Hope and the Patient Man

by Mike Reeves-McMillan

  Hope, with limited capacity to argue, subsided.

  “Oh, and don’t worry about your seminar,” the Master-Mage said. “I had Professor Strength from the mathematics department continue, using your notes, and she said it went very well. She was extremely impressed, in fact, but she also suggested that it’s a bit advanced for a general audience and perhaps you could start with a smaller group, just mathematicians, and get them familiar with the new notation, so they can explain it to the magical theorists, and then the theorists can teach it to the practitioners. Only when you’re well enough, though.”

  “That would certainly be a lot less stressful,” said Hope. “Thank you, Master-Mage.”

  The Master-Mage disappeared for a while and, when he came back, reported that he had arranged a healer’s assistant to stay with her in the flat during the day. “You’re not to push yourself or hurry anything,” he said.

  “But… the teaching. I know you wanted that to start as soon as possible…”

  “Yes, but not at the cost of your health.”

  By the time Threeday rolled round again, Hope, while still unwell, was bored rigid. Patient offered to read to her, and since the only non-technical books in the house were Briar’s country-house romances, he soon found himself spouting dialogue which managed to be both stilted and suggestive simultaneously. It got them laughing together, which helped Hope, and they spent Fourday taking short walks, indulging in some light kissing, and continuing the reading.

  By the following Threeday, Hope was able to have a couple of brief sessions with the mathematicians. They came up with a list of questions that she needed to ask Dignified, so she dropped around to the lab to ask if he could be available to come and talk to them the following Oneday.

  She ran straight into a Rosewall family row.

  “Hope!” said Rosie, with desperate cheerfulness, as she came through the door of the kitchen in search of Dignified and found it crowded, with five people seated round the little table and Bucket attempting to serve them tea. “These are my brothers and my sister. Constant, Punctual, Opportunity, my friend and colleague Hope.”

  “Didn’t Mother say she was your flatmate?” asked Opportunity, who wore a dark-tan Victory suit as if she had been born in it. She shared Rosie’s height, as they all did, but her hair was managed into a fashionable style and her face was softer, almost to the point of being pretty.

  “Oh, ah, yes, of course,” said Rosie, flustered. Opportunity narrowed her eyes sceptically.

  “Mage,” said Punctual, the older brother, noting her bracelet. He wore a masculine version of Opportunity’s suit, and sat like a man who was used to dominating the room. He bore a striking resemblance to his father of the same name.

  “Pleased to meet you all,” said Hope. “Can I talk to Dignified for a minute?” The inventor was sitting beside Rosie, looking as if he wished he was anywhere else, and leapt up the moment she said his name.

  They found a space behind some erasable boards to talk, and Hope put her request to him. He looked into the distance.

  “I don’t see why not,” he said.

  “You don’t mind coming out to the Institute?”

  “No. Will be going there anyway soon.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The works is being combined with the Institute. They’re building us a new building across the road.”

  “Wheel said there were rumours, but the Master-Mage never mentioned anything.”

  “Only just approved,” said Dignified.

  “Wheel and the gnomes too?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, that will be easier for access, and having the prototyping manufactory right there will be useful, too. Are they making you proper quarters?”

  “Yes. For me and Rosie.”

  “Dignified, what about that? Are you and Rosie setting up house together?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you planning to oathbond?”

  “Yes. I want to.”

  “She doesn’t?”

  “She doesn’t feel any hurry.”

  “Do her family know she’s living here with you?”

  “No.”

  “Dignified, do you understand why they’d be upset if they found out?”

  “No.”

  Hope contemplated trying to explain social expectations and mores to Dignified, and decided that she’d probably get on better trying to explain magical mathematics to Briar.

  “But you know she doesn’t want you to tell them?”

  “Yes.”

  “All right. Let’s go back and see what we can do.”

