a small, tight, imperious nod.
“Miss Samandra Bannant!”
A few nearby guests glanced at her, and she saw some fans come up and sidelong whispers propagate. An unescorted lady at a party like this? There would be gossip of course. But that was all to the good, it meant somebody’s curiosity would get the better of them before long.
For now, she did the socially unfashionable thing and headed straight for the buffet as though the other guests were of much less importance than the canapés.
Adrey was rather proud of her Samandra persona. She’d worked hard to cultivate the exact blend of personality traits that might explain a woman in her late twenties being unmarried but still likable enough. The result, far from the shy and socially awkward creature she’d first experimented with, was a blunt and plain-spoken woman, quite formidable in a way that would only appeal to a very particular kind of man.
She surveyed the Hors d'Oeuvres with the posture of one who was long-sighted but far too proud to actually admit to it, though in fact Adrey was taking note of the servants. Where was…? —ah! There!
She raised a hand and twitched her fingers at the slim, ginger-haired young man with the drinks tray, and he hastened over. “Ma’am?”
“I don’t suppose the wine cellar has Sangiovese Urstoine? The five-fourteen vintage?”
A twinkle of recognition in his eye told her she had the right man. “It does, ma’am, but alas Milord Lendwick has reserved it for the family’s use,” he replied, giving the correct shibboleth.
“Ah…pity. oh…I’ll have whatever that is you have there, then.” She flapped a hand vaguely at the bottle on his tray.”
“Of course, ma’am.”
He turned so that his face could not be seen as he poured, and lowered his voice. As he did so, he fished a small key from his pocket. “Your weapons are stashed in the music room, inside the box seat in the window alcove. The key opens all the servants’ doors, your best egress is through the scullery. Leading-dexter corner of the building, go widdershins around the house through the herb garden and you’ll find the delivery gate.”
Adrey nodded. “What have you seen so far?”
“No Encircled in evidence, but watch out for Captain Dalsdottir, Mister and Missus Pelton and Mister de Rushprer. I’ve already heard them speaking very favorable of the Church of the One.”
“Thank you,” Adrey murmured, taking the wine, and the key along with it. The latter she slipped in her pocket as she sipped the wine, then looked around the room, taking in the guests as her contact excused himself. Captain Bree Dalsdottir was already a known figure, and easily recognized by her brilliant blonde hair and tattoos—Clan Dal used abstract rune-like patterns composed entirely of straight lines. The woman was ostensibly a freemerchant, but everyone knew she’d been a devout Oneist for some years now. Not Encircled, though. A true believer. Or, just hoping to retire to a life of luxury and indolence when the Oneists completed their conquest.
Perhaps tonight would confirm which.
The other three were less known to her. The Peltons were just what Samandra was: quite wealthy but not truly important. They were, however, openly wearing the steel ring just like Captain Dalsdottir. Interesting. She’d have to learn more about them, certainly.
As for Mister de Rushprer…Urstoin, surely. He was dressed far more colorfully than the other guests, and holding forth with considerable dash, charm and flamboyance for an audience of rather star-struck debutantes.
“Pardon me, Miss…Bannant, wasn’t it?”
Samandra turned, tilting her head back to get a better look at the man who’d approached her. “Ah! Yes, indeed. And you would be…?”
“Mister Jems Fenrille.” He offered her a handshake. Adrey knew the name, and memorized his face to attach to it. Not difficult: Fenton was quite average in most regards, but his bald pate and much-cultivated mustache with its curling tips were quite memorable. “This is my wife, Carad.”
The two ladies curtseyed to each other. “Charmed,” Samandra said politely. “Always a pleasure to make new acquaintances.”
“Quite so, quite so…” Fenrille agreed, and launched into…well, the usual routine. Small talk, niceties, gossip, a brief potted history of their respective lives which anyone who’d read the Peerage Review would already know, but this was the done thing at these sorts of events.
