“Yes. I will tell her. She has not yet drunk of the Spring, though. So it may be a while ere you hear from her.” Repeatedly she had demurred, always leaving me feeling as though I was offering her poison instead of power. Most recently she had said something about not feeling herself ready yet. I could not force her, but it seemed silly to me.
My brother twisted his face in an irritated grimace. “Then give me her Key and I’ll call her myself—why is it that things become complicated whenever you are part of them, Gwydion?”
“Indeed?” I said. I wasn’t the one creating a difficulty here. I detached her Key from my set and held it up. “I’ll send it by a carrier bird.”
“I see it. Horns?” He frowned.
“A crescent moon.”
“Excellent. I’ll know it again. It is rude of me to delay introducing myself, but I have little liberty to rearrange the world here just now. Have you heard from Father?”
“Nothing new,” I prevaricated. “He will be back when it suits him.”
“I suppose. He is taking this too far. Perhaps I shall have a look around for him.”
I didn’t understand. “Too far?”
“Brooding over Freia’s death. It is done. It is unnatural of him to deny it by avoiding us and Argylle and Landuc. He ought to be getting over it by now.”
“Alexander, you’re talking about Mother. Not some girlfriend who dumped him or whatever. Mother is different.”
“There you go too,” Alexander snapped. “Was different. Is dead. Sun and stars, Gwydion. Let it go. The Wheel has turned. You’re old enough to know what death is about, aren’t you?”
“I don’t recall asking for a gratis consultation on my progress in grieving,” I retorted. “Mind your own business.”
We glared at one another, both offended.
“Just send me the Key, please, and I thank you for your news,” growled Alexander finally, and I cut off the spell with a chopping gesture, flicking water at the flames.
For a minute or so afterward I stared into the firepan and made the fire burn in a nasty green, high, narrow column of flame, venting my anger on it. Easy for Alexander to sit in Montgard, Gaston’s old city in the country of the same name, and sneer at those of us who tried to carry on here in Argylle. I snuffed the flame abruptly and rose and went off to the mews to get myself a carrier-bird to convey the Key to Alexander.
Ulrike’s shyness and Marfisa’s reserve meant that they were not exactly intimate, though Marfisa made clear efforts to make herself more accessible for Ulrike. They went riding when the weather permitted, but much of the time Marfisa lodged with fair, elevated Hicha, which was her custom and which brought Hicha’s rare and lovely smile out. Marfisa’s crippled leg still pained her, she admitted to me when I pressed her about the injury, and she dared not enter any combat with it so damaged, for she could not keep her seat. Two days after Marfisa came, Belphoebe arrived in the Citadel with a couple of small pots of some ointment she had concocted, which Marfisa was to use on the leg. One of Mother’s recipes, she said, and Marfisa accepted gratefully.
Tellin accompanied Marfisa again, fetching and carrying for her and helping her mount and dismount when Marfisa would allow it. My sister’s squire idolized Ulrike and spent her free time trying to befriend her, her light-green eyes wide with earnest goodwill and kindness, offering to practice fencing with Ulrike in the Landuc manner, which Tellin was just learning, or to shoot arrows at targets, or to go for a steeplechase ride.
None of these things suited Ulrike, and so instead Tellin chattered with her, telling her tall tales and trying to persuade her that coming with Marfisa and seeing the world would be capital fun. When the weather permitted the two went walking together, and I saw them sometimes, a funny pair, Tellin striding fast when she forgot herself and then trotting back to Ulrike, gesturing, picking up stones or snowballs and throwing them at birds, trees, or rocks, plainly talking nonstop about horses they passed, the snow, the Citadel, dogs, and everything under the sun.
I wished Ulrike were more like Tellin. There was a great deal to be said in favor of an optimistic outlook on life.
Belphoebe invited Ulrike to come into the wood with her, to see the place and hunt, and Ulrike nervously declined the invitation. One couldn’t fault her for it; the wet of winter is hardly the time to see Threshwood at its best. Belphoebe, unoffended, returned alone to her trees and mountains.
