The Magicians and Mrs. Quent

by Galen Beckett

  The particulars were still unknown to Rafferdy. There had been intimations about Lord Everaud, soon echoed by rumor, and finally given form in an article in The Messenger. Even then, exactly what had happened was not clear. There was talk of money being sent to the Principalities, not as part of any legal kind of trade, and of communications delivered by Murghese couriers bearing a seal in the shape of a hawk.

  While no charges were filed, opinion convicted more certainly than any evidence that could be presented in a court. Immediately upon publication of the article, the Everauds retreated from society in Invarel and returned to their home in the south of Altania. Now they were gone from there, to where no one could say for certain, though most believed they had fled across the sea. It was whispered that Miss Everaud was already married to a Murghese prince and now went about clad head to toe in veils.

  There was real anguish on her face. “Mr. Rafferdy, you must know that I…that is, if I had known, if I had even suspected, I never would have—”

  “I know, Mrs. Baydon,” he said, softening his tone. “You are and ever have been my friend. But I have your aunt to judge me, and she does so quite well on her own. I do not think she requires your assistance.”

  She smiled, as he had intended, but then a sigh escaped her. She looked again out the window, touching the gold locket at her throat. “I will not deny that she is worthy of you, if not her relations. And liking someone can never be wrong, not when the object is so deserving in every way of being liked. I truly enjoyed Miss Lockwell’s company. I think we might have been—no, I will say that we were—friends.” She looked at him again. “Yet surely you know…for you two to ever be together…it would have to be a very different world than this one. You must concede it is true, Mr. Rafferdy.”

  He glanced back at the table, where Mr. Baydon had resumed reading his broadsheet, and saw the large words printed beneath the headline. ‘A New Altania Comes,’ Traitor Warns From Gallows.

  “Yes, on that point I agree with you,” he said.

  He led Mrs. Baydon back to the table, and after that he spent the rest of the afternoon attempting to entertain her ladyship.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  OF ALL THE large and influential trading companies in the Grand City of Invarel, there was none so hulking in its largeness, so overwhelming in its influencing effects, as Sadent, Mornden, & Bayle. Just as all water in the city flowed into the River Anbyrn before it was allowed to pass down to the sea, there was not a segment of commerce in Altania, from the least business to the most lucrative investments, that did not flow at least in part through the halls of Sadent, Mornden, & Bayle. However, it was not upon a tide of water that this commerce was carried, like ships upon the river, but rather on a steady and ceaseless flow of ink.

  On any given day inside the main hall of the trading company, the sound of pens scratching against paper far exceeded the buzzing in any hive of bees, and while it was not honey being extracted by their activity, it was something even more sweet to the tastes of men.

  Two long tables stretched the entire length of the hall, a row of clerks seated on stools on each side. So closely were the clerks arranged that the slightest movement to the right or left might cause one’s arm to come in contact with his neighbor’s. This would elicit a complaint from the one jostled, especially if by the action his pen had been made to jump or skitter.

  At Sadent, Mornden, & Bayle, clerks were paid by the page, and mistakes were not tolerated. If one smudged the last row of figures at the bottom of the sheet, it must be thrown away and a fresh one started, and the clerk’s pay would be docked for the cost of the wasted paper and ink. Thus they worked with shoulders hunched in, spines curved, and heads bent, pens scratching as they recorded transactions, documented trades, and tallied rows of figures that, if placed end to end, would stretch longer than the River Anbyrn itself.

  As the clerks around him labored, Eldyn Garritt set down his pen and flexed his stiff fingers. Holding the quill for hours on end had formed them into a permanent curl, and the tips were stained black—just as they had been that night at the village of Hayrick Cross, when he broke the message tube he had been carrying for Westen and threw it in the blacksmith’s face.

  Eldyn grimaced at the memory. Sometimes, as he worked, he wished there was a way that mistakes could be blotted from his life, like the way the ink from the broken vial had blotted out the treasonous missive inside the tube. However, while a mistake might be crossed out, it could never really be removed. Even if the parchment was scoured with sand, traces of incriminating pigment would remain. The sheet could only be thrown away—and Eldyn had no wish to be disposed of just yet.