  Bucket emerged from the kitchen as they approached, looking back over his shoulder. He was muttering in Dwarvish, something about being dismissed like a servant, and hadn’t they heard about Gnome Day? He retreated to his quarters and slammed the door.

  “Hope!” said Rosie, again with a hint of desperation. “All settled?”

  “Yes. I’m going to need Dignified over at the Institute on Oneday morning, if you can spare him.”

  “Yes, I’m sure that will be fine,” said Rosie, in the tone of someone who hasn’t really listened to what was just said and will later deny being told any such thing. “Join us, won’t you?”

  “Of course,” said Hope, fetching a stool from a nearby lab bench and placing herself behind Rosie’s sister. The table was sized for four people, and with five seated around it on ill-assorted chairs, Rosie and Dignified were practically in each other’s laps. Rather unfortunate, in the context.

  Rosie picked up her tea with her left hand, since her right was trapped behind Dignified, and sipped nervously.

  “I must say,” said Constant, the youngest, “I had expected rather better premises than this.” He looked round the shabby kitchen with haughty disapproval.

  “Dignified is not overly concerned with appearances,” said Rosie, and her brother visibly swallowed a remark.

  “Dignified has just informed me, in fact,” said Hope, “that the Clever Man’s Works will be moving across the river, to become part of the Master-Mage’s Research Institute, for which I have the honour to work. As part of that move, entirely new quarters will be constructed.” She had listened to Rosie’s parents, and decided to imitate the style in the hope that it would help her credibility with the other Rosewalls.

  “Quarters?” said Punctual. “You live here?” He directed the question to Dignified. Rosie flinched.

  “Mister Dignified often works unusual hours,” said Hope smoothly. “Demands of the job. It was simpler to provide quarters for him on site.”

  Rosie shot her a look of thanks, which dropped off her face as if pushed over a cliff when Opportunity asked, “What about you, Industry? Do you work these ‘unusual hours’ too?”

  “Sometimes,” she said, her voice squeaking.

  “And when you do, how do you get home safely? Or do you…” she gazed around as if looking for rats, and expecting to find them… “stay here?”

  A heavy silence ensued for about five heartbeats before Rosie broke.

  “All right,” she said, squaring her chin. She had a good chin for squaring. “All right. I don’t flat with Hope. I live here at the lab. With Dignified.”

  This announcement was succeeded by a silence of an entirely different texture.

  “I see,” said Opportunity, finally.

  “When you say live with…” began Constant.

  “Yes,” said Rosie, speaking over him. She didn’t blush, Hope noted, but Constant did. They were a very pale-skinned family.

  “Well,” said Punctual. “I… well.” He didn’t give the impression of a man who was often at a loss, and didn’t appear to relish this new experience.

  “Do Mother and Father know?” asked Opportunity.

  “I haven’t told them in so many words, no,” said Rosie.

  “They did hint that the two of you were… involved,” said Punctual. “I didn’t think, however, that…”

  “Have you considered
the family’s reputation?” asked Opportunity abruptly.

  “Not really,” said Rosie, in a tone that attempted to be carefree and very nearly pulled it off.

  “Industry,” said Punctual, “we have to do business with people. They have to respect…”

  “What possessed you to…” began Opportunity. Her brother rounded on her.

  “Will you stop interrupting me?” he snapped. “Industry, we’re respectable people. If we lose that…”

  “Really?” said Rosie. “What about your ‘club’?”

  Punctual’s face went still.

  “What would your business contacts say if they knew you went to a place like that?”

  “Actually,” said Punctual, in a strangled voice, “many of them go there as well.”

  “How lovely,” said Rosie. “Well, in that case, I think you have a… a Nine-cursed face lecturing me about respectability, Punctual of Rosewall. And frankly, since I’ve separated myself from the family fortunes and am making my own way in the world, my interest in your reputation has severely diminished. You’re wealthy enough, brother. It might even do you good to have less money, though I can’t see that happening, realistically. And you all have my portion to split as well, now.”

