Chapter Thirty-six
A sh’s unusually withdrawn mood worried Genova. She was trying to hide her feelings so as not to disturb him. She knew he’d care.
Or was it nothing to do with her? Was he backsliding, turning against peace and reaching again for the weapon that could hurt his cousin?
As they entered a plain room noisy with the ticking of clocks, she tried to assess the feelings between the two men. They might as well have been automata themselves.
Apart from a fire, the room was starkly simple, lined with workbenches and containing a long table in the middle that held a large, shrouded object. Windows along one wall gave light, but there were candles as well, some with complex lenses to focus the light.
Clocks had always interested her, as time was so important at sea, so she walked down the room looking at them.
Most were silent and presumably awaiting repair.
Did Lord Rothgar involve himself in that or was he simply a patron?
No craftsman was here at the moment, but the place looked as if two or three people regularly worked here.
Some clocks were already in pieces, spread on a part of the bench. Drawings and diagrams were pinned on the wall above them. What was the purpose here? Simply mending clocks because they were broken?
Rothgar, in his velvet and gold, looked out of place, but he moved around the room with ease and familiarity. As soon as he started to explain various pieces of special interest, she knew that his involvement here was not only as patron.
And Ash apparently interested himself in the stars.
The cousins had more in common than they had differences. In fact, they had no significant differences apart from those fabricated by a previous generation.
Rothgar showed them tiny mechanisms arranged beneath magnifying glasses, and large ones methodically moving through their purpose. He explained the breaks in some and how they could be repaired. He demonstrated beautiful precision implements, including a tiny lathe.
Genova had always been interested in machines. Far more than she’d been interested in fancy needlework. Machines were useful They created something solid and necessary. Even a dress wasn’t necessary. Many people in the world clothed themselves in a wrapped cloth.
Rothgar pointed to a model of a fireplace with a cat curled in front of it. “There’s a switch there, Miss Smith. Why don’t you move it?”
Genova did so. A cheerful tune started and simulated flames rose from the log and moved. The cat waved its tail, and the clock on the mantelpiece ticked.
“It’s charming!”
“A simple thing,” he said, as it wound down, “but it was broken and we have brought it to life again. Will you take it as a birthday gift, Miss Smith? You have shown that you know how to take care of treasures.”
Genova felt flustered, but she thanked him. Was he referring to the presepe or to Charlie? Or to both? Or even, perhaps, to Ash?
Rothgar moved on to a bench spread with a hundred pieces of metal on a white cloth. They were all shapes and sizes. Genova could see that the drawing pinned on the wall behind was a design or map of where all these pieces went, but it made no sense to her.
She remembered how confusing sea charts had looked when her father had first taught her about them, and how clear they had become in time.
Rothgar pointed to a place on the drawing and then picked up five pieces. He deftly linked them together and pushed a pin through. Holding the pin in place with his fingers, he moved one piece, and another piece moved twice.
He split them apart and put them down. “You may try if you wish.”
Genova looked around. Ash stood nearby, but the other three guests were wandering, switching on various devices that had been put out for exploration.
Genova looked back at the master of machines and wondered just how she was being wound up, but she couldn’t resist. “It’s easy because you’ve left the pieces in order.”
She picked them up, repeating what he’d done, glancing once at the drawing when uncertain. That bit of it made sense to her now. Then she pushed in the pin and moved the delicate extension of metal. The other piece responded, in double time.
She laughed with delight out of all proportion to the simple task, then looked at Ash, feeling as if he might disapprove. He looked only surprised.
“It was easy,” she said.
“No,” he responded.
She looked back at Lord Rothgar.
“Easy to us, maybe. Are you, too, one who needs to make the world run smoothly, Miss Smith? I warn you, it will break your heart at times.”
“I wouldn’t be so arrogant,” she said, then bit her lip.
He smiled. “We are all arrogant in our passions, whether our world is a globe or a small cell.”
“What is this?” Ash asked, indicating the shrouded shape in the middle of the room.
Rothgar lifted the cloth. Genova was not the only one to gasp in admiration at a huge dove with wings of pearl, tipped with diamonds.
“You’re trying to improve on peace?” Ash said.
Now, when she wasn’t braced for it, Genova felt the rank stink of strife.