  Besides, perhaps time could do what ink could not. I am not finished with you, Westen had said that night when Eldyn told him he would carry no more messages for him. However, in the half year since, Eldyn had not seen the highwayman. He had come to collect neither his hundred regals nor Eldyn himself. It was as if he had faded from the world, like words on a sheet of paper left too long in the sun, which became more ghostly with each passing day, until all trace of them was gone.

  Then again, tincture of gall might be applied to faded ink to darken it, and Eldyn could not help but wonder if turning a page might bring some new, unpleasant chapter into view. Sighing, he rubbed his aching right hand with his left, trying to force the blood back into it.

  “What are you doing, Garritt?” said the clerk who sat across the table from him. He was about Eldyn’s age, and his name was Tems Chumsferd, though everyone called him Chubbs for his thick neck and thick fingers.

  “I have a cramp in my hand,” Eldyn said. His fingers were tingling now with a thousand pinpricks as blood seeped back into them.

  “Well, you’ll have a cramp in your head soon if you don’t get back to work. Whackskuller’s coming this way.”

  Eldyn winced. Mr. Waxler was the head clerk at Sadent, Mornden, & Bayle. He spent the days patrolling up and down the tables, examining the work of each clerk over their shoulders. He carried a wooden baton—about two feet long, slender but sturdy—with which he would reach and tap against a page to point out an error or smudge. However, if a clerk made too many errors, it was not the paper that would receive a tap but rather the back of the clerk’s head—and none too gently. Eldyn had received such correction more than once in his first weeks on the job.

  “Here he comes,” Chubbs muttered. He dipped his pen in the inkwell the two shared between them and bent back over his sheet of figures.

  Eldyn picked up his own pen and continued his work, forming precise columns of numbers. The sound of Mr. Waxler’s footsteps approached; these were distinguished by a case of dropfoot on the right side. The footsteps drew closer: clump-CLOMP, clump-CLOMP. Eldyn dipped his pen and wrote as swiftly as he could, not lifting his eyes from the paper before him.

  The footsteps ceased.

  “Mr. Garritt,” said a thin voice behind him, “were you not working on this very same page the last time I passed by?”

  Eldyn craned his head to look at the hawk-nosed man standing behind him. The clerks around him scribbled furiously.

  “I believe I had just started it, sir,” he said. “And I am now very near to the end. Nor are there any mistakes.”

  Mr. Waxler’s eyes narrowed as he made an examination of the paper. His face was flat and dotted with moles, like a piece of gray paper speckled with ink. “No, I see no mistakes, and your writing is very pretty, Mr. Garritt. However, I would prefer that it were swifter and more economical. Why the long ascender here, or the needless flourish there?” The tip of his baton rapped against the page. “Ink is the lifeblood of Altania, Mr. Garritt. It should not be squandered. I am docking your wages ten pennies today for waste. Now continue your work.”

  The head clerk moved on—clump-CLOMP—and Eldyn bent his head back over the page, letting out a sigh as he did.

  “Be glad, Garritt,” Chubbs whispered. “You got off easy.”

  “So you say,” Garrit
t whispered back. “It does not seem so easy to me.” Ten pennies was a fifth of his daily wages. He had hoped to go home at a decent hour today, but he would have to work an extra half shift to make up for the lost pay. A normal shift was ten hours, but those who wished for it could work an additional five. However, not many clerks chose to do so, for as one grew tired, one made more mistakes, and an unlucky clerk could end up owing more in docked wages for spoiled paper and wasted ink than he earned in the second shift. However, these days Eldyn rarely made mistakes, and he usually took the extra work to earn another twenty-five pennies—though he hated to leave Sashie alone for so long.

  Chubbs tapped his pen against the edge of the well, then started a new sheet. “Well, just be glad you still have a job.”

