Liberating Fight

by Melissa McShane

  “I do not know any of this,” she said, thrusting the letter back at Mrs. Neville. “You want things of me? Money? Why do you tell me this?”

  “No, Miss Salazar, no!” Mrs. Neville’s quiet voice rose an octave. “I did not come here—that is, I need nothing from you, but—”

  She drew in a calming breath. “My husband is dead, Miss Salazar,” she said, lifting her chin defiantly. “He cast Catherine off when she declared she would marry Don Ernesto. It was in part due to his stubbornness that they refused to make a life in England. Catherine was my only daughter, and—” She paused to blot her eyes with her gloved fingertips. “Forgive my selfishness, but you are all that is left of her. I wanted to know her child.”

  Words deserted Amaya, even words in her own language. Mrs. Neville continued to look at her with eyes brimming over with tears. She made no move to leave, or sit, and the challenge in her expression confused Amaya more even than the incomprehensible letter had. If Mrs. Neville was lying, this was the most elaborate scheme Amaya had ever heard of, more complex than even Amaya’s well-honed sense of intrigue might have engendered. And Amaya felt deep within herself that Mrs. Neville was not lying.

  She came to herself abruptly. “Sit,” she said, and sank into the nearest chair without waiting to see if Mrs. Neville would comply. Her hands were shaking, and she clasped them in her lap to still them. She ought to call for refreshments; that was the proper thing to do for a guest. But she was still not certain she wanted to give Mrs. Neville a welcome that might indicate Amaya felt a connection to her.

  “Your husband is dead?” she said. Turning the questions back on her unexpected guest might give her time to decide what she wanted from Mrs. Neville, if anything.

  “These six years,” Mrs. Neville said. “I have two sons still living. Both are married, both have children.” A tentative smile touched her lips. “Your cousins. One is an Extraordinary Shaper like yourself.”

  The idea frightened Amaya, as if she were somehow no longer herself if she had relatives she had never heard of. “And my father’s family?”

  Mrs. Neville’s smile disappeared. “I know almost nothing of them except the family name,” she said, “and that Don Ernesto came from Toledo in Spain. I regret that I cannot tell you more.”

  Another unexpected flash of fear touched her heart, the fear that some other family member unknown to her might appear on the Hanleys’ doorstep. She suppressed it and asked, “Do the sons—your sons, they know you come here?”

  Mrs. Neville shook her head. “I decided, if you chose not to allow me entrance, it was better they not know of the connection. So you might choose what relation you wish to have with us.”

  “Thank you,” Amaya said. “I do not know what to say.”

  “To be honest, I did not consider anything beyond convincing you I am not a liar or a fortune-hunter.” Mrs. Neville settled her reticule on her lap. “May I ask, was she happy? Or is that too sensitive a subject? I know so little. Her letters simply stopped, you see, and then when you arrived in England, the newspapers said only that you were an orphan.” The tears returned, spilling over the woman’s thin cheeks.

  “Do not cry,” Amaya said, alarmed.

  Mrs. Neville shook her head, wiping her eyes again. “I beg your pardon, I should not impose upon you. It is simply that believing one’s child is dead is not the same as having it confirmed in such a brutal fashion. But—will you tell me what happened? I cannot bear my imaginings.”

  Sympathy for the woman displaced Amaya’s disquiet. “Attackers. Raiders,” she said. “It is a thing that happens sometimes to small communities far from where there is soldiers to protect. They attacked—” She swallowed as the memories threatened to choke her. Mrs. Neville did not need to know the details that burned in Amaya’s memory, even thirteen years later. “All were killed. Mama, Papi, all in our home.”

  “But not you.”

  “No. I hide, and then I run. The Incas find me and give me a new home. I do not die.”

  Mrs. Neville nodded. “I regret so much that I did not—oh, it doesn’t matter now. I feel such sorrow for your loss. How old were you? Nine?”

  “Ten years.” Mrs. Neville’s unexpected sympathy made her blurt out, “There were more of us. More children. Ernesto and Rosita. They die too.”