Rothgar folded the cloth and put it aside. “His Majesty agreed with me that it was less than it could be.”
Genova longed to understand, and as if she’d asked, Ash turned to her. “This was a gift from the acting French ambassador to the king. All show and little substance. But then,” he added, “D’Eon is perhaps all show and little substance.”
D’Eon.
“Unwise to underestimate him that far,” Rothgar said and turned to the machine. “The mechanism is simple and couldn’t be changed, but it gave no illusion of nature. If you saw it in operation before, Cousin, judge it now.”
Rothgar moved a lever, and the bird came to life. It turned its head, flexing a little, then lowered its beak and picked an olive branch from among greenery and raised it. Genova was caught in the illusion that the dove had selected it, that the bird was real.
“There was only the one branch before,” Ash said, “and there was a click when the bird’s beak grasped it.”
“There’s still a slight click, but the branches rattle a little and hide it. Distraction is a powerful device.”
Then the bird spread its wings to reveal words written in gold beneath, PEACE, PAIX. They were glimpsed for a moment before the wings settled again with the slight ripple of a bird adjusting its feathers.
Everyone applauded, and someone demanded that it run again. Rothgar showed the man how to wind it up and set it in action and stepped back to join Ash and Genova.
“It stayed open before,” Ash said.
“And took skill to reset. A serious miscalculation in design. When it closes, as now, the natural impulse is to want to see it open again, and it only needs winding. Before, it stayed open, and that was that. But then D’Eon had reached the stage of miscalculation in many things.
I am tempted,” he said, considering the dove, “to strip away pearl and diamonds and substitute feathers.”
“To make peace real?” Ash asked.
Rothgar looked at him. “Precisely.”
And Ash said, “So be it.”
Genova looked between the two cool, dispassionate men and wasn’t sure what she’d just witnessed, but she prayed it was what she thought.
Problems would still remain, but surely Rothgar would help his reconciled cousin regain the king’s favor. Hope stirred on her own behalf, but she knew one issue didn’t really connect with the other.
She turned back to the various mechanisms displayed on the bench. If people were machines, everything would be a great deal easier.
Rothgar joined her, demonstrating what each did, then encouraging her to take one clock apart, explaining what each piece did as she freed it.
When she thought to look around, everyone else had gone, even Ash. She rose quickly from the stool she was sitting on. “Oh, I’m sorry!”
“There’s no need to apologize for sharing an obsession, Miss Smith, though Ashart was perhaps surprised when you didn’t notice him leave.
” His lips were twitching, but he added, “Don’t let guilt even touch your mind.
Even the deepest devotion should not lock us away from the wider world. I hope he knows that.”
She looked back at the clock she’d investigated, accepting that she was reluctant to leave it half explored. “Is it something a woman can do?”
“There are few things a woman cannot do, though many that are made difficult for them. It might be hard if you tried to set up shop, but not for private work, especially as an amateur.”
“How would I learn? As an amusement only,” she added, unready to admit the grip this had on her.
“You may stay here and explore the mysteries if you wish. I employ two craftsmen.”
She looked at him, startled.
“Or if your destiny carries you elsewhere, I know others who will be pleased to share their knowledge.”
It seemed her ambitions would never stay within reasonable bounds. “What if I wanted to earn my living this way? I may have to.”
He didn’t seem shocked. “Private commissions would be possible. It would take time to learn, however.”
“I have a portion that could support me for many years.” Then she shook her head. “This is idiotic. I had no notion of this an hour ago!”
“But that is often how it is, isn’t it?”
She knew what he meant. She recognized also that he had not argued with her assumption that she might be free to learn a trade and possibly earn a living with it. In other words, unmarried.
As she carefully picked up her artificial hearth, she tried to let that settle in her mind.
She left the room with Lord Rothgar, coming to terms with another change.
Once she had been in awe of this man. She didn’t think him any less grand, but now she could talk to him almost as easily as she could talk to Ash, perhaps because of a shared desire to make things work.
To burnish away rust and corrosion, apply grease, and see order restored.
An inveterate need to meddle, in other words, she thought with a wry smile. She felt free to ask a question. “There is peace between you and Ashart?”
“Of a sort, but loosely pinned.”