  Eldyn did not reply. Despite its size, the hall was stuffy and rank with the fumes of ink and of clerks who did not bathe as regularly as they should. Only a dim light leaked from the oil lamps above, but if one wanted more illumination, one had to purchase a candle from the head clerk at an exorbitant price. Eldyn always made do with what light there was, even though his eyes often ached and by the end of a second shift were so blurred and sore he could hardly see. Sometimes, if the day was very dark, Chubbs bought a candle; at such times, Eldyn was grateful for what little extra light fell upon his own page.

  Despite all this, Eldyn was glad for the job. After weeks of going to every trading and banking house in the city in search of a clerking position, he had found nothing. Everywhere he went, the tables were already filled. As the last of his funds dwindled, he had feared he would have to take work as a common laborer. Even then, how would he earn enough to sustain him and Sashie?

  Desperate, he had gone again to Sadent, Mornden, & Bayle, which he had visited twice before. His luck would have been no better than on those first two tries; however, just as Mr. Waxler was telling him there were no open positions, a small gray-haired clerk nearby let out a moan and toppled backward from his stool. By the time they picked him up off the floor, he was stone dead.

  Mr. Waxler had said nothing, only nodding to the empty stool. The pen was prized from the dead clerk’s hand and given to Eldyn. Eldyn sat in the empty place at the table, dipped the pen, and set it against the page, continuing exactly where the old clerk had left off. And that was how he gained his position at Sadent, Mornden, & Bayle.

  At last the primary shift ended. Most of the clerks rose and shuffled toward the doors to collect their wages from the paymaster. Eldyn dipped his pen again and kept writing.

  “Staying for the second shift again, are you?” Chubbs said, his round face puckering in a frown. “I don’t know how you do it, Garritt. My hand is numb as stone, and my eyes feel like they’ve been bathed in ink and jabbed with a quill. Take care you don’t ruin yourself. If you lose your hands or your eyes, Whackskuller will give your place to someone else.”

  “I’m fine,” Eldyn said. “Good night, Chubbs.”

  The other man sighed. “Good night, Garritt. Next lumenal, then.” He went with the large portion of the clerks out the door while Eldyn, along with a few others, remained at the tables.

  For a moment Eldyn paused. He was tempted to rise and follow Chubbs outside; his hand hurt, and he wanted to leave this dismal place. However, he had already been docked part of his pay today, and his salary barely covered his expenses as it was. He needed the extra work if he wanted to save anything for his and Sashie’s future.

  Eldyn dipped his pen again, tapping it carefully to remove the excess ink, then continued working as the sky turned to gray outside the high windows.

  BY THE TIME he left the trading house, the brief twilight had given way to the start of an umbral that, according to the table printed on the front page of The Fox, was to be thirteen hours. The day had failed more quickly than he had expected, and toward the end of the shift he had been forced to buy a candle for five pennies. He rued the expense, but it was worth it to finish the half shift.

  At this hour, the streets of the Old City were still well populated, and he walked without fear to the tiny apartment he had rented for Sashie and himself. The apartment was not far past Duskfellow’s graveyard, down a drab lane, tucked in the rafters above a shoemaker’s shop. It was the third place they had dwelled since the night they had fled from Westen.

  He still could not recall that terrible umbral without a shudder. After discovering that Mr. Sarvinge and Mr. Grealing were swindlers and had made off with his money, he had run all the way from Inslip Lane back to the Golden Loom. There he stuffed their few possessions in a sack, tossed a few coins on the table to cover the last week of rent, then—without stopping to offer a word of explanation to Mr. Walpert or a farewell to his daughter—he dragged his sister into the night. Sashie had protested, complaining she did not want to go. However, he promised her he was taking her somewhere better, somewhere with softer beds and finer chairs—somewhere more fitting her station—and at last she acquiesced.

  Having made such a promise, he had no choice but to take her to an establishment in Gauldren’s Heights, and perhaps it was just as well. Being a respectable inn, it had a man always on duty at the door, and as long as they did not go outside he was fairly certain Westen could not molest them there.

  All the same, soft as the beds were, he found little sleep at that inn and spent many wakeful hours gazing out through a gap in the curtains, watching the street below, dreading to see a tall, golden-maned form prowling up to the inn. That Westen meant to collect his hundred regals, Eldyn was certain. Just as he was certain that money alone would not be enough to satisfy him.