My youngest sister seemed to prefer to spend time with Walter, but Walter is a busy man himself with his music and composing, and he wasn’t available to shepherd Ulrike, though he did spend as much time as he could with her.
Marfisa had to return to Landuc after just a fortnight. Despite the ointment, which had already worked some improvement in her comfort and strength, the cold was painful to her, and it was summer in Landuc. So she left with apologies, promising to return when either she or the weather had mended. I wished she had stayed longer.
It was just a few days after that that Ulrike tapped on my door as I was finishing dressing. I had to sit in the Black Chair that day and so I was in a bit of a hurry.
“Best of the day to you,” I said to her, swinging back the door.
“I hope I’m not interrupting—”
“No, as you see I’m up,” I had a swallow of my lukewarm coffee, “and running …”
“I wanted to ask—”
“Fire away.” I gulped the rest of the cup and poured another, warmer one.
“Alexander has invited me to visit him,” she said. “Please, may I go?”
Startled, I hiccupped, or swallowed wrong, or something, and made a small explosive noise and then a large one. “I beg your pardon,” I said. “To visit him? In Montgard?” I wished she had waited to tell me this; I had to think about the cases before the Chair.
“Yes …”
“You’re quite free to go, of course,” I said. “It’s a lovely place.” Even with Alexander there, I footnoted mentally. I supposed I should have foreseen something like this; Alexander wouldn’t want me polluting her mind or some such drivel, and he wouldn’t want to lose face by not seeming interested in the girl, and thus he would invite her to him since he could not come to Argylle. It was how he thought. I took a big bite out of an egg-glazed suncake pastry filled with soft sweet cheese. “When?”
“I thought,” she said nervously, “I would very much like to see him, to see Montgard, Father told me about it a little bit … If … If …”
I set down cup and plate and looked at her. “You’ve not yet drunk of the Spring,” I said. “That limits your travelling from Argylle. Is he coming after you? Opening a Way?”
“He says he cannot come, he is very involved in some difficult negotiations, but that if … if you or Grandf—or Prospero or …” she proposed tremulously.
“You want someone to take you there,” I said, wiping my mouth and brushing crumbs from my sleeves.
Ulrike blushed. “It is rather an unreasonable thing to ask,” she admitted meekly.
It certainly was. Prospero was in Haimance, warming his winter nights with the enviable company of one of the loveliest vintners, an affair which had been slow to catch but long-and hot-burning. Walter was in town, engrossed in rehearsals of a new choral piece and a visit from most of Shaoll’s family, who had come to scrutinize him and now were trying to persuade him and Shaoll to move out of the city and come home to the family’s silky-haired goats and market-garden. Belphoebe had left Threshwood to travel with Marfisa awhile. Belphoebe had been concerned over Marfisa’s intention of going essentially alone—Tellin, though solicitous and mindful of her mistress’s injury, was inexperienced. Offering to go with her sister and her esquire was Phoebe’s way of making sure the two, both disinclined to acknowledge any weakness, got home in one piece. Her excuse to Marfisa had been a long-standing invitation from our Uncle Herne to hunt some particularly vicious beast with him.
That left me.
“He can open a Way for you whenever he pleases,” I sa
id. “But do let me know—”
“Oh, please, I … It is so far, I mean, I thought the journey was not so far—I’m sorry, it is a great deal of trouble,” she said, utterly downcast.
I studied her, bemused. She had some unarticulated aversion to passing through a Way. Perhaps she was afraid of coming out in the wrong place—an understandable anxiety, given the trick Gaston had played upon her. To travel to Montgard by way of the Road, the long way around so to speak, did make a certain sense; Montgard was a good place for her to know how to get to. Moreover, perhaps the trip would spur her to drink of the Spring here so that she could travel freely in our domain as well as in Landuc’s. Be that as it may, I was busy; I had to run the Dominion and indeed I had to do that directly.