  “This pacifist foolishness…” said Opportunity.

  “Cowardly,” muttered Punctual. Rosie leapt up from her chair, to Dignified’s startlement. She put a hand on his shoulder.

  “Cowardly? Hardly! It takes real courage to stand up to other people’s expectations and make a stand on a matter of principle, not that you would know. Dignified works for the Realmgold, you realise that? The Realmgold, who has the best military for six realms round in all directions. You think he hasn’t faced pressure to invent things for military applications? But he sticks with his principles. Look me in the face and tell me that you have one principle that you haven’t already sold.”

  “Now see here…” said Punctual.

  “Industry of Rosewall!” said Opportunity, in a voice of shock. Constant just watched, his eyes bulging.

  “No,” said Rosie, putting her hands on her bony hips, and almost taking Dignified’s eye out with her right elbow. “Do you know what? This is my home. You don’t come in here and insult my, my, my man with your… Oh, just get out!”

  “Industry…”

  “Out!” she shouted. Constant’s jaw was hanging open, now. He closed it and pushed himself to his feet.

  “Come on,” he said, “we’d better go.” He took his older sister’s arm, and she rose with as much dignity as she could manage.

  “I shall be speaking with our lawyers,” she said.

  “What about?” said Rosie. “I’m an adult. Nobody’s compelled me to do anything. I’ve handed over my holdings, you’ve had a financial gain, not a loss. I owe you nothing, Opportunity of Rosewall, and until you’re prepared to open your mind a little I don’t want to see you back here again. You either, Punctual.”

  Constant almost said something, but closed his mouth on it. That, Hope thought, was a young man who knew when to keep a remark to himself and not draw attention. He showed potential.

  The Rosewall siblings stalked out in what attempted to be good order, but failed rather badly.

  “That’s it,” said Rosie. “I’m changing my name.”

  “Rosie…” said Hope.

  “Ask Briar how that’s done, will you?”

  “What to?” asked Dignified.

  “Rosie Printer,” she said. “You said you wanted me to be your family. Well, I want you to be my family.”

  An unaccustomed grin spread across Dignified’s face.

  “Does that mean you two are going to get oathbound?”

  “Why not? I was only holding off to defy my family, and now that I don’t care what they think… What do you need for a legal oathbond?”

  “Two adult witnesses, and a person of standing to conduct the ceremony,” said Hope. She had helped Briar study for her law exams a time or two, and remembered quizzing her on this question.

  “Does a mage count as a person of standing?”

  “You want me to…?”

  “Will you?”

  “Um, Rosie, perhaps you should think this through a little…”

  “Hope,” she said, “I am not going to leave Dignified, nor he me. We have a bond. I’d like it to be official.”

  “All right,” said Hope. “But does it have to be right this instant?”

  “Can gnomes be legal witnesses?” said Rosie.

  “That’s not what I mean. I’m meeting Patient at the ferry wharf in…” she checked the watch hanging from her belt. “Ten minutes ago.”

  “Oh,” said Rosie. “All right, then. Tomorrow. But I’m not going to have changed my mind by then.”

  “All right,” said Hope. “Tomorrow. I’ll bring Patient round, and he and Mill can be witnesses, if you want. Expect me around mid-morning.”

  “Thank you,” said Rosie.

  As Hope let herself out of the lab, she heard Rosie say behind her, “That means we can have illicit relations one more time, Dignified. Perhaps two.”

  Chapter Twenty-One: An Oathbond and a Hearing

  In the interests of speed, Hope took the airhorse, which brought a frown from Patient when she pulled up.

  “Don’t look at me like that,” she said. “Hop on. We’re late.”

  “What delayed you?” asked Patient, as they hurried into Lily’s.

  “Rosewall family drama,” she said. “I’ll tell you all about it later.”

  Lily was highly concerned about her latest incident, the more so since it didn’t seem to be linked to the curse, and even more concerned about Hope’s news of her parents’ history.

