The Crafters Book One

by Christopher Stasheff

  I heard, the satyr replied, very grave. Just as you heard a cry from her that never was. Just as she heard—

  A cry . . . Ahijah recalled “hearing” Dorcas sob. His fingers searched for sign of tears on her cheeks and found none. She sighed, content. Bewildered, he looked to the satyr, who shrugged.

  I suppose this means you must wed her, if only to further the cause of scientific investigation into the phenomenon of mind-speech, Little Brother.

  Ahijah brightened. Why, of course! Surely I must

  “Must what, dear?” Dorcas purred sleepily in his arms. It may mean the end of my studies—they don’t permit married men at Yale—but I can open a carpentry shop, earn a decent living, pursue my studies independently, you can remain at the Collegiate School to take your diploma, no shame in honest work— Ahijah’s thoughts bubbled on, sparkling with the unmixed sunshine of a happy future.

  “Ssshhh, love. You chatter so, you’ll bring a plague of squirrels down on us.” Dorcas reached up and, in the interests of preserving them from the predations of vicious, night-roaming squirrels, sweetly silenced the flow of words she thought came from Ahijah’s lips.

  She’ll learn, thought Juvenal. And so will he. The gods know, Aphrodite keeps a livelier school than any human tutor. So he left the pair undisturbed to follow their own particular path of education, for God, for country, and for Yale.

  Anno Domini 1735

  LUCINDA AMELIA Crafter Greene stood against the ship’s rail, eyes fixed eagerly on what could be seen of the shore—in truth little, between the very early hour, fog, and the smoke which her father had cautioned would be a part of everyday life for the next three years. He had not properly warned her of the odor carried by that smoke and fog, nor of the noise, already near deafening. On sober reflection, Lucinda doubted words could have conveyed the sense of either sound or smell.

  All the same: London! From the day her parents had spoken of the opportunity to enlarge Father’s connections and to buy into a Dutch shipping company, she had envisioned this moment, and it was no less exciting than she had dreamed it. The shallow-drafted carrier that had brought them from Greenwich when the tide turned sought the docks; a wind sprang up with the first hint of sun—a broad smirch of orangey-yellow within the gray—and suddenly, there was the Saint Paul’s Cathedral looming vast and enormous above Tower Bridge with its ramshackle motley of houses. And there, the Tower . . .

  There was a long delay, while the ship was made fast to the docks, and then Customs men swarmed the decks. Finally they were able to bring Lucinda’s poor, pale mother ashore. Arabella laughed faintly; Lucinda was more than half-supporting her as they waited for Andrew to hire a coach. “Your father told me I should not care for sea travel, and he was right! I shall feel the land swaying beneath my feet for days!” She sighed faintly and leaned into her daughter’s arm. “Now, do remember, Lucy! Your aunt Bettany has offered to bring you out, since you are here and of an age. You must pay very close heed to all she tells you; your father will not always be in London to pass judgment on the young gentlemen you will meet, and I am no judge of city fellows.” She glanced around cautiously, lowered her voice and spoke rapidly. “But you must use all the wit and skill I have passed you, remembering that Aunt Bettany, has expressed a strong desire against use of any of my family’s talents in her household!” Lucinda nodded dutifully, and hoped her face did not show boredom. She had heard this lecture so very often!

  I know very well how to deal with young men! Boston is not London, but London lads will surely wrap about a finger as easily as any. Particularly when the finger belonged to a young woman blessed with her mother’s intelligence and dark-haired, gray-eyed beauty, as well as her father’s wit. Wit was as prized in London, they said, as beauty or form.

  Arabella had been unable to work any Crafter skill since the ship left Boston Harbor—whether due to sea sickness or because of the water itself—and the wisp whom Lucinda’s grandfather Amer had called Willow had been silent and unseen since they’d stepped onto the ship.

  Lucinda had not been able to utilize her power, either, but she had not particularly cared to try aboard ship, with no one about save common seamen and two gentlemen her father’s age. She could not use it to heal an unhappy stomach, since she’d never felt the least interest in her mother’s herb gardens. And Arabella’s alchemic studies bored her. If she had not discovered a year or so earlier that the family talents were useful in reading—and controlling—the few beaux her parents permitted her she would doubtless have eschewed them entirely.