Adrey dived into it, and the hours rolled past in a blur of socializing. It was…fun, actually. A lot of fun! Of course the last salon she’d attended had been the one thrown by Ellaenie’s aunt and uncle, before the Dukesmoot. The one where Civorage had shown up in person and Ellie had escaped by a narrow inch at best…and Lisze had been turned.
At first, she worked her way through the outer circles, the plus-ones and hangers-on, the people who wanted to become movers and shakers by associating with the right kind of people.
Then, after a deft little bit of wordplay and an astute comment or two while dancing, she was associating with the right people herself.
The first real challenge came from a not unexpected quarter at all.
“Miss Bannant? If you have room on your dance card, my dear, I would be delighted to get to know you…”
Samandra smiled at the invitation. “For you, Mrs. Pelton, of course I have room.” She rose, Pelton took her hand, and they joined the latest dance while Adrey willed her heart not to pound too hard. This was exactly what she’d been angling toward for the last two hours, don’t mess it up now…
“You know, Lord Lendwick was quite surprised to learn you’d come,” Mrs. Pelton commented as they stood on the sidelines while the first couple twirled in the circle in front of them. “You’re apparently quite notorious for declining invitations…”
“This has been my first opportunity since I was a girl,” Samandra explained.
“Oh really?”
“Yes. My maiden aunt was rather dependent on me…”
“Ah. I take it she’s no longer with us?”
“Passed away just recently. A mercy, in the end. She was…not really herself any longer.”
“Oh, my condolences. Such illnesses are terrible.”
“You’re very kind to say so.”
It was their turn to do an orbit around the middle. Adrey took the opportunity to exhale a little tension. That had been a probing question, a hint of suspicion. But the reply was watertight. Samandra’s entry in the Review included mention of a maiden aunt. She’d have to pass along for the aunt’s death to be mentioned in the papers. Details, details…
“I suppose that rather explains the lack of plus-one tonight, my dear,” Pelton added as they reunited.
“Alas, yes. I am not overly troubled. Really, the nice thing about my position is I inherited the estate myself, and shan’t have to pass it on except to whomever I choose. It’s rather liberating, really.”
“If you’re happy so, of course.”
“Oh, I think I am…”
“Hmm.” Pelton mused. “I should say it sounds lonely.”
“I suppose, a little. I’m quite used to it, though.”
“Oh, I don’t see why you should have to be, though. A woman deserves friends, even if her heart doesn’t yearn for a husband.”
Samandra laughed softly. “Perhaps. Though I fear I am terrible at making friends. The knack seems to escape me. I have this awful habit of speaking my mind, you see…”
Another whirl through the middle. When they reunited, Pelton was smiling. “And what is on your mind right now, Miss Bannant?”
“That a woman like you doesn’t simply approach a woman like me and strike up a conversation about friendship by happenstance.”
Pelton gave her a closed, unreadable look. “…You’re very shrewd, Miss Bannant.”
“Am I, indeed? Or am I just cynical?”
Pelton laughed. “…Perhaps there is little difference? But you are right. I was leading toward something.”
“Please, Mrs. Pelton, there is no need to hold back.”
“Hmm…well, a question for you. What do you think of the Church of the One?”
Samandra blinked. “I think I don’t know enough to have a well-reasoned opinion one way or another,” she said, buying time. Crowns, what was the right answer here? If Pelton was trying to assess her, to see if she was a better target for Encirclement or for recruitment into their ranks of the free collaborators…
The latter. She needed it to be the latter. But how? What angle would Pelton like but not find suspiciously likable?
Fortunately, the turn and whirl of the dance bought her a precious minute to think. By the time she’d found Pelton again, she’d decided on an approach.
“I have heard good things,” she said the instant she and Mrs. Pelton were back in their positions, picking up the conversation as though it had never been interrupted. “About charitable works and so on. And of course, his Grace the Duke has embraced it, hasn’t he?”
“But…?” Pelton prompted.
“But I doubt it’s for me. I daresay the lonely and the desperate and the sick might find some comfort in it, but for my part…well, Aunt Bella’s gone and much as I loved the old girl, I’m eager to get on with living. You understand.”
