The Unwilling

by KELLY BRAFFET

  Two days before the ball, someone knocked on the door. Theron was listening to his music box in the bedroom while the other three sat in the parlor like broken dolls. None of them rose. Gavin called out to whoever it was to come in.

  It was the Seneschal. Arkady’s apprentice was with him, but Arkady wasn’t. The Seneschal took in the motionless room, the odd tune of the music box, and said, “I’m sure you’ve all noticed that Arkady has not been well recently. I’m sorry to tell you that he has succumbed to his illness and died.”

  He paused, as if expecting a reaction. There was none, although Judah felt a faint lifting that could almost be described as pleasure: the first she’d felt in weeks. The Seneschal continued. “You’ve all met his former apprentice, Nathaniel Magus. He was with Arkady at the end, and he’ll be taking over Arkady’s duties for now. We are here to see Lord Theron.”

  At the for now, the apprentice’s eyes darted a bit. Although Judah supposed she should start thinking of him as the magus, instead of the apprentice. The lifting was growing, swelling, as the words sank in, those glorious words: Arkady Magus has succumbed to his illness and died. Never to hear his sneering voice again, never to smell the tobacco and tooth-rot smell of his breath. Never to feel his cold fingers probing at her. Never to hear his snide insinuations, his nasty hinted threats.

  Elly stood up and held her hand out to the magus. “Thank you for coming,” she said with a reasonable attempt at friendliness.

  “Of course.” The magus took her hand—a bit uncertainly, Judah thought—and bowed. “I’m sorry to hear that Lord Theron is ill.”

  Elly’s lips thinned. “Yes, well. Ill isn’t exactly the word for it.” She gave the Seneschal a pointed look. He didn’t react.

  “I’ll try to help,” the magus said. “Is he in the bedroom?”

  “I think we’d rather you examine him out here, where we can see you,” Gavin said coolly, and called out toward the open door, “Theron!”

  A moment later, Theron drifted through the doorway. There was no other word for it. His shirt and trousers were clean enough—Elly made sure of that—but he wore no vest or coat over them; his collar stood open, his cuffs dangled unfastened, and his feet were bare. His face was clean, too, and Gavin kept him well-shaved, but it had been a while since his hair had seen a comb. As always, he looked at his brother and the two women with faint surprise. His reaction to the Seneschal and the magus was no different. He might have been standing in a garden, watching a flock of birds. “Hello,” he said.

  Elly, still standing with the magus, put out a hand. Theron came to her like a dog. “Theron, love, you remember Arkady’s apprentice, Nathaniel Magus. He’s here to check you over.”

  “Oh,” Theron said. “Am I still sick? I thought I was better.”

  “You are.” Elly sounded more reassuring than Judah could have. “I’m sure they just want to make absolutely sure, before the ball.”

  “Lord Theron,” the magus said. “It’s a pleasure to see you again.” Then he asked Theron to sit on the sofa. Elly sat with him. The Seneschal stared fixedly out the window, apparently wishing he were elsewhere. Theron, of course, seemed to actually be elsewhere, but the rest of them watched closely as the new magus peered in Theron’s eyes and throat and listened to his heart, as he asked Theron to follow the finger he moved from side to side, forward and backward. Gavin’s hands were deep in his coat pockets and Elly’s expression was one Judah remembered seeing across the table at lessons, when Elly knew the answer and Judah didn’t. As if, through sheer force of will, Elly could put it into Judah’s brain.

  Now that will was directed at Theron. Who obediently moved his eyes back and forth and up and down, who pushed and pulled against the magus’s outstretched arm, but who somehow wasn’t giving the right answers. Behind the magus’s glasses, his eyes were thoughtful.

  Finally, Judah could stand it no longer. “I waited too long, didn’t I?”

  The magus tilted his head, and opened his mouth. If his face was any indicator, the next words out of his mouth should have been, Oh, no, that’s not it at all. “Well,” he said.

  “Waited too long for what?” The Seneschal was frowning.