“Let me think on it,” I said. “I must go now. That is not a ‘No,’ merely an ‘I have to think about it,’ understand?” And I would think about it, but later, not now.
“Thank you,” she nodded gratefully.
“You’re welcome.” Shooing her out ahead of me, I snapped my fingers and Virgil hopped down onto my shoulder. I locked the door and went off to settle the complaints of the citizenry in the Great Hall.
I kept my mind on my work and off Ulrike’s request. The business of the Hall was concluded by midafternoon, the time being largely taken up with a complaint lodged by a group of citizens against the Council—they objected to the Council’s plan to widen their street. It was a sticky sort of problem—the street would be more heavily travelled if widened, but on the other hand plenty of people were already using it as a shortcut between two squares instead of the commercial street a few blocks over. It was not a well-to-do neighborhood, which was probably why the case had come to me rather than being resolved in Council. Despite Mother’s best efforts, the Council tends to be dominated by the wealthier Argyllines, largely because they have leisure for the endless arguments and more to gain from them. After listening to both sides, I sat back and thought for a few minutes.
“Your objection,” I said finally to the neighborhood delegation, “is that the heavy usage changes the character of your neighborhood for the worse, and that encouraging this usage by widening the street will further change it.”
“Yes, my Lord,” said their spokesman.
“And you,” I said to the Councillor who had come to explain that side, “desire that traffic shall flow smoothly in the city and that commerce not be hampered.”
“The Council’s position is that since the street is already heavily travelled, paving and widening it will not change the character of the neighborhood substantially,” he said.
“My summary stands,” I said drily. I was hampered by not being familiar with the neighborhood and street. Mother had been able to describe almost every street in the town. I did know some districts that well, but I’d never had time for an intensive study of the subject.
I poured myself wine and sipped it, thinking. The street was wide enough for a residential street. It was not wide enough to be a full-time thoroughfare. Shermyn Avenue was the commercial street not far away … Carefully I pictured the area to myself.
“The people who live on Numine Street,” I asked the delegation, “what are their occupations?”
The delegation conferred in stagey whispers, puzzled.
“Largely,” said the spokesman then, “we think most of us are mostly employed in the barge business, my Lord, in many capacities, and there are a lot who work in the Shermyn Avenue shops and a few clerks.”
I added that to my picture of the area.
“Councillor Suibert,” I said then, “I am always glad to know that the Council is concerned to keep Argylle prosperous and progressing. The campaign of street-widening and street-paving you have undertaken is an admirable thing and one I support fully. And your goal of moving traffic smoothly through the city, so that all may go easily about their business, is also one I support fully.
“The preservation of residential neighborhoods’ character has also been something in which the Citadel has taken interest from time to time,” I went on. “It troubles me to think that the shops of Shermyn Avenue may be losing custom as a result of people bypassing them and shortcutting through Numine Street, at the expense so to speak of Numine Street’s peace and quiet, though Numine Street is a throughway like the others in its area. Therefore Numine Street shall become a double-dead street.”
This was a peculiarly Argylline thing, a street that had a patch of park in the middle of its block so that the street led in from both sides and then ended at the park. It was commoner in older districts of the city.
“The Council will pave the street as planned, but not widen it, and the park shall be established under the auspices of the Parks and Gardens Office with the usual participation by the residents.”
The residents appeared stunned. The Councillor looked resigned—historically, the Citadel usually squelched the Council when the interests of the lower classes were involved, so he’d probably expected to lose this one.
“But—” said one of the residents, sounding a little unhappy, and then shut up.
I smiled.
“I accept the decision without comment, my Lord,” said Councillor Suibert, bowing.
“We yield our complaint, my Lord,” said the spokesman for the group, bowing also.
They left the stairs, with much whispering among the citizens.
Utrachet stood. “Is there any who wishes to address the Black Chair for Justice?” he asked the Hall.
No one came forward.
“Justice is done,” I said, relieved.