  “We’re going to have to do some more work on that,” she said. “Did your healers clear you to do trancework? Did you ask them?”

  “Yes, they said it’s fine,” she replied. “They think they’ve found all the damage, and started the repairs, and now it’s just a matter of time and taking care of myself. What?”

  This last was to Patient. “I didn’t say anything,” he said.

  “You didn’t have to, I felt it. Is this about the airhorse?”

  “Well, yes. They did say to avoid situations which could cause further head trauma.”

  “I am not going to give up the airhorse.”

  “Hope…”

  “We’ll discuss it later, all right?”

  “All right,” he said, and subsided, but she could feel his tension even though they weren’t touching.

  Lily spent the rest of the session having her travel back to her childhood and look at her interactions with her parents, and theirs with each other, through more informed eyes. Patient went along, and contributed his support, but not as confidently as he had earlier.

  When she was out of trance and they were finishing up, Hope said, “Lily, I’d like to ask you about two friends of mine, though. They’re… moving rather quickly, and I’ve been asked today to act as celebrant at their oathbond tomorrow.”

  “What?” said Patient.

  “Rosie and Dignified. Tell you later,” she said.

  “I’m afraid I can’t offer advice to people who aren’t in the room with me,” said Lily. “But I can tell you that your responsibility as celebrant is to ensure that they’re of age and not acting under compulsion. That’s it.”

  “But my responsibility as their friend is more than that.”

  “That’s true. I’ll have to advise you to follow your own heart on that, reflecting, of course, that if you refuse to perform the ceremony, you may lose access as a voice of reason for them, and they’ll just ask someone else.”

  Rather against her better judgement, then, Hope, with Patient, fetched up at the lab mid-morning on Fourday.

  She found Rosie and Dignified waiting for them in the kitchen, in good clothes, at least, along with Mill. A thought struck her. “Uh, Mill,” she said, “before we start… do gnomes have adulthood rites?”

 
“Of course we do,” he said.

  “And do you remember the date of yours?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. There’s a form we have to fill in.” She had picked up a copy of the Registration of Oathbond form from a Gryphon Clerks office on the way.

  Rosie and Dignified read through the form together. It certified that parties named thereunder had exchanged oaths on the date specified before a celebrant who was of standing in the community as defined overleaf, in the presence of witnesses, and that everyone was of legal age and not hindered by prior oaths. There were spaces for names, dates of birth, dates of adulthood rite, signatures, thumbprints and, if applicable, seals of the couple, the celebrant and the witnesses. Hope had already checked the list of persons of standing, and full mages qualified.

  It noted at the bottom the minimum content of oaths to be exchanged for a legal oathbond, and Rosie tapped her finger on that paragraph. “All right,” she said, “we’ll have that.”

  “Rosie,” said Hope, “don’t you want your oathbond ceremony to be a big event?”

  “No,” said Rosie. She was picking up Dignified’s habit of short, literal answers.

  “I mean, most people want everyone they know around them, and a big celebration…”

  “You know Dignified would hate that. Besides, I just count myself lucky to be oathbound at all, and to someone who respects me for my abilities. My love, are you satisfied with this form of the oath?”

  “Yes,” said Dignified.

  “Right,” said Rosie. “Now, I’m the younger, so I speak first, right?”

  “That’s the tradition.”

  “Dignified Printer, I give oath of lifebond to you.”

  “I receive your oath of lifebond. Rosie Printer, I give oath of lifebond to you.”

  “I receive your oath of lifebond.” They smiled, and Hope felt the bond take between them.

  “Well, that’s created an oathbond,” she said. “Even though he didn’t call you by your legal name.”

  “Says right there that one or both parties may change their legal name in the course of the ceremony,” said Rosie triumphantly. “Where’s a pen and an ink-pad?”

  Everyone filled in their details, signed and thumbprinted. Since none of them had personal seals, that was the whole procedure.