  “To call for help,” the magus answered, before Judah could say anything at all. “And I don’t know that you did, really. This sort of thing—it’s complicated.”

  “What sort of thing?” Elly said.

  “Illness in the brain. We don’t understand it very well, I mean.”

  “He’ll get better, though,” Gavin said. “He’ll be himself again.”

  Theron watched all of this as if the birds he’d found in the room had begun to sing. The Seneschal, smooth and controlled once more, said, “Perhaps we can have this conversation another time.”

  “I don’t think that’s necessary.” To Theron, the magus said, “Lord Theron, I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but you came very close to dying.”

  Judah felt the flinch that passed through the room as much as she saw it. Theron only nodded. “Yes. I think I did know that.”

  “It will take you some time to recover from the shock,” the magus said. “How do you feel?”

  Theron gazed around at all of them. Slowly—fumbling for the answer—he said, “I feel...unlocated.” Then he shook his head. For the first time since he’d been poisoned, he seemed genuinely distressed. “No. That’s not right. I’m sorry.”

  The magus put a hand on Theron’s shoulder with a warm smile. “Don’t worry. It will get better.”

  “Will it?” Judah said.

  The magus’s smile faded. He stood up.

  Elly stood, too. “Thank you,” she said, extending her hand again.

  The magus took it more confidently this time. “You’re welcome. I’m sorry I can’t be of more immediate help.”

  “Arkady’s death was very sudden, wasn’t it? I hope it wasn’t a difficult one.”

  “There’s a certain kind of person,” the magus said gravely, “for whom death is never easy. There’s something in them that refuses to let go.”

  “It would not surprise me to hear that Arkady Magus was one of those people. But I’m glad it’s you that’s replaced him. You seem very kind,” Elly said.

  He bowed. “My mother used to say: when you look into the night, count all the stars you can.”

  “Does that mean something?” Gavin said rudely.

  “That no single good act will ever be enough, but every good act is important,” the magus replied. “I do my best.”

  When he and the Seneschal were gone, Gavin shook his head. “He’s a strange one. Doesn’t seem to mind too much that Arkady’s dead.”

  “Do you?” Elly said in her new sharp voice. Gavin didn’t answer and she turned to Judah. “I think he likes you.”

  Startled, Judah said, “Why?”

  “Because he wouldn’t look at you.” Elly smiled. It seemed like a real smile, or something close to it. “Maybe he’ll marry you, and you’ll end up the happiest of all of us.”

  “I’m not allowed to marry,” Judah said, keeping to herself the new amendment the Seneschal had proposed, which was that she was allowed to marry anyone who was completely disinterested in her, and whose allegiance could be bought. “Not that I would want to, if I were.”

  “You could do better than some foreign-born magus, anyway,” Gavin said.

  Who was to say she herself wasn’t foreign-born, or at least that her parents weren’t? Judah bore more physical resemblance to the entertainers filing through the gate than she did anyone else in Highfall. Before she could say so, Elly said, “I think marriage should be abolished. No alliance marriages, no marriage-leaving tax. No way to keep anyone with you except by treating them well. No way to ensure trade but by being a good neighbor. Maybe when I’m Lady of the City—” words she’d said thousands of times, now filled with bitterness “—I’
ll make it a law.”

  “Wouldn’t work,” Gavin said.

  “Why not?” Elly sounded almost belligerent, and for a moment all the reasons why not hung in the air like smoke: because the Lady of the City didn’t make laws, because marriages were all that kept the courtiers from killing each other, because no tax would ever be abolished, because Elban would never allow it.

  “Because people aren’t like that,” Gavin said. “Offer them freedom on the condition that they take responsibility for using it wisely, and they’ll take the chains.”

  “Maybe men would,” Elly said. “Ask the women.”

  “I’m just telling you what history teaches.”

  “Whose version of history?” she snapped. “Elban’s?”

  It was the longest conversation they’d had in days. “Theron,” Judah said, to break the tension, “would you like to go up to your workshop? See what you were working on before you got sick?”