  Mrs. Neville covered her mouth to hold in a gasp. “Oh, my dear,” she said. “My dear child. To have witnessed such horrors.”

  Amaya’s discomfort increased. “I am strong,” she said. “I live and they do not. It is not to be sad for me that I live.”

  “Of course not. I apologize.” Mrs. Neville’s pinched expression reappeared. “Miss Salazar, I would very much like…that is, if you are willing…might you pay us a visit? I would like for you to know your family.”

  Amaya flinched. “I am—” She did not know the right words. How to explain that she did not feel the need of familial protection, that Mrs. Neville’s offer made her feel as uncomfortably obligated as Dr. Macrae’s demands on her talent did? “I have a place here,” she said, and immediately wondered why she had not said “a home” instead.

  Mrs. Neville’s thin cheeks turned pink. “I did not mean to offend,” she said. “It is simply that I know you are a stranger in this country, and hoped it might matter to you to have family here. No one will make demands upon you, I assure you. I only wished…” Her voice trailed off. Amaya, looking into her faded blue eyes, did not need to be a Discerner to perceive Mrs. Neville’s longing.

  “Am I like her? Like my mother?” she asked.

  Mrs. Neville shook her head. “You look much like Don Ernesto, in the color of your hair and the shape of your nose and cheeks,” she said. “But your eyes are grey like Catherine’s.”

  Neither hair color nor eye color could be altered by Shaping. It was oddly reassuring to know there were parts of her that would always link her to the parents she only barely remembered. “Mama never spoke English,” she said. “I am sad not to know of you. Of this birth. I may come.”

  Mrs. Neville smiled. “Thank you,” she said, extending her hand to Amaya. It felt as frail as her smile. Then she rose, and Amaya stood as well. “I will not keep you longer, but here is our direction.” She removed another card from her reticule and handed it to Amaya. “Call on us whenever it is convenient. I rarely leave the house, so please do call.”

  “I will consider,” Amaya said.

  When Mrs. Neville was gone, Amaya returned to the drawing room and sat at the table, riffling the pages of her book. Elizabeth Bennet would have known what to say to Mrs. Neville. She would have asked the right questions. Amaya did not even know the extent of her newly-discovered relations. Cousins? She swiftly paged through her list of English words with their Spanish translations. Primos. Two uncles, and who knew how many cousins. She did not know whether to laugh or weep.

  She stood and went in search of someone to talk to. She found Edmund in the small room that doubled as a library and a study for when Edmund’s father was in residence. Its four walls were lined with bookcases that rose all the way to the ceiling, making the room dim even when both its lamps were lit. A desk occupied one corner, heavy and brooding and carved with images impossible to discern in the low light, and a short sofa took up the adjacent corner. It looked comfortable, but Amaya knew from experience it was actually lumpy and the velvet upholstery was worn thin in places.

  Edmund was seated at the desk, pen in hand, papers spread out before him. “Good morning, Amaya,” he said in Spanish without raising his head. He twitched one of the papers over another as if to conceal the second. “Did I hear the door just now?”

  “You did. Oh, Edmund, I am so confused.”

  Now he looked up. “You sound distressed. Has something happened?”

  Amaya sat on the lumpy sofa and immediately rose again. “I have had a caller,” she said, “someone who—Edmund, she claimed to be my grandmother, and I believe she was telling the truth.” She began to pace restlessly in front of th
e desk, her hands clenched into fists.

  Edmund set the pen down very precisely in front of him. “Such a claim is preposterous. She must be a fortune-hunter.”

  Amaya shook her head. “If you had met her, you would understand. It seems my mother was English, and her mother, Mrs. Neville—she says I have more family, her other children, and their children—Edmund, what am I to do?”

  Edmund rose and came around the desk to clasp Amaya’s hand and stop her pacing. “You need do nothing,” he said in a quiet yet firm voice, “nothing you do not wish to do. Even if this Mrs. Neville is your grandmother, you owe her nothing. Do not feel you should pursue the connection if it makes you uncomfortable. It is not as if you need their name to give you consequence.”