Mother had always liked giving people a bit more than they asked for. The residents of Numine Street probably had not intended to lose their throughway. They were now collectively responsible for the upkeep of the park in the middle, labor and expense, which would enhance the street and put a stop to the heavy traffic. The Council’s idea of widening the street was a knee-jerk reaction, and so I wanted the Councillors to remember to examine the alternatives before flat-paving the whole town. I’d seen too many places like that in my travels along Landuc’s Road.
Utrachet came up to me and we went back to the Citadel proper together while people cleared out of the Great Hall.
“I hesitate to mention this to you, my Lord, in your present mood,” Utrachet began.
“My present mood is one of interest in what’s for dinner,” I said. “What is it?”
“The cellarer—”
“Oh, bloodrot,” I muttered. We were running out of wine space under the Citadel; we had been for years. Mother had never been concerned about it. I knew Utrachet had spoken of it to her, and she had always said she had alternate arrangements ready against that time. But nobody knew what those were, and Mother had died before she had had to use them.
“The problem will be acute in three years, he tells me,” Utrachet said. “If we are to expand, we must start soon.”
“I’m not sure where we could expand to,” I said. “The Catacombs? What if they … changed … you know they do at times … the Maze is quite unpredictable … what if we put wine down there and it vanished for a few years? Went past peak?”
Utrachet wasn’t sure if I was joking or not. “There are some more stable sections,” he said.
“There are. I dislike, also, the idea of the cellarer’s staff tramping around down there. Frankly, the place is not for public consumption any more than my wine.”
“The Spring. Yes. This is my objection also.”
“We’ll just have to drink more,” I said.
Utrachet smiled. “Unfortunately I don’t know that that will help. The problem is that the Haimance wines have done so well, but take so long to mature …”
“We went over this last year. I recall the details now.” I thought about it. Damn. Gaston had always advocated expanding the cellars. Gaston knew wine so well it was joked that it ran in his veins, and he would have enjoyed designing and supervising the construction of additional Citadel storage space. I w
asn’t even sure if there were any quarter of the Island left suited for such a project. “I must think about it. Remind me later.”
“Yes, my Lord.”
“Thank you, Utrachet.” If I were lucky, he’d forget this until the cellarer mentioned it again.
Utrachet bowed slightly.
Anselm was lurking in my office with a stack of routine correspondence for me to sign; I read it all over, signed, and fled to my dinner. Nobody but me was there today. Feeling slightly rejected, I ate quickly and went back to my office to scribble a note to Hicha the Archivist asking for maps of every possible kind of the Citadel and Island and telling her why I wanted them, then sent Anselm off to look them up in the library here and in the Archives. Then I closed the door, retreated to my workroom, and sat in the window looking out.
The weather was cold and rainy.
Suddenly the idea of escorting Ulrike along the Road to Alexander’s land did not seem so very unattractive. Montgard was in full bloom of summer now, horse races and picnics being the amusement of the day and masques and dances on the green the amusement of the night.
Uncharitable as it may sound, I also felt that Alexander should take a turn at hosting her. Prospero, Walter, Belphoebe, and I among us couldn’t continually attend to her, and she was so shy and clingy that she’d rarely go out or make an acquaintance on her own. She was getting on my nerves. I liked her, she was a pleasant girl, but she wanted a lot of attention and I didn’t have time or inclination to hold her hand and guide her through life a step at a time.
At least in deciding she wanted to visit Alexander she was showing some small degree of initiative. I did not know what he had said to her to persuade her to it, nor what Gaston had said about my oldest brother and Montgard—it must have been radiantly glowing. I could not help but remember that her attitude toward me was one of awed, even fearful, respect. However, Ulrike’s fervent enthusiasm for travel was welcome, if unprecedented. I would never have expected her to choose an uncomfortable, long journey over simply waiting for Alexander to come here, but since she had done so, surely she should be encouraged and indulged.
The Well-Favored Man Page 24