  Theron gave her the same puzzled look he always gave her, and oh, how tempting it was to grab him and shake him until it rattled clear (even if his befuddled state was her fault, even if she had waited too long). But before he could say anything, Elly said, “No.”

  Judah was surprised. “What do you mean, no?”

  “I mean no.” Elly stood up. “The air is bad up there and it’s cold, and he’s not well enough. I’m not throwing my life away so he can get sick and die anyway.”

  Pain razored through Judah. She didn’t know if it was Gavin’s or her own. Elly didn’t seem to know, either; her eyes darted back and forth between them. Then she left the room abruptly, closing the bedroom door firmly behind her.

  Contemplating the closed door, Theron said, “What did she mean, throwing away her life away?”

  “Nothing,” Gavin said. “She didn’t mean anything.”

  “Oh,” Theron said.

  * * *

  Elly was giving up the most, and she had the right to insist that what little remained of Theron be kept healthy. But his vagueness and puzzlement were driving Judah mad. Intelligent, acerbic Theron: this was not the way he was supposed to be, and so she went to the workshop herself. It felt strange to be there alone. The cluttered workbench and damp stone walls felt expectant, as if waiting for their usual occupant; the air smelled like Theron, char and sweat and metal. She sat down on the high stool, just where Theron would, with all of his tools and bits of brass spread out in front of her. His notebook was open to two pages filled with narrow, precise writing, but nothing she could understand. She flipped back a few pages and found sketches matching the half-built thing on the bench: a compact sort of box, with a cavity in the middle. The sketches showed the thing from each side and pulled apart and even in slices like bread. This was how Theron’s brain had once worked: he found a thing, took it apart, and saw what was missing. Tucked to the side, Judah found a misshapen rectangle made out of clay that matched the cavity in the device’s center. The edges crumbled at her touch.

  Theron, too, had been taken apart and put back together. Theron, too, was missing something central. She had waited too long and it had slipped away.

  Nearly immobilized with sadness, she stared at the wall curving in front of her. A strip of wood circled the wall just above the level of the workbench, marks carved along the bottom of it like the minutes of a clock, with other marks above in some script she didn’t recognize. The door leading to the stairway was propped open; she could almost sense the tower lying in wait above the cobwebbed darkness, as empty as Theron. She had a sudden urge to climb the stairs, broken or not: to get away from all of this, up into the unknown. Nobody would bother her there. Nobody would even know where she was. She would be safe. All she had to do was slide down off the stool, let her feet carry her upward—

  She heard a noise behind her and knew instantly who it was. “Are you going to take over for him? Judah the Foundling, Rebuilder of Lost Objects.” Gavin pointed to the device. “We had the same idea, you and I. Think it will help?”

  Judah tore her thoughts away from the tower. “I don’t know if anything will help,” she said, “but it’s worth a try.”

  They found a box filled with broken glass in one of the cupboards. After they emptied it carefully onto a shelf (the glass was probably garbage, but might be important) they loaded it with everything from the workbench except the clay shape, which Judah carried in her hand so it wouldn’t break. Down in the parlor, Elly was gone; Theron stood on the terrace, gazing at the top of the Wall. They let him be and cleared off the dressing table in Gavin’s room. Pushing it in front of the window, where the light would be good, the two of them laid out all of Theron’s things, as near as they could remember to where they’d been in the workshop. It felt good to do all of this. It felt good to have a project, to work together, to feel like they were accomplishing something. For the few minutes it took, Judah felt an ease she had almost forgotten.

  Gavin led Theron in, and they showed him what they’d done. Judah didn’t know what she’d expected. She knew it was too much to hope that whatever was missing in Theron would suddenly find itself; more likely, he would merely say, “Oh,” and drift away.

  Instead, he said nothing. His hands dropped, limp, to his sides, and for a moment Judah was afraid that her instincts had been utterly wrong, and she’d somehow managed to break Theron even more.