  Amaya could not bear to meet his eyes. Instead she stared at his fashionably tied neckcloth, tracing its folds until her whole world was nothing but white cloth. “That is true,” she said, “but I still feel like a stranger to myself. I was alone in the world, and now I have family, and it is as if I have been given a gift I am afraid to open.”

  Edmund’s hand gripped her tighter, and now she looked into his eyes and saw nothing but compassion. “You are not alone, because you have friends. If you choose to make this family’s acquaintance, we will support you. And if you choose not to, you are still Amaya, and you still have a home here.”

  Amaya nodded. The firmness of his hand reassured her, made her feel less alone, and without thinking she laid her other hand atop their clasped ones. Edmund’s smile deepened for a moment, and then he released her. “A home,” he repeated, “and many delightful occupations. Though it is a pity you do not read English well yet, or I might pass this task off to you.”

  “What task is that?”

  Edmund returned to his seat at the desk and picked up the pen, tumbling it between his fingers. “Writing one of many letters to my associates, informing them that I will be leaving the country for several months. It is tedious because the message is the same for all, but I must still write it out for each.” He laid the pen down and sighed. “How unfortunate we are not all Extraordinary Speakers. Bess tells me she is capable of Speaking a single message to several minds at once. If I could do that, my task would have been finished ten minutes ago.”

  “Do you mind, having no talent?” Amaya asked, feeling curious. She had been about to ask what took him out of the country, but his weary tone of voice when he spoke of his sister’s talent disturbed her.

  Edmund eyed her as if wondering what her secret intent in asking was. “I do not mind,” he said. “Perhaps a hundred and fifty years ago, when talent was still new and the Stuarts gave preference to Extraordinaries, I might have said differently. But today there are still relatively few talented individuals, and England cannot afford to spurn those with intelligence and wisdom and wealth simply because they lack magical talent as well.”

  “And I suppose you are one of those intelligent, wise, wealthy people without whom England would surely collapse,” Amaya teased.

  Edmund smiled again. The wicked twinkle in his eye made him look even more charming than usual. “Naturally. Though I would quibble over ‘wealthy.’ I have sufficient for my needs and have shed most of the vices that would drain my resources. That makes me better off than half my peers.”

  A quiet knock on the door made them both look up. It was the footman Albert. “I beg your pardon, but there is a message for Miss Salazar,” he said, proffering a silver serving tray. Upon it lay a sealed envelope.

  Amaya resisted the urge to shut the door in Albert’s face, denying this new mystery. Surely it could not be yet another unknown relative, imposing on her? She picked the envelope up and turned it over curiously as Albert shut the door behind him. “It does not say who sent it,” she told Edmund.

  “If you open it, you will be relieved of your ignorance,” Edmund said with a straight face.

  Amaya grimaced at him and used one of her sharp claws to break the seal. She likely should not have done so, but only Edmund was there, and he knew what she was capable of and was not horrified by it. She unfolded the paper and squinted at it in the low light.

  “I cannot read it,” she said. “Here. Tell me what it says.”

  “If it is a note requesting an assignation, I will be very embarrassed,” Edmund said with a smile. He held the paper close to his eyes. “Ah. It is from the Ministry of the Treasury, requesting a meeting in two days’ time. No doubt it is to do with the final disposition of your reward.”

  “I do not see why they need a meeting for that.”

  Edmund shrugged. “It is the government; they need no excuse to have a meeting, and I say that as a member of that government who has endured many such meetings. Your signature might be required, and I suppose they will need to know where you would like the funds deposited.”

  The idea made Amaya’s head spin. “Will you go with me? I know so little of finance. I do not expect they will try to cheat me, but—”

  “But better they not get the idea,” Edmund agreed. “I would be delighted to accompany you. Being in proximity to such wealth makes my skin tingle.”

  Amaya laughed. “You were satisfied with being well-off only minutes ago.”

  “Ah, well, when it comes to money, I am as much a hypocrite as anyone,” Edmund said with a wry smile.