  Andrew Greene came back with two skinny boys and a square-shouldered man to transfer cases to the carriage. Lucinda remembered very little of that ride to her Aunt Bettany Greene’s town house, save a confusion of people, smoke, noise, and the nearly overwhelming stench of the mud thrown up by carriage wheels.

  Aunt Bet lived on a street only slightly quieter, in a two-storied, comfortable new house. There were separate apartments for her parents, and a room for Lucinda nearly as large as the entire second floor of their Boston house. Aunt Bet herself welcomed them, though she was still in dark, practical night robes, a frilly white cap covering her gray curls. She was actually Andrew’s aunt, and must, Lucinda thought, have been at least fifty, for her face had set into lines that gave her a formidable appearance on the rare occasion she wasn’t smiling or laughing. All the same, that so elderly a dame must accompany her to parties and dinners! She tried to dismiss such a thought as unworthy and ungrateful, for after all, without the elderly dame, there would be no parties and dinners. And surely Aunt Bet would not accompany her everywhere once she was introduced into the level of society where she would be circulating! Certainly not all chaperones would be so ancient, and so many years past their own season.

  The level of society Lucinda would circulate in would of course not be Royal, or even noble. All the same, Bettany Greene must be wealthy, for there were two menservants to carry baggage from the carriage and there seemed to be young servant girls everywhere: dusting, sweeping, even one to unpack Lucinda’s few bags. Aunt Bet followed them all up the broad staircase and came into the room after her great-niece. ‘‘There! I thought you should have a room away from the ones I gave your parents. A young gel should have a little privacy! This looks out over the street. Mind the curtains when you look out; there are always folk about. If you are not overtired from the ship, this afternoon we will visit my seamstress and begin a wardrobe for you, child. That’s a sweet gown but at least a year out of style here and the color doesn’t suit you. I know, I know, practical and dark for travel. All the same! I’ve planned a tea here, tomorrow afternoon, so you may meet some of the young ladies in your circle. There is a dance two nights after; we shall go through your gowns to see if perhaps you might attend that. You surely cannot go to your first London dance in an outmoded garment!” Her aunt glanced over her shoulder, took a step closer to Lucinda, and lowered her voice. “Mind now! Your mother wrote you were a practical and sensible lass; I can see your father in you, so p’raps you’ve a share of his brains. Not all the young blades in London are suitable company for a proper young gel; mind you have nothing to do with any I warn against!” She eyed Lucinda anxiously until the girl nodded, then smiled and backed away. “That’s good, then. We understand each other. You rest if you like; little Amy will bring you tea and toast in awhile.” And with that, she was gone, door closed behind her. Lucinda smiled sourly and made a face at the inside of the door. As if I would ever take up with an unsuitable man! she thought rather smugly. Does she think I’ll run off with a servant, or someone like that brute on the docks? Or a rake? I should know what to do with such a man! she thought, and turned away to remove the heavy brown dress. Aunt Bet was right about the gown, whatever else she did not understand: the brown dampened the deep red highlights in her hair, dulled her eyes, and made a botch of her complexion.

  Poor old Aunt Bet, she reflected as she tightened the belt
of her wrap and stretched out on top of the bed. She’d been up since well before dawn, and her eyes burned from the London air. Perhaps a few moments to close them ... What would Aunt Bet know about the wild lads? They weren’t talked about in polite society—the hard-drinking, hard-gambling men with their private clubs—and never around unmarried young ladies. Aunt Bet wouldn’t know one if he—well, she wouldn’t.

  London! She found it hard to believe, still, that she was here. Andrew Greene was a kind and reasonably indulgent papa, but he had wanted his daughter to marry and remain in Boston. He’d even chosen a husband for her, in the old-fashioned manner: the eldest son of a business associate, a boy she could scarcely bear to look at. But her, mother had argued for her—vigorously for Arabella, who ordinarily took the course of least resistance. “The girl is too young to be a wife at seventeen, and London will be a good experience for her.” Andrew had been overwhelmed, and finally agreed.