  Despite Eldyn’s fears, he saw nothing. Still, after only three days he had no choice but to move them again, or else the exorbitant rent would quickly make paupers of them. They spent the next three weeks at a boardinghouse in a dilapidated corner of the Old City. By then he had been down to his last regals, and it was all he could afford.

  The place was frightening. Their room was a dank cell with no glazing over the window, only iron bars and a rotted shutter. There was a bed, but the thing was so infested with vermin that they leaned it in a corner and slept on a pair of wooden benches instead. He used one of the tattered blankets he had scrounged as a curtain to close off half of the room for Sashie’s privacy, but it was hardly needed; they slept in their clothes, for the place was damp and cold.

  The only advantage of the boardinghouse was that there was little chance of Sashie venturing out while he was gone and encountering Westen; she was terrified to leave the room. Especially at night, the boardinghouse was filled with moans, hard laughter, and often the distant sound of screaming. They kept the door bolted at all times, and Sashie would admit him only upon seeing his face through a crack in the door.

  The other advantage was that he doubted Westen would think to look for them in such a wretched place. Whether that was the case or not, he saw no sign of the highwayman during the three awful weeks they spent there. At last, when they were down to their final pennies, Eldyn had obtained the position at Sadent, Mornden, & Bayle. He had removed Sashie from the boardinghouse at once and had let the small apartment over the shoemaker’s shop.

  Nor was it a moment too soon. The next week, in one of the broadsheets, he read how a fire had swept through that very same boardinghouse, killing more than a dozen of its residents who could not escape their rooms. He had not told Sashie.

  In the months since, he had sometimes wondered if he should move them again. Westen might find them if they remained in one place for too long. However, as the weeks went by and he saw no sign of the highwayman, his dread lessened. He began to think it likely that Westen was no longer in the city. Perhaps he had even been shot and killed by soldiers or one of his would-be victims, though Eldyn was fairly certain he would have read about such an incident in the broadsheets.

  Besides, Eldyn did not want to make Sashie move again. Nor did he think he could find them a better place given his current salary. As the weeks became months, he had even begun to thi
nk Westen had forgotten about them. Surely the highwayman had other schemes and concerns to occupy his attention. And what was a hundred regals to him? He had only to rob another coach to earn thrice that.

  Leaving the busier thoroughfares behind, Eldyn walked among the shadows of Cowper’s Lane, climbed the back stairs to their apartment, and unlocked the door.

  “There you are!” Sashie gasped as he entered, rising from her seat by the little window that looked out over the street. “I didn’t see you come up the street. Though I don’t know how I didn’t see you. I’ve sat here for hours and hours staring out.”

  He grimaced. Out of habit, he must have unwittingly woven the shadows around himself as he walked along the lane.

  “I expected you hours ago,” she said, without giving him a moment to speak. “I was on the verge of going out to look for you.”

  Alarm filled him. “You know you aren’t to go out alone. Not in this part of the city. It isn’t—”

  “I don’t care what it is. You can’t keep me shut up in here. The sound of hammering comes right through the floor. You don’t hear it—the shop is closed by the time you come home—but I hear it all day, every day, for hours and hours. They pound on the shoes, pound, pound.” She lifted her hands to her temples. “It’s driving me mad.”

  He moved to her. “I’m sorry, dearest. I know it’s hard to be here alone. But my free day is soon; I’ll take you out. We can go for a walk along the Promenade. Or I’ll take you to Gauldren’s Heights. We’ll go to one of the shops Uphill and buy you a new dress.”

  “I don’t need another dress,” she said, pawing at the pale blue frock she wore, which he had bought her with a full three days’ wages. She looked very pretty in it despite her anguish. “What need have I of dresses in here where no one can see me?”

  He winced as she flung these words at him. It had distressed him at the Golden Loom when she refused to speak to him, but he was not certain her new manner was an improvement. For a time, after they moved here, she had been so grateful to leave the boardinghouse that she had been a meek, even docile thing, showering him with kisses each time he returned home. However, that appreciation had not lasted, and over the last months her tongue had grown increasingly sharp.