Pelton smiled sympathetically. “I understand. All too well, alas.”
“Alas,” Samandra echoed. “Who was it for you?”
“My father.”
“My condolences.”
“You are most kind.“ They traded the mutual small smile of women hardened by their life circumstances. Mrs. Pelton wasn’t yet satisfied, however. “And what is your idea of living, Miss Bannant?”
“Some great work, I thought. Something to put my name in the history books. After all, generations of women come and go, passing on their legacy through their children, but…I’d rather be remembered by more than just my loved ones. I rather fancy a life worthy of a state funeral. Assuming I must have one at all.”
Mrs. Pelton chuckled. “My, you don’t want much, do you?”
“Just the world, all its riches and immortality, Mrs. Pelton.”
Pelton laughed outright this time, hastily snapping her fan open to cover it. Genteel etiquette, and all that. “Miss Bannant, you are a woman of singular ambition, though you do seem to be lacking in the virtue of humility.”
“Guilty as charged, of course,” Samandra replied, snapping her own fan open to conceal her grin. The dance came to an end and they bowed to the other couples before retreating from the dance floor. “But do you not agree?”
“As a matter of fact, I do.” Mrs. Pelton smiled and they exchanged curtseys, as dance partners who were parting ways for now. “Miss Bannant, may I say, you are a delight. You must come to tea, soon.”
“I would be delighted.”
And that, Adrey felt as they turned away to find new conversation, was very possibly mission accomplished. She ambled over to the buffet again to refill on both wine and intelligence from her contact.
“Nothing to report,” he commented as he poured.
That was good. And Adrey knew better than to get greedy in any regard while on the job. She’d struck up a rapport with one of the Oneist conspirators, and that was already an excellent start. To go after any more would be to overreach. The thing to do now was to simply enjoy the party while remaining sober, and leave when it would not cause comment.
So she did exactly that. Though she did note a moment late in the night when the Oneists all slipped discreetly from the roomr. She briefly contemplated sneaking away and eavesdropping on their meeting, but could find no good opportunity, and in any case it was a risk she didn’t have to take. Not yet.
In any case, the conspirators were not gone long. They returned about half an hour late by ones and twos, and the rest of the evening passed uneventfully. Two more hours of dancing and conversation yielded no further progress, but no disasters either, and Adrey eventually left about the same time as most of the other guests. The curfew, it seemed, did not apply to this particular group of gentry.
She couldn’t return directly to Hatpin, of course. Miss Brooknetter and the others would definitely have taken note if their Adelia walked in disguised as a completely different woman. So, she spent the night at the Spilman Hotel, wrote her report while she was theres, delivered it to the pre-arranged dead drop on the way home, and arrived at Miss Brooknetter’s lodging house two hours after dawn.
The house smelled of breakfast: smoked kippers and poached eggs. Most of the lodgers were out, but Miss Brooknetter poked her head out of the kitchen as Adrey entered. There was a moment of tense silence as the two women considered each other.
Then Miss Brooknetter cleared her throat. “I kept a plate of breakfast hot for you, Mrs. Rubb.”
“Th-thank you, Miss Brooknetter. That’s very k-kind.”
“All well with work, Mrs. Rubb?”
“No c-complaints, thank you.”
“Well that’s good. Hang up your coat and I’ll brew a cup for you.”
Adrey did so, wondering when the old Esme Brooknetter was going to resurface…but she didn’t. Quite the opposite, the old girl seemed oddly relaxed for some reason. Was that suspicious?
…Maybe. But it was also welcome. So for now, Adrey decided to just accept it. She had more important things on her mind anywy. Like whether she was going to have tea with Mrs. Pelton. That would be a risk, putting her firmly in the elf’s parlor, as the saying went. But on the other hand, if she could actually infiltrate the free conspirators, then she’d have succeeded beyond the Blackdrake’s wildest dreams. She’d just have to wait and see what Drevin, Dragon and Skinner had to say.
Until then, she ate her breakfast in silence, and was glad of the change of pace
She felt like she was doing good work.