  Then, moving as if his joints didn’t quite fit together, he pulled out the chair they’d put at the table, and sat down. He didn’t speak. His eyes were vacant. He was like a fire that had gone out.

  He sat there until Gavin could bear it no longer, and went to throw knives at the target on the terrace. Judah, too, fled.

  * * *

  “Busy weekend,” Darid said mildly as he dressed her arms the next day, and she was so tired of people speaking mildly to her when all inside her was upheaval that she almost screamed. “The House must be buzzing.”

  “Like a hive of wasps.” The curlicue scars disappeared under the clean white bandages Darid used to wrap them. She was always glad when they were covered again. “At least the stables feel sort of normal.”

  As soon as she spoke, she realized she was wrong. The stables didn’t feel normal. As usual, the stablehands had found somewhere else to be when she appeared, but unusually, she could still hear them: talking, laughing. Even whistling. Darid finished with her arms and she followed him into the storage barn to help arrange the tack that had come in with the courtiers’ teams. There was a lot of it already, splendid with brass and obnoxious with color even in the dim light from the open door. Farther back, she could see the vague shapes of carriages and phaetons. Outside the barn, somebody sang out. Just one line, something about a tavern, before they were quickly hushed—reminded that she was there, probably. “No,” she said. “Things don’t feel normal here. Why not?”

  Darid grinned. “We’ll have a party, too, once the gates are closed and we’re not needed. The stablemen, some of the other grounds staff. The orchardkeepers. The dairymen.”

  A party. For most of the House, that was all the betrothal ball would be. “Well, that’s nice, that you can do that.”

  “The Seneschal turns a blind eye. Balls are a lot of extra work for us.”

  “Lucky you have me to pick up the slack,” she said, and Darid laughed.

  When she was finished with the tack, Judah still didn’t want to go back to the House. She stood with Darid by the paddock, watching the horses. Her favorite, the gleaming black colt, crept up behind one of his year-mates, nipped his flank and sprang away. She could almost hear him laughing.

  Darid followed her gaze. “That one’s a troublemaker. His sire was, too.”

  “Who’s his sire?” The stallions were kept in the cavalry stables—their war training made them vicious—but she knew them a little, by sight.

  “Gone now. Elban’s last campaign.”

  Judah remembered Elban
’s speech, the night of the Wilmerian dinner. It seemed like years ago. Were lives lost? Yes. Such is the nature of war. “The Nali Strait?”

  Darid nodded. “Lots of horses lost there.”

  “How many is a lot?”

  “The whole regiment.”

  “I never knew that. Nobody ever told us that.” But why would they? “How does that happen? A whole regiment lost?”

  “I only know what I hear. The ships landed—it’s only a day’s passage—and Elban split his forces, planned an ambush. But the Nali ambushed them first. No way to send a message. No way to warn the others what was coming.”

  “I thought they used smoke. Or pigeons.”

  “I don’t know. I only heard there was no time. It’s a shame.” His eyes were fixed on the colts, sad and resigned. “Men sign up for the army. Horses don’t.”

  Judah was watching the colts, too, but her mind was racing. “If there were a way of sending messages, it wouldn’t have happened? Elban would have won?”

  “Who can say?” Darid said. “Maybe.”

  The rest of the day would be a blank to her: what she did, what she ate, any other conversation she had. Except for that one word.

  Maybe.

  * * *

  She found Elban after breakfast the next day, in his council chamber. Not that there had ever been a council, not as long as she could remember. The guards outside the massive door eyed her distastefully, but didn’t stop her. Inside, Elban sat in his grand chair, the Seneschal standing at his side. One of the older courtiers stood before him, shoulders hunched and submissive. He was in the middle of a speech that sounded entreating. Judah didn’t recognize him. She wasn’t sure how to announce herself. Queasy with nerves, she hesitated.

  The Seneschal saw her an instant before Elban did, his mouth tightening. Before he could say anything, Elban noticed her, too. The Lord’s pale eyebrows lifted, and he held up a hand.