  Chapter 3

  In which Amaya is bribed, threatened, and ultimately cajoled into service with the War Office

  The Treasury building near St. James’ Park had the reassuring solidity Amaya liked about English construction. Its builder had not only used the heavy rectangular stones so like those of her homeland, but had set stones in arches surmounting the many windows with their curved tops. Near the top of the Treasury, a triangular stone slab carved with intricate designs appeared supported by smooth columns, though Amaya was sure the builder would not trust to such fragile things to keep the slab from falling on passersby below.

  She still marveled at the glass panes filling the windows. She had never seen glass before coming to London, and did not believe even her childhood home that had been destroyed by raiders had had such a luxury. What a convenience, to allow the sunlight in and keep the rain and wind out! And yet no one she knew ever behaved as if this were anything but a commonplace. Sometimes she could not understand how the English did not appreciate the things they had.

  Edmund walked with her past the uniformed guard at the door, who did not acknowledge their presence. Amaya recognized a fellow warrior in how he covertly examined them as a potential threat. It reassured her that the English took their responsibilities seriously. She returned the favor by not smiling at him, a potential distraction.

  The halls of the Treasury smelled of the sharp scent of the same cleanser the Hanleys’ servants used, under which Amaya’s keen nose smelled wood and lamp oil. Men dressed like Edmund in those odd coats that were longer in the back than the front passed through the halls in pairs or singly. They eyed Amaya with interest, no doubt because she was the only woman there, but did not accost her. She guessed, had Edmund not been with her, she would have been subjected to questions.

  It was an English habit that annoyed her, this assumption that a woman needed a man to give her consequence. In Tawantinsuyu, men and women’s roles were sharply defined, and women who were not jaguar warriors defended their prerogatives as fiercely as the men did. But here in England, where female Speaker and Bounders and the like had talents the equal of any man, and often did the work of men, women were still circumscribed as to how they could use those talents. Amaya did not understand why there were no women employed by the Treasury, nor why the English did not fully embrace the liberties they claimed to offer women.

  Edmund, striding along beside her, did not seem aware of the looks Amaya received, but when they neared the door to which they had been directed, he said in Spanish, “They mean no harm, you know.”

  “I beg your pardon?” She should not be so quick to make assumptions about what Edmund did or d
id not notice.

  “Many men of an earlier generation, which means most of those employed by the Treasury, are not accustomed to the changes Napoleon’s wars have promoted in our society. In their youth it would have been unthinkable for a woman to have business here. Many of them view the increasing freedoms of talented women with suspicion. They believe it is a woman’s natural state to depend on a man for her livelihood.”

  Amaya made a dismissive sound that made Edmund laugh. “That is their class speaking,” she said. “I know very well there are women all over London who must make their own living, and it is only your upper classes that can afford that sort of belief.”

  “True. And, as I suggested, it is mostly talented women who benefit from increasingly liberal modes of thought. You, as an Extraordinary Shaper, gain the most benefit of all. The fact that there are so many females with your talent has led to those women becoming doctors, which in turn has led to women without Extraordinary Shaper talent demanding entrance to our medical schools, on the grounds that female physicians are just as intelligent and skilled as men in medical matters, regardless of talent. Times are changing.” He rapped on the plain wooden door. “I, for one, am fascinated by those changes.”

  The door opened. A balding man with a prominent forehead gestured to them to enter. “Miss Salazar,” he said, “thank you for joining me. This is Mr. Hanley, yes? I am Sir Maxwell Price.”

  Sir Maxwell was not alone in the small room that smelled faintly of lilacs from the spray of flowers in a vase by the window. Two other men were seated in front of the desk that occupied most of the room, and rose when Amaya entered. One was short and round, with round, rosy cheeks that gave him the appearance of a cheerful apple. The other was not much taller than his companion, but very thin, with prominent bones and a slender neck that appeared in danger of snapping from the weight of his oversized head topped by thick grey hair. Neither smiled. The thin man indicated that Amaya should take his seat, and he and the round man retreated to stand near the window.