  “Oh, yes, Mother,” Lucinda whispered to her new, and very private, ceiling. “I do intend that it shall be an experience.”

  * * *

  The afternoon was a whirlwind: Arabella still slept, and Andrew had gone in search of business associates he ordinarily dealt with by letter. Aunt Bet went through Lucinda’s clothing, tched over everything, directed her to dress in the dark blue as “the least outdated thing you own,” and carried her off bodily to the shops. There had been a seamstress and a French modiste who had both measured her and consulted with Bettany as though her great-niece were a wax figure. There had been other shops then: for the newest shades of silk and taffeta, for several pairs of gloves, for hats and fittings for shoes that could withstand the London streets.

  The seamstress came to the house later the same afternoon with fabrics, lace, and sketches; she left over an hour later with Lucinda’s dark blue, promising to return it in two days at the latest, altered enough that it could be worn to a dance without embarrassing the wearer.

  Bettany’s tea the next afternoon was a great success: somehow the maids had steamed the worst creases from her nutmeg-brown afternoon gown, and with the accessories her aunt had purchased for her, it somehow looked not so out of fashion. Bettany’s own maid had dressed her hair in tight curls and covered it with a tiny white lace cap.

  I still look like a country cousin, Lucinda thought anxiously, but not awful. She went down to tea with knots in her stomach. Young men were one thing, but it was other girls one spent the most time with. Their reaction to her would be most important.

  Arabella, in deep-green silk, her dark hair glossy but her face still too thin and so pale, stayed throughout the meal; Andrew stopped by for a very few moments, just long enough to look over her new friends, Lucinda supposed. Fortunately, he was more open-minded than many a Bostonian; mere lightheartedness would not offend him. He seemed to find the half dozen or so young ladies acceptable, for after three sips of an excellent tea, he put the thin porcelain cup aside and left.

  It would be several days before Lucinda could remember the names of all the girls and connect them to individual faces. Particularly since she’d had to swear so often not to attempt magic in London, let alone in this house. And I won’t—well, unless I wish to enhance an attraction, Lucinda promised herself. That was something her mother had not taught her; she’d worked it out on her own. A sensible girl would keep such a skill to herself anyway.

  Blond, stout Jemima wore pale pink with a little too much lace and a neckline a trifle too deep for a day gown, but she was the most amusing of the group. Lise, too, was golden-haired but slender, exquisitely gowned in a darker shade of pink in the latest French cut. She spoke with just a touch of a French accent. There were two girls named Ann, both dark and ordinary enough they might have been sisters; Katherine, whose very red hair would not stay up where it belonged; restless Carlyle, who more often paced than sat, even when taking tea. They were enthusiastic in their welcome of Bettany’s great-niece and after a while Arabella withdrew to talk to the older women while the girls talked and giggled together.

  “Surely it’s an improvement on Puritan Boston, Lucy, but I must warn you the season is a dull one, compared to past ones,” Katherine began. Jemima snorted.

  “That’s always said. Women like my eldest sister have such wild tales of their own seasons, but I’d wager those same stories have come down every year, and they were never true to begin!”

  “But a dull season is better for all of us,” one of them—an Ann? —put in timidly. “Because the chaperones pay less attention, and put fewer restrictions on us.”

  “You say that because you were permitted to go to Vauxhall twice the past fortnight,” one of the other dark haired girls told her in mock severity. “Lucy, dear, we’ll have such fun, particularly since it’s Mistress Bettany who’s sponsoring you. Nothing gets by her, of course. You’ll need to do exactly as she says. All the same, she hasn’t forgotten what it’s like to be a girl in London. She must have an escort to the Hanstead Ball in two weeks, don’t you agree?”

  It hadn’t been at all what she’d expected—or feared: the young ladies weren’t snobbish at all; no one made fun of her gown or her much-too-long hair. And their enthusiasm was catching. By the end of the casual little meal, Lucinda felt like she’d known them all forever. They were all bent over the tea table while Carlyle related a horrible embarrassment that had happened to someone they all knew and loathed—and who’d richly deserved snubbing—when the parlor door opened and one of Aunt Bet’s servants, came in, followed by a gloriously golden young man.

  Richard Coucey was the perfect end to a lovely afternoon. Lucinda was vaguely aware of the girls around her sitting a little straighter, of eager smiles and a hushed giggle or two as the young man bent low over Bettany’s outstretched hand. He was laughing quietly as he straightened. “Now, Miss Bet, please don’t be cross. 1 should have awaited an invitation—”

  “When have you ever?” Bettany replied severely, but her eyes were warm and a smile was tugging at her mouth. She patted his hand. “Impatient boy, you always were that.” She introduced him to Arabella, and Lucinda thought her mother looked a little wary—as though so much physical prettiness and charm must mask some flaw—and then called her niece over. “Dear Richard calls me Aunt when he chooses. His father spent most of his childhood in our country house. I’ve known both Richard and his sister since they were babes. You’ll like Elizabeth,” she added. Richard Coucey extended both hands, captured one of Lucinda’s, and gave her a smile that sent the blood to her cheeks. “I spoke of you to Richard,” Aunt Bet continued, “and he’s wanted ever since to meet you, Lucinda dear.”

  He was so very good-looking, she thought giddily. The current style suited the very slender such as he: the long, straight waistcoats, knee-breeches, the frocked coats. The deep sky blue of his frockcoat matched his eyes, as he surely knew. But standing so close to him now, Lucinda could not be so cool and analytical. His hair was pale gold; it lay in crisp curls across his forehead and over his ears. His mouth was a generous bow that looked as though it knew best how to smile, and something in his eyes promised mischief. But the long-fingered, narrow hands were unexpectedly strong. “So pleased,” she managed, and was pleased she didn’t stammer.

  “And I am delighted,” he returned with another of those radiant smiles. His teeth were small for a man’s, very even and unmarked. “Perhaps your aunt will vouch for me to your parents, and allow me to escort you about the City tomorrow. I have a small open carriage, quite suitable for showing the sights to a young lady. And, of course, her chaperone, if Miss Bet wishes to accompany us.” He turned to glance inquiringly at Bettany. Lucinda, to her annoyance, found herself waiting with held breath for her aunt’s reply, and her mother’s.

  “Well—” The older woman glanced at Arabella, who nodded. “If I didn’t know you so well, young Richard, I would call it impertinent. A short drive about London, in an open carriage—it won’t reflect on the ge
l’s repute. You must swear to have her back by one o’clock, mind! We have an appointment with the modiste not long after, and she must be presentable for the Connelaigh dance. Of course, if Lucinda does not wish to go—”

  “Oh,” Lucinda replied as Richard raised his eyebrows and turned back to await her reply, “I should be quite glad to.” What very thick lashes he has, she thought as he pressed her fingers again and took his leave, and this time she could feel her face turning red. Fortunately, he was already gone. The girls teased her for the better part of an hour over the conquest she had made.

  As they were leaving, though, Carlyle remained a little behind and took her aside, glancing cautiously around to make certain they had a space to themselves before whispering against her new friend’s ear. “Aunt Bet won’t have heard anything—she has a particular fondness for the Coucey family and particularly Richard—well, who wouldn’t, just looking at him? All the same, he has a certain repute: not enough to keep most of the London mothers from trying to snare him for their daughters, I assure you! Just—oh, he and his friends ride and gamble; he’s dueled, up in Cambridge where his father owns a summer property. And he’s fond of the ladies but has never taken deeply to one. He has no repute as a rake, of course, for no mother would want him then, looks and money or no,” Carlyle assured her. “All the same, he’s not entirely a safe young man. You mustn’t let him too near your heart, Lucy! He’s broken plenty of those the past three seasons! Just a warning, do you see?”

  “I see. Thank you.” Lucinda smiled and followed Carlyle from the room. “He certainly is a fair pretty creature; but I have at least two years in London. I want to see some of it, to enjoy parties and dances. I cannot if I attach myself at once to one man, can I?”